Quilting for a cause

Earlier this week, I heard about Quilts for Kids. They take fabric that was destined for a landfill and make quilts for sick kids. Right now they are sending some quilts to Haiti too.


If you are a quilter, you can request a kit from them. It comes with all the fabric you need, you just supply the labor and the batting and send it back to them. I also plan on raiding my stash to see what kid-friendly fabrics I can put together to make another quilt too.

If you are not a quilter (or do not have time to make a quilt), you can make a monetary donation too.

Like my childhood, only better

I stumbled across this awesome tutorial on how to make your own shrinky dinks - using recycled plastic!!! And even better (at least for me) is the type of plastic - #6 - isn't one recycled in my community so I am currently throwing it away.

http://www.poopscape.com/projects/shrinkydink/shrink.htm

I'm just a joiner...

I just discovered (via Craftster) that there are Modern Quilt Guilds starting up all around the US. Sounds like my kind of thing! I checked out the Modern Quilt Guild website and found there is a guild in Phoenix (only about an hour & a half to two hours from Tucson). Perhaps someone will start up a group in Tucson...

Check out the Modern Quilt Guilds website!

Wish he had told me sooner...

So this Sunday morning, I mention the Yudu to the Mr. and how awesome I think it is, especially since he keeps trying to get me to make tshirts for his group of friends. Freezer paper works, but I am not sure I want to make 10 (or more!) of the same shirt using freezer paper.

Since it was Sunday morning, of course I found the Yudu infomercial on. He says "That's so cool, we should get that!" Then he asks me how much they run. I sigh and say "I wish I had known you were interested in this sooner! They were HALF PRICE at Joann's the day after Thanksgiving!" And of course, I had been at Joann's (before they opened) with my mom...

*sigh

Men!

So now I am on the hunt for a great sale on the Yudu. Best I found so far is $199 - infomercial price is $279. Could have gotten it at Joann's at 6am the day after Thanksgiving for $149! (Since I was up at 4:30am and one of the first 50 people in the store...)

Holy gonga sale Batman!

I've been trying to figure out what I want to do for my month (March!) in the Coast to Coast Bee and the fabric I want to use. I figured it out last week (but you'll have to wait to see what I chose and what I plan to do) and have been hunting for a bargain on the fabric. I found it on sale in an Etsy shop and was about to buy it...

I wanted to know what the size on the repeat of one of the patterns was to know if I wanted to order more for the border and back...

I did a google search for the fabric to see if I could find someone with that information and then I discovered the fabric I was about to buy for...



wait for it...





wait for it...





$4.98 a yard!!!


Normally, I like to support the small businesses but for that price I couldn't help myself. I found it for $7.99 a yard on Etsy, which was about $1 less than anywhere else. I still need to get a couple yards of one fabric from A Fabric Outlet on Etsy. Check out the sale I found on Hanckock's of Paducah website. Maybe you'll find something you've been wanting for a gonga deal too.

Bee blocks done for Pastor Katie

Since I started classes a couple weeks ago, I haven't had as much time for crafting as I would like :-( But I needed to finish Katie's blocks for our bee because January is almost over. And Katie was nice enough to send everything before the holidays so we could work on them early - which I planned to do.

Friday night and yesterday morning (after I finished my homework) I was finally able to work on Katie's blocks. I made the first one nearly a month ago and had the fabric cut for the second one. Katie wanted 6.5" star blocks and sent us some ideas but really let us do whatever we wanted, as long as it was a star or a nine-patch. Thanks for the freedom Katie!

These are the blocks I made for Katie. She only asked for 2 but I was on a roll so I made 4! The first block I made was a sawtooth star but I added a pinwheel middle instead of a plain square. I made a pinwheel quilt recently and apparently am still in a pinwheel mood.
The block to the right of the sawtooth is a variation of Silly BooDilly's wonky star tutorial from Sewtakeahike called "Twinkle twinkle wonky star". It was fun to do but I want to try it again. I liked the end result but didn't love it.
The block below the sawtooth is the friendship star. This is the first block from the Block Party Quilt Along, which is how all the participants in our bee met. The last block is the pale star, which Katie provided the instructions on how to make.
All the blocks were fun and it was nice to be able to do a mini sampler of stars and not be bogged down with 20-50 of the same star over and over, like you might do making an entire quilt for yourself.

Looking for a way to help those affected by the earthquake in Haiti?



You can either purchase an item (everything goes to Doctors Without Borders) or you can donate an item to be sold on Etsy. Check out the Etsy site or the Craft Hope website for more information.

Lovely little gnome houses!

I've been MIA lately because I have either been chained to my desk at work or chained to my sewing machine. I was literally making Christmas gifts up until the minute I needed to mail them or drive to my parents' house. I still need to actually finish my brother & sister-in-law's quilt but I at least got the the quilt top finished and wrapped it up for them. And I started classes for my 2nd master's degree last week & this week. See, lots going on...

I have one of the two quilt blocks done for Katie this month. I have the fabric cut for the other but can't get to it this weekend since we'll be visiting the in-laws. We were supposed to go there for Christmas but Dan's wonderful boss took that week off instead of letting Dan go. Heaven forbid we would actually want to be at our niece's first Christmas with the entire family. But we're off to Vegas tonight!

I have been reading the different blogs I follow and I love what is going on with the {Bee} Imaginative group. This month's quilter asked the others to make little houses for her gnomes. The gnome fabric is the ever-elusive Heather Ross Munki Munki Garden Gnome fabric I mentioned here.

Just a couple cute photos... head over to the group's blog for more!