Finished - Nelson's 2010 Christmas quilt!

We are currently snowed in and loving the winter wonderland scene from our windows. I was able to get the Storm at Sea quilt finished and mailed in time for Christmas to my friend, Nelson. Yeah! He called and said it was beautiful... for him that is epic, he is such a guy guy and never calls "things" beautiful or pretty. I quilted the feathers with my (not made for quilting) Brother sewing machine. All the designs are freehand quilted. I need a proper quilting machine with larger throat space but I made it work :) I used 100% cotton Warm & Natural quilt batting. After washing it finished at 80" x 82".

I'm very happy the gift-giving part of this crazy holiday is all done. Very stressful to be on a timeline. I love giving stuff to people, but I always feel relieved when Christmas is over and life can go back to normal. I shared a wonderful Christmas with a very good friend, we had a scrumptious turkey dinner and unwrapped gifts while listening to holiday music. Very simple, very fun. This is a little wristlet I made my friend Renee for Christmas: (I made one for my other friend, her sister, Alana too but forgot to take a pic of it!)

My lovely brother who ALWAYS picks out the perfect gifts, gave me a Kitchenaid mixer, in Red color. I love, love, love it!!! I always wanted a stand mixer but was too cheap to invest in something I can do by hand. Let me tell you I have no idea how I lived without this darling gadget! It rocks!

 And in the evening we watched "Despicable Me" and had some good laughs.

Hope everyone had a Beautiful Holiday weekend! And will have a safe New Years celebration. My birthday is on Tuesday, the 28th and I am looking forward to pizza and drinks with friends :)

Other people's Generosity

 Isn't this fabric by Lecien just so pretty! Well Retro Mummy is hosting a giveaway and you could win some over here. 

I will post pic sof the storm at sea quilt either tomorrow or Monday.

I still need to mail x-mas cards Monday ugh, I love hearing from family and friends...but writing individual cards was beyond me this year. So I copped out and wrote my 1st newsletter-like form letter to include. It felt weird since I'm unmarried and have no kids, so I really wasn't sure what to talk about. I figured no-one would be really interested in how my 3 cats coped with a 9 hour drive on moving day, or that I found a favorite bar to hang out at when I was in the mood to get a drink with friends. So I was pretty boring and un-original and talked about local NC scenery.
But really would a snarky x-mas card be so bad? I would love to get one! If only I was daring enough to send one ... oh well there's next year ;)

I won a SMS giveaway!

In all my excitement of picking the winners to my SMS giveaway, I forgot to mention that I had been picked as a winner on The Crafty Nomad blog! I won an adorable Onsie...the size 0 on the left in the pic below.

I don't have children, but a friend of mine is expecting a baby girl in January and this will make an adorable gift to go along with the quilt I am making for her.

I have been working on the Storm at Sea quilt, it is slow going due to the fact that I machine quilt Queen & King size quilts on my Brother CS-6000i sewing machine. This is NOT made to work on quilts of that size. I roll, jam and wiggle the basted quilt to make it work...I dream of buying a quilter sewing machine with a wide throat, but haven't tested any yet. The main ones I look at are: Bernina 440 QE, Janome 6600 and also Husqvarna Viking Sapphire 870FS Long Arm. Those are my top choices so far. I've also been looking at the HQ Sweet Sixteen... but that is way expensive. Well they are all $$$ ....so I'll keep shifting and making do until I break my Brother LOL

Giveaway WINNERS!

Oh wow 790 people entered total! I have to say you guys are wonderful...thank you for all your comments. I know you all just want to see who won, so here are the 3 different winners picked using Random Number Generator:


Winner #1 is Comment #128 made by : NinjaEema said...

All the prizes are awesome, but I really love the colors in the second pack. Thanks.

December 13, 2010 11:17 AM

Winner #2 is Comment # 494 made by :  saywhatsewwhat said... 

Those are absolutely beautiful fabrics! Thank you for hosting a giveaway.

December 14, 2010 9:09 AM

Winner #3 is Comment#62 made by: Karen P. said...

Love the christmas charm packs!

December 13, 2010 9:02 AM

Winner #1 NinjaEema will receive the FQ pack of Freespirit fabrics

Winner #2 Saywhatsewwhat will receive the Pink & Grey Layercake fabrics

Winner #3 Karen P. will receive the Christmas charm packs

Thank you everyone for participating in my SMS giveaway! I have contacted the winners. If for any reason I don't hear from any of the winners by Monday, I will re-pick and notify the follow up winners. This was a wonderful experience for me and I really wish I had gifts for everyone! For everyone that decided to follow my blog, I plan to begin posting about my ongoing projects more regularly. ;)

Elaine's Crafty Corner Giveaway: Dec 13th, 2010

 GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED: Winners listed in Saturday 12-18-10 post! Thanks for all the entries - you guys rock!

I will be offering three different items to win in this Giveaway, yes that means there are 3 chances to win something! *Giveaway is open to International bloggers too. Just make sure you leave a way for me to contact you ( ie Google, blogger, email etc)

Item #1 up for grabs today: Two adorable Christmas Charm packs.
Each pack from Connecting Threads contains 22 five inch charms, 44 charms in all.

Item #2: 10 Fat Quarter (18" x 22") pack

Featuring: Turquoise,Green, Orange, and Brown Westminster/Freespirit fabrics

Item #3: Custom Gray & Pink 24 piece Layer Cake
(featuring Studio e "Urban Angel"fabrics)

There are 2 of each fabrics cut into 10" squares, 24 pieces in all.



I will use a random number generator to pick all 3 winners. To be entered into my giveaway just leave a comment on this post. That's it. You can post which item you like best, your favorite color, or just say hi!. Whatever you'd like :) That way you have more time to hop around and enter more blog giveaways ;)
My blog giveaway ends Friday 12-17-10 11:59pm EST. I will announce the winners by Saturday 12-18-10. Good luck!

GIVEAWAY DAY is Dec 13th!

It's that time of year again....time to share some goodies with some strangers, ahem, I mean fellow bloggers :) I love this time of year!

So I hope I get many people stopping by on Monday Dec 13th because I am participating in the winter Sew,Mama,Sew! Giveaway day on this blog! Open to everyone, so International folks please enter too. The giveaway post will begin 9am EST on Dec 13th....please make all entries on the Dec 13th post or it doesn't count.

I might post what I'll be offering in the Giveaway the night before... at the least I'll write a hint....so check back then ;)

Storm at Sea Queen size quilt

I am almost finished with a bed quilt using the "Storm at Sea" pattern as the center of the quilt. I started making the quilt blocks in Jan 2010, for a male friend who's birthday was in Februray. His favorite color is green so I was stoked to get it made.... I think I made 4 blocks before I got frustrated with my hand-made templates and put it away for a another day. Fast forward to October 2010... I found the blocks and fabric to finish it while unpacking yet another moving box of undiscovered items. (oh the joys of moving in a rush)

And here is my current progress:










I am hoping to either make it a X-mas present or if things are too hectic a 2011 B-day gift (belated 2010, not that he'll know lol)

Quilts for bed & Christmas table quilt

This is currently my finished bed quilt on my queen size bed. I made it for me and love it!

I've been making some Christmas tabletop centerpiece quilts. For sale in my etsy shop









The dark red is the backk view of the green bordered x-mas centerpiece... these are currently for sale in my etsy store: Elaine's Crafty Corner







Since I moved from Denver, PA to Asheville, NC the end of May 2010 I have been busy acclimating to my new town. I haven't found any favorite quilt fabric shops like Z&S store from Denver... but Hancocks has been serving my needs, along with my regular online fabric shops ;)




I heard a friend of mine from PA is expecting a baby girl in January. My friend loves Holly Hobbie and anything like that so I decided to make my first applique quilt for her new baby featuring sunbonnet sue type little girls for the baby quilt. I may end up selling this one on etsy and making her another one, since I just learned her favorite color is purple and the nursery may reflect that :)




















I have made a few quilt tops... UFO at the moment... the mermaid blocks need to be sorted, I took a photo with them pinned to my window curtain LOL my own version of a quilt board.















And recently I've been working on small doll size quilts to donate to the Asheville Humane Society. They are all backed with either faux fur, minky or thick faux suede.

Here are some of the pics of a some I've made:

Opened my etsy shop!

I mainly focused on Adult sized Little Red Riding hood capes for the past 2 weeks for my ebay Halloween listings. (Pictured above)

AND

I officially opened my etsy shop Elaine's Crafty Corner in the beginning of October (finally listed some items). But yesterday I SOLD an item!

A yard of Echino Japanese import fabric to a lady in Australia! I plan to get some of my actual handmade quilts on there over the next few weeks after Halloween has ended and I am finished making my handmade capes for ebay.

Fabric & Pattern Selection Process

Choosing fabric for a project can be pretty intuitive or difficult for some. Sometimes I fall in love with a quilt pattern and then take my time hunting down the perfect fabric. Some patterns just scream modern to me and I want to get bright, bold colors. Take Anna Marie Horner's Good Folks line, perfect for a fresh modern pattern.

These are some cuts I ordered that just arrived on Monday from the wonderful Sew Fabulous Quilt Store .

(I have to say Jenny did a fabulous job getting them to me FAST, I placed my order on Saturday and they arrived Monday!)

I saw a quilt pattern consisting of diamonds featuring Tula Pink's original Flutterby collection and just had to get some cuts from that line because the bright pinks, yellows, green, blues and reds all blended beautifully:

I know that diamond pattern I saw will look great in any color scheme, but now I can't imagine using my Flutterby fabric for any other pattern :)


I love sampler quilts. I love how different block patterns and block sizes play off of each other. I like that you can decide to add a few blocks with embroidery or don't have any at all. Sampler quilts can be adapted to each persons desired look and ability. I have found many civil war samplers I admire and I want the one I make to employ neutral prints with subtle color tones. I chose William Morris Workshop because of it's range of Indigo blues, rusty reds, gray-greens and light blues.
I think designer Heather Ross is a happy medium of modern and vintage; her fabric lines usually feature bright colors with small, delicate prints that encapsulate a modern color with a vintage feel.

Some prints from Heather Ross "Far, Far Away" collection:



Many times I just fall in love with fabric lines, buy them and decide to use the line as I go . . . like the Henry Glass "Shade Garden" line by Michelle Engel Bencsko :
Here are a few of the cuts I ordered from his line...




But mainly I just like to mix lines together. No one says you have to use all fabrics of the same line in one project. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for Moda and other Designer's precut strips, FQ's and layer cakes. Sometimes I will use just one designer line in a quilt, tote or project.

For example, my Moda "Mill House Inn" Layer Cake duvet cover:


But the "scrappy" effect allows me to achieve the perfect medium of colors for most patterns.

I (like many other fabric obsessed sewers) have some bold, unique or out-of-print fabrics that so far I haven't been able to make myself cut into them. LOL they can sit in my fabric bins until I can bear it.

I think doing your own thing and loving your results is the best part of sewing and creating stuff. You can use the same pattern numerous times but get different results every time just by using different color schemes and using the same fabric's in different quilt patterns can result in truly unique quilts. Have fun!

Today is our local library BOOK sale!

So excited, I think books and fabric are on an equal scale of obssessive love and needing to have for me.


And here is my cat Gabriel with a close-up of his heart shaped marking ...we've called him "heart-butt" since he was a kitten and we noticed his cute fur feature.


And here he is in profile, my senior boy (turns 13 this July).


Well I am off to score some "new" books to add to my already staggering book shelves LOL Wish me luck on the hunt ;)

What can happen in a month

This pic was taken 2-10-10 the day after we got hit with about 3 feet of snow over a two day period of almost non-stop snow.


And this photo was taken 3-10-10 1 month later...featuring the first blooms of spring, our little purple crocus' in the front of the house.

Anna Marie Horner Good Folks baby blocks

This is the quilt top (so far decided against border)

I love Anna Marie Horner's Good Folks line it is so bright and fun and plays off other contemporary fabric lines so well. I decided to make a baby quilt (40" x 50") The quilt top is just waiting on me to decide what to do for the back of the quilt ; )

What I'm working on now - Curves

Here is a block progress pic... with my kitty Arie overseeing my layout :0) I started this on 4-9-10 weekend.

I adore Heather Bailey's Pop Garden so I decided to mix and match to create a bright, red, peach, aqua-blue, mustard, orange green and gray quilt top... and I'm attempting curved piecing for the first time and LOVING it!

The thought of stitching curved or circular pieces always scared me, now I can't believe how many cool projects I passed on because of them and they really are simple if you cut out your pieces to a uniform size. That is key. Also, give your wrist a rest from rotary cutting and use a fresh blade to decrease wrist fatigue and hand cramping while cutting around the curved templates.