In The Studio This Week....

Last week was a busy week- I spent Wednesday at a local quilt shop for a Quilts for Kids charity event. I started work on 2 quilt tops... but I am a slow cutter and sew-er (not to be confused with a sewer, if you know what I mean.) In between chatting and eating snacks, I got my blocks cut- that is all! Never even took out the sewing machine. I spent much of Thursday and Friday sewing, Saturday morning machine quilting them, and Sunday binding them. This morning, I washed and dried them and Ta-da! they are ready to be dropped off. (I made the quilts using my A Beautiful Day fabric line. The soft pastel colors made up some really pretty quilts for a hospitalized baby/toddler somewhere.)

 The blocks. 

The tops, ready to be quilted.

What do you think of my "artsy" photos? They were all taken with my iPad. The family has been dragging me, once again kicking and screaming, into the technological age! I am now on Instagram, if you would like to see some of my other photos. I have to admit, begrudgingly, that I am really liking Instagram. Oh no- more social media to suck up my time! (I found myself lost in Pinterest for hours yesterday. The to-do list went out the window.)

Here is how I made these quilts so quickly: I chose an assortment of fabrics, and just started cutting 10" squares. When I had a pile, I started pairing them up into half square triangle units (no rhyme or reason here, just started sewing.) Then daughter arranged the blocks for me, and I ended up with enough to make 2 child size quilts (somewhere around 45-50"). To quilt them, I stitched in the ditch, and then stitched diagonally  (I didn't mark the quilts- just "eyeballed" the stitching from corner to corner of each block.) I did not add borders. As I said- these are the quickest quilts I've ever made, but it was quite therapeutic, as I was having kind of a hard week last week. I find it is always helpful to do something for someone else when I want to get my mind off of my own problems (you know when sometimes you just get sick of yourself?...... yeah.) It was a good distraction, thinking about how some little kid in the hospital was really going to love snuggling up with my quilt.

In between all of that, I did a little bit of work for my next fabric line (mostly computer stuff- carpel tunnel setting in....) And our family visited the County Fair- one of my very favorite events for the whole year. I love seeing the animals- and every year I insist that my husband build me a chicken coop and fence for goats.... maybe this will be the year that we do it? Who knows?

Pile o' Piggies!

 Me and my new friend.

My daughter's friend Kayla ended her reign as 2012 Fair Queen.

In addition to the animals, we also like the tractors. I have a thing for Red Farmall Tractors. I can't explain it....

The fair, as everything else, is always a source of inspiration....

OK I think I'd better get to work now. Have a Marvelous Monday!