WiP Wednesday - Oh the Cutting..

Well hello Wednesday. I bet you thought you'd sneak up on me with that tricky holiday weekend. Oh no..I'm prepared.

Roundup: 


Completed!: 

"Ate" of Diamonds

My Play Mini Quilt Entry
(side note: my poor left foot is still all mangled from fire ant bites. I don't always have creepy feet)

Ongoing: 

Patchwork Prism: 

I was cutting fabric forever yesterday. Eight hours. 

The bag is all my labeled Prism. The box is my collection bin for Scrap Vomit squares. 

Bottled Rainbows: 

Finally finished all my bases. That box is the pieces I know for sure I want to go on each. 

Summersville Sampler: See here

Farmer's Friday progress here

No Progress This Week:

Game Top

Coming Soon: 

Tool Belt

Pattern Keeper Repeat

Swoon

Zig Zag

Vintage

Tardis

Completed: 1

New: 0

WiP: 11

My latest Three Finish Rule is in effect so I've gotta get sewing again. 

Thank you all for your input on my destash. I'll be making a blog post before I put anything up for sale anywhere else. 

Don't forget to show off what you're working on over at Lee's

Craft Destash question..

For reasons that I don't want to go into too much detail about, I'm mixing sewing time this week with cleaning time for a massive craft destash.

There will be very little in the way of fabric here. I've got some clay supplies (clay conditioning machine plus some tools, I think..it's buried), oodles of scrapbooking stuff, some sewing patterns, some magazines, needlework kits....there's a whole walk-in closet that I'm going through.

My original plan was to just list it all on ebay/etsy. I thought I should just ask before I do that if y'all would want to see a sale post here before I do that?

It's more of a craft supply thing than fabric, so if no one is interested I totally understand.

I do have plans to start listing some fabric and hexie kits in the etsy store that I've left empty forever. But that'll come after the massive clean out.

Nominated! (+ the Three Finish Rule)

Hey there guys!

So I got a lovely email today saying that I had been nominated in one of the categories for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival. 

I really am surprised. Mr. Pac-Man is up for the Best Wall Hanging category. Thank you to those that nominated me. 

Voting for all of the categories is taking place here. There really are some amazing quilts in there. Go vote! 

...are you back yet? I know..it's a lot of voting. 

Back now?

Whew. Good. 

In other news this is another notice that I'm enforcing the Three Finish Rule on myself.

It's all Katie's fault this time. She just had to go and post a link to a stitchalong that I *totally* want to do!

And I've got the QAL starting soon. Plus Handstitching class. Plus I'm still inching along on the Patchwork Prism.

So..I can't buy the class *UNLESS* I finish three things off this list:

Tool Belt

Tardis

Pattern Keeper

Quilt/Bind Monsterz

Game Top

Summersville Sampler

I obviously have other things going on but they're not in the "realistically able to finish" category. Like Swoon. Or Bottled Rainbows. Or that ZZQAL that is haunting my dreams. 

So..there we have it. The Three Finish Rule is in effect. 

Wow..a whole post without a picture. That just won't do.

Here..have a peek at the Tardis I finally dug out of the project bag:

I really don't want to fill that whole thing in....

Play Mini Entry

Jenna put together a great Mini Quilt competition.

It's called Play and the goal was to make a mini quilt based off of a playing card.

I knew I would never be able to decide on just one card so I drew mine completely at random:

And then I left it alone for about a week. 

Sometimes I'd pick up my sketchbook and start sketching out designs. I had these grand ideas of eight interlocking diamonds in different tones of red. 

And at some point the "7 ate 9" joke got stuck in my head and I started giggling. 

Every time I would look at fabric or try to sketch I would start giggling. 

There was no fighting it. 

"Ate" of Diamonds. 

Close-up of Bite

Handstitched Fork

The silvery-grey thread doesn't show up very well in the sunshine. 

I tried to be serious.

It just wasn't happening. 

I can't avoid my own silliness. 

Skill Point Sunday - Week Seven

A quick one today.

I apologize for the dirty Instagram photo. The Mr. is taking me downtown to see Canterbury Tales which requires actual clothes finding and straightening of the hair and such nonsense.

Since he did something lovely for me I made this week's project with him in mind:

A couple of week's ago I had stolen the pencil cup off his desk. 

Now I've replaced it.

I really think he got the better end of this deal.

SMS Giveaway Winners

Time for some winners!

I just wanted to thank y'all again for stopping by and entering. And welcome to all my new followers! I'm so glad you decided to stick around.

I try to reply to every comment left on my blog. I'm sorry if I didn't get to your comment on the actual giveaway post. There were just so many of 'em! And I've had a pretty heavy week sewing/work wise so there has been little email time.
Please know that I've read every single one tho'!

So first up is the Summersville Sampler Kit!

Which was Allison C who said: "I just got into embroidery so I would love another project. I would have never thought to use this fabric (which i LOVE!). Great idea!"

Next is the Halloween Fat Quarters!:

#34 was Kathy who said: "I'm is a Halloween block swap so the Halloween fabric could be put to immediate use if I win:)"

I'll be emailing both of you shortly! 

Handmade Parade - Still in Summersville

It's Handmade Parade day!

I've been primarily doing machine sewing lately but I've left my Summersville project out on the coffee table so I can stitch on it during those few moments where I watch tv.

Four whole letters done, wheee. 

Farmer's Friday - The Loud One

Today is the last day to enter for  my Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day! I'll be closing it out at 8pm EST and posting winners shortly after that.


 No shopping trips for me today. Almost no sewing because I thought I had run out of coffee. Then I found some iced coffee my lovely mother had gotten for me in the fridge. Sewing was saved!

Block #27:

I'm hearby dubbing this one "The Loud One" because I showed the Mister and he helpfully claimed it was the loudest thing he'd ever seen.

I'm thinking this whole quilt is the loudest thing ever seen and it'll have a lot of friends. Halloween fabrics are quite bright.

#28:

I don't know about this one.
When I cut my Halloween fabrics for the giveaway I also sorted them into piles of fabrics that I've already used for Farmer's Wife and fabrics I haven't.
That orange was a pretty small piece and I've been trying to work it in. The pattern in it makes this block look *way* wonkier than it actually is. One edge is off because I can never sew these lil' pieces perfectly.

Also..I don't know the official name for those pieced triangle corners but I'm monumentally sick of them at this point.

I think I get a break from them soon.

Quick note: I've heard that my button for the Soda Pop QAL is acting up. It's probably my fault. HTML and I have nice lil' arguments. Thank you guys for pointing it out.
I *think* it's fixed. The amazing Jenna was sweet enough to take a look at the code for me. If you guys try it out and find that it's still not working please let me know. <3

WiP Wednesday - The One with a Lot Going On

Important things of the week:

My Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day post is here.
Voting has started for the Blogger's Quilt Festival. Nomination form is here. (My Wall Hanging is #464 in case you feel like voting for it)
I'm hosting a Quilt-a-long of the Orange Soda Quilt next month. There's a button on my sidebar if you'd like to grab it.

Whew...I think that's it for the announcements.

Roundup:


Ongoing:


Patchwork Prism: Got my fabric order in and picked up another piece from Whipstitch. I should have a pic of all my pieces cut soon.


Bottled Rainbows:

Started piecing all my solids. It's what I'll be working on for the rest of the day.


Summersville Sampler: 

I know that three letters isn't much but those french knots took me a minute. 

No Progress This Week:

Game Quilt

Play

Farmer's Wife

Coming Soon:

Tool Belt

Swoon

Zig Zag

Vintage

Tardis

Pattern Keeper Repeat

Completed: 0

WiP: 12

Man..that's a pretty boring photo week. I better get back to sewing so I have something more interesting to take pictures of. 

Sale Fabrics at Pink Castle Fabrics (including Pac Man Fabric)

If you're looking for my Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day post go here.

I'm sure most of y'all know this already but I absolutely couldn't resist pointing it out. And no I don't get commission or anything like that.

One of my favorite fabric shops has listed a ton of fabrics in their sale section.

One of them is the fabric I used to back my Pac-Man wall hanging.

Listed here for $3.60 per 1/2 yard

Yep.

That's right. 

$3.60 a 1/2 yard. 

If you're making a wall hanging like mine you only need 1/2 yard. 

I'm tempted to stock up on some myself because I have a feeling I'll make another Pac-Man for some reason or another.

If Pac-Man doesn't suit your fancy there's a lot of other options.

Some Lizzy House Hedgehogs maybe?

Also $3.60 per 1/2 yard.

What about some Tula Pink Frog Prince?

There's seven pages of sale items. 

Seven! 

Go take a look around the new website.

The even better part?

Since the Sale section on their website is new they have a Sale on the Sale promo going on right now! 

The coupon code SALE10 is good for 10% off all the sale fabrics through May 28th. 

PSA over.

I've got some shopping to do. 

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!

Note: Giveaway is now closed! You can see the winners here

Even though I just had a round of giveaways at the beginning of the month for my Blogiversary there's no way I'd miss Sew, Mama, Sew's Giveaway Day!

If you're new here, welcome! Welcome! Please take a look around. It's a lil' crazy but I try and keep it all contained ;)

A lil' bit about me: I'm a fabric obsessed Atlanta quilter. I'm really a bit of a geek (I love video games) and consider myself the Queen of Halloween fabric (there's a 5 shelf bookcase in my studio devoted to my collection). I often have *way* too many projects going on at once but that never stops me from starting "just one more.."

For those of you that have stalked me  stuck around, you know I love you. But I can tell you again if you'd like.

So I've got a double giveaway today, because I just couldn't decide which and I thought these two things represented me best.

First up I've got a lil' stitching kit up for grabs:

I've been really in love with the stitching project that I started last week:

So I'm giving away a fat eighth (9"x22") of the Alphabet Summersville print + Some bright floss colors + a hoop to get you started on your own! 

And since I'm still considering myself reigning Queen of Halloween fabric my second giveaway is a bundle of six Halloween fat quarters: 

They're a mix of different Halloween lines by Teresa Kogut for Marcus Fabrics. 

Giveaway will be open until Friday, May 25th at 8pm EST. Entries from anywhere in the world are welcome. 

To enter please leave me a comment telling me which prize you would like. If you'd be happy with either that's alright too! You can tell me you'd like both.

If you are entering to win the Summersville stitching kit please tell me whether you'd like a wooden hoop or a plastic one. I know some people have a preference.

I'll use Mr. Random to draw two winners on Friday night! Winner will be notified by email by Sunday, May 27th (so make sure I have a way to email you!). 

Thank you so much for stopping by! And good luck! 

Soda Pop Quilt-a-long Announcement!

<center><a href="http://www.sewallegorical.com"><img border="0" src="http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt65/AllegoryStrange/SodaQAL.jpg" /></a></center>

My love of Katy's Orange Soda Quilt is extreme, as you all know. 

But really...how can you not want to wrap yourself up in this baby: 

So I went and bugged Katy and told her how much I love it and how y'all told me you loved it...
So it's Quilt-a-long time!
I've titled it the Soda Pop Quilt-a-long because I know we'll all be making it in different colors. Mine is Grape Soda! And I'll posting pics of my lovely purple as soon as the mailman hands it over.


The Quilt-a-long will officially kick off on Monday, June 11th with a post about gathering fabric and supplies but I just couldn't wait any longer to mention it. 

This will also give y'all enough time to pick up a copy of  Fat Quarterly Shape Workshop for Quilters.

Luckily there's a Blog Tour happening for this book right now! 

The tour is over at Lily's Quilts today with a lovely interview with Katy and a chance to win a copy!

There are tons of stops on the tour (including one here, yay!) so be sure to follow the calender for more reviews, tutorials and giveaways! 

I'll be setting up a Flickr group closer to the start date. 

And I'm working on arranging something special for y'all. 

So grab yourself a book (or win one, hopefully)!

Grab a QAL button and spread the word!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

Amy's Creative Side is hosting the Bloggers' Quilt Festival again!

I have been honestly agonizing over what I really had to enter this year and the Mister saw me flipping through my Flickr while he was picking fabrics for the Skill Point Sunday pillow. 

"Have I seen three Pac Mans?"

Then I realized it has been the year of Pac-Man for me. And I really must love it more than the other things I've been making because I've made it three times. 

Which means that you'll all be seeing it for the 4th time now. 

My favorite picture of this wall hanging is still this one where it's falling down.

This started as the main project for my For Love of Solids Swap Partner. Then I thought I had messed it up so I set all the pieces aside and started over from scratch (the one I sent off had a solid black backing and binding). 

After I sent it off, I missed it. So I dug out the first one I had started and finished it for myself which is the one pictured above. I had stumbled across that Timeless Treasures fabric I used for the back when I was looking for black and white fabrics for another project. 

It's raw-edge applique because I just love the way it looks. 

Before I made this quilt I would have told you that I wasn't an applique girl. At all.

Now I know I love raw edge.

I'm starting to branch into reverse applique.

It was one of my first steps into learning new skills. And I love it for that. 

Plus...it's Pac-Man. 

The long rectangular shape was perfect for the design. Turns out it fits lovely on the wall outside my studio door as well which is a bonus. 

The third version of this is currently on its way to Lucy and I hope it gets there soon. 

Skill Point Sunday - Week Six

It's the last of the pillow chapter this week.

Brought to you yet again by an indoor picture because the thunderstorms have been rolling in all afternoon.

Circles Floor Pillow

Oh man, y'all..that's an actual pillow in a pillow form. 

So this week I had the Mister pick out all of the fabrics for the pillow because I was on a lil' bit of fabric overload. Also, since I knew this was going to be hanging out in the living room I wanted him to not hate it. 

I'm pretty impressed. This was all him without any pushing from me. I couldn't stop smiling when he pulled a Lizzy House print from my shelves. Everything in my room was up for grabs. I didn't want my fabric hoarding to discourage him. Three of those pieces came from my Favorites Basket. I thought it'd be harder to cut into them but knowing that I'd get to see them every day made it easier. 

I machine stitched around all my circles. He wanted dark stitching so it's all black. I'm *slightly* wishing I had taken the time to embroider around each one. But the finished pillow still makes me happy. 

Handmade Parade!

So the awesome Katie has developed a new linky party and I'm totally on board.

It's a link-up designed just for handstitching. Whether it's hand piecing your blocks or embroidery this is the place to go to show off those handwork projects!

I've long had a stack of embroidery abandoned on a corner of my desk. There's also lil' post-it notes over there that have project ideas.

I could have pulled out an old project. But there was something I've been itching to work on and I wrote myself three different post-its about it! (Clearly forgetting about each one after I wrote it.)

A couple weeks ago I saw a picture on Lu Summers' blog of something she was doing with her Houses print in her Summersville line.

Combine that idea with my desire to have some sort of ABC sampler in my studio and you get my current project:

Honestly I don't know what stitches I'm going to use for everything. I also don't know how many letters I'm going to do. At least a full set. Maybe two.

It's my new couch project.

Never would I have ever thought to do that many french knots.

...Last week I would have told you I couldn't do them. Guess I can't say that now.

Shopping Spree

I haven't done any Farmer's Wife blocks this week. Remember where I was calling in reinforcements?
My mom came into town!

We had a plan of some serious sewing today...and then I noticed that Whipstitch Fabrics had emailed me about a sale they had going on. Off to downtown we went!

I can certainly fill a bag..

The Quilt Blocks fabric wasn't on sale but I couldn't resist picking up some. 

Love new fabric. Especially love new fabric at $3-5 a yard. 

We'll get back on track soon. I haven't had my mom down here in about 3 years so I'm running around taking her to my favorite places.

She's helping with the horrible Cranberry Pillow quilt.

She also brought me the biggest bolt of batting I've ever seen. 

It was so great to go down and see everyone at Whipstitch today! They were getting in a shipment of Vintage Modern as I was leaving so I'm sure I'll be heading back up soon ;) 

WiP Wednesday - Scatterbrained

Things have been quiet on the blog but I've still been working.

If you want to see the lil' bits and pieces of my day to day sewing I've gotten pretty instagram addicted and I post the pics to my twitter.

I got really wrapped up in projects this week and completely forgot to draw for Pac-Man bodies!

Mr. Random and I had a few talks ('cause I had to skip comments that didn't want the bodies) but he finally settled on #4!
Ramona I'll be emailing you soon!


Roundup: 


Completed!:

Kind of a bad late night pic' but I got my pincushion for the Fab Lil' Pincushion swap done. I'm thinking about making another one for Giveaway day. We'll see. 

Pac- Man III: 

Full write up here with tutorial

He's gonna be dropped off in the mail to go live at Lucy's on Friday! 

Cosmic Burst Top: It has its own post here

Ongoing: 

Patchwork Prism: 

Sat down over the weekend to start cutting and organizing. I've gotten all the blues done. Waiting on a order from Pink Castle Fabrics before I cut the other colors. 

Farmer's Wife: Back on its schedule if a bit crooked

No Progress this Week:

Bottled Rainbows (ran out of batting. Getting more tomorrow)

Game Quilt

Play

Cranberry 

Coming Soon:

Tool Belt

Tardis

Pattern Keeper Repeat

ZZQAL

Vintage

Swoon

Completed: 3

New: 0

WiP: 12

There's going to be some serious headway made on some of these this weekend. 

I've called in reinforcements. 

Don't forget to see what everyone is up to over at Lee's!

Skill Point Sunday - Week Five

So much rain.
I don't even want to go to the grocery store. Because all the cookies will get wet.

This also means that I have yet to go to the craft store for pillow forms.

So this week's Skill Point Sunday creation is being modeled by my back-up machine:

It would look way less wonky if I had a proper pillow form. Promise.

My goal was to make this look like a sushi roll. It's the first thing I thought of when I saw the Concentric Squares pattern in the book. I ignored the instructions and did raw edge applique simply because I really like the look of it. 

Now I want sushi.

Stupid rain. 

waka waka waka (Pac Man!)

I bet y'all thought I forgot.
Totally didn't.

I may have started editing this four hours ago and then dozed off in a benadryl daze only to wake up and get distracted reading The Bloggess.
Maybe. 


Ahem.


At least I love y'all enough to be honest.

Pac-Man Style Wall Hanging

Pac-Man and it's characters are the property of Namco. This is simply a piece of art made for no profit because I love the game. 

Here's the post with the link to the templates.

Supplies Needed:

 Fabric:
Solid scraps in Light Blue, Red, Pink, Dark Blue, Yellow, Black and White. (pieces should be at least 8" square)
Background fabric - 12.5" x 40"
Backing - Half yard (This will end up being a lil more than you need but I like having the extra)
Batting (I used a scrap piece I had)

Other materials needed:

Rotary Cuter

Cutting Mat

Scissors

Pins

Heat 'n Bond or Glue Stick

Thread

Steps:

-Cut all your solids using templates. You'll want to use one ghost body shape for the Dark Blue/Pink and the second shape for Light Blue/Red. 

You should end up with:

Four Ghost Bodies

Six White Eye Background Pieces

Eight Eye Centers (Six in Black and Two in White)

-Make your quilt sandwich with backing right side down, batting, background right side up. Lay this out on a flat surface. 

Note: You can totally use Heat n' Bond or other fusible for this process but after the horrid time I had with it I decided to use a Glue Stick. If using fusible, cut 1/4" smaller than templates and follow manufacturer directions to bond your pieces to your background. 

- Using your ruler as a guide, set pieces 2" from the top of your fabric and 1/2" from each other. Bond lightly with a fabric glue stick. This is just to keep them attached until stitching. You can certainly pin as well but I'd recommend heavy pinning to keep the pieces from moving. 

Order of characters here is completely up to you. I like Red--Light Blue--Pink--PacMan--Dark Blue.

I just realized I didn't get a pic of it but you'll want to start your first ghost no more than 1" from the edge. Otherwise you'll have to piece together a longer backing. 

-Sew your ghost bodies down 1/8" from the edge. Thread color here is up to you. I like to use grey so that it stands out against all my fabrics. If you want to match to each color that you're sewing down, go for it! Want to use white or black? That works too. 

-Attach your eye background on the red, pink and light blue bodies in the manner of your choosing (Heat n Bond, glue stick or pins). 

I used the following picture as a guide for eye placement:

Picture from Pac Man Wiki

Obviously I didn't match the ghost body color with the same type of eye. This is just a good way to see how to get your ghosts looking in different directions. 

-Sew these pieces down 1/8" from the edge. 

-Bond/Pin your Eye Centers to the white eye backgrounds. 

-Sew 1/8" from the edge. 

The Dark Blue Ghost has a different face. 

For his mouth you'll need a 1 3/4" x 6" piece of white. I never made a template for this part because I just always free hand cut square chunks out of it. 

- Bond/Pin your Dark Blue ghost face

-Sew 1/8" from edge

At this point your top is complete. Every time I've made one of these I've debated on quilting within the background fabric and I could never think of a design to fit. If you want more quilting in yours, now would be the time to add it. 

-Bind your edges and enjoy! 

Yes, I used the pic from #2 here. Because every time I tried to go outside this week it was raining. 

Hopefully my ramblings aren't too confusing. It really is a rather simple thing to make. The only tedious part is sewing around all those edges. If you have any questions at all or see something I've done in error, just leave me a note.

Oh!

Also I managed to cut two sets of ghost bodies, so I have an extra set. 

It's the bodies only. No eye parts. 

If anyone would like them I'll be glad to drop them in the mail this week. Just let me know in a comment. 

If there's more than one person who wants them then I'll put the names in a hat and draw them on Monday afternoon. And if no one wants them...I might be forced to make pillows. Or something. 

But not any time soon.