My Crazy, Busy Spring!

My life has been a whirlwind lately!  It's been such a crazy, busy spring around here that I've barely had time to think!

My longarm finally came!  Actually, she's been here for over a month and I can't believe I haven't even blogged about it!

While we waited for my longarm to GET HERE, I had lots of work to do to get my new sewing room ready!  My husband has been finishing a few rooms in our basement, and he got busy getting mine finished.

He's done all the work in our entire basement other than the framing, which was already finished when we moved in.  The wiring, sheetrocking, taping, texturing, building the closets, and putting up doors and trim have all been his own work.  I'm so proud of him because he's so talented and has done a really great job!  It's really nice to have a handy guy around!

He designed and built my closet, plus two more down in the basement for our older daughters' rooms.

After he's finished with his work down there, the deal was that I would do all the painting!  I really don't know how or why I agreed to that, but I guess it's only fair, right?

Painting closets is horrible, tedious, agonizing work, let me just say!  The last time we finished a basement (we moved from that house 3 months after we got it all finished.  Sad!), my husband did all the painting, because I was pregnant and he didn't feel like I should be around all the paint fumes.  So, I got spoiled!  This time, no chance!  We I painted the closet a bright white, and I decided to paint my sewing room Behr Pearl Grey.

Sorry for the bad phone pics!  Ugh!

It turned out to be a really nice purpley-grey color.  I was a little scared after the first coat, so I mixed in about 2 cups of white to the gallon, which now I wish I hadn't done.  I'm just a little scared of color on the wall!  Silly me.  I still really like the color, which the photo above doesn't do any kind of justice to!  I'll get some better pictures and get them up here soon!

I got my sewing room finished just in time for my machine to arrive!

She came in these crates, and actually one got lost in transit somewhere, which was agonizing to have to wait longer than I expected I'd have to, and not know when exactly it was going to show up!  After the truck finally came, the poor driver almost dropped the big box off the liftgate!  I had to swallow my heart, to say the least!

I had to wait a couple of more days before my husband could help me put it together...well, before he could put it together.  I helped a little bit, mostly holding things up and running to get things that he needed.

We worked that Friday night until about 11, got up and started at it again at 10 am Saturday, and I finally had a quilt on by 10:00 that night!  A marathon, but we did it!

My machine is an 18" Innova with a 12 foot table.  It BARELY fits in the room, with just a little bit of space on the side by the closet for me to walk around to get to the back of the table.

These last few weeks I've been squaring up my leaders, doodling around a little bit, going to HMQS, and spending three days in longarm training with my dealer!

I have more to post on all that!

How has your spring been?

Blogger's Quilt Festival:: Daisy Dance

Hello!  If you're here from the Blogger's Quilt Festival, welcome!  I'm excited to show you my second entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, Daisy Dance.  My first entry, The Circle Quilt, can be found here.

This quilt is actually my latest quilt finish.  I made it for the ADORNit challenge for HMQS in Salt Lake City, which was this past weekend.  It's my first quilt that I've made for a quilt show, which was really intimidating!

I finished it near the end of March, and sent off to the show in early April.  I'm looking forward to getting it back next week!

It didn't win or anything, but it was a good experience to enter the challenge and see my quilt at the show!

This quilt was so fun to piece!  The pattern is a tutorial by Jenny Pedigo.  Super easy curves, which ended my love/hate relationship with curved piecing!

I quilted it on my friend's longarm, which is so much fun!  I just recently bought a longarm, so I'm expecting my quilting skills to improve as I get more practice in!  Check back to see more about that soon!

This quilt measures 60"X 60".  When I get it back, it's going up on the wall in my sewing room!

Thanks for stopping by!  To see all the amazing quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, go here!

Bloggers Quilt Festival:: The Circle Quilt!

Hello everyone! If you're stopping by from the Blogger's Quilt Festival, welcome! I am so excited to show you my very first Blogger's Quilt Festival Quilt.  I also have a second quilt entry, Daisy Dance.

I call it The Circle Quilt.  My naming skills are super, aren't they!

This quilt is actually one that I started YEARS ago.  I bought all the fabric at a little quilt shop in Laramie, Wyoming about 8 years ago when we were living there.

I planned it to be a quilt for our King. Sized. Bed.  It was my first experience with curves.  What was I thinking??  By the time I'd gotten just these blocks done, I was done with curves!  I should have finished it then, but I was so burned out by all those curves, I think I hated the quilt and so I put it away for a few years.

I pulled it out about two years ago, made a decision to put the red borders on, put them on, and put it away again.  

I finally put my foot down with myself and got it quilted before Christmas last year.  It's been a snuggle quilt in my living room since then.

I backed the quilt in a brown damask flannel that I had hanging out in my stash.  I figured I've been at this quilt for so long, I didn't want to spend my precious fabric resources on anything more for it!  So, the brown it is.  I think it works fine!

I quilted it on my lovely friend's (Diana) longarm, who is always so kind to let me come over and quilt!  I have so much appreciated that!

I quilted with a shiny gold thread that blended on some parts, and really stood out on other parts of the quilt.  I used a circle ruler to make circles in the blocks, and piano keys in the border.

 The quilting's not perfect by any means, but it was my first experience with rulers on a longarm!  It's not as easy as the pros make it look!

This is my favorite block.  I love the red on the outside of the circle, and I LOVE the way it pops in the quilt!

See it up there?  I love it.

Now that it's finished, I've fallen back in love with my quilt!  I love how the reds just pop!  Even though the fabrics are really old and obscure now, I just love how they all work together.

And thanks to my photo buddies, who I eventually lost to activities that were more fun to them. 

Lawn mowing, fun?  I don't get it! 

He mowed down my field of daisies too.

Ok, yes, they're dandelions.  Which my husband hates, but I thought the yellow was pretty up against my red quilt.

This quilt measures 59" X 69".  Perfect size for cuddling!

Thanks for stopping by to see my quilt!  My blog is new and a little sparse, but I'll be adding lots of exciting things in the future!

Click here to see all the amazing quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival!