Twilight's Radiance -- A Challenge Quilt

I am so excited to share with you my entry for the 2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge, hosted by two awesome sites--On the Windy Side and Play Crafts. Look, I even have an official blog button in this post:

In case you haven't heard (or bothered to care :-P) Pantone has deemed "Radiant Orchid" as the 2014 color of the year. I love Pantone, and I love color...but I do find color projections a little funny. I guess it's because once we've all acclimated to a popular color or color scheme, they've introduced the next one. Pantone's top colors for fall 2014 were already announced about a month ago! 

Fall 2014 is hard for my brain to process, as it would be for any northerner I assume. While we are desperately awaiting to emerge from this dreadful winter we've been having, Pantone has already skipped our favorite, refreshing, soul-warming season---summer! :-P

Anyhoo...radiant orchid. I really do love the color.

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OooooooOOoooo.  Pretty, huh?

I tried really hard to run with purple color schemes that included peach...and teals...and grays...but my mind could not be separated from everyone's favorite radiant orchid pony. Yup. I had to go there.

The princess Twilight cometh...behold!  Behold! (I am fully confident that I am the only one singing that in my head).

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So, here's the quilt---inspired by Twi's colors and cutie mark. :-)

I used my new walking foot to straight line quilt the purple and pink stripes...and I learned a little bit about thread tension along the way. ;-)

I did raw edge applique for the stars. You can't really see it in the pictures, but the white star fabric and the lightest purple fabric (it looks like a white stripe in the pictures) are both sparkly. 

I free-motioned planet orbit paths in the navy fabric. I used a regular star stitch for the little stars in space. Twilight Sparkle studies the stars and lots of other things, so it seemed like a perfect fit. 

I felt kind of unsure about using white fabric for the binding, but the truth is I just wanted some more sparkle in my quilt. This was the first time I did the binding entirely by machine---it was much easier than I thought, and I am happy with the results. 

Finished quilt size is 31" x 27." 

Why does my dog look so very American Gothic in this picture? (Sorry about the blindingly white and bright quilt in the pic---I don't know how to fix that!)

And here it hangs on my very crooked curtain rod in my living room. It really puts a smile on my face every time I see it.  I feel all sneaky and stuff that I was able to covertly incorporate My Little Pony into my home decor. :-P

And now for some Twilight Sparkle memes. Nothing like laughing with yourself! Either I need to find some friends into MLP or my friends need to get into MLP! :-D

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Minecraft Valentines

A certain someone in the house chose a theme for his valentines that wasn't in stores (of couse! :-P)---Minecraft!  I took the easy route and made them on the computer so we could just print, cut, fold and go!

Evander was really sweet not to give the girls the creepy ones, but saved these for his closest friends that are boys:

Eye of Ender, creeper, and zombie

 "I like your brains," says the zombie. Ha!

He gave his teacher the TNT one. <3 Glad she didn't take it any other way than just being a valentine with explosives on it. :-P

Shovel, cobblestone, and TNT

These were his favorites to give the girls:

A tamed wolf, diamond pickaxe, and diamond

We sealed each card with a health meter heart, printed on Avery 22805 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" labels.

On the side he addressed the cards, we added a Minecraft ocelot since the ocelot is kind of his thing. :-)

Happy Valentine's Day!  I've got my (creepy) eye on you!

Valentine's Wall Hanging

When I saw a beautiful heart wall hanging from Alyssa at Pile O' Fabric...I knew I had to make one. Had...to...make...one.  The blocks are made to look like cross-stitch, so really the possibilities of what shape you create with them are endless (Find it here!: Cross-Stitch Block Tutorial).

I love sewing seasonal decorations, but often the season passes before I even get started on anything. :-P Nick made some comment last week (as good husbands do ;-) ) which spurred me to get this one done. It's small (about 21" x 21"), so it was a relatively quick finish!  Finishing a project certainly always feels good.

Of course, Chocolate was on hand to assist in the process:

Look---she sits when I tell her to!!!  But, she certainly doesn't "stay" for long...

I got to use my brand new walking foot for my machine that I got for Christmas. I feel like Super Woman with a walking foot. It allows the fabric to feed from both the top and the bottom of the machine, so there is no more tugging...just power!!!

Seriously, this is how I feel:

Stitch in the ditch and straight line with the walking foot:

Ooooo, I just love looking at this one. I used up the rest of my Amy Butler charm squares that I have had for a while. Perfect project for such yumminess!

Finished just in time for Valentine's Day!

A Quilt for Comfort

A few weeks before Christmas, one of Evander's classmates lost her father.  It was a shock to everyone, and it still is pretty hard to wrap one's head around---early 40's, wife of ten years, two children under eight years old.  Many of us were wondering, what can we do for our class friend?!?  I thought a comfort quilt would be perfect so that our friend would know how much she is loved! 

Each child from the class, along with some teachers and the principals, had their hand traced on transfer paper and told me their favorite color.  The quilt reflects this, of course, and I like that each child and teacher is represented with their color. I placed the hands in the shape of a heart and appliqued them on the orange background fabric.

I quilted the space around the heart with circles and ovals.

Finished size is 46" x 64".

Many thanks to the families from the class that donated funds to supply the quilt.  There was enough money left to donate a hefty chunk to the family.  Thank you to Evander's teacher, who collected all of the hand tracings for me.  And, thank you to the substitute teacher, who did her student teaching at Evander and the classmate's preschool, who donated much of the fabric for the hands and the quilt batting. And thank you to the two moms who cut out the hands for me! (I typically don't like to give identifying names in my blog...sorry!)

Everyone who had their hand traced, also signed the back of the quilt with permanent marker.

I have wondered if it might be difficult for the family to look at the quilt day after day, year after year...but I then I just keep thinking love. I hope the classmate will feel love every time she sees it or uses it. <3

This is what happens when you trudge the foot-deep snow with Mommy and loose your boot to get quilt pictures---Marin curled up on the heating vent--

So Long, 2013!

Looking back on 2013, I feel as if I didn't create as many things as I did in 2012 (you can check out my 2012 crafty review here.). I feel as if my 2013 was lacking in painting things, but had plenty of quilting. :-)

After I finished Evander's teacher's quilt at the beginning of June, I started another quilt with fabric that a friend gave me (with intentions of giving the quilt back to her as a surprise). It pieced together quickly, but I thought I could cheat on the batting and it ended up without batting in some parts.  I felt it was just terrible after that. FAIL!  FAIL!  FAIL!  I never finished it and I hate it. :-P I remember this stunting my creativity for the summer.

Around the same time, I got sick and that yucky feeling stayed around for most of the summer draining all of my energy (excuses, excuses, I know!) But mostly, I think it was this...

It's true.  I was addicted to Minecraft. What a flipping awesome game.

And now, the 2013 projects!

I made some Minecraft things last year:

Evander's lunchbox "Kitty Guy" 

Evander's Bookbag - a painted Creeper and cat

Creeper shirt

Creeper costume

Halloween was a such a rainy bummer!

I manged to give the ponies some love:

Marin's Pinkie Pie shirt

Easter Eggs 2013

Painted posters for Marin's birthday party

I decorated a cake!  Woot! 

Ninja Turtle cake

I painted these chairs:

With quilted seat cushion -- FOR SALE...still :-)

Painted with Ohio Star quilt block

Here are some sewing and quilty projects:

Quilted Pillow

Quilted necklace

Candy Corn Bunting - Bottom FOR SALE

Christmas Bunting - Six FOR SALE (each are different)

And now, the quilts!

Flying Geese Quilt

Self-Portrait Quilt

Deerie Quilt

Baby Clothes Quilt

Plus Quilt

Nine Patch Quilt

Fall Leaves Wall Hangings

T-Shirt Quilt

Hippie Quilt

I consider the highlights for quilting this year were winning "Most Unique Quilt" for my Self-Portrait at the Ohio Outdoor Quilt Festival and winning first prize for my "Deerie Quilt" in the Lake Erie Center art contest. 

This year, I would like to learn the paper piecing technique for quilting and redesign my blog. I said those exact two things in January last year!!! :-P I also really want to make a Minecraft quilt. 

Happy 2014!