Crafting & sewing are a little slow right now with photography & life taking up most of my time. I did actually start cutting out the fabric for a new quilt though last week at a friend’s house during a crafting afternoon & am planning on finally sewing a few of the blocks together this afternoon. No photos of it yet though, since all I have is a stack of cut fabrics :) The plan right now is to make it a queen size quilt, which is a little crazy since I just finished with making a queen size quilt (and that one took me almost nine months to make!). Hopefully this one will go a little bit quicker, especially with crafting afternoons planned & the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild sewing day coming up…

On another (not totally unrelated) note, I have been reading this book lately… The War of Art: Break through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. I don’t normally recommend the books I read on my blog, but I have just been enjoying and finding this book so helpful I had to share. To sum it up it is about art, procrastination, getting things done, time management, and really succeeding in your life & art. Definitely a good read so far (I have not yet finished reading it), and a book I would recommend to other artists/creative people or anyone running their own business (or just trying to get the most out of life). I have really been trying hard to balance my time & manage it a little better lately and this book is a great reminder not to procrastinate or get distracted. It is a great reminder to me that what you put in is what you get out of life and something a couple people in my life have encouraged me on lately. (The person who recommended the book & a friend who runs her own business and probably didn’t even realize her words were a good encouragement/reminder to me when she stopped by to drop off some fabric – both of them deserve a thanks :)

And since no post is complete without a photo (or two) and I have no crafting ones right now to share, I just thought I would post this sign that I made (for a school auction)… I have been blogging a bit over at my photography blog if you live in the Seattle area or just like to read wedding/portrait photography blogs :)

My perch right now…

Taken on my iphone

We have this great screened in porch off the back of our house. Of course it is a wonderful gathering place for the humans and the animals in the house :) Yesterday we bought a wicker loveseat for out here, so today I am just enjoying the beautiful spring weather while blog surfing :) How great is that! (I love wifi :)

I finally was able to finish this quilt on Saturday at the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild meetup. I just had a little bit of the binding to finish up, so it was the perfect project to take with me to work on while chatting. I can hardly believe it, but I actually started this quilt at the end of July… It took awhile to finish, but it was totally worth it. (And I like to think that I have several excuses for it taking that long :)

I started this quilt as a lap size, but then decided to make it a queen size quilt so this one is going on our bed. Being queen size it was a bit of a pain to quilt. I also used a wool batting on the inside so it would be nice and warm and that made it a bit thicker. So for the quilting I just ended up stitching in the ditch, because I really didn’t want to try and free motion quilt this one. I love how the quilting keeps it nice and soft though and it has a pretty grid pattern on the back which matches the squares on the front. (I just realized I didn’t take a photo of the back & I don’t really want to take it off our bed to get a shot of it… It is just a pretty off-white cotton.)

It is a fairly simple quilt, but I am loving that we now have our own handmade quilt made by me on our bed. So pretty & perfect if you ask me! :)

(Oh and look I am on Katie’s blog showing off my quilt at the meetup! That is me holding up my quilt, although my hair now looks totally different as of this afternoon :)

Oh and a little note about comments -  for some reason comments are not being emailed to me, but I am still reading them and of course I love it when readers & friends take the time to say hi :) I just might not get around to replying since it is a lot more work if I don’t get them in my inbox… Which probably works since I didn’t really stay caught up with email during my blogging break either… :)

Wow, I really disappeared there for a little bit! :) Totally didn’t mean to, but things have been really busy lately. We closed on our house and are absolutely loving living in a house! :) We still have a few boxes to unpack, but it is slowly getting there. Of course having a house is totally different than apartment/townhome living, so I plan on taking my time with the decorating and such (already gathering lots of lovely inspiration – actually to be honest I have been collecting inspiration for our first house for years now :) We already have a space carved out for me to sew & craft and my sweet husband is going to make me a desk just the perfect size for the space, so I am really excited about that. I also love that I have a separate space for work too, which has been wonderful (and was honestly one of the first areas of the house we got set up :) I will definitely share some of the decorating & such as it progresses.

The above photos from a mini photo session of a quilt I have been working on for awhile now. I plan on finishing it up tomorrow! :) (Just in time for spring & summer weather, which is pretty ridiculous considering I used wool batting for warmth!)

As promised, an actual finished project! I actually made this quilt for someone else, but now that it is finished I am having a hard time parting with it. Although I have decided to part with it if she decides she loves it and will cherish it in her home as much as I would in mine :)

Details… The fabrics are all from Anna Maria’s Good Folks line, except for the binding which is a Heather Bailey fabric (I think) and the back is a Kona Cotton solid (I have no clue which color).  I wrote down that the finished size is approx 68 x 78 inches, although I wrote that months ago before I actually finished it (and I am too lazy to actually measure it again, so let’s go with that).

It was a pretty easy quilt to put together, since I just used 24 fat quarters and cut them each into 2 rectangles (using the leftovers for piecing the back). An easy design, but with the bold colors and patterns I wanted something that would showcase those and I think it works pretty well.

The front…

I was just going to make the back solid, but I discovered I didn’t have quite enough fabric. So I pieced together the leftovers from the fabrics I used on the front and mixed those in. I love the back almost as much (if not a tiny bit more) as the front!

Of course around here the ultimate stamp of approval comes from Pounce & I think he approves… (For some reason both cats love any quilt that I make even more than store bought blankets/quilts.)

See I can’t really give it away, right? Pounce would be devastated! :)

Now I just need to finish a few more of the projects in my w.i.p. pile before we move… My fabric stash has actually outgrown my fairly large fabric cupboard so finishing up some of those projects would clear a little space in it, which would be a good thing.

By the way, if you live in Seattle and have not already signed up – Katie is working on getting a Seattle Modern Quilt Guild together. Check out her post here and the group here.