Yo Momma is so...

Okay, so the yo yos are making me kind of punchy now. I gathered up some more fabric and cut a whole new stack of 5.5" squares. Thanks to Sew Obsessed, Quiltique, and Joann's I was able to add some great colors to the project.

You might recognize some of the designers in here: Amy Butler, Heather Bailey, Michael Miller, Kaffe Fasset, Joel Dewberry, and Anna Maria Horner. I figured if I average 12 yos a day, it will take me 28 days to finish the rest of my goal of 409! However, I pushed myself to get 15 done this evening (this really doesn't seem like an amount to brag about), but my basket is starting to fill up and the yos are multiplying!

Once I made a yo from all my new fabrics I decided to lay them out on my background fabric to make sure I didn't have too much of one color and not enough of another. I think I concluded that I need a little more pink, orange, and purple. The green and yellow is certainly covered.

What do you all think? I need some advice.

State of Yo....

For those of you who are too young or whose mother did not drag them to a Smother's Brothers concert when they were children, would not know about being in the "State of Yo" as the 'Yo-Yo Man' would get into prior to starting his yo-yo act. Well, I am in a state of yo with my new yo-yo maker and my new quilt adventure. I discovered this quilt on the cover of American Patchwork & Quilting (June 2011, Issue 110) and just HAD to make it.

Between the turquoise background in batik and the bright, fun colors of the yo's I was practically salivating before I made it to the checkout to buy the magazine. Now, let's take a step back here: (1) Have I ever made yo-yo's? No. (2) Have I ever worked with a batik fabric? No. and (3) Was I aware that this cute 'little' quilt required 409 of those a fore mentioned, never having done, yo-yo's? Uh, No. So, here I am at my first attempt of making them, and yes, I went with Clover's 60mm Extra Large Yo-Yo Maker template/tool because I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into.

After some trial and taking the first one apart, I finally got the hang of it. However I did consult a couple of tutorials and videos on-line prior to attempting this. As always, I decided to Mary Shelley (Frankenstein reference) a few of the tips together to form my own way of making them work. I took some from Heather Bailey's tutorial, some from Lazy Girl Designs, and some You Tube videos. Here is the finished product...

Now only 406 to go! (This is only a fourth of the stack that needs to be done)

I might have to recruit relatives with tequila to get this done (yes, mom I am talking to you).

Basting my Single Girl...

Well, with the Valori Wells quilt finally complete, it is time to pick up the Single Girl again. I have decided to try to basting video tutorial that I found rather than the old safety pin method. Partially, because I have decided to use Perl 8 cotton to hand quilt this one and I just didn't want all those safety pins in the way. Additionally, I am always on the lookout for new ideas of making quilting easier.

So here is my attempt of the herringbone baste that is described in Sharon Schamber's Network via YouTube. Here is Part 1 and 2.

Lucky number three...

My third quilt is finally done! Thanks to another P.I.G.S. Night Out at Sew Obsessed last night and some work this morning, I can finally give my family their quilt. Yes, it is 113 degrees outside, but I know that my husband and I will crank up the AC just to cuddle underneath it tonight! She is quilted with a beautiful satin/cotton binding and is the first one adorned with my new quilt label. Are my corners perfect? No. Are my quilted lines straight? No. Does it lay perfectly square? No. Will my family enjoy it, love it and have many years curling up underneath it? Yes. She turned out just wonderfully and I can't wait to have everyone see it.

This was Valori Wells pattern used with her High Desert Del Hi quilt fabric line. I fell in love with it when I saw it in a magazine and I fell in love with it all over again when I saw her in all her glory.

 Here is a picture of it spread out on the bed. It is almost big enough to fit a Queen sized bed, with a little overhang. We have a DKNY quilt on our bed right now, which is all white, but I think we have to put the new quilt on for now!

View 2.
I just love the colors so much! Especially next to the dark wood bed frame.











I need to work on adhering the label some, as the dark fabric shows though a little, but I used Steam-a-seam and attached some of the scrap material from the front as a "frame." I love that I can label my quilts now to remember when they were finished and to dedicate them to my loved ones.

Next time I will have my husband take the pictures; he has a GREAT eye for pictures. Here she is all folded up and waiting to be presented to the family. Her big reveal is in less than two hours! I can't wait.

Blooming and Napping...

My husband and I made a trip out to Zion, Utah as we are known to do every once in awhile; just to get away. While we were there we noticed how "green" everything was and against the desert landscape, sandwiched in between brown dirt with rocks and the occasional green patches of native plants, was the most vibrant pink poking its head out to be seen. We just had to pull over and take pictures of it.

Aren't they just amazing?! The only 'color' out there was this (there were a few very tiny little lavender and yellow meadow flowers too), but these just screamed out! It was a wonderful day of walking, talking, great fish tacos, coffee, and just enjoying nature with no city lights or large buildings. We drove back later that evening and confirmed further that we need to move somewhere out of the main city at some point. School first, then moving.

As far as our newest family member, she has a few things down very very well: (1) crouching by the bottom step of the stairwell to jump at your feet and hang around your ankle (she has quite a grip), (2) jumping (as opposed to clawing) her way up to the top of furniture, (3) she can scratch and/or bite through at least two layers of skin in less than 2 seconds (you actually don't even know it has happened until you start bleeding), and lastly, (4) napping. I have left out things like eating, pooping and meowing for the obvious reasons. As like children, she is most angelic while she is sleeping...

She is just hysterical. Her sleeping positions would make me wake up in a giant knot and not being able to move for at least an hour. My husband recently made a video of her sleeping with her paws over her eyes, and as he lifted up her paw you could see her eyes closed, then the paw would just go back into position. Here is a still of the video. I have to find a way to put this on my blog border.

On that note, goodnight and I am off to quilt.

Single Girl continues...

I have started to sew all the blocks (well, into actual blocks) and have begun sewing the blocks together. It is coming along fairly well, until my Janome had to go to the sewing machine hospital. Seems as though you cannot leave the spool you winding bobbins with on the spool holder as the end will sucked up into the side vent and wrap itself around the gears and the belts. It was so ugly when they pulled the side of the machine apart, but a few snips and pulls (no damage) left me smiling on the way back home with my baby.

So here is one block of the Single Girl quilt, yet as I am sewing the blocks together I can't say that the circles are 'butting' up against each other as they are supposed to. Later I read on a blog that it is easier to sew them together with a zipper foot, as the side of the regular foot gets in the way and pushes the fabric to the side. Oh well, it is what it is; it's not perfect, but I did it all on my own.

The circle edges and the seams are lining up fairly well, and overall, I am very pleased with the way it looks. SO much so, that I am starting to cut out the fabric for the South Pacific themed Single Girl. As soon as this is sewn together, I will start sewing the other one together. Once I get to the hand quilting for the grey Single Girl, then I can take it to work and do it over lunch (hopefully keeping my hands busy will also stop from the eating so much). Here are the fabrics for the other quilt waiting to be traced and cut.

I wake up every morning and go to bed every night seeing these little slices of heaven waiting for me to turn them into their soul's purpose--motivation!!

Ooo, it was like Christmas this week!!!

Well it started with receiving my quilt labels in the mail the other day, and they turned out fantastic! They read, "Quilt made by Mary "Bunny" Martin-jarofspools.blogspot.com."

They have six different colors, in Fuchsia, Teal, Purple, Orange sherbert, Grey and Lime. Here is a pic with them attached and printed on a yard of fabric. The colors are so vibrant, and they were printed so fabulously. Again, it was Spoonflower that printed them and the cost was $18 plus shipping. So easy!

I opted to cut them out with scissors as opposed to the rotary cutter and ruler method. You can either put them on with fusing, or sew them down on the edges. I may even have enough of a border to sew on some fabric along the edge and just applique them on at some point. The original tutorial by Jaybird suggested to leave a 1/4" margin around each one to have room to fold them under, but I had a difficult time as it was just getting them designed at all! Thanks to one of my budding Marketing students at the college, Annie, she helped me get my design into print.

 I cannot imagine that I will actually get to use all of these; that would be a lot of quilts! I will probably have to order more labels due to changing my blog address or something before getting through them all. Hopefully, I will have one quilt done soon so I can put one on. The blank space allows for me to write in the title of the quilt and when it was made. The first one will go on my Valori Wells Quilt that I hope to have done this weekend. ; )

My second gift this week, was my beautiful Echino-Extra Wide-Madrigal-Oxblood fabric! This has to be some of the most gorgeous fabric I have ever seen, and when I saw it on Judith's Needles and Lemons blog who was using it for the back of a quilt, I just knew I had to have it!

So here it is in all 6 yards of glory! I plan on making this the whole quilt top and embellishing it with Perle 8 cotton in different colors, some beads, and sequins. I plan on outlining the flowers and highlighting the print all together. Then I will use the thickest batting and tie it. I can't wait to start on it.

Isn't it just dreamy?! It will take quite some time to decorate it, but it just seems to be calling for some nice hand embroidery and a little sparkle. The fuchsia buds on the vine will be in a matching floss done with French Knots, and the birds will have some sequins along the back. Not sure how much of the big blue flowers I will do, but it will work itself out I'm sure. I will keep you all posted with the progress.

And if that wasn't enough...I also received by Perle 8 cotton for the Single girl quilt! It is a wonderful steel blue color, #932 I believe, and it will be used in the pattern given by Denise Schmidt for the quilt. I was going to go with a dark grey, but I thought, hey what the heck--it doesn't have to match! I decided to pick up the blues in the yellow circles as opposed to going with the obvious grey or yellow options.

I love that they gave it to me in the box. It was like opening up a box of chocolates (I refrained from licking them), but it was so hard not to. So many projects, so many presents, and a whole weekend to do them. Woo-hoo!!