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This week I have two finishes! That rarely happens, but I have been trying to make the best of the time that I have in the sewing room.  For me there are only 16 sewing days left!

I get to cross two things off my life: my blocks for do. Good Stitches:

Our Quilter this month s.o.t.a.k handmade and she picked out Stacked Blocks – and sent us a link to this great tutorial by The Sometimes Crafter.  Don’t you just love them? We were asked to make them bright and colorful, for a girl, but for someone who is a little older. I hope I hit the mark!

In other big news, I finished Fancy Flocks!  This is the first time that I have machine sewn a binding on…sorta.  I have done sashing that is somewhat like binding on my Bottled Rainbows Quilt As You Go project. I think it turned out pretty well, there are some mistakes, but it is made with love and in the end that is what should matter most!

I used Aqua Sublime from the Ruby Collection for the binding. It was the perfect print from the Ruby line, it blends nicely with the backing and makes the front of the quilt pop.

Up next is the Flora Table Runner and then the Monkey Business Quilt. I am contemplating not binding the Monkey Business Quilt. I think I might make a sandwich and turn it, then quilt it. What do you think of that idea? I am thinking it might work because it is going to have a flannel backing and a cotton front. I love the idea of a flannel backing because it will make it super cuddly for my nephew.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Don’t forget, I’m now on Bloglovin’ and on Facebook – check out my sidebar!

Do you know Jenna from SewHappyGeek? She sent me a message yesterday asking me what I was going to do when Google Friend Connect went away. My first reaction was, what?!? GFC is going away?!? Then I realized that it was only going away for non-blogspot bloggers, like Jenna and I. We both use wordpress. Jenna wrote a great post today about how she is handling it, and I decided that I better be proactive as well. Head over to Jenna’s blog to get all the details on this sadness.

As of March 2012, you will no longer be able to follow my blog via Google Friend Connect – this is sad, but business is business and I want you to be able to follow me. I am setting up a new account on BlogLovin’ and I hope you will follow me there. BlogLovin’ has a couple of really great features, like apps for both Droid and iPhones for you to easily read your feeds from your phone.  I hope you will follow me over there, if not, there is Networked Blogs and my RSS feed in the side bar.

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Update: As of 12:30 the quilt is finished and in the washer and dryer getting all crinkly! Woot!  One project down and 100 more to go 🙂

I finished up the quilting on my Fancy Flocks quilt yesterday. I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I bought the stitch in the ditch Acufeed foot by Janome for my machine on Monday and was actually able to sew a straight line! Woot! Let me know if you want a more complete review of the foot and I would be happy to do one.

Here are a few pictures. I didn’t want the quilting to stand out, I wanted it to blend and I wanted it to add some nice details to the backing.

I laid out the quilt to get a better picture of the chevron detail on the back and suddenly I had a little helper – I’m not entirely sure…but I think she likes the quilt!

Now I have to tell her that she doesn’t get to keep it!

Today I am going to work on getting the binding at least sewn on to the back…but I would really love to get it completely done.  Baby steps, don’t want to stress myself out – that isn’t what the holidays should be about.

Hope you’re having a great day!

I have so much to do for Christmas – I am actually a little overwhelmed because I only have 19 sewing days left before I leave for vacation with my family in California.

I have 2 quilts that need quilting – the Fancy Flocks quilt I blogged about yesterday is now half done – I’m really hoping I can finish today – I will post pictures as soon as I do! I am going to do something I have never done before. I am going to machine sew  the binding. Hand sewing is just not an option these days for me.

I want to make at least 2 mug rugs – one for my mom and one for my mother-in-law. I’m torn between using the scraps from my Vintage Christmas Sampler and using the Ready Set Snow Layer Cake I have from Me & My Sister – thoughts anyone?

I also want to finish a table runner for my God Mother.  She is wonderful and I think she would really appreciate it.

I have lots to do for the blog too! I still have 2 blocks left to put up for the sampler – I know I am behind, but that sometimes happens in life.  I will do my best to get them up ASAP – please bear with me, there is a lot going on in our lives right now and a couple things needed to get put on the back burner while we sort stuff out.  I am working with Bottom Line Thread from Superior Threads right now and fully plan on getting a review up on it before heading to CA for Christmas.  Thus far, I am in love.  In Fancy Flocks I am using it just in the bobbin, but for my Monkey Business quilt I plan on using it for the top and the bottom threads – can’t wait to see how it does.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have pictures up of the finished quilting – probably no pictures of the binding yet. You may be wondering why I am so slow to finish my projects. I will give you a couple of the easiest answers – some answers are a little too complicated to go in to. First, I only sew during nap time.  The only time I sew when Anne is awake is if my husband is home and is playing with her.  Second, I do not sew most nights because that is the only time I have to spend with my husband. I only sew at night if he is working late or not coming home at all due to work. This REALLY limits my sewing and blogging time – but family comes first and we have really limited amounts of family time and I want to take full advantage of it while we have it!  I can’t wait until Anne is older and I can set her up on my old machine and we can sew together – although I think that is still many years off.

I hope you are all having a wonderful Tuesday!

Hi everyone! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday and that if you did the Black Friday thang – you made it out safely!  I was watching the news Friday night and was blown away by all the violence – it didn’t exactly scream Christmas to me.

In other news, I was able to get my Fancy Flocks quilt basted – it really only took about 30 minutes once I finally laid everything out and just did it! That is the thing about basting – at least a small quilt, it really isn’t that painful, it is just the thought of having to do that stops me!

I am going to head to my local Janome Dealer today and purchase the Ditch Quilting Foot for Acufeed:

I don’t know about you, but I stink at sewing a straight line and this quilt really does call for straight lines. I am hoping it helps me a lot – anybody have experience using this foot? Does it help?  I hope so, if it works well with this quilt, I know it will get lots of use in future projects.

Note: Julie from The Intrepid Thread just gave me a great tip before I posted this and she suggested using painters tape for the lines – which I am definitely going to do for a different quilt that doesn’t have any line to follow!

The next 3 weeks are going to be a whirlwind of crazy for me! I have to get 2 quilts completed quilted. Get a pattern together using my favorite fabric line out there – Rendezvous for Julie from The Intrepid Thread. I would like to finish the table runner that I started with the Flora Jelly Roll a couple weeks ago, and I also want to make a couple of mug rugs for my mom and my MIL.  We shall see just how productive I can be – seeing as I definitely have the ability to waste hours at a time playing Bejeweled online (it is the bane of my existence and totally addicting!).

In the meantime – today is Cyber Monday and there are deals to be had!

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Julie from The Intrepid Thread – has an amazing deal going on – EVERYTHING in the shop is 20% off – us the coupon code BLKFRI20 at check out. I have already taken advantage of this amazing deal and you should too!  This doesn’t even take into account her awesome sale section – where there are 203 different items to be had!

Vicki and Jennifer from Sassy Packs have another amazing Cyber Monday Deal – 25% off fabric by the yard! Use the coupon code CYBERM at check out. Now that is a fabulous deal – I myself would probably invest in backing fabric – that is when I spend the most money on yardage.

Fat Quarter Shop is offering 25% off your entire order for 4 days! The coupon code is monday11.  I swear they are making it way to easy for me to spend my money…like I really need any excuses when it comes to fabric!

The best part about Cyber Monday…you can get all your shopping done and never leave the couch – and oh yeah…you are safe from all the crazies out there that have helped rename Black Friday to Black & Blue Friday!

Happy Shopping!