work it wednesday

Web Faves of the Week

1 Comment / web favs of the week, work it wednesday / By Melissa Dunworth

No Work It Wednesday this week because the only thing I am working on is packing and cleaning my house for our big move next Friday. And let me tell you, keeping an 18 month old happy and entertained when you have packed 80% of her toys is NOT an easy job!

Making a packed up situation brighter 🙂

One of my favorite new blogs to follow is One Month To Win It. This is a seriously fun crafting competition that goes over four weeks. So far my favorite challenges have been the Under $5 Challenge from Season 3 and Wall Art from Season 2. The bloggers who have competed are INCREDIBLY talented and have served as a major inspiration for me!

If you think you will “make the cut” today is the last day to audition over at Country Chic Cottage. Head on over all you incredibly talented bloggers and followers!

I have recently fallen in love with a new concept that I found on 15 Minutes Play. The main concept behind this blog is to MAKE FABRIC. How cool is that?!? The idea is that for 15 minutes a day as a warm up you sew scraps of fabric together at different angles and you cut them and sew them back together. You are making your own fabric out of other fabric.

They are holding a challenge over on their blog to create 10 blocks from their “blocks of the month”.

The entire concept of “making” fabric is Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s, she is a quilter with an art background. Her personal site, where she does sell her quilts, is Bumble Beans Inc. I encourage you to go check out both the 15 Minutes Play site and her personal site.

Are you a fellow blogger? Do you host giveaways on your site? Do you just like entering giveaways? I am all of the above and I found a seriously cool site that has a linky party every week for giveaways! Craft Buds is a collaboration blog of Lindsay Conner from Lindsay Sews and Mary Jaracz from Bugglebee. They post tutorials, like the one today for this beautiful Diamond Quilt:

In addition to all this is the giveaway linky. If you like entering them or just want to get more exposure for one you are hosting, you should really head over and check it out!

What has caught your eye this week?

2 Comments / work in progress, work it wednesday / By Melissa Dunworth

Woohoo! Hump Day yet again! This week and really the next two I will be working on the same project, which is so not like me.

Do you see all those BOXES?!? That’s right Brother Lover’s, we’re finally MOVING!!! Our close day, bearing no more construction delays (we’ve only had one so far) is the 26th of May! So it goes without saying that I will be doing a lot of packing and cleaning between now and then.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to let my creativity remain all pent up during this process. I will still have a lot of nap times between now and the 26th when I will need to be relatively quiet. Here is some fabric that I will be working with between now and then.

Yes, it is all bright and obnoxious. No, I’m not telling what I’m making. That would ruin the fun of it. I didn’t pick out these fabrics, these are from a kit that my mom bought YEARS ago and she gave it to me over mother’s day to help in the efforts of keeping me occupied during nap time. The only problem is that at least 2 fabrics are missing along with one pattern piece 🙁 On the upside, I think it will be relatively easy to replace the fabrics with simple solids and the pattern piece I can remake out of paper, would have been nice to have the hard plastic one that came with the kit though.

What are you working on this week?

Work It Wednesday

2 Comments / monkey business quilt, Ryan DeBonville, work in progress, work it wednesday / By Melissa Dunworth

The week is HALF OVER! Woohoo! I love it when the week seems to be flying by and this week definitely is for me. My parents will be here tomorrow night for a short visit. I’m excited because I get to spend Mother’s Day with my mom, which is pretty cool since she lives 800 miles away.

I have been working up a storm the past few days on a quilt top for my youngest nephew.

image courtesy of: Etsy Shop Brodyandma

I bought a set of 5, 1/2 yard cuts of these fun Five Funky Monkey prints by Erin Michaels for Moda in March and I designed yet another quilt based on them.

With fabrics like these it is hard not to get easily and quickly inspired to quilt. I went to my local fabric shop with the Funky Monkey Friends Multi print and matched up the Red, Yellow, Orange and Green with some Kona solids the best I could. The green is slightly too pale, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. This is what I came up with:

What do you think? Keep in mind it is for a baby boy. I was thinking of calling it the “Monkey Mugshot Quilt”but decided to go with “Monkey Business” instead.

Here are a couple of close up pictures of the patch work:

This is the center of the quilt

Bottom middle of quilt

I still need to buy borders, a backing and binding but I am really happy with how it has turned out thus far. For the borders I am thinking a solid white to match the numbers fabric and then a solid blue to match the free floating sock monkeys.

I have really begun to fall in love with designing my own quilts. Not looking in books or on the web for ideas has really freed up my creativity and I think it is really beginning to show. How are you freeing up your creativity this week?

Keep working it!

Work It Wednesday

2 Comments / work it wednesday / By Melissa Dunworth

This week is a get it done week for me. I am finishing up the handwork on Anne’s Butterfly Quilt. I want to have it done by the end of this week so I can show it to my mom who is visiting next week. I am so excited about her visit because it means that I am going to my first military ball AND I get to spend my second mother’s day with my mom. I got to spend the first one with her too. This will only make the day that much more special since my hubby, daughter, mom and dad will all be together to celebrate.

In anticipation of our move next month I have started a deep cleaning of our house. Due the the fact that we live on post and are “renters” there are very strict guidelines on the condition the house must be in when you turn your keys in. I do not want to get charged any cleaning fees so I am getting a jump start on the project. Yesterday I attacked all the mold on my windows and today I am going to work on my baseboards.

Image courtesy of: http://www.jan-leasure.com/spring-cleaning-tips/

What are you working on? Hopefully something more fun than cleaning the baseboards in your house!

Work It Wednesday

2 Comments / free motion quilting, machine applique, work in progress, work it wednesday / By Melissa Dunworth

Is it hump day already?!? Woohoo! That means the week is almost over and Easter is just a few days away. Now that I have finished with all my Easter presents and mailed off the ones for my nieces and nephews, I am back to finishing up the Butterfly Quilt.

For those who are new to the blog, the Butterfly Quilt is the first quilt I have ever designed and it is for my daughter Anne.

Last night I worked on the free-motion quilting aspect of the quilt. It took me about 3 hours but I was able to get it done and it turned out GREAT!
I practiced a lot before I actually had the nerve to try on the quilt. Here are some pictures of my practice piece.

For some reason Blogger and Picasa are not playing nice and will not let me properly rotate my pictures 🙁

I practiced a lot before breaking out the quilt itself. I tried stencils and free motion and decided that as a novice at free-motion quilting, for this special quilt I would stick with free motion curly-cues.

Here are some pictures of finished butterflies:

I machine quilted only the butterfly outlines, not the squares that were machine appliqued and I really do love the overall effect. Next step taking off the extra backing and batting, then binding and handwork. Wish me luck!

What are you working on today?