November OPAM Finishes

I have been super busy this month, which I guess is a good thing! haha  I feel like I've managed to accomplish a lot.  Maybe that's because I had firm deadlines that I had to hit with several quilts I had made tops for.  I managed to finish 6 quilts this month!  I know, totally crazy!!

The first quilt I finished was this one I made for Mother's Day for my grandma.  It had half the binding done, and was sitting on a box in my closet.  Yep, I was that close to finishing it.  I finally bit the bullet, took it downstairs, and didn't move my butt off the couch until that dang thing was finished!!  I'm going to give it to her for Christmas, even though the label says Mother's Day 2011 on it, because Christmas is also her birthday (and I already bought her a Christmas present).

Surprisingly Super Simple quilt

Close up of Strip quilt

The second quilt I finished was a little strip quilt I made for the Breaking Dawn: Part 1 charity showing of the movie I helped with. Colton's Angels did an awesome job, as usual, making it fun and enjoyable.  The door prizes were great, thanks to tons of donors.  You can see a full list of the door prizes here.

I also finished this Surprisingly Super Simple quilt for the movie.  I thought I was so ahead of the game when I purchased my fabric back in October and pieced the quilt tops.  But then they sat at work waiting to be quilted for weeks and weeks.  Before I knew it, it was November 14th and the movie was on November 18th, and neither of the quilts were quilted!  Yikes!  Luckily I was able to pull it out and get them done just in time.

close up of the SSS quilt

I also finished this mail center I designed a few months ago.  I had the binding all attached, but just needed to stitch it down on back.  It seriously probably only took 10 minutes to finish, but it's been sitting in my drawer for weeks waiting to be finished!

Mail Center

I also finished a darling pirate quilt for my son for Christmas.  I was a little stressed that I wouldn't ever get it finished in time.  Usually when I have quilts for Christmas I put off the quilting until Christmas Eve, and then I'm up until 5 or 6 Christmas morning working on the binding.  I was determined not to do that this year, so I quilted the pirate quilt Thanksgiving weekend and attached the binding to the front.  Then it sat in a bag at home on my sewing table.  Last night I was so stressed that Munchkin would see it and ruin the surprise that I pulled it out and got it finished (plus Mike and Marshy cleaned the house and I wanted to put it away in the closet).  It took half of Iron Man 2 and about 45 minutes of Star Trek to get it bound, which isn't bad considering I was also working on laundry at the same time!

Pirate Quilt

In addition to the 2 quilts I made for the Twilight movie, I was also in charge of making the quilt and the tree skirt for the donated tree for Colton's Angels.  Every year we donate a tree and display to Festival of Trees.  Proceeds from the sales of the tree displays go straight to Primary Children's Medical Center.  Our theme this year was "L'il Boys Are Made Of".  We used this darling fabric from Sarah Jane.  It was so perfect for our theme!  I made this quick and easy strip quilt.

Festival of Trees Quilt

 I also made the tree skirt....or in this case, tree pants!  I saw a great tutorial/sew along on Sew-Mama-Sew, hosted by Monica Solario-Snow (of Happy Zombie fame).  The pattern is for tree pants, because not every tree wants to wear a skirt.  I just love that!  And it's true!  I'm kind of sick of round tree skirts, and this pattern was PERFECT for our tree.  I finished it a few weeks ago, luckily, and we took all of our tree stuff up to the South Towne Expo Center in Salt Lake City yesterday and put up our tree.  If you get a chance to go to Festival of Trees, it's well worth the $5 entrance fee.  The Festival runs from Wednesday, November 30 thru Saturday December 3.  It's definitely a fun outing for families, groups, or just by yourself.

tree pants

So, if you've made it this far (haha! sorry it's so long!) you'll realize that I finished 7 things this month!  HOLY COW!!  SEVEN!!!  I don't think I've finished that many in one month for a long time!  Of course, December is going to be totally different.  I'll be lucky if I get 1 thing done.  But hey, 1 thing is better than nothing, right?  :)

OPAM Catch-Up

I've been slacking off on the reporting of my OPAM finishes.  It's not that I haven't done anything since May, just that I've mostly been on Twitter instead of blogging so I tweet my finishes and never get around to actually posting about them on here.  So today I'm going to make up for that and catch ya'all up on what I've done this summer!

Eeyore cross stitch, June

In June I finished this fun cross stitch.  It was more straight stitching that actual cross stitching, but it was still really fun.  Marshall was really excited when I told him I was making it for his room.  He has the "E is for Eeyore" one hanging on his wall currently.  He loves Winnie the Pooh, and I fell in love with this simple design when I saw it at the store.  Now all I need to do is find a frame that will fit it (it's kind of a weird size) and actually hang it on the wall.  But at least the hard part is done!

Birds Nest necklace, August

I kind of took July off.  I figured I could take 1 month off out of the year, since I know I'm going to be getting things done all the way up until December, what with Christmas and all.

Strawberry pin cushion, August

In August we hosted a day retreat for Salem Days and did all sorts of fun crafts, projects, and sewing things.  We learned how to do the hexi flowers for a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt, we made pincushions, pin holders, burned edge flower pins, birds nest necklaces, and even learned how to make awesome (and easy!) cinnamon rolls.  It was a lot of fun.  Lunch was included, too, and we had lots of trunk shows.  I promise some day I'll actually post about it.  I took a ton of pictures, just haven't gotten around to actually posting yet.

Magnetic Pin Ring, August

 In September, Mike said that I had too much fabric and couldn't buy any more until I depleted my stash a little.  I'm sure it has nothing to do with the 85+ yards of fabric I came home with one day after a $2/yd sale at our local quilt shop.  So, I reorganized my fabric, crafts, WISPs, patterns, and sewing area into something cleaner and more manageable (I now have 24 plastic Sterilite drawers full of fabric, WISPs, and notions).

Bambi soft book, September

I decided that since I had purchased fabric to do a whole bunch of different projects, I'd better finish those up first.  I made 6 quilt tops (but since they aren't quilted and bound they don't count yet) for Marshall and baby.  I finished a quilt top that I thought I had thrown away years ago!  I finished the quilt top I had made for a Mother's Day present (now to get it quilted for Christmas).  I had a random Honey Bun of fabric and sewed it into a quilt top for baby.  I also finished the quilt top and the bag for the Above All Fabric quilt along this past spring.  I found a panel of fabric I had bought to make one of those softy books and whipped it up in about 30 minutes (Bambie, see photo below).  I actually felt pretty productive in September, even though I didn't get a ton finished completely.

Above All Fabric bag, September

I also whipped up a table cloth for our kitchen table, with matching napkins, from a random layer cake that I had lying around.  It's super cute, and I love the bright colors.  I happened to even have some yardage from the fabric line, so it worked out perfectly for me!  I designed and made a mail holder to hang on the wall, too, but it's not quite done yet, so I can't count it.  Maybe next month!

Napkins, September

This month, I've felt added pressure to get things done.  With the holiday season quickly approaching, I know that my personal schedule isn't going to be as open as I'd like.  I'm also worried that when the baby comes I won't have anything ready for her.  What if she comes early?  That's my big concern.  If she comes early, she won't have any quilts, my glider won't be finished, I won't have curtains hanging in the room.

Table Cloth, September

So, as a result, I finished recovering the cushions for the glider we bought back in June at a yard sale.  I bought it from my sister-in-law, Jana.  We had big plans for it.  We were going to totally redo it, but time management got the better of us and all we really accomplished was repainting it black.

finished glider & cushions, October

The cushions have been sitting in the middle of my living room floor for several months.  This week I finally decided to tackle the dang things!  I ripped them apart, made a paper pattern, and quickly pieced together new cushions.  I used Joel Dewberry fabric (that I've had since June!!), reinforced with medium weight interfacing.  On the back cushion I just re-inserted the original cushion with several layers of batting for added padding.  On the bottom cushion I bought a piece of 2 inch foam and squished it in there.  The bottom cushion didn't turn out perfect, but it sure is comfortable!

Floor Pillow, October

I put the whole glider back together last night and it didn't fall apart when I sat in it, so that is definitely a good thing!!  While I was testing it out, I decided that I needed an ottoman or something to put my feet on.  Glider ottomans are Ex-Pen-Sive!  So, what I decided to do was to make a floor pillow instead!  I used this awesome tutorial from Living with Punks (eliminating the handle, since I won't be needing to move it around much).

Yoshi Slug, giving up his guts

When it came time to stuff the thing, I realized that rather than rip into my new bag of stuffing, I could just rip apart Yoshi Slug and use all the stuffing that was in him.  It worked out perfectly!  I even had a little left over, which I shoved into my newer stuffing bag.  Now Yoshi Slug is tucked away neatly in a drawer, not taking up very much space, and the floor pillow is finished.

Marshall was pretty excited when he woke up this morning.  He came running into our room shouting "What's this round thing that matches my chair?  Is it for me to sit on?!"  He then spent the next ten minutes bouncing around his room on the floor pillow.  Glad it's getting some use already!

I have big plans for November, as it quickly approaches.  I'm hoping to actually get several quilts for baby, and other family members, finished, quilted, and bound well before Christmas.  I know, it probably won't get done, but at least it's in my plans!

OPAM finish for May

OMG this month has been AWFUL! My camera isn't working, so of course I can't get any of my pictures off of it.  And to top it all off, my Gammill broke! It's been in the shop for a week, and I just BARELY got it back!  Needless to say, I didn't get a lot accomplished this month :(

But, I did finish one project.  I made a quilt for one of my grandmother's for Mother's Day, and even though I got it finished a little late, I did manage to finish it.  Sadly, the photos are on the broken camera so I can't actually post them!  But trust me when I say that it is super cute!!

OPAM finishes for April

So, I would have sworn I had taken some pictures of the quilt that I finished at the start of this month, but I have NO idea where I stuck them on my harddrive! :(

Anyway, I made this really beautiful quilt out of batiks for my cousin's wedding reception.  I took this pattern and made it bigger (I ended up doubling the fabric requirements, and did a 5 x 7 block layout....even had enough to piece the back from my leftovers!)

It was so beautiful, I really hope I can find those pictures!!  This is really going to bother me that I can't find them....will update this post when/if I do, for sure!

More OPAM finishes for March

Our group, Colton's Angels, made these sweet blankets last year, and we've never gotten the labels sewn on them.  I've had them sitting at my house for weeks, and made a deadline of the end of this month to finish them.  I didn't realize how quickly the month flew by!  So, I quickly stitched the labels on.  Now they are all ready for delivery: all 19 of them!

Here is a close-up shot of our labels.  Aren't they so sweet??  I just love the little angel.

I also managed to finish this Christmas candle needlepoint. Woohoo! I am starting to make quite a dent in my bag of to-be-made-Christmas-decorations.  Although, Mike keeps asking whose home they will be decorating, because there's no way they're going up in our house! haha He thinks they are kind of old-fashioned, and wants a more modern look for Christmas.  Oh well, too bad for him! *evil laugh*

I feel like I have gotten so much accomplished this month, but I still have so much left that I want to do!  It's crazy!!

OPAM Finish - Cherry House Quilt Along

Cherry House did this awesome quilt-along quilt using SOLIDS.  I've never done a quilt in just solids before, so I was really excited to do this quilt along.  I chose not to pick one of the color ways she did hers in.  I chose a purple-ish grey for my background, and different shades of purple for my pops of color.

I had a lot of fun quilting it.  I LOVE quilting feathers, so I quilted feathers going in alternating directions in the long grey columns.  In the pieced color columns, I quilted circles.  I'm really happy how it turned out.  Oh!  And I used a purple thread called Thistle to quilt it with!  I'm really, REALLY happy with it.  It's hanging on the back wall of my corner of the shop, above my bookshelf, out where everyone can see it! :)

Chalk up another finish for March OPAM :)

OPAM finishes for March (so far!)

I am totally loving OPAM this year.  Not that I haven't loved it the previous 2 years.  It seriously has been awesome.  But I feel like I am getting a lot accomplished this year, so far.

Here's my list for March, as of the 20th:

In our Colton's Angels group, we appliqued some fun designs onto onesies.  They will be kitted up and sent to the local hospitals for indigent mothers with newborns.  Some of the kits will also be going to Baby Your Baby.  I have had this stack of onesies sitting on my cutting table for weeks.  There were 18 of them that needed to be stitched down, so I used my zig-zag (I don't have a blanket stitch on my machine), and finished them up in time to be put into the kits.

This quilt was donated, but it wasn't finished.  I put the 3 of the 4 border pieces on, quilted, and bound it.  If you enlarge the picture, you can see our cute little labels that we had made.  They say "A Gift from Colton's Angels."  So cute.  I sewed it onto the quilt while I was quilting it.


Any of you who read my blog last year during OPAM (or who will just scroll down the page and look at my finishes from last year) will notice/remember that I did a lot of Christmas cross stitch and needlepoint.  Well, I did it again.  I bought a whole bunch of cute little Christmas-y projects this year from Joann's.  Actually, I cleaned them out, and only spent about $50.  I have a TON of projects.  Last December, I opened several of them, thinking I'd finish them in time for the holidays.  Not so.  So, my goal this year is to finish the ones I've opened, and then maybe do a few more here and there.  I don't want to get burned out.

The first one I finished was this cute snowglobe.  It just needed the backstitching and the snowflakes attached.  Originally it was going to say 2010, but I figured it could say 2011 since I finished it this year.

Then I finished this fun, and tiny, pair of cross stitch ornaments.  They will look great on my tree, since it is barely 40 inches tall, if that.

And lastly, I finished 12 more of these fleece blankets for Colton's Angels.  These are the blankets we paired the onesies up with.  Pink onesies got white blankets, and brown or blue onesies got blue blankets.  The kits look so cute (pictures to come soon, promise!).  Anyway, the appliques all needed to be stitched down, so I did that on all 12 blankets.

So far, this brings my March total to 34 items. WOOHOO!  I am on a roll!  I hope to have a few more things finished by the end of the month, but we'll see.

22 More February OPAM finishes!

I am totally on a roll!  I have gotten so much done this weekend.  Of course, most of it doesn't count as a finish, yet, but it will soon!  I quilted the Cherry House Quilt Along quilt I made (pics to come soon).

There was a quilt top that was abandoned at the shop over 6 years ago.  I've tried to contact the piecer, but she hasn't come to get it in 6 years, so  took it home yesterday to finish.  It just needed to be squared up and have the 3 remaining borders attached, so I did so.  I also seamed the back.  I need a little bit more of the binding fabric, and then it will be ready to be quilted.  We are going to donate it to Colton's Angels for the hospital.

I also pieced a quilt top together for the local high school.  They commissioned me to make a t-shirt quilt for their principal, who left the school for a district job.  It turned out really great, and I can't wait to share pictures with you all when it's finished!

I've also been working on some blocks for Blockapalooza.  I have 3 of the 10 blocks finished, so far.

So, like I said, none of them really count as finishes....yet.

BUT THEN!  I have had a giant IKEA blue bag full of fleece blankets sitting on my living room floor for the past 3 weeks.  At Colton's Angels we cut out and fused little heart appliques onto the blankets.  All they needed before they were finished was to be zig-zagged around.  I volunteered, and took the bag home.  Today, I finished zig-zagging around 22 of the blankets!  It's only about half the bag, but at least they're ready to go back to the shop!

Aren't they cute?  We did blue for boys and white for the girls.  They are going to go in newborn kits with a onesie and pair of socks that the hospital can give to indigent mothers of newborns.

I'm hoping to get the rest of the blankets (12 more, I just counted) done sometime this week.

More OPAM finishes for February

Here are a couple more finishes.  YAY! I'm totally on a roll, yeah?

This is a cute little quilt I threw together for my cousin's new baby boy.  I love the Cat in the Hat fabrics.  I backed it using a yellow minkee, making it extra soft for baby, and quilted it with a large meander in yellow thread.  I used leftover pieces from the fat quarters to make the binding.  It turned out so super cute, and I'm glad I finally got it finished (it only took me a few months! haha)

This is the Fat Quarterly Quilt Along quilt from last fall.  Yeah, it's finally done.  I used Mary Englebreit's Christmas fabric from 2009, called The Caroler.  I was hoping to finish it in time for Christmas last year, but I guess we'll just have to use it this year instead.  I backed it with black minkee, making it extra soft and snugly for those cold winter nights on the couch watching TV/movies, and quilted it with a meander in black thread.  I bought some polka dot fabric that matched for the binding.  

And I'm not sure if this really counts or not, probably not, but I refreshed my wreath for my front door.  I made it about 2 years ago, when we first moved into our apartment.  After 2 years out in the sun, snow, rain, wind, etc, it was looking very faded and sad.  I went to Walmart, bought $9 worth of silk flowers, and stuffed the wreath full.  I really like how bright and colorful it is now.  Hopefully I'll be able to get at least another 2 years out of it before I have to start completely over.

February OPAM Finish

Isn't this so cute?!  I made it today.  We have a soft serve ice cream machine, and it doesn't fit in any of our cupboards, or on our counters, so it sits out in the corner of the dining room by my sewing table.  The top is open, and it's a dust magnet, so I figured to keep from having to dust it daily, I'd make a slipcover for it.

Baby Steps

So, I've decided on some goals for this year....finally!

1) I'm going to diet and work out.  Tried HCG for about 20 days, and it didn't really work.  Sure, I lost 10 lbs, but I plateaued and caved in to some cravings, and cheated a little....okay, a lot.

2)  I've decided that little by little I will declutter and organize and deep-clean our tiny little apartment.  I've already decluttered surfaces (and the inside of the desk) in the kitchen/dining/living room areas, put away all the clean laundry, reorganized the kitchen cabintes (the ones that hold food, at least), and cleared off the top of the wash stand at the end of our bed upstairs.  My goals for the coming week?  The upstairs hall closet, Marshy's room/closet, the rest of the kitchen cupboards, and our bedroom closet.

3)  I want to read 75 books this year.  Last year I read around 50, starting in July, so.....yeah. 75 isn't too bad, is it?

4)  I'm participating in OPAM 2011 again.  What does this mean?  I plan on finishing at least 1 crafty-related item a month....at least 11 this year (OPAM didn't start until the end of January).

5)  I plan on finishing the first 2 parts of my 3 part series.  I started writing it for NaNoWriMo last November, and got 3/4 of the way through the first part, and 1/8 of the way through part 2.

I've decided to stay small with my list of goals.  The more goals you make, the harder it is too keep them.  And right now, I'm planning on keeping these 5.     :-D

December OPAM - Christmas decoartions

I know it's not the best picture, but I've finally finished it!  And, he's hanging on my wall with the few I finished earlier this year.  I've also decorated our tiny 3 ft Christmas tree with the cross stitcheries I've done this year.  I bought about 25 more, bu haven't had time to make them up, so that will be my goal for next year. :)

I kind of slacked off a little in November.  Well, that's not exactly right.  I did do projects, I just didn't get them finished!  Hoping to finish a few more things this year.  I did an entire quilt, but do you think I remembered to take pictures of it before I gave it away?  Yeah, no, that would be a negative :(  Kind of bummed.  It was really cute.  It was a Turning Twenty using Pure by Sweetwater for moda.  I quilted little hearts all over it.  Yeah, it was pretty awesome.  Sure do wish I had a picture of it to show you all..... oh well, such is life.

I will see if I can get some more things made up this month.  I've been pretty sick (still am, actually), so who knows how well I'll be feeling?  Hoping to feel well enough to at least make the Christmas present for my mom (who reads this blog sometimes, so I can't say what it is......)  Wish me luck!!

More October Finishes for OPAM 2010

*The following is the story of a quilt that has taken me FOREVER to complete.  Sorry it's a little long, but the quilt took me a lot of time to make, and I wanted to document it for posterity's sake :)  *


I am happy to finally report that this MASSIVE quilt project is finally completed.  Yes, it took me over a year (just barely) to finish it, but it was a lot of work and I am really, really pleased with the end result.

No, you don't get to see the full thing laid out because I don't have a clean floor space large enough to do that!  It ended up about 101 x 121.  Yeah, it was HUGE.

I can't even believe how overwhelming the project had seemed at first.  When she had brought it to me, with all of the plastic storage boxes filled with ziploc baggies containing the triangles of fabric and their coordinating ties, I was very overwhelmed.  It took me about 27 hrs just to unpick the ties. (There were a lot of ties!)

Piecing it was a challenge, as I had never worked with ties before (most of them silks) and I didn't want to interface the backs because I wasn't sure how the fabrics would work together, if at all.  I did end up interfacing most of the fabrics used in the Sisters' blocks, pieces from shirts and skirts and dresses, and they turned out nicely, I thought.

My biggest mistake was picking such a weird size for the blocks:  9.75 inches square.  What was I thinking??  Apparently I was not.  I had to square up each block, then add pieces to the edge to both stabilize and enlarge them to the proper size.  Yeah, like I said: I was a little stupid.

But, the end look is really nice, and I can't imagine trying to sash all of those blocks without having the cotton quilting fabric as a small border around them.  It definitely would have been much harder to keep everything square.

I was really pleased that I had purchased enough fabric, too, as the project took me so long to complete.  I was worried, toward the end, that I didn't have enough of the sashing of sashing post fabric to finish, but I had just enough.

As far as fabric selection went, my client left it all up to me.  I wanted to keep the fabrics I used for the sashing, posts, and border very neutral and not too distracting from the blocks.  Since the quilt itself was so colorful, I opted to use neutral creams/tans/beiges for the sashing/posts.  The border I knew needed to be darker, because she wanted words quilted in it, and darker fabric with a light thread would work so well, I thought. 

Now, I have to add that I am old-school when it comes to mixing brown and black.  I abhor it.  Seriously.  I do.  My husband is not allowed to wear a black belt and brown shoes.  I even have a hard time liking couches that are black leather with brown upholstered cushions (even though, I admit, they do look nice).  I just have a hard time with it.  It makes me cringe a little inside.  But, I am getting better, obviously, because the border fabric is black and brown!  I know, so bold of me, huh? haha

For the backing fabric I wanted something close to the sashing fabric I had used on the front.  I had also hoped to purchase some 108" wide fabric to use.  Unfortunately, that was not to be.  Instead, though, I found this really great 58" wide fabric in a soft, crinkly neutral color.  I think it is in the Kona Crush line (is that even a line?  I don't remember the name of the fabric, sorry!) 

As I got everything onto the machine and ready to quilt, I had an epiphany of sorts.  I had recently quilted a quilt of my own, and had done words on all 4 borders, turning the quilt 2 times to get the text the direction I had wanted it.  To avoid having to unpick basting stitches, I quilted the border area with monofilament thread.  It worked like a charm.

So, why not use that technique here?  After all, I was going to quilt the center of the quilt in an all-over meander in monofilament thread anyway.   Why not just quilt the entire quilt that way?  So I did.  :)

The meander is fairly tight, and it was amazing how nicely all the extra fullness from some of the tie blocks (I had been seriously stressing about it for days, to be honest) worked its way out.  There weren't any puckers or tucks.  Everything was fabulous.  I was very pleased with it.

I added the binding using my longarm.  I knew that there was NO WAY I was going to be able to feed all 442 inches of binding through my tiny little domestic machine.  There was NO WAY.  It went on really nicely, and then my client took it for their mission reunion.

I've had it back in my possession for a few weeks.  I finally finished binding it.  It took forever.  My poor living room was dwarfed by the sheer size of the project as I sat on the couch and watched Amazing Race while I bound it.

But now, it is FINISHED.  And I am so proud of it.  It looks so great, and my client was really happy with it when she took it to the reunion.  It's the best possible outcome I never would have imagined when I first saw how much time and effort would be needed.  (Seriously, you don't know how daunting it is be staring at 2 rubbermaid tupperware storage boxes, 2 large bags, and a couple of grocery sacks full of ziploc bags with ties in them.  Ties that all needed to be unpicked and kept with their coordinating triangles.)  But now it is done, and I am happy, and a little bit relieved, to not have to worry about it anymore :)

October OPAM finishes - 2 quilts

This weekend I finally finished 2 projects I've been meaning to work on for a while.  The first is this baby quilt for my cousin's new baby girl.  I've had the fabric for forever.  A few weeks ago I finally sewed it into the cute little quilt top, quilted it, and folded it up on my cutting table to be bound.  It's been sitting there for at least a week, waiting. 

Fortunately, this weekend has been General Conference (2 weekends a year, members of our church gather together and listen to our prophet and other church leaders speak to us, either on TV, satellite broadcast, internet, or attend in person in Salt Lake City).  This gave me an excuse to stay home, sit in front of the TV, listen to my church leaders and work on binding quilts.

Isn't it precious?  The fabric is Sweet by Urban Chiks for Moda.  I used a pantograph, Clematis by Jodi Beamish, and antique rose colored thread by So Fine!

The second quilt I worked on was this fun Monster Truck playmat.  I bought this last year, after quilting the shop sample for Gracie Lou's.  Marshy loved it, and thought it was for him, so I bought him the panel and matching backing fabric.  It's been sitting on my "to be quilted" rack at the shop ever since.  Well, Thursday was Marshy's 4th birthday, and that gave me the perfect excuse to get it finished!  My parents are giving him some monster trucks at his birthday party today.  So, last night, I sat down and bound it while watching Prince of Persia (and I even liked it! shh! don't tell!)

I'm pretty happy with my two finishes this month - so far!  I'm hoping to finish 2 more quilt tops this weekend, and then get them quilted and bound by the end of the month.  One of the tops is for my cousin who just had a baby boy last night.  The other is my Fat Quarterly Quilt Along quilt.  I'm halfway done with the blocks for this top (it uses a jelly roll cut into pieces that go together to make 80 blocks!) and hope to finish the quilt top today during Conference.

OPAM Finishes - September

I finished my Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt tonight!  I seamed the backing and quilted it this afternoon (I ended up using a pantograph by Deb Geissler called Flora.  It has butterflies and leaves and flowers and dragonflies.  It's really pretty.  I quilted it in a hot pink colored thread).  The back is a hot pink fabric.  I decided to bind it in my background fabric, since I had OODLES of it left over.  I'm so glad it's finally done!  I love it.  It's so fun and girly!

Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt, an OPAM finish, and a surprise

Block 11 of my Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt.

Block 12 of the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt.

I've already sewn my blocks together with my white-on-white sashing. Now I'm using the leftover fat quarters to make a pieced outer border.  It's gonna be really cute, once it's done.

And now to another OPAM finish for August!  I've been working on this quilt for over 2 years, and it's finally finished!  I even showed it in the Salem Days Quilt Show.

This is my favorite of the 9 blocks.  It's our family.

And now for the surprise! Today when I got my mail this fabulous package was waiting for me.  It's from Peg and Kris, the ladies hosting OPAM this year.  See, I was a winner last month.  I can't wait to stitch up something cute with these 3 stitchery/applique patterns.  SO CUTE!  And I love the fabric fat quarters.  I have a couple ideas already of what to do with them!

August OPAM Finishes

Just finished zig-zagging the edges on the heart appliques on these 13 blankets for Colton's Angels.  They've been sitting on my sewing table for 2 months, waiting to be finished, and I finally finished them!  YAY!

Another OPAM finish - in the nick of time!

Just in the nick of time!  I finished my LAST Christmas ornament cross stitch kit!  It's 11:30 PM on July 31st, so cutting it close is an understatement! haha

I'm hoping to get the rest of my Christmas crafts done soon.  They're all felt, like a felt wreath, felt Santa, etc.  We'll see what happens.  I have a couple of quilts that need binding, too, so maybe I'll get those done first. Who knows, huh? hehe