Gnomes and Mushrooms

This morning I came into work to find this delicious surprise:

Monday is my birthday, but I took tomorrow and Monday off from work (YAY long weekend!). So, today, my boss brought in an early birthday cake: bumpy cake with carmel frosting. Best breakfast ever.

You’re probably wondering about the title of this post. March is Jen’s month for the Bee in My Bonnet VQB. She sent us the cutest gnome and mushroom fabric, along with an assortment of ridiculously cute green and pink fabrics (and white for the background). Her only instructions were to feature the gnome fabric in one block and the mushroom fabric in another.

It was almost a case of too much freedom. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for the blocks, so I did what any reasonable person would do.. spent valuable work time researching gnomes online and bugged my coworkers with questions about gnomes (“What do they live in? What do they eat?” etc).

Thankfully, in times like these, there is always the internet with all of its useless, ridiculous information. I had nearly forgotten about that cartoon from the late ’80s called David the Gnome, but thank you, Wikipedia, for reminding me about him and his trusty fox, Swift. Speaking of which, I would just like to point out a few interesting facts (because let’s face it, everything on Wikipedia is presented as fact) I’ve learned about gnomes (quoted directly from the Wikipedia David the Gnome page):

1. “A gnome’s lifespan is exactly 400 years. However, there are a few cases of gnomes living past 400 years. One example is a couple in the Balkans living 550 years.”

2. “Gnomes work in various ways to repair the damage inevitably caused by humans. They also have the power of telepathy and mind control.”

3. (my personal favorite) “The series presents the gnomes as a kind species, of 15 centimeters (6 inches) of height, and between 250 and 300 grams (8 and 10 ounces) of weight depending on gnome body mass.” I think I love the phrase “gnome body mass.” Too bad it will never come in normal conversation.

Who knew that there was so much knowledge out there on gnomes? In fact, I bet when you started reading this you didn’t expect to become an expert on gnomes, too. You’re welcome.

Last night I made the two blocks:

Block 1:

Block 2:

Close up of the raw edge applique for Block 2:

I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. I’m thinking I might need to make a whole quilt out of raw edge applique blocks because they are so much fun to make.

Don’t forget to check back! I’m going to have a super fun giveaway on March 15th for my one year blogiversary! You’ll like it! I promise!

November Blocks

Finished my November blocks for Cindy of the Bee in My Bonnet VQB.

They were super easy to make and I LOVE the fabric she chose:

The blocks were made with this tutorial: modifytradition.blogspot.com/2010/02/broken-dishes.html

Dave and Nat’s wedding was really beautiful – pictures to follow soon 🙂

The end for now.

Quilt Blocks and Joie

Over the weekend, Dave and I went up to Traverse City for Beth and Patrick’s wedding and it was SO beautiful! They got married on this cliff overlooking a sea of fall colors. The ceremony was so beautiful that I didn’t get any good pictures – I was too busy getting teary-eyed and eavesdropping on the guy behind me who was *very* impressed with the whole thing. Hehe.

Of course, though, we couldn’t just go to Traverse City for the weekend and have everything go smoothly. On Friday morning, we discovered that Joie had licked a huge patch of fur off her leg. So Dave left work early and took her in to the vet’s. They put a bandage on it, called it a generic infection, and gave her some antibiotics. When we got home on Sunday, we noticed that not only did the leg not look better, but she had been licking around the bandage. Unfortunately, the vet was closed by then, so we had to wait until yesterday to take her in… and of course, when we took her in.. the vet said it’s probably a fungus or infection.. but could be something as bad as feline leukemia (it probably isn’t because we’ve had her tested, but now that I know the worst case scenario, I’m going to worry!). We should know tonight…. hopefully.

To solve the licking problem.. they gave her a cone… and she spent the whole night walking backwards as if she knew her head were stuck and that if she just backed up, she could back out of the cone. There is something hilarious and somewhat unsettling to be watching tv and out of the corner of your eye see your cat walk backwards through the room.

This is what she looks like as a conie:

On a completely unrelated note, I did get some quilt blocks done for the virtual quilt bee I’m in. This month was Meghan’s month and she gave us so much freedom. Basically our instructions were to do a Christmas theme in any technique we wanted with a white on white as the background.

For my first block, I did a little reindeer. I used raw-edged applique and then “doodled” around it in brown thread. I’m really happy with how the antlers turned out because they were really scary to just “doodle” to me.

For the second block, I did a Christmas landscape using raw-edged applique again. I had a lot of fun making this one and I really like how it turned out:

I have a bunch of other projects to finish up, so here’s to hoping that I can get them posted soon!

Wedding Dresses, Quilts, and Postcards

Last weekend was awesome.. flat out one of the best weekends… maybe ever?

First, I found a wedding dress! I had sort of been dreading wedding dress shopping. I didn’t know what I wanted and I’m not a great shopper anyway, so the whole thing just seemed a little overwhelming. My mom went with me and we went to a place in Rochester, only to find out that it had closed last month. Awesome!

We didn’t have plans to do anything else, so we decided to try Somerset Mall. The Nordstrom there only had two dresses (both of which involved large, feathery skirts that were not my thing)… and we didn’t have high hopes for the Macys because we didn’t have an appointment. Amazingly enough, the bridal salon at Macys helped us right away and I completely fell in love with the fourth dress I tried on. I tried on a few more afterward, but only to validate my choice a little more.

I have a picture on my phone, but the lighting isn’t great, so I’ll describe it and maybe you can visualize it? It’s very much like the white dress that Marilyn Monroe is so famous for, except it isn’t a halter top, it has two medium-wide straps. The skirt has a little bounce to it and falls just below my knees. And I love it 🙂

It’s going to take 4-6 months to be made though, which means in order to get alterations done after I get it.. I sort of timed it perfectly. It definitely wasn’t on purpose.

Second, we went to see my quilt in the Flint Festival of Quilts. I had submitted my Starry Night Quilt:

And it was accepted and hung up in the Lunch Studio in Flint. It was awesome to see it hanging up and there were a lot of great quilts in the show.

Third, there were a lot of other highlights – going to Benihana with Dave, Nat, and Dave F to celebrate Dave’s bithday early (his actual birthday is this coming Friday, but we have bachelor/bachelorette celebrations for Nat and Dave); going to see Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D (I do love my zombies!); and I recieved my first postcard from Postcrossing.com.

Postcrossing.com is a site where you can send and receive postcards from all over the world. I joined last week and sent out the newbie max of five postcards. So far my postcards have traveled a total of 7,276 miles. And so far, I’ve received one postcard all the way from Japan:

Anyway, I think that covers it for now. The end.

Finished Quilt

Finished! Finally!

This is the biggest quilt I’ve made yet – queen-size! It’s also the first quilt I’ve made with the intention of putting it on my bed and I’m super excited about how it’s turned out 🙂

It’s the 12+2 quilt from Oh, Fransson! It’s also made with the fat quarter pack from Fabricworm that was bundled for the 12+2 quilt.

Finally, here are the pictures:

Almost as soon as I had put it on the bed, Joie jumped up and started rolling over the whole thing. It’s definitely cat approved!

Tomorrow I have hand surgery to remove a cyst that may or may not (but probably was) caused by stitching through my finger earlier this year. Fffuuuunnnnn!

June VQB

Classes are done at the end of the month, so I’m hitting that end of the semester crunch time. It took me by surprise this time because the semester is only 8 weeks long.

There hasn’t been a lot of time for crafting, but I did manage to finish the June block for the VQB I’m in. This month was Kelly’s month and she chose wonky log cabins. I was really excited to make it and I like how it turned out. I didn’t have enough for a second block, so I started it and figured she could finish it when I sent it back.

Here’s what it looks like:

That’s all for now.

Swap-Bot Quilt Blocks

So, I finally finished working on my quilt blocks for the Swap-bot Mini Virtual Quilt Bee that I was participating in.

They are going in the mail today to June 🙂 She asked for wonky log cabins with lots of color.

I also made Alice’s blocks – they had a focus block with a 1930’s feel and string-pieced triangles around it. Unfortunately, I was excited about finishing them and sending them back to her, so there are no pictures.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now.

Blogger’s Quilt Festival

This is my entry for the

I have one quilt that is my absolute favorite of not only the quilts that I have made this year, but of all the quilts I have ever made…

It is my Starry Night Quilt:

It’s little – measuring at just 17 x 22 inches, but it was a huge first for me.. or rather several firsts:

My first art quilt. My first raw edged applique. My first time working completely without a pattern. My first time playing it by ear with free motion quilting. My first time that I liked the finished quilt enough to want to hang it on a wall.

And my first time sewing with LED lights:

The LEDs are sewn in with conductive thread and connected to a little round battery. I got the LED sewing kit from Maker Shed.

I had been wanting to make a Starry Night quilt because I think the painting is so haunting. When I saw the LED sewing kit, I knew that it was meant to be.

Anyway, thanks for checking it out, and don’t forget to click on the link at the top to check out everyone else’s quilts 🙂

Busy, per usual, I guess….

This morning I was trying to think of a time when I wasn’t super busy and really…. I couldn’t think of a time. This semester I’m taking two classes, I’m working, I’ve got a ton of half-finished projects that I would like complete… sometime.. and now I have a wedding to plan. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I figure, I probably do my best work under a bit of pressure and I’m learning to love checking things off the “To Do” List.

Here are a couple I checked off last night:

Deanna’s May String Quilt Block for the Bee in My Bonnet VQB?

Check!

Cuddle with Joie Cat?

Check!

Hoping to check more off the list this weekend… and maybe even find a venue for the reception? Fingers crossed.

Fat Quarterly

I just got my subscription to Fat Quarterly! Have you gotten yours?

This is probably going to be my excitement for the week. I have my managerial accounting final on Saturday and should spend every waking minute studying. Wish me luck (I would totally settle for not failing it!)!