Grateful

We've caught the grateful bug over here. It's contagious so we thought we would spread it today! We are thankful for quilting and quilting and more quilting. And family and pie and stuffing and snow and Thanksgiving and all the little things. (We'll spare you the rest of the list.)

All the little things EXCEPT the little triangles up there ^^ See that "59" up there? Times that by 10000000000000 and that's how many baby triangle friends we have.

Anyone ready for another slice of pie? Adios. That's where we're headed :)

hola

Hola. Just wanted to give two thumbs up to this cute tutorial. D.I.Y. projects are the best...and even better when they aren't Pinterest fails or aren't too difficult---yeah, that too :) Anyone else think it's weird that "Pinterest" must be spell-checked every time you type it? Maybe it's just us.

Wait for it...a wrinkly picture of the whole (over-sized) sweatshirt! 

Red Sweatshirt: $2 thrift store find

Fabric Paint: Michael's

 

 Looks like Black Friday came early this year. 

And we couldn't resist tying a bow around our fabric store goodies...it makes us feel as if we have made our own fabric line (Just go with it.)

Imagination is a good thing...and we are pretty darn good at matching prints, don'tcha think? ;) :)

Show and Tell

We'd like to take you on a trip back to first grade: show and tell! Nothing says "Show and Tell" like a quilt.

This fall we have had quilt projects growing out of our ears and now, out of the blue, all of our projects are getting wrapped up. That's what happens when you use a sewing machine :)

If you have a sweet little one and would like to purchase this quilt, you can head on over to our Etsy shop and add it to your cart. We dare you. No. We triple dirty dog dare you. (That's another reference to first grade)

Since we're on the subject, DIRTY is the word to describe the woods that yours truly ventured into to get the "SHOW" part of this post. Now for the "TELLING" part:

Binding: Striped vintage thrift find
Dimensions: 41" x 51"
Pattern: Swell by Camille Roskellley in her book Simply Retro
Machine Quilting: Loopdy loop...p-r-e-d-i-c-t-a-b-l-e
Number of people it took to finish it: 2
Number of different fabric prints in the quilt: 56?ish
On a scale of one to ten how much we love it: 11.86

Herringbone

 Two quilters-let's not mention any names- decided to conquer another custom order quilt.  Eeek.

We had so much fun making this quilt all come together! Forget quilting...wanna know what new skill we are trying to master? Color naming. That's right. Can anyone differentiate between aqua and mint and teal and baby blue and turquoise and emerald and jade and seafoam green and...yeah. The trickiest part of this quilt was getting the solids just right.  

Let's not even try to name the backing fabric color :) It is Kona Ice Frappe and adds a soft tone to the quilt.

We made a full size quilt for a cute little girl's bed. It's so much fun to make quilts for someone all the way across the nation!

And it's so much fun to be back at the whole blogging thing.

In Lieu of Waiting

So the original plan was to make this post about our latest quilt (can't wait!) but instead we reverted to Plan B...a post about some doings in lieu of waiting for the camera to cooperate. The camera is getting the stink eye for this one: the battery is dead. Waiting for a battery to charge is too much to handle on a Monday afternoon :)

Old pic of Happy-Go-Lucky Hopscotch Quilt

And on a more important note: ordering fabric online should be a big no-no. We were playing the matching game where you match solid color fabrics online with the solids in a quilt and we ended up with different shades than pictured online. That's never happened before. It's a fair guess that we will never learn :)

In this picture the solids match perfectly. But in real life, man, these solids are far from perfect. Bummer.

P.S. Does anyone else see paint chips when they see that picture?

This Corner of the World

It's been crazy busy in this corner of the world for the past months. Not complaining one bit. No siree. Also, we can't count on both hands the number of attempted blog posts: the kind you start to write and don't publish. Fun fact for the day: sometimes blog posts don't make the cut if the pictures and/or content aren't up to par.

We apologize for being gone so long...sometimes it is just nice to take a little-bitty break from blogging to catch up on some of our projects (and to catch our breathes for that matter!). We've been taking advantage and doing a little quilting. Our waning stack of UN-finished projects thanks us!

In an attempt to make this the longest blog post in the history of the world (Quackadoodle Quilt typed sarcastically), we will add a few pictures.

A sneak peak of a finished quilt and some fabric we have been playing with:

A look into our empty Etsy shop...gasp!...

Don't panic, we'll get right on that. Today, in fact!

What else is happening in this corner of the world? Hmm. A few million things. A few custom orders. A few quilts. A few trips to the fabric store. A few trips to the thrift store.

On second thought, change all those "A few"s to "A lot of"s. Thanks :)

We will keep you posted on all of our sewing adventures. So stay tuned!

Catch you later...there is a custom order quilt that we HAVE to finish within the week. This is a tough (more sarcasm) life we lead ;) ;) ;) Or simply a life involving a little procrastination. Look at it either way :)

#2

 

We made a #2 low-volume quilt once the first quilt was sold out in our Etsy shop. Most (when we say "most", we really mean just over 50%) of the fabrics in this quilt are the same fabrics as in the last quilt since it is a scrap quilt.

It's fun to see all of the variations in the two quilts:

Hint: #1 is on the left, and #2 is on the right.

If you wanna read more about #1, you can click here to where we blogged about it.

Have a fabulous weekend!

 

A Word About Walking Feet

Raise your hand if you want to know more about walking feet! You're at the right place then :) New quilters often have questions such as "What is a Walking Foot and What is it Used for?" and "Which Walking Foot Should I Buy?" So to answer a few of those questions:

WHAT IS A WALKING FOOT

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A walking foot is a sewing machine part used to help feed thick fabric through a machine. It has an extra set of feed-dogs on the bottom of the foot to help guide layers of fabric through evenly.

WHAT IS A WALKING FOOT USED FOR?

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A walking foot is a quilter's best friend. It is used for 2 steps in the quilting process:

1. Straight line machine quilting.

The walking foot is a cousin to the darning foot (the darning foot is used for free motion quilting that is not for straight lines) The walking foot makes the thick *quilt-sandwich feed through the machine more smoothly. 

2. Binding.

A walking foot is used when machine attaching a quilt binding. The walking foot helps the *quilt-sandwich run through the machine in an efficient manner when sewing on the pesky binding. Kidding about that pesky part but not about the efficiency ;)

*A quilt sandwich consists of three basted (aka safety-pinned) layers: the pieced quilt top, batting, and backing fabric.

WHICH WALKING FOOT SHOULD I BUY?
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The real question here is what walking foot should you NOT buy. The number one rule is DO NOT buy a walking foot with a plastic hook that attaches to your screw, buy a metal one. (Does anyone have a name for that thingamajig?!) Both of our plastic walking feet jammed on the first day of use. The metal foot has been our best friend through it all!

Another suggestion is to buy a walking foot with a guide. This helps to keep your lines straight. It's kinda important...just sayin'

Note: Please ignore the plastic hooky-thing we know we just discussed (Rule number one is still in force). This is the only picture we had of the guide...so just go with it :)

Rule number three is pretty easy. Make sure to buy a foot that works for your brand of sewing machine. Most walking feet are universal so don't sweat it too much. And have fun with your new gizmo!

An August Finish

For starters, we would like to apologize that this post didn't hit the blog sooner...apparently when we say we will show you a quilt "in a day or so" (to quote verbatim) we mean the "or so" part. That's how it is done in Quackadoodlequiltlandia. Yup, such a place exists. Honestly, we live there ;) Sorry if we lost ya for a minute; we will get back to our discussion of our August finish.

We are trying to pinch our pennies (it appears that we are fabric hoarders) and so we are getting reacquainted with the scrap basket. Trips to the fabric store? Outta the question (for at least a few weeks days). It's tough stuff. We are only partially kidding, but let's just say that you won't have to drag us kickin' and screamin' to the fabric store any time soon. :)

They do say that "desperation is the mother of invention":

Sometimes in scrappy quilts the creativity is what makes-or-brakes it. This quilt? We think we've got it made. But we aren't partial or anything :)

All of the prints in this quilt are our favorites. The pattern, Hopscotch by Thimble Blossoms, is perfect for using up scraps since it uses 2.5" strips. Hallelujah!

The backing fabric was a no-brainier since we had already used the gray in the diamonds on the front. Stippling a quilt is always a no-brainer too.

30" x 43". The perfect size for a baby boy. If you wanna have it for keeps, click here :) Yes, we were trying to send ya on a guilt trip.

Lovin' this shot of the quilt in a basket. It is such a precious little quilt.

If you need a little pick-me-up here ya go: Happy Monday! and Happy Quilting!

It's Time

It's about time to give you the run-down on some of our new projects.

And time to show you a cute picture of some polka-dotty balloons.

It's also time to start a new quilt. We need to put our thinking caps on for this one...What do you think we should make? Or, on second thought, we could just ask Pinterest ;) That works too.

You know what else it's time for? It is time to hit the sewing. HARD. Because the shop is in disarray. The kind of chaos where there is nothing---nada---to buy. Yeah, that is chaos.

We snuck in some quilting time this week (who could blame us?) and so it looks like we have a head-start on our quest to fill the Etsy Shop. Tell ya what, whoever ends up with this quilt is LUCKY with a capital "L" because it smells like fresh laundry. **JEALOUS**

We will show you pictures of this quilt in a day or so. The binding, the backing, the front...the whole works :) Oh, and we will do good on our promise to write you a tutorial in a few days. Or weeks.

Thanks for listening!

Blank

Here's a blank blog post on a blank blog with our blank minds. Or so it feels :)

And since we can't leave you with an invisible picture:

Here's our latest quilt. It's the triplet to these twinner quilts with a pink polka dottie backing. We can practically make this quilt in our sleep since we've made it 4 times already!

Five (somewhat random) Things

Just wanted to fill you in on some things that have been happening 'round here. 5 things to be exact. Okay, so maybe there are 6 things...BIG DEAL! We all knew the twins over at quackadoodlequilt were never good counters ;) But the sixth item is really just an afterthought, so we should be good.

#1: A baby boy quilt is in order, yes?? The fun part is trying to figure out what pattern to make. Or is that the hard part? :)

 
#2: All (four) of the quilts in our shop can be purchased for 20% off when you use the coupon code FUN2SEW upon purchase. Yippee! Sewing is always fun :)

#3:  We've discovered that we have plenty of quilts. Crazy, right? So a trip to the hills for some stargazing and cookie-and-popcorn-eating was planned on the fly.

#4:  We are putting these mason jar mugs to good use this summer. When it is hot outside, smoothies hit the spot every time.

#5:  We've been dying to show you a glimpse of the swirly machine quilting we are doing on our Swoon quilt.

Sidenote: Please excuse all of the strings in this picture.

#6: We have a quilt top tutorial to show you this next week. Thanks for listening to the update!