Sweet deals!

Sometimes such awesomely sweet deals will cross your path!

Thrift store shopping does pay off.
Katie Jump Rope.
2 yards of each color!
3 bucks for the whole lot!
Priceless!

Back to school!

It was back to school day today. I've home schooled these 3 kids their whole lives and now they're in public school. I missed them terribly! The house was too quiet. I wondered and fretted about how they were getting along with the new environment. I worried that they wouldn't be happy and worried they'd be sad. I shouldn't have. They had a good day and can hardly wait to go back again tomorrow. The other 3 kids (who are teenagers) will continue their studies at home through an online academy - that's what they chose. They also missed their younger siblings and worried about the same things I did.

Almost done!

I'm done with the piecing of my string quilt. I thought I had enough Warm and Natural to get started with the quilting, but I don't and won't be able to shop for another week and a half. *darn* I really wanted to get started on it. I feel so accomplished when I can pull a quilt from the dryer and enjoy the crinkly soft finished product. You know what I mean?

Since I've gone as far as I can with it I'll share a picture of it. I started collecting Asian type prints about a year ago and was waiting until I thought I had enough and also waited until I found a pattern that would suit the fabric. I found the tutorial at Film in the Fridge. I loved the string quilt look immediately and knew that I was going to use my Asian collection for this project. The fabrics are mostly Kona Bay, Blank, Micheal Miller, Benartex, Free Spirit and Robert Kaufman.I think I'm going to name the quilt, Asian Beauty!
What do you think?

Sew Fantastic

Sew Fantastic is having an awesomely huge and generous giveaway! Rush on over and take a look. Sew Fantastic is a really fantastic place to visit, so if I don't win...I still win with having another great blog to visit that is chock full of great ideas and inspiration.

Amy Butler!

21 different Amy Butler prints!

Not quite finished with my string quilt, but I've been thinking about my next project. I think it's going to be a disappearing 9 patch with white. I think it's going to be pretty!

Look What I Found!

It's a shirt

I was in a thrift store the other day and I found this shirt, it's a seriously ugly shirt (at least I thought so and so did the kids), but I loved the fabric. As fabric it's cute, in a quilt it will be cute...just not as a shirt. For a whole .5o cents I got almost a yard of this lovely fabric. Cool beans....at least I think so!

Meanwhile, I stayed up much too late last night working on my string quilt. I have 7 more blocks to make. I'm so excited! It's been fun. At first I thought maybe I had too many strings and would have bunch left over. I didn't really want a bunch leftover and was a little bummed that I had miscalculated and cut too many, but nope, I'm now worried that I'm going to run out of a the 2 fabrics that I have consistently put in each block. This is it, 2 little strips left and seven blocks to go.

There isn't a whole lot left of any of the strips. I need 7 more blocks, does this look like 7 more blocks? It's going to be close!

A few blocks to be cut.

A sneak peek at what I have put together so far. I think it's beautiful!

Celebrate with p.s i quilt

p.s i quilt is hosting another awesome giveaway in honor of The Quilt Shoppe.
Rush over, take part and check out the great stuff they have at The Quilt Shoppe.

Teaching Moments

The past few days have been busy ones. I put my house up for sale and have been doing lots of cleaning and several of my children decided they wanted to make quilts and something. I've also been working on my string quilt. I don't often give myself praise, but I think it's turned out beautiful. I'm working on the borders right now, well not right now, since I'm sitting here blogging about it - but I will be working on the borders in a little while.


This little dolly quilt was created by my 12 year old daughter. She picked through the scrap bags and put this cute little quilt together and almost ran over finger while working on her first attempt at stippling. She did a great job!



My 7 year old son, wanted to make something (he was very vague) about what the something should be. The something turned into this little pillow that he sleeps with every night. Little guy did a great job with his stippling too, he steered the fabric while I ran the pedal.


My 13 year old daughter picked out her fabrics at the fabric store and is thrilled with the colors. She had never used a sewing machine before and had a lot trouble with her quarter inch seams, her blocks turned out a little wonky. She was unhappy about it until I told her that lots of people make wonky squares on purpose. I named her quilt Wonky Squares...totally original huh?

I have one more quilt to show, but I can't because I don't have pictures that I can get to. When I find the cable to the camera I'll post them. Fifteen year old dear daughter didn't have the memory card in the camera when she took pictures of her quilt and I can't get to them without the camera cable. And she already gave the quilt away so I can't get a picture of it unless I corner the lady at church next week - I may do that!

Strings!

I did it, I started a string quilt. I've been collecting asian type prints for almost a year now. Some are more asiany (i know - not a real word) than others, but I think it's working. The wonderful tutorial came from here http://www.filminthefridge.com/2009/04/27/a-string-quilt-block-tutorial-paper-pieced-method/


It's fast, it's easy and that is perfect for me. I generally have one or two of my kids helping to pick out which fabric strip should go next. I'm loving this!

I finished it!

Almost a year later I've finally finished my Flying Geese quilt. This quilt isn't made of really good material. I bought the material from Walmart long before I realized that not all fabric is made the same. I just thought I was getting a really good deal, it was 1$ a yard and I bought a lot of this stuff thinking I could use it in so many ways. After I realized that the fabric was seriously cheap I knew I would be using it for the back as well (an attempt at getting it used up). I still have about 1/2 yard of several of the colors. I figure I'll let my girls use it for their practice blocks that they are planning.


It's not quite long enough for a twin bed, it was supposed to have 18 geese in each row. I only ended up with 16, but didn't want to have more than one color in each row. I did manage to stick 2 purple colors together, but they aren't the exact same shade of purple. The picture makes the 2 colors look identical though. Since the quilt isn't big enough for a twin bed, it will be a quilt the kids can drag to the couch when it's cold and it's gets plenty cold here in Idaho. I feel achomplished! I finished it. I have nothing else started, so YAY! I get to start another project today.

p.s. i quilt Giveaway

This is kind of fun. I've watched these little giveaways as a lurker, but now I'm participating. So, here's the official cut & paste from p.s.i quilt

okay so how about a giveaway?!?!

the gals at the fat quarter shop saw my last post...

they graciously donated a $50 gift certificate for one of yall!!!

how cool is that?!?!
http://rachel-griffith.blogspot.com/

It would be so cool to win, even if I don't, I still win because I found a new super cool blog to read. Somehow I've got to figure out how to link things better.

Charmed Gift Bag

This is such a cute idea for gift giving. There are so many different things you could do with this cute little bag.

http://bittybitsandpieces.blogspot.com/2009/07/charmed-gift-bag-giveaway.html

With Christmas coming up (if you're making things it's coming up soon). I'm going to be using this gift bag pattern for all my nieces and nephews.

Joining in on all the Fun

Lately I've been hooked on blog reading - quilting blogs to be precise. I used to visit a handful of web sites on everything from diets to family life and to playing computer games, but in the last few months I very rarely spend any time reading anything unless it's a blog on quilting. I've got a long list of favorites that just keeps on growing. I keep reading about these great online quilting bees and some pretty cool giveaways and I want in on all the fun...so here I am, my name is Julie.

I'm really pretty new to quilting. My history started with an 9th grade project, it was a small pillow and I got an A+. After the pillow I took a 30 year hiatus from the world of quilting. Almost 2 years ago my mom heard me complaining about wanting a new quilt for my bed, but was unable to buy the one I wanted. She told me she'd help me make one and quilting reentered my life again. In hindsight I should have picked a small project, instead I jumped with both feet right into making a king size quilt. The pattern was easy, a log cabin, from one of Elenore Burns' books. Due to having a large number of kids at home, being a procrastinator, not having a good sewing machine, not having a dedicated room just for sewing and being one of those folks who are great at starting projects, but not so great at finishing things...it took me 6 months to finish it. Once I finished it I found I didn't really like it. I could see so many flaws, it hadn't turned out like I thought it would, it didn't have that perfectly well crafted look that I had envisioned. I began to think maybe quilting just wasn't one of my talents. The one thing I couldn't seem to keep from doing was buying fabric. I didn't buy a lot, so my stash isn't large, just one large plastic bin - that's completely full.

A few months after finishing my log cabin quilt I decided I'd give it another try. This time I opted for a smaller quilt. A twin size Flying Geese, again using an Eleanore Burns pattern book. I had all the geese made when my old sewing machine died. I had it fixed several times, but the fixes just didn't last. I borrowed a machine from my mom and realized that the reason my first quilt came out wonky was because my machine was fighting me in keeping a good 1/4 seam. The fabric would constantly pull toward the left and gave me a very uneven seam. The Flying Geese blocks had the same issues and mom needed her machine back, so I laid away the idea of quilting until I was able to get a new machine. A couple of months ago I was able to buy an Elna Q6600 machine and I love love love it! I am now back to quilting.

This was my very first attempt at stippling. I love this panel, the colors are so vibrant.
This was my next project, a quilt for my brand new grand daughter.


I struggled to come up with a name for this blog. I finally settled on Kitchen Quilter because I don't have a room that is dedicated to sewing. In the past I've used the kitchen table, continually having to put away my sewing things to feed my family. I disliked having to do that just enough that I didn't sew that often. Once quilting became important to me and I had a good machine I decided that one corner of my kitchen was going to be my spot. So...Kitchen Quilter I am.