The Day I Have Been Waiting for Has Finally Arrived!

Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley collection is finally available, and I am tempted to pick up the whole shebang. How awesome are those little calico prints?

Image via// Fabricworm

I have been meaning to make a quilt for me and my husband using gray, blue and green fabric after seeing this. There will definitely be a lot of Hope Valley up in it!

A quilt for baby C and baby S

My dear friend Nicole recently gave birth to her 2nd son! She was about seven months pregnant and sooooooo beautiful when she was in my wedding in September, and since she danced so much that night, he arrived a little bit early. Just kidding!
Of course he needs a blanket, and I decided to use some of the same fabrics I incorporated into his big brother's blanket that I made last year. Here is a pic of that one to refresh your memory:

And here is the new one, on its way to Buffalo tonight!

It is really funny to look at these because when I was working on the new one I thought it might look too much like the first. No such problem!

One of these days I am going to bite the bullet and try some biased taped edges. For some reason the thought of this scares the living daylights out of me.

Bad Skirt

//Via Bad Skirt

A couple of weekends ago, I tried making a stuffed cat for a precious little girl. I was planning on it being a snap, maybe a 45 minute project. tops. Four hours, one broken needle and many swear words later,  I finished. The ears were off center, the tail was about 2x as long as planned, and the body was quite misshapen. I have a new appreciation for people who sew plushies. Amy from BadSkirt is no exception; she makes the cutest little animals at her studio in Sydney. I mean come on, a platypus!? Too cute.

//Via Amy's Flickr

She also makes really beautiful quilts. sigh. I think I have a girl crush.

A Quilt for Baby Tse

Yay! my coworker Konrad and his wife are quickly approaching the due date of their first baby, a little boy!

Konrad has a serious aversion to butterflies and chrysalises (good thing he isnt having a girl!) but hopefully not sea creatures because they are all over this quilt.

I finally made the pilgrimage up to Purl in NYC, something I have been dying to do for EVER. It was just as amazing as I had hoped! They have a wonderfully edited selection of fabrics arranged in rainbow order (as all things including sweaters, crayons and books should be) from floor to ceiling.

I found the cutest little fat quarter set including Alexander Henry's Marina print, some cool faux bois (eat your heart out, Martha!) and the most delicate white fabric with teeny tiny blue circles.

My sewing is really improving, i was even daring enough to attempt actual machine quilting for once instead of using my hand ties that I have done in the past. Just one rectangle of it, but hey, you have to start somewhere! All of this is a warm up for the extreme task that lies before me: Quilting not one, but TWO blankets for my niece and nephew that are due this summer. Thats right, TWINS!