Back it up.

Backups are good.  Backups are necessary.  You gotta back up your computer, back up your phone, always have a backup bottle of red wine hidden away somewhere... backups are crucial!!

A couple of weeks ago, getting ready to attend my first ever Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild meeting, I decided it was time for a new backup machine.  The meeting was going to feature a paper piecing workshop, and I wanted to have a smaller machine that I could bring along with me.  I do have an older Viking, that was my primary machine before I got my current big honkin' Janome, but it's pretty big and heavy, too.

Frankly, I didn't want to spend too much money on this new machine.  I don't want to do actual quilting with it, so I don't need any FMQ capability, or really even a walking foot.  I wanted a machine for basic piecing, and that's about it.

Luckily, there are a number of good machines that can be had for a pretty bargain price, and this is the one that I settled on:

Image from Amazon

It's nice and lightweight, is pretty darn quiet, and sews very nicely.  It's the perfect little companion for coming along to guild meetings!!

I picked mine up at JoAnn on sale, but here are all the details over at Amazon, too.....

Coming to the End of Easy Street

Welcome to Easy Street!

It's finally done! (Ok, it's been done for a couple of weeks, but I'm just now getting to posting about it...)

I present to you, my Easy Street finish!

(I was taking it out of the dryer and throwing it into the guest room about 2 minutes before the guests actually arrived, so I don't yet have a full pic of the whole quilt, but hopefully will soon!) 

I haven't done a great job of posting the total number of pieces as I went, but by my math, this quilt contains 2249 pieces.  Holy cannoli!  I can safely say that I've never made a quilt with so many pieces!  I don't think that I would have tackled it if it weren't for the fact that it was so nicely broken down into parts.  Of course, the mystery part of this has been an absolute blast.  Not knowing what it would look like, and just making units without knowing what they'd look like together was an incredible exercise in freedom - just sew, don't worry!   

As I've said from the beginning, I designed this quilt to go in the guest room that I was redecorating, right along with the mystery quilt itself.  Here's a (painful) before pic: 

And some afters! 

 

For the room remodel, I painted, installed crown molding, brought in new lamps, all new furniture from Ikea, made up some DIY wall art, put up a shelf of photos, made matching pillowcases, and of course, made the quilt! I still want to find curtains for the room (just never found something that worked for me), and I plan to make a decorative pieced pillow for the bed.

Linking up at:

    

   

     

Distractions

I finally sat down to my sewing machine yesterday for the first time in two weeks.  Ugh.

The last couple of weeks have been nuts, with traveling to Vegas for my cousin's wedding, the tax deadline (a big deal in my line of work), the in-laws coming to stay with us for a month, and doing a refi on the house.  It's been crazy, to say the least.

But let's go back to that part about my in-laws coming into town.  It means that the guest room had to be completely done - and that includes the Easy Street Quilt!  Yes, it's finally finished, and it will get its own blog post in a day or so.

I'll also soon be posting about my first ever Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild meeting, which I attended yesterday, the new skill I learned there, and the project that I sort of fell into, all of 10 minutes into the meeting.  And the fact that the machine I sat down to yesterday was brand new.  :)

For now, I'll just say that I'm very happy to have gotten back in the groove, and I'll leave you with this picture of an awesome artichoke that we picked from our backyard to go with dinner tonight (because I just can't stand leaving a blog post pictureless):

A Quilter's Nightmare

I woke up 5 minutes ago, but had to type this up so that I wouldn't forget!

I had a dream that I attended a quilting retreat at a quilt shop located in Jurassic Park.  It was quite authentic - Laura Dern was even there, but was slightly deranged, trying to fight off a handful of small dinosaurs.  Myself and the other quilters had to fight our way (using stun guns and cattle prods) to the staircase leading to the shop.

Even more nightmarish than the dinosaurs, we were required to bring our husbands with us.  Aaaah!  On the bright side, all of the husbands were tasked with carrying boxes of fabric upstairs to the shop.  We cracked open the boxes and found that they were bursting with pre-cuts and yardage of Bonnie & Camille's newest line.  We were strictly forbidden from even looking at the new line until we had the project we brought 100% finished.

I was glad to see that there was a big rack of Aurifil in the back of the shop, including cones in the exact color I needed, but people kept getting in my way and I couldn't make it to where I could actually reach the rack.  I had to give up, and as we finally sat down and got to work, a group of armed people dressed in black appeared just outside the shop, firing shots into the air.  We didn't know if they were there to rob us, or to protect us from dinosaurs that were approaching..... I woke up, because I didn't care to find out.

I seriously don't know which aspect of this nightmare was the scariest.... velociraptors? no fabric petting allowed? husbands forced to be at a retreat?   I'm just glad that I woke up, and better yet, it's Friday!  One quick sprint through the workday, and it's the weekend!

WIP Wednesday: FAL Edition

I will admit, last quarter was pretty much a bust as far as finishes go.  I don't have a single one to lay claim to.  But hey, it's a new quarter, and I am poised for UFO domination!  These are the projects that are currently in my WIP pile that will, WILL! get done in the next three months!

Easy Street

The finish for this one will be coming soon..... verrrrrry soon.......

Commit Wallhanging

All that's left here is the binding, so it should be an easy one!

Giant Vintage Star Quilt

This poor thing was mid-FMQ when my machine started having problems, so it's begging me to jump back into it...

Various Mug Rugs

They've been languishing for months now, mostly just needing binding.

Countdown to Christmas Star Quilt

This bad boy is actually mostly basted, so it should be next up for some quilty love, and will hopefully be a quick finish!

Road to Tennessee Fa La La Quilt

This top has been done for maybe a whole year now?  Definitely deserves to get finished up!

Odds 'n' Ends Strip Quilt

This is a baby sized quilt, so it should be a quick finish... top is done, just needs quilting and binding!

Prairie Paisley Summer in the Park Quilts - 2 of 'em!

Also baby sized, so these should get done, too!

I've got a few new projects on the brain, of course, so who knows what will get added to the WIP list as we go through the springtime.  I have the feeling it's gonna be a good quarter!