Liebster Blog!

This week two lovely ladies gave me the Liebster Blog Award.  I was so excited to get it the first time, and amazed to get it the second time!  Huge thanks go out to Pauline at The Little House on the Hill and Heather at A Passionate Quilter

The award goes to your five favorite blogs with 200 or less followers.

So now I get to pick my favorites.  I spent quite a bit of time figuring out who to award, but here they are...

Rebecca at Pieces and Cream

Karen at Ramblings of...a novice quilter

Unnamed at LittleBook Notes

Phoebe at Pixiecup Industries

Diane at Life Scraps

Enjoy!

Quilt 13: clothesline

I put up a clothesline last week. Partially to help dry baby clothes (they take forever in the dryer!) and partially for my quilts.

Although it was nice and sunny this morning, it was almost too sunny. The nice background direction shows the quilt back through the front.

So here is the uglier direction.

I'm in the middle of quilting. It takes me forever to do the quilting and I have several more waiting in line. I'm also using white thread to quilt white triangles on the white pieces. But here's my question...I don't have enough colored thread to do all the little outside triangles. How should I quilt that area? Just the white triangles? Sometime else?

I'm linking up with Sarah's Whoop Whoop party on Friday, Quilting by The River on Tuesday, and WIP Wednesday.

Something new

My dad needed some pants hemmed, so I tried the blind stitch for the first time.  It worked well!  

I'd never changed the presser foot before, but it was significantly easier than expected.  I guess I can't use that as an excuse to not try new things now.

Quilt 13: HSTs

I finished piecing my quilt for the festival of half square triangles!  I'm a little sad that I wasn't able to completely finish the quilt by the deadline, but I'm just not that fast.  I am really happy with how it turned out though.

The top is called "Don't touch me."  The colors only touch each other at their points and the same color never touches itself.

The back is "Hug and make up."  I even made the corner squares (that look solid) out of HSTs, to preserve the pieced look.

I'm also linking up with Quilting By the River and Freshly Pieced

About Me

Hi!

My name is Amanda.  I started quilting in 2009, when I decided I wanted to make a quilt for my bed.  That quilt has several flaws, but it got me hooked on quilting.

I have an M.S. in engineering, and have worked in several different fields.  Then in 2011 my husband and I  moved back home to Western Michigan, had our first child, and I decided to stay at home for a while.  I am putting a little more effort into quilting and see if I can at least make it sustainable.

Besides quilting, I love to read, play games (board games, computer games, Frisbee), and spend time with friends.  

Quilt 13: top finished

This week I finished the top of the quilt I'm making for the HST festival.  I'm calling it "Don't touch me!"  (Sorry about the wrinkles.)

I just started the back...it will be "Hug and make up"

And I'm linking up with Sarah!

What's on my bed?

This is the quilt that is currently on my bed.  And I love it.  It is soft and I love the pattern and colors.  It is store-bought (bed, bath, and beyond, I think).  However, this quilt is important because it is what got me started with quilting.  I wanted to make a quilt that was similar, but more spring/summer colors.

This is the result.  (It was taken a while ago, in a different house.)  This was the first quilt that I made.  It is almost time to put it back on the bed again, but it needs some TLC first.  It turns out that having more than a 1/32" seam is really important. :)

I'm linking up with the "What's on your bed?" linky party.

Giveaway: Sonoma Rose

edit: the giveaway is closed.  Congrats to Lea at Podunk Pretties!

I have a book to give away!  I know I'm a little behind the curve since most of the copies were given out about a month ago.   But...I was tempted to keep it.  I'll admit that I keep more books than I probably should, but this one seemed like a nice addition to the collection.

Without further ado, let me present Sonoma Rose by Jennifer Chiaverini.  I enjoyed the book.  It was an easy read with several interesting plot lines going at once.  There was romance, motherly love, murder, and illicit wine.  To read the entire synopsis, click here.

One of my favorite parts was that it showed all the quilt blocks that it was talking about on the front and back covers.  I'm still rather new to quilting and barely know any quilt block names, so it was a handy reference.

There are two ways to win.  I'll pick someone at random.
1) Leave a comment with your favorite book
2) Follow my blog (and leave a comment that you're doing so)

Whoop whoop Friday

I've started working on a quilt with HSTs.  (Half Square Triangles) (Speaking of which, shouldn't it be HTSs?  Then the adjective is triangle, and it describes the square.  Not squares describing the triangle.)  Anyway...I got a quarter of it put together today.  But the big yellow triangle seems to be the slightly small, so some of it might be coming back apart.

I also worked on making a pattern for interlocking pinwheels.  If anyone is interested in reviewing it, please see the details here.

I'm linking up with Sarah again this week!

WIP: it keeps changing

This (Quilt 11) is supposed to be my main WIP.  However, I don't have enough fabric for the back.  Maybe I'll try and get some tomorrow.

While waiting to get the backing for the quilt above, I started working on a shower curtain (project 12). It'll have a disappearing nine-patch.  I didn't realize that there was an easier way to make a disappearing nine patch until I had started to cut pieces, but after these are put together I'll start using the easier way.

Then I decided to join Canoe Ridge Creations' HST festival.  I'm not sure I can turn out a quilt in the allotted amount of time, but I can probably at least get it pieced.  And maybe I'll surprise myself.

I'm joining up with Lee at Freshly Pieced as people share their works in progress.

Pattern Review

I recently became a stay-at-home mom and thought I would try to sell some quilt patterns.  If it works, awesome.  If it doesn't, oh well.  However, I don't know a lot of quilters and so was wondering if anyone would be interested in reviewing the first one I've written, called Interlocking Pinwheels.

The cool thing about the pattern is that I can make the diagrams match the colors that you are actually going to use.

So if you're interested, and can have the pattern reviewed within a month, please leave a comment with the colors that you would use.  If I am lucky enough to get several responses, I'll probably choose one at random and one based on the colors.  I'm afraid that I can't offer you a lot in return, but I will give you a finished .pdf copy of the pattern with your original colors and a second copy with another set of colors if you would like to give it away.