Gettin' my Swoon on

I have had the Swoon quilt pattern by Camille Roskelley for a long time. I have been rather intimidated by it, but I finally gave into the Swoon.

A Flickr group was started awhile back for a Swoon-a-long by the lovely Miss Katy. Seeing all of the finished blocks and beautiful quilts gave me the push I needed to get started. I have a big empty wall over my stairs and I thought a smaller version of the Swoon in bright, happy colors would look great there. This pattern is great because it gives you the number of pieces you need for just one block. Most quilt patterns just say to "cut _ pieces of color #1" etc... to make the whole quilt.

I got out a couple of fat quarters and decided to make a practice block first just to see if I could do it without too much frustration. After a few hours (yes, it took me that long) I had this beautiful block: 

It was time consuming, and I did get confused quite often with the color 1 and color 2. But that was my fault for not paying close enough attention. This block is huge. Each one measures 24" square. I'm going to use this practice block as a mini quilt.

I gathered together my bright, cheerful fabrics and I'm all ready to go!

Pillow!

I love Heather Ross fabrics, but I usually can't afford to buy any. A few days ago I found a pretty amazing deal at my LQS. I was browsing their sale fabrics and I found two Heather Ross prints from the West Hill collection! Of course I snatched some up...

Last week I had a special treat come to me in my mailbox. Miss Tula Pink has a new book and, being her #1 fan, I had to have it. There are 20 awesome projects in here (10 quilts and 10 smaller projects) and I have been dying to make something. *Sorry! I can't get my picture to turn!*

I decided to make the Vortex Euro Sham using my new Heather Ross fabric mixed in with a bit of Lizzy House.

This is the top after I got it all pieced together. I used a light peach perle cotton to hand quilt it.

And here is the finished pillow! I really love it. The colors of the fabrics go together really well, and it  matches my couch perfectly. I'm thinking though, that I need some bright colors in my life and I may need to make a ton of these to throw all over my living room in cheerful springy colors.

Making

This post will be a bit picture heavy, as I have been sewing quite a bit, but not blogging. I'll just show you what I've been working on with a little caption under each photo. Deal?

This is a mini quilt I made for Lizze for Christmas. I used Parisville fabric in a Dresden plate pattern.

A Kindle cover I made for the shop, but I fell in love with it, so it's now mine.

Here's a few more Kindle covers. These ones actually will end up in the shop eventually.

And two custom Kindle covers I made for my friend Christine's mom. She chose these fabrics from what I had on hand.

This is the pincushion (plus a few extra goodies) I sent to my partner for a swap. I got mine in the mail a few days ago, along with another pincushion for a swap I did with Lizze. I'm saving those for their own post though. I'll show you soon!

I loved the cathedral window pinnie I made for my partner so I decided to make one for me.

I have wanted to knit socks for a long time. I found this gorgeous sock yarn at a local yarn shop here and couldn't resist.

Since I had never made socks before, I decided to try with a cheapy yarn for practice.

This is my sock progress so far. It's slow going because I have so much to do lately, but hopefully I'll have a pair to wear very soon.

Settling In

We moved into our new home 3 weeks ago and we are settling in very well. It has been so great to spend time with friends and family. I have gotten to spend a lot more time with my husband too, since he isn't spending 2 hours a day commuting. His work is now less than 10 minutes from our house. The sun shines here, even when it's cold. The sky is a color of blue I haven't seen in a very long time.

This was the weather on moving day. If I ever move again, will someone please remind me that winter is not a good time to do it?

The kids and the dog were pretty cozy in the car though. The bad weather didn't seem to bother them too much. Of course, they just had to ride along.

It took a few hours to get over the mountains and into central Washington. When we left Puyallup the skies were grey and dreary. As soon as we got over the pass, the sky became blue and there was a huge bright ball of light in the sky.

This is what the sky looks like everyday where we live now. It was the kids' first day of school here and there was a rainbow! Can you spot it? Can you spot the cute little boy too?

My favorite room in the new house is the living room. It is so bright and cozy. I love sitting on the couch in the morning with my coffee.

There really has been a lot to do here so I need to get back on a blogging schedule. I have been sewing so much! My new sewing room/closet has been getting quite a bit of use. Everything is organized and has it's place. It kind of has to be that way when you have a smaller space. But it makes it more enjoyable to sew because I'm not spending half an hour looking for a specific fabric or a pair of scissors before I can start making something. I share my sewing space with my clothes and that's okay because I don't have many of those.

The next post will be FULL of tons of sewing and knitting stuff! I promise! No more talk about moving. Let's get back to the making =)