Here is my newest pattern and it is avaible in my Etsy and Meylah shops. I am super excited to share. It is called the Baby Dash. I have made it with the new line "LadyBug Garden" by Riley Blake Designs. I think that the fabrics are adorable. I enjoyed cutting these happy little bugs up. I also quilted this quilt with my long arm and it was one of the lucky ones, it turned out. I quilted with white thread so the piecing would stand out, although it makes it a little tuff to see the pattern in pictures. It looks cute in person. I'm glad to share :)
I made a block that represented a little ladybug.  That is how much the fabric just pulled me right in.  This block can be substituted in the large quilt if you want some lady bugs crawling through it.  Also, the floating border it a fun addition.  It is a simple but stunning baby quilt that is very fun to make (I've made this pattern 3 times now).

(little embroidery to make the ladybug fly)

(back label, isn't the ladybug garden cute :)

Well, I hope you love it like I do. I can't wait to share the next one. This week is going to be tons of fun.

A friend of mine wanted to make a T-shirt quilt for her brother with some of his marathon shirts. I wanted to share some pics of the quilt. I am quite proud of how it turned out. It was great to collaborate on a project especially one that allows you to be super creative in the layout.

Tips - There were all different types of materials so it made it a little tricky. One thing that helped tons was applying "knit ease" to the back of the shirts to help stabilize them.
We also had shirts of varying sizes so we had three main vertical columns that were 16", 18", and 16" in width.  For the shirts that were smaller, they were pieced with scraps to achieve that same width.  This technique helps take out some of the guess work when knowing what to do with odd sizes of shirts.  The finished size was a large lap/twin quilt.

The design beyond the inner piecing includes a scrappy stop border.  I think it is a great frame for the quilt and eases nicely to the chevron border.  I think that the chevrons are a great simple finish especially to a more masculine quilt.  They are a little tricky to piece though.  It took a little ironing and unpicking but was a little less frustrating when fixing mistakes together with a partner.  The materials used were Riley Blake's Super Stars fat quarter bundle and tone on tone gray Chevron fabric for borders and backing.

Finally the quilting.  We did a wonderful pantograph that really was perfect for this quilt.  The quilting lines really made the quilt blocks melt into each other, which is exactly how I hoped it would turn out.  We switched off quilting different parts.  My friend was a first timer for all aspects of quilting and she did fantastic on every part.

(Marathon T-shirt Quilt)

(Tone on Tone Chevron backing)

(Quilting)

(Inner Pieced Quilt)

(Long-Arm Quilting!!)

All in all this quilt was very enjoyable.  I was very impressed to see how using the different materials worked together.  Hope you enjoyed seeing them.  I actually am looking forward to my next t-shirt quilt believe it or not and they use to not be my favorites :)

I would love to share some pics from last years sewing adventures.  There is no way I could include all pics.  It would take me f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to load them all.  I wouldn't say all of these are my favorites... some of them are intended for loved ones and some challenges for myself but I do love pretty much every project I make whether it be flawed and frustrating or perfectly meant to be.  It sure is fun to see them all lined up next to each other.

I can't even begin to imagine what will come to pass this year.  We wrapped up this last year just right with tons of quality time spent with our family and friends.  Most resolutions were met from last year (seriously that really opened my eyes when reflecting on that) and now there is time to make some new ones.  I have some specific ones laid out.

2013 Hopes and Plans

I am not so sure how good of a ring 2013 has.  I am a little bit superstitious I guess :*  After reading last years list there is absolutely no way I couldn't make one this year.  Yes, it is a little revealing but also a little bit freeing too.

I will always be willing to try new things.  I also would love to master the things that really define me.  I love what I have got going.  I would love to share those with people close to me.

I would love to make some heritage quilts this year.  The quilts will be me pouring myself into them saying how much I love what I do.  I love things of the past and I can't help but love things that I have received from my family.  Even though they are things that many would not value, to me have great meaning and I feel real connection to.  I am currently working on two different ones and so to finish them would be wonderful and perhaps start some new ones as well. So hopefully these quilts will have meaning to me and that I will have great pride in them and be able to pass these down to my family.  

I would love to continue making patterns and really develop my style.  I would also want to expand my style to be so diverse and unexpected.  I now know where deep, deep is and just want to never forget.

I am just going to leave this one up here word for word.  I never want to stop pushing myself.  Life is so short sometimes and I want to give a huge part of myself to everyone (long-arming can be rolled into here and tons of other stuff).
I want to push my creative abilities.  I feel like that one should have a lot of !!!!!

This one I will edit a little bit.
Looking forward to an easy no stress year.  So appreciating the less stress.  I would love to have this with all my heart.  I don't mind stress but I think for this year it would be amazing to have a lot less.  Yay for less stress!!  Gotta love working hard :) 

Same - Not much with the kids.  We are always playing and loving them and so pretty much same old same old. (check, We love them.)

Same - Hopefully getting some date nights thrown in there.  We are having fun hanging out with each other especially without the two crazies talking in the back ground.  Nothing too special but just fun stuff, cause that's what we do.

I would love to just scratch this.  I know we are working like crazy and I want to stay the course.  But here I would love to insert the hope for a miracle... I would love a different house this year.  I am completely grateful for everything that we have but I have this dream in my head and if this year it would be possible I would love love love to have it come true.  So I want to MOVE on UP.  :)Well, that isn't too bad and the last one is to make my house a little bit more clean now that the kids are getting bigger.  Also, I need to make the house a little more simple.  Luckily I have some stuff to pass on that the kids are grown from.  There might be some stuff I have grown from too.  We might be here a little longer and we are reaching our full capacity.  So I would like to simplify our home. (not quite, We could definitley continue to work in this area and I haven't much helped this year by adding some big additions.  I don't think it is in our near future that this will be helped, lol.)

Last thing, I will just put personal in here.  It is just one goal that is a theme for me this year.  It is a little bit top secret.  I am going to work on it all year.  I will let you know if I made progress at the end.

Man, I feel like I should put one more.  I want my hopes and dreams to come true.  

Okay so this list is much much harder than last years list.  I think that it might be a little too hard.  2013!!