Me! Holy wow, I have been quite a terrible blogger this year. So few posts! Social media really seems to hamper my penchant for blogging, because of the super easy way I can just toss a photo up and a pithy little caption and call it a day. Maybe I need to try doing that here too, see if I can get back in the habit a bit!

A few big updates to share before I try that though -

1. Big destash today at 1pm on my shop right here as well as on Instagram at @dcmbdestash - The husband has gotten a new job out of state, so we'll be making a very big move in the next six weeks or so. It's super stressful and the fewer things I can pack, the better!


2. I finished a quilt! I made a gorgeous new quilt using Denyse Schmidt's Washington Depot collection, and there's a super simple tutorial coming for it super soon. Lorelei has claimed it as her own and likes to play on it.



3. I've been cross-stitching a ton. I'm working on a secret cross-stitch project right now, in fact, that is nearly finished and I'll be able to share in a week or so, but in the meantime, I can show you a sneaky peek...



4. I'm even working on a quilt right now. Amazing! It's a simple tessellated plus quilt in reds and purples, but I'm having fun with it...in between stressing about moving and dealing with a screaming almost two year old (she's warming up for the terrible twos in the worst way).



These next few weeks leading up to our move are going to be crazy, but I sure am going to try to be more involved with my blog! I miss you guys!
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As I carried the two halves that I have going so far for my epic Anna Maria Horner patchwork quilt up the stairs to my bedroom to take some progress photos yesterday afternoon, I realized that apparently I only make warm/cool quilts of my bed. My other bed quilt, made some eons ago, is a warm/cool HST quilt, and this new quilt is a simple charm quilt set on point and sorted into warms and cools. I had myself a good chuckle over it for a few minutes before setting about to laying out my work so far on the sheet to see how things were looking, now that my progress doesn't fit on my design wall.



That's the thing about making big quilts for me - it's hard to really get a good sense of how they're looking in my sewing room right now with the way things are laid out. I really need a full wall of design wall. That would be superb. But that would mean giving up a lot of storage space, which isn't really doable with the current state of my stash, so unless I downsize my stash massively, this method of laying things out sometimes in my bed will just have to do. Make it work, as Tim Gunn says, and he says it so enthusiastically and convincingly that he's got me believing.



I'm really, really, really excited about how things are looking so far. Super excited. Wish I could sew, sew, sew and finish the whole thing off today excited. But life rules, and there are kids to care for, and QuiltCon to work on, and dogs to walk, and real life waits for no one. But come next weekend, here's hoping there's at least another row or two added onto this bad boy. I think there's ten more to go total to get it large enough to have enough size to be able to tug back and forth between me and my husband and for it to hang down to where I want it to hang to. Ten more. I can do that. Eventually. Here's hoping you all had a great stitchy weekend too!

Signed, sealed, and delivered! I've finished off the Pink Sunshine quilt, and it's officially been delivered to the munchkin's math teacher, so it's safe to share, not that I think she's a blog reader :) I think she likes it, I sure hope hope she does. This super happy, mega scrappy quilt was a lot of fun to work on, using scraps of Lorelei's baby quilt  and other various pink fabrics floating around my sewing room.

I kept the quilting fairly simple, just doing a modified stipple with pearl clamshells here and there, majorly because I don't get to free-motion as much as I'd like to these days and I wanted to keep it from being a big hairy deal...but my machine is definitely in need of a visit to the spa, so it was a little more dramatic than I would have liked. It's been almost two years since her last spa date, so it's time, I need to just get her over to the shop for her full cleaning and tune-up. It's important to do, even with a fully mechanical machine! While I can oil my machine and clean out a large part of my machine, there's still areas I can't get to and things that need maintenance that are beyond my skill set. I used Aurifil 3660, a fun variegated pink, to go with all the different shades of pink used in the quilt, and also shockingly because it's the only spool of pink Aurifil I own! I must remedy this at some point.

The binding might just be my favorite part. It's a print called Lovebug Grid in Pink, which I stumbled on at Stash Fabrics when hunting for pinks. Perfect fabric for binding this kind of adorable baby quilt.

It feels good to finish a quilt. It makes me want to sew even more. I think the next quilt I want to get back to is my Anna Maria Horner quilt for my bed or the Lizzy House book quilt that I think is also destined for my bed, or maybe the living room. My HST bed quilt desperately needs another quilt it can alternate with!!
Quilt Stats
Quilt Name: Pink Sunshine
Size: 36" x 40"
Pattern: None, improvised strip quilt using scraps and made scraps
Quilting: Modified stipple with pearl clamshells in Aurifil 2660
Binding: Lovebug Grid in Pink

I've heard zillions of quilters say there isn't anything new in quilting, and loads of times, I agree with them. But that's not to say that we can't make little tweaks or twists on tradition that sometimes make something fresh appear - and when I filmed last fall for the new PBS show Fresh Quilting, that's one of the things I did.

I love trying to put blocks together, mashing up two different classic blocks that I love, and two blocks that I love very much are the classic Carpenter's Star and the Patchwork Wheel, or Cheyenne, block. I fooled around over and over again with the components of these two blocks, and came up with a mashup that I presented on last week's new episode of Fresh Quilting, which if you're an MQG member you can watch online for free anytime on the MQG Community site. I'd like to introduce you to the Carpenter's Wheel!


You can get your very own copy of the Carpenter's Wheel PDF pattern, from my Pattern Shop, and Craftsy, on sale this week for $3. It includes two different block sizes, 20" finished and 30" finished. This block is built with simple squares and half-square triangles and makes a great start for a medallion quilt, or a mini quilt of its' own! The pattern features tips and tricks on making eight half-square triangles at once, as well as loads of full-color illustrations to walk you through making the quilt block.

Carpenter's Wheel PDF download from my Pattern Shop
Carpenter's Wheel PDF download on Craftsy

I hope you enjoy it, and I can't wait to see what you stitch up!

I'm attempting shed my QuiltCon cocoon for the year this week, albeit with a nasty cold...all the while, working on building a new one for next year, but at least the crazy level of work is months from now. It's nice to have a bit of a breather at this point with work, at least a tiny one, for a few moments, but holy wow, there's so much to catch up with you all on.


Let's see, where to start...let's start today with cross-stitchy fun.

I've been cross-stitching like crazy. It's been an easy thing to pick up here and there between conference calls and Excel spreadsheets and mothering all that, and it's been the kind of craft I can manage to do without having to hide in my sewing room on the rare occasion that my husband is actually not traveling for work, so most of my crafting time the last few months has been the cross-stitching variety. Here's a few recent finishes...











And at least one still in progress...


I even taught my son to cross-stitch this weekend using a super cute kit I stumbled upon at Fancy Tiger that I cannot recommend enough - Cross Stitch Friends. He's seen me cross-stitch for a while, and this was just the project to hook him with!


Stay tuned for some QuiltCon treasures I purchased and some actual sewing soon! Woo hoo! Have a fantastic week everyone :)

The last few weeks have been like an insane rollercoaster - first way, way, way up with a great super fun visit to a wonderful friend, full of stitchiness, laughter, and way too many carbs, all to come crashing down with a family emergency that's absolutely consumed me over the last two weeks. Things are settling down now, but needless to say, I feel drained. Caring for others is a big part of my personality, but I often am guilty of doing it to my own detriment, and I'm definitely feeling that whole candle-burnt-at-both-ends thing right now. Here's hoping a couple of days that have some semblance of normalcy will start to make that feeling subside.

My first day of normalcy just happens to be MQG Sew Day, which was a fun coincidence, because it was an incredible reason to get into my sewing room during Lorelei's (all-too-short) naptime. While I've been mostly off social media the last two weeks, I've occasionally seen snippets here and there and one thing that I saw that stuck with me was Kate's adorable Tall Tales book block. Just had to make one, with one of my most favorite fabrics that I've been hoarding for eons.



I haven't decided what this will become yet - a pillow perhaps? a mini? we'll see - but it's a super simple paper pieced block that is way fun to stitch up.

I'll work on a fun sewing update from my sewing-with-friends post-Christmas trip later this week hopefully as life starts to return back to normal, and in the meantime, I'll leave you with a snap of the newly crowned one-year-old Lorelei. She's not walking yet, because she can't be bothered to walk when she's the world's fastest crawler, but she is babbling up a storm.


I hope you all are having a wonderful and mostly uneventful new year so far :)