our finished quilt

at the end of last year i started a quilt for us. taking inspiration from the gee's bend quilts, it was made with our old shirts and pants. since i didn't have enough discarded clothing for the entire thing, i did incorporate some new fabrics in order to make it big enough for our queen size bed. 

the front patchwork was made with some of our old shirts and khakis. 

since the front was very dark and wintry, i made the back with lighter color fabrics so that it would work better for the warmer months.

here's a little peak of our bedroom. 

and the giant dining room table came in handy while working on this giant quilt. at the bottom of this pic you can also see some other re purposed fabric i used for the back, a duvet cover.

and the living room had just enough space to baste this beast. i just had to move some furniture out of the way.

i saved a couple of pockets to add a little something unexpected to the quilt.

i really like how it turned out! although the navy fabric i used for the front seems to attract every miscellaneous dust particle and speck of fabric, which is very annoying. 

quiltcon in austin

several weeks ago i had the pleasure to attend the first quiltcon in austin, texas. i was so happy when i heard about it, because i am usually one to find out about things too late and miss out. and it sounded right up my alley and was also in a city that i have really wanted to visit. austin did not disappoint! i talked dave into going, but only if we could get other friends to go so we did!

austin if packed with food trucks and i think we eat at them most of the time. it's great to be able to get really good food, for really cheap from a truck!

 the cowboy boot selection did not disappoint and i wish i would have bought a pair, but they were $$$.

on friday i took a improvisational piecing class with denyse schmidt and it was awesome! she is the person who got me interested in quilting. i saw her quilts on a blog years ago and thought, i want to do that! in the class you have to blindly pull fabric out of bags and sew it together. it's actually thrilling not knowing what fabric you will be forced to use and made for some very cool color combinations that i would have never dreamed up on  my own.

this was my little work station. i made that sewing kit right  before i left and intended to blog about, but never did. story of my life :-)

for the last portion of the class we had to incorporate some of our own fabric into the random fabric that we pulled out of bags. this is how my quilt blocks came out. i want to make something with them soon!

and i totally lucked out after being a dummy and leaving my blocks in the class. i remember gathering  all my blocks, but somehow forgot them. i realized it when i met my friends at a bar later and went to pull them out to show them and they were not in my bag! luckily they were in the lost n found the next morning. THANK YOU to whoever found them and turned them in!

they had a quilt show as well. there were so many amazing quilts. i wish i had all the info on these, but here are some of my faves. 

i really need to hand quilt something one of these days. i just don't have the patience for it. 

i also took a class with lotta jansdotter on printing. we made some print blocks and printed on paper and fabric. 

 

we walked and walked into many bars to find this particular food truck. i forget what it was though, dave was in charge of the food search. the food truck scene is so awesome there. most of the bars have one and you can order food from them. i also noticed that most bars also have a "yard," which rules. 

my travel mates in quite possibly the best picture ever. 

as soon as we left we knew we will definitely be going back to austin again sometime. and next time we will wait in that stupid long line at franklins to get some of their great bbq.

baby quilts

so this year just about everyone seems to be having a baby! i made two baby quilts, one for my cousin and one for dave's cousin.

 how cute is this animal scientist print?

and i have 3 more to make! oh and BOTH of my sewing machines are broken. the viking wasn't working right so i used my old kenmore to finish this baby quilt and then moz decided to run through the dining room where i had it set up and pulled the cords and it fell to the floor. it weighs a TON, so luckily it didn't land on him. 

a quilt for us

i have been saving our shirts and pants that were destined for the trash. what else are you going to do with worn out and stained clothing, but make a quilt out of them? 

i had to add a couple of other fabrics to make it large enough. it's getting harder and harder to find fabric stores. all of my favorite shops are closing :-( spool and top of the hill are now closed, so i had to travel to south jerz. luckily the little quilt shop in haddonfield is still around!

this quilt is for our bed and i'm hoping to finish it soon. but it's a queen size so unfortunately it will probably take months.

winter

we have had quite a lot of small snow showers this winter, but so far none of them have left anything substantial. here are some pics from a day that it snowed a couple of weeks ago. 

 our neighbors have a very cool house, and it looks even cooler in the snow.

 moz barking about something.

 you see the table set above? well soon there will be something awesome in that spot.

and last but not least, our weird shed. perhaps the weirdest shed ever.

hello again

yes, i've been mia. although some of it was due to laziness, most of it was due to the fact that apple can suck it. i know, everybody LOVES apple and all of their 'hip' products, but in my opinion they suck. maybe i'll go into all of the gory details of why they suck in the future, i just don't have the energy for it now. i will summarize the worst of it with this: if you send your computer to apple to fix (and pay extra for applecare) they believe that your computer is their property and will remove and replace your hard drive and not return your hard drive to you, it's rightful owner. i call bullshit. in fact i should shout it from the mountain tops.

nevertheless, our shitty apple computer is back and now i can blog again.

so back in dec we took a little one night trip to AC and stayed at harrahs. we got a killer week night deal (i think it was $40) and they upgraded us to a suite. it was awesome. although the room would have been greatly improve with a little interior design effort, it was super huge. i think it was bigger than our first house.

the best part was they have a killer pool area, which is perfect when it's below freezing outside and you want to lay by the pool and hot tub and act like it's summer.