Wednesday, October 22, 2014

WIP Wednesday: Spinning Spool Sewing Machine Cover

The Classic Block at SewCanShe this month was the Spinning Spool block. I decided that this would be a perfect block to use as the front of a sewing machine cover.

Just a little background... My sewing machine lives on my desk. It generally never goes in its hard case. I made a very simple cover (think a pillow case-like) for it but have completely lost it since then. I decided a couple of weeks ago that I seriously needed to make it cover when I found Marcus, kitty, sleeping with his head on my extension table. Cute, yes. Good for lint/cat hair build-up, no.

To begin I made a cute 12 inch spinning spool block with an adorable chevron and matching solids. I'm so glad that my want of a cover and this month's block matched up so well!

(c) Crafty Ashley B
pretty spinning spools with border


Friday, October 17, 2014

Quilted Witch Wall Hanging

A couple of weeks ago I made myself a quilted pillow cover (16 inches square) to use in my office for Halloween. Here's a picture of it:
(c) Crafty Ashley B
Pretty pillow!
I used the free pattern from Craftsy that can be found here. It's called the Trick or Treat Sue. I completely love it! Though I do wish I had added in a darker color or two in the borders to balance out the little witch.

After sharing this little pillow with my friends, my wonderful friend Cat of Coffee Cat Creations asked me to create a wall hanging for her with the pattern but with purple fabric accents. For her, I was up to challenge. Of course, the offer of a little financial compensation didn't hurt either!

(c) Crafty Ashley B
A teaser pic that I posted on Instagram!
I'm totally in love with how it turned out. I seriously considered keeping it for myself and making her a different one. In the end, I knew I had to give it to her!

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Getting Involved and Discoveries

I would love to get more involved with people who quilt. While I am very lucky to have a great friend that hosts weekly Craft and Chat meetings, all of the attendees (our friends) do not quilt. While that means everyone at these meetings are impressed with my creations, I don't have any one to really bounce ideas off of.

Thus, yesterday I began looking for local guilds that I could possibly join as well as some online options. My biggest problem lies in where I live which is a small town situated midway between two larger cities (an hour away in each direction). Plus I work 40+ hours a week so I don't have a lot of free time.

There are guilds in these *not too far away* cities; they meet during the week. Thus I would be driving at least two hours full trip for a meeting that last 1 to 2 hours. While that may sound doable I don't know if my pocketbook (or the hubby) would like that!

But I also found a guild in the same town that my husband's parents live. PLUS their meetings are on Saturdays! Thus we could visit his parents AND I could go to a meeting! Right now I think we are going to go to their November meeting (just missed the October one!).

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Thoughtful Thursday

On Thursdays, I will post a few of things that I have been thinking about. This includes projects that I thinking of creating, thoughts about life and family and just general get-it-out-there-and-out-of-my-head ramblings.

I am....

 ...happy that I had time today to work on the math for my table tiles quilt as part of the quilt along at abyquilts. Of course, I cannot just follow the rules! So I'm changing it up a bit by turning the quilt into a baby quilt. 

.... behind on the quilt along a little and am still cutting out the little blocks. I think about to the halfway point of the cutting. Haven't even started sewing the blocks together! 

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Being Honest

Wow... Super bad blogger here! It's been 3 weeks since I last posted! Y'all... that's not good!

I keep saying that I'm going to post more often and then I just don't. I could blame it on everything... don't have a designated computer area, too busy with work stuff, too tired to sew, etc.

But plain and simple, I haven't made it a priority.

Do I need to? Yes. Why? For me.

For those who actually come back to read this blog of mine.

While I am not the best blogger or understand all of the features that I can use on Blogger, I do know how to check out my stats and see the number of visits I get in one day. And in the last few weeks, at least one person is on my blog. You have no idea how that feels unless you also blog. Some days you think no one is reading and no one cares what you say. And maybe that's true. But why does anyone start a blog:
To share, to connect, to put themselves out there and say "Hey, look at what I made! It might not be the BEST but it's MINE!"

 What I'm Going to Do...

I'm going to try to post at least twice a week: Wednesday and Friday. That way I can continue to participate in the link-ups that I so enjoy. It allows me to do exactly what I wanted this blog to do. To connect me to people who love what I love: sewing, creating, making.

Guess I better get writing!

(c) Crafty Ashley B