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Japanese Fabric

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It took forever but I finally managed to get my husband to get me fabric in Japan. I had to do some searching online to figure out where he would have to go to buy it – he wasn’t really interested in locating a fabric store, the video game places had much more appeal to him!

Silky and the lines are shiny

A sort of Transformer?

Ocean waves

Varied design w/ Made in Japan on the salvage!

When he finally did send me fabric, he did a good job. I got a HUGE pile of batiks – that have already been stashed in the fat quarter box – as well as these ones pictured and a few others that have already been used. He sent the Transformer-like fabric for Jake, we haven’t used it yet, and Hello Kitty for Alice, designated for a new bag. The batiks are in our fat quarter box to be used whenever, same with these other cuts.

Except for the silks at the top. SO pretty! I’m saving them for the inside of a purse or bag, they aren’t very large pieces. We’ve been saving the salvages for ages now (it’s awesome how quickly these can add up!) and I’m excited to have a made in Japan one. Too cool.

Star Pillows

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Last week my Mom organized a quilt class to be held at her office. She invited several people but a few had colds and so only a few of us ended up participating. At the class she taught us how to make star pillows using the strip piece technique, and after I finally caught on to how to pin the strips my pieces actually ended up matching. So far I’ve made three – one set and then one single pillow.

This is the first star that I made – I made it at home a couple of days before the class so I would know what to do. I ended up taking it out a lot (I can’t even remember how many times) and it is a little bit bumpy or something in the middle, where the points meet. However, this is the first one I made of this color, then I made the red below, then another of this purple one – and the second purple one, wow – it just about all matched up AND lays flat in the middle. I’m amazed I was able to do that because really, the pinning really threw me off. I’m not sure why it took as long to figure out or to catch on to either. This is the first time I’ve ever strip pieced though so I’m very happy.

Here’s the red (and purple I suppose) star – this one I don’t think I took out at all and it ended up with nearly every point meeting up and the middle lying flat. I have yet to add the white, but am going to get that done this week. During the quilt class Mom taught, one of my friends used this same material and also copied my pattern – so I figure I’ll finish this and give it to her so she can have a set. Mom already said I’m going to be the star quilt maker in the family since my stuff has matched up so easily and the center lies flat. 🙂

The book that Mom has that she uses is the Radiant Star Quilt by Eleanor Burns. We used the four color and just adjusted the size for a 18″ pillow vs a blanket.

Blurbs & Secret Projects

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1. I got April Fool’ed before 8AM! I fell for a “I’m getting married” facebook note. Hey, I live in a hotel and barely know the day of the week, much less the actual date!

2. I had a dream our property manager found us a place in Japan and insisted we would love it. He kept saying we would love living “on the economy” (why is this the phrase people use when saying you need to live in town?) and had some crazy, cool 3d model thing to show us. Weird.

3. We finally got passports for Chris and Alice – I’m going to fill out mine today or tomorrow and can’t find Jake’s birth certificate so his will have to wait until we get to Washington and I order a new one! I mean I am ordering a new one and we aren’t doing the paperwork til we get there. I have no idea where his bc went either, I keep fairly good files.

4. We have renters in South Carolina! Yeah yeah, let’s not get into the whole real estate talk and how us owning these houses is crazy. Cause it kind of is, but we are okay. We are doing it right, as far as we can tell. And we have been lucky enough to have renters in; I know others haven’t been as lucky.

5. The weather is really bad on the plains and I’m not sure if we will leave tomorrow afternoon as previously planned. However, is this me doing some avoiding? I’ve already said I don’t want to go back because since I’ve been away, my grieving for my Grandma has been isolated. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live there, I would have been living next door to her empty (but for my cousin) house. As it stands I was figuring we would get there late Friday night, stay for the weekend and then leave Monday morning. Everyone works anyway, and it would just be strange to be there all day with nothing to do, since before the day was spent hanging out with Grandma. I’m pretty much convinced myself that we are staying here, but I haven’t told the hotel yet. The storm seems it’ll be Sat and Sun so maybe we’ll leave Monday? I’m still thinking about it, convinced myself or not.

6. We had lunch on the ship today and gave the guys their secret projects! Here’s the deal – back in January I decided I wanted to make Chris a quilt to take with him. Then I talked to a few other wives who thought it was a good idea too so I said I’d help them with theirs. After a little talking, we decided to make quilts or blankets for all the officers on board (easy cause we only have 11 officers). The married guys got quilts (except two because there wasn’t enough time once we decided what we were doing) and the single guys got fleece tie blankets. My Mom and K’s Mom helped and each made two of the fleece blankets too. I didn’t get pictures of those, but here are others:

chrisquilt

Chris’ quilt – this is when I was basting it. I still have to do the binding before it’s finished!

brianquilt

Auburn quilt for Brian – I added a border to this too. And I never want to see the color orange again. LOL

kendraquilt

K’s quilt for her husband.

kendrasewing

K working on quilting her quilt!

Secret Project Update

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A couple of weeks ago I would have said that if you walked into the house you would instantly know what the secret projects we’ve been working on are and that amazingly enough my husband didn’t realize. Well call me naive because he finally confessed that he’s known all along! He didn’t know how big the project was (I did tell him after he said what he knew) and he promised not to tell anyone else.

So for the updates! K is almost done with hers – two more small steps and she’s finished. L is almost done with hers, she will be done soon though. I’m just about done with one I am making and not nearly as close to being done with another. C came by last week and we made one while she was here and she’s making another at her own house. I have been taking pictures along the way and will share them once we are finished!

We even had my Mom and K’s Mom in on the fun! We figured out who is getting what but still aren’t sure when the giving will happen. For sure it will be by the time I leave, which is coming up very soon.

In other craft news, Shannon and I took a quilt class a couple of weeks ago! It was called Flowing Ribbons and even though I messed up a section of my material, I still really like the pattern. I love the fabrics I picked out! I still need to sew together strips to make another piece of fabric but that will be later – after the secret projects and finished, but really more like after I’m settled somewhere.

Here are some pictures:

ribbonsquiltclass

This is my quilt. The class teacher had many design boards (pieces of fleece) hung up so each of us could lay our fabric out to see what it would end up looking like. I had more pieces up but they kept falling down. I took a picture because the point of the class was to learn how to sew the curves! So I wanted to make sure I remembered how I wanted it to look (a great tip I am going to remember from now on – take pictures!). This is a project I am either going to make sure it with me while we are traveling (more on that soon!) or have it in a box to be delivered to the house vs the storage unit.

shannonquiltclass

Here is Shannon working on a curve with her awesome Janome machine!

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Shop Hop Day 2

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On to day two of our Shop Hop: Cruisin’ the Texas Coast excursion! We had planned on going to two of the shops then doing a third day of the shop – especially after hearing there was a new quilt shop but they weren’t participating in the hop. We figure we’d stop there in addition to fnishing up the shop hop – ah the best laid plans!

We went to Golden Needles & Quilts of Rockport, got on the ferry to go to lunch at the Port Aransas Brewing Company, to Kalico and Keepsakes of Port Aransas, stopped at the hospital to see a friend who just had a baby, to the The Quilt Cottage in Corpus Christi, then finally to the new quilt shop, Heirloom Elegance.We left early in the morning and didn’t get home until dinner time! It was a really long, long day.

atqsh

Alice & I on the ferry

Golden Needles is a favorite shop – we’ve been there a few times and the shop is very nice. She also has classroom space and depending on the schedules of friends we may rent it for an afternoon for our own get togethers! That may not end up happening but I like that the option is available (and really, I hope it happens at least once!). They had door prizes while we were there but none of us won anything. The free gift they gave was a cute felt pincushion and a fat eighth of fabric, I let Alice pick mine out which she thought I meant it was hers so now she has her own pincushion!

We lucked out on the ferry! We drove up and were second in line for the next ferry to leave – at least 15 minutes, if not a longer wait. But then they waved on the person in front of us and we thought “awesome, we’ll be first!” – only to have them wave us on too! During day one of the shop hop others had talked about the long wait for the ferry due to issues they were having so being able to jump right on was fantastic.

The Port A Brewing Co is a great place to eat! They brew their own beer though we haven’t been back to try any, I’m sure we’ll go before we move.

Kalico and Keepsakes is a small quilt shop and of course I managed to find a few things I loved. She had more fabrics in a line that I have been collecting (collecting is what it has to be, I have no plans for it yet!) and also had a door prize drawing and gave you a fat quarter just for stopping by. I thought it was particularly nice that she let each of the kids grab their own fat quarter!

We stopped to see a friends brand new baby – she was born on Thursday night and we had been getting text message updates throughout day one of shop hopping. It was good to see her but we didn’t stay for too long. I forget (or did I even know?) that kids aren’t allowed in to see babies (and why is that anyway?).

The Quilt Cottage is a regular shop we visit so it was nice to stop in and look at her fabric again. I signed up for a couple of quilt classes at Golden Needles and ended up finding fabric for one of them at the QC! We’ll see if I stick with that fabric in the end. They also gave away door prizes and all of us won something! I won a book, which is awesome, and their free gift for coming in was a pincushion kit. I sewed it together the other day so I’ll share that too.

The last shop, Heirloom Elegance, was having a really great sale on fabric – 25% off *everything*. It was really hard to even be in there with those prices! It was like they read my mind and stocked their shelves with every fabric I’ve ever liked. I bought a few things and wanted to go back the next day (the last day of their sale) but didn’t because I really bought a lot in those two days.

Whew! What was day three of the shop hop turned into a hang out and rest day for me. I sorted my fabric and put it with the rest of my stash or into project bags. It was also a few days into a short time with Chris at work so it was a day to clean up the house a bit before he would get home!

Have you survived my blog post? Have you ever done a shop hop? 🙂

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