Swoon

 I bought most of these blue fabrics on vacation last year and I had no idea what I would use them for. When I saw the awesome-ness that is the Swoon quilt I knew exactly what my pretty blue fabrics would become! I funkified the pattern a little more by using a hot pink tye die batik for the background. Love it so far.

This is my first block and I loved putting it together. Can't wait to see how the quilt turns out! Yay for another new project!

Baby Nesting Buckets

 I made some more little fabric buckets from the previous pattern I talked about. These were quick and easy and lots of fun to make.

 I had all of the fabric on hand, and I love how they turned out. I thought they would be cute for Easter with eggs in them. A little late for that now, but I still think they are great!

Momma and baby bucket. How nice.

Nimbus

Nimbus Jersey Bedding from Anthropologie

 I've been a huge fan of Anthropologie's bedding since forever. However, I don't have a money tree so actually owning a set of this bedding is not looking so great for me. Since the concept looked easy enough - rows and rows of ruching - I decided to try it out. I think it is okay. Not great. It cost me only about $15 to make it myself as opposed to buying it from Anthro for $58.

It's cute, just not my fave. At least I had the chance to practice gathering! Ha! Anyway, that's my attempt at an Anthro knockoff. Maybe I will just have to save my money and get the real deal. Until then I have this jolly green giant of a pillow.

Houndstooth Bucket

 I've been having tons of fun lately sewing up little fabric buckets. I made this one for my mom's birthday. She is keeping her crochet yarn and supplies in it, and I think that's just great!

View from the top. This pattern was so easy to follow, and I was able to cut out my pieces and stitch it all together in about 2 hours. Here's the link to the pattern.

Pergola in Progress

 We are currently building a pergola in the backyard. Here is the progress thus far. Super excited to have two posts in the ground!

Here's another view from the very corner of the yard. We have been busy worker bees digging and staining and mixing concrete! Can you spot Kyle in this picture?

Minnesota Star

 I am so excited to be working on Carol Doak's 50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars! I love love love paper piecing and this star - The Minnesota Star - came together really quickly until...I ran out of this lovely floral print.

 Here are my two lonely pieces waiting to be finished. Lucky for me, I was able to go back to the store and get the rest of that fabric! It will be pieced and ready to go tomorrow.

I am almost done with the feathered star quilt. I decided to do some hand quilting and it has taken some time to come together. I guess I am just in a star mood lately. Anyway, I hope you like my rendition of the Minnesota star because I am just thrilled with how the color scheme came together.

Feathered Star Part II

 I've finished quilting the inner section of my feathered star. It is looking even better than I had hoped! That's always a good thing.

I'm not quite ready to show a full picture of the quilting - I just wanted to give a few hints of what it is going to look like! Hopefully I can finish this project sometime this month.

iPad Case

Yes, I've been drafting a paper pieced pattern again. I have several friends who think paper piecing is too tedious, but tedious is what I love! I think paper piecing is so relaxing. I wanted to make a soft case for our iPad, and I knew piecing and quilting it was the way to go.

I drew out my pattern on freezer paper for no reason other than that is what I had on hand and I am a do-it-now kind of person. Then I chose an order for my fabrics and I sewed them down!

I actually think this would be a cool quilt pattern all on its own, but I was on a mission to make a bag so I will go another direction with the quilt idea some other time.

It turned out pretty cute! I share the iPad with the husband, so I needed to make the case less girly than normal. I quilted down the lines of each piece, inserted a zipper and stitched up the sides to complete the design.

Here is the back side. I like it alot. Yay for projects that don't stink! I will be back soon with more of what I am working on. P.S. These are more of the Denyse Schmidt fabrics from JoAnn's. They rock. I will be purchasing more in the near future.

Washington Star

 I saw this awesome mini quilt on In Color Order and I knew I HAD to make one too. Obsessive, yes. Whatever, I got it done and I am loving it! I drafted the pieces with my trusty orange Sharpie because I wanted the quilt to be a little bit bigger than the original quilt that inspired me. I need to work on my math skills.

 I chose Denyse Schmidt fabrics in blues and greens with a linen-y background. Did you know that Densye Schmidt fabrics are sold in JoAnn fabric stores now?! Crazy. I am more than a little obsessed with her line at JoAnn's and I've been collecting a quarter yard of each print.

Awesome picture I know, but I was so excited to get the star pieced together that I had to take a really quick pic. I am so excited with the result. P.S. This was a paper pieced pattern. If you haven't tried paper piecing you really should! You will get perfect points every time you paper piece. This is one of my all time favorite methods as well as the method I used on my first quilt. Neato I know.

Feathered Star

 Sometimes I like to test out a block before I dive into the entire quilt. This was one of those instances! Plus, I wanted to use fabrics that I already had and there was no way I would have enough to make all nine of the feathered stars required for the original quilt.

 So, this is what I came up with. Love it! I will get a picture in better lighting when I finish quilting it. I got the pattern for the star from the book 'Quilting from Little Things' by Sarah Fielke. This is the perfect spring quilt and I am super excited to get it finished and hung up!

No quilting yet, but there are some great things in this quilt's future! I feel it in my bones - my finger bones to be exact because they will be the ones working on those stitches!

Dear Jane

 My mom has been wanting to piece the Dear Jane quilt for a long time now, but she hasn't had the time to do it. I told her that I would help her and we could split the blocks...It could end up being a 95% to 5% split, but divided up nonetheless. Hah.

Since this really is going to be mom's quilt when all is said and done, she is choosing all of the fabrics. She chose some really bright tie-dye batiks that look pretty great against the solid white backgrounds. I've sewn 12 of the blocks so far, and I am picking and choosing my favorites first. It is a fun challenge! Hopefully all of the blocks will be pieced in 2012. We'll have to see how that goes...

Lined Drawstring Bag

As you can probably tell from my previous post, I love making bags. I am a firm believer that you can never have too many bags! Plus I've been looking for a great project to use this print on and I think it is shown off nicely here. The awesome step-by-step tutorial for the LINED(!) drawstring bag is from In Color Order. She has an amazing blog and you should stop and look around for a little while to see what she has been up to.

Snappy Bags

I whipped up these cuties in no time this weekend and I think they turned out pretty great. They are awesome because I inserted pieces of metal tape measure in the top casing, which makes these little bags 'snap' open and closed. (Hence the name Snappy Bag...) Anyway, the full tutorial is from Just Another Hangup, and she does a really good job of giving step-by-step instructions. I am probably going to make a thousand more of these because they are fun!

Birthday of the Blog

Hi, I am Anna. I like to sew, quilt, stitch, craft, etc. I also like to run far, thus the name The Running Stitch. Here I will show a few of the things I like to do. I hope you enjoy.