sewtakeahike

pretty lights

 

You know the kind I'm talking about, right?  The "pretty lights" in our daily lives that mesmerize and enamor us? 

For example, today I had no intention of making a new bag.  But yesterday, I saw this version of Anna's runaround bag and I was blinded by the pretty lights.

So today, I gave in and followed the pretty lights for oh, about 5 hours and made a runaround bag.

 

 

 

Are you seeing the pretty lights yet?

xo,

Penny

annular eclipse

 

Is finished!  (Thank you Jane and Carmen for helping me name it!) 

These blocks are all from a year (four quarter rounds) of the 3X6 bee.  I put a flea market fancy gray bouquet border on it and then bound it with the same. 

Thank you to Rita for this machine binding tutorial, it looks just like it was hand bound on the front and I only had to go over a couple areas on the back where I missed the binding edge. 

Now I only have 5 more quilt tops in the closet to sandwich and quilt!

Happy Friday to you all!

~Penny

National Quilting Month

 

 

Did you know March is National Quilting Month? 

The girls at SeamedUP are celebrating with twelve contests with fabulous prizes, three podcast episodes with can't-miss co-hosts, and guest blog posts. You can find all the details at the Contest tab of their website.   They are having a month long contest and the prizes are really cool, like a copy of EQ7, a $100 GC to Fat Quarter Shop, fabric bundles, sewing tools, Aurifil thread, Stash and Martingale books, Fabricworm, Robert Kaufman, and more. 

So if you want the chance to win some goodies, make sure and check it out!!

~Penny

p.s.  today is the day my sprout pattern and tutorial is up at Sew, Mama, Sew!

Rooms of my heart: part 2

 

 

This weekend I spent a little time finishing up my quilt top "rooms of my heart".  I gathered several orphan blocks, like the one above, some fabrics that make me smile, and started sewing. 

 

 

This quilt top reminds me of so many people and the journeys I've been through in the last 2 years.  It has orphan blocks from projects for my mom, friends, scraps from friends, and also includes my first applique block (the tea kettle) and my first template pieced block (the house), and my first paper pieced blocks (the string blocks in the bottom corners.  Both the tea kettle and the house are designs from Nanette over at Freda's Hive.  Nanette was so encouraging to me as I started these two blocks, and can you believe that after piecing the house I emailed her and told her I didn't think I liked doing blocks that required so many pieces and told her I would probably never do anything like that again? 

My how things have changed. 

Case in point.  Here's my latest Ringo Pie block.

 

Ayumi's month was May.  The theme she chose was: letters and packages.  I was stumped.  Then my first idea didn't work out.  Finally, I chose to make a pattern out of one of her inspiration photos.  She loves chocolate, so I put a little chocolate label on the box (and made sure to include some pink in the background fabric since she has a thing for pink, too!). 

I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend, doing things that have filled the rooms of your hearts and for those of you in the US, Happy Independence day to you!!

~Penny

Get yer Yoyo along button and progress bar here!

Firstly, I must thank Robyn of Coffee & Cotton for all the help she has given me through oodles of emails.  Also, thank-you to Julia for planting the seed to have a progress bar at all!  Between Robyn and I, we have come up with the official yoyo along button and progress bar combo you can see here:

 

Yoyos completed
Goal: 1008
Current: 166

16.5%

 

 

 

If you'd like to add the button and progress bar to your blog, I'll give you the code for it in just a sec.  First though, you'll want to know a couple of things.

• the progress bar % has to be updated manually.  For example, if you have 28 yoyo's done, you'll enter 28 into the code where I have 166, and then you'll need to figure your percentage and enter that as well.  28/1008=2.7%, so you'll enter 2.7 where I have 16.5 (in two places) in the code.  You'll need to do this manually each time you want to update the number of yoyos you have done.
• if you are making a different # of yoyos than I am, you'll need to change out the 1008 in the code to whatever # you ARE making.

 Alrighty, now for the code:

<br/><br/><a href="http://sewtakeahike.typepad.com/sewtakeahike/2011/06/yoyo-along-part-1.html"><img src="http://sewtakeahike.typepad.com/sm%20yoyo%20along%20button.jpg" /></a>
<br/><br/>

<b><font color="#51B1CF"> Yoyos completed</font></b><br>
Goal:  1008 <br>
Current:  166<br>
<div style="width:160px;height:15px;background:#51B1CF;border:solid 1px #555;">
<div align="left"><div style="height:17px;background:#ff7f00;color:white;width:16.5%;"><b>16.5%</b>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br/>

 Happy Friday everyone!

~Penny