DQS 10 v1.1

I got a little bit more done on this doll quilt today. Yesterday I got as far as piecing the Dresden wedge. Today I picked out the background (Kona Cotton in Charcoal) and used my Accuquilt Go 1.5" strip cutter to make quick work of cutting my scraps into perfect 1.5" squares. It literally only took me like 10 minutes to cut 70+ squares. Gotta love time saving tools!




Hopefully I can get the borders all pieced tomorrow. I still have to attach the background to the Dresden and figure out what I want to use for the center. Right now I'm leaning towards a Charcoal center because I love the graphic look of it thus far.

~Norma

If you want to read my Accuquilt Go review and tutorial on how to cut squares with the Go see this post here.

Doll Quilt Swap 10

I've lost count... but I think this is either the 3rd or 4th round of the Flickr DQS I've joined. It's one of my favorite projects of the year. This time around my partner was proving to be quite tricky to sew for. I finally settled on a design after months of throwing ideas around in my head. Usually by this point I've already had a good start on the doll quilt, but this time around I haven't had the same drive to get started. I think it has something to do with the whole baby growing deal. Ok, so it's probably has a lot to do with that plus being pretty busy with my shop, the kids, and church responsibilities.

This time around I think it paid off to procrastinate. As I was doing the daily purging of my google reader I somehow or another {you know how it goes, one link leads to another... and half an hour later you're there} I found this cute little quilt and then I hopped on over to the flickr group and was smitten by everything everyone has made.

So yesterday I pulled a stack of fabrics, mostly from my Jacob's Coat pile and today I got busy cutting wedges:




Hopefully I'll be able to piece it all shortly.

~Norma

Help Please!

I need some help in identifying some fabric.




I bought this fabric a 2-3 years ago and made each of my kids an article of clothing out of it. Ellie Mae got a little sun dress and EJ got a dress shirt. I would love to make #3 a quilt out of this fabric but would like to save the outfits and not cut into them if possible.

So if you know anything about this fabric (name, manufacturer, where I can buy some, how I can bribe you to part with it if you have some in your stash) please let me know!


Update 3/23/11
FOUND it! in case anyone else is interested it is:
Marcus Brother's Storybook Garden, I believe this one is called Ships Ahoy

Just ordered 3 yds from  Colonial Crafts and they have 2-3 yards left of it

Super thanks!!
~Norma

Party Prep

This year my little guy will turn 7. I can't believe I have a 7 year old. I can't believe I have a baby on the way, but that's a different topic :)

I knew the day would come when my kids would start asking for a "real" party. By "real" I mean a party with guests that don't live in our household. I guess having your mom, dad and sister at your party just doesn't cut it when you're turning 7. Honestly I have been dreading having a "real" party because I hate having my house full of noisy sugar fueled kids... because my kids are never noisy or sugar fueled, HA!

So I had been dragging my feet trying to put off the party planning as long as possible. Now with the party a less than two weeks away I finally asked EJ to make a guest list, which we narrowed down to 13 including his little sister (they won't all show up right?) The big question was what theme he would like. He finally decided on a Lego themed party, and to tell you the truth I'm getting kind of excited to pull it off! Mr. PD is also excited since I already gave him his assignment to build a track for some Lego car races.

I just finished up the invitation and thought I would share it with you, of course I changed all the details so that we won't have any crazies with chainsaws show up:




I simply used a picture that I took last year for my Project 365, cropped it, added some white space, and added the party info. I went ahead and personalized each invite with the name of the guest since I was only making 12. These are sized as 4x6 so I'll just have them printed at Walgreens or CVS.


~Norma

New Addition

The Petit Design household has gotten just a little bit more crowded. Say hello to my latest addition:



She was a bargain at $15 and I now have a machine I will allow my kids to touch... when the time is right. I jokingly told Mr. PD that this was his new sewing machine after he borrowed mine a couple of weeks ago. Now he can "sew pretty with Hello Kitty!" Aside from breaking a few needles and making me break out in sweat he actually did a pretty good job sewing up a canvas hammock for his tear drop trailer. Granted he doesn't know how to sew a proper seam, cut fabric efficiently, or wind a bobbin but he gets points in my book for doing it himself instead of adding it to my pile of sewing projects. Guess he really wanted his hammock made sometime this season!

I finished the quilting on Mr. PD's mission quilt. It's just an all over meander. The top was too wonky for me to try anythign else, but secretly I was also terrified of ruining it so I stuck with something I knew I could manage. It still took me a few hours, over a few days, to finish it up. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I was actually in a good rhythm towards the end. I'm glad I chose to do this top first instead of starting with my friend's memory quilt because there were some kinks I had to work out {and lots of stitches to rip out} with my new set up.

Remember the super secret project I hinted at? Well there was no fooling some of you! I thought I was pretty sneaky talking about a deadline that was moved up a whole month and being super busy working hard... well some of you were so hot you were on fire with your guesses! The Petit Design household really is going to be a little bit more crowded come late July/early August. It'll probably be, oh, about 6.5 lbs more crowded around here! So now you know my little secret and the reason behind my lamo blogging attempts and 3am blog posts :)

~ Norma

I figured it was finally safe to spill the beans since we finally told all of our family. I didn't want anyone calling me up and telling me they had to go and read it on my blog to find out!