BeccaCooks needs a apron!!

My 13 year old Rebecca has a Blog and Website at http://blog.beccacooks.com and http://beccacooks.com and she is in need of a new apron.  Now a month ago for Christmas I was looking for one that would fit her and never found one.  Back then I did not have a sewing machine and I did not believe I could sew.  Now a month later, I have proven to myself, my wife and even BeccaCooks that I can make any thing I put my mind too.  In all my blog reading about quilting I have seen a few posts here or their about making aprons.  What I am looking for today is help from all the readers out there.  I need a good walk through from some one (on their blog) with a pattern and or Ideas for design of a new Apron for the cook.  I am going to have a linking list for this.  For all those that have no walk through on sewing up a Apron, and since BeccaCooks needs more recipes you can link up any recipes (off your blogs)  As a added reward any one that links their recipes I will add those recipes to http://beccacooks.com giving full credit to you and make sure a link to your blog post shows up on her blog and recipe site linking back to you.  For all those that have no aprons, and no recipes, whats a cook with out a hat! We could use a tutorial for that too.

I will have BeccaCooks judge all of the recipes, and aprons and post the one she likes best on my blog and on her blog.  Thanks in advance for helping a dad out.

Man Quilts In Progress

Today's post is a work in progress on my "Man Quilts."  This little project has taken on a life of its own.  It started out with I believe 6 patterns of gray and black for me (I wanted a quilt, but every color I suggested to the wife she turned her nose at as not manly). So it seems that black and gray is manly.  While I decided that I bought enough material to make 2 quilts (Lap Quilts) you know that 2 is always better then one.   So I started cutting.  Originally I had a gray back that had roses on it (Yes again wife said not manly enough) and she re-commissioned that to the back of Hearts and Flowers 2. Hum just realized I did not take a picture of the back of this quilt or H&F2 well I need to stat taking pictures of both sides I think.  Any way back to the man quilt.  I have a friend Doug who I want to make a quilt for so added him to the list of people, o quilt for.  He was over and of course shook his head at me cause men are not suppose to quilt he says.   Any way showed him my original black colors (before telling him why I was showing him) and he rejected 4 of 6 saying they were not manly enough.  So we went shopping and bought 4 more colors in Paisley since that in his mind is manly enough..  The gray and the back white one in picture above is the only 2 he approved.  Once I get closer to done I will take a better close up so you can see some of the prints.  Any way I am now sewing, had 2 conveyor belts done (as my son calls them) when I took the top picture.  I now have 12 rows ( conveyor ) and have sewn 6 together.  This is today's (ok Sunday - Tuesdays) project.  Any way this project will be on going, as I now have I think 12-13 materials and added a number of people onto the list of who gets them so each will be unique in some way.  Oh on a note, gray Tie-Dye ended up manly enough for the back.

Linking up with on WIP Wednesday http://freshlypieced.blogspot.com/

Blue Hearts Progress

The quilt that I am making for my wife is made out of blue hearts. We have constructed about 22 blocks so far each block has 4 patch on bottom and a heart shaped 4 patch on top. The 22 that we have made still need have the top heart stitched on, they are appliques You can see here on the left I have lined a hand full of them up on the table to show off for this post. The stack of 22 that are done is on the right side.

The image on the bottom left is ones that are still missing their hearts.  My wife is a total fan of hearts and when I first started quilting I bought a book that had a pile of heart quilts.   On the right is a image I found off the web that is in the book and the basic design that we are going to make.  Any way after the grand shopping trip this is what the wife and I worked on to relax on Sunday.

We have been working on this quilt since late December.  The original plans in the book has 13 blocks and is a wall hanging we are planing to do this for our bed.  My wife and I have not quite decided on how to lay out the blocks any suggestions would be helpful.




Linking with WIP Wednesday at http://freshlypieced.blogspot.com/

Some one hide my CC!

I am officially a Quilting Addict and some one needs to stop me!  Wait don't stop me I am having too much fun.    I am new to quilting so lack the stash that others might have after years of quilting. Last week in my post The need for a stash!! I talked about my Trip to Joann's and my million year wait at the cut table.  While I did not learn from my mistake last week.  I again visited Joann's on the weekend.  But while you see I had this 20% off every thing coupon on my phone (android Joann's App that gives weekly coupons) and I had this 50% off coupon (paper coupon). And as it turns out they are having 40% off a lot of material.  So I sort of had to go shopping.  In my own defense, I did take my wife to visit my LQS (oh ya learned a cool term and had to share it) before I visited Joann's,  I visited The Material Girls Quilts they are not the closet quilting shop or even the second closest too me but hey I follow their blog had to show them some love. This morning I saw their post about the last day of their 30% off sale and when making the to-do list for the day added them to my list.   They are close to where I work (about 2 miles I think) but they are about 20 miles from my house.  The sale ended today so I just had to go today.  I have never yet bought any of the Moda fabrics. But have admired them from things I found on the web.  I was able to talk my wife into getting a charm pack for my daughter Rebecca and I bought 3 more black & white materials for my Man Quilts for my brother in laws and my self.  My wife kept looking at the materials in the Layer Cake, but kept putting it back.I finally twisted her arm and bought that.   I have to note out of every thing I bought today that is the only item that does not belong to a current project on the Quilting List which you can read on my Resolved to sew 2012 blog post yesterday.

 I have yet to talk tell you what I bought at Joann's, but already you have seen above purples and greens and to the right my John Deere collection.  As I said I have no stash.  While I have one now.  The purple on the upper right is for 2 pieced top lap blankets one for my Rebecca and one for the only Girl Cousin she has (keep this quiet its for her Christmas present next year).  The green on the left is for a Lap blanket (rag quilt style) for my son Jared who has this fascination with green.  His first trip to Joann's he had 5 bolts of green material in the cart before I knew what he was doing.  Now I know how my mom felt with me as a kid in the material store.
The John Deere materials (all 4 are John Deere prints) the 3 on top will be the front and the big one behind will be the back for 2 lap blankets one for my father in law and one for a brother in law both of them live out in the country and  while drive John Deere Equipment and neither quite get me and my computer's.   Again a Christmas present so keep these under raps for me (good thing they both don't know what the Internet is).

So your thinking to your self.  He must be done now.  Nope more material below. On the left some sinfully cheap charm squares for Rebecca and some black material for the Man Quilts (the 3 others on top are a repeat from above don't know how I managed that one.  Any way walked out of Joann's with a bill for just over $150, but I saved $145 not bad for a shopping trip. Those 50% off and 20% off of already 40% off items was a killer deal.  I think the only thing I had to pay full price for was one of the John Deere Prints.  Oh I did save 30% off at Material Girls which I have to say I will go back and visit again.  Now for those of you that are not half blind (like me) you will see that their is some fine print on the bottom of the post (under the last 2 images) My wife did not not like my title and asked me to add the fine print to explain it, so good luck reading it. Wow what a day, almost $200 and I have a stash.  And about 6-8 quilts worth of material.  Now some one please shoot me if I go shopping next Saturday!






Wife says I need to put in the fine print some where that my CC in question was a debit card meaning that I paid for all my material with cash on hand and did not charge up the credit card.  Now if you can read this fine print then you tried too hard to read it. And while nothing useful is in it so stop now! No really fine print is never meant to be read, its just their to annoy you and let you know some lawyer was involved. And who in the world wants a lawyer involved in any thing.

Resolved to Sew 2012

Over at Very Berry Handmade (http://veryberryhandmade.co.uk/2012/01/16/giveaway-resolved-to-sew-2012/) they are having a giveaway and being new too sewing and could use the love.  The idea behind the give away is the resolve to sew which hits home to me since while I have been sewing only a few weeks.  Quilting is new and fun to me and amazing with all the colors and patterns to chose from.  In this post I am to say which item I would like.  Material is what I need.  It is a given one of the bundles.  The first or the second one on the list I like the best, but all the others are nice to.

What I want to do this year is make at least 1 item for each of the 5 (almost 6) members of my family.  Then I would like to make my brother and sister and their spouses quilts.  Doing the same for my wife's family.  That is at least 15 Lap size or queen size quilts.  What all is your goals for the year in quilting?  So far this year has been great have 5-6 quilts done and about 8 or so in progress.  Wish me luck on getting the family all quilted this year.