October is Full of Hops

It's time to mark your calendars!!!  October is going to be full of lots of great stuff!!!  And I am so excited!!!

First up . . .  The Moda Bake Shop is doing a Celebrations Blog Hop to Celebrate the release of Sweet Celebrations!!!  (Wow, 3 celebrate in 1 sentence, impressive :)  It kicks off on October 1st and it hops over here on October 2nd.  There will be lots of chances to win copies of the book as well as awesome Moda Pre-Cuts.  You can click here for more details and the full blog hop schedule :)

Next, Natalia Bonner will be doing a Blog Tour to celebrate the release of her new book Beginner's Guide to Free Motion Quilting.  I am so excited to be a part of this tour.  I have looked over a copy of this book and it is incredible, perfect for all those dabbling in the world of free motion quilting!!  This tour starts on October 5th over at Piece N Quilt, Natalia's Blog, and will be hopping over here on October 7th :)  And yup, you will have a chance to win this incredible book!

Lastly, I get to be a part of the Glorious Autumn Block Party.  Have you been following along??  I will be posting my Autumn block tutorial on October 18th.  It's gonna be so cute :)

And then it will be off to Market!!!  And to say I am excited for Market would be a vast understatement.  I just found out that I will get to be part of a book signing at the Moda Bake Shop as part of the Sweet Celebrations book release!!  Squeal.  Totally excited!!!

TNT Thursday - Row Markers

Back in January I won these fun little row markers at a quilting conference.  I set them in the drawer and kept meaning to use them but always remembered I had them right after I finished sewing my rows together.  (And there are several times they would have been helpful.)  So the other day I cut out all of these crazy different size pieces.  I went to start piecing and realized that it was a bit of a pain to figure out which pile was what size.  And then I remember my row markers :)  And guess what, they work perfect as pile markers too!!!  Yippee Skippe!!  So not only did I try out my row markers I tried using them in a different way.  Bonus!!

What did you try out new this week??  Link on up :)

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Following the Bouncing Ball

I am currently working on 4 quilts.  And when I say working on 4, I mean I have sewn on all 4 in the last day.  It's kind of like following that bouncing ball that helped you read only you are bouncing from quilt to quilt.  So, why am I bouncing so crazy like??  Well basically because all of these quilts need to be done at about the same time, which is of course, ASAP!!  (although, even though it is a little crazy, I do like the variety :)

The first 2 are my Braided Irish Chain examples for the class I am teaching in January.  I didn't think I needed them until Jan. so they have been on the back burner.  But I got a a little notice requesting them to be in a quilt show to generate buzz for the retreat / class and so now my deadline has been moved way up :)  Like as in I scheduled to rent some time on a long arm on the 11th of next month to quilt them :)

So obviously, they are being moved to the front burner :)  Notice how my pin box is totally empty sans 1 pin.  That's because last night I pinned all of my seams on this huge stack of piecing. Nothing like a little pinning to unwind while watching old reruns.  This is becoming the norm around our house.  The kids go to bed, and we watch old reruns while he surfs around all the sports from the day and I either blog or do some pinning or ironing.  Time spent together, even if we are each doing our own thing :)

Next, is my little Indie project.  I finished piecing the back together yesterday and now it is waiting to be basted  and quilted.  Just a little sneak peak before the full reveal next week :)

And lastly, I am playing with some Mama Said Sew.  This project is turning out to be so much fun!!!  I am loving piecing it and keep working on a block or 2 in-between things because it just makes me happy :)

And lastly, the rundown.  I am not "working" on all of these, but they will be next up to bounce between as soon as these 4 are finished :)

Designing Stage

• Circle Meets Square Quilt
• Turnovers Quilt
• Modern Squares Quilt
• Baby Blocks Quilt

Piecing Stage

• Jessi and Me Quilt 
• WIC with MSS Quilt
• Braided Irish Chain - Queen and King 

Quilting Stage

• Solids Quilt for Free Motion
• Tetris Quilt-A-Long
• Indie Quilt

Completed Stage

• Sew Bee Create Quilt  - Spinning or Spiraling
• Ashlyn's Quilt - Dreaming of Paris
• Fab Little Quilt Swap Mini

Sheets for Backs??

First off, thank you to everyone who left wonderful insightful comments on my post from yesterday on whether to change my header or not.  You sure know how to help a girl out.  For the moment, I will be sticking to plain and clean.  Because like so many of you pointed out, when it comes down to it, that is what I like, and for the moment, that is what I like :)

So what do you do when you get to the back of your quilt??

My backs are usually decided by what type of fabric I have on hand.  If I have large scraps left over then I normally do a pieced back with all sorts of fun random piecing.  I do this because I like to use up those prints.    If I have just a little bit of scraps leftover, I usually do a fabric WOF back with maybe a strip of the leftover scraps in it, if I am feeling up to it.  (Although, mostly I do this if my quilt is over 80" and I just need a few more inches to baste it, this happens mostly in twin size quilts :)  And my little baby blankets are almost always just a piece of fabric that is a yard and a half making a 44" square, mostly because it's easy.

Here is the pieced back I put together this afternoon.  It falls into that large scraps left over category so it got turned into what I think is a pretty fun pieced back.  (These prints are from Pat Bravo's Indie collection and there's a quilt underneath the back that I will be sharing soon, yup, tutorial coming your way :)

But when I am finished this quilt, I am then moving onto finishing my King Size and Queen Size Braided Irish Chain quilts.  I didn't order backing fabric for them at the time I bought the fabric for the front.  And the last few days I have been thinking about what I wanted to do for the back.   And I admit, the thought of piecing those huge backings made me cringe a little.

So this morning, when I got my little Daily Steals email and they had King Size Sheet sets on for $15.00 (screaming deal) I had a little light bulb moment.  I thought to myself, the last time I was down at the little long arm shop, I saw 2 ladies who had used sheets as backing.  And then I thought some more and realized lots of quilters use vintage sheets for backing.  So I went for it. (It was one of those timed deals so it's not like I could dwell on it for days.)   I bought 2 sets and am planning on using the straight sheet for backings.  And I suppose I will have some extra pillow cases.   (The deal lasts for about another 6 hours if you want to grab some for yourself :)

So here is my question for you today???  Have you ever used a sheet for a quilt back??  If so, do you have any pointers for me??  Any help would be appreciated as this is totally new to me :)

Changing the Header???

So I have noticed lately that a lot of the fabulous blogs I follow have been changing their header's to add pictures of some of their favorite projects.  It's becoming quite a trend!!  So I am wondering, should I jump on??  What do you think???  Do you like the header clean and crisp or would you like to see a few photo's with it.

OR

(Of course, I would make this second one look a little nicer.  This is just to give the idea as I didn't want to throw a whole lot of time into it if you prefer the first :)

So, basically I can't decide, I love the nice clean look, but I worry that it doesn't show a whole lot about what this place is about.  Then again, I have a hard time deciding on "Favorite's" as about everything I make is my new favorite, and I don't want to be editing the header every other month.  So basically I am just going back and forth :)   So what do you think??  Throw out your opinion and help a girl out :)