What I Love

Inspired by Soule Mama.

1. My yellow reading chair. My parents bought it at an auction years ago. It's travelled to and from university and now proudly sits in our library. It's a gold tub chair with green and a slightly darker gold flowers. It is sooo comfortable. It also has a matching 6' + couch which I'm not taking.


2. The fact that my tomato plant has no green leaves left on it but it is still able to ripen the last tomatoes of the season.

3. I'm making macaroni and cheese from scratch, halving the recipe, but putting in probably the same amount of cheese as before (I really like cheese).

4. Sitting on our deck in our new house (this has been going on for the last couple of months).

I heart bookshelves

The mister and I recently moved into our first house in June. We've been settled for a little bit, and now I'm thinking about adding a bit more of ourselves to the house.

One thing that we have a lot of (much to the chagrin of the people who moved us) is books. We have bookshelves galore each filled with books. I think our personal goal is a bookshelf in each room. We're pretty much there, including a library, which is what we transformed the living room into. There's only one room that's lacking any books. This is our family room (rec room). I think I saw these bookshelves on someone's blog (I think) and I've been coveting ever since. They're called conceal bookshelves by Umbra.


My plan (which I have clumsily drawn), would be to put a few of these above our couch so they would double as art and bookshelves.

Frog Stitching Away

I decided this summer to enter my first fabric challenge. It was the Northcott's Quest for a Cure Block Challenge. You had to make a 12" block using a specific line of fabrics, which they will then use for future fundraising events (I liked this because it was the block that keeps on giving). My local quilt shop was participating and they also had extra prizes as well. I figured if I was going to enter, I might as well try to win a prize. My goal: the block with the most pieces.

I english paper pieced my block by hand - which I really enjoyed and would recommend to anyone to do. It's a great techinque to get precise piecing, and you can take it anywhere. I was also going to put on a fancy mitered border with the border fabric in the line - this was where it got complicated.

Melissa's suggestions for mitered corners
1) Don't do this unless it will make your quilt (the concept is simple but achieving some form of accuracy is difficult - I had to try a couple of times).

2) If you choose to ignore the first suggestion (I did). I highly recommend that you sew the seams that are at a 45 degree angle from the block by hand - you get the precision, and this seam isn't usually all that big. I did the four seams in about half an hour.

3) Make sure you account for the fact that your border will go around your entire block. After completing my block, taking a picture and filling out the entry form, I decided to measure my block - 13.5 inches!!!! (I only accounted for a 1 inch border on one side). This meant I had to frog stitch my entire border, trim down my block (and loose 8 pieces in the mean time) and sew it back on again. The second time was much easier I will admit.

The end result? 191 pieces in a 12.5" unfinshed block.

Garage Sale Finds

Last weekend (I know its Thursday - it was a fast week), the mister and I went to a couple garage sales. When we do this our strategy is fairly consistent. We go through the local newspaper looking for the potentially good garage sales (key words: estate, moving, downsizing). We then will stop at any other garage sales along the route.

Beside finding some uninteresting things that we need for our house (shop vac, gardening tools). I also found a pile of embroidery at one sale. I got a dresser set for next to nothing.


I also found this hankerchief. Its not too often you see embroidery with a duck on it.


What am I going to do with this? One idea came from the book Make Your Own Contemporary Quilts. It has lots of different ideas for using different collections of textiles. Laural has a great review of this book. I've been collecting embroidery for quite a while now to do something similar to this quilt. I don't think however that I'll be able to cut up the dresser set - its much to pretty.

(photo by Laural)

Project Spectrum Postcard Swap - July

As I mentioned before, I love making miniature quilts. They're so much quicker that making a regular-sized quilt, and you can try out so many different techniques.

I signed up for my first swap at Project Spectrum. Sara from New Hampshire and I swapped purple postcards. After much waiting (blast no mail on statutory holidays) I finally received Sara's beautiful postcard with embellished fabric. Sara also included purple jar openers that whe made as well.

This is the postcard that I sent her. My first try at drawing while quilting . The first leaf was a little nerve-wracking but the second was pretty easy.

I also sent some charm squares of purple (what else?) fabrics I've been collecting.

Thank you Sara!!

A bit about me

After reading other people's fantastic blogs, I decided that I would create my own to show people my inspiration and projects that are currently underway on a regular basis - hopefully.

I have been quilting for two years now, and am totally addicted. I'm on a miniature quilt kick right now. Postcards are the perfect size - I'll write about the postcard swap I did recently. I also have been inspired by so many of the other crafting projects out there, I may have to start trying those as well.

Besides quilting, I'm a graduate student doing my Ph.D. in biochemistry, which involves lots of research and playing in a lab. My husband and I have also recently moved into a house so there are lots of plans going on in our house.

I think that's all for now. Wish me luck and I hope you enjoy my blog!

Welcome to Frog Stitch!

I'll post more later (this is just a test)