Marble Magnets

Also this week while I had no sewing machine, I made these cute magnets. I found the tutorial at Convincing Chanelle. The darker colored paper worked better. The lighter colored ones had cute designs, but the colors don't show through as well as the purple, pink, and blues. Next time, I'd do papers with better contrasting colors.

Beaded Watch Bands

For a Relief Society Activity in April, we are going to be making the trendy beaded watch bands for mother's day gifts. I have been gathering beads from different stores for the past few weeks. I ordered the watch faces from HHH Enterprises. To my delight, the watch faces showed up the day I took my sewing machine into be fixed. So I had something fun to do this week. These are the examples of watches that I came up with. We are going to be offering them for about $12 each.

OUT OF ORDER

Two nights ago, I was sewing during commercials of Lost and I pushed my machine to go too fast. All of the sudden... BANG... the needle hit a pin. However, the needle didn't break, neither did the pin. It only bent in half and got shoved down into the bobbin with the needle forcing the face plate to pop up. It was quite a violent collision.

After a few hours of undoing the damage and trying to get my machine to keep working, I relented to the disagreeable reality that I couldn't fix it and would have to send it in to be repaired. So this morning the girls and I dropped of our blessed sewing machine at the "doctor" who will keep it for five days.

Five whole days.

Right now it seems like an eternity. Don't laugh, really it does. I'm in the mood to sew. I have projects that are just pinned together and need sewing. I have cut and pinned projects for the past couple days, but I want to see how they will turn out and I can't do that without my machine.

Help, I am going through sewing withdrawals.

...Sigh...

Crazy Quilt - Olympic Dreams

I started this crazy quilt during the 2008 summer Olympics and finished it during the opening ceremonies for the 2010 winter Olympics, so I felt it was appropriate to name this quilt Olympic Dreams. Although it took me a couple years to finish, this quilt was really easy. One of the best things that I love about this quilt is that I only used fabric from my stash. The only thing I had to buy for this quilt was the batting. You can't get any better than that.

1. First cut 36 blocks of coordinating fabrics to 11 inch squares. (This is a great quilt to use random fabric from your stash.)
2. The quilt blocks are made by stacking 9 squares of random fabric and cutting them with random cuts using your rotary cutter. Repeat this 4 times until you have 4 unique stacks of blocks.
   
3. Once you have cut up the blocks, you rotate the pieces of the blocks until you have a different piece of fabric showing for each piece.
4. Next, sew the pieces of the block back together in the reverse order that you cut the pieces.
5. Once all the blocks are sewn back together, arrange the quilt in rows of 5 by 7. You will have one block left over, use it for a pillow or something fun. Sew the blocks into rows and then the rows together.
   
6. I used 6 inch strips to add a border to the quilt. Do what ever you like, make it your own.
7. Layer the quilt backing, batting, and top. Quilt however you desire. I machine quilted my using my regular sewing machine and a free style quilting foot.
   
8. Cut binding strips that are 2 1/2 inches wide and long enough to go around you quilt. Bind the quilt.
9. Enjoy your new crazy quilt.
   

• To keep the pieces organized, I took a 12 x 12 piece of paper, traced the block, and numbered the pieces. Then I pinned all of the pieces to the paper. This helps to ensure you keep the blocks in the order you have shuffled them. Place a safety pin the the top layer of each deck.
  

• When sewing the pieces back together, sew two pieces of one deck at a time. Don't cut the thread after you finish sewing a couple pieces of a block. Instead keep sewing off of the same pieces until you have created a chain. This helps to keep your pieces in a specific order. The safety pin will help to signify which piece belongs to the top block.
  

I machine quilted by wandering and placing a random star every once in a while.

FINISHED!!!