Gone Hunting

Just kidding, the only hunting I'd do is with the orange gun that came with the Nintendo I had when I was 5. I have been wanting to do this quilt for some time. I remember my sister and I playing this and Super Mario Bros after we got them for Christmas. Of course we fell for all of the stupid things our friends told us - including that you have to spastically move the controller to the right if you want mario to jump farther. Duck Hunt was amazing for its time. I didn't understand the magic of how it worked (and still don't for that matter) but it kept us entertained for hours! But, oh how I hated this smug dog! I'm sure there are quite a few other 80's kids who share my hatred.

Binding!

I had originally hoped to add the ducks to this but it would've been gigantic so maybe I'll just make some pillows to go along with it. This quilt will be going in the Dart Gallery NEStalgia show starting on March 21. I'm quite excited to see it up in the gallery - especially since my Shredder quilt didn't get finished in time for the last show. If you're in the area, feel free to stop by. There will be lots of different items in the show including posters, this quilt and other mediums as well.  

Quilt As You Go

Hi All, just wanted to give you a final picture of the Quilt As You Go pillow I made following our last Maritime Modern Quilt Guild meeting. As you may recall me saying, we had a little tutorial during the meeting so I decided to give it a shot when I got home. I think it was fun but probably next time, I would use a more limited color palette and possibly make all of the strips the same size. There's just something about balance that I need in quilts. It was really nice doing a quick project for once as my quilts tend to be quite time-consuming. I should have a pixel quilt to show you soon but until then, here is my QAYG pillow. I showed it to my husband who told me he didn't like it because it looked like I just used scraps. "Uh, I did use scraps...just pretend you like it."

Craftster best of 2013

I'm very excited to announce that my Sheldon Quilt has been selected as one of the best of 2013 in the quilting category. I really like the craftster forums because of the large breadth of crafty items. It's really an honour to be included in this! Check out the rest of the winners! Craftster Best of 2013

 

 

Here are a couple of pics from my quilt in case you missed it:

 

 

New Stuffs For a New Year

It's always nice to learn new things. Sometimes we get stuck doing the same old, same old. A few months ago, my husband and I completely changed what we were eating at home. We started doing the Paleo diet which means cutting out things like sugar, grains, dairy, etc. We actually kept the dairy in because...cheese...but other than that we've been sticking to it pretty well. I've found that this has caused us to retrain our brains for more proper meals. If I was on my own for dinner, I'd usually just pop an english muffin in the toaster and have that but I can't do that anymore. Also, potatos are generally frowned upon (although not ruled out completely) so we've found ourselves trying new green vegetables that previously we wouldn't have. I ate brussels sprouts this week! Crazy! Last week, I told Eric that I'd prob eat anything as long as it had balsamic and garlic so he offered to get some cat turds out of the litter box. Not really what I meant but it does make boring vegetables delicious.

Anyway, this change had me feeling like trying new things wasn't so bad which is big for me since I'm an accountant and often like things a certain way. I don't generall like mixing things up but when we had our Maritime Modern Quilt Guild meeting last week, it inspired me so I tried a Quilt As You Go project similar to what Adrienne showed us. Here is a WIP pic:

For the first try, I'm just using scraps so the colors aren't super co-ordinating and the batting is pretty jenky but it's pretty fun to do. The MMQG girls laughed at me when I said I couldn't try this in public. I'm so used to doing pixel quilts where everything has to be perfectly square and lined up that it was a little hard to start but once I got going it was freeing. I'll let you know how it goes but for now, I'm back to a pixel quilt.

Mega Secret Santa

My office didn't do secret santa but Eric's did. His co-worker is very into Megaman so I made this pillow for him. Isn't it cute?? As usual, it's all Kona solids except the dark blue which was a middle-of-a-snowstorm walmart special. Luckily, this convinced Eric that I should have more fabrics on hand. I can't really argue with that.

In its new home

A Very Toad-y Christmas

So Shredder is on hold for a little bit while I work on a few items for Christmas. I have a couple of things that I'm knitting and one more small quilting project but this is the big one that took most of my time. A friend was looking for a unique gift to give her boyfriend so this was my suggestion. I have wanted to do a Mario type quilt for quite awhile and just haven't had a reason. So here it is. Toad in his Mario Kart. I somehow transposed the design so he is facing backwards but due to modern technology was able to fix the pic! Amazing, eh? (please excuse the little dog butt).

And here's the back  - I added a cute little banana peel to the back for a little excitement.

And for even more excitement, here's a picture of the husbeast with our black Lab, Jack. Please keep in mind that Jack is over 100lbs and thinks he's a lap dog. Isn't the white Christmas tree adorably tacky?

Shredded

I've been working on something new for the past few weeks that I was really excited to show you guys. The idea came about because my husband and his graphic designer friends are doing a gallery show based on 80's toys. They called it "Has Bros" for a little play on words for the classic toy comapny. It seems like they produced just about all of the awesome toys when I was a kid - Cabbage Patch Kids, Easy-bake Oven, GI Joe, Lite-Brite, My Little Pony, Mr Potato Head, etc etc. Now, the show is named Has Bros but art based on any 80's toys are acceptable. You can see the awesome poster Eric designed for the show above. Pretty cool, eh?

I was going to do a Shredder quilt because for some reason I loved the Ninja Turtles when I was a kid. Unfortunately, I ran into some snags and am not going to get it done in time. I probably could have pushed it but I would have ended up with something I wasn't happy with and therefore wouldn't want to hang in the gallery. If the guys end up doing another show in the spring, I will start something super early just in case. I'll show you the Shredder when I finally get it done. In the meantime, here's a screen cap to hold you over.