My first real zipper.

I made this cute little bag the other day after my mother recieved a hostess gift. It was a brush bag. And the moment she showed me, I turned it inside out to figure out how they put it together. I quilted some batik fabric and PUT IN MY FIRST REAL ZIPPER. I can't believe this intimidated me for so long. I'm offically going to be putting zippers into everything. cute, huh?

You love until you don't.

This is how it works

You're young until you're not

You love until you don't

You try until you can't

You laugh until you cry

You cry until you laugh

And everyone must breathe

Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took.

The Courthouse Steps Apron

My living room is covered in fabric.

seriously...covered.

The newly found adult in me cringes, but that girl who likes to create and doesn't have time for anything else? She just giggles and makes a bigger mess. I think I like her the best. haha.

I've been working on an apron for almost two weeks now. I entered it into this little contest over at burdastyle.com. The task was to take an existing pattern from their collection and make into something of your own. Since my little obsession with paper piecing is still burning white hot, I integrated courthouse step blocks into the apron and accompanied it with black fabric. I like the result. Though more than anything, I like that I am finishing projects lately. I'm onto other things and other goals. (and patiently awaiting contest results.) But I thought I would share my Courthouse Steps Apron with you all.

She is rather pretty.

oh! also. my favorite part?

I turned one of the blocks into a pocket. You always need a perfect little pocket on an apron.

Paper Piecing.

So, this is where i have been. well, mostly. our servers crashed at work. we lost two years of information in the blink of an eye. even our backup servers died. so, it's been a rough couple of weeks. I will tell you though, my job is pretty great. and at the end of february, I got to host a quilting retreat. our biggest meeting room was stuffed with ladies and sewing machines. It worries me that I am getting old, but holy shit! how much fun was that!

There were these two dear girls from ohio there to teach a little how-to on paper piecing.

IT MADE MY BRAIN EXPLODE.

Ever since then, I've been scouring the internet for patterns, looking up youtube videos and reading quilting blogs. And, I've been sitting at my sewing machine. I'm really happy with what I'm producing and the hum of my machine makes the corners of my mouth turn up. Fold, cut, line up, stitch, fold, cut, line up, stitch. over and over until something like this appears.

This pattern is called whirling dervish and its from a talented gal name jennifer over at sewhooked.org

More to come.