Booilley

Dresden Addicted!

2013-11-12T14:22:00.000-08:00

Ya I do LOVE seeing all the dresden plate quilts that everyone puts out these days. I just had to try! I searched a few popular blogs, YouTube and of course, my all time favorite: Pinterest to see what I could find in the way of tutorials. I found quite a few. Simple enough technique. I ran downtown and bought a dresden ruler. It wasn't exactly the one I wanted, but beggars can't be choosers in a town this small!

From this dresden ruler, I proceeded to make my own PLASTIC template:

Then I started cutting stacks of dresden blades from scrap fabric:

I chain-sewed the blades on my machine and then auditioned color combinations (what blade looked best beside what blade?):

RESULTS: some pretty fun-looking dresdens, but what to do with them? I have a million quilts (ok.... not a million!) that I have started that need finishing and I don't DARE start another quilt. Ooooooo what to do?....

Many moons ago I had bought a package of the flour sack tea towels. You know the white, loose thread-count stuff that sops up water like crazy? The purchase originated from the fact that I have a serious LOVE affair with the store: Anthropologie and their website leaves me drooling every time I visit. On that website they have these absolutely wonderful tea towels.... Oooooooo have you seen them????? I had a brain wave that I would buy my own flour sack tea towelling and make my own brilliant tea towels. Thank you Anthropologie for the inspiration!!!

Yes.... you know where I am going with this. I combined the DRESDENS that I made WITH the flour sack tea towels. I know brilliant right? Ok so nothing is new under the sun and I am not THAT brilliant, but I was quite tickled with my little brain wave... and the results! I made one for myself to start:

Yes, my mother would, and probably IS dying reading this, but I thought it was pretty funny and just couldn't pass on this one! (Sorry Mama!) DH and I were married in '96 and so I thought it was a pretty good "slogan" for a personal tea towel.

I attached the dresden plate to the tea towelling by appliqueing it on with my sewing machine.

I pulled out a complimentary-colored embroidery floss and ran a quick, cute running stitch around the outside of the dresden plate.

Then I let my embroidery-machine embroider the "saying" with the help of some stablizer on the back, and I was pretty tickled with the results.

Of course, I couldn't stop there. I had to try another:

I think this will be a gift for someone I KNOW VERY WELL... (heh heh!) or maybe I'll sell it... hmmmm what do you think? Would you like to own this? I just think this is so cute!

I made another and this is how it turned out:

I really liked the hit of black in this one! I need to do more of it!

Another view hanging from the front of the stove on a sunny Fall afternoon:

Then just because I was goofing around, I had to try something TOTALLY different other than a dresden plate:

I used scrap fabric to strip quilt this cute little tomato and then appliqued him down onto the flour sack towelling. I just can't say enough about how much fun these tea towels are to make! I think I have a good start on some Christmas gifts.

And look at what I have waiting in the wings:

Yup! More dresdens! (Even Chickadee made one.) But what do I do bloggy peeps? Do I make more funky, sarcastic tea towels or do I save these and make a quilt?

Aaaaarrggggh! Decisions! Decisions! All I do KNOW for sure is that I am officially FULLY ADDICTED to making these "drezzies!" Even my sisters are getting in on the drezzie-making act!

Krista decided her hand at practicing the virtue of patience... look at this gorgeous little tiny drezzie she made - a little bigger than an Altoid tin!

Then she made a larger drezzie tea towel. Love this! Isn't it so cute?! Love her choice of fabric and the colored flour-sacking is absolutely DIVINE! Krista you will have to comment below on what fabric line this is that you used to make the dresden plate. So cute!

Robin used up some gorgeous scrap fabrics all in PURPLE and LOOK what she came up with!!! This is such a cool drezzie. A true work of art! Can't wait to see what she is gonna do with it! Keep us posted Robin!

Well my bloggy peeps I hope this whets your appetite to get making some drezzies! I can honestly say I am addicted to making them and how useful they are in depleting my mountain of scraps! And the possibilities are endless as far as "where" you can applique a dresden plate! A bag, apron, quilt, table runner, or????..... I recently purchased a favourite magazine of mine off the newsstand. It's called "Quilty." And they have this great idea to make a very simple apron using drezzies. Maybe this will also inspire you! So simple to make! So go get drezzie-addicted! You will be glad you did!

Anchor's Aweigh!

2013-11-07T12:21:00.001-08:00

So my niece Nicole Marie "growed up," became a brilliant school teacher and then was married this past summer. Before she grew up though, I was an "active" auntie in her life, and even lived with my sister and her family for a short time on Vancouver Island, during my young single life. Here is a photo of "little" Nicole Marie when she was about 3 or 4 years of age and I was about 19 years old. I think my fashionable winter/beach attire gives it away! Nic was such a fabulous little kid. I love her so much!

We attended her beautiful wedding this past July where she married her sweet honey: Logan. Here they are on the dance floor bustin' a move at their fabulous, FUN Yacht Club reception! Yay! So much fun!

Upon receiving her wedding invitation, and knowing that Logan was training at the time to be a "Sea Captain," I knew EXACTLY the gift I wanted to make for them as a wedding gift. Many of you have probably seen the free download pattern of Tula Pink's Anchor quilt? It is SOOOO COOL! I downloaded the pattern, hit print, and set about figuring out my plan of attack! I went to work immediately, purchasing all the required yardage of Tula Pink's "Salt Water" fabric collection. I LOVE this fabric line. I think the little sea horses in it are one of my favorites!

I was confident that this would be a great quilt to make for Teacher Nicole and Captain Logan! I was even more excited when the fabric arrived and I got it pre-washed, starched and ironed, and ALLLLLL the LITTLE TWO INCH SQUARES CUT and I was able to start PIECING!

But BEFORE piecing, I had to organize all those little TWO INCH SQUARES into baggies to keep things straight in my head according to the pattern. Otherwise things could go "sideways" very quickly. I love organizing and so this was an easy task!

I set to work right away sewing those cute little TWO INCH SQUARES according to Tula's easy pattern...

Once I sewed a "section" of a row together I would mark that with painter's tape to keep it straight in my BRAIN!

THEN... in perfect keeping with my crappy summer, vertigo hit and I was laid up in bed off and on for almost a month and a half! Well there went the plan of ever finishing Nicole Marie's quilt in time for their wedding!!!! Arrrggghhh! So there SAT the quilt!

Considering the situation I let her know that I started the quilt and she has even seen some of it in progress since. I hope to get it finished soon and get it professionally long-armed just for Nicole Marie and Captain "Logey!" Sooner than later would be good! Considering Nicole Marie has had her peek you can have a peek too:

Because this anchor quilt involved ALL of these little two inch squares and ROW UPON ROW of them, I kept a lot of notes (the type of thread I am using, needle size, ironing and starching practices etc.) and put them in a binder:

As I created the rows of this quilt, I labelled them, using painters tape as well. And I didn't/haven't created the rows in order. I sewed the rows according to Tula Pink's very well laid-out pattern as I felt led. No science here. This would be Rows 2, 3 and 4 completed and sewn together.

And here would be a close-up of the TOP of the anchor itself. So cool right????

Another look at the TOP of the anchor:

And yes, it looks wonky as there is a row laying underneath that is not yet "connected" as of yet.

Another view from farther away helps to get the picture of the top of the completed anchor:

You are able to see better in this picture that the bottom row is actually going to be the bottom of the anchor.

Oh how I can't wait to get this finished! Cheer me on my bloggy peeps and help me get this quilt completed before Nicole Marie and Captain Logey are no longer NEWLYWEDS! Or worse yet, they announce they are pregnant or something and then I will REALLY be behind the 8-ball trying to make a mini-anchor quilt for "Captain Junior!" Oh Lord have mercy!

Coming Clean

2013-10-19T14:59:00.002-07:00

I haven't blogged in MONTHS! I'm coming clean! The fact of the matter is I have been avoiding putting up this blog post because I really didn't want to talk about our HORRID SUMMER! And a HORRID SUMMER it was. Honestly some of the toughest times of my life and our family's life! But you know what, I have decided that I don't need to talk about it at all. This is a QUILTING blog and I really don't want to re-hash it at all. Suffice it to say we have come out on the other side and we are GOOD now. I hope we never have to re-live those tough times and yet we are VERY thankful as these tough times have honed us and sharpened us into the people we are today. Yes, we are still "limping and licking our wounds" but we are definitely crawling out of the fire storm and have survived! Thank the Lord above! Thank the Lord that the HORRID SUMMER OF 2013 is behind us! Never to be seen again! If you are TRULY interested in the events of our summer for the sake of praying for us, you can email me personally, I will gladly tell you. It's not a secret what happened and it's not like there was a death in the family, but the series of events that PILED themselves on top of another almost got to be too much. I am literally skin and bone. Lost a lot of weight because of it and have a very broken down immune system, but I am confident that I will bounce back.

NOW THAT IS OUT OF THE WAY, LET'S GET ONTO WHAT YOU CAME FOR!

I had such GREAT PLANS for the Summer of 2013 to get so many things accomplished but alas, NOTHING got done!

But! Now I do have a FINISH! Yes my bloggy peeps I have a finished quilt to brag about! Stinky's Midget Rep hockey team hosted a hockey tournament a few weeks ago! As a fundraiser item, I decided that I was going to donate a quilt as a silent auction item.

I had a "Scrappy Trip Around the World" QUILT TOP all finished. You may recall the loose tutorial I posted of how to do a Scrappy Trip Quilt? Here is a photo of when I just started this quilt WAAAAAY back in the when:

Here are two rows sewn together. I pinned this picture on PINTEREST and believe it or not, many have re-PINNED!

So anyways, this is the finished quilt I decided I would donate! I had the top pieced and needed to get it quilted in record time, so I called the local quilt store and found out about a local woman who owns her own long-arm quilting business. I jumped into my truck and ran my beloved quilt out to her house. When I stepped into her studio - my JAW dropped! OOOOOOOO BLOGGY PEEPS - that is a blog post ALL IT's OWN! It truly was Ahhhhhh-mazing! She owns the Gammill long-arm and it stood there in all its beauty, like a queen on a throne! I was COVETING really bad! It was absolutely SHAMEFUL! No really it was! But bless Quilting Vicky's heart, she DONATED her long-arm services to my quilt as she knew I was donating the quilt to Stinky's hockey team. Isn't that so kind? Of course she had me HOOK LINE AND SINKER as far as having me as a future customer too - smart isn't she?! She whipped off the quilt work, or should I say, her $28,000 Gammill whipped off the work, and I retrieved the quilt in time for the hockey tournament. Here are the results:

This little Scrappy Trip Quilt resulted in an 58x80 sized quilt. It almost reached 60x80 but who's obsessing... Speaking of obsessing I snapped these pics at 8am in 30 seconds or less as I was running out the door TO the tournament so they are NOT great at all! Arrrrgggh!

Here is a close-up view of Quilting Vicky's long-arming talents. I was sooooo pleased! I so would LOVE a $28,0000 Gammill long-arm quilter ... *sigh! Until, then I will just drool over Vicky's!

I think one of my favorite things on a quilt is the binding! Truly! I do love the finishing touches!

Another view of the quilt laying on the rocks in my back yard. I won't be able to do this for much longer once the snow starts to fall!

I backed the quilt in flannel, which was in keeping with who possibly would be receiving or buying this quilt: hockey moms and the like! I found this gorgeous polka dot flannel and fell in love with it right away!

Here's one last look at the quilt in a whole different light laying on the kitchen floor. Again not a great picture but at least gives you a taste:

It was very satisfying to get this quilt done and for the quilt to be donated to Stinky's team, especially after such a horrid summer - something positive! The quilt SOLD FOR $100! Someone definitely got a SMOKING DEAL! But regardless, it was a WIN WIN for everyone all around don't you think?

My studio is up and running again. The dust has been removed and I am going full speed ahead. I have much to show you and hope to get more blog posts up VERY SOON! Thanx for reading bloggy peeps!

Block Creations Make Great Quilt Creations!

2013-06-06T12:13:00.002-07:00

So I have been doing some more fiddling around with my EQ7 software! LOVE it so much! I recently purchased a plethora of Denyse Schmidt's reprint of "Flea Market Fancy" fabrics in quarter yards. You all know it! But in case you didn't, here is a sampling of this absolutely cute fabric line.

I have been DYING to get going on a quilt using this fabric line and thought I might design my own block. So here is the block:

I haven't decided if I am going to foundation piece this or get up enough guts to pre-cut and piece my own blocks. We'll see how brave I am feeling once I am standing at my cutting table I guess. The color combination above was NOT what I settled on, but just inserted some of the fabrics just to "see." I know, you are all thinking "okay this doesn't look like much...."

Well let's see if this tantalizes your little quilt buds... Here is QUILT LAYOUT #1:

Then I really got going on flipping fabrics around into different spots. Here is QUILT LAYOUT #2:

It is definitely a little bit more busy but that's how I like to quilt. Quiet is not my personality, thusly... neither are my quilts (*smile).

But now it's your turn to VOTE! Which one do you like better? Quilt Layout #1 or Quilt Layout #2? Comment below and let me know your preference!

Love it When a Plan Comes Together

2013-05-31T11:18:00.000-07:00

Hello my bloggy peeps! I'm back! I LOVE that I have been able to hunker down in my sewing studio the last few days and SEW! Weeee! Love it when a plan comes together!

You all know how I have raved about my EQ7 quilting software program HERE and HERE. I am still a newbie to the program and love when I can learn more about it. In order to do so, I subscribed to receive every blog post by email that the EQ7 "Behind the Mouse" blog puts out. Currently they are running a blog series on lessons to use the "Easy Draw" module of the program. I am LOVING it!

Our challenge was to follow Jenny's FABULOUS(!) instructions on the blog post and "draw" or create a specific quilt block and then go and MAKE IT! Then they host "show and tell" on their blog where you can post a photo of your completed block. The series goes all summer and (fingers crossed!) I hope to follow all summer long and learn more and create more! Here is what we were to create:

Here are my EQ7 results on paper. The EQ7 program is so great that you can actually print out a "rotary cutting" recipe to follow! You will note that there are 5 blocks lettered "C" in the diagram at the top left of the below photograph. Then if you look at the bottom of the photo you will see that the rotary cutting instructions for "C" are that I am to cut FOUR 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch patches of bright green and then ONE patch of the same measurement in blue... and so on. So easy a kid could figure this out right?! Wanna hear ONE better? All of these measurements INCLUDE the 1/4 inch seam allowance! For me that is a "the clouds part, the angels sing!" kinda moment! No really! I hate doing the math! I just wanna create and sew!

Once I drew my block, printed out the rotary cutting recipe, I pulled out my scraps in similar colors and set to work cutting and sewing. Aren't you dying to see the results? Tell me yes!

VOILA!

Fun right? If I continue the whole summer series in similar color ways, I am gonna have a whole bunch of 12x12 blocks to make into a quilt by Fall! Weeee! Thank you EQ7!

So cross your fingers for me and let's hope that the planets align, the schedule dies down and I can actually SEW throughout the summer and get these done. I'll say it again: I LOVE it when a plan comes together!!

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Studio Tour and a UFO

2013-05-28T15:52:00.000-07:00

Wow! A month has flown by since my last post! I PROMISE! I have NOT had my finger up my nose doing nothing!

Even though I:
1. did a week in Washington state babysitting my sweet neices and nephew
2. did a weekend horse clinic with Chickadee
3. did a weekend horse show with Chickadee
4. did another weekend horse camping/clinic with Chickadee...

I was still able to get in some sewing and fabric buying here and there. I was even able to get my little sewing studio organized! And when I say "LITTLE" - I mean little. I share the space with a queen-sized guest bed. Yes - the fourth bedroom in our home which was meant to be the guest bedroom slowly morphed into half sewing studio. Since going to the USA, I was able to purchase more of those fabulous comic book storage boards. Have your heard about them? I had heard great things from my little sister about using them to wrap fabric around and store/categorize her fabric. I bought three packs of 100 each and got busy upon arriving home! I already had SOME storage boards but now I was able to address my WHOLE stash! Weeee! I LOVE being organized! So guess what?! You get to go on a little studio tour:

This is how the fabric used to end up - no matter how hard I tried to keep it neat, if I ever hit a creative binge and was cruising through my stash this is what used to happen! UGH! What a PIG STY!

But since using the comic book storage boards I am able to rein in the mess and get things organized and more user friendly. Too bad I have 4 more HUGE plastic bins to sort through yet! Where am I gonna put it all? (Good thing we are selling the house... cuz I have PLANS!... thanx to Pinterest!)

As you can see I have organized the fabrics mostly by designer name - alphabetically. I printed the designer name (front and back) onto a piece of card stock to label and divide the fabric lines.

The fat quarters are already bursting out of their spot and I am going to have to break down and get some decent storage for them. I have seen that some quilters use a CD storage system for their fat quarters... think I might have to look into that!

I stored the novelty fabrics on their own and because I absolutely ADORE dots and stripes, they get their own spot too.

This would be the view of the main wall of my sewing studio. My DH put up all this shelving many moons ago - along with the fluorescent light and "fancy plug-in cord!" I still have SO far to go to get it organized but, until the house sells, this is how it will remain - plastic throw-up everywhere and yellow walls! Of course I dream of having a Heather Bailey look-alike studio one day... *sigh* I must be patient!

One thing though, I LOOOOOVE my label maker! I don't know what I would do without it! Love this thing!

I used to use a tiny little black plastic banquet table as my cutting table for a long time, but found (already painted white!) an old door to lay between two shelving units which has now become my cutting table. It works great! My only complaint: it is a little too narrow to hold my LARGE cutting mat, but it's a small price to pay! I use a file sorter to hold all my rulers and REALLY ATTRACTIVE coke boxes to hold all my quilt mags and other paper paraphernalia.

Under the table I currently I have more "plastic throw-up" which stores all kinds of sewing stuff, including a lot of crafty stuff. You will note the beautiful LOVE NOTE my dear hubby carved into the side of my (door) cutting table for me?... Gotta love him for it!

I hang all of my UFO's (Un Finished Objects) to the right of my sewing machine and ironing board. I really don't have that many and I refuse to feel guilty that they aren't done yet!

That's not a whole lot of UFO's right?!!!!

Behind the door of the studio there is a little wall space that I was able to take advantage of by pinning some quilt blocks to some string with these cute little tiny clothes-pins. One day these too will turn into quilts...

I love having my work laid out and visible where I can always see it. It inspires me!

I must say though, that my most cherished possession has got to be my Brother Innovis 4000D sewing/embroidery machine! I just adore this machine and I wouldn't be much of a quilter if I didn't have her! Yes I referred to my machine in the female gender and in fact, refer to her specifically as "Beezy" (don't ask me why!) Beezy is A-MAZING and can do sooooo many things including machine embroidery. She has trudged through many happy and sad days, and late nights with me and has worked her hardest to make me a happy (in the past: children's clothing designer) quilter! She beeps and talks all in her own language and I quite love her. Her work is impeccable! She never complains or whines, but is always her consistent happy self. I hope she stays with me for a long time yet!

Here is Beezy without her embroidery arm attached:

Well short of pulling boxes open and exploring what's inside them, tripping over extension cords and picking thread off your socks, that concludes my humble sewing studio tour.

I would love to hear how you store your sewing things and/or fabric, and what you have named your sewing machine!

In the meantime, I thought I would give you a quick peek at one of my UFO's that I am DYING to finish!

I found this great little pattern using all scraps.

I have never made a postage stamp quilt before but figured I would give it a whirl! So I got to cutting some tiny scraps:

Then started sewing them together (wished I had discovered the use of spray starch before I did this project though!):

I added a white border:

Then was soon adding a border of scraps to that:

Pretty soon my design wall was growing!

And the top is complete! (What's a quilt pic without a dog in it?!)

And here it is in real daylight. Now I am DYING to get this one finished as I have found THE perfect striped fabric to bind it with. But alas: I have two MUST-DO projects that I have to get done before I can even think about tackling this! Cheer me on my bloggy peeps! Beezy and I are going to be busy!

Oh! And one more thing: for Mother's Day I asked for a "dry iron." I have been doing online research on the proper quilting/ironing techniques and apparently the dry iron and a spritzing water bottle is the way to go. A steam iron can easily shrink and distort the fabric shape and really make your quilts wacky. So I am hoping with the combo of my dry iron and either a shot of spray starch or water (when needed!) that is going to solve that problem. Not to mention the problem that I have with LEAKING, SPITTING steam irons! I discovered the dry iron at the Vermont Country Store for only $29.95!!! That's crazy talk right?! And upon discovering same, I ordered it immediately and had it shipped to my sister's place in the USA - which was also very inexpensive as I was getting it shipped in-country. When I arrived at her house guess what arrived at the same time???? My IRON! Weeeee I feel so "professional" now! No more steam iron for me. I am ALL fancied up!

I have a Black Belt...

2013-04-26T11:10:00.001-07:00

It is REALLY tough to add to my fabric stash when I live in a SUPER small town with very limited choices on designer quilting cottons for purchase. So when I go to bigger city centers, I definitely take advantage of the beautiful quilt shops that are available. It is probably a good thing that I don't live in a bigger city center simply because I could see myself going "off-the-chain-crazy" buying up every bolt in the country. Let's just say I could easily achieve "BLACK BELT" status in buying fabric...

FABRIC STASH PURCHASE #1:
About 2 weeks ago, Stinky and I made a trip to Vernon. I made a deal with him: I would go with him to a few of his favorite stores if he accompanied me to a few of my favorite stores, then we would go for lunch. It was a date! I love going on dates with my boy!

Of course, you KNOW where I wanted to shop: Yes - Stinky, my 15 year old son graciously and patiently accompanied me to a few fabric stores. He helped me pick out some great fabrics to add to my stash and I left happy all in about 20 minutes!

Hiiiiiii - yah!! Chop! Chop! Added to the fabric stash!

Status: ORANGE BELT!

FABRIC STASH PURCHASE #2:
I walk into a Kelowna quilt shop and start looking through the fabrics section by section ..."no... no... no... no..." I am finding NOTHING to buy - how can that be?!!! Usually I can always go into any quilt/fabric store and find SOMETHING to buy... but really there was nothing!... No really bloggy peeps!... Nothing!...

Then I turned a corner... the clouds parted, the angels sang and rays of sunshine beamed down on the CLEARANCE SECTION! Amy Butler fabric in the CLEARANCE SECTION????! SHUT UP! I started pulling bolts of fabric like a mad woman!!!

I ask the woman cutting the fabric WHY? Why is the BEST fabric in the clearance section???? Answer: Most of the women that come into the shop are older women who prefer a different fabric style... I think... what a crying shame! BUT! BONUS FOR ME! Designer fabric at a fraction of the price and all for me? I'll take one of each please!!!

Some Amy Butler fabric will do me just fine...

Along with a few Robert Kaufman pieces!

Soon I was blowing the smoke off the debit card and out the door in about 20 minutes!

Hiiiiiii - yah!! Chop! Chop! Added to the fabric stash!

Status: PURPLE BELT!

FABRIC STASH PURCHASE #3:
I fill MOST of my fabric stash with online purchases. There are some really great online fabric stores! Hawthorne Threads HAS to be my favorite. Regardless of the fact that the fabric has to journey across the continent from New York, I get my fabric in about a week's time and their prices are one of the best I have found online! Bar none! Not to mention they carry every kind of designer cotton known to any black-belted-fabric-buying-crazy-woman! In fact, I am patiently waiting for a package to arrive any day now... when it comes I will definitely share the goods with you... in eye candy anyways!

Hiiiiiii - yah!! Chop! Chop! Added to the fabric stash!

Status: BLACK BELT!

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Saturday Night Fever

2013-04-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

Once in a VERY blue moon, I will have a Saturday night where nothing is planned. I really enjoy those evenings. My biggest choice is what pajama pants to throw on and what type of snack to grab to take down to my sewing studio to sew and eat to my heart's content. I love those kinda nights! (You can call me a nerd I'm okay with that!)

This past Saturday night ended up being one those kinda evenings! But instead of heading to my studio, I actually went into the office and sat down at the computer with a big mitt full of fabric. Why - you ask?! Well to scan fabric into my computer of course!

I have been slowly trying to scan ALL my fabric (Ya! Right!... Not in this lifetime or the next!) into my computer to use with my EQ7 software to design quilts. It is fabulous to be able to "preview" the look of my own fabrics in the quilts I design before I slice into even one fabric. But like everything else in my life, it seems like the quilting part of life gets shelved for higher priority items sometimes. So, on Saturday evening I was bound and determined I was going to sit down and scan fabric and "play" on my EQ7 software. And that's just what I did!

After scanning a pile of fabrics, I imported all the "jpeg" files of my fabrics into my EQ7 and got busy... playing that is!

I love creating quilts on the EQ7 and then playing with different fabric combinations. It is truly amazing how just a switch of fabric color can change the whole look of a quilt! For example, I created this quilt using these fun fabric combinations:

I LOVED the unexpected results! And I NEVER would have settled on these fabric combinations had I seen them just laying around on my sewing table. Then I came up with this combination which I liked even more!

I think this one is even more fun! Can you see that I have a thing for polka dots??? Then I decided to just switch out the 9 patch block in the quilt above and inserted a LARGER, simpler half square triangle block. These are the results:

I think this is such a darling quilt! I must make it!!!! If you have not noticed yet, I truly love anything that has the unexpected in it and this is truly that! Again, I never would've chosen the fabric combo's but I do really like this!

Another thing that I designed on Saturday night was a chevron quilt. This is a quilt pattern that MANY people have recreated on the internet ALL OVER the place. I see it on pinterest, blogs, magazines and the like. I think most quilters like it because it is a fast and easy quilt to MAKE, plus you get high impact results! Am I right my bloggy quilting peeps? Not wanting to feel left out, I designed my own chevron quilt and this is what I came up with:

As you can see I have inserted the words "cozy quilt" on it, of which I think would be fun to applique onto a quilt for someone special. And I thought the combination of blues and greens were a nice contrast. If you look closely at this photograph you will also notice that there is a design of wavy lines going horizontally across the quilt. The EQ7 software allows a person to design and insert the quilting pattern they want to do over the quilt once it is all pieced! How cool is that? And of course, the icing on the cake is that you can print that stencil pattern off and make it into a stencil to do just that!

I thought these were pretty good results for a Saturday night of goofing around on software and eating snacks! Don't you think?! If you are interested in reading more about the EQ7 software, you can read my last EQ7 post here, or just go visit their website and BE AMAZED at the possibilities of what you can do with this software. Just watching some of the videos of what the software could do sold me! I would definitely label this purchase as one of my ALL TIME FAVORITES to date with respect to quilting. I promise you won't be disappointed! I should be working for EQ7 should I not?!

So! What did you do last Saturday night?

I'm Trippin'

2013-04-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

Ya I've seen them.... Allllllll over the internet and everytime I see one I drool.... just a little bit!

You know what I am talking about? Those gorgeous "Scrappy Trip Around the World" quilts that everyone is pumping out at warp speed? Pinterest has a PLETHORA of them and everytime I see one I pin it to my Pinterest QUILTS board!

I am a perfectionist to some degree, but I thought I could "let loose" and unfreak my control freak'ish ways... maybe.........I can get a little scrappy people.... I really can!

But first I had to figure out how this was all done! So I googled a few things and came up with this great easy-to-follow little tutorial from Bonnie at Quiltville. Super easy instructions! Bonnie did this tutorial up right! I was off and running after just skimming through the first page.

I decided that considering most of my fabric stash has a lot of blue and green-y colored fabrics in it and I had a lot of large scraps in those colors, I thought I would have enough fabric to pull off a quilt... (do you recall that I am really bad at starting a quilt project and NOT planning out whether I have enough fabric to finish it???!) The nice thing is that with a scrappy quilt, adding more fabric just makes it look better right?...WINK! WINK!...

I followed the tutorial to a "T" and cut all my strips of fabric into 2.5"wide by 16" long strips which will evenutally make 12" sized blocks. I decided that I was going to incorporate the gray polka dot as my "consistent" fabric throughout the quilt. Don't these strip piles look pretty on their own?

So here's my "loosely described tutorial" of how to do this: I sewed 6 of those strips together along their length and I included a gray strip within each set of those 6 strips. Then I folded that set of 6 strips in half (along the length) and sewed down the last raw edge, essentially forming a tube. Of course I am ironing all those seams down as I go. Once I did that, I squared off my tube ends to clean them up a bit:

Then I cut across the length of the tube at 2.5" intervals. Creating what I call "bracelets." After that, I numbered ONE square on each bracelet from 1-6 with my disappearing ink pen:

And then as per Bonnie's tutorial, got out my sharp seam ripper and ripped out the seam at the bottom of each numbered square. I found that keeping the rule of always ripping out the BOTTOM of each numbered square always saved me from forgetting where I was ripping a seam out etc. It went surprisingly fast! Can you see the faint written numbers on the last 3 bracelets?

And then the magic started to happen. As I opened up each bracelet I could see the pattern emerge! So fun!!!!

Of course after that I was on the home stretch: Just lay out those strips and sew them one to another, ironing the seams as I went.

I just couldn't wait to get another one done and lay it out to see the quilt slowly come together!

This was one of those bonus days where I had planned out my Chicken Enchilada dinner way ahead, so that I didn't even have to stop sewing! My dear sweet hubby served me right in my sewing studio (with my beloved Coca Cola - oh people it IS a problem!) so that I could continue on with my scrappy-mania!

I just kept sewing blocks... and more blocks, and more blocks... BECAUSE THIS PIECING TECHNIQUE IS SO DURN ADDICTING!

Yes, my bloggy peeps, a 10 year old could do this and make it look easy. I truly enjoyed it as it was easily repetitive, worked up quickly and I loved seeing the results of each sewn block and how each color played off the other...

And then I played with the lay out of these blocks which was also a lot of fun. I would set up one lay out and take a picture...

and then make up another lay out and so on...

In the end I decided on this lay out:

Of course, once I decided on my lay out I got to sewing the blocks together in rows. Here are two rows sewn together laid out in the beautiful Spring sunshine:

And just because I was on such a roll, I was able to prep a scrappy binding as well, in record time:

Doesn't it look just SO delish? I LOOOOOVE fabric! Just sayin'!

Now all to do is QUILT this quilt. If you have any suggestions as to how to quilt this to really make this quilt "pop" comment below. I would love to hear! I can't wait to finish and show you the RESULTS!

And!!! Just because I am soooo addicted I had to start another one! But this time in pinks and oranges with one consistent chartreuse line of fabric. But I will save that for another day... stay tuned!

Okay... maybe a peek won't hurt!

White Fences

2013-04-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

Weeeeee! The baby quilt is FINALLY finished! I honestly thought poor baby girl Felix was going to be a teenager by the time I got the quilt done!

I have officially named this quilt: "White Fences" as I am SURE that Felix will grow up to jump horses just like her Momma, Aunties and all the rest of her family... and this quilt does resemble white fences and earth colors don't you think?

Felix's mommy Maya picked out her fabrics and I set to sewing up this quilt shortly after Felix was born. I think Felix and Maya are happy with the results - which makes ME happy! I didn't want to make it a large quilt, so that it can be used as a blankie as well as a floor/play mat and of course, I have high hopes that as Felix grows older she can drag her "favorite" quilt around everywhere she goes, including to the stable and riding ring!

I did all of the straight-line quilting with a walking foot...

I didn't pre-draw any lines as I just used the width of the walking foot as my guide. It worked quite well!

And then I did some free motion "swirl" quilting on the white sashing portion of the quilt.

I was super happy with how the appliqued letters turned out. I MUST do more of this on quilts. I love the look!

Amazing how the light really plays with the colors of this quilt. Here is a photo of it outside where you can get an idea of the TRUE colors of the quilt.

I sooo very enjoy making quilts and this was no exception! I just love how the straight-lined quilting really added to the character of this quilt. It was so much fun to do!

I absolutely LOVE the last step of quilting, when it is all sewn up and you get to throw it into the washer and then.... when you pull it out of the dryer .... you see all that CRUMPLY GOODNESS... OOOOOOOO - I just LOVE that part!

I am MONTHS late in getting this done and for what it's worth: Congrats Jace and Maya on your sweet baby girl with her gorgeous LONG eyelashes. I expect it won't be long and we will be seeing her jumping her own pony over fences just like her Momma! Giddy up!

SOME Spring Break progress

2013-03-25T16:03:00.001-07:00

I made plans to have a bunch of FINISHES during this two week Spring Break... Ya RIIIIIGHT! But at least SOOOOMMMME progress was made: I am still working on that cute little baby quilt gift for Felix. I promised that I would FINISH this quilt before I touched anything else!

While I quilt I turn on my cute little tv in the corner and usually hum while I listen to the white noise of the tv. Once in a while I will sit up and take notice as to what I am hearing, but alas I just enjoy the white noise. Is that what happens after being raised in a family of seven with something always going on or happening around the home? I NEED the white noise? But I do enjoy silence once in a while!... Wow!... I didn't know this was something I obviously have not grown out of!

I literally only have two more sections to quilt. Here is a close up of some of the quilted goodness. My walking foot is doing a great job is it not?

And then hopefully I can start stitching on the binding. I use good old "Easy On" speed starch on all of my fabrics before I cut any fabric and my bindings get an extra spritz of the starch as well. I find it makes the bindings so much more attractive and they aren't so prone to going wonky on me. I cannot wait to head down south of the border where I can buy spray starch for .99 cents a can!!! I'll load up and be good for at least a year (*smile!) Doesn't the binding just look so crisp and delish? I know... I know... I know... I have to be one sick puppy when a pile of starch-prepared binding causes me to take a picture and blog about it! Anyone with me?

And THE best part is yet to come! That's when I get to sit with the quilt I have just created over my lap and hand-sew the whole binding on! I cannot WAIT! I find it to be a very relaxing and soothing chore... Even though this quilt won't be a long chore as it is a small baby quilt.

I hope you have all enjoyed some quilting goodness over the Spring Break. And some sunshine beaming through your studio window!

If you haven't "LIKED" my facebook page, please go to: www.facebook.com/Booilley Once I hit 100 followers here on my blog or facebook likes, I will be hosting a FREE GIVEAWAY!

You can also follow me at bloglovin':

Packages and HST's

2013-03-04T16:25:00.001-08:00

Hello bloggy peeps! Remember I mentioned a few posts ago about winning some fabric??? The package arrived!!!! Thank you to Canada Post for such efficient delivery! Wow!

Not only did I pull pre-cut triangles of the package, BUT....

Also some pre-cut squares as well! Thank you to Cheryl at http://quiltingandappliqueshop.com/ for the extra gift!!!! Weeeeeee!

What am I going to make out of these great fabrics? How can I incorporate both pre-cuts?

I am looking for any and ALL advice from all of my bloggy peeps! Comment below with any ideas you may have. I was HOPING to create a chevron quilt.

Again a very special thank you to the Quilting and Applique Shop! Thank you for your wonderful generosity Cheryl! I can't wait to make something and send you a picture - and of course blog about it!

In other sewing studio news I have been hoping to get another quilt gift done for a friend who had a baby in October (I know! I know! I know! October!!!!) I had a really hard time trying to find the RIGHT color green to back this quilt, but I have finally found the right color! So the quilt has been sandwiched and spray-basted with THE one and only 505 temporary adhesive spray:

But first: seriously???? Including tax here in BC, that is a $30 can of temporary spray (for only 159 grams!!!! Ugh! This is what makes me want to move to the USA! Seriously! How much do you guys pay down there? I am surprised it doesn't say "... and your first born..." on the price tag. I know I should be buying it online, but I was in a hurry for it and didn't want to wait any longer to get this quilt done.

Anyways, I got busy doing a little teensy bit of free motion quilting and of course, some channel quilting using the walking foot. Here is a little sneak peek of the front:

And the back: (I promise the greens DO match - the photography makes me look like I am lying to ya though!)

Chickadee has been BUGGING me to make the quilt that I have had planned for her for quite a while... If you recall, at Christmas I was planning to just "whip off" a quilt (over and above everything else) as a Christmas gift... ya right like that was EVER gonna happen! Read about that in this post.

Since then, I have done a complete re-vamp of the quilt then how I first planned it on my EQ7. I am now making an HST quilt and found this absolutely awesome method of producing a plethora (love that word!) of HST's out of only a few cuts and 4 seam lines!

Here is that tutorial. I just love the Sew Mama Sew blog! You can find so much good information on there!

So of course, like a dog seeing a squirrel, I ran off in another direction for awhile and got some of the HST cutting done and here are some of the results thus far.

I just kept adding the HST's to the design wall as I sewed them. I made some pretty good progress in only a few hours!

I have SOOOO many UFO's! I need to get some "FINISHES" under my belt! Wish me luck! In the meantime, YOU have some homework! Remember? You were going to give me some advice on what kind of quilt I can make out of those cute pre-cuts that I won! Comment below! I welcome all the advice I can get. It gets those creatives juices flowing! And you KNOW I need to add another UFO to the list anyways!

Celebrate Good Times - Come On!

2013-02-27T14:01:00.001-08:00

Come on all you bloggy peeps - you know you loooooooove this song! This post is all about CELEBRATING GOOD TIMES! I have two to share with you! And yes - it includes some quilting too so don't panic!

I have two wonderful friends of whom I have had the opportunity to celebrate special LIFE events with.

First up: SOPHIE! Sophie is a very special friend of mine! She is a no-mess-around hot blonde 6 foot dutch girl who can get things done en masse - in record time! She can do, move and organize circles around anyone I know. She is A-MAZING! Sophie is a very LOYAL friend, awesome mother and wife and has a strong sense of loyalty to and for her family as well. Sophie had the PRIVILEGE of seeing her beloved sister-in-law Helen off to heaven just recently. Helen, a beautiful young mom and wife fought ovarian cancer to the end and went to be with her heavenly Father and Savior on September 13, 2012. In light of that, I made a quilt and gave it to Sophie to always remember her beautiful Helen. If you are a faithful reader you will recall this UFO I was working on: http://booilley.blogspot.ca/2012/02/another-ufo.html.

Here it is pieced together:

Then I quilted it by making my own "orange peel" stencil out of cardboard and tracing it onto each block, then FMQ'd my way all over the quilt (FMQ = free motion quilt).

There is something about sewing on the binding that I find very soothing:

Once the binding was done, and the quilt went through a light washer and dryer ride, it was FINALLY finished! (I didn't get a FULL photo of the quilt front! Dummy me!) I thought it fluffed up really nice.

Here is the quilt-back up close and fluffed:

Piecing the back of this quilt was just as fun to do on this simple quilt as the front! (Sorry for the horrid picture quality!)

Once it was quilted, bound and fluffed, I rolled it up and gifted it to Sophie at Christmas.

Quilt Stats:

Quilt Name: "Journey to Eternity"

Size: (forgot to measure it, but it was on the larger size of a lap quilt)

Fabrics: quilting weight cotton designed by Amy Butler (a mix) and Tina Givens (a mix)

Thread: Premium Sulky 30 wt mercerized pink varigated cotton matte finish

I hope and pray this quilt is a positive reminder of who and what Helen was in the lives around her, including her husband and children. I didn't know Helen WELL, but DO know that she was a physically beautiful woman inside and out. She is one of those people that makes you want to be "better" once you meet her - to emulate the beauty you have just encountered! The fabrics used in this quilt remind me of Helen's fabulous fun-loving, beautiful, quirky and strong personality! Do you see her in the quilt? I do!

To hubby Jesse and her beloved family: I know you miss her! I cannot understand the pain and heartbreak of your missing her. PLEASE KNOW you WILL be re-joined again! And THAT is something to celebrate!!!

Sophie I hope you are enjoying the quilt as much as I enjoyed making it - thinking of Helen the whoooole time! Love you girl! xo

NOW LISA! Lisa just recently celebrated a 40-something birthday. As the good and loyal friend that I am, I looooove to remind her that I am months younger than her and she gets to test out the "number" before I get there. Lisa is also a beautiful tall blonde (ya hanging out with these hot women is really good for my 5 foot Irish-freckled Pippy Longstocking typed self-esteem! LOL!). She too is a faithful, loyal friend who is a killer good mother and wife. Lisa is that friend you have that never gets ruffled feathers, always cool, calm and collected and can COOK! Oh my bloggy peeps - her food is A-MAZING! Stinky LOVES to eat her food! (What am I saying?!!!... I LOVE to eat her food!) For Lisa's birthday I decided that I would do up a little "kitchen layette" for her. Is there such a thing? Dunno - but if not I just invented it!

I pulled out one of my most coveted yards of fabric: Paula Prass's Botanika fabric line "Winged Study." I decided that because Lisa loves to cook and spend time in the kitchen, that I would first make up an apron. From scratch. Cuz, you know, who wants to use a pattern?! That would be FAST and EASY.... but no! Not me... gotta do it from scratch cuz then it means something (or something mentally ill like that!!!)!

So here is the apron shape.

I decided that I would add some black and white pin-striped fabric I had on hand as the accent. I have a thing for black and white - so I always seem to default there.

If you make and sew pretty things and do not own a ruffler foot - YOU NEED TO GO AND BUY ONE RIGHT NOW! Just slip the fabric in and let'er go! A-mazing!

I sewed the ruffle around the outside edges of the apron.

Then made a cute pocket and sewed that on (with a little ruffle of course!).

To hide the raw-edge of the ruffle on the back I sewed on some black twill tape to hide it.

Here you can see the stitching from the front which adds a nice top stitch as well as tacking down the twill tape to the back.

After sewing on the apron ties across the top of the apron, I sewed my BOOILLEY clothing tag as a cute accent in one corner.

Then to add to the gift, I sewed up a quick quilted little pot holder in the same fabric as well as a flour sack tea towel. I was wishing at this point that I had more of the striped fabric to ruffle out these as well... bummer!

Of course, I couldn't stop there! I thought I might take this beautiful fabric and scan it into my computer. And by adjusting the contrast and coloring in Microsoft Publisher, I was able to make up a matching birthday card for Lisa. I don't scrapbook AT ALL, but thought I might spiff the card up a bit.

And made a cute little pocket inside...

...With Lisa's name in it:

And made some personal recipe cards: (love how the watermark turned out on these cards!)

And a bookmark for her Bible.

Then a little light went on in my head (yes don't marvel at that - it does happen ONCE in a while!). I thought of re-creating this little project that I saw on Pinterest that would be fab for her kitchen or maybe her front door! I printed off the same Paula Prass watermark on a full 8x11 piece of cardstock with the typed word in one corner: "NOTES." Then I inserted same into a 8x10 frame and attached a dry erase pen with velcro dots to the outside bottom of the frame. It ended up looking like this:

Now Lisa can put this on the kitchen counter to write down items for her shopping list, or a quick note to a family member or jot down a phone number. I was so excited how this turned out, I made one for myself!!! And the dry erase pen wipes easier than it does on an actual dry erase board - sooooo impressed! (NOW GO MAKE YOURSELF ONE!)

Later that evening after wrapping up the gift in star-printed tissue paper, I was able to go to dinner, with my beloved friends, Lisa, Sophie and another very special friend, Lori. It was a great evening to CELEBRATE LISA! It was an evening full of of giggles, stories and good food! And was definitely too short! So goes the universe!

My bloggy peeps, we all need to remember that we have soooo many things to be thankful for! Especially the things we tend to take for granted like FAMILY and FRIENDS. Those close, special relationships are worth their weight in gold! Build them, cherish them, pray for them and especially LOVE them! And then: CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES!

I'm a Scrap-Busting WINNER - for Reals!

2013-02-26T15:19:00.001-08:00

Hello bloggy peeps. Oh you have NO idea, how I LOOOOOONG to be quilting and blogging, quilting and blogging! But alas, real life must happen and I MUST be a good wife, mother, chef, taxi driver, courier, financial advisor, laundry-ess, maid, nurse, cheerleader, teacher, masseuse, zit-popper, hairstylist and bookkeeper. Sometimes late at night I can hear the fabric calling my name... and when I sleep I dream of HST's and log cabins and hexies and all kinds of crazy and wild fabric-made scenarios. Please tell me I am not the only one!

A few weeks back I couldn't sleep and laid in bed and mind "quilted." And the ideas wouldn't quit coming. In an effort to get some sleep I tried to turn OFF my quilting mind but the great ideas wouldn't leave me alone! This went on until about 5:30am. I gave up and ran into the kitchen with pen and paper to purge. A few of the ideas that I came up with, I am certain have not yet been done. So I am SECRETLY working on something very "ROYGBIV..." - from fabric scraps! And I cannot WAIT to finish so that I can make the big reveal. Would you like a few hints? Of course you would!

Here are some of the scrap fabrics that I am working with in ROYGBIV order. Aren't they delicious looking? Am I completely sick in the head that I like to just stand and think of the possible creations that could be made with these stacks of scrap fabric?

(N.B.: After seeing me work on this project, 11 year old Chickadee just learned what "ROYGBIV" represents. Now I am seeing little scraps of paper with her own drawings popping up around the house in ROYGBIV colors. Soooooo cute!)

I am also using letter print-outs (font is Cooper Black at a 790 size) in my project... eeeeeeeee! Can't wait to show you!

But for now - these are the only hints I can show. I HOPE that I can finish this project in a timely manner to reveal my creation to you soon. It is turning out absolutely SPECTACULAR!

I have also been attacking the scrap fabric bin in another way. I decided that I needed to do a scrap-busting quilt using little 1.5 inch squares. (Does this in any way indicate the status of my mental health?!)

It was fun to dig through the scrap box and cut up these cute little squares using up the smallest scraps that most would probably throw away. I hate "throwing away" fabric. It seems almost disloyal somehow... or at the least - sacreligious! Thus - the 1.5 inch squares...

After cutting and stacking, they became this:

Then I added some white fabric borders:

Then added some more white borders:

(If you know anything about me I am ALWAYS quilting with a coke in hand... Yes! Very bad!!! But oh so good! After a coke... it's "Hammy" all the way!)

Pretty soon I was adding more 1.5 inch squares to those white borders:

Here is my design wall with the blocks in progress. The top two left squares now have yet another white border. I didn't fuss so much with "perfecting" everything. I just sewed it and embraced the vintage look as much as possible. And I was loving the color combos the more I put the blocks together!

After bordering out the blocks in white again, then I started running MORE 1.5 inch block strips between each block and joined them together. See bottom row:

And here is what I was able to accomplish in a few short days... making not even a small dent in my scrap bin but FUN just the same! I feel so thrifty! I feel so frugal and economical and vintage-y...

As you can see the quilt is quite small yet, (who uses the words QUILT and QUITE in the same sentence?!!!) - and I will now have to add some wide borders to increase its size. My only concern is the binding! My bloggy peeps - you know that I start just about every project spontaneously without a whole lot of planning... WHAT am I binding this with? What colors? Puh-lease leave me some advice in the comments section!

Regardless, this was a very fun scrap-busting project. I loved that there were "no rules" and allowed myself to ignore my typically anal ways and "fly birdy be free!" with my method. I cannot wait to get this quilted and put to use. In the meantime, have you seen the "scrappy trips around the world" quilt bloggers are doing lately? I wanna scrappy trip! Like Kelly at Stitch Quilt Stuff! Her scrappy trip around the world is great! Quiltville has a tutorial on how to do up these simple blocks too... now there is NO excuse. Go grab your scraps and get scrap tripping!

What scrappy quilt have you made lately? Show me! Link me!

On another note:

Even though I am IRISH - I do NOT have a lucky bone in my body, nor do I have a pot of gold at the end of my rainbow or lucky horse shoes stuffed in non-specific cracks and crevasses...

But! There are always free draws happening on quilt blogs all over the internet. I happened to come across a blog called the "Quilting and Applique Shop." Cheryl sells a bunch of great pre-cut fabric shapes and such on her blog. She had a draw a few days back and GUUUUUESSSSSSS WHAT??????

Yes, you guessed right! I WON!!!! Yay! Yay! Yay!

I won some great pre-cut HST's of Northcott Fabrics! I cannot wait for my little package to arrive and get working on (yet) another project! So a very special THANK YOU to Cheryl over at the Quilting and Applique Shop. Here is the link where she announces the WINNERS! And if you are a really good friend you will leave a comment with some quilting project ideas for those fab HST's!

I am also a winner in another way. On Feb 24th, DH and I celebrated 17 years of absolute wedded bliss! Ahhhhhhh! I do truly love him so very much and it grows and grows with time. He is an amazing father and hubby! Let's face it... you gotta love the man who lets you buy a plethora of multi-colored fabrics, cut them all up and then sew them all back together just for the fun of it! RIIIIIGHT!?

Day 1: February 24, 1996

Day 6,205: February 24, 2013

Have a great day!

Antique Flower Garden Quilt

2013-02-07T10:04:00.001-08:00

As you may know I was laid up for a while with vertigo. (See my last blog post.) I lived on these:

And eventually moved onto these:

Obviously the Betahistine aka: "Serc" did the trick like NO OTHER! I was up on my own two feet and moving within 24 hours! It took me another 4 days or so to actually get back to "normal" but I don't care how long it took... I am afraid to think how long I would've been laying there if I didn't have the Serc. Praise the Lord for medications!!! Thank you so much to those of you who provided us with meals and also to those who encouraged me via social media websites and the like!

And just as a side note: I have a sneaking suspicion that this bout of vertigo is in DIRECT correlation to the line drive to the face! If you are a new reader and have NO idea what I am talking about you can read this blog post: Destiny

Enough about that...

...As I started feeling better, I pulled out yet another ongoing quilting project I am working on. Usually I carry it around in my purse and when I am sitting anywhere waiting or watching anything (ie: doctors office, appointments in general, and/or hockey games and other child-related extra-curriculars) I pull out this awful looking ziploc bag (I still love you Ziploc but for Pete's sake make the bags at least a little more attractive!) and start hand sewing.

If you like HEXAGONS aka: "Hexies" - then read on! If you have cruised through my Pinterest board titled: Quilts you will see that one of my most pinned objects is anything hexi-related! Of course, not to feel left behind in the huge, current hexi-craze, I grabbed some coordinating fabrics and started paper piecing some hexi flowers together in the hopes of ~~quickly~~ one day creating a beautifully hexi-pieced quilt.

I love just the look of the hexies in stacks:

Or just laying all jumbly (I posted this photo on my Instagram - follow me!)

Here are some of the finished hexie flowers. These ones have been traditionally english paper-pieced and then hand-sewn together. I am making the center of each flower with the green polka-dot fabric and then sewing the other hexies on randomly.

My bed tray was FULL of hexagon goodness:

This was something I could do in bed while recuperating and still feel like I was keeping my hands busy.

Since Christmas we have added a new little family member as per one of Chickadee's DESPARATE requests: a Siamese kitten named "Simon." Here he is giving Kirby the stare down...

The problem with hand-sewing these hexies in bed is that Simon, in true feline fashion, LOVES to attack the thread as I sew. But being an animal lover I don't have the heart to dissuade him as he is having so much fun and looks SO cute as he huddles and pounces onto the thread sinking his claws into my chest!... (I'm nuts... so goes the universe!)

Eventually once these flowers are all put together, I would like to frame them out in these gray hexies and hopefully create a great antique-looking flower garden quilt like something my grandmother would have made. I am such a SUCKER for vintage-y, country-prim, antique-y looking quilts.

I am not going to sew all the gray hexagons on until I see how many flowers I get made. You see, I have started yet another project without a hint of how much fabric I have for this or need - classic! Needless to say, I will put together all the flowers and then if needed I will incorporate another fabric with the gray hexies to border out the flowers. You think? It will be interesting to see how it all ends up.

Regardless, I think it will be a really fun take on all things vintage-y and yet giving it that modern twist that I so adore.

As an aside, I follow so many great bloggers and fabric designers on twitter (@KeithaAm)- I invite you to check out an Australian quilter: Red Pepper Quilts. I HAVE to add her button to my blog! I just LOOOOOVE her stuff! I am sure you will love it too!

Craft Time Boys!

2013-01-28T13:06:00.001-08:00

I started this post waaaaay before Christmas! So have a quick gander of some of the sewing studio happenings:

The other day I found a chunk load of time to sew. I was sooooo excited and ran down to the sewing studio and got busy. The first thing on my list was to finish a "bag" order for a friend. Here is one of the latest that I've made (sorry about the terrible pix!)

The inside view. I loved the fabrics that this friend of mine chose for her bag! Love! Love! Love! She wanted the bag to serve as a regular bag after it was used as a diaper bag and didn't want it to look "baby-ish' as she is the one sporting the bag. I concur! Good idea! (Note: I quilted the lid/flap which added a little extra something special)

When I make these bags, I always try to sew in multiples. That way I will have extra on hand to sell when people come looking to buy these bags. I was so pumped as I had three cut out and was sewing them up at a voracious pace when I heard a strange noise...

... We have two little house dogs: 10 yr old Dango (Shih Tzu) and 3 yr old Kirby (poodle-cross) who literally freak out when they hear "Craft time boys!" They know this means they get to be near me and nap all day on the guest bed that sits in the corner of my warm little sewing studio and listen to me talk to myself. They come flying down the stairs beside me and then turn excited little circles as they follow me to the studio and stand at the foot of the guest bed. I throw them up onto the bed and they immediately proceed to "dig" up a comfy sleep nest for the day. They each turn the obligatory three circles and then lay down and drift off to doggy-dreamland. They lift their heads if the phone rings or if I leave the room to go grab another cup of coffee, but on the whole they are very easy sweet Diggers to have around. I can easily lose track of time while sewing and usually at about 3pm the Diggers get restless which is my cue to go pick up the kids from school.

Back to the strange noise... I turned from my sewing machine in the direction of the sound coming from the guest bed. There was Dango standing over one of the freshly cut out bags that I had laid in a neat pile on the guest bed PUKING ON IT!!!! I jumped from my chair, grabbed Dango and went running for the front door to let him finish expelling the contents of his stomach on the front lawn. Not wanting to be left out of the commotion, Kirby sleepily galloped behind and then stood 2 inches from Dango's face and stared as though he were taking notes. I ran back to my beloved cut out pieces of fabric with paper towel in hand, and proceeded to clean up while holding my breath to avoid any vomiting mishaps on my part. By the time I got the cleaned-off fabric to the laundry tub and was rinsing it, I realized how futile my efforts were. I turned and threw it all in the garbage. I mean seriously - what am I gonna do? Wash it and dry it and then sew it up and sell it? I don't think so!!!!... "Thanks for buying a bag! Oh by the way my dog puked on it but it's all good now - I used Febreeze!" Needless to say, at least 1 yard of fabric (interfacing already ironed on) was filed under "G." I called the dogs inside, went to the studio and CLOSED IT DOWN. I wasn't in any frame of mind to continue. I guess I won't be parking my fabric anywhere near the dogs from now on. (If you are anything like my hubby you are saying to me: "Why don't you just kick the dogs off the bed for good? That'll solve it!")

Later in the evening, I decided I would go down and try again. But I was so frustrated with the puking event, I decided I would attack making some fabric flowers. The church we attend put out an online request for crafty-type people to make shabby looking flowers to use in decorating the church building for the Christmas season. I figured I could do that. I yanked out all my fabrics, tulle, beads, glue gun and imagination and went crazy. Here are some of the results:

I made a few extra into hair clips for Chickadee to wear and she was quite tickled when she saw them. After making up the flowers I realized that a creative bomb had just exploded all over my sewing studio. I was stepping on little stray glass beads that had sprayed all over the floor, along with little scraps of fabric and strings of glue from the glue gun etc. What a rodeo! But oh so fulfilling! Of course, now I wanna make more to give as stocking stuffers for some sweet neices that I love. Don't hold your breath - my intentions are good but my follow-through is lacking! All in all, I came away from the sewing studio feeling "successful." Like I had actually accomplished something for the day. I love it when a plan comes together despite some of the puke-y events that can come down the pipe.

If you are interested in seeing more messenger bags you can check out a few places. On my blog home page you can click on "EYE CANDY" and watch the Flickr video of Booilley or you can check out my Pinterest Board: Things That Require A Hook or Needle. Another place to check out my messenger bags is on my Flickr page. Don't forget to bookmark these pages! Have fun with it and please leave a comment here on my blog! I love NEW readers and followers! More quilting posts to come so please stay tuned!

Tongue in Cheek People!

2013-01-20T16:43:00.002-08:00

Hello my bloggy peeps! It seems as though it has been months - well it actually has! December was a complete runaway and January a complete write-off to date! Ya! I'm pouting a little bit - I won't lie.

Things were rolling along until about mid-December when the schedule, concerts, hockey games, recitals, crafting, quilting, baking, buying, wrapping, Christmas dinners and bookkeeping exploded in my face.

Christmas was spent in Washington whereupon my sweet mother, Chickadee and Stinky pulled up ILL! Shortly after getting home DH assumed the sick position for about a week. And me being a sheep - followed! Things seemed to be getting better right after New Years and we seemed to be slowly gaining ground when just this past Monday I was hit with VERTIGO!

I am one of the unfortunates who has been diagnosed with Menieres Disease. Vertigo is a symptom of the disease which comes when it wants and leaves when it wants. I do truly HATE it and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. DH is my hero: coming home from work to take me to the bathroom etc. (Thankful for texting!) It is a very debilitating disease of which there is no cure as there is NO indication as to what causes it. If none of you have experienced vertigo - imagine yourself being tied to a merry-go-round that spins at 100mph (and that's being kind!) of which you cannot get off or stop. So ya - getting outta bed? Outta the question! Walking? Outta the question! Having a shower? Outta the question! Normal day-to-day functioning? Outta the question!

How do I cope? DH and I have tried a gagillion different things over the 15 years that I have had it:

whiplash collar helps to hold head up when sleeping
hot drinks to help move fluid/ease pressure in ears (broth, tea etc)
nose sprays to help move fluid/ease pressure in ears
sleep sitting up with tons of pillows
puke bucket must be at left arm at all times
sleeping pills help to get good chunks of sleep
hot bags to soothe pain in ears and/or pressure
wear a warm wooly headband to keep ears warm
don't watch "fast-moving" tv (so watching sports is outta the question!)
I can only read little bits at a time before it sends me into a "spin" so "audio" anything is a life-saver! (and yes it has taken me almost 24 hours to type out this post!)
knitting and crocheting is allowed when vertigo is at a minimum!
wear only front-zipping clothing to avoid pulling anything over the head
"no one jiggle the bed!"
massages can make the vertigo worse!
keeping your sense of humor helps
calling my momma who has suffered with the same disease, mandatory!
crying once in awhile is acceptable
prayer is essential to keeping sanity
sponge baths are optional

And no, gravol doesn't work along with any other meds deemed to help motion sickness and no the Epley's Maneuver doesn't work nor does the Brandt-Daroff Exercise all of which are helpful for those who have been diagnosed with BPPV. I've tried eating a sodium, caffiene and sugar-free diet in the past as well - made no difference. I've tried every herbal conconction - you name it - I've tried it! The shortest "bout" of vertigo I've had lasted a day; the longest: 6 very long weeks!

Well, now you can consider yourself informed on all things "Menieres" and I'm feeling better now that I've "purged" my pent up need to blog and complain all at the same time.

I DO have plans to show you all the gifts that I made over the past Christmas season, and my quilting plans for 2013. But until this vertigo passes, I will remain patient (sometimes only in theory!)... I know it WILL happen! Of that I have no doubt - it's just a matter of when. If it doesn't and I die (tongue in cheek people!):

I bequeath my fabric stash to my beloved mother and 3 sisters.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I HAVE TO THIS DAY, MY Last Will and Testament, written upon this blog post subscribed my name, this January 20, 2013. SIGNED, PUBLISHED and DECLARED, By the said Testator:

Booilley

I know that you were thinking you were coming to read all about quilting and fabric, so in an effort not to disappoint here is my QUILTS board on Pinterest. Feel free to browse and enjoy!

Quilted Table Toppers

2012-11-10T13:34:00.000-08:00

I thought I had better blog about this before time runs out! I know at least, my American readers will appreciate this as they still have their Thanksgiving coming...

This past September I finally finished quilting a simple fall/harvest table topper that I had pieced together last year. I guess there is no time like the present to finish things up huh?

I made my quilted table topper from a Moda charm pack that I had purchased from Over The Rainbow. This is a fabulous online fabric store that is just down across the border. Laura and Mandi have treated my sister and I SOOOO well every time we have made an appointment and come and have physically bought fabric, but also they have been sooooo great in shipping us our beloved fabrics in a very timely manner and at good shipping prices. If you are looking for a great online fabric store that believes in good prices and excellent customer service this is it!

FINITO!

I quilted the table topper with a walking foot and just did some simple lines. I was quite pleased with the effect. It made a great display piece in my little simple "harvest vignette" on my dining room sideboard.

With good intentions in my heart, I also pieced together a few more table toppers, because you know... I was on a roll! I had/have great intentions of giving these as gifts one of these days. But every time another Canadian thanksgiving creeps up on me, I end up not getting to them and so let them sit another year. Tsk! Tsk! So officially these little guys will be added to my UFO list! Tsk! Tsk!... again!

And just because I am delusional... and with MORE good intentions, I have a plan to make Chickadee a "purple quilt" for Christmas. When I have fiinished quilts in the past, Chickadee always begs to keep the quilt for herself. I guess I better get busy and cut, piece and quilt before Christmas Eve... cuz, you know.... I have nothing else on the go! Gah!

So said plan if it is carried out, will go something like this: I purchased Tula Pink's "Birds & the Bees" in purple and Chickadee swooned when she saw the colors. If you haven't checked out this fabric line online you must do that! I personally adore the colors too. And the fabrics have little hidden animals throughout! So dang cute!

Then just this morning I sat down at my EQ7 and designed this little puppy, inserting all the fabric colors etc. What d'ya think? Cheer me on! I hope I can get it done!!! At the very least it will be fun to compare the design picture to the original quilt once it is complete. This will be the first time too, that I officially design from EQ7 and then create the quilt to the exact specifications as indicated on EQ7... Can I tell you how excited I am about it???!

Well my bloggy peeps, I am heading to a hockey game to watch Stinky do his thing. Wish him luck! Have a great long weekend! Please do NOT forget to take some time this weekend to REMEMBER! And wear a poppy out of respect... it is the least we can do for our soldiers.

Quilting Along with the Dogs

2012-11-02T17:31:00.001-07:00

Happy November 2nd my bloggy peeps! I am very excited to FINALLY showcase a UFO (Un Finished Object) that is now complete! This quilt was one that I started with my sister as a quilt-along. I have never participated in one before. So my sister and I decided to fake our own little "quilt-along" together. My sister, in true responsible big-sister form, finished TWO quilts in the time that I am now just finishing mine!!! Ugh! I covet her tenacity!

We chose to use the free quilt pattern from one of my favorite blogs Cluck Cluck Sew. It is an easy quilt where you are appliquing circles on top of your quilt block and leaving them raw edged.

Let's start with my sister Robin's two beautiful quilts for each of her daughters.

NICCI'S BIRTHDAY QUILT

This beautiful blue/green one she made for her oldest Nicci. I just love how Robin chose fabrics that correspond with each of her girl's personalities. Elementary school teacher Nicci is a blue and green personality in that she can go either tomboy-like or girly (but NO heels!). She loves to eat vegetarian and loves animals. These colors suit her intelligent and witty personality perfectly!

I just LOVE the perfect, simple quilting that Robin did here. And the striped backing! Oh my word! I would NEVER have enough guts to do a stripe for fear that it would end up all crooked and such. But Robin has talent beyond words, so it doesn't surprise me that she can pull this off and make it look easy. I have much to learn. Teach me big sister!

Don't the blues just POP here? I am loving the blues! So perfect! I love the really wide binding too! So cool!

Apparently Nicci finds her kitty Sable more often than not, taking her naps on this quilt. Personally I would love to snuggle under this quilt and have a nice long winter nap and wake up to watch the snow falling outside. What a gorgeous heirloom to pass on right?

HEATHER'S BIRTHDAY QUILT

And this one in all hues of purple was made for Heather, Robin's younger daughter. Heather loves all things fashion-y and stylish. She is a true girl with a sweet, bubbly kind of personality who LOVES to wear heels! Robin's color combos here suit Heather perfectly.

(Robin's plethora of talents include a very green thumb!) It's my blog, I can brag!

As you can see Robin backed this quilt in damask which looks absolutely gorgeous! Wouldn't you just love to snuggle under this on a rainy day with a book and cup of tea in front of a fireplace?

Not being one to miss any detail, Robin named the quilt after a MAC purple eyeshadow color, "Makeup Forever #92" as cosmetologist Heather loves the fabulous MAC makeup brand.

Isn't this great? What a keepsake!

Robin's dog, Olive Blanche obviously loves the quilt too!

Thank you Robin for doing this quilt along with me. Do it again?

BINKY'S BUBBLES

And finally the quilt that I made for my momma, of which is aptly named Binky's Bubbles, (which reflects my mother Binky's personality to a "T!"). It was intended to be given to her for Mother's Day (and I never got it finished! FAIL!) so I told her that I would have it done for her September birthday (and I never got it finished! FAIL).... so now it is finished and I will finally be able to wrap it and put it under the Christmas tree. And yes, she knows about it as I have been showing her the progress every time she comes to visit. The first time she saw it, she loved the colors and I was tickled that she liked it so.

It all started from this pile of fabrics. Some are Sandi Henderson, Paula Prass, Amy Butler and Pat Bravo's Art Gallery fabrics.

Then following Cluck, Cluck Sew's fabulous easy instructions, I cut out all of my squares and circles. I have a circle cutter that made it happen very quickly and efficiently! I love when a plan comes together!

Here is a peek at my design wall. You will notice I sewed 4 "practice blocks" (see bottom of photo) before I actually appliqued ALL the circles right onto the squares. After appliquing all the circles on, I then cut all the blocks into quarters. In the last step, I mixed all of the quarters up and re-matched them and sewed them back into squares. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

And finally the finished product!

A closer look:

I am still learning at all this free-motion quilting stuff. On this quilt, I stippled the center of each circle. Then stitched in the ditch between each block and then did a really simple swirly border.

I am obsessed with quilts and just love to look and stare at them and admire the hard work and love that goes into each and every one.

The delicious binding! I think it is one of my favorite parts about quilting.

When I back my quilts, I LOVE to piece together all the fabric left-overs because, frankly I hate to look at the fabric ever again. So essentially there are two quilts in one. Makes it more fun don't you think?

I even played a bit and put this on the back:

Looks as though Dango loved Binky's Bubbles as he snuggled right in while I was hand sewing the binding.

A special thank you to Cluck Cluck Sew for the free pattern. Just love this quilt design! And I KNOW my Momma will love it too!

In the meantime, I MUST quickly show you Robin's other talents! She saw this project on Pinterest and decided that she too must make one as well. Robin found the beautiful leather antique suitcase at a local antique shop for a steal and used wooden fence-post toppers, painted black as the legs. Olive Blanche fits her pet bed perfectly! Notice the pocket behind Olive's head which holds all her toys?! It is the perfect bed for travelling too! What a brilliant project huh?!

In other sewing studio news, as per usual I always have something on the backer burner, just itching to be finished!

All this quilt needs is the binding and I am ready to blog!

and this:

I hope these whet your appetite until I blog again. Which I hope is sooner than later!!!

Until my next blog post:

WINNER!

2012-10-10T11:05:00.004-07:00

It is time to announce the winner of the free give-away for the little coin purse! So let's roll the random number generator and see who wins...

And the WINNER IS:

MICHELLE WALL

Congratulations! I hope you get a lot of use out of your purse! I love my little purse and use it all the time. So again congratulations Michelle! Thank you to everyone who participated in the give away. Hopefully there won't be such a long wait between now and the next give away. I appreciate all of you who have helped promote my blog by sharing my posts with friends on Facebook and the like. Building up an audience will be key to getting sponsored and in turn, having "better" give aways! So keep it up :)

In the meantime, I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. Ours was SUPER busy but still enjoyable and very "filling!"

Free Give Away!

2012-10-03T21:07:00.004-07:00

Well my bloggy peeps it has been slow recovering but I am holding in there and, all in all, doing well. I have officially been diagnosed with "post-concussive syndrome." Constant headaches; in a state of constant sleepy-ness; and, oh-so emotional. (I thought that was menopause!?...but whatever) I do have spurts of energy and then I try to accomplish everything on "the list" and end up paying for it! I know, I know... "get rest!" In the meantime, I have also visited the plastic surgeon again and I will have to have MORE surgery! Ugh! NOT happy about that one. But yes, I do want my face "fixed," as far as scarring goes and the big worry is my sinuses. Feeling stuffed on a regular basis, so they need to figure that out too - hopefully.

Here is a photo of my face on day 19 post-accident. We had to go to a wedding on September 1st so I even wore make up. Made me feel a little "more" normal.

Another thing I have noticed since the swelling has gone down is that I have a "NEW" nose! I used to have a very straight sloping nose:

When the plastic surgeon did the emergency surgery (and having never seen my face before) he gave me a "scooped" nose. (sorry the picture is so bad!)

Now! My question to you, my bloggy peeps is which nose do you like better? Considering I am having more surgery in the near future I suppose I can "ask" for the kind of nose I want. I think! (Don't know all those details yet.) Maybe it has a permanent scoop because they can't build it up anymore? I dunno - I'm no plastic surgeon but I am guessing they can pretty much do anything these days! So I need my trusted bloggy peeps to VOTE! At the top left of my blog you will see my poll. I am interested to see what most of you vote for.

Now onto more interesting stuff besides my nose! Being that I have been "resting" a lot in the last while, I have continued to fulfill my creative cravings with small projects. I made this awhile ago and was quite satisfied with the results:

I hand-sewed the little bunting and stamped the letters onto fabric. The scissors were a fabulous find from Michaels. The frame was an IKEA purchase from many moons ago. Dunno what I'll do with it. Maybe save it for a give away? Maybe gift it? Maybe hang it on my wall?

You will recall from my last post that I was working on a little hexie flower.

It has since become a mug rug.

This was a great little project to do and I will keep my little mug rug forever, reminding myself of the abundant blessings I have in this life.

I sure love the hexies and continue to make them just for the fun of it. I stopped in at Katja's Quilt Shoppe in Kamloops and picked up a couple packages of the pre-cut hexies to test out. I wanted to see how different it would be to work with versus my "freezer paper method." I didn't mind it at all and ended up hand-sewing this cute little pin cushion using the traditional english paper-piecing method. I was satisfied with my first effort at this "multiple shape" paper piecing, but of course, there is much room for improvement!

We Canadians (aka: canucks; canuckle-heads) celebrate Thanksgiving this coming Monday (I haven't even bought a turkey yet!). It really seemed to creep up fast this year. I wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving with a free give away! Yes! You heard me right:

A FREE THANKSGIVING GIVE AWAY!

I am giving away a very cute little coin purse (or lipstick catch-all?) that I made quite awhile ago, using some coveted Amy Butler cotton fabric.

The winner will be chosen via random generator. Remember! I cannot enter you into the giveaway if you have not included your email addy! I am already excited to see where this little coin purse will go!

There are a few requirements to entering the contest:

1st: If you haven't already, "Like" Booilley on facebook: See the top right sidebar and click the Facebook icon.

2nd: Follow the Booilley blog. See the sidebar and click the appropriate button.

3rd: Leave a comment on this post describing how you would use this cute little purse.

4th: Leave your email with your comment so I can get a hold of you if you are the winner!

DEADLINE TO ENTER THE CONTEST:

Tuesday, October 9th @ 12 noon.

In the meantime, please think of Chickadee as she will be attending her last horse show of the year this weekend riding Sunny, aka: Fancy My Freckles. We love her! (Yes, Kennedy's horse is still on the mend!).

We are hoping for warm'ish weather for the horse show. Braiding a mane at 6am on a Saturday morning in negative degree weather gets old real fast! If you are looking for some "horsey" entertainment, please check out: Sunny's Youtube Channel. Or better yet, if you are local and need some entertainment on the weekend, bring your kids up to Top Line Stables and check out the show. Kennedy rides all day Saturday.

And just before I sign off, I wanted to whet your appetite with this:

And this:

So stay tuned! And of course:

Destiny

2012-08-30T19:24:00.001-07:00

I thought I had better get in my last "summer blog post" before September 1. I just can't believe how fast the summer has flown by. It has been one SUPER busy summer for us and honestly it will be one that I will be happy to have behind me.

I was pitching at a softball game (one of my favorite things to do) and I was hit in the face with a line drive! Yes it hurt and yes there was lots of blood and yes my face was "broken!" I was transferred by ambulance to the local hospital and then flown out to a bigger center (Kamloops) where I had emergency surgery on my face. I don't remember a whole lot of it at all. In fact after being taken off the ball field in the ambulance I don't remember anything. I was in hospital for 3 days and then allowed to go home. I was so thankful for that! I hate hospitals.

Considering having a ball punched into my face at 100mph, it is a complete miracle at the minimal damage that was done and how fast I am healing! My upper nose had to be reconstructed and a titanium plate put in under my left eye. The plastic surgeon feared that I may have lost my sense of smell and also some vision in my left eye but to date: I smelled garlic the other day - so the sniffer is working and will work even better once my blood-clot-filled sinuses empty AND my eye has a "vitreous" (the jelly around the eye) detachment and not a retinal detachment and will heal.

For entertainment's sake I am posting a few pictures of my injury and healing.

The morning after emergency surgery, Friday August 17, 2012

Day 2 in hospital, Saturday, August 18, 2012

Day 3, Sunday, August 19, 2012

Home to see my little Chickadee and my own bed!!!

Day 5, August 21, 2012

Isn't the nose "stent" in my nostril so pretty?

Day 7, August 23, 2012

Back to Kamloops to see the Plastic Surgeon. Got my stitches and nose stent out! Still some yellowing and I look very tired! Lost a lot of blood!

Three of my best friends: pain meds, mouth moisturizer and anything cold on my very sore throat and teeth and feverish feeling face!

The poor guy who actually hit the line drive was, as you can imagine, very sorry for what happened. Apparently while I was in the ER, he arrived at our front door carrying a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Stinky dutifully cut them and put them in water for me. This was one of my favorites in the bouquet.

I am so very grateful for doctors, painkillers, extended health benefits, family and very wonderful friends and acquaintances and my BASEBALL TEAM that reached out to help us! Our freezer was FULL when I got home from the hospital and there was a plethora of beautiful floral bouquets to keep me company while I slept sitting up. If you are one of these people reading this: THANK YOU! Thank you so very much. I have never felt so loved and cared for. And the encouraging words that I read on facebook was incredible. So many people praying for me and encouraging me. Thank you so much to you all!

Most of all though I am so very thankful for my wonderful hubby who had to first endure the trauma of watching it happen and then juggle a bed-ridden wife and the business. (Apparently in the ER he was even cleaning up all the blood and was a really good nurse!) Even more than that, though, I am so very thankful to my Heavenly Father who has chosen to give me a longer life on the earth with my family! The plastic surgeon told me that had the ball hit my face 1cm closer to center it could have been fatal. So I am thankful for life and life abundant! I am blessed!

In the meantime, this old girl has decided to hang up the cleats! I have decided that I won't play baseball anymore - as much as I absolutely love pitching etc. It's time to move over and let the youngters step up on the pitcher's mound. I have fleeting sad thoughts about it, but I firmly believe that it is a smart choice which will probably save my teeth and brain cells further down the road. And that logic keeps me firm in my decision.

My hubby came up with a great idea and I hope we can pull it off! He thought it would be cool to have a "ball bag burning party" on the pitcher's mound at our local ball diamonds. Then I'll burn my cleats, glove, crusty socks, ankle tape and all the other stuff you find at the bottom of a baseball bag. I'll do it with friends and celebrate!

Now onto brighter and happier topics that contain fabric!

Being that I was laid up in bed for awhile I decided that I would get my kids to set me up so I could do some hand-sewing in bed. Yes, I am a complete sicko and cannot keep my hands out of the fabric! But in my defence, it kept my mind occupied and I loved the idea that I was kindof multi-tasking: healing and quilting!

Throughout my internet quilt blog travels, I have seen so many great techniques and had been wanting to give them a shot. This was my perfect opportunity. My son Stinky helped me find some hexagon templates online. This blog called Moxy Ideas has a plethora of different sizes. Stinky saved the PDF files and then I put both of my kids to work helping me cut some freezer paper into 8x11 sized pieces that would fit into my computer printer tray. Stinky then printed the PDF file of the hexagon template right onto the freezer paper. Chickadee then ran down into the sewing studio and grabbed a handful of scrap fabric along with my mini iron and mini ironing board. There I sat in bed cutting out freezer paper hexagon templates and ironing them onto scrap fabric and then cutting around the hexagon templates being sure to leave approximately a 1/2 inch "seam allowance" all around the edges. They ended up looking similar to the photo below.

That freezer paper worked wonders in sticking to the fabric and made the job a lot easier! Freezer paper is my new best friend.

Now that I had a bunch of hexies cut out and no plans of what to do with them, (remember I was a little loopy from the pain meds!) I just sat and hand-sewed all the "seam allowances" down in a running baste stitch. The only thing I had to remember was to not sew through the paper template as I would be pulling that out later.

I ended up with handfuls of these cute little hexies!

Of course, I had to take it one step further and hand sew a cute little hexie flower together. Maybe it's destiny is to become a coffee coaster? Or maybe the start of a quilt or a pillow cushion?

Regardless of where it ends up it is a pretty beautiful little hexie flower. Gets me thinking about my life and my "destiny." God is the author and creator of my life and because I know that He holds me close to His heart, no matter where I end up, I will remain beautiful because HE made me.

In an instant our lives can change, so:

Finally!

2012-08-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

So the last time I blogged was June 27th... I am slipping! It has been what feels like an eon since being in my sewing room last. I thought I would take this quick opportunity to show you this cute little hexagon flower that I whipped up this morning. Yes peeps - I scraped the layer of dust off the sewing machine and taught myself how to machine piece a hexie flower together. Not difficult by any means! I was quite pleasantly surprised with how easy and quick it came together. The reason for my little hexagon flower was because of this purchase:

The hexagons cut up on my Accuquilt Go Baby so fast and I was off and sewing in seconds! It was fabulous!

Then I added a white border. Think I still might add another round or two of the white.

After I add another couple rounds of the white I think this will become a pillow or a table topper. This was great practice and FUN! Especially considering the hexagon Accuquilt die cut these up in seconds. What a great way to use up scraps! By the way - my bloggy peeps... the fabric that you see here is something that I used in a quilt. I am hoping to get it done and cannot wait to show all of you! Stay tuned!

I am dying to know how you "process" your hexagon quilts! Do you handstitch and use paper templates? Or do you machine stitch? Please post your comments and pictures. It would be even more exciting to see them on Booilley's facebook page! Now I am excited to see all of your creations!

Until then:

Dropped out of the Blogosphere!

2012-06-27T14:58:00.001-07:00

Yes, my bloggy peeps I had dropped out of the blogosphere for the past three weeks, but I am back. Without even getting into all the details, let's just say my life right now is a TAD outta control and I cannot wait for July 24 as then things will have settled down somewhat. So - ONE MORE MONTH and I hopefully hit the sewing room again and be "normal!"

A big concern for us in our area has been the rain. We live by a big huge lake, with a boat, in "vacation land" for a reason! But our boat has not felt a drop of lake water yet this year and in fact we have had terrible flooding and washouts etc. The temperatures have been unseasonably cold too! Not unlike many of you who live in this province this is what has been happening in and around our area:

If you are interested to read and see more photos, check out this blog. Please say a prayer for those who have lost businesses and homes as they deal with this water!

Now back to fabric! Because I have not been able to piece or quilt and falling into bed exhausted, I have done some hand sewing of a few critters.

I found this free pattern on Spool Sewing, and sewed up a couple of these "boi-dies" (yes! I said "boi-dies!") just so I could say I touched fabric and needle and thread. They are very cute and I would love to make a few more and put them all on a branch hanging on a wall in my house. Aren't they cute? They are a great way to bust that scrap box for sure.

I am also working on sewing up a few little owls too. Remember Cecil?

I just have to hand sew the beaks and button eyes on and stuff them. Then I think it will be time to do a little giveaway! So please stay tuned for that.

As we move forward in our very wet, rainy summer,

Union Jack Coffee Table Makeover

2012-05-31T16:21:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Pinterest for the inspiration!

I accomplished the majority of this tutorial in approximately 3 hours.

We own this coffee table which I quite liked at the time of purchase. It has sat in my livingroom for many years and has definitely put in the mileage. But last Sunday afternoon, I decided this baby needed a serious makeover! Keep in mind that I have NEVER made over any kind of furniture before - other than painting. But now I am addicted and cannot wait to do my next!

As you can see, all the edges are well worn and the color is SO outdated now - you like the dust? I still like the style of the table, but something needed to be done to give this coffee table some new "eclectic" life! Yes, I said "eclectic." That tends to be my decorating style... stay tuned if you too lean that way!

Materials Required

dead coffee table
belt sander, sandpaper or small electric sander (I used all three!)
old sheet
screwdriver (or drill with appropriate bits)
clean damp rag or cloth
ziploc container
painters tape
square
measuring tape
pencil
2 different colors of stain (the crazier the color the better!)
Some kind of Varathane
disposable gloves
old paint brush
rags
computer print out or pattern of your choice to use as inspiration
2 or 3 spare hours

I pulled out the belt sander and the dead coffee table out onto the concrete driveway and firstly gave it a few passes just see if it was gonna work. Much to my surprise it worked well and I made quick progress in a short amount of time.

Before I proceeded any further, I dismantled the whole coffee table with my drill, and laid it out on an old sheet. I put all the nuts, bolts, drawer handles, screws and every other part into a ziploc container to ensure I didn't lose anything and set it aside. Then I went to "sanding town." Of course the belt sander made quick work of all of those big flat surfaces. But for the nooks and crannies and other small spots, I used my Black & Decker Mouse sander. It worked like a charm! Then there were a few spots that I pulled out the trustee old sandpaper itself and used that. Sanding was the most time consuming part of the process. I would say almost 1 1/2 - 2 hours give or take.

Once I finished sanding, I placed the main top piece on the sawhorses in the garage, and laid out the rest of the pieces (legs, drawers and bottom flat piece) out on the old sheet on the driveway. (Sorry no pics) If you have sawhorses it will definitely work to your advantage, but not necessary. Even old cardboard laid out will work. I then took a clean damp rag and wiped down every piece. This will ensure to get rid of sawdust etc. And just for extra insurance, I grabbed hubbies air compressor and blew some compressed air across all of the pieces and it really cleaned things out in a hurry.

Now to draw out the pattern. Thankfully, I have a husband who is an HVAC contractor and measures all day - everyday. So I volunteered him to do most of the drawing out for me. But I still kept my hands in the project! Remember people! When you are creating - the only "right thing" when transferring a pattern is that YOU like it. That is what makes it "right!" So have fun and go for it!

As you can see my coca cola was near me the whole time and we got the drawing part completed in less than half and hour. Buddabing! Buddabang!

Be sure to avoid making a bunch of pencil marks if you can. We made little tiny pencil marks on the edges of the top and then used the marks as a guide and let the straight edge of the painter's tape do the work for us. Having two people on either end of the tape helped alot. We could lift and reset as needed without a bunch of fiddling. Be sure to go over and over and over the painter's tape pressing it down to ensure a good seal to avoid bleeding of the stain.

And yes! You guessed it - it's a UNION JACK pattern. Cool huh? Here it is, all taped off and the staining can begin! I stained all around the perimeter of the coffee table with an "ebony" stain color. I also stained the drawer fronts, legs and bottom platform in the same color.

I chose to use a "Red Mahogany" brown color for the major parts of the Union Jack pattern. I was a bit hesitant to use stain as I have never done it before. But using a little care, with my trustee old rag, I managed to have the whole thing stained in approximately 15 minutes. Of course, DH was hooked on the project by then as well, which made things go even faster. To ensure that we stained the proper spots, we wrote the appropriate stain colors on the appropriate spots on the PAPER drawing. Then there was no mistaking where what color went where. Comprendez? I expect that using a pair of disposable gloves would have been a good idea, so as not to ruin my manicure, but I was beyond gloves by this point! Note to self: add disposable gloves to shopping list for future projects!

Immediately after staining the whole thing, we lifted the painters tape. No dilly-dallying here! I was absolutely tickled pink to see that the stain had not offered to "bleed" at all. Wahoo! It is already looking super sa-weet (like my 14 year old Stinky would say!) wouldn't you say?

Upon finishing the staining, hubby and I sanded in a few spots to "weather" the table and give it more of a vintage feel. (See above photo).

Then we said good night and let the stain dry overnight. In the morning, I grabbed the varathane and an old paint brush and slopped the varathane all over the top. Then I went to go buy groceries. Upon coming home an hour later, I brushed on another coat of the varathane. I took more care with this second coat to ensure that my brush strokes were even and I was applying it evenly. After getting a few more chores done, I did a third coat. Again, taking care to ensure even application. The instructions on the can said that I should wait two hours between each coat, but being the impatient person that I am, I ignored said instructions and just applied a total of FOUR coats after each coat was dry to the touch and barely sticky. Each coat took about 5 minutes to do. Not even. Easy-peasy! Now let the table sit to dry thoroughly for a good few hours or so.

In the evening when DH came home, he quickly pulled out the electric drill and took ten minutes putting the whole table back together. One final swipe with a damp rag and it was ready to move back into the livingroom.

And here it is all finished!

What I love about this coffee table is I can always cover this design up with a great table runner or quilt, if I need to "dress" things up abit. I likey!

I learned alot doing this project and now I cannot wait to do another! The sky is the limit baby!

We went from this:

To this:

The cost was $0.00 as I used materials all found in my garage cupboards. I invite any questions or comments you may have on this project. Although I must say that because I am a total newbie at this furniture makeover thing, I might not be able to answer all of your questions. But let me try and if I can't, I will try to find the answer for you! Thanx for reading peeps!