Pinning Marathon

Ohh, color me tired and sore! I kinda surprised myself by realizing that exactly a month ago I got home from visiting my parents. I've managed to complete 4 quilt tops since. Admittedly, they're all baby/lap size.

I'll say this, my husband got a good view of my butt this evening as I bent over and pinned the three quilts! ;)

Seeing the picture, I'm reminded why I go either all-scrappy or 2-3 fabric quilts. I just can't do a handful of colors, I just don't get a good flow. The quilt on the right is starting to rub me wrong because "shades of pink and purple" was nice in theory, but didn't translate well into a quilt.

On the bright side, all three quilts use fabric from my stash - I didn't go out of my way to purchase any fabrics. I'd guess around 15 yards used, including the bindings, which are already cut and ready to be added after the quilting.

I wanted to pin last week's mystery quilt too, but I don't have a backing handy, and I'm out of crib size batting. Hopefully I'll remember to pick some up when I'm running around town while my husband's at the church council meeting. :)

Leah

A top in a day!

I woke up at 6am - without my "alarm" a.k.a. my husband. :D He's pretty worn out from the first week of school. Getting up at 5:30am again is a bit of a shock. :P But I started to work on Ann's mystery. First she had us do 4-patches, then HSTs.

We put them together to make this unit.

This was at clue 7, and there were eight clues. The beauty of this block is that you have NO idea how it's gonna look in the end. So many different ways to arrange and play with them. So I'm on my toes waiting for clue 8... and Ann surprises me with giving us 7 different options for arranging the blocks. Talk about a mystery til the end! :)

I picked option 1, arranging the blocks all in one direction.

If you look, you can see pink slanted stars. It's a beautiful baby quilt size, maybe even lap size? I'm planning to put a small teal green border around it, then bind it with the pink.

Ann also suggested making the blocks into a Jewel Box, but I already did that last year.

Another successful mystery from Ann! :)

Leah

Another one of Ann's Mysteries

Tomorrow is Ann's Summer 2008 Mystery. I've selected my fabric below. I'm keeping it simple this time, because the heat's really getting to me right now, and I just didn't want to iron 25 different pieces of fabric to make it scrappy! :P

You all know how much I love Ann's Mysteries. I'm sure I'll be thrilled with the results tomorrow. And if I like the pattern enough that I wish I had done it in other fabrics, I can just make a different version. After all, this only busts 1 yard of hand dyed fabrics... 99 more to go! ;)

100 yards of fabric on the shelf, take one down, pass it around... 99 yards of fabric on the shelf... (hope the song didn't get stuck in your head!)

Leah

Half off

I had my hair cut - about half of it off. Feel free to blame my sister Sarah. She planted the idea in my head that I would look really good with a layered hairstyle, and that it'd really help my curls.

A shot of the before:

No, my head isn't crooked or anything, my hair grows crookedly. I typically have a 4 inch discrepancy every year. My left side always grows longer. (Don't forget that you're looking at a mirror image, so in the picture, it's the right side that's longer.) I could pull that section straight and it was about an inch away from my waist.


Not any more! :)

A real mess of curls now. It was kinda funny though, when she was done cutting my hair, she asked if I wanted her to curl it, or to straighten it. I opted to have it straightened, because my hair is never truly straight. Sarah's the exact same way, except that hers never curls! So hair cuts are the rare times we get what's exactly the opposite of our natural hair styles. :)


And of course, I couldn't end this post without a front shot too.

I think I'll be maintaining a shorter length from now on. I wanted my hair to my waist so much for so long, but it doesn't fit ME. Styling gets frustrating, my hair gets frizzy when it's long because it wants to curl, but has too much weight.

I think next time I'll get to cut right above my shoulder. I feel daring! I haven't had hair that short in 20 years. :D

Leah