The Ginger Hut!

 This is where all the fun happens! I love my little sewing house, so affectionately called "The Ginger hut"! My niece Patti came up with the name and it stuck.

When we bought our house there was this little bonus shed in the back yard.  It had electricity and A/C but little else, I thought I can work with that!  It had a drainage issue and a roof leak but other than that it was a solid little building.

First things first the roof and drainage was addressed. Then we added new lighting and started painting the roof. We hired a handyman to put up drywall and texture.  Silly me, my son Sam and I did the molding and base boards, next time I will have the handy man do that.  I painted cabinets we took out of our kitchen and painted the concrete floor. Sam made me a counter.  My husband Ric decided I needed a TV, so he gave me one and even hung it on the wall, he is so sweet! But the best day was when I got to bring in my fabric and all my sewing things that were stored under the stairs in the house.  Ric was shocked at how much stuff I had :) 

This is Fred

This is Fred, he is my resident lizard. I don't have a bug problem in the Ginger Hut, so I let him stay.  He likes to hang out with me when I am sewing, and you can not imagine how many times he has scared me.  You just don't expect to see a lizard hanging out by your rotary cutter, or in your fabric or under a quilt! He has gotten very comfortable with me and I am forever having to shoo him out of the way. I don't want to cut fabric when he is on my mat.  One good thing, he knows better than to get on my machine!

Fred has a girl, but she is shy!  Most likely we will have little Freds one day soon.

New projects!

A couple of the fun things I have been playing with are, For You by Zen Chic and Canyon by Kate Spain. Both are Moda fabric lines. I have quilts started out of both lines and can't wait to share them when I get a little further along.  

I have a lopsided log cabin quilt out of the Zen Chic fabric, I used the pinks and oranges for that quilt.  I have plans for two other quilts out of that line! 

I started a Jacob ladder Quilt out of the Canyon, the layout is super fun.  The really exciting thing about the Jacob ladder quilt is I am using the precut mini charm squares.  The quilt takes 428 - 2 1/2" squares, I am using 10 mini charm packs and will only have to cut a handful of additional squares, this makes me Happy!

 

February UFO Challenge

 I made it!  My February challenge is finished, and I gave it to my brother-in-law Dan last night. He was thrilled to get it.  The funniest thing happened when I was basting this quilt, Dan stopped by and saw what I was working on.  He loved the quilt, could not say enough about the colors and the pattern, the blocks, how it went together, on and on.  I just stood there smiling and finally said, "I am sure happy you like it, because this is your quilt".  He said "great I love it, when will it be done".

Moda Fabrics was coming out with some super cute panels in the late 90's early 2000, and I would rather have a quilt you can use verses something to hang on the wall, so I started cutting them up and making them into full size quilts.  One thing led to another and I began teaching panel classes. Some of the ladies that took my classes and some of my friends started giving me panels.  This quilt was made from one of those panels.

I can't be sure when I finished this quilt top, but I think it was 10+ years ago. Thank goodness for this challenge, I am finally finishing some of those tops I have been "aging"!

I wanted to try something a little different with the center panel piece.  I did a stitch around the diamonds to give them a look of being applique.

 In the small boarder I quilted loops, but in the bigger green boarder I quilted leaves. Over all I am very happy with how the quilt turned out. #allpeoplequilt

Simply Colorful

Today I am teaching a class at Sew Special Quilts, a nice little shop close to my house. We will be making this Simply colorful quilt. There are a couple of fun things about this quilt. First, the pieced blocks are made from one 5" charm pack! Second, this is a great quilt to do the square in a square block, if you have never done that before. I broke this quilt into two classes; the first one we will work on square in a square, the second putting the quilt on point and the borders.  If you have never put a quilt on point, this is a simple little quilt to learn on.

This quilt ended up darker than I had originally planned on it being.  The fabric I bought for the setting blocks clashed with the green in some of the pieced blocks.  I asked my class only to bring in the charm pack today so we can talk about fabric for the rest of the quilt before they buy it.  I am so excited about the class today, I love teaching and sharing my ideas and knowledge. Bonus, I teach at a great shop, and the ladies are always so great.

January UFO Challenge

All people quilt, picked #2 as the January UFO project to finish.  This is a quilt for my great, great niece! No I am not old enough to be a great, great auntie, but the truth is my niece's daughter has two babies!  So it is what it is :) I do have to admit this quilt only needed the binding and label, it was a easy one to get done.

A little background on this quilt, My great niece Tori is a barrel racer and this quilt was started for her.  Do you ever have those quilts that just don't work?  This was one of those quilts.  I found this cute cowgirl rodeo fabric maybe 10 years ago and thought it would be perfect for a quilt for Tori.  I kept trying to do different things with it and finally gave up and stuck it in a bag to "age".  When I was unpacking my fabric in my new little quilt house (more to come on that) I found it.  Happy days, because by this point Tori had a baby girl, and wa la, in one evening the quilt top was finished.  I had so much fun machine quilting it.  I did a big sun design over the pieced blocks.  I quilted around each of the pictures and then added in some double loops, trying to make them look like rope.  Overall, I love how Khloe's Rodeo quilt turned out.

A friend of mine Terri asked her quilting friends to join this challenge from all people quilt. The idea is you write down 12 UFO's, (unfinished objects).  Every month they pick a number and that is the project you complete.  It sounded like a fun way to get some of those UFO's that I have been wanting to finish done, so I signed up and here is my UFO list.