Whitniffic Whatnots

Ok, I've got to put it out there... why the heck are these called Economy Blocks? A pretty example from moderncozy.com. When I first looked at the pattern, it almost seemed as if all the triangles were cut from the same size pieces as the center squares, which totally made sense to me in an "economical" fashion- like you could create a whole bunch of these blocks out of a single charm pack or something. That's easy... right? Looks promising... Err. I guess not? Seam allowance is important... Maybe if we trim a bit off... That's better. It's super tight on those 1/4" edges though! Ok, so it sort of works. But when I dug in further, it's recommended to cut three different size squares to piece these together; the center square (let's say 5" for simplicity's sake), two squares that are a half inch smaller than the center square (4.5", cut in half into triangles), and two squares that are a half ...

I have to admit... I was a major doofus with planning how this mystery quilt would come together. I mean, obviously, all quilts need backings... and I knew the size of the quilt and the fabric line that the colorway used, but it never occurred to me to think ahead to finishing this thing. These colors were pretty much impossible to match to anything I could find in all the quilt shops in town. I hopped around to four separate stores in hopes of finding something... anything that would make a cute, bright backing for this guy. I started at Quilting Divas. I thought maybe the purpley and orangey ones would work to compliment the odd-colored dots in little pieces of the quilt top, but it just seemed like too much. I couldn't find the right lime green either, and the greys all seemed too cool, too warm, too dark, or too light to match right. Sad face. I finally ended up finding a grey that matched pretty well at Silver Thimble (I had never been there before, but I lik...

My mother in law is part of her church's quilting group, the First Quilters. Last Saturday they hosted a Quilt-A-Thon, an all-day sewing workshop complete with food, fabric and laughter. This was my third time attending since last spring, and I'm really starting to enjoy the company. I'm only a tad jealous of those who are retired and can quilt all day long during the week. :) The first part of the day was spent on whatever projects the ladies wanted to work on. I brought the cute pink scrappy HST quilt I'd been working on with my friend Daniel, and finally finished quilting it. It turned out super cute, and now it's ready for binding! It should all set for his niece Audrey's first birthday next month. I also brought along a brand-new project that I had started the night prior, which was inspired by the Cotton Cuts Color Challenge card I received in my mystery puzzle block package this month (yes, I joined again! I couldn't resist!). I had orig...

Wow! Three sessions of Paint your Pet have been completed already this year! While most paint night classes at places like Pinot's Palette attract groups of 30 or so, I'm kind of relieved that ours only averaged about six participants per class. Clearly, we'd have loved to have more people attend, but this type of event is pretty labor-intensive for me. Sketching out the pets ahead of time is really necessary for the paintings to turn out great, as most people do great at painting but openly claim they can't draw for a darn. Unfortunately, it takes anywhere between 20-30 minutes per canvas for me to grid and sketch the canvases, which really adds up! Our first two classes were back-to-back; first Tuesday night in Green Bay, then Wednesday night in Two Rivers. This was slightly stressful, because I had 14 canvases total to sketch the weekend before, including my own samples. I did learn after the first night, however, that it's best for me to walk around and...