Still swooning.  Slowly but surely.   I now have four blocks completely finished, and all others in various stages.   That counts as halfway to nine, right?    It's exciting to see it coming together and I've made some new (to me) discoveries with these blocks and all the precise piecing.

Spray starch.  Stiff fabric!  Who knew?   I'm not quite convinced yet that I like it, but it certainly seems to help with trimming things down to size - especially all those HSTs.    I also picked up a 3 1/2" square ruler which has made truing them up against the diagonal seams a breeze.

Pins.   Okay these aren't new to me, but I tend not to be much of a pin-er.   These blocks I'm pinning.   A lot.  Each side of every seam, and one in between.   It takes time, both putting in and taking out, but it sure makes a difference in keeping all those points in alignment.

Pilot Frixon Pens.  I'm pretty giddy about this one.   A fine tip pen (and not a sewing specific pen either) that disappears with ironing.    That's right.   Press your seam and it's gone.  Perfect for marking the diagonal on those pesky flying geese.   I picked mine up at the quilt shop in Long Beach Washington during our last-hurrah-before-school-starts trip to the beach, but they're available at most office supply stores.  A few warnings though - ink will reappear if the fabric gets cold before washing (although it will iron out again) and it seems to slightly fade blue fabrics.   For marking on the back side however, like I've done, it doesn't matter.

Seams.  I have traditionally been a side-presser with a few exceptions, but for the life of me I haven't been able to consistently press these blocks so the final seams are all opposing.   I have since diagrammed it out and it looks good in theory, but I'm not overly optimistic.  I may be doing more open seams in the future....   luckily the spray starch helps with this too.   I have also been plagued with my down-facing seams flipping when they pass over the needle plate.   Then, in a rare moment of brilliance, it occured to me that I could actually adjust the adjustable feet on the extension table to make it just a tad bit higher than the plate.  Yep. That fixed it.  I felt pretty stupid about this one.  But it ranks right up there with the new pen.

Yikes!  August is quickly going the same way as July - and soon to be gone !
Which is not to say there hasn't been progress made on several fronts ...

The big project this summer has been the attic, and it's getting close to finished.  Don't let the above picture fool you - it is NOT the before shot.  The space was actually "finished" when I bought the house, but not in a condition that I considered livable.    I pretty much ignored it for a decade and then gutted it some years back to insulate.   And then it sat unused while I dreamt up crazy plans of raising the roof and moving the stair (it's in a bedroom closet) and doing all kinds of work that cost way too much money.   I finally decided to get real and re-finish it out as-is with no structural changes.   I'm hoping to get the floor laid this weekend so we can have a move-in date before school starts up in September!

I've also been plugging away on my Nightshade Swoon quilt.   These blocks are intense!  I made the first one from start to finish (with the exception of my rough cut HSTs) and it took the good part of a morning.   I've since been a little sporadic and have multiple blocks in various stages of completion.   Overall it's gone together well and I've only had to unpick a few seams to get points lined up.   My biggest struggle has been with the flying geese blocks.   They were turning out just a smidge too narrow until I started marking the diagonal on the rectangle instead of the square.   Now I can overlap a slightly oversized square on the base rectangle and trim it down to size after stitching.  Problem solved!

And lastly, we managed to sneak in a few days of camping and paddling at one of our favorite spots...

I might be starting a new quilt.  or two.  
but I have two that are almost finished.  
That balances out, right?  

First up is a Swoon quilt.  Finally, after admiring the pattern and quilts for so long!  
The delay in starting had as much to do with finding the right fabric as it did with [almost] finishing up other projects.   When Tula Pink's Nightshade arrived in the shop, I couldn't resist any longer.   The Spider Blossom print in particular pushed me over the edge.

I've selected three of the five prints in the collection and grouped them with an assortment of coordinating solids, from left to right:
kona parsley 198
kona olive 1263
moda bella celery 9900 72
moda bella dusty jade 9900 38
moda bella teal 99000 87
kona azure 1009
cotton couture peony
kona wood rose 1393
cotton couture primrose
the lavender is unknown, but very close to moda bella 9900 33 

Here they are cut into squares and paired up:

(I ended up not using the olive)

and sewn into a gazillion half square triangles:

I may be a little crazy, but I sewed all the HSTs for the entire quilt first.  and I cheated.   I overcut my squares slightly and will trim them down to size whenI need to sew them together.  Is this lazy of me?  I don't know.  I'll have to do the work eventually.  I like to avoid the stress of cutting everything perfectly, sewing perfectly, pressing prefectly, but still get close-to perfect blocks.  I'm sure I'm not the only one that does this!

(The neutral solid is bella natural.)

Look I can sew!  Part 4.  


I figured it was high time I posted about an actual sewing project rather than just blabbing on and on about the shop.  I do have more to say, specifically a lengthy "lessons learned" post, but I'll spare you all (for now).


I've taken a cue from Crazy Mom Quilts' small projects sew-along and decided to tackle my own list of small projects.  (because I'm certainly not going to finish a large project any time soon!)
Now that the sun is beginning to shine here in Oregon, I can start hanging clothes up to dry outside -  all that's been missing is a clothes-pin bag.  Previously...well you probably don't want to know what I've done previously... but I finally got my act together and stitched up a little bag in about the same amount of time that it took the washing machine to get through a load of whites. 
I raided my scrap bin for the log cabin front and straps, used a bit of polka-dot from stash on the back, and lined with muslin.  Rather than overthink the hanging, I took the easy route and used a child's skirt hanger I had floating around the laundry room.  In hindsight, I think using some batting and quilting the bag would help give it some structure, but overall I'm pretty happy with the results!

Here's a little side story - My grandmother had a wire and fabric contraption for her clothes pins that hooked over the clothes line and had a sort of hoop at the bottom that gave form to the bag.   I can remember, one summer when I was maybe 6?, 7? stuffing as many farm kittens as I could find in the bag and sending them for a ride down the line.  Yikes!  I don't remember exactly how it all went down, except I'm pretty sure they all survived relatively unscathed (myself included) and I didn't try it again.

A big thanks to everyone that took the time to check out the new shop and leave such nice comments and great suggestions for the site. I'm definitely looking forward to making some improvements as time and budget allow. Here are the top two items on my list: 

• Add fat quarter checkbox to category pages AND shopping cart. 
• Add images to the collection category page.

Although I've been in business for a few years now with the shop first on etsy and then big cartel, having my own site opens up a lot more opportunities and is quite exciting!

For the giveaway, winners as chosen by the Random Number Generator are: 


Karen P. 
I love the fabric's by collection in the scrolling circles! Such a great idea! 


AND 


Kim 
I love the store! Congratulations!!! I REALLY love the fat quarter option! I am just getting back into quilting and like being able to buy a little bit of a LOT of fabrics at once! It would be nice to have the fat quarter option next to the fabrics without having to click on the individual fabric first. Does that make sense? This may not be an issue for others, but our system loads slower and waiting that extra each time adds up.... ;)

Congratulations! 
Please send me a note via the contact link in the shop with your email address and I'll get the gift codes off to you.


I've also extended the coupon code LARK until May 2nd to give a few more days to take advantage of 10% off!

And we've got a live one!
It's so exciting to have the new website up and running and to see this little shop grow up!  Thanks to all that have helped make it happen!


Here's a quick summary of the features:

• Most fabrics are priced per yard and sold in quarter yard increments - yup that's right.  purchase 3/4 yard.  4 1/4 yards. whatever you want!  The exception would be prints that are an obvious panel, or pre-cut bundles
• Fat Quarter cuts are available at no additional charge - check the option box on the product page before adding to your cart.  Once it's in your cart, there's no way to add the FQ option - something I'm hoping to fix soon
• Shop by collection, designer, manufacturer, color, theme, and fabric type
• Create a wish list to save favorites or look at several choices together on the same page
• Fabric cut discount for cuts over three yards
• Customer appreciation discounts 

To start thing off right, I'm offering a FREE fat quarter on all purchases of a yard or more through the end of the month.   You can also receive 10% off your purchase (excluding shipping) with coupon code LARK.  Remember to enter the code on the shopping cart page prior to checkout.


AND I'll be giving away (2) $20 gift certificates here on the blog.

To enter to win, hop on over to the shop, take a peak around, then come back here and leave a comment letting me know what you like or don't like about the new site!  

Comments will close on Friday April 27th, and I'll draw winners that weekend.

This shop update is so long overdue it makes me want to cry.  Who knew it could take so long?  But it's really close now.  Like within a week close, so I'll save the sob story for another day.
It's not perfect, but close. I keep discovering little things here and there that are just a wee bit off.  I've decided they can wait.   Wait until the dust from the move settles and I've caught up on my sleep (and laundry!).

So stay tuned!  I'll be offering up a few gift certificates, coupon codes, and more on the big day!

In the meantime,  here's a little sneak peak of the home page: