tale as old as time - beauty and the beast themed pillow set

when lisa started to jump in to the instagram swap game, it wasn't until too late in the game that the disney mini quilt swap was discovered.  such a shame.  i've joined and even organized a few disney swaps on craftster, and they're always a favorite topic to craft for.  so instead, i sat on the outside, checking the hashtag every so often, and oogling at all the disney quilt goodness.  on a random day, i cruised over to craftster and looked at the swap angel board just to see if anything looked fun.  and there it was, disney swap round 12 needed someone!  after a day-ish of thinking on it, i committed to the job and awaited to hear from the gal i'd be sewing for.  then, i found out she had been waiting since AUGUST... yikes!  they wanted a project sent out within two weeks, with a "large" item being one of the items (large = 3 hours or so to make).  my vision was born, and the ball was rolling.  she wanted something for her new house that wasn't cheesy disney.  i hit up fandom in stitches, found the perfect paper pieced patterns, and had kinkos blow them up 240%.  the next day, i bought my fabric, and two days later, i was spending my entire day paper piecing.
one of her favorite movies listed was "beauty and the beast" so i selected chip as well as the enchanted rose to turn in to pillow slip covers.  originally i was set on them being 12", but the smallest square pillow form i could find was 14" so i added a slight border to it.  on sunday i did BOTH of the entire blocks, start to finish, and prepared myself to get ready to do the quilting/sandwiching on monday.  i found that i didn't have any blue thread so i had to run to joann's that night (bummer) and then knocked out the remains of the quilting on both as well as the "envelope" portion of it.
i found a few tutorials on pinterest that described how to make these types of pillow covers.  my grandma had made them for years for my mom & aunt for christmas, so it was a good visual to take a peek at an actual one as well.  the ink used by kinko's was something awful, and left black marks all over the lightest pieces of each block.  so frustrating.  but after a date with a specific stain fighter for ink and a spin in the wash, they were good to go.  packed them up, and then they were shipped out on saturday.  less than a week start to finish, not too shabby!
she initially mentioned that she liked the enchanted rose as a good representation for beauty and the beast, and i have to agree!  i really love this block, whether for beauty and the beast or just to simply be a paper pieced rose.  i cannot imagine this at the 5ish inch size it initially was before i blew it up.
i thought this chip was a good "subtle" match to the rose pillow, as it wasn't a giant princess face.  he was a simple little block (i made him second after the rose) and it just powered right through.  i think he's a pretty cute little guy in movie form anyways, and would absolutely make this block again.  shoot, it has made me want to go through and make so many more disney blocks from their site!
after creating this pillow set, i've also started to envision what the types of friend gifts there might be for christmas 2015. i guess we'll have to wait and see if this stays as the inspiration, or something else happens, right?  either way, i am totally going to keep peeking in on the swap angel board.  as much as i love receiving things from other people, i just don't have anywhere to put anything right now!  but seriously, i'm sure i'll keep doing regular swaps as well.  and drooling over the awesome up! mini quilt from the disney swap that i missed out on.
it's pretty much fantastic.

quilt block swap round 6: the blocks

the final send outs were just three weeks ago, and i'm now getting to blogging.  sounds about right.
i participated in my first craftster swap in years, and i have to say i thought it would be easy.  but i was wrong.  i thought a quilt block swap would be a piece of cake to have some crafting going while dealing with school work at the same time, but so many other things came up, and i easily got burnt out after my first few block sets.  i did managed to get them all finished in time the day before send outs, and they were on their merry little way.  here are all the blocks i created for this quilt block swap:
double aster
ribbon star
home town/state/country
cat block
garden fence
split 9 patch
quilter's choice - paper pieced
designer's personal pattern
and there you have it!
i think my favorite new block from this set has to be the ribbon star block.  while i had some serious "not reading the directions completely" issues and lots of seam ripping (with the help of my mom) it all came together in the end.  i also am quite pleased with the bigger of the star blocks from the paper piecing set.  which is a good thing, as i plan to use that pattern to make a quilt for my bed... still have a twin sized quilt on a queen sized bed.   soon enough that will change!
here's to hoping that in posting this, i'll be more inspired to get crafting again.
well, december is coming up, and i know i have some plans in store for the first 25 days of that.  it's just the act of getting there now.  ha!

ch. ch. check it out

I'm a Craftster Best of 2012 Winner! that's right folks, you saw it here first. well, unless you are on craftster, then maybe you saw it there first. anyways, it was super exciting to see this popped up on one of my posts from last year, especially on a section of the boards i had little experience in ever posting in.  are you ready for the winner?
yup, the screen printed shirt i made for my dad last christmas was a winner.  guess it is a hint i should bust out that screen print kit i bought again and have a go at it.  i guess my brother can join in the hoorah for partial credit, since he did the original drawing.
original blog post: right hurr
original drawing: here
craftster boards: because you know you want to

weekend wips [& front page news]

i feel semi productive this week, now that i laid everything out that i did in to words. to top it off, i used invisible thread this week - something i haven't done in ages, and do not plan to do again anytime soon once these wedding bits & pieces are over - and didn't want to rip someone's face off. yeah, using invisible thread is THAT intense.
the bridal shower/wedding: as far as the shower goes, i got a thing or two done here and there. i painted some pink stripes on 2 foam core boards that will be used for one of the bridal shower games. for that same game, i purchased a blank card set, as well as pulled out my orange glitter scrapbook paper to cricut some numbers on. i'm thinking this week i will crank out the rest of the game and finish it up, as well as hopefully get a start on the invites. for the wedding portion, the ring bearer pillow has been stuffed and sewn shut. texted off a photo, and it was well received with a "cute!" from the bride to be, which makes me happy. the set of buttons also came this weekend, and though smaller than expected, they will still be perfection for the pillow, garter, and potential hair accessories. so crazy how it's creeping up closer and closer every day!
baby shower: the main fabric is still sitting around, and i still have to go cruise joann's for the accent fabric. i ordered the template to use for the creation of the quilt (dang "online only" purchase... found it cheaper on amazon though) and now awaiting it's arrival. once it's here, i guess i will really have to start working on it!
t-shirt quilt: everything has been chopped. it was pretty intense, that's for sure. i mean, did i ever imagine myself hacking these shirts up when i actually was wearing them? no, probably not. but still, it has been fun "remembering" when i got these shirts, when i wore them, and all that jazz. a few of them i had to turn in to half block sets because the writing/graphic on them was smaller than the others. once i get everything all pieced together, then i will be able to determine how many more blank filler blocks i will have to make in order to get the quilt to an even amount of blocks and then get cracking!i made the front page! i finally updated all of my christmas gift projects on to the craft forum craftster and for the first time, one of mine made the "hot new projects" section on the front page! seriously, i kept checking it every time i went back to my computer just to see if it was still there or not :) it was gone by sunday night, but the excitement of seeing something i made on the front page sure made for some "uplifting" excitement over my weekend. and in case you missed the original blog post for the apron, you can find that here!