project plans for february

i cannot believe i am even writing this post right now... didn't january JUST happen?  wow.  last weekend i participated in the grow your blog party with vicki from two bags full, so i just wanted to give a shout out to all followers, new and old.  thanks everyone!  i'm so excited to share more projects and posts with you :)  i thought i would kick things off and share some of my projects i intend to work on this month, and hope that it means that these piles of fabric (plus one quilt top) will turn in to finished items!  i'll start from the top left, and work my way across.
kitten mini quilt swap
this again is my first instagram swap and after much fabric debate i finally got everything ordered and the final pieces arrived yesterday!  i have a super cute (in my opinion) paper pieced patter picked out, and hope my partner loves it too.  not quite sure how i'll quilt it, but that's down the line a little ways :)
disney swap round 12
i pop in to craftster every now and again to update my post recent projects as well as occasionally cruise the open swaps boards.  this time, i checked out the swap angel board and found they were looking for someone for a disney swap.  the poor girl has been waiting since the fall!  i sent a pm, and confirmed everything up and started planning before i even got approved.  once i was officially set to go, i went fabric shopping and had some other paper pieced patterns enlarged.  i'm super excited to work on these, even with their two week desired send out.  yikes!  guess it is really a good thing i only have one class this semester, and it is online :)
ruffle apron
this will be the fourth of these ruffle aprons i've made, and i suppose it is about time that i made one for the person who keeps having to model them.  my sister got hired at joann fabrics for seasonal, and they kept her on as a part time employee.  she was desiring an apron, but hasn't sewn more than a pair of pajama pants (to my knowledge).  my mom saw this fabric there, so we hunted it down and found a coordinate to go with it. this should be fairly easy to bust out, though i will probably have to go through and convert all the metric units in to inches yet again.  i keep losing my original copy!
catvent 2014
we're still at the same place on this one.  the top is done, the back is prewashed, and now it just needs to become one before i can move forwards.  i think i will keep with my original plan of a 1" cross hatch like the last one, since free motion quilting is still on my eventual skill list.

sew your stash 2015 - at the starting line

there has been a fantastic idea of a hashtag floating around instagram as well as the "support group" that i'm in that is really going to help me get the ball rolling.  last year, my fabric stash project was all about organization, primarily to see what the heck i even had enough to use of to make anything.  well, given i never blogged that process like i said/thought i would, here's a peek at it.  my fabric storage went from this:
to this:
it's quite the sight when the before and after are right by each other.  given the space that i have in my room (or lack thereof) i moved what used to store my t-shirts & dvds in it across my room and in to my closet.  the fabric went from being in tubs to rolled on comic book boards and made everything SO much easier to see what i had.  the top two rows are all cotton prints, the gray bins hold smaller pieces that couldn't quite roll on to a board, and the bottom shelf is primarily flannel,  now that i can better see my stash, i have a better idea of how i want to turn it in to finished projects.
as of right now, i only have three projects envisioned thus far for my fabric stash.  the first one involving all my buzz lightyear/toy story fabric prints.  i think when i counted, there were 13 different fabrics that i have collected over the years, and since i made the triangle music quilt last summer, i am 99.9% certain that is what i'm going to do with all these prints.  the second project has been in the making since at least 2011, if not before... those dang squares i have been cutting year after year have finally come to a pause.  i made it through everything my mom destashed and cut my squares from it, and then caught up on fabric from various recent projects of mine.  when i say recent, i mean as far back as sewvivor stuff... oops.
the third one i had to think about, because i simply did not put the fabric in my cabinet.  instead, it is in my desk drawer.  when i bought my new bed last july, i knew i would need a bigger quilt to go on it.  i found a collection of moda fabric i loved, and a paper pieced pattern to make it in.  i really need to get on making that at some point as well...  i don't know how much longer i can take having a twin sized quilt (or three) on my queen sized bed.
i know i have an entire collection of fabric i bought back in 2009 or so that is awaiting a baby girl to be born at some point...  but as of right now it seems like the pregnancy/wedding bug has not struck any of my friends just yet.  i will gladly be sharing the process of this "sew your stash" process, especially if it means i have some finished projects in the end :)

weekend wips

hello december.  how did you happen already??
we're back at it, my friends.  even if just for a little bit.
i apologize for the slew of posts that were just my 365 project for the past forever long.  school got super in the way for awhile, but hey!  next week is the last week of the semester.  hip hip hoorah!  anyways, there has been a little bit of crafting going on over here, and a little bit of prep work for a project that is set to start today.  yikes!  let's hope i'm not a liar about that once i get off work today at 3, and that homework and craftiness can play together hand in hand. this list is a whole lot less extensive than some of the prior weekend wips posts, with only two projects on it as of right now.
baby boy quilt
my aunt asked me to make another baby quilt for her, this one for a baby boy of one of her coworkers.  the theme was "travel" with boats, airplanes, hot air balloons and such for the suggested decor for the nursery.  i found a fantastic map quilt pattern on pinterest, and away i went.  my mom helped trace out all the pieces, and this past week i wonder undered them all, cut out the pieces and got them all together.  thursday-saturday i stitched everything in place for reinforcement, and then late saturday night i safety pinned the three laters together.  next, it's onward to basting and quilting it all.  whoot!
catvent 2014
ladies & gents, we're back again with another glorious catvent quilt.  last year's quilt was super fun, and i had pretty much been planning this one since i finished the other.  instead of doing the small 25 again, we're going big my friends.  super big.  100 cats big.  and not just any 100 cats.  100 pudge cats.  what's a pudge cat, you might ask?  this.
many of you know the love/hate relationship between my cat & myself, and when this previous catvent happened, i knew at some point i wanted to make one full of little elroys, almost in a 101 dalmations sense, but kitties.  perfect, right?  as you can see in the preview photo, i even have some pink fabric left over from my coloradifornia cameras quilt to give some of them little pink noses.  oh it cracks me up inside so much.
it should ideally end up the same size as my cameras quilt (lap size) and i just cannot wait.  i'm hoping to stick to the cat a day guidelines as last year - this year four of each "cat" each day but with all my class assignments needed to be done by december 13th, plus work as well, i forsee some days may get doubled up.  in the meantime, all fabric is prewashed and dried as we speak,the outside pieces for all the blocks have been cut and stacked, and now it all waits to be ready for things to happen.  be sure to follow along on instagram to see the kitty quartets as they finish up.
if you've never heard of this fantastic catvent before, check it out here at ohfrasson.com for the quilt along for it.  she's got some other super cute animal patterns on there as well that i'm dying to try in the future.
happy monday, all of you!