Happy New Year from Stitch Witch Fine Quilting

What a year! So happy to end 2012 and begin a wonderful new year with you!

Enjoy 13% off in my etsy shop this New Years Eve and all week long!

Stitch Witch Fine Quilting

So Thankful

I am so thankful for many things. I am mostly thankful for my family and especially my nephews the smile makers.....

What are you thankful for this year?

Missing in Action

On a weekly basis I sign into my page and shake my head. I haven't felt very chatty lately. Work and life has gotten very busy. In some ways that are very good and some ways that could always be much better. Today, I am ending the silence and am back on my blogging track. And now that I'm back on track, I'd like to talk about Pinterest. Oh how I love pinterest. If you haven't checked it out, do so as soon as you possibly can. It is another way to spend hours and hours distracted by the internet while not getting anything done in any productive way. The general idea behind pinterest is to collect ideas, recipes, things you might like or want to try or favorite and have them on virtual pin boards all in one place. I find it to be a wonderful way to find inspiration for sewing, quilting and cooking. Here are some of my favorite pins this week!

Half Square Triangle Tutorial  ( I have big plans for this)

Make up Bag Tutorial

Matryoshka Doll Ornament

Double Potholder

Prairie Paisley Patchwork Tablerunner

Happy Pinning!

Scrappy Christmas Fun

  

I'm constantly looking at fantastic tutorials where people make beautiful quilts out of the millions of scraps they have saved. To be honest, all I've done with my scraps is shoved them into a bin and pushed them under my cutting table.... GASP....I know!  Recently I came across this panel and ironically enough I have tons of scraps from this line. It was the first fabric I made a quilt from, Kate Spain's 12 Days of Christmas. As you can see above I started to just add a border UNTIL, I remembered all of those lovely 12 Days of Christmas scraps! Stay tuned to see what all of this becomes :)!

Compartment Living

My nephews have dubbed my lovely little one bedroom co-op as a compartment. I laugh when I hear it because it makes people conjure up images of me sleeping in a glove compartment. For the most part I heart my compartment. I have put a lot of time and effort into making it a home. Most quilters/sewers will sympathize with my difficulty in compartment living. SPACE. One bedroom...no sewing room. Months ago I converted my walk in closet into a little workspace. The problem with space? my stash is growing.  I keep fabric....

here

here

 here

 here

and now after going through all of those horrible books you are forced to buy when you take masters degree courses and though the instructor insists you'll use it in your career, you NEVER do! But when you donate them TA DA....you end up with plenty more space for your stash!

Stuck in a Three Way

Lately I have noticed a pattern. A pattern in my quilting. It seems I am always stuck in a three way. Inadvertently, I am always working on three projects at once. This is so unlike me. I'm more of one quilt kind a gal. Lately, I'm in a three way and I have to pat myself on the back because I have noticed that it is a highly fair and diplomatic three way. 

These are the participants. Let me introduce them and explain how fair I am.

 Participant #1: A quilt being bound to donate. ( I have been trying my hardest to constantly work on quilts for Project Linus)

Participant #2: A quilt, drum roll please, FOR ME! This beautiful quilt I'm sad to say is not my design. You can find out all about it here at Waterwheel House Quilt Shop. It is the design of Shelley Sas.

Participant #3: My design, Five Little Pumpkins, just in time for Halloween. It is being bound in order to sell it here in Stitch Witch Fine Quilting (my shop).

The Fabric

I'm staying up late each night for two very important reason. The first to watch the olympics, I'm always amazed by the gymnasts and the divers. The second reason is I'm trying to finish all outstanding projects so that I may begin projects with my new fabric guilt free. Yes, I too get that guilty feeling from putting a project aside to work on something new. But you could hardly resist, check out the fabric I bought on my trip to Manchester. 

From Waterwheel House Quilt Shop

Penelope from Lakehouse

Kaffe Fassett fat quarters, can you tell something rainbow order is going to be in the works?

From Country Treasures 

 Deco Delight by Fabric Freedom

 Deb Strain Give Thanks by Moda

Skaters Village from Windham Fabrics

As you can see I have a lot to work with and on and MANY outstanding projects to finish!

Manchester Revisited

 Last summer, I decided to visit a quilting buddy (I've known her since kindergarten and thanks to Facebook have discovered we both have a passion for quilting). The trip was SO WONDERFUL that I decided to make it a yearly event. Hence, Manchester revisited. For two days, I spoil myself and stay at a beautiful inn, eat phenomenal meals, laugh with a wonderful friend and spend way too much money on fabric (the shops up there are amazing).

The view on the ride from New York to Vermont never disappoints!

The Inn at Manchester is so beautiful and the owners/innkeepers are so warm and welcoming!

From the front porch to the beautiful bedrooms it is such a treat to stay here! The fun didn't stop here. 

I finally got to meet these wonderful and sweet boys when my friend Laura and her husband took us all on a kayaking adventure! They were too cute and too funny!


Stand by for the fabric.....

4th of July Sale

Enjoy 20% off this 4th of July at Stitch Witch Fine Quilting on Etsy!

Click here to bring you to the shop!

Keeping Busy

Whenever I get a new stack of fabric I want to jump in right away. These are no exception. I LOVE both of these patterns and spent weeks deciding whether or not to buy this pack of Pam Kitty Morning fat quarters. Clearly, I caved and knew just the pattern I wanted to use them for!

The problem is I always have so many projects going at once! These are my project roadblocks....

I will finish the binding on this today! (Also Pam Kitty Morning, by the way....love it! :))

Uhmmm this is actually someday going to be a quilt for my living room. Because it's for me, I only work on it in drips and drabs. Notice I keep it in the drawer of my "sewing room (closet)" table....yipes!

For someone special....hopefully getting to starting to piece it today!

So I guess I'll be shelfing my new fabrics and patterns for later this summer!

Life's A Beach

After weeks of residing on my living room chair, my Life's A Beach (<-----click the title to check out this quilt in my Etsy shop) quilt has finally made it's debut. Really, it was only a scant 36 inches of binding that I procrastinated on sewing. For some reason things have been slow in the quilting world. While I have finished Life's A Beach, I'm still a few months behind in my blocks from The Waterwheel House Quilt Shop. We started in November, I'm doing my blocks through the mail. I should have 6. I have.....

Yup, 4! I only have 4 finished and naturally I got the block for May in the mail today. Making it my mission to be up to date before June's block arrives! 

Finally finished....no time to spare

After quite some time (ashamed to give an actual number of months) I've finally finished this Ritzy Cracker Quilt. I had started it for my friend's daughter and was hoping to get it to her quickly. When I went to quilt this, I all of a sudden started experiencing all of these horrible things with my Pfaff QE. I had to put the quilt aside. Well needless to say, I fixed the kinks in my machine, but have been so reluctant to pick up this quilt again....after all it did cause the trouble in the machine? Hardly, but that's what my mind told me. So finally finished and my friend's baby just turned 1...YIPES!!!!

I don't usually do as much to the back, but I liked how the back reflects a more "little girlish" quilt and the front is a bit more cool. Hopefully she'll get a lot of use from this quilt! In the mail it goes!

No Giving up Just Giving....

Each year around lent I deal with this huge struggle. Why must I give up something for lent? So what to do? What to give up? I don't have any vices....ok so I drink coffee A LOT. I could give that up, but that would just be cruel and unusual. Instead of giving up this year, I decided I would just rather give....

QUILTS!

I love quilting and am so happy that I found something to keep my hands busy. After a bit of googling, I found the perfect organization to donate quilts to; Project Linus. This is an amazing organization please click on the name to read more. The two quilts above are two of the three quilts that I am donating. I'm hoping to continue making more quilts for this awesome cause!

Introducing....

Baby Boy Connolly III

There is nothing like a new baby. Ryan Matthew came at 11:59 PM on March 16. One minute short of St. Patrick's Day. I still think he has the luck of the Irish! This boy is so precious (and tiny) and already just as smart as his big brothers. I'm cherishing every moment I get to hold him!

Coming Soon....

Beautiful weather is keeping me from finishing this quilt and this guy is coming soon.

I'd love to finish this quilt before he gets here.