Orca Bay Step 4

Kind of posting and running this morning, but wanted to get up the picture of the first four triangles I've made for the 4th clue from Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery quilt.

I'm really excited to see where this all is going!!

Smokey is anxious too. Below you can see she wanted to help get the foundation papers ready for the red (pink) string blocks.

Obnoxious Hearts

I know, that sounds funny. We have a friend who is ill, and we decided to shower her with cards. That idea morphed into sending cards with 6" heart blocks for her to make something with. But knowing Jonna, and her addiction to affection for Obnoxious Fabrics, we decided to make Obnoxious Heart blocks for her. Here are my contributions. Hope they don't make her too dizzy!

My Name is Misha, and I'm a Slob!!!

Ok, I admit it. I'm a slob.

My sewing room is a total nightmare but I'm working on it! Here are some "before" pictures that I took a few months ago. I started taking pictures of how it looks as you walk into the room, then panned from left to right. I did scoot over a bit to the right so you could see my computer station.

Panning from left to right...

This is the center, my cutting station is under there somewhere

The right side: laptop, printer and "elevated Smokey sleeping platform" aka ironing board

I have to say, it doesn't always look like this. In fact, it's looked much worse.

We are totally revamping the room, however, and I've already accomplished quite a bit. The big, teak piece of furniture in the first photo is now in the living room, and is completely clear of junk. I now have a big design wall that covers the entire surface of that north facing wall.

I've also removed most everything that's not craft or computer related. I hope to soon have a new, rolling cutting/pressing island. It will be 48" square, with shelves underneath. Half the top will be for cutting, the other half will be a pressing board. It will be nice and wide so I can press larger things more easily (including a cut of fabric from selvedge to selvedge!)

Smokey is not happy at all, as I've totally disrupted her routine and her napping areas. She showed her displeasure today by stomping around on the cutting table, and knocking things to the floor at will.

I did find a few treasures as I cleaned up, including a long-missing wrist brace (which I surely will need tomorrow at work!) some beading needles I've been searching for the last  2 weeks, and last but not least the title to my car, LOL.

I leave you with one last picture, facing the opposite direction (away from the computer) is my sewing station and a glimpse into the little walk in closet. As I clean things up I'll post pictures of the progress, but tonight I just leave you with the mess...if for no other reason than to make you feel 100x better about your own sewing room!

Orca Bay Step 3

OB3 7026, a photo by Misha Misha Misha on Flickr.

Step three in the Bonnie Hunter Orca Bay Mystery quilt. They are 2" now, finish at 1.5". I'm extra glad now that I'm making a smaller version, I don't think I could've stood to make another 200+ of these, LOL.

WIP Huckleberry Wave

WIP Huckleberry Wave 7017s, a photo by Misha Misha Misha on Flickr.

A work in progress. It's a variation on Huckleberry Swirl that I made for ALQS6. This will be for me, so it's going very slowly as I have other priorities...but I just recently blogged about the original and was asked if I was making a twin for myself. More of a fraternal twin! ;)

Technique is from Dianne Hire's book Vivacious Curvy Quilts.

I really wanted a take-along project so I've been hand piecing these. Not a good idea, as it will be very difficult if not impossible to trim some of them down, LOL.

I will probably add bits and pieces/wedges to them by machine to bring them up a little in size to minimize the need to trim. (Two of the blocks on the right side are not actually sewn yet.) It will be an interesting puzzle, that's for sure!

My First Quilt - Camp Korey

Finished - Camp Korey quilt, a photo by Misha Misha Misha on Flickr.

My first test posting from Flickr to the blog!

Bonnie Hunter recently challenged us to post about our first quilts.

This twin sized quilt was started at the suggestion of my husband, who probably had no idea what trouble he was starting by suggesting I learn to quilt! It was donated to Camp Korey in Carnation, WA. It's a Hole in the Wall Gang camp.

Some of the fabric was from an ill-fated first attempt to learn to quilt from the late 1980's, and the rest was bought specifically for this project.

Shout outs to Judi K at work who encouraged me to "go for it", and Kathy P (my brother's sister-in-law's mother-in-law) for helping me baste it and teaching me how to bind it. I didn't end up quilting it, I tied it instead.

I still have the scraps from it set aside..now that I'm looking it over I think I need to make myself a little commemorative wall quilt. What do you think?

Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery

Well, that last post wasn't an utter failure...let's see how this one goes!

I'm participating in the Orca Bay Mystery quilt that Bonnie Hunter is hosting on her Quiltville blog. I will post the two pics of my progress on the first two steps and see if I can figure out the Linky thing she's talking about.

My quilt is all batiks, and follows Bonnie's color suggestions except I'm using dark pink instead of red. I'm also going to just commit to a wall hanging for starters, so I'm only making about 1/4 to 1/3 of the amounts required for each step, and we'll see where I end up!

ALQS6 - Huckleberry Swirl

Ok, I guess it's time I get into the blog aspect of quilting! We'll see if I can keep up (somewhat) this time.

I was very excited to participate in Kate North's ALQS6 (Another Little Quilt Swap) last month. I'll do my best to attach a photo of the quilt I made, and soon I will post a photo of the quilt I received...but the latter will need to wait as we're still waiting for The Big Reveal by our fearless leader.



Huckleberry Swirl was made using techniques from Dianne Hire's book Vivacious Curvy Quilts. It was my first time doing curved piecing on the machine, and it was a blast! I'm already working on more blocks for a quilt for myself, just with a different type of curve. I hand stitched some details with variegated embroidery thread before quilting with shiny poly threads. There are NO straight lines anywhere in this, not even the outside edge!

Bushfire Quilt #35

more bushfire quilts
Originally uploaded by CampFollowerBagLady

This quilt has 4 of my 8 blocks in it. I'm pretty sure it's #35, as I recall seeing a list that said my blocks would be in quilts #34 and #35. I'm so happy to see it finished! I hope the recipients enjoy using these quilts as much as we enjoyed making them.

Mini Quilts

Here are the two Mini (aka "Doll") quilts I've made so far. The purple one is called Falling for Batiks and I made it for Deb in WNY in the fall swap in 2008. The tulip quilt (which I only now realize I never named!) was made for Judy A. She and I went to the same retreat in AZ in February, so it was neat to make something for someone I'd already met!







Below you can see the quilt I received in the fall swap from Christine. It's made with Asian/oriental fabrics and has the coolest 3D flowers!

Birthday Block Swap - blocks received!

Here are the blocks I've received so far in the About.com Quilting forum's Birthday Block Swap. My "birthday month" was April, and the blocks are still rolling in. I'll receive blocks from 11 other ladies, and I'll make extras to equal 14...enough to make a wide border around the Laurel Burch panel I bought. Here are the first 6 blocks (there is one extra that I didn't photograph this round). Clockwise from lower left: Frances (Tilly5), OHSue, Cathy Sews, Simply Suzy, Colene (Robicole2), and Barbara (zizzybob). I've heard from LaurieLT (starting soon), Rebecca (Jakenemma - in the mail, I believe), and Brandy emailed me which is what prompted me to make this post...to show what I have so far to date.