Kansas Twister

In my spare time, I've finally been able to get to my Texas Twister quilt. I just finished my first block which is the red one in the picture above.

^ Here's the cover of the pattern. Someday it will look like that. But I think I'm going to use orange instead of blue. Or both. And I'm thinking about making one little pinwheel backwards, just to spice things up and make it unique. Because I've been using scraps, a lot of the blocks have

I'm almost done with a yellow, lavender, aqua, and orange ones too. I'm doing it all by hand and it's very time consuming, but there's something very satisfying in having sore hands and fingers at the end of the day because of something you made. I like colorful quilts. I don' know if I could make a quilt with only two colors.

Kate's step-mother-in-law who isn't Mormon came to visit and saw me quilting and asked if it was something Mormons had to do once they got married. Hahahahahaha That one made me laugh.

If you want this pattern, it's from Aunt Grace's Scrapbag 1930 by Judie Rothermel. There's a way to do it with a sewing machine, but I'd rather not pull out my sewing machine, and I'd need long strips of fabric for that, not little scarppies. So if you have questions, just let me know and I will help you on your way. It's such a cute pattern and I want to share it with everybody! The sewing machine tutorial is HERE from Why Not Sew?.

Kansas Twister Quilt

This is my kansas twister quilt. Do you see how it's different from the one in the post just below this?


I have 18 blocks so far, and I've been finishing half to a whole block a night. None of the blocks are sewn together yet. But I've had experience with hexagons from my grandmother's flower garden quilt.


The back of a block:


I only have orange, red, turqoise, and purple right now. But I plan to have light blue, pink, green, and yellow too. I'm going to take 7 of the same color blocks to make a flower (1 for the middle, and 6 around), and connect the "flowers" with a solid block. I know it doesn't make much sense right now... I love holding up blocks to a window and making it look like stained glass.

Piles of fabric or colorful quilt blocks make me happy. Quilting takes my mind off things. It keeps me busy and pull me out of sadness because I'm doing something productive.

Tell my what you think :) Will my future husband like it? haha

For My Future Husband

I'm back in a quilting mood. I am not the best cook, cleaning is not my favorite thing to do, but creating and decorating is. I really want to take a interior decorating class when I go to college. I know cooking and cleaning are more important on becoming a wife, and it's not like I CAN'T do it, and I do need to prepare more in those areas...but...

Most girls my age are pretty close to getting married. I don't want to. I want to go on a mission first. I love missionary work. And a mission will prepare more me for a marriage spiritually, being with somebody all the time, and and all those household chores. Quilting won't help me much on a mission I'm a afraid.

And going through all this wedding stuff, I've found people writing letters "to my future husband". I thought it was really interesting. People had blogs with hundreds of letters posted. I don't know how you could write that much to someone you don't know. And in a way it was cute and romantic, but in a way kind of stalker-ish. And it just seems like a waste of time to me. Not if you're writing to a real person, I think that's cute later in life to go back through those letters together. And I think it's good to have the type of person you want to marry in mind.

But it got me thinking. So now I'm making a quilt for my future husband. Because quilts are much more useful than letters. And if I end up an old maid, I can still keep it for myself or donate it to charity or something, and it won't be a whole bunch of awkward letters, always reminding me I wasted my time. It's not very manful I'm afraid. But it's the pattern in the picture above.

The quilt in the picture IS NOT mine. I got it off the internet. I just wanted to show you the pattern because I haven't taken pictures of mine yet. It's called "Kansas Twister" with pinwheel hexagons. People think quilting and sewing is grandma stuff, but I can prove them wrong. Yes if you use grandma fabric it is, but my quilt is bright blues, yellows, oranges, reds, turquoises, greens, purples, and pinks for the pinwheels with a white background. I like bright colorful quilts.

I'm hand piecing it, which is nice because I can sit there and do it while I watch a movie or listen to music, unlike a sewing machine. Quilting is like my meditation. It clears my mind and I feel refreshed after I'm done. It takes all my anger away. I'll post pictures of it soon!

Orange block

Not lopsided anymore!!!

It doesn't look lop-sided anymore!!!

Here's the new block. Notice the real 1930's feedsack in there, passed down from my mommy and her large antique/vintage fabric collection.

This one just makes me happy

Quilting

I'm in a quilting frenzy mood. It takes me so long to make one of these blocks and attach it onto the quilt top.

But I worked on it all during general conference. It's fun to do while I talk on the phone. Or while I'm watching movies. Or eating peanut butter m&m's that make me hyper. I'm working on the block that will fill that empty spot on the bottom right. I'm using bright, 1930's reproduction fabrics. But all the yellows in between the blocks are real feedsack (thank you, mommy!!!). I love hand-piecing. You don't need the sewing machine with you, and it's not noisy. The perfect thing to do when you're watching Jane Austen movies.

This is what my quilt would look like neon. I can't help messing around with pictures.
Am I the only teenager that quilts?

Little Bunny Foo-Foo

Oh my goodness, I love quilting. My mom taught me the old fashioned way. At first, I absolutely hated it. I was too impatient. But because of my mom's patience in teaching me, I quilt on my own now. I buy my own fabric, choose my own designs and fabric combinations, and I'm off. I really like hand piecing because I can do it anywhere. In the car, when I'm watching a movie, etc et...I love vintage repro fabric. I even have a real vintage fabric stash.
And this is the quilt block I'm working on right now (hand-pieced). It's a reproduction from the 30's. I love the shade of green. And look at the little bunnies!!!!























































This is the quilt top I'm working on right now. It takes so long just to make one block. But it makes me happy. I want to make it as big as I can even if it takes me until I'm a grandma haha. I will post more pictures as it progresses. And you have to love my grandparents blue carpet. Tell me what you think about quilting, or show me pictures of things you're working on. I love inspiration. Just comment about quilting!!!

And remember that I'm drawing the name on Monday so any comment I got from yesterday until Monday will be included :)

We Are Family!!! I Got All My Cousins With Me!!!

Yay! I got to actually do something fun for the first time this summer vacation. My mom's little sister and her family came down to our house. Because Gracie Sue's 1st birthday landed on the same day as Memorial day this year. So they came down to celebrate both of the celebrations with us.

It started out with a healthy lunch of subway sandwiches. Then me, Stephen, Jordan, and Tashi played 5-category Balderdash. For like 4 hours. It was intense and serious stuff. We made a lot of inside jokes from that - Tim the sheep, the chlorine explosion on Pluto (treez)...the bloodbath barber...yfawtc (your feet are way too clammy)...abigail fritz's incredible apples...kirkus and glimmer...dhic (disabled homos in California)...waking up to find you married your lover's sister (eegah!)...too much funny stuff to write down...

Of course Gracie had a birthday cupcake. But even though we stripped her down, she barely ate any of it. She looked at it like it was dangerous. Don't you like her face right here?

We went and saw the quilt show contest. Both Tash and my mom entered quilts. Tashi didn't know that she got an award - best design in the junior category. So she was surprised until she saw her quilt. She gets $25 now!!! Don't you love her face?

Good times, good times. Stephen will be 19 in June, and be going on a mission...the 4 oldest cousins...are going our separate ways...the summer Stephen comes back, me and Jordan will have just barely graduated. And then Tashi the next summer. And we'll all go to college and get married and move far away...(just watch, Tashi will get married first out of all 4 of us)

Okay, I know this picture is kind of r-rated(especially of me)...but it shows our real selves...we pull weird faces all day. It's something that runs on this side of the fam (on my other side too actually....)

My cute flower garden quilt...is coming along! As you can see in the first picture I've added a block (the pink flower in the second picture), and I have a block un finished in the 3rd picture. Isn't it so cute? I love it!

Back again!

I’m alive again! (JK) I just went to Utah. You guys knew that right? Well I’m back, after being there for a month. I stayed only with my family, but I got to get together with friends too! It was great to see the Cluffs and the Rodenbergs. I haven’t seen you guys forever! And when I came back, I got to see Yuli! And I hope I get together more than once while she’s here. I really wanted to get together with Courtney and Katie!

I’m working on a quilt right now. All the pieces are hexagons (6-sided pieces), and the pattern is called "Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt". I'm going to make this bed size, so I've still got a long way to go. I'll keep posting pictures of it as I go along!