I'm still here! Hands 2 Help

Man oh man... a full time job really takes up ALL of your time. Not to mention planning a wedding, volunteer work, and being on an event planning committee!

I must admit I haven't been quilting much lately.

After the work day I'm SO tired. Even after 6 months I'm still trying to get into the routine of things.

Great news though! I'm participating in Hands 2 Help for the second year in a row! This year I will be quilting for Quilts of Compassion, who give quilts to those affected by tornadoes in the Midwest. I chose this charity because it is so different from what I did last year. This year I will be making something a little more traditional. I haven't yet decided if it will be for a man or woman.
Are you interested in joining in for this year's H2H? Click the button on my side bar and join in on the fun while doing something great for someone else!

Of course I need to work on our wedding quilt first. Hopefully I will have that finished in the next week or two and I will share some photos with you.

I will update you later in the week on our wedding quilt as well as what I've decided to do for the H2H quilt... and that's a promise!

What have you been working on recently? I've missed you!

ALYOF: February Goal

FEBRUARY!

I. AM. SO. EXCITED. FOR. FEBRUARY.




I am terribly excited for February, can you tell???

Firstly, there's my goal for this month.

Yup. I am finally going to finish this bad boy girl, one year later!

Speaking of one year... my blog celebrates it's first birthday at the end of the month. To think of how far I've come in one year. My quilting has improved tenfold, I've grown so much personally and professionally.

Often times with a blog celebration comes a give away or two... I guess you'll have to stick around to see what happens here!


This month I will be updating you on my progress with Express Your Love every Friday, and you may even see a Wedding Wednesday comeback!

Hold on to your seats ladies and gents... February is going to be one hell of a ride!!!

Quilt on,
Hoppi

ALYOF: January Finish

Ahhhh it's January 31st already! That means a few things...

1) January is over
2) January finish must be completed (originally blogged here and here)
and
3) It's mine and Derrick's anniversary! Yay!

My anniversary gift with my January finish!

Five years today, to be exact... and what an incredible five years it has been! I can't imagine my life without Derrick, which I suppose is a good thing since we are getting married in May!

January was such a wonderful month for a handful of reasons. I have been hitting professional goals like its my job. [see what I did there?] I'm feeling healthier, most likely because I'm now heading into my third month of personal training, and I'm so addicted to the gym. I'm learning to manage my energy levels... chronic fatigue is no fun, and no joke. My health is steadily improving (more on that issue to come), and wedding planning is going so smoothly I almost feel as if I could plan a new wedding every month (more on that to come as well)!

I'm almost sad to see January go, but I am so thrilled to see what February has to offer me!


As for my January finish; Pinwheels and Elephants table runner! I started this back in July. I'm not sure what kept me from finishing it, but here it is, finally done!  Whoop Whoop!

I used a 50w beige Aurifil thread to quilt, and Coats and Clark for piecing. 

I did the binding by machine. I just can't bring myself to hand bind anything. However, maybe I should start... these corners are terrible. Does anyone have any good tips or tutorials for machine binding corners?








Overall I'm really happy with this finish. Derrick put it right on the coffee table after I showed it to him, and that is right where it will stay!

Today I'm linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes, Can I get a Whoop Whoop, and TGIFF!

I am SO excited about next month's finish... but more on that tomorrow!
For now...

Quilt on,
Hoppi

I'm a Nerd, and I'm okay with it.

More than okay with it, I love who I am.

I recently came across this. Why the F Guys Play Video Games over at Witty + Pretty. I love Ashely's blog, she's so raw and fowl mouthed and real. She's also a girly girl and anti anything that is not girly girl. That's OK. It's also OK to be a girly girl and be a hardcore gamer...

Exhibit A:

That's me. I'm wearing nail polish, wearing make up, lots of jewelry, drinking a very girly drink with rum and I'm sure grenadine, my hair is ombre, and I LOVE VIDEO GAMES.




Not only do I love video games but I love to watch TED talks on neuroscience. I love to geocache. In college I wrote a 70+ page bill about outlawing GMO's... for fun.








Recently I've been playing Ni no Kuni like my life depends on it. I also play Guild Wars 2 an MMO,
on which my handle is Hoppipolla, and I belong to one of the largest guilds on my server. Have no idea what I'm talking about? That's FINE! Gaming is sort of a release for me, in the same way quilting is a release. It calms me down after a stressful day at work, or it really gets me riled up and angry, cursing like a sailor. They stimulate my brain, and get me thinking; unlike sitting on the couch watching chick flicks and painting my nails.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE watching chick flicks, painting my nails, eating ice cream, drinking champagne, and crying my eyes out (yes, simultaneously). I am a girl, but being a girl, being fit, loving make up, nail polish, dresses and tights, does not mean that I can't enjoy gaming.


I guess the moral of the story here is you can be girly and you can love gaming, and you should not be ashamed.

Let your nerd flag fly,
Hoppi

Snow Day!

Unfortunately (as an adult), snow days are a thing of the past anymore. Today, I have food poisoning or some kind of stomach bug that is keeping me home from work, yuck!


While I'd love to use this time to quilt and work on some of my EYL panels, I just don't have the strength.

Instead I'll share some fabric with you!

I was at Joann's a couple of weeks ago picking out a binding fabric for my Pinwheels and Elephants table runner and fat quarters were on sale for 99 cents... SCORE!

I decided to go a little out of my comfort level and pick patterns/colors I could never see myself working with. I think I'll make these into wine totes.

I'm SUPER happy with the fabric I chose for the binding.

I purchased it thinking how beautiful it was, and I know I had seen it before... of course when I got home and looked in my stash I already had about a yard of it in there, oops!

Hey, you can never have too much fabric, right?


Well it looks like another cup of hot tea and back to the couch with me. I'm going to marathon out some Futurama episodes... Susan over at The Bored Zombie has totally got me hooked on Futurama!


What do you like to do on snow days?

Quilt on,
Hoppi

The importance of quality thread

I want to start out this post by saying that this is based solely on my opinion and I am never paid to write any blog posts.


I finished up my Pinwheels and Elephants table runner last week and quilted it with Aurifil 50w thread. I got the thread as a Christmas gift and it quilts like magic. Up until now I've been using Coats and Clark which is not quality thread, I purchased it from Joann's because I thought it was cheap.

At Joann's I pay $2.79-$3.79 for C&C 250 yards depending on color. On Red Rock Threads I can get 1422 yd of Aurifil for $9.50. So the prices are very competitive, but here's the thing, Aurifil has never once broken or frayed in my machine. I just took my EYL quilt off the wall to finish up a few sections and almost immediately the C&C thread I was using began to fray in the machine.

The Coats and Clark thread definitely does not look bad on fabric, however, Aurifil looks great on fabric as well. Though I do plan on using up my (very small) collection of C&C that I have stashed in my studi- bedroom, once it is all gone I will be using Aurifil and playing around with some other brands as well.










I'm eager and excited to show you my finished Pinwheels and Elephants table runner and will be doing so January 31st. For now, however, I will be working on finishing up a section of EYL each day and will have it done by the end of February for my February finish!




What kind of thread do you use and can't live without?

Today I'm linking up with Can I get a Whoop Whoop.




Quilt on,
Hoppi

Facing my (feather) Fears

2014 is a year of finishes on the blog. I thought; what a better way to start the year than to end one of my quilting fears.

I'm not sure why I was so afraid of feathers. They're so pretty (and really easy, too), and I suppose intimidating. Yesterday I spent a ton of time sketching feathers and they were looking more and more horrible. Eventually I just figured I should try it on fabric and...

 Not too shabby for my first time!

I watched a ton of videos. Maddie K's Drag Queen Feathers just aren't for me, I don't think I'm fabulous enough for them. I adore Karen McTavish's Victorian Feathers, but I just can't whip it like she can. While you're on a youtube roll, you may as well watch this for good measure. So I just kind of went with the flow and did my own style of feather.

 Next time I'll be focusing more on the spine of the feather. I don't think that the spines are distinct enough. I could have gone over and thread painted them a bit but I think it would look even better if I created a gap in the center of the spine.

I also came up with a genius idea to move my sewing table out into the living room so I can marathon out Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23 and quilt simultaneously. I watched almost two whole seasons and finished up my table runner.

I won't be posting the finish until the end of the month, as I'll be doing with all my finished projects this year. I will certainly be starting a few more projects this month though!!









What have you been working on this weekend?


Quilt on,
Hoppi