WIP Wed!

Happy Wednesday!

Like many of you, I have a ton of unfinished projects that are in desperate need of some love and attention. Therefore I have unofficially dubbed 2013 the year I clean out my unfinished project drawer(s).

The first project I want to work on is my x-marks the spot December quilt for do.good stitches. Here is a rough layout. I'm still waiting for a few blocks so I can piece it together. And I have a fun idea for the back, so I am going to start working on blocks for that. I'm really hoping to have the entire quilt finished by the end of Feb.

The second project that I want to work on (aka finish) is my rainbow strip quilt that the gals from the Quilts for Cancer bee helped me work on last year. I just need to decide on a layout and sew the top together, decide on what I want to do for a back, quilt it, bind it and get it on it's way to helping a cancer patient.Whew! I really want to finish it soon, but my goal is to have it finished by March.

I think that I will just share these 2 projects for now...lets try to be realistic here! =) Linking up to Lee's blog for WIP Wed.

Spending a few minutes with my sewing machine

This past weekend I was lucky enough to get to sit down and spend some quality time with Nina (my sewing machine). It was so nice to catch up with her after almost a month of no sewing!

First up on my list of projects to finish were these lovely bee blocks for the Quilts for Cancer bee I am a part of on flickr.

Michelle asked for these bow tie blocks to make a quilt for her husband's aunt who is dealing with both lung and breast cancer. She asked for us to use 30's reproduction fabrics, which were a little bit outside of my comfort zone.

Luckily, I had a few leftover scraps from when I made this baby quilt for my dear friend awhile back.

I've really enjoyed being part of the Quilts for Cancer bee. It is so uplifting to be able to make quilt blocks that I know are going towards a quilt to help someone feel love during such an incredibly difficult time of their lives. This is the final month for that bee, and I am a bit sad to see it end -- although with everything I have on my plate at the moment, I can certainly do with participating in less bees this year. 

Quilt Shop Spotlight: Quilt in a Day

While in Southern California I had the wonderful opportunity to visit a darling quilt shop - Quilt in a Day. 

If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend planning an afternoon to go visit. I even took my non-quilting family members who kept their complaining about my substantial amount of time looking at fabric to a minimum.

The people who worked there were so friendly and graciously allowed for me to take a billion pictures of their shop. Sadly my memory card messed up so some of them didn't turn out, but I do have a few to share with you...a little teaser if you will.

First up, gorgeous quilts like the one above adorned all the walls. I loved the fact that there were modern quilts mixed in with some more traditional quilts...my dad was especially enamored with the lovely quilt featured below.

Quilt in a Day has an excellent collection of fat quarters displayed in fun ways all throughout the store. I really liked this bookshelf display, but there were other equally awesome displays in the other 3 rooms (yes 3!) of the shop.

This is one my favorite vignettes in the store - love the use of the oven!

They also carry a lovely collection of solids...I wanted all of them of course, but surprisingly walked away without any of them...I am sorta regretting it but luckily for me they have an excellent online store so I can remedy that...and you can too!

While I obviously wanted to purchase the entire store, I showed massive restraint and only went home with these beauties.

It's so nice to be home

Life here on the blog has been rather quiet recently...and I apologize. I flew home for about 3 weeks or so and just got back. It was so great to spend some quality time with my family and loved ones...but I didn't even sew a single stitch! Once I get unpacked I will be sure to rectify that. =)

In the meantime, here are some photos for your enjoyment of paradise, via my iphone because I haven't had a chance to download pictures off of my real camera yet.

I hope that you had an excellent holiday season and can't wait to start sewing again! Do you have any fun projects in the works?