Forever is composed of nows. -Emily Dickinson

So far this week I've had three out of my four classes, starting working on projects to open up my Etsy shop (yay!), and caught up with friends that I didn't see over the holidays. It's been pretty good! I actually feel more relaxed now than I did during my three week break because I have time to sit, relax, sew, and there aren't any pressing deadlines. There are deadlines of course though, just not ones that are stressing me out, I am working on a blog post for this blog and will be guest blogging here at the end of the month. I will keep y'all up to date about the details when I get them!

First off, Emily re-opened her shop after the holidays and so now I can show you the print I bought and the two Alex bought me for Hanukkah! I bought Terrarium for us in November (I think), and Alex gave me As Long As I Have You and Books. Aren't they awesome? Emily is very talented and you should definitely check out both her shop and her blog! She was even on Martha, and y'all know that makes me happy!

Just before Christmas I found another artist on Etsy that I have fallen in love with and just bought this print; I cannot wait until it arrives! Here's a link to "Hidden Eloise's" shop and blog.

I now have pictures of the super-secret project! They are by no means great, or even good pictures; Alex says that they make it look more red-orange than it actually is. I think he's right, but I tried editing them (I generally have to fix the colours on all my pictures), and they definitely got better, but not good. The third picture was taken with my new camera (my Mum's old camera since she bought herself a new one - thanks Mum!) and is much better than the rest. I'm really excited to see how pictures come out from now on.

Okay, I will stop rambling and move on. Way back in May I ordered fabrics to make my Mum a quilt for her birthday in August, and I shared the fabrics in this post in June. However, I got bogged down with making a large quilt for my friends' wedding present and a baby quilt and just plain ran out of time, so I made her Madeleine the monkey (who you can see in my banner) instead. I decided that the quilt would be her Christmas present and so, without further ado, here is the super-secret, mind-boggling, stress-inducing, completed-while-I-was-sick, quilt!

It is made using fabrics from the Chestnut Hill collection by Jowl Dewberry. I designed the pattern myself, but used Vanessa's amazing pinwheel tutorial (this is the same method that I used to make the pinwheel's for Viliya's quilt). How many of you picked up that I masking taped it to the wall to take this picture, hehe?

The colours are a bit better in this picture, and you can see the quilt a little clearer. If you'd like to compare the colours, here's a link to the entire collection on Joel's site.

Here's the good picture, and of course it would be the picture of the back, but funnily enough the back is actually my favourite part! I used an unbleached cotton muslin for the backing (it is so super-soft, I really enjoyed using it!) and did two patchwork stripes using fabrics from both the front and the binding and a fabric from the same collection that Trish sent me as part of my birthday stash surprise. In the bottom corner you can see the little tag I embroidered for it; the embroidering was actually done in front of my Mum on Christmas day because the quilt was only finished on the 23rd and we went up to her place on the 24th. Gosh, I was really down to the wire, wasn't I?

This quilt encompasses many firsts, and as such it is far from perfect (sorry Mum, but it was made with love)! These were actually the first set of pinwheels that I made using Vanessa's tutorial, and so a couple of them are a little wonky and I had to unpick a number of times to "de-wonk" some of them. This is the first time that I've ever tried straight line quilting without something to go on, and it actually turned out pretty well all things considered, even if it is a little wonky in the corners. This is also the first time that I've ever made binding myself! I wanted it to match, so I bought a fabric from the same collection (but not one that was used on the front), found a great tutorial on how to cut the binding strips (so easy, it was unbelievable!), and went to work. It worked out pretty well, the only thing I would do next time would be to iron it into double-fold binding before applying it. I found it very difficult to work with as only single-fold (i.e. just ironed in half) and will definitely take the time to make it double-fold the next time!

So that's the super-secret project. My Mum seems to have liked it, what do you think?

P.S. Today's blog quote is courtesy of the lovely Kate Spain, one of Moda's newest designers. Go over and say hi to her!