My First Custom Order

My sister recently attended her ONLY college football game. It's all in the name. In that same vein I am calling this my FIRST custom order. I know!!! I am making something for a someone I don't know! At their request!
As you can tell, I'm pretty excited about it.
I was asked if I could make a bumper to match the monster blanket. Alas, I don't have the fabric for it, but we worked out Plan B. I'm making it custom, in case you missed that.
I started cutting this weekend and it's starting to take shape. I'll be posting sneak peeks along the way. I am having so much fun with it already.

Excited Squeal

My monster quilt is featured over on Cuteable today.  How exciting is that?! Check it out, she has some great stuff over there. (and I don't just mean me)

The State of the Sewing Room (Don't Tell Jeremy Part Two)

While I'm in brother mode, this post's random picture is of my ninja cookies.  My third brother sent us a fantabulous cookie cutter last year.  He sent us moustache cookie cutters this year.  I'm trying to decide if I just wanna food coloring my dough brown or if I wanna look for a recipe that will yield brown moustaches.  Decisions, decisions. 

On the Jeremy Quilt Front, we have had a few developments.  First off, my brother is going international for a year.  A tropical international.  Consequently, his t-shirt quilt just got demoted to back burner.  And good thing, too.
You may recall, the last update showed this:

The current status is this:

 As you can clearly see, I've cut out out some of my white squares and some light gray and got some more of the layout in place.  Oh, and we have a pac n play on it all.  My sewing room is the guest room is my sewing room.  We will be having a guest during the day for a while and as our guest this will be his room for napping.  My quilting will be strictly bedtime for a while.  Not a problem, seeing as the bro-dawg is island bound. 
Here's a peek at what just got front burner status.  Am I the only one who is geeky excited?  I'm going all OCD on the details.  My husband tells me I must be German at heart.  I only claim Northern Europe and Scandinavia.  I don't think I'm stubborn enough to hang with the Germans I know.  Either way, this will be way over thought.

Don't Tell Jeremy (Part 1)

I've gotten some of my cutting done on my brother's t-shirt quilt.  I didn't sew today, but I did clean my bathrooms and mop.  You get a little peek at the kids' bathroom because my sister's blog has a blog roll that shows the first picture on everyone's post.  So in order to keep my brother from seeing his quilt in progress, you get to see our whale. 

 You even get a little story about our whale.  I have no idea when I learned of the existence of such things.  Shortly after we were married, I saw my husband drink from the kitchen faucet.  I immediately told him we needed a faucet spout.  We never were able to find one and he didn't feel the need for one like I did.  Fast forward seven years, our kids find one in the grocery store, in the light bulb aisle of all places.  Of course we bought one.  It has taken teeth brushing to a whole new level in the kid bathroom.  The whale (when you close the underside) redirects the flow of water out its spout like a drinking fountain.  It works great.

Okay, enough about the whale, onto the quilt.

I didn't want to just slap the t-shirts together, I like to add some pizazz to my quilts.  I was planning on incorporating the extra shirt fabric, but my design really came together accidentally; I spaced when I was cutting I heart NYC.  I cut it as a rectangle.  So I went with it.  I cut the shirts to either a square or rectangle based on the design on the shirts.  I'm going to surround the shirts in 2 or 4 inch squares.  I'm still in the process of cutting the extra shirt fabric into squares.

 My layout is still pretty haphazard.  I'm pretty much throwing my squares and trying to get the distribution right.  They are so gonna be moving around as I cut more.  I already see a blue I need to move. 

Not my general style, but t-shirt quilts really only get so fancy.  I'll do what I can.

Get Ready Not to Tell

Check it out! My brother sent me a whole box of his old t-shirts!  This actually is exciting.  It's a whole new free to me project.  (Technically I think most of these shirts were free themselves, my brother has a reputation for his free shirts...)

A while ago my brother was asking how one would go about making a t-shirt quilt.  His actual question was "what is the easiest way" to make one.  My mental response, "send them to me!!!" but far be it from me to rob someone of the opportunity to quilt, so I told him various ways his wife could make them into a quilt.  Next my brother started asking how one would go about getting me to make them a t-shirt quilt.  Twist my arm!

I expect my brother is thinking more along the lines of The Blanket of Heat, but really, I made that when I was fourteen and it's tied.  I've come quite a bit farther in my quilting in the last fifteen years.  

 The Blanket of Heat has served us all well, but Jeremy's is gonna be awesome.  Be sure you don't tell.

In other sewing news, Susie has me totally inspired to bust out some yo-yos.  I have a few ideas in mind for these babies... and a whole bunch of their friends.