First Finish for 2011

I have wanted to make the Multi-Tasker Tote from Anna Maria Horner for almost a year now.  With Holiday gifts done, I was able to make some great headway just after Christmas and then finally finished the bag today.  

First thing I learned - this bag is BIG!  I have to learn to look at finished measurements to get an idea of how big what I am intending to make really is.  This sounds dumb but I have no idea if I will actually use this bag as I hardly carry anything around.  Cell phone, sunglasses, wallet and a pen - that is all I carry in my purse.  Cutting this pattern in half would have worked better for me, but I do love the bag.  I used Anna Maria Horner's new Innocent Crush fabric for both the exterior and interior fabrics and they were (of course) lovely to work with.  I enjoyed working with the pattern (first time use of a AMH pattern) and found it relatively easy to understand - I stopped a few times and had to read and read again to truly understand what was instructed.  

Anna Maria Horner Multi-Tasker Tote

I am linking to Fabric Tuesday  at QuiltStory for the first time to show off my first finish of 2011!  

Happiness Quilt

Happiness Quilt - Front

Happiness Quilt - Back

Here is my third quilt.  Front and back is all Anna Maria Horner fabric from her Good Folks line in which I fell in love with when I first discovered quilting and fabric.  Although I now have about 10 different quilt patterns, I instead just kind of created this one organically.  I didn't really know what I was doing but just started cutting into the front fabric making different sized rectangles.  On the back I just cut up the fabric pieces I had left and tried to lay them out in a fairly symmetrical way.  

The name of the quilt stems from a quilt block I made for a lovely friend who recently moved to Canada.  While I was cutting out the rectangles for the front, I made her a block out of the scraps that remained.  I called it "The Happiness Block" for her and it was the back of my memory page that I submitted into the memory book we made for my friend.  So the name of the block translated to the quilt.  I should have taken a picture of that block because it was really cool!

My favorite part of the quilt - the binding.  This quilt is very soft and now that the weather is getting a bit cooler here, I have been using at night while watching TV.  Yes, I made this one for me.  

I'm travelling to MN this morning with my father to attend the funeral of one of my aunts.  Looking forward to seeing  family, not making meals for two days, fall colors and my own hotel room.  

New curtains for the kitchen

I kind of complained to the husband back in January that our house was looking a bit shabby.  He misunderstood and thought I meant the outside painting of the house and offered the paint the house...no, no I said, I meant the inside.


Especially the rooms we spend the majority of our time - the cave like kitchen that I inhabit for hours a day and the tiny 1950's cookie cutter tract home living/family room. 


So then then husband offers to paint the kitchen.  He was serious and I was practically jumping up and down like a 10 year old girl.  My kitchen has been stark white for the fourteen years we have lived in this house.  When we bought this home my oldest child was six months old and I was not "allowed" to be a part of a decision making process regarding painting.  Let me explain....mother-n-law was involved.  Do I need to say more?

So this is what we had:

So, fourteen years later + nine months I now have a half painted kitchen.  Love the husband very much but he is so SLOW.


But now I have this:

Valence made from Anna Maria Horner Voile fabric

Roman Shade also made from Anna Maria Horner Voile fabric

Just Added:  Forgot to mention the curtains in my post that I referred to in the title!  I made these a few weeks ago and the husband finally put up this past weekend.  The Valence was not a pattern, just a 1/2 yard of the fabric sewn together so the white lines match up.  The roman shade was a tutorial I found online here which I thought was very good.  The voile fabric I used is so thin that it doesn't bunch up as much as regular cotton or thicker fabrics would, but I do not care.  I love the look  and every morning since this was put up, I draw up the roman shade a different way.  

Yellow cabinets/Paprika walls

I was going for a Tuscan look as the husband and I enjoy the Old World style of decorating (have to clarify that as we are not much into decorating).  When I sent this photo to a cousin of mine she remarked that it looked like Paprika and she is right.  I love it though.  This room is quite small and because it is practically unseen from any other room in the house I knew that I could go bold.

The husband still has two more doors to put up on the upper cabinets and oh, don't get me started on the lower cabinets.  I'll be lucky if it is done by Christmas....in 2011.  

Now going to go clean my half painted kitchen and start making Bolognese sauce for dinner.  YUM!


Ciao!