So happy!

I'll have to admit, I've been obsessively checking my Google Reader this past week to see the results of The Naked Bed Challenge.


And tonight what pops up?  "Naked Bed Winners"


Reading... 


Scrolling... 


Seeing my quilt!  


YAY!  So excited!  


Am I already trying to figure out how to spend my winnings over at 1 Choice 4 Quilting? (Thank you for sponsoring the challenge!) YOU BET I AM!  And to find out on the eve of my birthday - what a great present!

Some thank yous are in order:  First off, thank you to Grandma for your love of quilting and sharing your fabric with me.  And a big thank you to my sweet husband who told me to go quilt on the final day of the challenge so I could finish (while he slaved over putting our new kitchen cabinets together).  I felt a tad guilty, but not enough that I'd stop sewing!  


Thank you to Sarah Fielke over at The Last Piece for coming up with the challenge to get quilter's beds properly clothed (no more store purchased quilt for our bed!)  All the entries were beautiful and inspiring!  Check out the Flickr group to see all the gorgeous entries.

Here are a few of my favorites

Just think of all the happy beds that aren't naked anymore...

Naked Bed Challenge

In the midst of the kitchen remodel, I did manage to get a little sewing in.  In the wee hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep, I decided to actually DO something instead of wasting the hours away watching reruns of The Nanny on Nick at Nite.  I mean, after you've watched all them multiple times and you catch yourself saying lines along with Miss Fine, you remember you need to get a hobby.  Oh, yes, I have a hobby... Quilting!

It required pushing things to the edges of the dining room table and to not think about what mess I was in the midst of.  Sewing tunnel vision.  I can do that.  I had some fabric burning a hole in my pocket, longing to be made into something.

While traveling to Minneapolis' IKEA for kitcheny things, I hijacked the car to Jo-Ann's.  We don't have one up where we live and I was intrigued by Denyse Schmidt's Picnic and Fairgrounds line.  My dear husband helped me collect the fabrics they had and then acted as an enabler by telling me to get half yard cuts (I was only going to get quarter yards).  Makes me think he was trying to make up for something.... hmmmmm....  But who am I to argue with him?!

Then last weekend we were in a different town and lo and behold there's another Jo-Ann's.  Time to find some of the missing fabrics the other one didn't have.  Ended up with all but five or six as I figure.

The plan for the fabric was to pair it with some fabric of my grandma's (who was an amazing quilter and seamstress).  When she had to sell the farm, she had me go through her fabric and take some things with me.  They've sat in my fabrics for probably 10 years, waiting for that perfect project.

Since I had signed up for the Naked Bed Challenge, it seemed like the perfect way to combine the two.

Yes, I love to sew quilts.

No, I didn't have one of my quilts on our bed.

We have a store bought quilt.  


Shhhh.  Please don't tell anyone.

Time for that to change.  After designing a pattern, here's what I came up with:

I'm calling it Blackhoof Valley, named after the township that my grandparents lived in.

Fabrics included:  DS Picnic and Fairgrounds, Robert Kaufman, Kona Snow, Vintage from Grandma, and other assorted scraps.

That's going to look great on our bed!

Quilting by Tile

We're remodeling our kitchen.

It's been a long month.

Finally found the subfloor under :
vinyl flooring
plywood
2 layers of vinyl composition tile
AND
hardwood floors.

The walls were no better:
Paneling
Sheetrock
Plaster
Lathe
Insulation
Boards

And in the above picture, a WINDOW!  Whoever had last remodeled the kitchen paneled right over the top of this window on the inside and put the siding over it on the outside.  It was a surprise to find!  We ended up adding a new window right here.

With all home renovation projects, there's always lots of surprises.  The window was just one of many. A couple of bird nests encased in spray in foam from umpteen years ago. A floor that was tilting away from the house which had to be jacked up (kitchen doesn't have a basement under it like the rest of our house does.) Rotten boards.  A kitchen drain that wasn't actually hooked up (all our sink's water was running out into the insulation under the kitchen.)

That's a whole lot of yuck.

After all of this our house is a mess.  We're tired.  If it can't be microwaved or made on the grill, we can't eat it.  I'm tired of eating out.  Dishes have to be done in the bath tub, at work, or at my parents (Yup, done all three!) Dust is covering everything.  AND I CAN'T QUILT.

My quilting table has the microwave and other junk on it.

THE HORROR!  Going through withdrawal in a bad, bad way.

But I found a way around it.

Here's our new floor....

Yup, I "quilted" with tile.  Vinyl Composition Tile (those 12 inch square tiles that you see in stores, schools, etc)

We picked out five colors, cut each square in half, and then I went crazy laying them out in a random-like pattern.

Man, I love our new floor.  Makes all the dust, ickiness, and sweat of the last month worth it.

Hmmmm... maybe I need to quilt a quilt to match our quilted floor...