9 this week.

As usual, I took a lot of instagram pictures this week!  Here's a little summary.

I spent last weekend in Appleton for my sister's dance competition.  We shopped, ate Mexican food and drank margaritas, and watched a whole lot of dancing.  My sister's team did amazingly well and won a ton of awards.

My husband bought me flowers this week!  He's so sweet.

I found this picture of us at about 17, we look so young here!  So happy that we had the chance to grow up together.

I painted my nails a bright coral color (Rimmel Sunset Orange) this week, the pop of color makes me happy every time I look at my hands.

We made some delicious dinners this week, including homemade pizzas (the crust was so good!)

 and pasta with lemon garlic butter sauce and prosciutto wrapped asparagus.  Yum!

Progress is being made on our master bathroom, so maybe our bedroom won't look like this for too much longer!

 We're almost finished waterproofing the shower, and then we can start installing tile!

I've been working on my herringbone cowl at night.  I'm  not enjoying the process as much as I did with the honey cowls, but I know I'll love it when it's finished.

 I finished quilting this quilt last night!  I'll share proper pictures next week when it's finished.

We bought a new rug for the guest bedroom!  I love the pattern and the fact that it was on clearance.

I found two cute things while thrifting today, this awesome small metal globe and a milkglass vase (and yes, I already own two of this exact vase!).  I just can't get enough of the geometric shape of the bottom.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

15 quilting away.

I've been busy quilting this week.  I'm using wavy lines again for my do.Good Stitches September quilt, I just can't seem to get enough of them!  A few people have asked for a tutorial on this method of quilting, and I do want to put one together but it will require video, so I'm trying to figure out how to make that work.

I'm using gray thread, and while I don't love it, it will work.  The back is a really dark purple so I didn't want to use white.  Purple or orange would've been fun but I didn't have enough of those on hand, so gray it is.

 I still have a lot left to do on this one, it's a big quilt!

I also finished quilting my neon quilt!  I opted for random straight lines all over the gray sections, with a little echo quilting through the chevron and stripes.  I used my hera marker for the first time to mark all those straight lines, it worked great!  I'll be using it much more frequently from now on.

Just need to bind this neon quilt and it's finished!  If only I could decide on a binding.  Any suggestions?

4 happy friday!

It's Friday, friends!  Do you have any plans?  I'm off to cheer on my little sister in a dance competition this weekend.  Should be fun!

Here are a few of my Instagram photos from the past week or so.

I feel like I can't say it enough, I love Instagram!  It's great for keeping up with friends and family.  Things I'm making usually make it there before they ever get to my blog, simply because it's so easy to share there.  My name on Instagram is bijoulovely if you want to follow along.

5 more neon.

I'm finally quilting this neon quilt that I had finished last summer.  It's been basted and folded, piled in the corner the entire winter because I wasn't sure how to quilt it.  Honestly I'm still not sure how I'm going to quilt it other than echo quilting the chevron!  I'll figure it out as I go.

I often don't have a solid quilting plan when I begin, just kind of go about it until I think it looks okay.  If I hate it, I rip it out (but I try to decide that early on of course to avoid spending too much time with the seam ripper).

I'm not really a fan of marking my quilting pattern on the quilt, I'd much rather freehand!  Although that's kind of difficult if you're straight line quilting without following any lines...so I might have to mark this one somehow.  We'll see.

I'm still not sure where this one is headed when I finish it, maybe to my shop?

10 starting something new.

I picked up some DS Quilts fabric from JoAnn last weekend, and I'm loving the bright colors paired with this gray chambray. The start of a Swoon quilt, maybe?

This chambray is seriously so pretty!  Definitely going to test it out as the background fabric in a quilt, Swoon or otherwise.  It's from the lisette collection, by none other than Liesl Gibson.  It's soft, a great color, and has a nice weight to it.  It's hard to tell if it's the right color on the website, but the tobacco chambray is on sale for $5.99 right now which is a steal!

I think I'm going to gather a few more fabrics for this stack and start cutting.  Because sometimes its nice to start something new, even while trying to finish all those old things we're working on, right?  And because I can't resist a Swoonalong.

8 washi + a winner!

Did you all have a nice weekend?  My husband and I went on a little shopping trip, it was nice to get away even though it was just for one night.  When we got home I found out my order from cutetape came in!

I had ordered quite a few sets of washi tape, some glassine envelopes and some divine twine.  Partly because I wanted to make valentines, and partly because I'm a sucker for rainbows.

These are going to look so pretty hanging on my pegboard once I finish that project!  I was constantly using the yellow and orange sets I already had, so it made sense to buy some other colors.  I find that the basic color sets are the best deal (three rolls of tape for $8.50) and they have cute patterns that are versatile, so I bought those to round out the color wheel.  I also bought a silver and a gold bundle, and a couple rolls of black and white stripes.

I was so excited when I opened the package, I got right to work on my valentines!  Only a few more left to finish before tomorrow, but they're fast since they're so small.

Also, I think it's time we pick a winner of the single girl mini, don't you think?

The winner is comment #191, Debra!

Congratulations Debra!  I hope you enjoy your mini!  Thanks to all of you who entered!

7 inspired by: neon.

Every now and then there seems to be a theme within the things that I'm making, wearing, buying, and decorating with.  For awhile now I feel like a lot of things around me are following a current trend that I never thought I'd get behind: neon.

Maybe it's because I'm craving a serious dose of color (it is white and colorless around here in February) but honestly I pieced together that quilt and pincushion last year sometime.  I agree that sometimes neon can hurt the eyes a bit, but when paired with crisp whites, calming grays, and more pastel versions of the neon shades, or grounded with a deep purple or coral they are so pretty to me!

I think my obsession with neon started with this quilt.  I've had it basted for a long time now, just need to quilt and bind it!

I found neon hanging on my wall, on my fingernails, and in my sewing and office supplies.

 In a pincushion I made (there are a few in my shop), Cosmo floss, and some twine.

I bought this twine at Home Depot of all places, and plan to make a few bracelets with it for Valentine's gifts.

I found this wooden "D" at Walmart recently, and painted it to add a pop of color to our living room shelves.  I found the scarves I've used as a backdrop here while thrifting this week.  I think I'm going to frame them and hang them in our guest room!

I think it's pretty safe to say that neon is everywhere in our house at the moment!  Good thing we have a lot of gray walls to break up all the brightness.  What about you?  Have you jumped on the neon bandwagon?

13 new look!

Notice anything different around here?  I did a little blog redesigning last night.  It's still a work in progress but for the most part it's implemented.  I want to clean up my tutorials, quilts, and category pages to make it easier to find what you're looking for around here, but it was 2am and I needed to go to bed!  (Stop over from your reader to the blog to see the new updates!)

I put together a new header, added a few new pages at the top, and made the text a little easier to read, added some social media icons that I designed, moved the search bar up (still working on the layout of that, not loving it at the moment), and cleaned out my main sponsor section.  I've decided to take on some new sponsors, so if you're interested in advertising on Bijou Lovely, please check out this page.

Further down I've added a new blog button, feel free to add it to your blog if you'd like!

I also moved my blog list to the sidebar instead of including it on a separate page.  So check there if you're looking for more sewing inspiration!

Please let me know what you think of the change!  If there's anything else you want me to improve on while I'm at it, let me know in the comments!  Threaded comments would be nice...I'm looking into that as well.

262 single girl mini + giveaway.

Remember way back in March of last year when I finished this single girl block?  It's okay if you don't.  This block had been sitting in my closet for months.  I finally finished quilting it last week and turned it into a little mini!

I'm loving the color wheel of fabrics!  I used a lot of my favorite prints in this quilt.

It's time for a giveaway around here, don't you think?  Since I made two of these blocks, I'm going to give this one away!  It will bring lots of happiness and color to your wall or tabletop, I promise.

To enter this mini quilt giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post!  Followers, please leave a second comment for an extra entry.  I'll announce the winner next Monday, Feb. 13th.  International entries are welcome!  Please make sure I have a way to contact you if you win.

I feel like I don't say it enough, but thank you all so much for taking the time to visit this blog, and especially to those of you who make the extra effort to comment!  I appreciate you all very much! xoxo

23 mustache quilt.

Here's the simple stripes quilt I spent most of my time working on this past week.  Our friends Sara and Ryan are having a baby boy in April, and their baby shower was this past Saturday.  Of course I waited until six days before the shower to start making their gift!  Why I procrastinate so much, I'll never understand.  

Yes, this quilt has a mustache on it!  My husband made me do it.  When I told him I was making a quilt for them, he asked if I could add a mustache to the quilt.  This new baby boy has a grandpa that is known for his mustache.  The baby shower even had a mustache theme, so this fit in quite well!

I used lots of basic yellows, grays, blues, reds, and greens in this quilt that were slightly desaturated.  The backing is a Denise Schmidt print from JoAnns.  I bound it in some Kona Medium Gray.  I quilted it with wavy lines (my new favorite!) in a light gray thread.  The wavy line quilting is so fast and gives this quilt a little bit of texture.  I appliqued the mustache on after the quilting was finished.

So there's my first finish of February!  It definitely won't be the last.

Did you finish anything this weekend?  Leave a link in the comments... I'd love to see what you've been making!

6 catching up on do.Good Stitches.

I finally finished the top of my do.Good Stitches quilt from September last weekend.  Why it took me so long to sew these blocks together, I have no idea.  But we're using February to finish all of our previous quilts so it was perfect timing.

I added some borders along the width of this quilt to make it a little wider.  I don't like really long and skinny quilts, the proportions just aren't right to me.  Since this one was 4 blocks wide by 6 blocks long, it needed something to make it wider.

I love this quilt!  The color scheme and the blocks are so much fun.  The ladies of the Inspire circle did a fantastic job putting these blocks together.

I figured out what I'm using for backing on this quilt, now I just have to find the time to baste and quilt it.  Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to get this one checked of my never ending list of WIPs.

I also finished up my January blocks for Heather this week.  She wanted string blocks using Ashley's tutorial They were fun to make...but took a lot longer than they should have since the first two I made were 1/2" too small!  That's what I get for cutting my foundation paper while chatting with a friend.

 I'd love to make an entire quilt like this at some point, it's such a good use for scraps!

 This is definitely going to be a happy quilt when it's finished!

Hope you all have a nice weekend!