Mom turns 60 and the kid turns ONE!

My mom just entered the 60th year of her life. As you read this post, we are all in Satara gearing up to celebrate her Birthday! With friends and family arriving within a few hours, the atmosphere is all charged up! 

My mom and share a very special bond. We have always been very close. I have shared everything with her most of my life. Even growing up, I knew I always had a friend in her whom I could trust.

She turned 60 on the 20th. I was away from her that day, with a lot of desire to go and join her in the celebrations. But I had to wait a day while we celebrated Diwali at home. I reached here yesterday. And Today's the day we are celebrating!

But, she does not know it!!! We are having a surprise party today! She does not read my blog, yet. And even if she did, we are celebrating at lunch so she won't have time to sit and read it before that! So we're safe!

All the relatives and friends are joining us today, some travelling for real far to reach here today. But we are all celebrating the wonderful person that she is. Every occasion, be it birthdays or achievements, she is the one who has been the most excited to celebrate. She has been awesome at holding the entire family together. She loves people! And people love her. 

I am a more soft-hearted and warm person that people can connect with only because of her. I don't think I would be half the woman I am if it were not for her. She has had her share of hardships, but I am proud of her. I may not say it often to her, but I really do love her!

Happy Birthday, Aai! May you be blessed with a long life ahead, filled with love and happiness!

Also, as we celebrate Mom's birthday, another little guy is celebrating his first one! 

I never thought that after getting married and having a child, I will ever fall in love again! But I did. I fell hard. And this guy just stole my heart the moment I lay my eyes on him! 

How much hold can a tiny human have on you? A LOT! 

He's my kid brother's kid - Dev. This little fella turns ONE today. And we are having a double celebration at the party!

He reminds me so much of Chaitanya (my brother) and Aadi at his age. And being an aunt to him has been nothing short of divine! I have enjoyed it more than motherhood! Maybe because I don't have to bother about the responsibilities!

Seriously, look at that adorable face! How can anyone not fall in love?

Happy Birthday Kiddo! May life bring you all the happiness in the world! May your life be filled with people who shower you with love and may you get all the success in life!

What are you celebrating today?

Aurifil Block of the Month - July - Shruti Dandekar (Me!!!!)

Hiya there!!!

Its my turn on the color wheel!!! And I am super excited. Especially since my color is my favorite - actually my brand color - Orange!!!

Head over to Auribuzz to read my interview and also to download my fun pattern!

I have used the same Reverse Applique technique that has been used to make numerous quilts!!!

The first time I used it to make a pillow.

Then I tried it to make my Harry Potter Quilt

And then, I used it for portraits!!!

First was the iQuilt for my little brother

After that I wrote my eBook. ABOUT face! That will teach you step by step how to use it to make a portrait quilt! You can buy it in my craftsy store.

I made a portrait of Alex Veronelli for my book! We met up at QuiltCon 2015 where I gifted it to him!!! 

Since then I have made numerous more. Some for myself, like my self portrait. 

It is a very versatile technique and I have been thinking of expanding it to many more designs... Let us see where it leads me to!!!

Cheers!!!

AGF Stitched : Symphony Quilt

When Fat Quarter Shop invited me to be a part of the Art Gallery Fabrics Stitched :  Symphony Quilt along, I was overjoyed to say yes! It took my fabric ages to arrive. But I got it in time to make one block and make it into a mini quilt for my mother-in-law.



I will definitely be making a larger one with this pattern. It just comes together very fast!

You can go to the Fat Quarter Shop's Jolly Jabber  to find the blog post, video and the other wonderful quilters who are quilting along!

I chose to make mine in the beautiful Wonderful Things fabric by Bonnie Christine.

I absolutely love this line - especially the beautiful Wash Aquarelle Study that I used for the backing!

Here is the front of the quilt. I love the beautiful floral fabrics and the fact that the quilt came together super fast!

I used a zig-zag quilting stitch on Ross - my Bernina 710  with my Dual Feed System. I love how it combines the ease of straight line quilting and the crinkly look of free motion quilting!

Sometimes everything just comes together in a beautiful manner! This quilt brought my new favorite fabric (somebody please gift me a bolt of that lovely Wash Aquarelle Study!!!), my new favorite quilting design and a quick-to-come-together pattern!!!

I used Aurifil 2115 (Lemon) in 50 wt to piece and quilt it.

Super happy to gift this quilt to my Mother in Law!

BTW, here is a sneak peek at what is involved in getting that perfect shot of your quilt!

Sometimes its all just worth it!!!

Cheers!!!

Studio move - Downsizing is not easy!

If you have been following me for a while, you must have realized I haven't been posting much on the blog lately. 

That's the reason I jumped and said yes when Cheryl announced the blog hop, I absolutely jumped onto the train!

That will give me a  reason to clean my studio, I thought!!! I had ignored my studio ever since i came back from Quiltcon. Other things had taken priority and needed my immediate attention. As a result I could not find ANYTHING that I needed and the studio had become an unbearable mess.

For those who are new to my blog, I had got my dream studio three years back! It was absolutely breathtaking!!!

I totally adored my cottage studio!!! 

It was large and spacious... 

It had a lot of things that were custom made for my studio!

And lots of flat surfaces.

But lately there was a problem. The crack in my studio wall that inspired this quilt grew wider. And soon the windows wouldn't close properly and closing and locking the main door became a task that was more and more impossible to do everyday!

The roof was also leaking. Renovation was inevitable. So I decided to move into a smaller cottage while the studio was renovated. 

My plan, use an adjoining room to temporarily hold stuff that I could do without for a while and only move things that I needed for the next 3 months.

Ha! ha!

Apparently, the expenses for the renovations are out of my budget for the moment! So it was either continue working in a leaking studio where I needed a handyman to just open and then close and lock the door every night or moving into the smaller cottage kind of semi-permanently.

I chose the later option. (Like I really had a choice there!)

I had two of our regular handymen to move all the stuff into the new space. After they finished tearing down a partition that was in the middle of the room, they only had one extra day to help me. So I got them to move ALL my stuff into the tiny new studio!

Wanna look what it looked like at that stage?



This still was after I had cleared most of my fabric and put it into my new plastic bins.

At the end of Day 1 it looked like I would finally have some sanity!



But it was far from finished! I stopped working when I could walk no more!

The second day was easier! And by the evening my studio was almost done!

This was sometime mid-day!!!



The process of downsizing was downright agonizing! But I finally managed to fit my 500 sq ft studio into a meager 250 sq ft. 

I gave away 8 BIG plastic bags worth of stuff!!!

Wanna see my new space???

Clear surfaces!!! Quilts on the wall!!! Yay! I'm sure a happy girl!!!

My mini quilts on the design wall along with an Aurifil shade card. Thats because the cupboard under it holds all my Aurifil thread in clear plastic boxes!



My yardage sits in the metal cupboards while anything less than a yard sits in these plastic boxes under my cutting table.

The space where I keep Ross. The design wall in front of my worktable is covered with wonderful quilts I have received in swaps over the years!  

These quilts remind me of the awesomeness I have experienced in the quilting community!



My sewing table and cutting table are side by side so that I can use the larger surfaces when I am quilting a larger quilt.

By the door hangs a quilt made by Sonalee - I loved this quilt the moment I laid my eyes on it and actually bought it from her! The sunflower had me mesmerized!!!

 After all that hard work, I just sat back and had a cup of steaming hot tea!!! See that lovely coasted under the cup? I won it in a giveaway from my mentor Kathleen Probst! And she sent it to me via a friend at QuiltCon!!! 

 I love my new studio. I need to get a lot of things done here including some basic electrification as well as painting. The electrician will be here on Monday, but everything else will wait till after Diwali. I want to use the space for some time before I decide how I want to organize it.

To end with here are my tips if you ever need to downsize your studio.

First, put everything you have in ONE ROOM. Cover any and every flat surface that you have. Take a garbage bag and start filling it. Toss in all trash. Anything broken beyond repair gets tossed in. Anything that is 'yuck' gets tossed in. Fill as many bags as you have to. Get those bags out of the room. 

Now take another bag. This will be the donate bag. Toss in anything that you have forgotten you had! Toss in anything you don't like. Toss in anything you haven't used in about 18 months! Toss in anything that you think is 'meh'. If you spend more than 30 seconds thinking whether you want to keep something, toss it in! Don't overthink. Be ruthless!!! Someone is going to be very happy to get all this stuff! Fill as many bags as you need to. Before you change your mind, put the bags in your car. Or better still, after you finish working on the studio, invite fellow quilters and ask them to pick whatever they want from those bags and go home! Make it a studio-warming party!

Now take a hard look at what you have left over. Group items together eg. Bag making supplies, cutting tools, finished goods, batting, fabric, etc. Assign spaces to groups. And then start putting away stuff. Keep one trash bag and one donate bag handy. When you put stuff away, you might be inspired to get rid of some stuff. Go ahead and follow your instinct.

After you have put everything in place! Clean! Vacuum and mop. Spray some air freshener or light your favorite scented candle.  

Now its time to DECORATE. Use your imagination and resources to deck up your space. Your space needs to be functional but it also needs to inspire you. You have to want to get out of bed and rush there, especially after downsizing. Downsizing is hard. It has such a negative feeling to it. So when you beautify your space it inspires you to be positive. Make the space your own.

Do you like my new space? 

Its not as glamorous as my old one, but I know I am going to love it.

Want to see what other bloggers are up to in the blog hop?

Here's the complete list

May 1 – Teri Lucas – www.terificreations.com

May 2 – Tammy Silvers – www.tamarinis.typepad.com

May 3 – Emily Breclaw – www.thecaffeinatedquilter.com

May 4 – Amalia Morusiewicz – www.FUNfromAtoZ.com

May 5 – John Kubiniec – www.bigrigquilting.com/blog/

May 6 – Debby Brown – www.higheredhands.blogspot.com

May 7 – Melissa Marie Collins – www.melissamariecollins.blogspot.com

May 8 – Delve MIY – www.fronddesignstudios.wordpress.com

May 9 – Misty Cole – www.mistycole.com

May 10 – Sam Hunter – www.huntersdesignstudio.com/blog

May 11 – Dale Ashera-Davis – www.dalead.wordpress.com

May 12 – Sara Mika – www.mockpiestudio.blogspot.com

May 13 – Sarah Trumpp – www.Wonderstrumpet.com

May 14 – Carma Halterman – www.beanstrings.blogspot.com

May 15 – Jessica Darling – www.jessicakdarling.com

May 16 – Lisa Chin – www.lisachinartist.com

May 17 – Sally Johnson – www.sallysquiltingcorner.blogspot.com

May 18 – Mandy Leins – www.mandalei.com/blog

May 19 – Shruti Dandekar – www.13woodhouseroad.com

May 20 – Jane Davila – www.janedavila.com

May 21 – Ebony Love – www.lovebugstudios.com

May 22 – Cheryl Sleboda – blog.muppin.com

  

Make sure to say hi to them when you visit!!!

Cheers!!!