RATZ Swap Needle Book Received!

This week has been a whirlwind with my niece in town. I never posted about receiving this fabulous needle book!

This time around I received a sweet needle book from Kris / Zaynoo1! What you didn't notice? Yep - she sent to me last month too! I think it's a sign that we are a good swap match, since we were paired up twice in a row! And lucky me - because I received two super awesome swap packages! Thanks Kris! 

Pellon!

Did I mention that I'm working on some projects for Pellon?

I'm really excited about this - a chance to show some new ideas and play with some new products.

In related news, I ran out of my third bolt of Pellon Val-u-Fuse. I think that's quite an accomplishment - I never really paid attention to how much was left on that bolt - until suddenly it was gone!

Stay tuned for more on this subject. In the meantime go check out my "artist profile." I consider this to be an accomplishment of my 4th grade career goal - I wanted to be an "artist" I'll count this as a goal achieved!

God willing it'll be sunny this week so I can take some pictures of stuff!

Sewing with Kids ... er Tweens!

Katee is officially a tween (how is it that that word is acceptable?!). My niece Katee was in town for the past week, and while it was hot and a bit rainy outside, we had a lot of fun sewing!

My friend Emily came over one evening and we'd decided on making these fabric envelopes together. We each got working and it was a lot of fun!

I made a mini design wall for Allie, and cut her some 2.5" squares for her to play with while we sewed. It didn't work completely, but it wasn't a dud either. She played nicely for a while. The most hilarious thing? Allie kept calling Emily, "friend Emily" it was really funny!

Katee and I sewed in the evenings after Allie went to bed most nights this week. She finished a pillowcase, a large boxed pouch, a mini zip pouch, and the fabric envelope! She was free-piecing all on her own after just a little bit of instruction! I'm loving the zebra pillowcase!

It was a really great week, and it's been a lot of fun seeing her grow as a sewer throughout the years. She's been sewing with me since she was seven - here we are five years later and she's growing and learning! I'm so proud of her!!

Bloggy Updates!

I've been making a few changes around here. I've finally figured out how to add tabs at the top of the blog. Blogger calls these "pages" and they're so easy to add. Not so easy? Switching all my project links into the new format! 

Go ahead and take a look, I've cataloged the last three years of quilts there and each quilt has a photo and a link for more info. I love it! I still need to track down the first couple quilts I made, Those were finished in 2009, that will come soon. 

If you're new around here - or have only been reading my blog for a little while, feel free to check out those "finished quilts" tabs up there - It's crazy to see them all in one place! It's crazy to see how far I've come not only in quilting but in photography too! 

You can leave comments there too - and I'll be able to reply to you. 

Enjoy! 

Zip Pouches for my Friends!

This weekend I finished 6 pouches for friends and family who are helping me pay my way to QuiltCon! I've never really made things to sell, and have resisted having an etsy shop because I don't want the hassle of filing with the state/city for tax purposes (it seams like such a headache and I just don't understand what they want!).

Here's reality: I'm too lazy to pick up before taking pics, and too lazy now to crop the mess out! lol.

Well I put up an offer on facebook and have gotten 7 requests so far! These are all finished so I'll be starting on the next set of requests soon - I know my MIL wants some for co-worker's gifts for Christmas...

The bow pouches are roughly from this tutorial although I've made a lot of changes to the way they're made. 

Also, if you're going to make these, check out this blog post - it's absolutely possible to make it with 2 FQ's instead of two HY's as the tutorial says. I posted cutting instructions here. 

The others are custom made - colors chosen by the recipient. They measure about 8" x 4" x 2" And with these I finally figured out the right equation to figure out exactly how to cut the sections out for the corners to make them exactly the right size. I'll probably blog about that at some point - since I took pictures / notes along the way so I don't forget!

The last one (the zebra stripe) is for a friend from my guild - who's supporting me in this even though I'm sure she'd be able to make the same bag for herself! lol. I love how the colors came together for it - She's very into black and white and pops of bright colors! 

Are any of you going to be at QuiltCon? Are you doing any selling to get there? What classes are you looking forward to??

DQS12 Angel Quilt

I keep forgetting to post about this quilt.

Source: Nichole's flickr.

I was a Swap Mama for the Doll Quilt Swap this past round, and as a mama I was in charge of several "Bebe's" Well, one of my group's quilts got lost in the mail, so I volunteered to make her a replacement!

This little quiltie was made especially for Nichole / PartridgePearTree. I chose all solids and paper pieced those teeny flying geese units to look like a strip of chevrons. They're teeny, 1" x 2" finished! My favorite little bit of it is the one chevron that's made of navy corduroy fabric. Awesome texture! :)

I played with my quilting along the stripes. I really love the textures on this quilt! Adding the quilting to it was the first thing I sewed after my surgery. It felt so good to be back at it so soon afterward!

The little quilt has made it's way to Nichole now, and I'm glad that she is enjoying it. Perhaps someday her original DQS12 quilt will make it to her... but if not, at least she has a consolation prize!

Chicago Modern Quilt Guild: Modern Art Challenge!

My friend Emily and I are heading up a swap for our guild. The swap is titled "Modern Art Challenge" and here's how it goes: Each person picked a piece of art (not necessarily modern art, just any art), and they wrote up a blurb about what they like and what they like about the art. They put a postcard size picture of the art, the blurb they wrote, and a FQ of fabric (representative of their likes)  in a bag and we swapped at our last CMQG meeting.

Fabrics for Natalie's quilt.

We each went home with someone else's art - that person is our partner, and we'll return in August with a doll size quilt for them!

My partner chose a painting she has in her house. It doesn't scream "my style" but immediately I thought of this cool pixelization that I could do with tiny squares so I started there. Below are my sketches - I've got a strong plan in place and have chosen and cut fabric.

My partner Natalie likes modern and negative space. Her favorite colors are warm and resemble storm clouds at dusk (deep and rich purples and pinks). So with that in mind I have some fabrics pulled that are mostly solids, and I've got some big plans!

I'll be making a "sister" quilt too - one that's practically the same, with different colors. It'll be a few inches larger to qualify as a "wall quilt" should I decide to enter it into a quilt show. I'm mostly just sure that I won't want to give my challenge quilt to my partner! :)

Fabrics for the "sister" quilt.

Stay tuned to see where this goes!

Finish it up week - and a giveaway!

Did you finish your stuff last week? I had a fun time trying to finish all mine! Here's what I managed to accomplish:

Pieced together my QAYG Bella Parade blocks - and bound all those seams. Cut binding for the outside edges.

Finished piecing my {Sew} Beautiful Bee quilt. Top complete!

Finished piecing my Bohemian quilt. Basted it too!

Started and finished some cute little needlebooks for the RATZ Swap!

Aren't they just too cute? One of them will be sent off to one of the Finish it up weeks's participants! Leave a comment here telling me what you finished (or what you attempted to finish) this past week. You'll get a chance to win that teeny adorable needlebook! Be sure that you're not a no-reply blogger though, so I can contact you if you win!!

QuiltCon

Just a few of the pouches I've recently made. 

Word on the street has it that they'll be announcing class schedules and such for QuiltCon in the next week. That made me realize that registration starts the end of August!! That's really creeping up on us and I'd love to be able to register right away! So - here's my plan. I'm going to sell my skills for a little while.

I put the word out on my facebook today - asking friends and family if they're interested in an original pouch - simple design, fun, fabrics from my stash, to help fund my trip to QuiltCon. I'm asking $15 - $20  a piece and hoping that some people are interested! If you're a reader who's not so inclined to sew zippers and would like in on this deal feel free to leave me a message! :) I'm not interested in doing an etsy shop or anything so I'll just be using paypal for payment and shipping will be as needed - since I'm assuming most of my facebook people are in the area/near my hometown. :)

Who else is planning on going to QuiltCon? What are you doing to prepare financially??

More "finishing"

Ok so not all of my "finishes" are truely finished... but they're finished for me- less a WIP and more waiting to be quilted. 

Today I bit the bullet and decided on a border size for my My Precious QAL quilt. It was going to be a mini quilt, but I increased the size of the pieced part to show off each of those precious Bohemian fabrics, so my original idea of an offset grey border seemed silly, it's no longer a mini quilt, yet not quite a usable size quilt (37" square). Logic lost this conversation, I went with my heart and made it the size that the patchwork wanted. It can be a newborn quilt should I get pregnant sometime soon (God willing--seriously!). I won't hold my breath for that since it's already been 3+ years... whatever that's not what this post is about. 

Sari fabric for the back!

Tonight I will search my "scrap batting" and find a piece (or a couple pieces) big enough. The backing fabric has been chosen. I'll be using some luscious sari fabric that Shruti sent me way back when she had me as a partner for DQS10. It'll be perfect! I'm unsure about the binding, but I'm sure it'll come to me! 

I'm not sure if I'll try to quilt this one by the end of Finish week, but either way I count the quilt top as being a finish! :) How are you guys doing?? Finishing some projects??

Finishing!

Today Wally took Allie out to hang out with his brother for a couple hours... and I managed to get my cousin Lindsey's quilt top finished!! This is my bee quilt from this year! :) 

I'd had the sashing all cut, and the blocks trimmed and pressed... the only thing holding me back was determining the layout of the blocks! I decided to wing it and it turned out alright! I'm loving this quilt top!

I was about to piece together the back - but realized I'm a yard short for backing fabric! Ahh! lol. So I need to look around and find some solid yellow - I think Kona Canary will do it. The quilt top measures 60" x 79" Exactly as planned! Again I'm going to tell you, that this method (click on "Adding Borders") of adding borders really works perfectly. Thanks Ebony for sharing the knowledge!