{Sew} Beautiful Bee - Wrap-up

2012 Bee blocks made by me! 

On a sad note, Lindesy's quilt is the last quilt of mine working in collaboration with the {Sew} Beautiful Bee. We are disbanding, which will be really sad for me. I'm biased, but our bee has been the best online bee ever! We've been together for two years, and it has been a real joy. I've had the opportunity to get to know these lovely talented ladies. I'm still not sure how I lucked into a bee with such wonderful talented people! 

The thing about our bee is that we share a common theme of favorite fabrics, and a desire to try new things, all the while keeping an open mind. I've learned a lot from being in this bee, and I've also made some great friendships and even future industry connections (these ladies are on their way to the top!). 

We're planning on having a private swap sometime next summer, but until then I wish them the best of luck to them. Keep your eyes open for their fabulous work - I'm sure you already follow all of their blogs! 

Elizabeth / Don't Call Me Betsy

Cherie / SEW and So Quilts

Angela / My Three Sons

Kati / From the Blue Chair

Lee / Freshly Pieced

Megan / Canoe Ridge Creations

Katie / Katie's Korner

Brooke / Pitter Putter Stitch

Cara / Me? A Mom?

Anne Marie / Gen X Quilters

{Sew} Beautiful Bee - Lindsey's Quilt Finished!

This post has been on the back burner for almost a month - I was in a rush to finish it before our trip to see family at Thanksgiving, and with the pouch hop starting right after, I just didn't have the time.

Lindsey was excited to receive her quilt!

So here it is! Finally!

For my month of the bee this year I sent pieces of several fabrics in Joel Dewberry's Heirloom line. I asked my bee mates to create any block they wanted measuring about 5" x 7" - then border it with the 1" white sashing, and again with the print fabric. Each of these blocks were unique and I loved seeing the designs my bee friends came up with!!

I had chosen my cousin Lindsey as the recipient of this quilt last Christmas because she is really close to my family in a special way. It's hard to describe, but Lindsey is present in our family - she's there to be a support and a helping hand even though she doesn't have to do it. Throughout the past few years Lindsey has visited my sister's house very frequently, she's helped my sister through a lot of things especially by participating in the "late night baking" that my sis does as a way to de-stress/unwind etc. Any time that I'm in town Lindsey is there. She's even come all the way here to visit me!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that she's more than a cousin, she's more like a sister. She deserved a quilt.

The quilting process was intense!

I'm really glad to be able to share my sewing with people I love. I hope that this quilt will always be that great big hug when Linds needs one, and the knowledge that we're praying for her too (I write prayers inside all my quilt bindings... so she's literally wrapped in love and prayers!). 

Prayers inside the binding.

What's even more sweet is how excited Lindsey was to get this quilt - she really appreciates it, and understands the worth of a handmade quilt. It makes me happy to know that she loves it. 

Free motion quilt detail.

It was a real hurry to get this one finished in time to gift it at Thanksgiving, mostly because I had put off quilting it for so long. I did it though. I quilted each block with a different free motion design, and stippled throughout the white sashing. I didn't pre-plan my quilting designs for the blocks, but rather went with it once I got to a block. It was scary, and some of the blocks are better than others. 

Overall I'm really happy with this quilt. It expresses a love I have for learning new things, even if the quilting is less than perfect.

Vacation, House Guests, and a Bit of Sewing!

It's been quite a week here! Last weekend my family took a trip out of town for the weekend to enjoy some fall festivities! We had a lot of fun, and then returned home just in time for my best friend from college, Michelle, to come stay for the week! 

Whew! Vacation and house guests! That does put a little bit of a cramp in one's sewing - but you wouldn't know it since I'd scheduled a couple posts ahead of time! 

While Michelle was here she suggested that maybe she could try quilting for the first time - of course I agreed! She chose this sweet kindle cover tutorial from Clover & Violet. Michele was inspired by this cross pillow - so we did a simple fused layout like this for the pieced section!

Michelle - quilting for the first time!

Michelle owns a sewing machine, and has sewn a couple receiving blankets, and skirts. This week she got a crash course in rotary cutting, piecing, straight line quilting, binding, and seam ripping. Ok so she didn't have to seam rip very much at all - but I was surprised that she'd never had to seam rip before!

The beautiful finished kindle cover!!

I'm very impressed with how her kindle cover turned out! We had a blast picking out that binding fabric at Joann's (while Michelle showed off her quilted cover piece to the ladies at the cutting counter). I may or may not have bought a few yards of Denise Schmidt fabric for a whopping $3/yd!

{Sew} Beautiful Bee - September!

While Michelle sewed I worked on a few random projects. I worked on finishing up the last of 13 mug rug tops that were commissioned by my MIL for Christmas presents. I also finished last month's bee block (oops - way late on this one!), and pieced the 2" square borders for my next Bubble Quilt! 

Border for the next bubble quilt!

{Sew} Beautiful Bee - Paper Pieced 3 Layered Star & Tutorial

Last night (last week) I broke down and finally started on my July Bee block. I've had it in my mind for a while, but was deciding whether I should draft the one I wanted to make, or take the easy way out (easy?) and use a pattern that I could just print out.

I decided it was worth the effort, so I broke out the freezer paper and drafted paper patterns for this star. In a stroke of genious I realized that I could simply print copies of the pattern using my printer/scanner. I guess I could have used the other method (I can't find a proper tutorial for it, and have no idea where I learned it). For the other method, print one copy of the pattern and then staple a few sheets of paper together with the pattern on top. Then simply sew over the pattern lines with your machine using a long stitch and no thread (no thread!!) this will make several identical copies of your pattern. So easy!

Alright, I managed to get the pieced sections done (all 16 of them). It really was a struggle to get all the sections pieced out of the fabric Kati sent - since I didn't plan that part ahead! I did manage to finish one quadrant of it, and will finish sewing those sections together today! It's finished!

I'm calling this star a 3 layered star, since I think of it as being three different sized stars that are stacked. (and because I'm too busy to think of a cooler name for it.

Stats: 12" finished
Made for: Kati / From the blue chair
Pattern: drawn by me, maybe I'll share it later this week. Here it is!

Free paper piecing pattern here. 

Instructions:
Download image from googledocs.
Open using Microsoft Office, and print as "Full page fax" (no margins etc)
Double check that the square at the top of the print out is 1".

• Cut along the outer lines, and across the three diagonal lines (at the arrows) 
• Sew pieces in order 1-4 leaving 1/4" seam allowance around the outside of the paper pattern.
• Use the same fabric for each number (in my example 1 is bright yellow, 2 is dark grey, 3 is light yellow, 4 is light grey)
• Trim sections leaving 1/4" around all sides
• Sew sections together in order. 
• Four of these blocks will make one 12" finished block (12.5" before sewing full stars together)

Enjoy! If you use this pattern I'd love to see it! Feel free to drop me a line, and add it to the Mommy's Nap Time flickr group!

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!!

{Sew} Beautiful Bee!

 I've been a little lazy about sharing my finished bee blocks! So here they are! 

The first one is a gradated Mod Mosaic block for Brooke. Don't worry - that bottom section is not sewn down without a white sashing piece - I just ran out of white fabric so it's ok! :) 

Then this month we made wonky pineapple blocks for Angela. I really liked making this block - it came together so quickly!!

Oh and I have all my bee blocks, fabric for sashing, backing fabric, etc... waiting to be put together! Add it to the list right? :) It's gotta get done since my sweet Lindsey really needs a quilt to cuddle with! 

....hmmm....

So here's the thing. I still get completely overwhelmed by the fact that so many of my peers (online and in my guild) are so wildly popular/well known/have huge numbers of people who follow their blogs. I see you guys in magazines, writing books, and doing blog-hops for big cool books and stuff. It's crazy ridiculous.

(I don't know what my point with this post is, or if I have one)

I try not to compare myself to other quilters - we all have such different styles and wide ranges of ability. We each are great at our own thing. But for the past few months I've been really considering what I'm trying to accomplish (that's really not the right wording but...). You know, I just don't feel compelled to work my ass off to try to get published in a magazine. I don't feel like there's usually much unique in them anyhow (really nothing in quilting is new, it's just individual). I don't read magazines (until someone sells them at the used bookstore I work at...) and I while I love looking at their pictures I'd never follow a pattern from one. I feel just about the same for books. Except some books are really so inspiring that they're worth having on the shelf even if I never do a single project from them. (But I'd still love to be published).

I'm rambling. Sorry.

So what am I saying? It's cool to be included in such a wildly talented group - I feel like a lot of these "big names" know me (or have heard of me) which is CRAZY. Seriously people I have under 200 blog followers! I feel like I deserve to be included in this class of quilters - I'm seeking to be advanced - I love the challenge. Maybe in some way I am there already, but I don't feel like I am. If I am not there, then what is keeping me from being a "well known quilting blogger"? Is it not being published? Or not having sponsors on my blogs that would bring lots of giveaways (lol) or a certain skill or marketability? Do I just not care enough to post perfect little posts, or maybe I over share (lol).

I guess maybe I've been thinking about this for a while. See, when I joined my bee I was absolutely astounded that my bee mates would consider me to be at their ability! Seriously, they're fantastic. We've been together as a group for more than a year now and I know I can keep up - but I'm still floored.

This post has no end... swirling thoughts rolling through my mind.

Sew Beautiful - the second year!

Fabric bundles for {Sew} Beautiful Bee - Feb 2012!

As I may have mentioned... our {Sew} Beautiful Bee from last year was such a hit that we have all decided to stay on for another year! We are (for the most part) keeping the same months, so I'll have February as my month again this year. I've been prepping fabric and laying out measurements etc all week. Now all my instructions are written and my packages are all sealed up ready to ship! But before I get too far with that... let me show you what I'm working on!

Sorry for the super dark photo... it's about 2AM here... AKA the only time my
 kid sleeps long enough for me to get anything done!

My Bee quilt from last year! I can't believe that the top has been completely finished for months now (Christmas really took over didn't it?!). I pieced the back too - using lots of negative space (grey!) and blocks pieced with the leftovers. And of course our awesome label!! I had even had the back 1/2 way finished - I got stalled out there though because I rand out of grey! Now it's all together and basted. Ready to be quilted tomorrow (hopefully). I fear that there may be a wrinkle or two in the back once it's all done... but that's ok. There was some ginormous piecing going on back there - the final measurements thus far are something like 78" x 96" Yeah. It's a beast and it's going to live on my bed forever. Except for movie nights, when we'll all cuddle under it on the couch. :) Thanks bee ladies, you're pretty awesome. 

The prettiest quilt binding ever..

A year in the making and I'm still not finished. Last February I had the ladies from the {Sew} Beautiful Bee make me some pretty awesome giant drunk love blocks. I had them use my very favorite fabrics (AMH's Good Folks), and I used nearly every bit of them to make the quilt big enough to cover our king sized bed. Several months ago I'd finished the top and started piecing the back (using the scraps my bee friends sent back)... but ran out of Kona Coal and put it in the closet. It stayed there for ... a while. :)

As with everything else, Christmas and life happened and now that the craziness has died down I've pulled this one back out. Last night I finished piecing together the back and all I need to do is baste and quilt it. I even finished prepping the binding! Look how amazing it looks! Those are some hard to find fabrics right there. 

The moral of the story, put projects off for a while and sometimes you'll come across some cool fabric to include, such as my prized FQ of buttoned up in sea... and that fortune in zinna. :) 

Hopefully there will be some major progress on this quilt soon - and then it will live on my bed where I will lay awake at night staring at it's awesomeness.

More about this quilt here.

****

Hello to Emily's blog world.  I (Michelle) am currently visiting and therefore had access to said blog.  I got to touch my fabric today.  

That is all.

A Good Mail Day!!

Hawthorne Threads never fails to amaze me. While they may not tie their bundles up with pretty scraps of fabric like Sew Mama Sew does, they do ALWAYS ship in a timely manner! I ordered this fabric about two and a half days ago - using the generic cheapest mailing method. And here it is!

Merry Christmas to me! Thanks to my lovely husband who gave me a one size fits all gift certificate! I bought this  lovely FQ bundle of Joel Dewberry Heirloom. It will be used for my month (Feb) of the {Sew} Beautiful Bee. I'm really excited about it. 

I also got a bit more of my fav. print.

And a couple half yards of pretties that I just couldn't pass up. I can't remember what that blue one is, but it's so much prettier in real life and now I wish I'd bought a bit in each color. :)

This has nothing to do with this post but I have a serious desire to make some 3" sawtooth stars. Serious. After seeing this on flickr.

Also, I want to make something like this. Free pieced and wonderful. I've never tried the ringo-pie type pieced stuff. I'm a little intimidated but who knows? Maybe I'd be great at it!

Oh and I want to make one of these ModMood Quilts. If I could figure out how to make it miniature I would.

And... while we're daydreaming, I want to finish my Bee quilt from last year! Now!! :)  I just need to finish piecing the backing (I have about 1/4 of the backing left to finish)... then it's on to quilting that bad boy!

The Official Sewing Summit Recap!

It's been a week since I returned home from the Summit. It's time for the real recap!

I'm going to try to stay chronological ... we'll see how well that works!

Thursday: 

I was flying standby (thanks Nick!!!) which means I may end up on the first flight I try for, or it may take several flights without getting a seat. Hence I started on Thursday! I checked in, was amazed that I didn't have to pay any fees for my flight (!!!), and I landed the very last seat on the first flight I tried for!!! 

Once in Salt Lake City, I met up with my friend Amy at the airport - Amy's a non-sewing summit friend, who took the trip out to hang out with me and be my roomie during the Summit. Pretty awesome! :) We hitched a bus ride to her friend David's work, dropped our luggage and went to see the city! We visited the temple area and all the cool Mormon stuff. My favorite was the roof of the convention center. It really was cool. How about those mountains??!! Did I mention it snowed Thursday? It did. I'm glad I brought my coat!

Amy and I had dinner with David - at fabulous Faustina's! Yum, I'm still dreaming of that butternut squash soup! We stayed at David's apartment Thursday night to cut down on cost - and because he's a great guy - with a really comfy couch!!

Friday we checked in to the Little America Hotel. Our room was beautiful, although it didn't have quite the view as many of the other rooms did! Amy and I took the Trax down to Pine Needles for some fabric shopping, lunch, then shopping around the village there. I definitely took two trips through the checkout line at Pine Needles, and ended up with a lot of loot! 

Friday  night was the welcome reception, which was really cool to meet so many online friends all at once! I also heard several "oh I read your blog" comments from people that I didn't even know! What a great feeling! I also met up with most of my {Sew}Beautiful Bee ladies. We went out to dinner at Settobello's and it was amazing! David and Amy came along too. 

After dinner Amy and I joined the crazy party in Kaelin's room where everyone was turning in their FQ's for the FQ swap on Saturday. We sat around talking about fabric and sorting everyone's FQ's by color. It was so surreal to me to sit in a room with that many people who knew all these fabric designers etc. Very cool.

Saturday:

Saturday was packed! Starting with my Couch 2 5K run in the morning (week 7 finished!!) then breakfast and classes all day! I took Bag Making 101 with Bari J, then Quilting at Home with Allison. I've been a reader of Allison's pretty much since I started reading blogs, so that was very surreal. I guess I already know how to free motion quilt on my home machine... so I just practiced a bunch. I was working specifically on my fmq'd words. 

After lunch I took Creative Fabric Selection with Jeni. Pretty awesome, and at the end of the class - a great big surprise! Kona color cards for all! Amazing! lol.

After Jeni's class I took Marvelous Mini's with Amanda. Let me tell you, this was the class I was looking forward to the most. I'm not exactly sure why. Was it because I love making mini quilts? Or because I've adored Amanda's work forever....? Both? But the reason that the class spoke to me the most I think was the excitement and encouragement in the way that Amanda spoke. I can't put it into words but it made me want to sit down and make a million doll quilts and feel awesome about it. Also, she showed a picture of her journal cover, that inspired mine, and the girl next to me noticed! :) Fabulous class all together, and we got to see lots of her mini's and share our own too. 

After the class I had to go give Amanda a hug! I'm not sure she knows how inspiring her work is! She's a pretty awesome person to chat with too. 

For dinner Friday night a group of 12 participants were chosen for a discussion group/dinner with Martingale publishing. The food was mediocre, but the conversation/questions were pretty cool. They wanted to know a lot about what we're looking for in books, how much we use technology (blogs/flickr/etc) for inspiration, etc. I really enjoyed the discussion, even though I never follow patterns and rarely use patterns from books either. I love looking through books though in the same way I love flickr and pinterest. I think Martingale heard a lot of new things from us! As a thank  you and as part of the discussion they provided us each with three new sewing books. None that I would have bought myself, but pretty to look at. 

Saturday night was the FQ swap - I can't believe nobody got trampled. lol. And I went home with a fabulous stack of fabrics!! 

That evening Amy came down to the sewing room with me and sewed up some charm squares -- her very first stitches by machine!!! She did pretty awesome, and pieced together a little doll quilt top. She headed to bed since her plane left early Sunday morning, so I finished it up for her to take home!!

Sunday:
I took Photographing your Creations with Vanessa. She taught us a cool thing or two about taking pictures. Then was Improv Piecing with Jessica. We were in the Baby-lock sewing machine classroom and received scraps to work with. Here's my block... which was promptly made into this mini quilt when I got home!

And then just as quickly as it started, the Summit was over. :( 

Since I wasn't leaving until Monday morning, I stayed with Cara Sunday night, and hung out with Michelle, and Cherie too. 

So ending thoughts on the weekend? I had an excellent time. I only spent about half of my fabric budget (a fact remedied on that first day home! Thank you online fabric stores!). I loved meeting everyone - both those who I knew online and those that I didn't. It really was surreal. On the downside though, I didn't feel very challenged by any of the classes. I guess maybe that's a good thing, I'm ahead of some of the crowd right? I was however, really really inspired by the classes. The whole weekend was very inspiring. It felt very good to be a person for a while, rather than just a mom. It was cool to eat without distractions, and shower when I wanted to. lol. I would consider going again next year if I'm financially able... it was pretty expensive in all though, so we'll see. I have a couple posts to share about things I've made since the Summit, that were inspired by the classes I took there. Also on the downside, my skin and lungs hated Salt Lake; it was too dry or something, and I've been wheezing and itchy ever since. God help me with all these stupid allergies. lol. 

PS it was still 70 degrees out here in Chicago when I returned! 

Bee Blocks & Round Robins

I just finished my round for this month in the Round Robin hosted by the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild. For those of you who don't yet know (as I didn't understand prior to joining this) a Round Robin is where each person makes a center block of a certain size following a certain technique (here we did applique) then each month the quilts are switched on a rotation so that several people get a chance to work on it. Each "round" has a different theme. The theme for this month was diamonds. 

This month I worked on Terri's quilt. I'd never pieced diamonds before, and I typically don't do intricate borders in such a way (like more traditional quilts would have an intricately pieced border around the whole quilt). I really enjoyed the challenge this time, and worked hard to use my signature tiny piecing (the main border added was just 1.5" wide!. Unfortunately, I ran out of the yellow and the green that I used to piece those triangles... so I sub'd in the yellow strips on either side. Overall I'm extremely happy with this, and I can't wait to see how mine is looking!!!

 Here's my {Sew} Beautiful bee block for September. AnneMarie had us do pinwheels - which surprisingly was my first try at pinwheels. I've done many HST's though so they're not too different. It was really satisfying how quickly this came together!

Too close for comfort...

What is that you see? A container of yellow acrylic paint spilled just a mere inch away from my WIP pile!?!! I nearly had a heart attack. Right there staring at you is the finished quilt top for my {sew}Beautiful bee quilt (using my only bits of AMH's Good Folks), the nearly finished back of the quilt, all the extra fabric for that quilt, and numerous other unfinished works.

Is it bad that I was much more worried about this mess than the blue and red spilled on my carpet? Carpet can be replaced but hours of sewing and out of print fabric??!! AH! lol. See that little thread hanging there on the right? It had a dab of paint on it, otherwise nothing was touched by the yellow.

The funny part? I didn't even know that generic art tub on the bottom shelf had paint in it! Slowly my sewing room is becoming a sewing room, with an off site closet... annoying. Almost all the good stuff has been moved (bins with buttons and needles and pins... thread spools, generic art supplies, etc). I have to traipse around the house looking for things to sew!

I did manage to get most of the paint out of the carpet. We'll be making a run to the store soon for some white wine vinegar and baking soda. Hopefully some combination of those will clear up the rest of the stain. Never a dull moment with a three year old around!

August Bee Block and other random WIP's

Today I finally sent out my bee block for August. The {Sew} Beautiful Bee has been so much fun - and we get to meet soon at the Sewing Summit! I can't wait! This month's block was for Kati and I had fun making it wonky and crazy. :)

Next I've been working on this diamond border for our CMQG round robin quilts. I've never made diamonds before... and pretty much figured it out on my own. They're pretty challenging getting those points to match up. I haven't quite mastered it yet... and I am our of that green fabric so I'll have to figure out something to fill in the gaps (I have enough made for about 2/3 of the border). I like the challenge of trying something new and using different colors than I might normally use. Pretty fun!

Finally, this is my next major project. It's the beginnings of a quilt for my mom. This has been on my list for this year's quilting goals - and I started it yesterday! I've finished 9 blocks so far and need to work on the last 7 (or maybe more... we'll see how big that puts it). I need just another yard of AMH's new fabric to do the focal point too. I  have big plans for this one and I'm loving the colors. By the way, those solids - they're from Connecting Threads and I got them for about $2.50/yd on sale. Whoa is that great! They're pretty soft too - way softer and cheaper than Joann's brand solids.