Just a quick post to say...

I love Jim, the repair man from Vogue Fabrics in Evanston. :)
(even though I feel a little bad)
He spent 5 hours looking at my machine trying to figure out what exactly was making my machine appear to have tension issues (note that it wasn't actually the tension)...

Guess what it was? Apparently I had sewn so much on this machine that I actually wiggled a couple screws loose in the take-up-lever area! lol. He said it's not something he's really seen happen often, but that the number of hours I've put on this machine probably has something to do with it!

A couple other reasons I love that guy/place

• The repair still only cost the normal $35 labor fee - even though he spent so long on it. They're good to their word on that!
• I didn't have to replace anything.
• Nancy is so completely dust free as a result of that 5 hour surgery... I'm pretty sure they got stuff out of places I couldn't get anywhere near! 
• I just sewed up a couple micro-star blocks and some other stuff - it sews better than I can even remember! (I'm thinking this issue started sometime before the CMQG retreat...) 

WOW! That's all. Pictures and all that stuff later!

The Sewing Summit!!!

Have you all heard about the Sewing Summit? I sure hope so! It's a modern sewing and blogging conference that's happening for the first time this October. I'm going (thanks to my benefactors - my work for giving me a bonus at just the right time, my aunt for commissioning me for a big project that she's paying me for, and my parents who have sent "birthday money" to tackle some of the other costs!). Amazing right? I remember when this whole thing was just an idea.... It's really happening. And...

I just registered for my classes today! While I'm at the Summit I'll be taking:

•  Bag Making 101 - by Bari J. Ackerman - Bari offers the basics on handbag construction plus complete instruction on her popular Springtime in Paris Pocketbook. Kit available for pre-purchase on Bari’s website after 9/1. 
• Quilting at Home: Free Motion Quilting for the Modern Quilter - by Allison Harris - The free motion quilting class will cover all of the basics for getting started quilting your own quilts. Everything from set-up, preparation, positioning yourself and your quilt, and quilting designs both simple and advanced. Come learn how you can save money quilting your quilts on your own machine! (classroom fee $3) 
• Creative Fabric Selection: Moving Beyond Fabric Collections - by Jeni Baker - In Creative Fabric Selection, Jeni will help you overcome your color fears! You’ll learn how to put together unique color and fabric schemes for your quilts and other sewing projects! We’ll walk through the color wheel, discuss different types of fabric patterns, building fabric stacks and hopefully, get you thinking about fabric and color in a different way! 
• Marvelous Minis: Packing Lots of Punch into a Mini Quilt - by Amanda Jennings - Amanda will be focusing on getting the most out of small bits of fabric and using them to make heirloom-quality mini quilts. Topics will include finding inspiration, staying motivated, how minis are perfect for all levels of quilting and telling a story with a quilt block. She’ll be sharing my inspiration, mini quilts, examples from my sketch books and more! 
• Photographing Your Creations: Simple Changes for Maximum Impact - by Vanessa Christenson - Anyone who owns a camera can come to this class! There are a ton of photography classes out there that are excellent in teaching you about aperture, shutter speed, and ISO — these skills are awesome to have, but say you know all that stuff already …what then? I think setting up your “scene” is just as important as all the technical stuff. I’ll be teaching you how to take your product (your quilt you want to sell or the home décor you just created a tutorial or pattern for) and I will show you some easy steps to set up the perfect scene for that product. I’ll also touch on how to use a little bit of photoshop, and to use some of the free online editing programs out there to give your picture that much more “WOW” and having people say “did you take that picture? 
• Improv Piecing: How To Think Outside the Box - by Jess Berrett - A hands-on class, where you’ll have a chance to try new techniques for creating lively & unique patchwork, without patterns. We’ll talk about inspiration, simple tips to for better designs, & a little bit of color theory. Using scraps (some of yours + some of ours), you’ll create a small piece of patchwork, which can be used as the start of a new quilt – or on its own as a pillow, place mat, dish mat, etc. (classroom fee $3)

I've gone back and forth all day about whether to take the Photographing one or the ....something about authoring books one. I think that the photography would be cool and I haven't really any intention to write patterns etc. I guess I can go back and change them if I want... but the other one might be booked up.


Anyway. I'm really getting excited about this. I'm planning on flying on a standby ticket from our friend who's a pilot. So - I think I'll arrive at the airport early on Thurs to ensure that I make it in time! :) My friend Amy is meeting me there and we're going to be roomies. She's not going to the conference, but will be sightseeing around the city while I am. It'll be great since I haven't really gotten to travel with her etc since we graduated. She's really excited since she has never been to Salt Lake (she's a Mormon history buff and looooves that sort of thing). I'm excited!! :)

**Edited to add links to the teachers' blogs. I think I "know" all my teachers except for one!**

Are you going??? Let me know if you've signed up for any of the same classes as I have! We'll be class buddies!

Thank You Emily!!

Don't mind, she's three which means that she thought "hey mom's taking a picture I should jump on one foot!"

Last week my CMQG friend Emily came over to sew (was that last week already?). As sweet as she is, she brought an adorable handmade dress for Allie! I think she knows that I don't have the patience for such details on a dress! This one is just perfect! She even figured out her machine's buttonhole function for the bajillion buttons on this! :) Absolutely adorable - and purple which is Allie's (my) favorite color!

Allie has worn this dress twice so far (in one week!) And she keeps pulling it out of her closet and carrying it around saying, "Oh Pretty! Emily  made it for me!" :) thanks Emily!

Also please try to ignore that the first decently lit place that I thought to take a picture was at Victoria's Secret...
I swear we were there for body spray (for my MIL). lol.

Nancy is having surgury...

lol...

Nancy's dress - made by Jules of Relish Australia

So have you noticed that I haven't been free motion quilting anything recently? My main machine, Nancy, has not been working properly. She's got some crazy tension issues (where the bobbing thread gets all loopy on the bottom, and the top thread just pulls right through). I had tried everything (even adjusting the bobbin tension - which I then adjusted back to normal when it didn't fix the problem). 

Finally Saturday I got her in to the repair shop at Vogue in Evanston. Jim took a look at it (that guy is awesome) and fiddled around with it. He couldn't fix it on the spot - he said it might be that the tension dials aren't catching (meaning he has to take it all apart and fix it).... or it may be related to a small small nick in the bobbin casing... but he put some clear nail polish over that to smooth it over, and it didn't make it even remotely better. He's figuring it's probably not the bobbin casing. 

So what does all this mean? No FMQing. Since I don't have a feed dog cover for my old White (Betty). 

Also it means that I may be shopping for a new machine (at some date which I have some money to spare). I told Jim to call me if the total cost is going to be more than $50 (labor included)... since I'm not sure I want to put more than that into fixing a machine that I spent about $200 on... two years ago and about a dozen quilts ago. I'd have to think about it and discus whether Jim thinks any other issues will arise in the future. 

PS he explained why Nancy seized up a while back too - not enough lubrication in the hand wheel crank thingy (which requires taking the whole casing off to lubricate -- so not really easily fixable. But he said with some time of rest periodically (after quilting for you know ... hours and hours) it will loosen back up again. It wasn't a result of the thread I was using like the other guy said! :) I was right to not believe him.

I'm just going to let you all know...

that as of right now I'm completely cought up in reading my blogs on google reader. Without deleting and clearing them out. :) That hasn't happened in a long time. I missed a few giveaway chances by being too late to enter them. That's lame.

On a more interesting note. I made a rainbow angel food cake (in a regular cake pan) today in preparation for Allie's upcoming 3rd birthday. It turned out amazing!! Very vibrant!

Allie was more interested in the blueberries with cool whip. Whatever. :) Gotta love a fruit loving kid!

Also in recent news, my cousin's baby is freaking adorable (especially when laying on her made by me quilt)! :)

Chicago Modern Quilt Guild Mug Rug Swap - finished!

My last mug rug was given to it's new owner at our CMQG meeting last week... so it's time that I can share them all with you!

Here's how it all worked. This was a first for me, that it was not a blind swap. I knew who I was making the mug rugs for and they knew that they would recieve them from me too. For that reason I didn't share all the pictures along the way.

My mug rugs were sent to Ebony, Terri, and Rachel. I felt like I started out with just a limited amount of info on each of them. Ebony was the only one that I had really gotten to know a bit (at the retreat last spring). So I did what I always do with swaps, try to challenge myself with at least one part of the swap item.

I'll start with Ebony's - I knew that she appreciated precision and accuracy. Also, it came to my mind while I was planning this one, that she'd asked my gut opinion on fabrics once - trying to be childlike and non-judging about what our first impressions/decisions of choices were. (I'm rambling) Anyhow, I ended up doing a porthole type block with a really fun accent fabric underneath, and a strip of "hoo-ha's" (hehe not my name for them... tutorial for them is here I sewed mine down by machine though not by hand). On the back I added a tiny wonky star and some flying geese (that almost didn't get used there because they were a little wonky in the unintentional way). I'm pretty in love with that mug rug I must say!

Then I worked on Terri's. I hadn't gotten to know her or Rachel very well so I knew just a little bit about them. From what I knew about Terri, she likes darker tones than I tend toward, and also likes batiks. Well I was working with my stash so Terri got an awesome mug rug made with the fabrics from my stash that most resembled her likes... purples and rich colors. I made an offset square block then quilted it, then cut it in a circle. That was my first try at binding a curved edge. It wasn't bad at all... but I did sew it on a little too taught and I'll do it better next time. I love the effect of the round edges and the straight quilting!

Rachel's was a fun one too. Hers accidentally ended up on the large size. I had tried the block on the front several times before, and I still haven't gotten those points to line up just so... but I'll keep trying. I really enjoyed this brighter color palate. The colors were more intentional than I usually work with. I added a tiny star on the back of this one too. :)

Now go ahead and check out the ones I received here. Also, check out the table we displayed them all on at our July CMQG meeting (click here, then click around to the previous pictures to see lots more!).

Super Awesome!

 Sawtooth Stars: they're pretty awesome! I'm really loving this eclectic color scheme too. :) Also really awesome? The idea (not my idea) that prompted me to jump up off of my computer and sew them up immediately! Now that's inspiration. Now eventually they'll have to come down from my bulletin board, but I've been thoroughly enjoying them there. :) More on this later.