Illuminated Tiles

Illuminated Tiles was published in Quilt Now magazine issue 21

A few zip pouches...

Sewing is always harder in the summer. Gone are my two mornings a week where I am off work, and my daughter is in school. Gone are the days of Allie being tired (from school) at the end of the night. It's all energy all the time! 

So here are a couple zip pouches. They're pretty, they were gifts, and well, they finish quickly enough!

I can say that I have been working little by little on a couple quilts - but they're not being released for a while, so I can't share. The sewing is so slow though. Sooo slow. 

At the very least, there are always zip pouches!

There is definitely sparkle vinyl in my near future too!

Bohemian Friendship - Accepted for IQF Chicago!

I'm excited to announce that my Bohemian Friendship quilt has been accepted to the Modern Friendship Star Challenge for the International Quilt Festival - Chicago show! 

I'm really excited about this because this quilt is an important part of my quilting journey. While this quilt was finished nearly three years ago,, it holds a special place in my heart. First of all, this quilt has been kept - for some reason I think it should be a baby quilt for the baby that I haven't yet been able to have. That alone makes it emotionally important. But even more, this quilt came to be because of the extreme generosity of the modern quilting community. You can read more about that here and here. In short, the fabrics were sent to me from around the world - scraps - tiny, (almost) unusable scraps, but they were sent to me from friends who knew of my love for Anna Maria Horner fabrics. These were scraps from her very first fabric line (very very out of print/very hard to find). More so, I backed this quilt in silky smooth sari fabric that Shruti sent me. It's like one sweet hug from around the world!

Also - I'm demo-ing again in the Open Studios at IQF-Chicago! Come see me at the Quilt Studio Thursday, March 26th, 10am-12 for, and Friday, March 27th, 12-2pm for Foundation Paper Piecing. I'm really excited to be doing this for the third year in a row! It's always such a rush to teach and share with so many at this show! 

WIP - AMH Love Quilt

I have an obsession, and it's nothing new. I am in LOVE with Anna Maria Horner's fabric designs. 

Way back when I started quilting the first designer fabric I ever purchased was from her Chocolate Lollipop line. I was hooked immediately, and I've been hoarding bits of her fabrics ever since.

For the past few months I've been (intermittently) working on a quilt I call AMH Love. It's all my tiny bits of AMH fabric, and I'm hoping it comes together just as I envision it. 

To ensure that I don't screw it up - I made a maquette - a practice mini. (I learned this term from Jacquie Gering, what an inspiration!) So while I'm not sharing my full project just yet, here are some snaps of the Maquette.

I'm loving the dense quilting (what? I haven't taken pics of the quilting yet). I'm loving the paper pieced letters ("my first alphabet" pattern by Diane Bohn)

AMH Love

Last week I started a new quilt!!

Yes, I haven't been sewing as much as I would like to recently, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been dreaming up zillions of new quilts! So - this quilt has been marinating in my mind for a couple months. 

My idea is to use all the Anna Maria Horner fabrics. Ok, not ALL of them, but in packing up my fabric when we moved, I realized that about half of my (tiny) stash is beloved AMH fabrics that I'm not always willing to part with for small projects. So a huge quilt it is! 

It's been a while since I did lots of precision piecing -- I'm glad to report that I can still piece squares!

I've started out with a stack of 5" charms from the AMH charm swap (I didn't participate in this swap, but my friend Sara generously gave me hers). That means I started with about 70 different AMH fabrics - and I ended up cutting a few more to round out the number for my BIG quilt. 

I pieced the squares in like-colored pairs - then gradually pieced from one color to the next. There were moment of, "This is not going to work!" But in the end I think the colors flow pretty well. (pardon the weird shadows in the middle and on the bottom - I swear those are purples and dark blues down there in that shadow!)

This is the beginning of something awesome. I've got a lot of ideas for the rest - but it'll have to wait -- I'm out of Kona Curry! Yes, I think Curry needs to be a key color in this quilt. It's a risk, but I think the colors will all pull together! 

A Pretty New Cover for my Juki!

A few days ago my friend Jenna (the sewing student from this post) messaged me asking for tips / tutorials and general info on how to make a cover for he new sewing machine (I know, I know, it's so cool that she's really been sewing on her own!). So naturally I have a pinterest board for that. In my defense, I've been planning to sew a cover for another friend's machine recently - so I've been compiling links and inspiration.

Since Jenna was already planning on making one, I joined along (virtually of course, Jenna doesn't live nearby). I used this tutorial and it worked out just perfectly!

I omitted the side pockets, knowing that I wouldn't use them. Instead I added a bit of patchwork on the sides to look as if I had added the pockets. I used two layers of Pellon sheerweight fusible interfacing on the outer fabric (I would have used one layer of Shape Flex SF101 if I would have had it on hand) and it gave just enough body to the fabric for it to hold it's square shape.

My favorite part of this tutorial was the self binding bottom edge. Genius!

PS - It's super hard to photograph your sewing machine cover when your sewing room is a total mess... I should clean it, but I'd rather sew. Creativity is messy sometimes.

Mini Quilts: Mug Rugs

I've always been a huge fan of mug rugs. They're tiny, fast, and useful. It has only been recently that I've begun to really think of them as mini quilts though. I can put some intense piecing and quilting into a 5" x 8" mug rug - so why not recognize it as something more than a coaster?

I'm rambling.

What I'm trying to say here is that I made a mug rug recently. But I haven't been able to bring myself to use it yet. Actually I considered giving it away - I have the intention of making a mug rug soon for a friend - but this one isn't quite perfect enough. 

I love this little guy though. Scraps of some favorite fabrics, bound in the most perfect orange fabric (my last bit of it!)

Then there's the back. The back!! I wanted to test out my skills after long arm class, but the mug rug top didn't want fancy quilting... so I quilted the back separately. These are the best flowers I've ever made! Now I need to work on getting some consistent swirls! 

All this rambling, for a sweet little mug rug. I love it though, that's what matters. 

Sweet tiny mini quilts!

I've been spending the past week or two working little by little one some tiny quilts. I finished two of them up last night. 

First up I have a tiny string quilt - the blocks measure just 2.5" square. These blocks were the practice blocks for my Doll Quilt Swap 11 quilt which I had sent to Maria. I had set these blocks aside in an envelope marked "make a doll quilt for myself like Maria's DQS." I finally did it. Of course I didn't have the same amount of blocks, or the fancy teeny NY Beauty for the back like the one I made for Maria did, but it's still pretty fun. 

The blocks are floating in a border of natural linen, backed with orange solid and bound with a fabulously bossy Anna Maria Horner print. I'm really pretty happy with this little guy. The quilting could have gone a bit smoother. I used a thicker batting than normal (some sample that I had, I'm not sure what it was), that and the linen paired with the fact that I don't have a working walking foot meant I had a little bit of stretching happen. Nothing too bad, and it has relaxed a bit today and is less noticeable, but it's annoying. 

The second mini has been pieced and quilted for a couple weeks now. I've been trying to get a minute to bind it, and that finally happened last night! This one is a tiny baby quilt - for my college friend. I'll do the full reveal later this week since it has a deeper story. 

Finally back to the sewing table.

Architextures and Field Study = love.

As I mentioned earlier this week, my life since QuiltCon has been a whirlwind of sicknesses and house guests. Prior to last night I hadn't been at my sewing machine in more than a week which is really unlike me.

I took a nap yesterday specifically with the thought in mind to stay up late sewing. (Is that how it works in your house late night sewers?)

So I sat down and started piecing a doll quilt top - I was feeling moderately uninspired. I have the desire to make more doll quilts but I don't always find them easy to make - I usually piece "on the fly" without a solid design in mind. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. 

I ended up putting that project aside with the desire to use some of my new fabric (purchased at Quiltcon from some awesome awesome vendors). But - my quiltcon fabric is so varied ... It was interesting to try to chose what to work with. 

Finally I decided I'd make a pouch - a quick finish using some exciting new fabrics (AMH Field Study and Architextures). I made it the size of a small clutch, large enough to hold my wallet, moo cards, and a few extras. 

Yes I did use fantastic out of print text fabric to line a pocket... I just couldn't resist it!

I literally just started sewing without a plan. I love the results. I used cotton duck cloth as a base for the quilt as you go  on the outside, and added a zippered pocket to the lining. It finished at about 9 1/2" x 5" with a 13" strap. 

I'm really impressed with how nice my new spoonflower labels look sewn inside too! 

A perfect fit for my wallet and extras. Pull tab from Zipit on etsy.

I think tonight I'll make another one of these, and list it in my (yet to be used) etsy shop.

Piles of pretty fabric. 

Now my job is to organize and re-fold my fabric. It's been piling up outside of my shelves... I'm reluctant to put it back since it's all a mess - unorganized. Time to make it pretty again. Can anyone offer some helpful tips for organizing / folding my stash? It's mostly FQ's (some already cut into) and some odd remainder cuts. I'd love to hear your tips. 

QuiltCon: Friday.

Whew! What a day! Quilt people really are the best! I'm here at QuiltCon and I'll give you some highlights. I'm not exactly sure how I'll format the posts throughout the weekend, but tonight we'll do it pretty quick. I have already taken 30 pictures... head over to Flickr where you can see a few more than I'm sharing here.

Weekender in action!

My plane was delayed so I got to take the bus into town with Elaine (her flight got in just before mine did). It was really great to talk again in person! And we got to do our EEE swapping too. More on that another day.

Charlotte with her Fractured quilt! 

I met Charlotte! Ahhh! She's really great and says "orange" in a very English way. Seriously I've lucked out in the roommate department! (Mimi is our roomie too, but she was busy in the afternoon). We've had such a good time together. Emily, Charlotte and I wandered around the convention center. Flitting from one booth to the next, and pausing to see certain quilts along the way. I'll have to make a proper tour of the booths at another day, but we had fun rambling around.

I met some pretty awesome people today. I met Alex Veronelli (from Aurifil!) - I got a great picture with him in the Moda photo-booth (if the internet weren't so slow I'd upload the picture - you'll have to wait to see that one). I also met the Threadbias team, Amanda and Alex - both of whom I've chatted with on threadbias. It was cool to see them there! 

I met Pinkbrain! 

I also briefly met Jen / Pinkbrain -who's one of the swap mama's for Doll Quilt Swap. We were supposed to meet for lunch but my flight came in too late for that. Hopefully we'll get together on Saturday for lunch. 

Yes, I did indeed meet my quilting idol Anna Maria Horner. She was just as lovely in real life as you would imagine. And, she did remember my quilt from last week that she'd commented on on Flickr. So sweet.

I got to hang out with a lot of great ladies (and Mark) at the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild meetup. We ate at Moonshine Grill which was delicious. It was fun to really get to chat about our experiences so far etc. Also, Mark told us a bit about some color theory stuff that I need to hear again. It was great conversation there tonight. Elaine joined us too since she's technically still a guild member even though she moved.

We had a great time so far. The experience so far has been very social, which has been great. I'm looking forward to sitting in on some lectures tomorrow and trying my hand at long arm quilting with Angela Walters!