WIP Wednesday

Does anyone else feel like they can't get a moment to sew? Ever since QuiltCon I've been trying to get things back to the normal flow. 

I had the afternoon free on friday to work on some projects, it seems like that's about the only time last week that I got to work on anything! At least I was able to accomplish a lot Friday! 

I am nearly finished with this teeny precious baby quilt. It is really teeny with 3" nine patch units. 

I also finished a quit top that's been lingering in my unfinished projects pile. This one is destined to be a Pellon project download. It's going to be totally cute and I don't have a recipient in mind for it. I think I'll just keep it. I call it the Chloe Bubble Quilt.

The pieces of the Chloe Bubble Quilt.

Otherwise I have a lot of random projects that have been neglected and/or need to be started! 

New projects to start soon:

• Duffel bag for the Sew Sew Modern swap -- I'll be using this pattern, but altering it so that it's fully lined (no raw edges here!) My fabric just arrived last week, but it is unexpectedly light... so I'll need to find a darker color for the bottom of the bag....
• Mini quilts! I want to make minis!
• Elaine's birthday present -- we're doing an EEE birthday swap - and Elaine's birthday is first!
• Bunting for Lucy - I need two more purple fabrics for this! 
• Two flannel receiving blankets.

Projects that haven't been worked on in forever:

• {Modern} Robin - no progress - I'm longing to long arm this one (myself)... it's going to be seriously intense quilting.
• Roseann's quilt
• Sabrina's quilt
• Harry Potter Patronus mini

String quilt circa 2010... eek that was a couple years ago!

OOOH I need to baste my super old purple string quilt this week - it's going to be donated to our guild's quilt drive for Project Night Night!

A teeny quilt...

Just a little sneak peak today. This is a teeny tiny quilt I'm making for a friend of mine. It's made in the memory of a precious little boy who left for heaven way too early. Perhaps a lovingly handmade (tiny) quilt will bring a little bit of sunshine to my friends as they mourn for their little one. If nothing else, it has kept my hands busy while my heart is so heavy. Sorry to be such a downer today. 

QuiltCon: Community

haha... I love this picture!

I guess this is the wrap-up topic for me. My final thoughts about QuiltCon.

I've been looking forward to QuiltCon for so long and I wasn't exactly sure what I'd take away from the weekend. Overall I'm taking a greater sense of community among quilters. Sometimes it seems like we're all just quilters sitting at home sewing by ourselves. I'm lucky to have my local Chicago Modern Quilt Guild community, but it's equally nice to know that there is a community that spans larger than my city.

I'm encouraged by being surrounded by people who "get it". They understand me. They know and understand the obsession with a certain fabric designer, and they get how much work went into my Weekender.

It's important that there is a larger community - it's more than just having friends all over the country / world, it's much more than that. At QuiltCon I was surrounded by friends, role models, and creative artists. The people who have paved the way in the modern quilt movement are not some stoic group of officers, rather they're sweet and welcoming. I can see how much heart and soul went into planning this gathering. Many people volunteered their time and energy.

I'm proud to say that I'm a part of this movement. For the most part we are a group of caring, accepting people who love what we do.

Sew Thinky Thursday: Week 6

Are you ready for an easy Sew Thinky Thursday question this week? 

What is your favorite color of Kona Cotton*? How much of it do you keep in your stash? Is there a solid that you always find yourself running out of? 

Kona Curry

My favorite Kona is Curry. You're likely to find snippets of it sneaking into many of my sewing projects. I love the way it pops against my normal color palates (blues, pinks, greys). It's pretty amusing that my favorite Kona is a yellow, I don't think that I'd identify my fav color as being yellow in any other circumstance. If someone randomly walked up to me and asked my fav color I'd likely tell them blue - I'm much less picky about blues so there's that. Ironically I don't usually have Curry in my stash - I use every bit of it as soon as I buy it. :) If I had the money I would consider buying a bolt of it... but I actually think my using just a teeny bit is part of the novelty of it. That little pop is all a project needs!

Wouldn't these make a lovely little bundle? Some shop should market the "Emily" Kona bundle - Just saying. 

Other favorite Kona colors of mine include Lagoon, Peacock, Lime, Grass green, coral, melon, pomegranite, cerise, berry, ash, coal, and charcoal. 

You can find images of all the Kona colors on Robert Kaufman's site.

*Feel free to respond using your fav solid fabric type. I know some people swear by other brands, but to me Kona is still the standard. I know the quality to expect when I buy Kona, and I have a color card so ordering online is easy. This post is in no way sponsored by Kona... although I'd really adore if someone felt like making me an official Kona spokesperson (is there such a thing). LOL 

Now it's your turn to share your fave Kona color! Blog about it, then come back here to link up your post! Be sure to check out the other posts linked up and leave them some comment love. Everyone loves comments.

QuiltCon: Classes

There were so many workshops offered at QuiltCon, and I was lucky enough to get into two of them.

First off I took Free Motion Quilting Negative Space with Angela Walters. Angela and I have some mutual friends, and I've admired her work in so many different quilts. Her style in quilting is so profound, it's absolutely breathtaking. Obviously I wanted to learn from the master right? Her class was really great. We worked through most of the class time sharing a long arm machine with a partner, alternating turns. Angela introduced several different quilting designs and gave us tips and techniques that were really helpful. I really felt comfortable in this class. 

The long actual quilting was a lot of fun. I took the time (and the space) to practice my samples in actual size (rather than shrinking it down), since quilting too densely is a common problem of mine. I have done several of these quilting designs on my domestic machine, but it was a lot more fluid doing it on the long arm. Seeing Angela draw out the designs for us helped me to figure out a better way to transition from one flower to the next in the floral filler (I had tried this before, but this attempt was so much more uniform). 

I really enjoyed this class. I feel like I'm confident enough to take a quilt to rent a long arm, or to borrow a friend's long arm. Also I had the chance to ask Angela for tips on how to go about doing my crazy idea for long

arm quilting my {Modern} Robin quilt!

***

I also took the Marmalade Quilt class with Elizabeth Hartman. She's a great teacher, and I really enjoyed getting to meet her and see her work up close. I really took this class because I've been a long time reader of her blog, and it was one of the first blogs that I used and referenced when I was just beginning quilting. I learned how to free motion quilt from her tutorials. I did not take this class to learn how to make the quilt - I'm not very interested in following patterns. It is a nice quilt though. I made almost two blocks (a little smaller than her blocks), and I have the intention of putting them into a doll quilt or pillow cover. I really enjoyed the class all the same. 

This is Elizabeth's version of the Marmalade Quilt.

I enjoyed the chance to learn from these two ladies this weekend. Both have been an inspiration to me for a long time, and it was great to meet them in person. 

EEE Swap: Emily, Emily, & Elaine

Silly EEE's posing for a picture at QuiltCon

I am pretty lucky that in my quilting and blogging journey I've met several awesome quilters in real life. Many friendships are built online first, then continued after meeting. Two such friends are Emily and Elaine.

The three of us met through blogs/flickr/our guild's bigtent page, and then met in real life at a Chicago Modern Quilt Guild meeting. I've got a funny story about how Emily gave me a ride to my first CMQG meeting - without ever meeting me first. The whole way there we were both trying to make sure the other wasn't a cereal killer. LOL.

Either way, the three of us became friends, and at some point last summer/fall we decided to do a swap between the three of us. Each of us making an item for both of the others.

Well... we're really good at deadlines. Our first swap date was to be "after Thanksgiving"... which was pushed back to "around Christmas"... lol. Well we've decided that swapping in person is going to be better - so we'll swap at QuiltCon (did I mention Elaine moved across country?).

I decided to make a Pretty Pleats Tote for each of them.

I didn't worry so much about making something that Elaine would love. Hers was fairly easy once I decided on the pattern. I used Anna Maria Horner's Feather Bed block pattern (altered to fit). When it comes to fabric I used some Denyse Schmidt and Shot Cotton paired with a scrappy mess of Anna Maria Horner fabrics. I wasn't too worried, since I know Elaine and I have very similar taste when it comes to fabrics. 

For Emily's I worried. Yes, she's my best friend but man she has opinions about fabric! lol. Having a background in art means that Emily has very specific likes and dislikes when it comes to color. So, wanting to make something she'll really love, I made her list her favorite Konas (off the top of her head) so that I could match my fabric choices to the color card to see if I was on track. (I previously did not notice the warmness or coolness of a purple....). I think I captured Emily's colors pretty well. For hers I did a bit of free piecing with a couple cute flying geese blocks. It was really fun and challenging to work outside of my normal color scheme! (Sorry to my regular readers, I'm repeating myself... that's what happens when you write blog posts way ahead of time).

Before starting either of these bags I sketched and listed all the things I wanted to include, so I didn't forget to add my three prairie points to the lining of their bags. I also remembered to add a loop of super awesome AMH ribbon for them to clip their keys.

I just couldn't leave well enough alone, and added a tiny coordinating mini dumpling pouch to each of the bags. The dumpling pouches as well as the totes all have some little simple hand sewn details. For that added touch of love to the project. :) 

Picture taken by Alyssa / Pile of fabric

EEE Swap (Left to right), Pillow covers made by Emily B. Totes made by me. Composition notebook carriers by Elaine.

Doll Quilt Swap 13 Sent!

I'm so excited to share my quilt for DQS13! 

First up is the quilt that I made. I was super excited and nervous when I received my partner assignment. I've known and respected Elizabeth for years. We were in a bee together for two years (I still don't know how I got into that gig!), and we've generally known each other around the blog / flickr world forever. I really love Elizabeth's style and her quilts are fabulous. We have a lot of things in common, our fabric choices are similar, and she loves paper pieced stars too. (she's pretty much the modern paper piecing guru with her BOM!).

I was first inspired by this quilt that I found in Elizabeth's flickr faves / pinterest. I've adored this quilt too so I decided to try my hand at doing a sampler of sorts - but with the twist of the low volume background that it seemed Elizabeth likes (texty fabrics too). 

It proved to be a lot harder to really do it justice given the size constraints. In the end I used some improvisational piecing to put it all together. And major sad face here, I managed to lose my hand sewing kit on a trip back home - inside the kit was a finished (not photographed) attempt at the "Camelot" blocks. If you know me you know I don't particularly enjoy hand piecing.... I didn't have it in me to sew another 30+ 1" pieces together. :(

Fake piped binding and prairie point signature.

I bound it using the fake piped binding look... which was a bit annoying. The last time I did this sort of binding was years ago and I remembered loving it... I think I've grown a lot in precision since then. This wasn't as precise as I would have liked it to turn out. I do love that jolt of pink though. And I'm proud of myself for remembering to include my little signature, the three prairie points. They always make me smile. 

Some little extras, a boxy pouch and some AMH ribbon.

In the end I hope that Elizabeth likes it. I decided I don't really care for the scrappy low volume look for backgrounds, it feels so busy to me. I can't get over it. It was too late to change it though. I do love the look of the text prints if they were used individually as a background.