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Look What I Found in the Sewing Room!

I've been doing some "extreme cleaning" in the sewing room and found my stack of hexagon flowers. They weren't really lost but I hadn't done anything with them in a while. I love the way they look all mashed up against each other.  I need to make MANY more for a bed size quilt. This is definitely a long term project. Currently, there is only one flower from each print but the center colors are used more than once. I need to sew some more quilts to make scraps for this - or, gasp, cut into yardage for the hexagons. 

International Quilt Market in Kansas City

Whew. I'm home from my trip to Quilt Market in Kansas City with Brenda, Anna, and Debbie. It was exhausting but lots of fun. I learned a lot and have many ideas in my head that I need to process and write out before I forget. Right now things are swimming around in my head in a blur.We took classes, attended school house presentations, experienced the madness that is sample spree, went to the  Moda customer appreciation dinner, visited ALL of the booths, and went to the Modern Quilt guild meet up. (line for sample spree - This is the front of the line. We were in the way back where you can hardly see. The line went on and on after us too. Crazy.(Alex at the aurifil table. A table piled high with Aurifil. Heaven.)I loved meeting lots of people I know from the web. The Fat Quarterly team was just as fun in person as I had expected. Here Brenda and I are with Katy and Tacha.And here's Tia. I wish Tia were my neighbor. I think we would have lots of fun sewing together. It was a great few days - everyone was really nice and I learned tons. I hope I can go again! Next time I'll have to take an extra suitcase for the return trip. I brought home twice the amount of what I took on this trip. Crazy.

Happy Drawing Tops

When these Happy Drawing fabrics arrived from Cloud9 I could hardly wait to cut into them. Michelle said she wanted three tops the same size from the same pattern. This vintage Simplicity pattern from my collection was perfect to show off these great fabrics.P helped me go through some buttons jars to find buttons to suit each fabric. We found some gray leather ones for the elephant fabric, the perfect green for the owls and some white balls that reminded me of eyes for the frogs.I guess it's a good thing these are too small for miss P or we wouldn't want to mail them to Michelle.We do, however, have a few scraps of each fabric to play with.

Woodland Tails Skirt by P

My daughter, Miss P, fell in love with the Woodland Tails fabric by Sherri Berry for Riley Blake Designs as soon as I pulled it out of the package.  She said she wanted a skirt out of it. Sure! Since this issue of Fat Quarterly is all about sewing with and for children I thought I'd let her make the skirt. She is six and has had a little bit of sewing practice. With this project she mastered quarter inch seams and machine hemming.First I used the rotary cutter to make three 19" vertical strips of different widths from the print fabric (making sure that those little animals were right side up!). Then we chose two coordinating solids and some rick rack for accent. We cut strips of the solid fabric that were the same height as the print but also different widths.  The total width of the 9 strips was about 50 inches for our skirt.Skirt-partsShe sewed theses together to build a piece of fabric that was 19 inches high by about 45 inches wide.I helped by sewing the rick rack to the edge of the fabric.My daughter then sewed the two fabrics together enclosing the rick rack in the seam.She then turned down the top a quarter inch and then turned another 3/4 inch  (I helped with  pinning) and stitched the folds down almost all the way around to create a casing for the elastic. After pulling the elastic through and pinning it together at the appropriate tightness, she sewed up the elastic and then the last couple inches of the casing. Along the bottom, she finished with a double fold (about 3/8 inch) machine stitched hem. This length was perfect for her.She is THRILLED with her skirt and can't wait to wear it to school.

A Breath of Fresh Air and Sunshine

We had a welcome bit of sunshine yesterday afternoon and tore ourselves away from our sedentary, indoor activities to go out for a bit of fresh air.I love that these oak trees have gotten to be so big.  We planted them as little sapling twigs when we moved here more than twenty years ago. They are finally starting to look like a little oak grove, much different than the corn field that used to be here.We had a roaring good time on our little walk.

Pre-Blog Knitting

I have a couple of pre-blog knitting projects to share with you. Here I am in 2004 modeling my just finished sweater.  The shape of the sweater is from The Complete Book of Raglan Sweaters. I used Elsebeth Lavold's silky wool and needed to adjust the pattern to add more rows between the increase rows at the arms.The rose design is from Hawaii in Dalegarn booklet 122.I like the matching design on the sleeve. If I were to knit this now, I would use larger needles. The yarn bloomed a bit with washing and doesn't have the same drape as before washing. Yeah, I know, I should have knit and washed a swatch.The next sweater is Capri from the Dalegarn booklet 122. It is a simple sleevelss design with a band of colorwork at the bottom.This sweater is knit with Svale.

Instagram Photos

Narrow hand appliquéd bias strips. 1/16” quilting lines not going over the appliqué. I’m about a month in on the quilting and ALMOST finished. Whoop! Quilted with Invisalign on top and Decobob in the bobbin. Threads by @wo
This summer we watched my two oldest grand kids one day a week. Towards the end of the summer they started making projects on their own in the sewing room. They made lots of little projects from my scrap basket including pillow cases and tiny quilts
Here’s the layout with all but one block done. I’ll finish that last block when I get more of the baby poop green/mustard fabric. I put out the call and the internet provided! This top will be finished soon! This is a remake of an 1870s
I’m finally getting around to putting these stars together. I made the stars a few years ago and have been on the hunt for the perfect setting fabrics. These @carolynfriedlander prints are the perfect match for the 1800s reproduction prints in