hoop-la-la swap - received

Yeah... Like three months ago. I can't believe I haven't written about it on the blog yet considering how fantastically freaking awesome it is. Better late than never, right?

Jennie from Jennie's Threads made this for me during Allegory's hoop-la-la swap back in November. It's English paper pieced and she showed such an attention to detail! See that sewing machine there? It's pieced from 1/4 inch hexagons. Incredible.

She wrote a pretty detailed post about it way back when she made it, won't you go check it out and leave her some love? She deserves it. Go on... I'll wait. She even sent along some of those teeny hexie templates for me to play with, if I ever work up the nerve.

So anyways, it's hanging in my sewing room and I love it to death. The intricate piecing, the lovely use of vibrant color and low volume. The intermittent hand quilting for texture. Plus tiny patchwork and EPP are totally my thing, she gets me.

Spot on, Jennie! Thank you so so much and apologies for not bragging on it sooner. I'm just plain slow at most things these days.

little house in the woods

Here is the project I made for Allegory's hoop-la-la swap. I was going to wait until I received mine and blog about both at once, but if it's headed from overseas it could be a while yet and I'd like to post this fall-themed project before the snow hits!

My partner was Cori, who blogs over at Let's Eat Grandpa. She's an editor and a ninja and incredibly creative, go check her out (but come right back, or else!). I got started back when the leaves were just beginning to change color, which inspired me to pull this scrap piece of Fall Trees in terracotta, a Bella print by Windham Fabrics.

From there I grabbed a few scraps and some embroidery floss and posted this picture to the Flickr group for feedback. Cori said she loved my idea of a little house in the woods, which was good news because I had had my heart set on it by that point! I did raw-edge applique, attaching the pieces with a washable glue stick before stitching them down by machine.

I used fusible interfacing on all of the pieces, including the background, to lessen the transparency of the fabrics and to give it a more stable feel. There's also a layer of batting on the back. Then I added some bits of embroidery here and there just to pull it all together.

There's a liberated feel to it, what with the frayed edges and wonky stitching and all. I figured it would look fine in the end, and while there are trouble spots (think right there in the trunk between the bottom limbs on the tree to the right... ick!) I really love how it turned out.

I finished it off by hot-gluing some yellow duck cloth to the back and orange ric rac around the outside. Then I wrote on the back with one of those ink pens meant for fabric. Finding my hot glue gun was quite an ordeal, it hadn't been used in years and was in the very last place I looked (ha, isn't it always?!).

It actually hurt a little to part with this, I was very much in love with it by the time I was done! I actually entertained the thought of making another one for myself, but there isn't enough left of the tree fabric for me to do that, what a bummer. Here's hoping Cori finds a nice spot for it in her home, I'm sure she will!

I'm linking up with Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday, go have a look around!

pouch, pincushion and scrap swap - sent!

Hey there, look what I made! Kris of Duke Says Sew What and I decided to do a little pouch, pincushion and scrap swap and here's what I came up with.

For the pincushion I made another teeny tiny granny square, although this one is teenier still, those little squares measuring in at a half inch each and the overall cushion at 2.75 inches. Oh how I love tiny things! I've got one in the works for Nicole of Bold Goods (See? I haven't forgotten!) too, just as soon as I can stuff it and stitch it closed.

In my last post, I mentioned wanting to try raw-edge appliqué on my Hoop-la-la swap project. Having never done it before, I decided to Kris's pouch as a guinea pig, trying two different methods just to see what would happen.

I used geometric print quilting cottons and yellow duck cloth for both, but the one with the diagonal lines felt right to me at the time and was bigger, so I went forward with that one. Although I do plan on playing with the second version after I get my Hoop-la-la project done... which needs to happen tonight because the deadline for sendoff is tomorrow... eek!

I used cotton batting and washed and dried before construction so it would have that crinkled look. The dense, straight line quilting and frayed edges ended up creating a pretty nifty texture, I thought. You can't really get the full effect from these photos, which are a wee bit over-saturated. At any rate, I stuffed it with scraps from my bin, that black and white dot print in the first photo is what I used to line the thing, although I didn't seem to get any pictures of that before I mailed it off. Whoops!

Would it be fun if I started a Pouch, Pincushion and Scrap Swap group on Flickr? Would anyone be interested in joining in on such a thing? Maybe around ten-ish people, secret partners, rules and deadlines, etc. Small scale, nothing insanely complicated or time consuming. Could be fun I think. Let me know! EDIT: hitting the pause button on this until after the holidays, we all have way too much on our plates until then!

*I'm linking this post up with Amanda over at Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday! I finished my Hoop-la-la project today but won't be able to blog about it (crazy busy weekend ahead!) so while I would have liked to link that, I'll link this instead!*

Sent from my iPhone

really random thursday

Ready for some random thoughts? Ok, here you go!

I'd kind of forgotten about Allegory's hoop-la-la swap that I'd signed up for a while back, but I pulled some fabrics yesterday and came up with a plan.



I'm thinking a little house in the woods with a bit of embroidery, too. I might try raw edge appliqué, which I've never done before, or I'll do needle turn. Do you think raw edge is lazy, or cool sometimes? I don't want my partner to think I'm lazy, but I think it might be neat for something decorative to hang on the wall.



Another thing I need to get moving on is the pouch and pincushion swap I lined up with Kris (of Duke Says Sew What, I totally forgot to link to her when I first posted this, eek! my bad!)... Like a month ago! We didn't set a deadline, but it's time to get cracking. I've pulled some fabrics for a zip pouch but haven't worked out a design just yet...

Also, I way overestimated the amount of candy to buy for trick-or-treaters. I had two giant bowlfuls and extra bags just in case. But only eight kids stopped by in a span of four hours, can you believe that? I kept telling them to take as much as they wanted but they'd still only take one piece. Go figure!



Here's Lucy the race horse and her rockin' hot devil mom. Although that little sequined bow tie looks vaguely like something a chippendales dancer would wear, doesn't it? Noted. Jon (who wore Shrek ears all night and looked absolutely adorable) loves scary movies (I do NOT) so we watched The Mothman Prophecies and ate Little Cesar's pizza. Not all that scary, really, but pretty good! Without many trick-or-treaters, though, it was a relatively uneventful evening.



Oh and check out this super cute pincushion that an Instagram pal (@satoi_yuen) sent me all the way from Hong Kong! Isn't it sweet? I'll need to make her something to send in return, add that to the list!



And here's something exciting, we're getting a new fermentation tank installed at work! It's a big darn deal and everyone was buzzing around taking pictures and watching in anticipation. They were still getting it situated when I left today, but the cranes should be gone by tomorrow.



We use tanks like this to grow bacteria for agricultural purposes. To put it simply, legumes (think soybeans, peanuts, peas) + our products = better yield! Google rhizobia and/or liquid inoculants if you're interested in more details, I don't want to bore anyone.



And then we went on a walk in the park in the brisk evening air. Lucy chased after birds and squirrels but only as far as her leash would allow. Ah, fall is such a lovely time of year!

I'm linking up with Cindy's Really Random Thursday, because as you can see its Thursday and this post is really random. Yeah! Ok, over and out :D

Sent from my iPhone

far flung bee + project gingham

My very first quilting bee started this month! Some Instagram buddies and I began throwing ideas around a while back, but now we're actually doing it and I'm super stoked. We're calling it the Far Flung Bee because we live all over the globe, and there's six of us so we'll each be making two blocks a month, for six months. Cool, eh?

broken dishes bee blocks

Here's a post by Elizabeth Hartman that explains virtual quilting bees in case you aren't all that familiar with them. I came up with a bit of a twist for ours, though. We each chose the type of block we wanted, but instead of one person having all twelve blocks made for them in one month, we each make two and receive two. So this month I made two broken dishes blocks for Deb and I'll receive two wonky house blocks from Essie. The last month of the bee each member makes two blocks for themselves.

swap charms on left, my picks on right

To make Deb's broken dishes blocks, I pulled four bright prints from my stash and four gray charms from the stack I received through the Neutral and Solids Charm Swap hosted by Annaliese @The Pewter Acorn. This was my first charm swap, and I chose to send a teal bella solid and a slate/white crosshatch (both on right) that I picked up from my LQS.

mom's old riccar

As for Project Gingham, it's been a bit of a struggle. I kind of rushed into an idea I had without really thinking it through too much. First I thought I'd use a standard sheet of computer paper with a section six inches wide running diagonally from corner to corner. I was going to foundation paper piece strips of ginghams within those strips, then add white on the two remaining opposite corners.

i haven't gotten very far

In my mind, it would have been a variation on this quilt I had seen on Alex's blog. So I went crazy cutting random width strips from my ginghams. But then I decided maybe there was a much more interesting and hopefully easier (im not so sure now) way of doing it. I made this mockup in paint (then drew the diagonal cutting marks on with pencil) a few weeks ago and had planned to go this route. Where I'd sew strips of stacked coins to strips of white, then slice and dice and end up with blocks for two different quilts.

cutting diagram

I've got plenty of gingham, I told myself. Only the green machine wasn't liking this process so I've finally switched to my mother's Riccar, which is only 30 years old... and it's sewing like a dream. So there you have it. The coffee just finished brewing and I'm about to go make serious headway on project gingham. Wish me luck!

hello again

I've been absent for a bit but am guessing no one even noticed, right? Not that I need an excuse to take a blogging hiatus, but I met a boy. He's been eating up all my free time. That's all I'm saying so as not to jinx it. 

 

Progress has been made on my EPP megahexie patchwork curtains. I took and basted a bunch in the car on a recent weekend road-trip. I like to sit and stitch them together on my front porch steps while the cat and dog play in the yard. No power cord required. I loved this post by Clare (who is hosting the piece and love hexathon) because it totally explains the awesomness of hand-sewing in a few photos and a couple sentences. Check it out!

I never showed off the lovely fabric I got through the stale stash swap. I traded with Danny, who took some of my Mendocino and sent these guys in return. What fun we had pulling fabrics and comparing stashes. 

My sewing room hasn't been touched since my best pal moved out of it three weeks ago. I think my first step will be to paint it bright white, then move everything in and organize. Soon. Ish.

stale stash swap - mendocino by heather ross

EDIT: All gone!

Apologies for the lateness and whatnot. Life. Gets in the way sometimes. At any rate, I bought a bunch of these two prints (from Heather Ross's Mendocino line) back when I was big into making bags, long before I was a quilter. I'm big on making quilts now, and nothing else in my current stash goes with them, so I'd be willing to swap them out for something bright, bold, geometric... or anything really so long as I like it! Hit me up if you're interested so we can make a deal :D

Stale Stash Swap
The rules:
Offer a FQ to swap. 
Must be willing to swap internationally.
Post the button and link up.
Update your post when your stash has swapped!

 

Mendocino - HR05Natural SWAPPED!

 

Mendocino - HR08Pacific SWAPPED!

If I did it right, clicking on the pics will take you to FreeSpirit for more info on the prints. edit: i didn't do it right, so click the links below each pic instead! This swap is being held over at Lucy's blog, Charmed About You, which you can get to by clicking on the adorable button, below. Make sure to go see what everyone else is swapping!