friday (miscellaneous)

I've been reorganizing my photos on my computer and realized that I have a few projects that I meant to share but never did. This is a boxy pouch I made when I went to Sew South in March! I had thought I would write a blog post specifically about the retreat but. . .  you know how it is, right? Anyway, Sew South was wonderful! It was so great to not only meet so many of my blog friends in person (including one of my best blogging friends) but to actually spend the whole weekend with them (and make new friends as well!) Another tidbit about this pouch (made using a leftover piece from this) is that it is the first time I used interfacing.

We were all sent home from Sew South with plenty of quilty swag including these charm packs. And one of these days I'll actually make the quilt that I planned for using these - yes, one of these days.

My daughters have been baking nonstop this past week. Which is great and um, not so great. After seeing so many baked doughnut recipes, we finally bought a doughnut pan. Does anyone have any good recipes for baked doughnuts to share?

And we finally were able to grow tomatoes - I think it only took 4 years! Not sure what (if anything) we did different this year but it worked and they are delicious.

I regularly read a few (not sewing) blogs that provide links on Fridays to random things from around the web that they wanted to share with their readers. I'm not sure if any of you would be interested but here are a few things that I enjoyed this week:

This salad from Pinch of Yum (one of my favorite recipe sites) has my family eating and loving kale (well, if you don't count the littlest members of my family.)

This series from A Cup of Jo about motherhood around the world. I thought it was fascinating and actually read back through the whole series.

Hmm, when I started writing this post, I actually thought I had more links to share. Would that be something you would be interested in (my providing random links to sewing and non-sewing things)? It wouldn't be every Friday (and it wouldn't even necessarily be on a Friday) but I'm wondering if I should start keeping a list of things and then when I have a few, write a post - what do you think? Do any of you do that?

And what is going on in your life this Friday?

Have a great weekend!

blog hop week #4

Well, that went by fast. This is the last week of the 2014 New Quilt Blogger Blog Hop. To see the list of bloggers from previous weeks, click here. And here is the list of bloggers to visit this week (and remember these bloggers will link you to another set of new quilt bloggers to visit as well!)

Serena @ Sew Giving

Deborah @ Sunshine Through The Rain

Jane @ Where Jane Creates

Jennifer @ A Quarter Inch From The Edge

Carla @ Granny Maud's Girl

Jenny @ Jack's Room

Sharon @ Color Girl Quilts

Carmit @ Quilting Rainbows

Jehn @ Jehnny And The Boys

Find more information about Chelsea Michal Designs, Custom Longarm Quilting, by visiting their facebook page (click here) and you can also follow Chelsea on Instagram (@chelseamichal).

And until July 31, 2014, Chelsea is offering 10% off your first long arm quilting service done by Chelsea Michal Designs to everyone who mentions "plum and june" when booking.

another pillow and a pillow question

Not much to say about this pillow. I just really liked the two pillows I made using the oakshott ruby F8th bundle that I wrote about a few weeks ago so I wanted to make a few more. For this one, I again used essex yarn-dyed linen and most of the fabrics from the bundle.

If you squint, you can see that I quilted just a few lines near the seams on each side of the more orange-y fabrics and then I densely quilted the linen. With the exception of a bright pink and a bright aqua, I don't have a wide variety of thread so I used the thread from my stash that matched best but it stands out a bit more than planned - oh, well.

Here's my question: I wonder if I need to get new cushion inserts because my pillows seem to have lots of extra fabric in the corners. I just keep recovering the same inserts - do you think they are shrinking from use? Admittedly, in real life, I don't even notice this but it really stands out to me in the photos. Still, if you have a solution, I would love to hear it! If it makes a difference to your suggestions, I basically always use the envelope method for the pillows and I do make them about 1" smaller than the insert. And if it seems that a new insert is the answer, then I'll just use the inserts I have now for pillows in my daughters' room - I doubt they'll care!

If you are looking for the fabric giveaway from Mad about Patchwork and/or the schedule for the new quilt blogger blog hop, click here.

thursday

I just got back home from a vacation with my family (more on that soon) so I'm trying to figure out what I want to start working on. I don't really like working on more than one or two projects at a time so I think I'll finish this improv patchwork quilt top that my daughter and I started a few weeks ago.

While I mixed in other fabrics, most of the fabrics in this quilt are from a fat quarter bundle of Meadow by Leah Duncan. 

I was hoping to have enough of the bundle leftover for another project but that might not happen. Why? Well, I actually made the backing for this quilt first and it is huge. I think at least half of my fabric stash is novelty prints and while I love these fabrics, I just don't use them as much anymore - at least not enough for them to occupy so much shelf space. However, instead of destashing (which I usually do by giving fabric to my daughters to use), I decided to piece a bunch of backings for future projects (well, I've only actually made one backing so far.) And yes, I could just save this backing for another project but since as I said, I don't like having too many WIPs, I've decided to make the meadow quilt top large enough to match this backing. Plus, big quilts are better for cuddling under, right?

Have you done this before? Made the backing first? Made something specifically to use up your stash of a certain fabric? Actually, it will be great when I finish the top that the backing is all ready to go - don't you think?

the quilt that almost wasn't

Back in early May, I made this quilt using an upcoming line called Feather River from Birch Organic Fabric for quilt market. I was excited to work with this line as I really liked the colors and patterns in these fun prints.

I finished the quilt top with plenty of time to spare (despite that I had just returned home from my 3rd trip in 5 weeks) and got ready to quilt it with my walking foot. Well, no point in going into details again but my walking foot was "unavailable" so I figured instead I would FMQ (free motion quilt) it. That would have been no problem a year ago but since it has been about that long since I've FMQ'd anything bigger than a mini, I kind of had to remember how!

I started FMQing the flower pattern I used to use frequently but it was just awful so I did what I don't usually do and unpicked it and put on my regular piecing foot, thinking I could just straight line quilt with that. Well, um, nope - that didn't work at all. Though I will say it has before so I'm sure stress had something to do with this :)

So, I unpicked the stitches AGAIN and put the free motion foot back on and decided to try the loop quilting you can see in the photo BUT my thread kept breaking, my stitches kept skipping, and I can't even remember what else but it just wasn't working. I put a photo with a call for advice on Instagram and within minutes I had several people offering their help. Hours later, a couple of facetime chats, and tons of suggestions tried, I was still having some issues but on a much smaller scale and I was able to finish the quilt. Quilty friends are the best! 

I should note that, because of all the travel, while I finished the quilt top with time to spare, I meant days, not the weeks it would have taken to bring my machine to the dealer and get it (and the walking foot) checked/fixed. Oh, and just FYI, the binding in the above photo is the canoes print from feather river - so cute! 

Anyway, the quilt made it to quilt market and I just wrote a tutorial/pattern if you want to try this design yourself. You can find it on the Birch blog.

I really should write a post about all the helpful advice I received that enabled me to actually finish the quilt. Okay, adding it to the list . .  .

a new book bag

My 11 year old "graduated" from elementary school this week (seriously, where does the time go!?!?!) so we've had lots of family visiting. 

That coupled with the fact that my sewjo disappeared again after I finished my oakshott pillows means that I haven't seen my sewing machine for the past week or so. But for some reason, I actually was briefly motivated to sew when I had a few minutes alone during my youngest daughter's nap this week. With the limited time I had, I just wanted to sew something quick and easy so I decided to use my tutorial to make another "simple to sew" tote bag. 

The fabric on the outside is echino decoro paired with essex yarn-dyed linen and I lined it with an older print from Melody Miller.

While I was sewing this bag, I started thinking about different variations to make with this tutorial so I'm excited to try and see if some of my ideas will work (and you know I'll share them here whether they are successes or failures!)

If you are looking for the giveaway from Warp & Weft, click here. It is still open for a few more days (until June 29, 2014.)

oakshott ruby

I am so excited to be part of the Oakshott Ruby Mini Quilt Challenge hosted by Sew Mama Sew. I've been admiring oakshott fabrics for quite a while so I was thrilled to have this opportunity to actually see it in person, not to mention to use it in a project!

I received the ruby red fat 8th bundle which included 16 fabrics and I knew right away that I wanted to use every one of them in my quilt (though ultimately, I think I only used 15 of the 16.) The challenge was to make a mini quilt but I actually made, um, 3?!?!?  

Quilt 1:  For the first mini, I started by cutting a small amount off of each fabric (about 1" to 1 1/2" from the short side) and sewing them together in strips. I then sewed the strips together and framed it with a chambray fabric (at least I think it is chambray) which I heavily quilted with straight lines. As I had planned to leave the oakshott unquilted, I substituted flannel for the batting. And then I finished the mini into a pillow by adding a simple envelope backing.

Quilt 2: The pillow looked so lonely on my couch that I figured I should make it a friend! This time, I cut the oakshott into triangles and used a dark gray essex yarn-dyed fabric for the background. I then framed it with a border of linen that was similar in color to the chambray used in the first mini. I heavily quilted the linen border with straight lines (to complement the first mini) and for the gray background, I quilted a bunch of intersecting diagonal lines.

Quilt 3: After I finished the second mini, I added the large leftover pieces to my stash; however, I still had the small scraps from the first two projects - what to do, what to do. I mean, I could have just added them to my scrap drawer but instead I started sewing them together. And the next thing I knew, I had made another mini with the scraps. I sewed this one with absolutely no plan - and while I questioned my piecing choices often while making it, I decided to just keep going. 

To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about this one and I wasn't even sure I wanted to share it on my blog, at the very least not in this post. I actually had this post finished well before I clicked the publish button because of this indecision but since quilt blogging is about sharing the successes and the failures, I decided to leave it in! I think I would have liked it better if I made each section an actual rectangle instead of sewing some of  the background fabrics to the oakshott on an angle. But oh, well.

I decided to really experiment with the quilting on this one and I am so glad I did. I quilted all sorts of different shapes, used a few different colors of thread, and I quilted some of it with heavy, matchstick quilting while other parts I quilted quite lightly. Again, there are some things I would change with the quilting (including quilting more of the ruby sections) but overall, I had a lot of fun doing it and it is something I am going to definitely try again.

Thanks so much to Sew Mama Sew and Oakshott Fabrics for giving me the chance to work with these great fabrics. I definitely hope to use oakshott fabrics again! 

And be sure to visit the other bloggers involved in this challenge:

Debbie of A Quilter's Table

Jen of bettycrockerass

Malka of A Stitch in Dye

Deborah of Whipstitch

Kristy of St. Louis Folk Victorian