fabric!

If you are visiting from Sew Mama Sew, welcome! 

This giveaway is from sew me a song and is for the sweet bundle of fabrics from Yuwa pictured below (4 fat quarters.)

I know you are probably going to be busy today entering giveaways but I highly recommend you visit sew me a song when you get a chance to see Becca's (the owner) amazing selection of fabrics - I am especially fond of her Japanese fabric bundles. Becca stocks several popular new releases but she also has a big selection of really cool fabrics you don't usually see - and she has a great sale section!

1. To enter, simply leave a comment on this post. Any comment will do but if you'd like a topic, how about recommending a good book? (one entry)

2. Plum and June blog followers - old and new - get a second entry. Leave a comment indicating how you are following. (one entry)

So you can enter up to 2 times! This giveaway is for everyone and will remain open until May 16, 2014 at 5pm PST and a winner will be picked at random and will be notified by email by May 18, 2014.

****And unless you are positive that you are NOT a no-reply commenter, please leave your email address in your comment.****

Be sure to stop by Sew Mama Sew for links to the rest of the giveaways!

The giveaway is now closed and the winner is KatheG who said: I have too many authors I love to read and my preferences go from comedy to light to mysteries/murder. I have thoroughly enjoyed Nora Roberts' Boonsboro Trilogy - great light Summer reading. 

Also, if you are a new modern quilt blogger and might be interested in joining a blog hop, click here for more information.

If you are on instagram, come find me - I'm @plumandjune.


Sponsored by:

an unexpected geranium

So, my sewjo kind of returned - just in a different form than usual. I am still not motivated to quilt but I did make two dresses for my littlest this week. As I wrote last week, I've been wanting to make her a geranium dress for quite a while now and I finally bought the pattern and made not one, but two!

Now I've made a few skirts and dresses that are basically just rectangles of fabric sewn together but I've never made something from an actual pattern - well, at least not successfully (and that is using the broadest definition of "successful.") But I was determined so I took out some fabric that I had bought very much on sale earlier this year just for this purpose and got ready to sew.  Well, I had bought those sale fabrics in 1 yard cuts (which is rare for me) and of course, the geranium (and probably most patterns for 2T and above) needs a bit more than that. And I seriously, have like only 5 pieces of fabric in my stash that are bigger than a 1/2 yard! So, I figured I'd use two fabrics for the dress but surprisingly, the pattern pieces fit on the yard of fabric (with even a little room to spare.)  The pattern was awesome for a first-timer - there was really only one step that I got stuck on and one step that I messed up - which I'd call a success! I was so excited when I finished and went to try it on my 2 year old and  . . .

it turns out there was a reason I could fit the pattern on just 1 yard - without realizing it, I had made the geranium top, not the dress! Oh, well. 

I haven't completely finished the top yet - I only have one button on there! I just made the buttonhole on my Juki and as you probably know - straight stitch isn't exactly the best for a buttonhole. 

Stay tuned for my second attempt - where I actually made a dress!

New Modern Quilt Blogger Blog Hop Update

A few updates:

1. Be sure to stop by Kitchen Table Quilting to read Erica's advice for new bloggers. Erica participated in last year's blog hop and has shared some wonderful advice as part of the Advice for New Blogger's Series. Find her post by clicking here. And you can find the posts from the last two years by clicking here.

2. If you started blogging within the last two years, blog regularly and primarily about modern quilting, and you are interested in actively participating in this year's blog hop, either email me (address on sidebar) or leave a comment and I'll send you more information. Please note, there are only a limited number of spaces available. You can also find more information and updates by clicking here.  Blog hop is now full.

***If you leave a comment and don't hear back from me then you are probably a no-reply blogger and I don't have a way to contact you.  Unfortunately several people who have commented that they want to participate are no-reply bloggers - so please, unless you are 100% sure that you are not a no-reply blogger, either email me or leave your email address in your comment - you can use (at) and (dot) to avoid spam issues. I've already emailed everyone who has commented so far so if you haven't heard from me, please email me!

****another update - I am getting so many comments from people who want to join but who are no-reply bloggers - if you haven't heard from me, see above.*****

coming soon

Click here for more information.

***If you leave a comment and don't hear back from me then you are probably a no-reply blogger and I don't have a way to contact you.  Unfortunately several people who have commented that they want to participate are no-reply bloggers - so please, unless you are 100% sure that you are not a no-reply blogger, either email me or leave your email address in your comment - you can use (at) and (dot) to avoid spam issues. I've already emailed everyone who has commented so far so if you haven't heard from me, please email me!

****another update - I am getting so many comments from people who want to join but who are no-reply bloggers - if you haven't heard from me, see above.*****

beginnings

Has anyone seen my sewing mojo anywhere???  I just got home from my 3rd trip in 5 weeks (all fun but AAAAH - that is a lot of traveling!) and it is nowhere to be seen. Ironically, I have lots of projects I want to start - I just can't seem to find the motivation to actually sew. The photo above is a preliminary fabric pull for what may someday be a triangle quilt.

I also would really like to finally try to make a geranium dress for my 2 year old. I know, I've been saying that for at least a year but I bought the pattern over the weekend so this time I'm serious! I've heard great things about the pattern and I love so many of the versions I see pop up online so I'm not sure what I'm waiting for.

And I want to make a quilt using these new fabrics that were sent to me from Birch. These are from an upcoming collection called Feather River. I was actually about to start sewing with these today but my sewing machine was misbehaving - ugh!

Thanks again for all the great comments on my recent posts about glue basting and pinning. It was great to hear everyone's methods!

If you see my sewing mojo anywhere - let me know! Any advice on how to find it?

charley harper messenger bags

I made a bunch of these little messenger bags for my littlest daughter back in October. She was constantly carrying around her older sisters' bags and so I figured she could use one her own size. I soon realized that these bags also worked great to store some of her toys since it is very easy for her to get everything in and out of them and all the pieces of each toy are stored together. I made the bags shown in this post using some adorable Charley Harper fabric I had leftover from this quilt.

I think I told a few of you that I would write a pattern for these and I actually did write it quite a while ago but I wanted to include a few variations and sizes before finalizing it so hopefully soon!

pins and glue

Last week I wrote about how I realized that (for me) pinning actually makes piecing easier and that it didn't actually take more time in the long run. I also asked the question to anyone reading about whether they pin and if they have any tips. There were lots of great comments and it seems that many of you regularly use pins. You can find the comments here.

The next "new to me" thing I decided to try was glue basting (with washable school glue) for a machine stitched binding. I was tentative thinking it might be messy and more trouble than its worth but I know so many quilters love this method so I figured I'd try it at least once. And, you know what - it worked really well! Any extra time taken by applying and setting the glue was more than made up for when I went to actually stitch down the binding. At first I forgot to make sure I was covering the stitching line on the back (I used the stitch in the ditch method on the front of the quilt to sew the binding) so I did miss a bit including a corner but then I realized what I was doing wrong and it was pretty much smooth sailing from there! Not perfect but so much closer than I've ever been.

So, I'll put the question out to you - do you glue baste your bindings? Tips, tricks, warnings? One of my concerns was whether it would hurt my sewing machine - I used a minimal amount of glue and I made sure that the glue was dry before sewing and I don't think it adversely affected my machine, at least I really hoped it didn't! At this point, I don't plan on using glue for basting when piecing the quilt but is there anyone reading this that does? Again, any tips?