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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Giving Thanks for Super Fab Giveaways

I've recently been lucky enough to have been the winner of two super sweet giveaways, and just wanted to share them with you along with a big shout out THANKS to their sponsors.

First, I received the most lovely package from Stephanie over at Spontaneous Threads.  I won her October De-Stash giveaway and she sent a huge box stuffed completely full of fabulous Christmassy themed things.  I was soooo excited to receive it, and overwhelmed by how many goodies fit inside.  It had all kinds of things; fabric scraps and trims, but also Christmas decorations, soaps, all kinds of yummy home decor things, adorable book plates and on and on.  What a great package to receive, especially as I love decorating for the holidays.  I haven't put my Christmas stuff out yet, I'm a staunch not-till-after-Thanksgiving girl, but it's all waiting in the wings!





Second, I won the giveaway from Tactile Fabrics which Jeni was hosting over at In Color Order.  Jennifer at Tactile Fabrics sent me the yummiest fat quarter bundle-  I love the house print the best, but there are so many cute ones in here, the pie charts, and the chartreuse with polka dots, and the yummy one right next to the chartreuse with polka dots.  All fabulous!  I haven't bought new quilting fabric in a while (my crafty money has had to go to more boring things like zippers and needles) so it was so fun to get such a sunshiny package of new fabric in the mail.



Thanks again to Stephanie, Jennifer and Jeni!  You guys totally made my day (twice!).

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

WIP: Wednesday

I've been working on a variety of projects this past week with the net result that I don't have any finishes at all except for a tote bag I made with my sister of which I forgot to take pictures.  My biggest accomplishment was spending lots of time over the weekend with Becky and Anna, something I really wish I had more of!

Finishes:

Womp-womp (none)

Progress:

Late last week I spent a bit of time quilting along on my nativity quilt, although I haven't really made enough progress to show any more (lest everyone get tired of seeing the same thing over and over again).

Over the weekend I worked some more on the costumes for the Twelfth Night festival at church.  I have two completely sewn and finished now, and one finished that I just had to do some small alterations (actually just sewing about a million bells onto a jester costume).  I have one costume left to sew from scratch (an easy servant costume), and one more costume that requires alteration.  Sadly, the one requiring alteration will probably be more of a pain-in-the-neck than the one I make up from the beginning.  It's the king costume and it was commercially purchased but is too short.  Unfortunately because of the way it is constructed, lengthening it is not quite so simple as I'd like.

Here's the one I finished over the weekend- it's actually a really simple costume, princess seams, no sleeves, no zip.  I used up a bunch of gold fabric that used to be a curtain in my closet (the center panel) and got a bit more contrasting gold to finish it off.



I also finally (HOORAY) started actually working on my Amy Butler weekender bag over the weekend.  I bought fabric a long time ago for it but I wasn't really crazy about it, so this weekend Becky and I got some different fabric and I got all the pieces cut out and the handles made. I'm so excited to finally be moving forward with this project and I probably would never have started it now except that I needed a project that I could work on while hanging out with Becky and Anna.  Quilting requires too much concentration, but cutting out all the bag pieces was just the ticket!

I know it doesn't look like much, but it's progress!  The khaki with the big flowers is for the outside and the cream with swirls is for the lining and piping/handles/contrast.



I actually also started working on the memory quilt for my friend Linda, in as much as I got out all the blocks and organized them on my design wall.  I'm still missing a few from people so I have to gather them up before I can do much more on that front.

No Progress this week/UFOs/Projects I really need to get going on:

Dog Quilt
English Paper Piecing Mini
Thanksgiving Quilt (I'm probably going to try some quilt as you go on this.  Someday. right now it's a medium sized quilt sandwich waiting to be quilted)
Sun Printing/Cyanotype Blocks
Anna Butterfly Blocks
Silk Screened Quail
Bobbin Quilting
Dream Catcher Quilt, Fabric Challenge for MQS (we got the fabric for this at MQS last year)
Secret Christmas Projects
Boxy Bag (this has been on my wish list for a long time)
Sunglasses Case/Frame Purse
Snowflake Christmas table runner
Crewel Sampler  (I'm just craving this but have thus far resisted buying it).





Monday, November 12, 2012

Hoop-La-La Swap Sent

I meant to post this last week and didn't quite get around to it amid preparations for the arrival of my sister and baby Anna-Banana.  We had such a fun time, Anna is super-duper adorable. She is crawling all around and has so much fun playing with her rattles and chewing on things.  She has acquired a consonant (B) so we were excited about that too.

I recently participated in the Hoop-La-La swap being hosted by Sew Allegorical.  The swap was for a piece of hoop art involving piecing.  Since my partner (the lovely Jessica at Plum Patchwork) received the hoop I made for her, I thought I'd go ahead and share it here.  On the entry form you could specify whether you wanted a purely decorative hoop or a functional one (such as a clock or notions pocket hoop).  Jessica said either was fine so I jumped at the chance to try making a hoop clock, since I'd been wanting to attempt one for a while.  I figured a 12 point compass would be fitting for a clock and included some fun quilting around the edge.  It's hard to tell, but the outer hoop is wrapped in the same fabric as the stripes on the front.  I embroidered "time to sew!" on it since I figure we all need more of that!  I also included the pouch on the left below (which is actually more of a purple-blue rather than the bright blue the picture shows) and some yummy scraps as extras.  All in all a very fun swap and thanks so much to Sew Allegorical for hosting it!




Wednesday, November 7, 2012

WIP Wednesday, Angels All Around

It's been a bit stressful around here lately, but I'm trying to focus on the good things and get into a "gratefulness" frame of mind.  A couple of positives- we have adopted a delicious new puppy (she's the upside down one in the middle), my sister and baby Anna Banana are coming to visit this weekend, and Mike and I are going to New Mexico for Thanksgiving in just a few short weeks.



On the crafting front, I buckled down and layered the nativity quilt for quilting.  I used spray baste to baste it, and it's just barely small enough (40 x 40) that I think that will be ok.  Any bigger and I don't think there's any way I could keep it together.  I used a sulky temporary adhesive to attach the tulle to the quilt top (to cover up any loose corners), but I think I didn't use enough or something because it didn't stick very well.    Since there aren't any ditches to stitch in to stabilize, I started by stitching around the people in the nativity.  I also stitched around some major shapes that are not depicted in the mosaic but that will be overlaid in the quilting, namely two angels (in the sky) and a sheep (next to Joseph).  I'm now starting FMQing all of it- I began by filling in the angels with gold free-form feathers, and am slowly moving on with the rest of it.  I like it so far, it makes me happy that it is getting done, but there is a lot of quilting and it always feels a bit overwhelming to me at this stage.



And here's the angel from the back.


I'm starting to think seriously about the Christmas Crafting that needs doing, but so far haven't made any progress!!


Monday, November 5, 2012

Updates on Seymour

Two pieces of great news you guys!

Amy's Creative Side


First,  Seymour is a finalist in the Art Quilt category over at the Bloggers Quilt Festival.  Head to this link to vote for your favorites.  You don't have to have entered a quilt to vote, so definitely go check it out.  There are so many awesome quilts in the running; it's exciting to have been nominated!



Second, Seymour is being exhibited at a SAQA exhibit at the Open Space Visitor Center Gallery in Albuquerque, NM.  The exhibit opens this Saturday and runs through December 30th.  The Albuquerque Journal did a story on it, so click through if you're interested (sorry for having the two random survey questions to see the article).  I'm super excited as it's the first time my work has been in a gallery show.  Any of you that are in Albuquerque should try to stop by and see it if you can,  you can give Seymour a virtual hug from me.

This is the flyer for the show.  In other awesome news, the donkey quilt on the flyer is actually a quilt my mom made that's also in the show.  I love the expression on the donkeys' faces!


Tour of Honor Mini Quilt

Mike participated this year in the 2012 Tour of Honor Motorcycle Ride.  

From their website: "The event is a season-long, self-directed ride to memorials and monuments around the continental U.S. and Hawaii, with more than 35 states participating in 2013. Beginning April 1, visit as many sites as you want, with any route you choose."

There are hundreds of sites to visit, all over the country, but he made it to all seven in Oklahoma this year.  He asked me to make him something with the pictures he took for the project, so I made him this mini-quilt.  He wanted me to take his picture holding the quilt but said something about wanting to remain anonymous on the blog today because of his hat?  It didn't make much sense to me but I swirlied his face.



The sashing is all 3/4" and I practiced different fillers in each piece.  They're all the same fabric, not sure why all the blues look different.


One of the main things I realized is that I can't free motion quilt over the printed fabric sheets.  I use the June Tailor ones from Hobby Lobby, and I've done lots of projects with them before but I've never tried to FMQ.  In the past we've just quilted 1/4" inside the pictures (with a walking foot), but on some of the larger photo quilts I've made the pictures are really starting to sag so I wanted there to be more quilting.  I wasn't trying to do anything complicated, just a medium sized stipple, but my thread was breaking like mad and skipping stitches.  I tried switching needles, I tried switching from monofilament to the YLI 110wt silk thread, but nothing helped.  I thought initially it might be my sewing machine, but as soon as I switched to a practice sandwich the quilting was no problem.  I finally decided it was just the really stiff material.  It might have worked better with stronger/thicker thread, but I didn't want anything to obscure the pictures, so I switched back to my walking foot and just quilted a loose square spiral with the YLI silk in variegated light green.  That worked ok, but if I ever do another photo project where I know I need to FMQ I'm going to try a different approach.

I think Mike really liked it, he was very excited to hang it on the wall in the bedroom, although mostly I think because it got to replace S is For...#2 (or the vomiting dragon quilt as he calls it).  I moved the vomiting dragon into the studio; it's one of my favorites, but he really hates it, so this is better.  Hope you enjoy!


Thursday, November 1, 2012

Happy Halloween (ish)

I so wanted to post this yesterday but just got a bit behind. I hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween!   I dressed up for a party last weekend (as a knockout mouse), but didn't dress up yesterday.  I had choir practice at church last night so Mike stayed home and handed out candy (under duress).

I was in charge of the Cell Biology department pumpkin carving/decorating contest this year, so just wanted to share a few pictures from it (excuse the crappy phone photos)!  Here's my pumpkin


And here are some of the others.  There was an individual category, but also a lab category, and many of the labs had bunches of fun decorating their pumpkins yesterday morning with stuff from the lab.  Here are a few of the others!