It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We've had snow and really cold weather already, so I'm all ready for Christmas! Another sign it's Christmas?

Frostie's Retro Blue Cream Soda!!!

Aren't the pretty?

Cream Soda, and Blue! Life is so good. I was smart this year, I bought extra cases and sent them home with Binding Guru Karen for safe keeping so that we wouldn't drink them before Christmas. Ashley and Ju, there will be some blue soda for you on Christmas this year!

We had our Sew Mod Christmas party last Friday. I love these ladies. They are the best and totally inspiring. Lorrie assembled gingerbread houses for us then had all the accouterments that you could possible want to decorate them. This will come as no surprise to those who know me, but I was covered in frosting by the end of the night. The dogs kept licking my pants when I got home.

This is Kelly's house. She made a dog run on the side.

Let's take a closer look at that dog, shall we?

We were calling him the alien dog. Considering what she had to work with, I think she did a pretty good job. He cracks me up w/those ginormous red eyes. You can see action shots at Lorrie and Paige's Sew Mod blog and at our Sew Mod Flickr group. We had a gift exchange. I got Pattie in the drawing and she loves the Rouenneries line as much as I do, so I had a good idea where to start. I found this table runner/wall hanging on a store's blog, but I can't remember which. I'll update when I find it again. I loved it, and I hope Pattie did too.

Close up:

The middle is the linen/cotton blend and the applique is wool. I used by Sizzix die cutting machine for the leaves and berries and free cut the vines. I quilted around all the motifs in the toile.

I liked it so much, I'm making myself one. That's not wrong, is it?

Shelley (Elsie's Girl) made me a totally fabulous pillow that I have on my couch. I'll take a picture asap, because you don't want to miss this one.

Another sign that Christmas is upon us, the always fabulous Christmas tree that Tammy and cohorts put up at the store:

I love this tree at night too:

It's a little fuzzy since I took it with my camera phone, but isn't it awsome?

I love the Lakehouse flower ornaments that she made. And the ric rac garland is beyond too cute.  Tammy bedazzled and decked out the snowflake at the too. It was just a plain snowflake before she got her hands on it. It makes me want to run out and get a white tree.

Well, that's all for now. I have a couple of more Christmas projects to finish up, then I can take the time to take photographs and blog some more. And have a Hot Toddy. I love that word. Say it with me, "Hot Toddy." There, isn't it fun?

 

Retreating

I had my bi-annual girlfriends quilting retreat the first weekend of November up at Evergreen Retreat in Janesville, Wisconsin. We all had such a good time, we probably each gained about 5 lbs in 3 days!  Evergreen is really a fantastic retreat location. It's reasonable priced, not that far from where we live, they provide all the 'stuff' for quilting (irons/big boards, tall cutting tables, rulers, ott lights, design walls, comfy chairs.....) and they have 3 nearby quilt shops to explore! I felt that I got quite a bit done, so that was a bonus.
I made pillowcases out of Riley Blake's "Colorful Christmas" line  for DiscoJen's kids for Christmas.

I finished sewing on the binding on the 'Plaid About You' quilt out of Lakehouse's 'Fun Flowers' black colorway. And since Binding Guru Karen was at the retreat, I even got it hand tacked down in record time. I tell you, the woman is a binding genius!

I used my water-soluble interfacing technique to mark my quilting.

I quilted the big flowers free-hand. Just to be clear, this is a panel. I did not applique these fabulous flowers.

And since this is for a baby, I used bright, lime green minky on the back. This photo doesn't portray the color accurately, it's really a lime green, like the gingham in the flower above. I love how the quilting shows up on minky.

I designed and tried to figure out how to make a commissioned tree skirt from my extremely crudely drawn design. I specifically save this to do at the retreat since I would have others to help me figure out how the heck to put this thing together. My friend Carol is especially helpful with these types of things because she's an engineer.
I started with this pile of batiks and fairy frost:

I made a circle out of the beyond fantastic red diamond Hoffman Batik. I found a ton of tutorials online on how to do this. I then used my beloved 1/4" fusible web tape and ironed under the edge.

Then I pieced together the greens into large strip sets and interspersed some thin. white fairy frost strips here and there and used one of those 9degree rulers to make wedges. I had the idea that if I could get the angles right on a quarter of the circle, then I could just do 4 of those and connect them, but unfortunately it isn't that easy. I had to make some wider angled strips, some smaller wedged strips and so on. I'm not done with it yet, but I have a good start at least. I'm really pleased with how it's turning out too.

And last, but certainly not least, I FINALLY finished the last of my Hydrangea commissioned "You Go Girl" bags!!!! It feels soooooo good to get this thing done. It wouldn't be that bad, but I quilted the crap out of the material. It took me 10-12 hours just to quilt the material, and this is the 3rd bag I've made like this! I'm really over quilting the hydrangea material!



Seriously, what was I thinking when I started to quilt it this way?!?!?!

I have photos of what everyone else made, but I can't locate the SD card with them on it, so that will have to be another post!

Catching up

It's been awhile, so here's some of what I've been up to in pictures:

I picked my first Snow and Sugar Snap peas!!!

The 'Rose that Lived' lives on one more year!

We had a most excellent fog, which always makes me preten that I'm in Scotland.

My pretty perenials are blooming. I wish they'd bloom all summer.

I started, ripped out, rethought, sought advice on then redid a Christmas wallhanging. It's the "Plaid About You" pattern by Tammy Tadd Designs made with Fruitcake fabric by BasicGrey for Moda.

The blue is more like in the first photo, but the corners are totally different now. I'll update on that soon. I'm currently listening to 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince'  and quilting the crap out of this with metallic thread. 

I have also have started:

15 table runners to make by July 10th for my friend Emily's wedding.

A baby quilt to finish by the end of July

2 'You Go Girl' bags

A horse book bag

Oh and I finished a red/white/blue Pam's Charming Bag that I will take photos of asap.

I'm off to quilt now!

Bag bling

Remember this purse:

And how the Girly Girl needed a little something?

Ends up, it needed a wool flower pin:

Much better, don't you think?

I cut the flower shapes with my Sizzix die cutter that I have to use for my card making. It also cuts fabric if you get the large sized dies. Sweet, huh? Just like Alton Brown, I love a multi-tasker!

Happy Valentines Day to all those who celebrate it. I don't, since I'm trying to avoid my bad things always happen to me on or within a day of Valentine's Day curse.

Crazy sewing

I've been uber inspired to sew the last couple of weeks. Here's what I finished last week:

This is the Joy of Sacks pattern by Tammy Tadd, made out of Moda's tooled leather look vinyl and Studio E's 'Urban Angel' line.

I made another of my Taddle Table Runner and embroidered wool candy hearts and appliqued them to the middle of the runner.

I also made a quilted pillow out of the brown linen fabric that I designed and screenprinted over the summer. This was a gift for one of my bosses. I think it turned out really well, especially since I've never made cording before. I did break down and buy a cording foot for my machine. It really made it easier to get in close to the cording.

I also made two Girly Girl purses in the pink from the Deb Strain 'Sent with Love' fabric and Micheal Miller's zebra and another with the tooled leather vinyl.  I added the buttons with ribbons cris-crossed over it. I thought it was a little plain with out anything so I sat there and stared at it for a while and the fabric covered buttons popped into my head.

This is giant ric rac that I braided together and stitched down.

I think the tooled leather purse needs a little something up top, so I have a wool felt flower pin in mind for it.
I have to say that the vinyl was not easy to work with, but I think I've got it figured out now. You can't pin it because the holes stay permanently. I had to use some clippy things to hold it together as I sewed.

Big Excitment!

Tomorrow at Tammy Tadd Designs we are having a big party to celebrate the fact that we are featured in Better Homes and Garden's Quilt Sampler magazine as one of their top shops! To see more photos of the shop, click here.

To celebrate, we are having a sale, special drawings, cake from Sweet Dreams (this alone is worth the trip out) and most excitingly (I think I just made that word up), Terry Atkinson is going to be there to demo and autograph and the such. Terry designed my favorite pattern of all time, The Yellow Brick Road. It's my go to pattern and it's what I teach my beginning quilting friends with. I've made so many I've lost count. I whipped one up this week, start to finish, in 4 nights. That's right 4 nights from ironing and cutting to binding! I did cop out on the binding and sewed it down by machine, but I didn't have time to do it by hand and get it to the store by Saturday. It would take me just as long to tack the binding down as it did to create the thing! The backing is Moda's version of Minky called Fireside. It's sooo soft! I'm calling Ice Crystals, I think. And I used metallic threads for the first time. I had to quilt slower than I usually do, but it only broke 6 or so times. I don't think that's too bad from what I've heard others say about metallics.

We had the photo session for the magazine back in April. It was really interesting. The crew from Quilt Sampler were great. The photographer was really nice and got us all smiling at the right times.

There were two exciting surprises when we finally saw the magazine. The first is that Nan, who does the long arm quilting and is the most excellent supreme store decorator has her thread catcher design featured in the very front of the magazine in the company of, now get this quilting friends, Heather Bailey, Carrie Nelson (Miss Rosie), and Sandi Henderson! Jennie and I totally freaked. I know for a fact that I squealed! I mean, 3 renown designers in the quilt industry and our Nan! How excellent is that! (For those non-quilters, a thread catcher is a heavy pincushion on the top and a baggie that hangs off the table to put your threads and fabric snippets into.)

This is the other exciting part. See that uber-girly Girly Girl purse made of Lakehouse and Ava Rose fabrics? The pink and blue one right in the middle? That's my purse! I squealed about that too. Quilting and fabric make me squeal in delight, am I a quilting dork or what? You can't see the really cute pink plastic purse handles in the photo, but you can on my Flickr site. You can also see how even though I was super careful to cut the fabric out so the roses are right side up, I wasn't paying attention when I sewed it together and one side is upside down. As DiscoJen would say, Oh Well, it's done now! I have to say, the Girly Girl pattern is quite easy and you can make is as frilly or modern as you like. Jennie made a black, white and red one that's just fabulous.

If you are in the Chicagoland area, I hope to see you at the party tomorrow! I'm pretty sure I'll be wearing a pink and green apron. Maybe I'll whip up a pink headband tonight to control my badly-in-need-of-a-drastic-cut hair!