I’m finally finding time to post about Spring Market in Minneapolis. Since everyone else seems to have posted blogs already, and I have already posted these pictures on my Facebook I will just post a few, then leave you with a link to the complete album.

I bought so much fabric at Sample Spree! It was like Black Friday except shorter and more worthwhile. In a later post I will show all the ‘new’ fabric collections I got fat quarter sets of.

The award winning Michael Miller booth. We ordered some of the Antiquity collection which will be fun to play with when it comes in.

We saw a lot of beautiful architecture in downtown that will definitely serve as inspiration for quilts.

Tufted Tweets by Laurie Wisbrun for Robert Kaufman. Three of these bolts have already arrived. The fourth bolt will arrive in July. It is a darling collection. I wish we could have had them all.

I have other things to post about so I will leave this post as it is for now. To see more pictures you can visit my Spring Market album on Facebook, click here.

Here is the antique tile picnic blanket top.  Okay, okay it isn’t finished, but it only has two pieces for the border and it will be so bare with me.

Also two weeks ago my private sewing student finished her smock top! Now she is ready to start a new project.  She has decided to make a sudoku quilt. Since I knew how to make one, but hadn’t done so yet I figured I probably should complete the project myself before I teach her.  This is my finished result.

This quilt only uses 9 fat quarters for the blocks and about 5/8th yard for the sashing. I think it is a bit small though so I’m thinking of using a piece of Plume for a 5″ outer border.  I’m in the process of making my niece, Kendall, one for her 4th birthday because as I took this picture she said it was beautiful and she wants one like it.  Talk about making me feel special!  The quilt I’m making her isn’t going to be exactly like mine, in fact I think it only uses one of the same fabrics, but its going to be cute either way.

The purse I’m working on is incomplete so I don’t have any pictures of it yet, but I hope to soon. I’m also thinking about ordering fabric that matches the purse to make a skirt, hopefully in time to wear to Spring Market. That’s right, only 18 days until we leave. I’m so excited!

I’ve had the priviledge of participating with the group twice now, which has been a blast for me! To help put it in perspective: The oldest member of the group, Clara, is 83. When Chris met her Chris was my age and Clara was Chris’ current age. Now that I’m becoming friends with them, I think it is a fun idea that I’m sort of the third generation.  I really love the idea that these friendships can really last a lifetime, unlike those made in high school that we vowed would last forever and didn’t.

So anyway, I was thinking about it today, and I think it would be awesome to start another group along the same lines as “Third Hand”. In fact, I think the name should be “Third Hand: The Second Generation” or something goofy like that because this group of ladies are very talented and worth admiring.

If anyone is interested in doing this please let me know. It is a local deal since there will be get-togethers once a month, but if you are willing to travel the distance I guess it doesn’t really matter where you live. *smiles*

I loved piecing these antique tile blocks for the Quilt Block Swap group that I had to make myself a picnic blanket using the same pattern. I know. I know. I said no more projects until I finished the previous two.  I don’t really have a good excuse other than I “just had to!” If it helps any I started working on this quilt on Thursday and I have 1/2 of the blocks done already! That is amazing progress compared to usual. I should be able to finish the blocks tomorrow, and then start adding sashing at Monday night sewing circle.

Here is a preview of some of the blocks. Unfortunately the colors don’t show up as vividly in the picture as they are in reality. I can’t wait until it is finished and ready to be taken out side for a real photo shoot.

I doubt that it will be quilted until June-ish because of the Minneapolis trip, but the more I think about it the more I think I may try quilting it myself. I’m not set on this idea yet thought because I don’t want to mess it up.  We shall see.

Covered buttons will definitely be an item in my booth. I’m also thinking about some table settings (placemats, pot holders, napkins, etc.).

In other news, one of my friends from sewing circle at SewFlakes has asked me to make some aprons to sell in her new garden shop.  I have a few pieces of canvas like material that would be perfect, but I probably won’t get started making those until later next week.

There are other, more pressing things, I need to finish first. So tonight, at sewing circle I will be putting together some antique tile blocks from the SewFlakes QBS (Quilt Block Swappers) and I also need to finish the log cabin blocks for Sarah in the Quilting newBees.  I doubt that I will get to it tonight, but it wouldn’t hurt if I could get some more quilting done on my placemats.

I hope to post some more pictures in the near future.

P.S. Here is an awesome new blog geared towards Quilting Bees and picking the perfect blocks.  Its a great source of inspiration!

I’m excited to announce that Tulsa has a Modern Quilt Guild!  I attended my first meeting last night and had a blast. It was so much fun meeting new people who have the same interest and ideas in the area of quilting/sewing!

Now if I could find the time to sew more! There are so many inspiring projects the ladies are working on. I want to do some stuff myself. However, I promised myself that I would start any new projects until these two were finished. I better get a move on it because I just bought some home decor fabric from Hobby Lobby (marked down from $30 to $4), and I’m very anxious to make some “envelope” pillows. (I quote “envelope” because I’m not sure that is what the style is called, but it seems to make sense.)

I currently have two projects going, if you don’t count all the UFOs sitting on my shelf. These two projects I’m going to finish before starting another one though. (Famous last words, I’m sure!)

The first one will be a sample for the shop. I decided to test out some personal embroidery.

This tiny embroidery and the other 3 just like it are going to be pockets on some quilted placemats. I’m using two pieces of the “Make Life” line from Moda. I think they look pretty darned cute, but they aren’t finished yet so no pictures.

My other project is quite ambitious and has a deadline.  I’m not sure when the deadline is because the rules for the contest aren’t posted yet. However, I’m working pretty diligently on it because I want to be sure to have it completed.

The contest? The Tulsa State Fair quilt exhibit.

The project? A baby quilt completely hand done. I’m doing a simple baby log cabin block, similar to the “Plume scraps” block previously pictured, but with different fabrics of course. I figured that a log cabin isn’t going to even earn an honorable mention since it is so simple. However, I thought that if I hand pieced the blocks and then quilted it by hand that it might, just maybe, stand the chance of winning something.  I don’t have my hopes up to high, but I think its worth the effort to try.

It is going to be a baby size quilt using somewhere between 16 and 20 blocks (each 4 1/2-inches big when finished) with sashing, so its not going to be finished anytime soon. I hope to have the blocks ready within the next couple weeks. Then I should be able to sash everything and start quilting by the end of May. I figure the deadline is somewhere in/near August, so I plan on having the hand quilting done by the end of July.

The good news is that I’m pretty confident that once I get to the quilting part it will go pretty fast. The piecing, I think is the hardest because I’m having to match of the pieces and make sure I’m using 1/4″ seam allowances, which isn’t as easy to do by hand compared to the machine.  I hope it turns out great. If it doesn’t then at least I will have tried. Sounds like a good plan to me.

I will post pictures of this once I get some of the blocks done, and will continue to update you on the progress.

I will post more about the Bernina 830 later, but this is an example of what I learned to do and not to do during the dealer training I went to this week in Oklahoma City.

First I will show you a bad picture of my pretty dishes, that I talked about in my last post.

I know that they are avacado green and old, but they are really pretty. I love that they are Corelle – light weight, thin, but awesome quality of glass.

In other news, I’ve basically completely given up on my sewing machine. It is old and pieces seem to fall off everytime I try to use it, and fixing the mistakes seems to be more effort than just sewing by hand. So that is what I’ve been doing instead -hand sewing everything. Starting with these hexagons.

I’ve made twice as many as this, and I have a complete stack of fabric pieces ready to be sewn. At first I was going to make a pillow, but now I think I’m going to size it up to a wall hanging. I really love the light shade of teal and think that it would be beautiful to paint the sewing/living room a shade of that color, which would make the wall hanging really “pop”! (Just add painting the living room to my to do list. Ha!)

With some of the fabric scraps, since I’m using a layer cake of the “Plume” line by Tula Pink I decided to make a mini quilt block. It measures by about 5″, so 4 1/2″ finished.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, especially since I don’t really have enough scraps to make more like it, but it sure is cute.

Other than that, the only other thing I’ve sewn in the last 2 weeks is a lunch bag made with some of the blue ornamental oil cloth I bought at the SewFlakes sale in February. When I finish it, I will post a picture.

I try to spend a day with my Grandma every other month or so, of course I see her more often than that, but on this one day we actually go on a treasure hunting adventure. We visit the usual thrift store, any garage sales on the way, have lunch, and maybe run a few errands in there. Either way, it is always great fun and awesome quality time. (I’m such a Grandma’s-girl, being the oldest and all.)

Today we did everything that we normally do, but I hit the jackpot of treasure finding! At the thrift store I found a set of dishes from the 70′s. Some of the piece were marked 50% off while others ere not so I asked the cashier about them, and she gave them all to me at half price! You are probably thinking, “Woohoo, big deal, they are just dishes.” But they aren’t just any dishes! They are the Daisy Chain design from Pyrex and Correll. I have been collecting pieces one or two at a time since I found my first piece 2 years ago and fell in love with the little green daisy borders! So now I have most of the plates for the complete set. (6 plates, 5 bread plates, and 1 saucer for about $7!) This counts as the first “treasure find” of the day.

Then we went to the mall to eat lunch because its the only place that has Gyros, and I’m so on a Gyro kick lately. I really don’t like going to the mall, so we had lunch and left. We then visited The Cotton Patch where I found an aqua fabric I need for the Quilt Block Swappers group and that was it and of course a few other pieces ended up in the bag as well. (Fabric has a mind of its own, I can’t help it if it insists on coming home with me.)

The next treasure find isn’t really a big deal, but I found $10 on the ground at the gas station. I gave it to the clerk and he said since I found it I could keep it, so it paid for the gas. Awesome!

We ran a few other errands, but on the last stop of the day I hit the Jackpot of treasure hunting. We stopped at a new thrift store, not sure if we were going to find anything because it is small and a hole in the wall. However, that quickly changed when I spotted a sewing cabinet with a White sewing machine in it, marked at $3. The sewing machine is shot and not worth the cost or effort of repairing, but the table is steady. It just needs to be sanded and refinished or painted, though Erik might use it for a wood working stand instead – to mount his vice on.

So when you think about it, I either got a free bucks in gas or a set of dishes and a sewing table. Pretty awesome day no matter how you look at it.

I will try and post pictures on Sunday. Hopefully I will have my reversible smock top done by then as well.