Almost time for a picnic.

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.

 

Idea in the works

I’m thinking about renting a space at the antique store.  I’ve wanted to do this before, when I was making cards, but I figured it was to expensive. That is not the case though. I found out that for a decent sized corner display near the front of the store it only cost $30 a month.  I figure that if I start working on some “stock” after I get back from Minneapolis then I may open my “booth” in July or August.

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!

 

Tulsa Modern Quilt Guild

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.)

 

Opps!

Just in case you didn’t know, this is the incorrect way to thread a bobbin.

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.

 

Plume obsession

I suppose I need to find a better time to blog than on Fridays because that doesn’t appear to be working out very well. I guess I will try posting periodically through the week, but sometimes I just don’t have anything to blog about.  Luckily for you, that is not today. There is plenty to catch up on.

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.

 

Don’t Mock the Smock!

I suppose this doesn’t really count for the pattern challenge, but since I haven’t picked out a pattern for my birthday dress yet, this will have to due.

The Best of Sew Simple Magazine

I’m suppose to be using this book to teach a Spring Break Sewing Camp at SewFlakes later in March. Unfortunately the two projects I’ve done out of the book so far have proven that the instructions are faulty, not making this the best book for beginners.

Following the instructions for the Smock Top I had to rip out seams twice, though the second one was mostly my fault. When it came time to attach the band to the bodice piece of the top I totally disregarded the book. I wouldn’t suggest that anyone get this book who didn’t already have some knowledge of how things are suppose to go together properly. Thankfully, Chris, my boss, was close by the whole time I was working on the top and she was able to show me how to make it all work out.

This is the finished product.

The main fabric is an Alexander Henry.

After going through the complete process I’m confident that the next time I make this top it will come together a lot quicker and easier. (Touch wood.) In the mean time I’m glad to have this done. Now I just need to get a new seam ripper since mine is dull!

 

Birthday Dress

The Big Huge Mondo Sale at SewFlakes this morning was an insane success! We had people lined-up down Main street waiting to get in as soon as we opened at 7:00am! When I arrived at 7:06 (36 minutes after the time I was suppose to be there…go figure!), via the back door, I had to maneuver my way to the register. Once I got to my “station” I didn’t move from it until 1:45pm! Yes, we were that busy!

All this makes me so glad that the employees were able to shop at the discounted rate for an hour after close of Friday. If we hadn’t been able to I might not have gotten the perfect fabric for my “Birthday Dress”.

Pure Silk

Most of my pictures are taken after dark, so the fabric isn’t as dull as it looks in the here. This silk piece was in the sale area already marked down 50%, but because of the sale it was an additional 50% off! The original price was $24.50 a yard, and bought 3 1/4 yards for $19.91! It is going to be perfect for a cute, fun, flirty, but not to “flaunty” birthday dress.

My only problem is not knowing what pattern to use! To help solve this I put all the pictures in an album on my Facebook where my friends can vote for their favorite. Each vote counts for 1 entry into a prize give-away made custom for the winner, and each person can vote up to three times by clicking the “like” button under their favorites!

More good news about this dress is that I came across as “sew-along” type group in the Sew, Mama, Sew Forum today. It is called “Pattern Challenge” and is being hosted by Sarah.

The idea is that that you make a goal, work towards that goal, and share its progress with the group as you go. If you want to learn more, you can click the badge below.

I’ve never sewn silk before, so this is sure to be an experience. Thankfully, I have until May to get it done!

Trina

P.S. If you want to become a friend on Facebook, please include a short note with your friend request letting me know where you found me. Thanks.

 

New Projects

…as if I need more projects!  These are “work related” though so that has to count for something extra!

Being the youngest at SewFlakes has it’s advantages! Like this evening a new book came in for me to review. My homework is to go through the book, make up some of the projects, and decide which ones I want to teach to beginner seamstresses, i.e. kids during school vacations. I actually really like the idea, besides it is a book I get to use for free – definitely a plus!

The Best of Sew Simple Magazine

Like I said, I just got this book this evening, but by the looks of it, it is going to be awesome. I already went to Kinko’s and had one of the purse patterns enlarged. FYI, Kinko’s was able to enlarge the pattern by 400% on a single sheet of paper for something like $2.42. This is so much easier and cheaper, labor wise, than piecing a gazillion regular sheets of paper together – more accurate too.

The next project I’m planning on is this quilt.

Cartwheels by Tula Pink

I will show a little self control though. While I can’t wait to make this, I will wait until I finish making my quilts using the “1974” fabric. At least I will try to wait, it is just so darned cute.

Last thing for the evening, I promise. The ice storm we are suppose to get starting tomorrow morning might knock out the electricity. Thinking ahead about this I went to the store and picked up a few things to be prepared.

I didn’t get bottled water, or stock up on canned foods. Instead, I found a pack of 3 flour sack towels at the Dollar General for $3. If the electricity goes out I won’t be able to use my sewing machine so I will do some hand embroidery instead! These towels are softer than the towels I’ve seen at regular craft stores so not only will they be easy to stitch, but they will also be practical to use once they are finished – Bonus!

It is going to be a fun weekend!

Trina

P.S. I didn’t forget about the scrap bag give away I promised to have. It isn’t the end of January yet, so I’m not even running behind on it.  I will have the details posted later this weekend, saying we don’t loose electricity.  Also, the Tula Pink pattern will be available in the SewFlakes Etsy shop tomorrow.

 

Now for the fabric…

Oh I bought so much fabric! I hadn’t really planned on getting any at all, especially since I work in a fabric shop, but once I laid eyes on the beautiful pieces I couldn’t resist!

It started off with just a few pieces on the first day:

Save the Planet Recycled Canvas by Fabri-Quilt

The black piece was from Prairie Quilt, but then I lucked into finding the white piece at Patchwork Place. I got 1/2 yard of each so I can make market bags out of them.

Amy Butler Dots

I got these from A Joyful Soul Fabrics. They carry all of Amy Butler and Heather Bailey’s fabrics, and they keep them in stock as much as possible so it is available if you are ever 1/2 way through a project and realize you need more.

So see, for not intending to buy fabric at all I did well for the first day. I only walked away with the equivalent to 1 3/4 yards of fabric. Not bad..

Then comes the second day. The day I went crazy after I found a shop, Legacy Patterns*, carrying almost the complete line of a super cute fabric priced at only $2.00 per fat quarter!

*I can’t find their website right now, so I will post about it later.

I was only going to get this colorway.

1974 by Urban Chicks for Moda

But then I couldn’t resist getting the rest of the color ways.

Really I did resist for a while because there are three other pieces missing out of these collections. I thought I could go without them, but then I had a chance to sleep on it. By morning of the third day I figured that I might as well get the last three pieces that Legacy Patterns had available because I might miss my chance to do so later. (Besides, getting them at the show allows me to avoid shipping costs. *smiles*)

I still don’t have a picture of the last three pieces, but they really aren’t anything special, they are more filler pieces than anything. However, I did go back to Patchwork Place and buy 4 pieces of Art Gallery fabric that I had eyed on the first day. (Sorry the pictures is bad.)

I love the dandilion piece next to the dots.

What is sad is that had I had more money I would have gotten yardage of the 1974 line! As if I really need more of it! Now that I have so many pretty fabrics that actually match I can’t put off putting some quilts together. Not that I was trying to put them off before, its just I didn’t have a robust enough stash to have a good starting place. It is time to get busy! I have to find some way of supporting this addiction!

Trina

P.S. The ending count for the weekend was 2, 1/2 yard pieces and 31 fat quarters. (The equivalent to 8 3/4 yards – a record amount for me to buy at 1 time, by 3/4 yards.)

 

Gets worse before getting better

Okay, the cleaning and rearranging process is almost done. Man oh man, what a chore this has been. I almost don’t want to post this picture because it is such a mess, but I don’t think you can fully appreciate the finished project unless you see a before picture first. Well, actually this isn’t even a real before picture.  It is more of a half-way point picture.

In this case it really did get worse before getting better!

Holy cow! What a mess it was, and still is. (Never mind the ironing board cover, it has seen better days, and I haven’t been able to find a new one that fits correctly. …Its okay though because I hope to replace it with an ironing table within the next couple months.)

I’m still not finished, as you can tell by the next picture, but it is getting there. Slowly, but surely. I should be done picking it all up and organizing by the end of the weekend.

Almost done

I decided to put Taylor, my dress form, on top of the chair because it is the living room after all, and it is nice to have optional seating if we happen to have guest. FYI…the bag on the shelf below the sewing machine that is on top of the yellow thread box is full of scraps I will be giving away later.  I still have quite a bit more fashion fabric to go through and put on the bottom shelf. Not to mention that the second shelf with the quilting fabric needs to be refolded and organized! Still, its nearly there.  It is going to be beautiful and functional when everything is finished.

I can’t wait, until its done. I will give a pictoral tour when it is. For now I leave you with a picture of our Miniature Schnauzer, Gracie, getting a helping of vitamin C. (Seriously, she prefers vegetable scraps over doggy treats!)

One Healthy Puppy!