Spring anyone?

A little over a week ago there was a foot of snow around our house, a foot!  I wasn't here because I was at camp...I didn't miss it.  Since then the snow has melted, we have actually used our grill and it has rained, sleeted and flurried.  I did also get a little sun to rejuvenate my long gone winter tan...it has been a cyclone of weather types!  

Today is a predicted high of near 90 degrees.  I am looking forward to it but I miss Spring - didn't we used to have one?  

Anyway - on to my recent addiction

berry bowl

 The youtube video I found (and somehow cannot find again), walked step by step through applique' using your machine, little pieces and interfacing.  This method was a tremendous success (more below).  This berry bowl block is done but the fussy cut berries sorta give me the creeps a little since I 'fussy' cut around flowers from a print.  Up close this looks a little alien-like so I may remake it.

Daylily

Daylily block - oh how fun was this!  Y-seams and I are dear friends now and I've had fun sewing with them.  I did pick apart a couple of seams on the above but it was worth it for the result.

This week I am going to work on the orange peel blocks and again use the interfacing trick 

Quick steps -  Trace the shape onto the interfacing, sew to right side of fabric along the line you traced (small stitch length like, 1.5), cut 1/8" around piece then slice the interfacing and turn, iron, done!  Well, the smaller the piece the fiddly-er it is to turn but it definitely works 

Here is one petal of my first orange peel.  There are 7 orange peel blocks in this quilt so I can mix and match plenty of prints and perfect my interfacing applique perhaps.

Here is a pic of what I have done so far, I hope to get a better daytime shot next time 

On other quilty fronts I received this pillow cover from Kim/KMJ Creations in the Modern She Made 3 swap - 

I so love this design and in purple - my favorite!  I can never have enough pillows!!  They just seem to scream relax to me :)  

Oh - almost forgot!  I also have a stack of gorgeous kona for an upcoming QAL - 

Retro Rubies QAL

if I can redirect my brain away from Sweet Tea and Green Beans of course.  I grabbed these lovelies while my Mom and I dropped into Fields Fabric in Kalamazoo, MI when we were traveling.  I want a store by me!  This is a JoAnn's on steroids - I could have spent a couple days in there. 

Have a great day!  K

Captivated,

I think I'm still recovering from camp

I am also super tempted to book the next camp in August - check out the instructors.  I'm weighing the timing, travel and my schedule with work - but this is a seriously fun time!  I enjoyed the other 'campers' and the time away so much that I got peer-pressured into joining Instagram.  Me?!  We'll see how social media additions and me work.

Onto the quilting front, I am currently completely immersed and 100% captivated by Sweet Tea & Green Beans.  I cannot stop thinking about it nor do I want to and believe my husband is tired of hearing about it (though her pretends otherwise)

wedding chain block

I do love a sampler quilt but this one?  I am having a blast!!  There are some challenges that are keeping this very interesting for me.  Case in point, the garden path blocks were a tad challenging to machine piece

Garden Path

I almost started that left butterfly one over but as I was deciding what to do I happened to spy my spray starch, and voila'!  Looks good enough to keep.  Do you use starch?  I don't usually but have a can for ironing shirts if I need to, I think the can I have is like a decade old really!  

I know what you may be thinking here...'geez, Karen is going a little wild on this quilt with all the colors'  - I am!  It is me going way outside my box in so many ways and loving it!  Lest you think I'm creating a quilt without places for your eye to rest, I made these double pinwheels in more mellow colors, so mellow they don't look double-pinwheel-y at all

double pinwheel

Now I am on to you-tubing my way to figure out the smaller applique' for the blocks and will be trying an interfacing method this weekend to complete this block

The leaves and berry pieces are pretty small to simply cut out, turn under and machine on.  I hope the trick I found works because check out this block of clam shells...eeek! 

And yes, since you asked, that fabric is super brand new!  It's from Rashida Coleman-Hale's upcoming line Koi.  I was SUPER lucky to get this from her while I was at camp.  Think it works for a couple clams worth in the block right?  Perfect!!    

I will let you know how it goes next time, that is if I can tear myself away from this.  Have a great weekend!!  xo K

I'm back

Oh my gosh...I am back from Camp Stitchalot ~ what a whirlwind!  I had a totally amazing time!  

First off - a day of travel with my Mom to Michigan - which is a time zone away from Wisconsin which turns out to be over 500 miles each way.  

My Mom :)  Love you Mom!

The Hankerd Inn is right by a gorgeous golf course - green grass!

Then in about a blink I'm back.  How does that happen?

The place we stayed was so great, 70+ degree weather and sun + I missed over a foot of snow at home.  Perfect timing because it melted by the time I got back

 Here are the awesome projects/teachers we had ~

Katy (Imagingermonkey.com) taught a pouch class

my metal frame pouch - love it!

Rae of made-by-rae.com taught us her LIckety Split bag

my lickety split bag 

 Then these two gorgeous gals

Rashida Coleman-Hale - Iheartlinen.com

 and

Melody Miller - melodymiller.net

Taught us to make a circle skirt....which I do not have a picture of but it turned out great - even if I don't wear skirts!  I feel like I should now though really.  

There were 26'ish in total at the retreat camp and it was a very broad mix of ages, styles, sewists with so much to share!  It was great to soak up so much information and to hang out and sew!  I loved it!  

All in all it was a perfect opportunity to get away, get some hang-time with my Mom and to sew without the thought of work, chores or weather.  I want to go back now!

How are you doing?  xo Karen

Hitting the Road

I am so looking forward to a long sewing weekend away!  Have you ever done this?  I have only really participated in evening stitching sessions with my local group, or a whole day with a quilt shop but not anything like several days in a row - to sew!  

When I saw Camp Stitchalot on the pinkcastlefabrics site I just had to find a way to go.  It is about 500 miles away from me but that just means a great reason to unplug.  And...I invited my Mom to go along!  She loves sewing and quilting plus we don't get to spend so much time together anymore.  I think about 1000+ miles driving and days sewing is some heavy bonding right?  Maybe a little too much but we'll have fun :)  

My sewing machine trolley

I get to hang out with a group of sewists/quilters, by a lake, with sewing machines, and fabric, thread, cutters, rulers, notions, bags...yikes - sort of like packing up my entire sewing room right? :)

My grocery bags are coming in handy for sewing traveling.  The tutorial I use regularly is here and I highly recommend it!  I plan on working away on a bunch of projects that are part of our weekend plus a couple projects of my own like this one

I couldn't wait to start this and dove right in on the hexy block

Machine piecing hexies was a breeze, slow going but worked!  I created a freezer paper template, cut the pieces all out and followed this tutorial for piecing.  A couple of the fabrics are not working for me and it may be re-done but we'll see how it works with the other blocks as I add to this one.

The quilt pattern includes templates...not a fan at all of templates am I!  So, I drafted some paper templates for some of the more traditional (non-applique') blocks and I've stored up great advice from several tutorials on machine/turn-needle applique.  We'll see how far I get!  

I hope you all have a great end to your week!!  xo K

Finished Granny

I so love hand stitching my binding down!  It is so relaxing and a nice finishing touch - do you agree?  Sometimes I don't want to finish a quilt because I loved working on it so much I want to extend out the finishing process.  Case in point:

See in the background?  Of course we still have snow - but, predictions of 60+ degree weather this weekend has my husband envisioning grilling season kick-off.  I am all for that, he can cook :)

Back to my quilt - the fabrics I used here are organic from Birch fabrics and they are so wonderful to sew with, very soft!  It occurred to me that this is a perfect baby quilt size as it finishes at 39 x 59 -but I think I'll keep it for me.

The gals in my bee Quilting Under the Rainbow helped so much with the assembly of these blocks.  The tutorial for the granny square block is here.

When I sent the fabrics out I included an extra strip of Kona snow for them to send back with names/locations and blogs (the reason I really want to keep this!).  I put the set of signatures together and attached them to the backing - all quilters included!  

The minute the binding was finished this went in the wash as I so absolutely love a crinkly quilt!  It is a perfect quilt to hang in my sewing room, now I just need to find space :D

I also participated in the monthly fabric swap group on Flickr for April and was paired with Cynthia (check out her Flickr stuff - truly amazing!)  For this swap we send 4 fat quarters, a sewing notion and perhaps a sweet treat or two.  Cynthia is in British Columbia Canada and we've been emailing back and forth about the swap plus - here is what she sent me

I have a fabulous mix of 3 fat quarters plus a pile of great scraps (we opted for scraps in place of 1 FQ)!  I love it - plus, she sent me a clover hera marker.  I have never seen one in quilt shops around me for some reason so Cynthia sent me one!  The chocolate she sent was gone in about a instant too.  Thanks Cynthia! :)

p.s. - Thank you to those of you who supported my decision, I ordered the Sweet Tea and Green Beans pattern book and I'm already picking out coveted fabrics for this project.   Can't wait!  xo K

A nearly there finish

Does your sewing machine have a permanent home, well by permanent I mean does it sink into your table?  I have never had a table like that so instead had my extension table butted up against my machine which was on top of an old plywood desk.  Until now...look what I invested in

Here's a potentially better pic

The minute I received the boxes I wanted to assemble.  I waited though - until after work at least!  I have a 6500 Janome and there is a table from Janome that fits this machine and can accommodate other Janome machines.  I wasn't thrilled with that option so searched around and found one from Missouri Sewing Co.  Maybe a little pricey?  Ya...but less than the Janome table!  Plus it's a little bit bigger.  The construction on this table is great and my machine has a 'home'.  Yay!  The table is adjustable too which helps considerably with my usual sewing backache.  

Of course, the minute it was completely assembled I had to baste a WIP and get to FMQ right away.

I had this granny square top done and even posted a picture to Flickr in August last year.  It has blocks from my awesome fellow bee mates of quilting under the rainbow.  I can't wait to show the back with everyone's signature block.
  

I just didn't get around to finishing it until now, guess all I needed was the new table :)  The only other WIP I have is my Farmers Wife which ....well, let's not go there today!

For the back and binding on my granny square quilt I emptied 4 of my cool comic book fabric cardboards

which is awesome as it frees up space for more fabric right?  Heheh.  Oh - take a look out my window - unreal

Not too easy to see but that is indeed snow - on April 19...and ice too.  Bah!  Anyway, I'm going to be finishing my granny square quilt and will post more info and a finished pic next time.

I'm also thinking of my next quilt and I am having a hard time finding something I want to dig into.  So, I was thinking of this - 

Pic from the Amitie site

what do you think?  I love applique' and have plenty of fabric and scraps....let me know if you have any suggestions for something similar ok?  Have a great weekend  xo K

Good deal

It is still kinda overcast and blah here in the Midwest and I heard more snow is coming.  Good for the lawn, trees and gardens.  I'm choosing to be positive about it!

OH!  I finished my Holiday in London Duffle bag!

I risked freezing a bit so I could get some natural light pictures, overcast and cloudy as it is.  I must say that I am seriously loving this bag!

For the zipper I used a double zipper so I could open it from either side and I am so glad I did!  I really wish I had used one for my Weekender bag too.

The pockets on the outside translate to the same pockets on the inside

which will be great for tucking in keys, cell or fabric I just need to buy while traveling, right? :)  I really love the long strap on this bag too which is detachable.  

This bag was fairly easy to put together and fun to watch take shape.  There are multiple layers with interfacing but I only broke 1 needle!    

The lining and exterior are put together in a truly funky/new way to me which actually turned out pretty cool.  I'll try to explain it.  The bottom panel exterior is sewn along one long side without sewing in with the lining (right sides together) then you turn the bag right side out to then tuck in the other 3 sides to the bottom panel for a whip stitch.  I was able to use my sewing machine for 3 of the 4 bottom sides with some contortionist-like finagling resulting in a need to whip stitch only one short side.  Better for me as I truly am not so great at hand stitching!

This bag will hold quite a bit and I know I will so love having it with me when I got to Ann Arbor in a couple weeks!  Perhaps both this bag and my weekender will travel with me along with sewing must-haves for sewing weekend.  

Up next I picked up a Trimmings package from Umbrella Prints and was thinking that I'd submit an entry into their annual contest...then thought I wouldn't...but now think I just might!  I have a plan in my head so now just seeing if it can come to life.  I'm pretty excited to start! 

This is what I start with!  Such great prints!  I will be sure to have fun :)

Have a great day  xo K