Block of the Month

I'm a really informal kinda gal, and I like to avoid a lot of rules and formality if I can. If the situation requires it, I'll lay down the law, but in general I prefer to keep things fast & loose and let everyone have a good time and do their own thing.

Where am I going with all this? Well, I'm the leader of our local New Orleans Chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild, and we're a pretty small group - maybe 10 members or less, and usually only about 5-6 people are able to regularly attend. We're all about the same age and have similar personalities, so we get along great and usually our meetings consist of chatting/gossiping, showing off our projects, and then sewing the remainder of the meeting. We've been doing that for about 2 years now, and I felt bad because I was worried people weren't getting enough out of the group, and that doing the same thing month after month might get a little boring. Our meetings are about 3 hours long, so I thought it might be fun if we used the first hour or so of each meeting to learn a new block from C&T's 99 Modern Blocks (not gonna lie, I might have been inclined to choose that book because my quilty BFF (and former member) Angela makes up a tenth of it *wink*)

We kick-started the block-of-the month in February, and our first block was the Pogo Stick (on left). Our March meeting was last Saturday, and we learned the Wonky/Parisian Star (on right). Can you believe I'd never made a Wonky Star block before? I've always liked the pattern, just never had an occasion to make one before. I couldn't believe how incredibly easy the pattern was!

I'm color coordinating my blocks each month so that I'll have a sampler quilt by the end of the year. And surprise! I'm using my new favorite combo - pink and navy (see here and here) - for this quilt.

And RE my post yesterday, hot pink is the only color pink that I openly love and endorse....pastel & "regular" pinks...not so much. I'm a giant bundle of contradictions - what can I say? LOL

I used a Free Spirit solid (Hot Rose) for the background, and that piece of Japanese loveliness in the center is a Suzuko Koseki scrap that Ayumi sent me. I heart Ayumi :)

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Color Burst Quilt

 

I finally did it! I designed my first quilt pattern and I'm crazy excited about it. I feel like Will Ferrel in that scene in Elf when he runs in, flings his hat across the room and shouts "I'm in love! I'm in love! And I don't care who knows it!"

Even better, I'm putting together a pattern and hope to have it in my Etsy shop within the next week or two. Super excited!

I made it for the Modern Quilt Guild's Project Modern: Challenge 4. I've been wanting to try my hand at patterns for a while, especially throughout the different Project Modern Challenges, but always ran into two problems...1) I never had the time because I was busy working on a bajillion other projects, and 2) the designs that pop into my head rarely translate well into fabric. But one day, when I was driving home from work, I randomly started thinking about bar graphs...and how cool that might look as a quilt block. One thing led to another, and I ended up with "bar graph" blocks set at a 45 degree angle that formed little bursts! It was a beast designing them in EQ7, and even more of a beast deciding on the construction. I went through about 4 different piecing methods starting with 18" blocks set on point and trimmed, and ended up with a much easier (and more accurate) paper piecing method.

For the back I used Kona Ash and the leftover prints from the front. I cut them into strips and pieced them so they'd look like a precariously stacked tower of books. I wanted it to look wonky, but just sturdy enough to stay upright (if it were a real stack of books).

The binding is more of the red Joel Dewberry Baskets

 

I was feeling lazy when it came time for the quilting, so I almost copped out and did free motion as usual, but I felt this quilt deserved some straight line quilting to augment the design. I'm so glad my laziness didn't win out this time, lol!

And since it's kinda hard to make out the block design from the first photo, here are some more detail shots  of the front. Each "burst" is made out of 4 blocks, so there are 16 blocks total (finished quilt measures 48" x 48")

 

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More Retreat Fun

The project I worked on for the majority of the retreat were these two bee blocks for Kristy in Bee (A Little Bit) Japanese. She sent each person two different adorable Japanese fairy tale prints and some quilter's linen, and asked that we make two blocks roughly 12.5" in size using Oh Fransson's Mod Mosaic pattern. Mine came out around 13" so she'd have some room to play with when she trims. I really like the final look of the pattern because it's got a cool stained-glass window effect, but I'm not sure if I'd enjoy using it again. Cutting, sewing, and ironing all those little pieces was really time consuming...it took me about 4-5 hours to finish both blocks...yikes! It made me feel a little bit better about being 2 weeks late with my blocks, because even if I'd desperately tried to squeeze them in during the move last month, I never would've finished in time.

Block #1

(sorry about the blurriness in the bottom corner...dang humidity on my lens!)

Block #2

And here's a little something extra from the retreat for you! I made tacos with guacamole & chips for lunch on Saturday, and Kelly & Angela asked me to share the recipes on here. Hope you like avocados, because they run rampant in this meal :)

Kaelin's Taco Spice Blend

(I make this in bulk and keep it in an airtight container in my pantry.)

2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp cayenne

1 tsp basil

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ginger

Combine in a small bowl and blend with a fork. Store in a small container or shaker jar.

Tacos & Salsa

I use ground chuck for my tacos because it's a 'splurge' dish for us, and we like the extra flavor and moisture the fat gives. But feel free to use ground round or ground sirloin for a leaner, healthier dish. The salsa is spooned over the beef inside your taco - yum!

for Tacos

1 lb ground beef

1-2 tbsp Spice Blend (see recipe above)

Fresh or store-bought tortillas

Olive oil

Place ground beef in a skillet (I always use cast iron) and sprinkle seasoning evenly over beef. Cook on medium-high until no longer pink. Drain excess fat and set aside.

Drizzle olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan and heat to medium-high. Once pan is heated and the oil easily runs around the pan, place 1 tortilla in the oil. Fry for 20-30 seconds on each side. Fold in half and place on paper-towl lined plate. (Note: if you dont' fold it immediately after frying, it will harden and crack when you try to bend it later).

for Salsa

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 avocado, diced

2 plum tomatos, diced

1/2 red onion, diced

1 Lime

1/2 tsp cayenne

Combine black beans, avocado, plum tomatos, and red onion in a bowl. Grab your lime and before cutting, firmly roll it back and forth against your counter a few times (this makes it easier to juice). Slice in half and juice the lime over the bowl. Gently toss. Sprinkle cayenne pepper over ingredients and gently toss again. (Note: if you get too violent with your stirring, the avocado will start to get mushy...and no one wants that!)

Guacamole

I eat the guacamole with chips as a side, but my husband likes to slather it on his taco along with the salsa. To each their own :)

from "Bride & Groom: First & Forever" cookbook

6 large avocados, roughly chopped (save 1 of your pits!)

4 plum tomatos (or 1 large heirloom), diced

2-3 garlic cloves, minced (depends on size)

1/4 of a jalapeno pepper, minced (I usually cut two 1/4" slices from below the stem)

1/4 cup cilantro, tightly packed

Juice of 1 lime

1-2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp cumin

Place your avocados in a large bowl and mash with a potato masher or fork. Once the consistency is fairly smooth, stir in remaining ingredients. Place the pit you saved from one of the avocados in the guacamole, because it will help keep it from browning so quickly. Serve with tortilla chips.

Happy Eating!

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A Room with a View

As you know, we had our NOLA Modern Quilt Guild spring retreat this past weekend. Ray's amazingly kind aunt and uncle have a massive 3 bed/3 bath condo in Gulfport, Mississippi, and they were gracious enough to let me, Lana, Kelly, Angela, Cherie and Karen invade with our vast quantities of sewing stuff :) It was like paradise compared to the old, spidery house we stayed at in Baton Rouge last time. They had blackout blinds over the windows and the floor was so dirty my feet were black after walking around for 5 minutes. I kept referring to it as Shawshank during our stay, lol! They charged over $100/person and the lady remembered to tell us we'd need to bring all our own linens and towels, but conveniently forgot to mention there'd be no toilet paper, paper towels, trash bags, etc...yikes! That was an interesting thing to discover, haha!

Instead, we got to drink our coffee out here in the morning...

And have a Modern Family marathon while relaxing on these plush sofas - ahhhh!

And you see those lovely pillows on the sofa? Well those were made by the talented gals in our group as a 'thank you' present for our hosts! They're actually 26" down/poly floor pillows, but they looked so cute on the sofas that we left them there for the time being :)

We found an awesome home decor fabric shop right down the street from our condo called Ole River Fabric. It was one of those diamond in the rough places that you could easily drive by 100x and never notice, but their prices and selection were amazing! They had some gorgeous Ralph Lauren fabrics on sale for $2/yard, and the fabrics pictured above were only $7 (stripe) and $10 (floral) per yard. Don't you love stumbling across places like that? If they'd carried quilting fabric, I'm sure they would've had a bolt of mythical FMF Gray Seeds, lol!

We also found some cute flip flop fabric for $4/yard, so we couldn't resist buying some to make a 3rd pillow for the kids room. There are two sets of bunk beds in there and the grandkids always gather around the bottom of the beds, so I thought the extra floor pillow would be perfect to throw in there :)

Front

Back

I can't wait for them to see the new pillows when they come down in a few weeks!

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Mini Rituals and a Mail Organizer

The New Orleans MQG has developed kind of a mini ritual whenever we have a Weekend Sew: Chick-fil-A. We meet around 10, talk and swap fabric for (at least) the first hour, finally get down to brass tacks and start sewing, and by the time noon rolls around, someone declares that they want Chick-fil-A, orders are written down, and someone goes off as the official food collector for a couple Spicy Chicken Deluxes and Dr. Pepper. Then we sit on Angela's floor and watch TV (this time Glee) while munching and chatting. So. Much. Fun.

Needless to say, I don't get much sewing done, but fun is always guaranteed at our get-togethers. We're very much a New Orleans guild...laid back - and there to spend time with one another more than to do the work at hand, haha! I kid. We all work our hearts out on our sewing during the weekdays...it's just that we enjoy being around eachother so much that we can't help but get distracted...and I love that so much about our group! I'd rather have fun than be productive :) I have a feeling our odd humor, inside jokes, and my general loudness might end up frightening people when we're at the Sewing Summit together...because we're all night owls and will probably be making a ruckus in the sewing rooms until 3 am, haha ;)

I brought three projects to work on Saturday, and ended up barely finishing one. But I'm glad I focused on the one I did, because it's a mail organizer to hang beside our door. We really needed one because our mail always ends up scattered around the house in "crap piles" (what I like to call stacks of miscellaneous paperwork that gradually appear on all our tables). Plus it was a UFO that had been nagging in the back of my mind for months. I've had the fabric cut and ready to sew for almost 8 months, and it wasn't a hard project, so I have no idea why I kept putting it off.

I got the pattern from One Yard Wonders, and while I really like the design of the organizer, I suggest you read through the directions a few times before starting, because they can be a little confusing and there's one major error that I found. At the beginning of the directions it tells you to cut 4 lines every 6 inches starting from the bottom of the main panel, but when you get to the end of the directions, you realize they meant you to draw 4 lines every 6 inches. If I hadn't read through the entire pattern before I started, I would have been royally screwed...so now you can avoid that mistake should you decide to make an organizer for yourself :) Hopefully I just have a weird copy and it's been corrected in later printings.

 

There are four pockets: in, out, bills, and misc.

And here's a picture of the back so you can view the Echino cheater print in all it's glory. This is from one of their first lines and I've been hoarding it since 2008. I still have about a yard left I think I'm gonna use for a sofa pillow in my living room :)

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Clearly, the fame has gone to his head.

After reading about how cute he was in all the comments, Whiskers has become a bit of a diva. He says it's time he took a more hands on approach (since the blog is named after him), and decided to oversee my "photo shoot" last night. You can see more evidence of his constant presence if you check out the top right corner of one of the photos below.

I have lots and lots of pictures today - yay!

This is the latest 3x6 Bee block I received in the mail from Mollie 2010. Isn't it GORGEOUS?! I can't stop staring at it when I'm at home :)

And this is some fabric I purchased from The Fat Quarter Shop. It arrived this weekend and I couldn't wait to show you guys!

(From L to R: Timeless Treasures Pac-Man, Sanctuary Zen Garden in Gray, Sanctuary Zen Garden in Sherbert, Riley Blake Wheels in Orange)

A few of us NOLA MQG ladies had a little get-together on the North Shore this weekend (reality: Angela and I invited ourselves to Karen's house and arrived bearing gifts of fabric and chocolate because her birthday is in a few days!!!). We then muscled our way into her fabric lair, where we freaked out over the fact that she has a HUGE munki munki quilt top she's been withholding from us for months!!! Can you believe her nerve? Then we raided her fabric bins and stole her leftover Munki Munki scraps, with the promise that we would pay for them with our own delicious fabric scraps at our meeting this Thursday :) I love swapping.

I also swapped Angela some Heather Ross Horses in Green for some precious green Katie Jump Rope flowers. I LOVE SWAPPING.

Karen also gave me a quilt. On her own birthday weekend. Who does that?

Look at the wee baby robots! She's so amazing.

And naturally, three members of the Modern Quilt Guild couldn't have a get-together that didn't involve a fabric store! It would be borderline sacrilegious. So we made a trip over to a shop in Mandeville called Bright Hopes. Conveniently enough, they were having a sale on the best fabric lines in their shop. Angela and I bought the last two yards of the orange Park Slope print. It's odd how I keep finding that fabric line on sale in LQS's, because it's a fairly old one. All of the prints below were on sale for $4.99/yard....how awesome is that? I made out like a bandit!!!

(From L to R: Nicey Jane Welcome Road in Sky, Nicey Jane Hop Dot in Sky, Nicey Jane Swing Toss in Pink)

(From L to R: Henna Garden in Spring, Park Slope Leaf Dots in Orange)

(From L to R: Michael Miller Ta Dot in Moss, Amy Butler Garden Maze in Green)

(From L to R: Amy Butler Martini Dots in Green, Tula Pink Bird Cage in Brown)

And just so you can see what kind of antics I'm having to deal with, here's another shot of Whiskers doing quality control. He was inspecting/sniffing all the fabric to make sure it was up to par ;)

Also, one commenter had asked if people outside the New Orleans area are welcome at our meetings. I couldn't reply to your comment directly because it was set to No Reply, so I'll have to answer it on here! You are more than welcome to come to our meetings, and you can visit our website at http://nolamqg.webs.com/ to get all our meeting info!



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A Very Merry Fabric Birthday

You know you have a sickness when the only thing you want for your birthday is fabric. If someone had told me when I was 10 that one day I would desire nothing but yards and yards of fabric for my birthday when I was older, I would have thought they were crazy or a liar. I did a lot of damage this weekend, but shopping is always more fun when you're spending someone else's money...hehe! The world's most awesome mother-in-law (mine), gave me gift certificates to our two local quilt shops this weekend!!! My birthday isn't until tomorrow, but due to my office hours I'm only able to get to our local quilt shops on the weekends...and she knew I'd be chomping at the bit if I had to wait 4 days to use my giftcards...isn't she so thoughtful? Nod your heads yes :)

So here's the rub. From The Quilted Owl I bought the above fat quarter bundle and an ADORABLE vintage style Santa tablecloth that came in a precious matching fabric envelope! (sorry...I forgot to take a picture of that one!) I'm a sucker for vintage Christmas items, plus it reminded me of my grandma's house...which made me sad and happy at the same time since she passed away at Easter this year :(

I thought the FQ bundle would be sweet for a baby girl quilt. The Quilted Owl doesn't carry any modern fabrics, only vintage reproductions and a few batiks...but you know what? I'm not a subscriber to the belief that you can only use modern, designer fabrics if you're a modern-style quilter. I try to be a pretty open-minded person and I think if we turn our nose up at traditional fabrics and write them off entirely, we're no different from the quilters that are dismissive of the modern quilt movement (or machine sewing for that matter...hehe!). Do reproduction fabrics typically suit my taste? No. Do I gravitate toward them? No. But whenever I go in their shop, I always find some fabrics I can use. Always. I think if I mix these up with some of my modern pink fabrics and a chocolate brown Kona, it'll be a pretty awesome fabric party. Nuff said.

Next up is a FQ bundle of the entire Wild Thyme line. It was 35% off at Mes Amis. Party on Wayne.

And here we have a smattering of delicious fabric flavors. Nicey Jane + Love + Weekends = Awesomeness.

And this is a picture of all my loot from the weekend. Happy Birthday to me!

P.S. Has anyone see this video? I die every time at the "happy birthday to the ground" part!!!

P.P.S. Check out the awesome corduroy bag I bought from my friend Mandi. We had a MQG holiday party on Friday night and she was showing us all her leftover bags from a recent craft fair. Can you believe no one bought this??? I would be outraged, but it meant that I got to buy it :) Believe you me, as soon as she pulled it out of her Show & Tell bag o' magic tricks, I swooped in with my eagle talons and snatched it before anyone else could get any wise ideas.

And look at her smug decorative applique stitching. Do you know this crazy woman actually free-motioned a puppy AND a dinosaur onto a baby quilt during our recent quilt retreat? She was like "oh it's easy...just like drawing!". Whatever devil woman. I'm not buying what you're sellin'. To test her casual dismissal of free motion, we started yelling out things she should try and "draw" onto the quilt...and that's how the dinosaur was born. Guess she showed us ;) Moral of the story: Never test a woman from Texas. You'll lose every time.



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MQG Retreat: Last Project - Apple A Day Tote

I was going to post this tomorrow, but I'm too excited to wait!

Isn't it great to finally make something that's been floating around in your brain forever? I have this irrational fear that I'm going to think of something awesome and then forget about it before I have a chance to make it....which is why I keep a notebook with me at all times - so I can frantically sketch my ideas before I get distracted. It would be so much more convenient if I could just think things into existence...BAH!

This idea popped in my head as soon as I saw the Farmdale line, and I wanted to make this tote much sooner so I could start taking it to the market back in September, but you know how that goes. I don't care so much for the rooster prints in that line (they give me nightmarish flashbacks to the abundant number of country apple & rooster themed kitchens I saw growing up in Kentucky), but I love the apples. Apples are so tasty. And cute. And fragrant. You know, people never really think of apples as a fragrant fruit, but they really are. I was in the produce section of Whole Foods the other day, and when I walked down the aisle where piles upon piles of shiny, delicious apples were stacked, the whole area smelled so sweet and wonderful. Mmmmm. My favorites are Cortland and Honeycrisp...what about you?

And in case anyone's wondering, here are the dimensions I cut for each piece:

Exterior: 15" x 20" (1/4" seams)
Lining: 15" x 20" (I used 1/2" instead of 1/4" inch seams so the lining wouldn't be all up in the exterior panels' grill)
Straps: 4" x 36" (I'm pretty tall so I need long straps...plus there's nothing worse than a bag riding up into your armpit)

Leave a comment if you'd like me to scan and upload the apple & leaf templates I drew. They're not pretty because I free-handed them on a piece of graph paper, but it'll save you a little work!

I also used interfacing on all the pieces...lining, exterior, handles and even the leaf & apple pocket. After I'd cut out the pocket pieces, I drew some quick lines with chalk to mirror the sketchy lines of the apples on the Farmdale print. Then I stitched over them with lime green, green, and bright red thread. Once that was done I sewed the pieces together, turned it right side out, and secured it on the front panel. It's big enough to easily hold any cell phone or a small set of keys. Voila!

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