Bookworms Unite

I've barely darkened the door of my sewing room the past two weeks, because I have a new addiction. After arguing with Ray that I didn't want a Kindle for the better part of a year because I "prefer the feel of a book in my hands", I finally caved. He was right *sigh*...I don't know when I'll finally accept that he knows me better than I know myself.

So yes, I got a Kindle. And because I have mutant reading powers + a propensity toward tunnell vision, I've read 7 books in the past two weeks. Which is why my sewing room has cobwebs it in...and I haven't even felt tempted to blog...and I don't feel guilty about it at all...

Sewing and books are tied for 1st place as my most loved hobby, and frankly, I owed books some backlogged quality time. I've burned through Insurgent, Bitterblue, City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Lost Souls,  Princess of Mars, and Last of the Mohicans (did you know ebooks of Classics are free? FREE I TELL YOU!? God bless public domain books...now I can download and read all the Classics I've been meaning to get to for years...because they're FREE!!!!!)

The only thing I've made recently is this cover for my Kindle....and I'll warn you the photos are kinda crappy because I was in the middle of a particularly riveting plotline and couldn't be bothered to worry about the lighting outside or taking extra time for decent photos.

I scoped out dozens of online Kindle cover tutorials before settling on this tutorial from Clover & Violet, because I liked how clean & neat & professional it looked. They makes the cutest things, and the binding looks so much better than birthed edges! I know I'll sound like a jerkface saying this, but I think most (but not all!) handmade iPad/Kindle covers look handmade - lumpy and kinda sloppy - but it sure beats being ripped off and paying $30-$40 (!!!) for a manufactured cover.

 

I made a few minor modifications because my Kindle was a different size than hers, plus I wanted something a little sturdier since I planned to keep it in my purse at all times (where it was bound to be jostled around quite a bit...I'm rather violent with my purses).

I eliminated the pocket on the right and instead cut two panel pieces for the lining (so I could hide the ends of the two lefthand elastic strips in a seam). I also added a very thick and sturdy piece of interfacing (Pellon Peltex II Ultra Firm) under the right lining piece so my Kindle would rest on a stiffer surface. And then I quilted the front & lining together (stretching the elastic pieces out of the way) before adding the pocket on the left. I love that they included that pocket for cords and whatnot so I can keep everything in one place :)

And in case you're wondering about the fabrics, the exterior is one of the Viewfinder prints from Melody Miller's Ruby Star Rising, the interior is Essex Linen in Sand, the pocket is a navy dot print from Joann's, and the binding is a Houndstooth print from Denyse Schmidt's Aunt Edna line for Joann's (it looks AWESOME paired with Melody Miller's collections!)

(P.S. If you have the basic Kindle like me and don't feel like doing the math, shoot me an email and I'll send you the dimensions I used for all the cutting!)

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Testing, Testing....1, 2, 3

I couldn't help myself. I'm a sucker for pleats, so tested a second bag (there are 4 variations...see my first bag here) from Michelle's soon-to-be-released Pretty Pleats Tote pattern. I actually finished it at our girly weekend, and have been toting it around town ever since.

This time I went for the pleated center panel, and finally broke out my long-hoarded Echino Sunglasses print. I always knew I wanted to make a summer bag with it, but couldn't settle on a pattern. But you know what they say - good things come to those who wait! I honestly couldn't be happier with how this bag turned out...and I've been getting mad requests from friends & fam for one just like it (which is no surprise, because Michelle is a bag-designing genius!)

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I used "Woven in Navy" from Lotta Jansdotter's Echo line for the lining.

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Pretty Pleats Tote

My friend Michelle has been working on an awesome new tote pattern, and I tested it out for her this weekend. The pattern offers 4 variations of the same bag, and I chose to do option #1, which has a ruffled body. Here's a peek at some of her samples so you can see all the different variations the pattern will offer...

I'm a sucker for ruffles, so as soon as I got the pdf from her, I knew this is the one I'd be making! I used an Amy Butler Love print for the main exterior fabric, a green houndstooth print from Urban Chik's 1974 line for the lining, and the fussy cut center panel is from one of my all-time favorite Japanese prints ever - a Strawberry fabric from Kokka (thanks Ayumi!).

 

I know it leans toward the childish side and looks like something a 6 year old girl might carry, but I don't care! I think it's adorable and I can't stop staring at it or parading it out of my sewing room and forcing Ray to praise it yet again, LOL.

What's really nice about this bag is that in addition to having 4 different options, it's fully reversible and also looks the same on the front & back...so when you pick up your purse, you don't have to worry about finding the "front" before putting it on your shoulder.

This is technically the "back" of the tote. See? Looks exactly the same on either side!

Michelle's pattern should be ready soon, so if you want to scope out more examples of this pattern before it hits her shop, check out Kelly's version here, and Ali's version here!

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Tag Team Quilt

I'M FINISHED!!! One year later, and I finally finished this quilt for Ulrike!!! And I hope she doesn't mind, but I went ahead and named it the Tag Team quilt since she made the top, and then "tagged" me to go in and finish the rest :)

For those of you not familiar with the story behind this quilt, about this time last year my friend Ulrike contacted me about finishing a baby quilt for her. It was for a mutual friend who lives in the States, but it would cost a royal fortune for her to ship a finished baby quilt from Germany to the U.S., so she mailed me just the top, and I created the backing and put it together for her :)

The top was so fabulous that it took me MONTHS to decide on how I wanted to style the back, because I really wanted it to complement the front (and do her gorgeous work justice!). By the time I got the back done, the holiday season was upon me, and I was in full-on handmade Christmas present mode from then until the end of the year. I emailed Ulrike at the first of January to let her know finishing this quilt was priority #1, but a week later all my neck craziness started, so that pushed this quilt back another two months.
 

But I'm happy to say I finally finished binding it this weekend, and this beautiful quilt will be on it's way to a new mom tomorrow morning :) The thought of a chubby, happy baby rolling around on this quilt makes me incredibly happy. I can just picture him staring at all the bright colors and shapes, and finding little pieces in the quilt that will be his secret "favorites" as he grows up - Ulrike did such a fabulous job :)



I free motion quilted this using a cyan Sulky thread. I normally use Gutterman, but Sulky thread quilts like a dream when you're doing FMQ!

And below you can see my favorite bit of the entire quilt! I love that wonky little Owl & the Pussycat block...so sweet and whimsical :)

And here ladies and gentleman, is the back I made for the quilt! Again, the thought of pudgy little baby legs rolling around and pointing at the numbers and letters makes me wanna squeal! (I have a serious case of baby fever right now, in case you hadn't noticed, lol!)
 

I paper pieced the numbers & letters using templates from Kumiko Fujita's 318 Patchwork book, and I meticulously fussy cut those rainbow strips from an Ann Kelle stripe print. Her fabric is so perfect for kids projects and I have an obscene amount of it hoarded for future babies (not to mention serious yardage of her red & black Scottie print for Sir Whiskers projects!)

 For the binding I went with the new gray dot print from Denyse Schmidt's Aunt Edna line for Joann's. LOVE how it turned out - I seriously couldn't be happier that everything finally fell into place with this quilt! I think this is the first time I've ever made a quilt, and in the end felt like there's nothing I would go back and change. And it's the best feeling ever - I feel so creatively satisfied when I look at these pictures :)

And since the letters are a little hard to see from the shots above, here's a closeup of all the paper pieced text. Mmmmm....scrappy goodness!!!

Hope you all had a lovely Easter! I had a beautiful day full of worship, family, photographing quilts in the beautiful sunshine, peanut butter cookies, napping on the sofa with Ray and Sir Whiskers, and Indiana Jones/Jurassic Park movie marathons...all in all, the perfect Sunday :)

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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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Cherry Blossom Mini

 

I finally feel like I'm getting back into a groove with my sewing. I'm able to sew for short periods without having to wear my neck brace, and I'm not sore afterward - yay! I still have to limit myself to hour or so sessions, because I don’t want to over-do it and land right back where I was at the start of this whole mess...but I’m fine with that little compromise as long as it means I can sew again!

I started this project because I wanted something small and manageable that I could finish fairly quickly, and because I wanted to feel like I actually accomplished something for the first time in months! Binding this quilt has been slow going because it requires me to look down the whole time, which is the hardest thing for my neck (and it makes some of the fingers on my left hand go numb pretty quickly). So I wanted to start this small, second project so I could work on it when binding the other wasn’t in the cards :)

 

The finished mini quilt top measures 18" x 18", so each blossom is 6" square, and each "petal" is 3" square (pattern found here). I raided my pink scrap bin for the blossom fabrics, and for the center of the blossoms I used a leftover scrap of a Sweetwater "Sunkissed" print in Gray. The background fabric is Annie’s Seed Catalogue in black. I normally hate pinks and blacks (especially together, because it makes me think of Debbie Gibson and the 80’s), but in photography, art, and other mediums I always see those sweet little pink Cherry Blossoms paired with blacks and grays, and IMHO they just don’t look as pretty paired with anything else!

I have to laugh at myself over my color choices though, because I can’t help but think of what my friend Angela would say about it! I’m picturing her chuckling to herself at her computer as she reads this, since it contains so many colors I have repeatedly professed to hate, lol! I remember telling her on multiple occasions that I hate both pink and black, so she always enjoyed pointing out how much pink was in my stash whenever she came over ;) I told her it was a necessary evil, because a quilter needs a little bit of every color (especially if you sew mostly for other people!).

Well, despite all my protests to the contrary, it seems Angela knows me better than I know myself! Because I truly love this quilt :)

The next hurdle will be deciding on the backing...I have about 10 different ideas swirling around in my head, so I need to sit down and make some executive decisions this week. It's times like this I miss having Angela just down the road from my work - I really need another lunch-break brainstorming session with you Ang!!!

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Plugging Along

I managed to finish 2 more Tallahassee / Cherry Blossom blocks yesterday, which I should be happy about, but I can't help but be annoyed by my slow progress. I long for the days when I could marathon sew and finish this mini within a week! (*forlorn sigh*)

One thing I AM happy about is that pink Flea Market Fancy block. Even though that print wasn't included in the recent reprint, finally having my hands on a ton of new FMF has made me feel more free to use what's in my hoard.  It felt good to finally use my scrap of Pink Tiles for this project, because it looks so darn cute as a wee cherry blossom....much better than it did sitting folded on my shelf for years! Plus I like knowing that a good friend will eventually have this treasured fabric hanging on her wall :)

And I guess I can't be too crabby about my tortoise-like sewing, when I receive giant packages full of Orla Kiely goodness from dear college friends (you know, the one I have annual craft swaps with...here and here)! My friend Dana lives in NYC, and as she was strolling through town the other day, she stumbled across a shop with an ungodly amount of cheap Orla Kiely goods!!! Knowing I'm as obsessed with Orla as she is, she offered to be my personal shopper and pick up an extensive list of goodies for me :) 



I have to admit, a few hours after I clicked "send money" on Paypal, a little bit of buyer's remorse kicked in, because I went slightly crazy. But as soon as I felt the scarves for the first time yesterday, I knew I'd been right to get 5 of them! They have an amazing hand and feel like wrapping a cloud around your neck. And I mean, c'mon, they were only $12 each! Yes, you heard right - only TWELVE DOLLARS for Orla scarves that feel like heavenly clouds of fluff.  Ahhh.....





And the tank tops are pretty darn cute too. Can't beat $20 for a designer tank with a stick! I bought an extra of the bottom one so I can turn it into a pillow for my sewing room :)

And being the wise and all-knowing friend that she is, a tiny trio of chocolate bunnies from a fancy NYC chocolaterie was slipped into my package. Unfortunately, Mr. Dark Chocolate Bunny met an untimely demise before this photo was taken. RIP - you were delicious Mr. Bunny and a credit to your kind.

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The sweet, sweet taste of victory

Me and my redheaded self are doing a merry little Irish jig in the living room right now. I finally found a copy of 318 Patchwork Patterns by Kumiko Fujita yesterday, and Ayumi was kind enough to have it shipped to her house. She's going to forward it to me in the States, and I'm beyond ecstatic.

I love Ayumi's blog and have read it for a few years now, but she doesn't know me from Adam. How incredibly nice is she to help a stranger get a book from half-way around the globe? I love quilters :)

I can't wait to get my claws on this book and get sewing! Tell you what, Ray's gonna have a time dragging me out of my quilting lair once it arrives.

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Hercules! Hercules!

Remember this bag? Well I stopped by Rachel's blog today, and saw that it had been chosen as a finalist in the Wearables category! I spent the next 5 minutes being giddy and doing the Nutty Professor "Hercules!" clap to myself in my cubicle.

Please go vote for me if you think my bag is worthy! And maybe do the clap....changing the chant from "Her-cu-les!" to "Vote-for-me!"...LOL!

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Celebrate Color

I love big bags. And I've been itching to make a new fall bag to go with a wallet I bought the other day using a sweet Groupon deal I stumbled across. So after Michelle bought a copy of my Wristlet pattern the other day, I went snooping around in her Etsy shop and found this pattern. It was love at first sight. Big slouchy bag meets big slouchy redhead. And to give me an extra push, I saw Rachel's post about the Celebrate Color project - FUN!

It didn't take me long to find the gloriously Fall-colored Echino Story print for the exterior, and I decided to pair it with some seasonally appropriate chocolate corduroy I picked up at Joann's. I love corduroy. It makes me think of my grandpa because he always called corduroy pants "whistle pants" :)

So here's to my favorite season of the year...to having a new home with a porch where I can set carved pumpkins and hand out candy to sticky little fingers...to holiday baking and apple cider...to crisp breezes and crunchy leaves under bike tires.

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