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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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 great American weekend

I did a little more paper piecing this weekend! I find it's the easiest type of sewing for me to tackle right now with my neck issues, because there's no rotary cutting involved. I just grab some scraps, piece, and then trim the seams down.

I stumbled across this pattern a couple weeks ago whenever I was looking for star blocks, and bookmarked it for future reference. I didn't really have a set plan for using it, but then I had a moment of inspiration a few weeks ago, and thought maybe if I used different fabrics for the center and background, it would look like a little cherry blossom!

I tried it out with some pink fabric this weekend, and I think it totally passes the test :) What you see is just 1/4 of a complete block, so each block will contain a total of 4 little "cherry blossoms". It's intended for a mini quilt for a friend, and I think I'm going to make it 2x2, so the final measurements will be 24" x 24" and there will be 16 blossoms total. I haven't decided yet if I want to use 16 different pink prints, or do 2 each of 8 prints - we shall see...

So. Right about now you're probably wondering why the heck I titled my post "the great American weekend". Well, I couldn't help but laugh yesterday because I did some of the most stereotypically American things possible all within the span of a day. Not only did I quilt, but we had some apples that were spoiling, so I made an apple pie yesterday morning - and what's more American than apple pie? I totally wore my favorite flouncy apron while I was doing it. And gazed out my kitchen window while I made the crust.

It's basically a deep-dish apple pie that you bake in a cake pan (I used a springform pan instead because I thought it would make removal easier, and I was totally right). The filling was so rich and fantastic - instead of slicing and seasoning the apples and calling it a day, you place them in a dutch oven and cook them down into a soft filling with some butter, cinnamon and lemon juice. For those of you from the south, it was very similar to making fried apples. So yeah, imagine fried apples stuffed inside a thick pastry crust - pure heaven!

My husband and brother-in-law are are such good sons and spent the past two weekends helping their dad put a new roof on the house he and my mother-in-law just purchased, so I took this over to their new home yesterday morning. I figured there would be some hungry men coming off the roof for breakfast, so the 5 of us ate it as a sort of breakfast pastry with coffee. It was delish. And it was gone within 2 hours ;)

The recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Nick Malgieri's Modern Baker. I haven't found a bad recipe in it yet!

Item #3 on the list of uber-American things to do on the weekend? Grilling burgers. We made buffalo burgers with fresh basil, avocado and goat cheese. YUM!

So between the quilting, apple pie, and burgers, I should probably borrow Rex Kwan Do's American Flag pants to round out the weekend. "Nobody wants a round-house kick to the face while I'm wearing these bad boys!"

So what did you all do this weekend? The weather has been beautiful in New Orleans the past two weeks, and it makes me excited for summer to arrive! Hope you all have been having similar luck with the weather where you are :)

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Tardy for the Party

Ulrike's Quilt Top

About this time last year, my friend Ulrike contacted me about finishing a baby quilt for her. She lives in Germany, and the recipient is here in the States, so as you can imagine, mailing a finished 60" x 60" quilt overseas would be quite expensive. Therefore she mailed me the top, and I promised to make the back and finish things up. Only, this simple project took quite a bit longer than I anticipated...

Ulrike's Quilt Top

You see....*insert sheepish grin*...I'm just now binding it (these pictures were taken quite a while ago and I never got around to posting them), and I feel really terrible about taking a full year to complete the project for Ulrike :(

Part of the problem is that it took me forever to decide on the backing. I got the quilt in late Spring/early Summer and the top was so completely fabulous that I couldn't just do any old quilt back, and it took me a full 3 months (!!!) to figure out what I wanted to do. I'd decide on one thing - and then the next time I'd walk in my sewing room and see it - I'd hate it! And that's pretty much how things went for a couple of months, until I finally found a combination I loved - some Kona Cyan, Ann Kelle rainbow stripes, and scrappy Suzuko Koseki paper piecing!

Problem was, it was early Fall by the time I got the backing together, and once the holiday season hit, I just didn't have time to do anything else with it. I emailed her at the start of the year and swore up and down I'd have it finished and mailed within the next few weeks, but then the ol' neck started acting up...and here I am...Mid-March and just now in the final stages of binding. Sorry Ulrike :( ...I'll try and track down that nun from Blues Brothers and have her rap my knuckles a few times for it...lol!

My Quilt Back

But for now, I like to pretend to myself it's a good thing I'm super late, because the recipient will be extra surprised about receiving a present this late in the game (it's been a few months since the baby was born and Presentpalooza ended). Ludicrous, I know...but it helps me sleep a little better at night ;)

Front & Back of our joint quilt :)

I wish I'd taken some close up shots of the pieced letters and numbers at the time, but alas, I didn't...I think my camera died on me or something and I didn't feel like fooling with it any more. I'm almost finished though, so once I have it bound and washed, I'll snap a bunch of detail shots.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I got the patterns for the text from Suzuko Koseki's 318 Patchwork book. That book is a treasure trove of awesomness.

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Featured Follower Friday

Hey everyone! I had the pleasure of meeting Anne Marie at the Sewing Summit this past October when she helped out with the Fat Quarter Swap, and she's every bit as nice as she seems on her blog! (she's the one with the gray stripe shirt and adorable baby bump)

She asked me to answer a few questions for her Featured Follower Friday series, so skip on over Gen X Quilters to check it out :)

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Martini Block Pattern

I designed this block specifically for the back of Amanda's Swanky Squares quilt (because what's a Mad Men themed quilt without a martini?), but I decided to go ahead and make a test block for another project I'm working on right now. The recipient of this mystery gift will probably take one look at this and know it's for her - but maybe not - so I'm still gonna attempt to keep it a secret for now :)

The finished block is 8.5" x 12.5", and I put together a little paper piecing template for you guys! There are three sections in the template (A, B & C) that you'll need to cut out. When piecing & cutting, make sure you leave room for 0.25" seam allowances on each side because the paper templates don't include seam allowances. Also, in addition to the three sections in the pdf, you'll need to cut two 3.5" x 8.5" pieces to sew to the top and bottom of the block. If you're new to paper piecing and need more detailed instructions, Christina at The Sometime's Crafter has a great tutorial with detailed photos.

And if you wanna make it extra fancy, you can quickly free motion applique a little olive & toothpick in the center with some fusible web!

Martini Block

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Swanky Squares Quilt

This block is one of the many new projects currently hanging out on my design wall.

This particular quilt has been a long time in the making. Remember when I posted this bundle last June? Well it's taken me 6 months to actually get started on it because of time, and also because I was having difficulty finalizing the pattern. I knew what I wanted to do...I just didn't know how I wanted to do it!

It all started when I decided to make my friend Amanda a quilt for her wedding gift, and she told me she would like a Mad Men inspired one (to go with the styling of their ubercool city loft). A few weeks after our email exchange, I was surfing through Shutterstock at work looking for images for a flyer, when I stumbled across this image. After that, I became obsessed with finding a way to not only easily piece a square with rounded corners, but with one (or more) squares nested within it.

Now that all my Christmas sewing is out of the way (if I have to sew another bag or pouch I will shoot myself!), it's time to get back to my quilting roots. I already have 3 quilts in the works right now, but this project is definitely my top priority since I'm 6 months behind....*sheepish grin*

I decided the design would look a lot cooler and bolder done in solids, so I edited my original stack down to the following, and I'll be using an additional charcoal gray solid for some background sections, plus (maybe?) this Lotta Jansdotter print for the backing...but I'm not 100% committed to it yet. I wanna wait and finish the top before I make a final decision. More to come...

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Savvy Seasons Swap 2011

I've been working on this for quite a while, but it kept slipping my mind to take photos...so I'm just gonna jump right in with both feet and show you the finished product!

My secret partner requested a table runner that could be used throughout the winter, and not just during Christmas (which is really good, because she'd only have gotten a week's worth of use out of it!), so I went with a winter snowman theme. The snowman block is 12", the two Winter Woolies blocks are 6" x 12", and the whole shebang measures roughly 18" x 38".

I've actually had this project sketched out since the day I got my partner assignment, but I had a devil of a time deciding on fabrics. I wanted to use linen, plus a mixture of traditional Christmas colors and a splash of blue. Coordinating those four things wasn't too difficult, but what really complicated matters was the tiny piecing. I needed to find red, green and blue prints that matched, plus in a small enough scale to show up well with the paper piecing. I finally settled on the three diamond prints from Kate Spain's Flurry line for the binding and sashing, a cute blue & white dot print that resembled snow for the snowman + Winter Woolies background, and another Flurry print called Nordic Winter Stripe for the back (which I love, love, love!). The hat and scarf are from an old Caleb Gray Groove print, and the green glove print is one I picked up a while ago at Joann's from the fat quarter rack.

Don't you just love Kerry's Winter Woolies block pattern? Everything she makes is so stinkin' cute! I added a wee little button on top of each toboggan instead of appliqueing the little ball on.

Here's a closeup of all that tiny paper piecing. Kerry's pattern is very easy to follow, and I promise it's not nearly as hard as it looks...it just takes some time :)

And I'm really loving this little guy because he looks like a stack of puffy marshmallows! I made him using 2", 3", and 4" snowball blocks, then added some free motion stick arms and button eyes.

And here's a shot of that Nordic Stripe print I love so much. I bought just enough to back this, but I'm gonna have to go back and snag some more for myself now. I don't know if you all have used this line or not, but it's SO stinking soft!

 And just for good measure, I threw in some kitchen towels because you can never have enough of them.

Here's my whole package ready to go out....the runner, kitchen towels, two fat quarters, various Flurry scraps, Coffee Crisp candy bar (I blame Kristie for getting me addicted to those!), and a cute notepad of two ladies eating cake that says "it's ok, it's organic!". Because as we all know, even cake is magically transformed into a health food when it's organic *wink*.

Hope you like it partner!

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Black Friday

So how was everyone's Thanksgiving? I'm still feeling a bit sluggish from all the food I ate - is it possible to have a food hangover?

But more importantly, how was your Black Friday shopping (especially the quilting-related kind)? Are you a rabid shopper that lines up at midnight? Or a sit-back-and-watch-the-mayhem kinda person?

I'm in the latter category - I have more fun wandering around and soaking in the mayhem (by the way - did you all see this crazy story? Hope she enjoys those aggravated assault charges....people are nuts!) The hubby and I had some birthday gift cards to spend, so we woke up at a normal hour and braved the mall to pick up a few items while everything was on sale. We parked far away instead of cruising for hours for a prime spot, and wandered around the mall holding hands and people watching. Then we went home after a few hours, ate Thanksgiving leftovers, and watched Christmas movies. All in all, it was a great day :)

I knew Joann's would be insane on Friday and there was no way I was gonna stand in line at an understaffed cutting table for hours, plus the deal I really wanted didn't start until Saturday ($1.99/yard Quilter's Showcase prints), so I waited until Saturday morning. The place was a graveyard, and I was in and out within 45 minutes. I snagged some seriously good deals:

I had one of those coupons for 25% off your total purchase, so for $40 and some change I got: 2 giant spools of Gutterman thread (buy 1, get 1 free), 2 large buttons (buy 1, get 1 free), 1 24" zipper, 2 yards of gray houndstooth, 4.5 yards of Daisy Mae, and 10 yards of lightweight fusible interfacing.


The houndstooth is for my mom's Christmas present. Love of houndstooth is a genetic trait passed on from parent to child in our family. My grandmothers, mom, dad, sister, and myself all share a robust love of houndstooth.

I had a coupon for 50% off one item, so I grabbed the yardage of the Denyse Scmidt Daisy Mae to use as backing for a new quilt I'm working on....

 ...and in case you all are partial to Denyse's new line for Joann's, from Dec. 1-3 all Premium Quilting Cottons (including all the DS Quilts lines) will be on sale for 40% off. And if you have a VIP Card, you can get another 10% off that price. Score!

I also ordered these ribbons from Stitch Steals early last week, and they arrived on Friday. Once I figured in shipping, I ended up getting them for $0.75 a spool. Can't beat that with a stick!

So what did you all score on Black Friday? Any awesome deals from Joann's/Hancocks/Hobby Lobby/Local quilt shops you wanna share?!

And as per the fabric policy, here's my "out" pile for the shop. I've got some AMH Garden Party, Amy Butler & Denyse Schmidt Home Dec, Heather Ross, and some out of print Alexander Henry Noah's Ark. Most everything's listed at $5/yard, and as always, you can use the coupon PLAIDSCOTTIE10 for 10% off anything in my shop :)

By the way, since I've started my new in/out policy, I've been getting fewer cracks from the hubby about how, "if it were up to you, all of our money would be spent on fabric and I'd be naked in a corner somewhere" LOL! So yeah, I'm using that as my gauge for success on breaking the fabric addiction ;)

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The Queen of Last Minute Gifts

Why do I constantly do this to myself? I always decide to make super-complicated presents mere days before the event. I can only conclude it's because I'm 1) insane, or 2) masochistic..(or both - LOL!)

This baby quilt has to be finished by Friday morning (so I can bring it to work with me).

This is where I'm currently at...

...wish me luck!

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The Sewing Summit Post

The Sewing Summit was awesome - full of friends, shopping, and most importantly, FUN!

From L to R: Me, Cherie, Angela & Karen

I got to hang out with my NOLA MQG ladies, and we were reunited with Angela for the first time since she moved in May! We roomed together, which was pretty much an awesome 3-day slumber party. And bonus, our hotel bill was really cheap once split 4 ways (read: more money for fabric). The rooms at Little America were huge and posh, so we didn't feel crammed at all. I meant to get a picture of our sweet hotel room, but there were so many fun distractions that I hardly took any pictures all weekend - oops!

Angela made these cute little felt spools with our names and alter egos on them...

  

...and a sweet bunting for decorating our room door/alcove.

P.S. Ray and I were laughing at how I look like an Amazon woman in that first photo, lol! I'm a full head taller than everyone else. And then I showed him the pictures below, and we were cracking up over my huge circus feet (I wear a size 11). I'm excited to have kids one day, but not the actual "squeezing the baby out" part. I'm 5'8" and Ray is 6'2" (plus my dad is 6'5" and I have those genes floating around in my pool somewhere), so I'm pretty much going to give birth to a sack of potatoes.  "Congratulations ma'am! You're the proud mom of a sack of Yukon Golds"

 Cara wears a 5. I wear an 11....

...her shoe fit neatly inside of mine, like Godzilla swallowing Tokyo.

There was much additional tomfoolery...

Shutterbugs Michelle and Angela

We were debating over whether my extreme nostril flare or her "dental exam" smile was worse, lol

Cara gracefully mounting a bike rack

...and attempting to "ride" it - Tour de France, here she comes!

Twins!

This face is the epitome of Cara-ness! Adorable and mischevious ;)

We wandered around like lost puppies Sunday morning looking for an open restaurant. We accidentally slept through breakfast and I was ready to chew my arm off.

Karen made a new friend there, while Cara asked for him to be substituted into her breakfast "I'll have the french toast, except instead of fresh fruit, can I have bacon?" Love it.

None of us anticipated how dry the air would be in SLC and Angela's skin was cracking, so naturally she used a tampon after none of us could find a band-aid or napkin in our purses, LOL!

We're gonna submit this photo of Kristie to Mom's Gone Wild!

(photo swiped from Cara)

And lots of shopping, of course....

Our combined haul, including quilt shop purchases, swag bag goodies, and prize winnings!

My share of the mountain.

...not to mention eating!

We ran out to Material Girls during our 2 1/2 hour lunch break on Saturday, and made a little pit stop at the Rio Grande cafe next door. It was as awesome as everyone said!

Check out those freshly made tortillas! That dude stepped right into my picture. Side note...do you ever wonder what random stranger's vacation photos you're in? Some family in Sheboygan, Wisconsin probably has a photo of me in the background picking my nose in Disneyworld in their coffee table album, lol!

I had a Mexican Coke (yum! my favorite!) and Karen and I split the pork burrito - the sauce on it was mind-blowing!

And what's a shopping trip without dessert? There was a store in the little shopping center that melted candy bar pieces over your cookie of choice - YUM!

Yes please, I'll have one of everything...

But most of all, there were strengthened friendships and new friendships. Do you ever meet people, and instantly feel like you've known them for a lifetime, even though you've just met? I love that sense of immediate comfort and ease that comes with meeting "kindred spirits" like Michelle, Kristie, Cara, Jacey, Elena, Dana, Candice, Ali, and so many others this past weekend! My only regret is that I wasn't able to spend time with more of the people there, but there are only so many hours in a day :(

Our motley crew - Michelle, Me, Karen, Angela, Cherie and Cara - plus Megan, who I met for the first time at the end of the Summit! She seemed really fun and I wish I'd gotten to hang out with her more :(

And here's me headed home :( 

But at least I had an adorable new pouch from Jennifer to store my flight essentials in! It was the perfect fit for my ID, boarding pass and phone.

 

See you all next year!

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