A Wedding Gift

My uncle was recently reintroduced to his college sweetheart. She looked him up one day out of the blue, they started talking, both happened to be single, and then immediately picked back up where they left off 40 years ago.

So he called me, *ahem* his favorite niece *ahem*, to let me know they were flying out to Vegas to get married.

I woke up one morning with an idea and lots of motivation to make a embroidered pillow as a wedding gift to them. I Facetime'd with my mom all day as she helped me come up with a design and we chatted all day while I sewed. (seriously how awesome is video chat for keeping in contact?)

Since I didn't know what exactly what their future decor will look like, I went with a mix of grays and browns. This is normally a big no-no in my color selection as I never mix blacks with browns EVER. I was a bit concerned when I pulled the fabrics but I just went with it reminding myself that it'll be fine! I also learned I own very few brown prints. My brown phase ended like 6 years ago.

First things first, I embroidered a center block with their name and oh-so-special date. I wanted to use this as a focus. Then I cut out a bunch of triangles and started piecing them together to add a border.

After I had it all assembled I was a bit sad that the middle was too plain. I pushed ahead anyways and finished the pillow. After I finished sewing it all together and adding the brown binding I was still sad about the middle so I finagled it around enough to get the needle back under the center and added a border. Then I picked out the thread and did it again because my dumbass didn't watch close enough and I sewed a small piece of the back to the front.

Here it is before I added the border around the embroidery:

I chose Sublime by  Doohikey Designs in Cream Swirl for the back and added the dark brown border for an accent:

My husband and i were their official chauffeurs for the day. After the wedding at the famous A Little White Chapel, I surprised them with my gift.

I think I even saw my uncle get a bit teary eyed - not that he'd ever admit it. They carried it with them on the plane home and got to tell their story about a 100 more times (my uncle LOVES to talk).

LVMQG Quilt Retreat Weekend

This is a cross post from my blog entry over

 at the Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild website:

The Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild hosted a sewing retreat at this amazing house in southern Utah:

Check out the view from the roof deck:

11 members came for the weekend.  We all met up in Hurricane, UT, and visited a few local shops (Superior Threads, Quilted Works, Ace Hardware (seriously!), Scrap Apple, etc) before heading to the house.  Sharon was nice enough to feed us all on the first night there and brought a big pot Turkey Soup which was delicious!  There was no recipe because she just made it up (oh how I wish I could do that!).

The house had this insanely large basement so all of us were able to spread out and have a table, ironing areas, cutting areas, Accuquilt Go areas, etc!  HUGE SPACE.

We occupied it pretty quick.  This was the aftermath after the first sewing night:

Darlene gave a small gift to everyone!  She made embroidered luggage tags personalized with all of our names to remember this weekend!

Sharon created 2.5" tiny pieced squares and passed them out for all of us to create something with it.  Here's what everyone made:

(Photo Courtesy of Jan!  Read her blog for more details about this photo)

Not included in that photo is Zany Quilter's zippered pouch, Sharon's jounal cover,  and my block which is still in progress.

We had some people cutting up scraps to make their own Sparkle Punch Quilt, some working on  Swoon blocks, some Octogonal Orb blocks, and many other quilty projects!

Here's everyone in action:

Andrea's Sparkle Punch:

(Photo Courtesy of Jan)

Vic's version of Swoon:

(Photo Courtesy of Jan)

Swoon in progress and one finished on the top left of the photo:

(Photo Courtesy of Jan)

Jan's Octogonal Orb blocks:

(Photo Courtesy of Jan)

The Accuquilt Go! team cutting up many 3 1/2" squares for their own Sparkle Punch:

(Photo Courtesy of Jan)

Cola's Swoon blocks:

On our way out we grabbed a group shot:

(Photo Courtesy of Jan)

You thought that was the end of pictures?

Jan posted about the retreat over on her blog.  She has more photos too!

Sharon worked on this quilt at the retreat and posted about the retreat over here on her blog.

Have a great weekend!

Sewing Room

I've been sewing at my kitchen table for 2 years now.  It's actually a decent spot with a nice light and view.  The only time we use our table for any normal dining activities is when we have guests over.  Then all the stuff gets moved on to the floor and back out when they leave.  As far as my fabric and supplies.. well.. they're just all over the place.

From July 2010, the 'before AND long ago' picture:

Our second bedroom was being used solely as a guest bedroom.  My husband has been wanting to empty it completely for a while but I wasn't willing to part with the bed in it.  It has water stains on it (odd yellow stains  but i swear it wasn't pee!) and everything but it was the MOST COMFY BED EVER.  It's better than my current bed, and I would have totally switched it out but it's a full size not queen.  So many of days (years) has he been asking me to part with it but I wanted it for my naps guests.

My husband has come up with a GREAT system to teach me how to purge stuff.  First he starts by moving it around so its unusable but has great excuses for doing so.  In the case below, he propped the bed up against the wall so I had most of the floor to use for basting a quilt I was making in December.

I started using the newly found floor space as my design wall.  So after I got used to it, he proposes a new idea.  This weekend he said "If you get rid of the bed in that room, you can use the whole room as your sewing room."

I contemplated this for a while.  (What? It was REALLY comfy)  Then about a half hour later that bed was like the plague and I was already in the process of craigslisting it.  I went and bought a 6' folding table and (as you can see in the picture above) and set it up in the room before dragging the bed into the middle of our living room floor.... which is where it currently sits because craigslist people can be really flaky sometimes.

This is still a work in progress as I'm not sure what's the best setup for me yet.  This is the new 6' folding table setup with my machine on the right and cutting board on the left.  I might go buy another table specifically for my cutting board because I like being able to walk around it instead of shifting my fabric to make a cut.

Here's a flashback for you: This is the exact same window as in the picture above but the color on the walls is what the previous owners left me with 8 years ago.  It took 2 coats of primer and then a coat of paint to cover it up.  The green line is uneven because I yanked down the most ugliest dark green and white flower border that used to be lined around the room.

I take that back.  I cannot say it was the ugliest wallpaper border EVER.  That title goes to the bird feeders in my living room that were pretty much super glued to the wall:

Ok... back on track!

I started randomly hanging stuff up on walls.  My rulers have a habit of storing themselves on the floor, so hopefully the wall solution will work for me.

Here's my fabric addiction:

(That pink box is filled with fabrics I yanked out for the Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild block swap but I still haven't decided upon a pattern)

You should recognize the pillows below.  The one on the left is still waiting to go to its new home.

I have the Kona quilt hanging in the spot where I'd like to put a design wall.  It might get moved, it might not.  Not sure yet!

And finally I can begin using my knee presser foot lifter thingy again because it fits on this table!

And yes, that's my dining room chair. :)

Lined Drawstring Bag

I whipped up a couple of Jeni @ In Color Order's lined drawstring bags (Tutorial) this weekend: 

This was my first one:

I wanted to use these to store my binder clips that I use for sewing but I didn't pay enough attention to the size it would end up being.  This bag turned out to be huge!  Ok not huge... but 7" wide at the base and approx 9" tall.  So "huge" for what I wanted to use it for.

Joel Dewberry Aviary 2 Damask in Granite, top accent Lodge Lattice in Vintage Yellow, lined with Silent Cinema Front Row in Gray.

Here's my second one.  I shrunk it a bit.  I intended the herringbone to be the accent on the top but I still wasn't paying attention to what I was cutting and it ended up on the inside instead.  Although I think it turned out to be a happy accident.

Kumari Garden Tarika in Gem, top accent Kona Red, lined with Joel Dewberry Herringbone in Pond

It turned out to be 4" wide and about 5.5" tall.  It fits these perfectly:

Thank you to Jeni for her making her wonderful tutorial!

Interlocking Stars

I'm jumping on the interlocking stars (aka Sparkle Punch) bandwagon because I love this and this and this and this.  I dropped everything I should have been doing to make this as soon as I saw it. A large quilt is on my someday to-do list, but for right now this will be turned into a pillow: 

I mapped out how much of everything I needed and chopped it all up.  All of the squares are 3" finished. It took a while to square all of the wonky stars up but for my next bigger project I invested in a 3.5" square ruler.

Fabric Key Chains

One of my first sewing projects was making fabric key chains back in Dec 2009.  Mine is still going but it's all frayed and looks like crap.  The brocade fabric was pretty but probably the wrong choice.

I spent forever trying to figure out what fabric I was going to use for my new one (that was the HARDEST part).  I went with the purple Aviary 2 for mine (others are gifts) and while I still love it I gave it away because I now totally want something with that awesome Remix rainbow Stripe.  So.... I'm off to make another :)

Fabric left to right:
Outside: Michael Miller Love Birds, Inside: Remix, Ann Kelle, Stripe in Bright
Outside: Aviary 2 Sparrows in Lilac, Inside: Aviary 2 Lodge Lattice in Lilac
Outside and Inside: Andrea Victoria Black Damask

Fabric Key Chain tutorial is here.  I add one inch to the fabric cut length (14" instead of 13") so it is easier to put on my wrist.

Sewing Entertainment

One day when I was quilting I was humming along to Katy Perry's Last Friday Night song for so long that my husband showed up and hooked me up with the actual video:

I have to admit this is a break from my norm, I usually (like >99% of the time) quilt to Taylor Swift with a little Lily Allen thrown in.  Anyone else have a standard go-to playlist for when they sew?