Sunday Stash #4 Fabrics Temporarily Forgotten

I've purchased fabric a handful of times over the last month but forgotten to share them and use them. Ha!
I have them in little stacks around the studio for inspiration (aka I still haven't put them away!).
All fabrics are from Joann's simply because they opened a store less than 2 miles away!

Fabric purchased with mass coupons for clothing construction

More Fat Quarters!

Linking up with Molli Sparkles!

Happy Fathers Day!

-M

Sunday Stash #3 Stash Shopping

Had a very lovely Mother's Day today with my Mum which included the set-up of her new web cam, a Mom Day gift to her from my sister who we test called right away, then off to an Estate sale for some thrift shopping fun!
I got to pop into Jo-Ann's Fabrics this evening on a quick near by pet store errand and picked up some sweet deals with coupons!

Behold... this color palette I randomly pulled from the shelves of 30% off solid cottons, and two were end of the bolt discounts as well! Double score!

I also grabbed spools of black and white thread, two each also on sale. However, my major purchase today was 2.5 yards of light gray felt. Why, you wonder? I'm making a giant mouse costume.....

just kidding! I've redone my design wall! I am fortunate enough to have a large wall in my studio which is dedicated to a permanent design wall space and I formerly used the backside of a large vinyl table cloth which was a trick I learned from my Grandma. Well that wall is a tough one to nail into and the table cloth sagged and rippled in a rather obnoxious way. So I've been wanting to make it nicer and flatter and well, less annoying.

Enter felt yardage (also on sale) in gray (softer on the eyes). I just guessed at the amount I would need, sure that 2.5 yards would be close to the same size as the vinyl table cloth. Then I unfolded it and saw that I was going to need the ladder.

Crazy huge right?!?!
(Please ignore the clutter below, had to move everything out of the way to hang this sucker.)

Alright. Time to sleep. Linking up with Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash and today's host Em of Sewing By Moonlight

Also, check back tomorrow for my Giveaway Day post with Sew Mama Sew!!

Are you joining in on the fun?

Happy Mothers Day!

WIP Wednesday: March Madness

Progress being made.

Can free-motion quilt again! (Temporary fix)

Progress on the FAL 2014 Q1 list. The piece above is 'Night Garden', finally being quilted. Very slowly, because like a genius I've given it almost 7 layers in some places. But I'm a sixth of the way through it!

This weekend, I played with new colors....making palettes that were speaking 'Spring'. Bright.
My goal was to use these two palettes to inspire fabric selections for my March blocks in my Block-a-Day project.

This first is an actual art quilt by Karen Kamenetzky....I just loved the piece, it's on my pinterest Color Palette board :-)

Fabrics from my stash:

This next one, also from my Color Palette board, is another color way that I envisioned incorporating into a quilt. The piece is by Seattle artist Liz Tran, called "Burst". 

Fabrics from my stash:

I'm not totally sold on the selection above. I need more tomato orange. More blush-y mauve. Darker. Brighter. I'll keep looking. I fear I may have to purchase some new colors for my stash....hehehe.

Feeling like a juggler here with so many projects at once. And some stuff to seriously catch up on.

This weekend through Tuesday was set aside mostly for a birthday and relaxation. 

Tomorrow is Art Walk night, my coordinator duties will be heavy. 

The rain is over. The air is warm. 

My Marmalade Fabrics order came in the mail today!

Will share soon... secret project...I'm making something for me!

Linking up with Freshly Pieced!

Yesterday's WIP Wednesday and a WIN!

Wednesday!!!!! I missed it!!!! (Insert crazy busy day!)
But I have such awesome news.....(below the images)

Here are two peeks. I should be able to share more about these projects once they are gifted!

I'm sure someone can hear the levels of excitement over here....
I SURE DO FEEL LUCKY THIS WEEK!!!
(((I won the red glasses from Pat Sloan's giveaway!!! Value sorting here I come!!!!)))
(((I won the $20 gift card for Marmalade Fabrics from last weeks WIP Wednesday with Lee at Freshly Pieced!)))
See, linking up does pay off!!!
It only took me forever to finish with my gift certificate shopping, now we wait for the happy mail! I can't wait to share my purchases!
**squeals of delight**

Sunday Stash #2 Sharing the Love

It's already mid-way through February and I feel like I have been running in circles! I've got so much to do and catch up with! Whenever I have a lot on my to-do list, I have issues of where to start.
(insert feeling overwhelmed )
But it's easier when you have deadlines, like one of your best friends is about to give birth in the next two weeks. Thankfully I have a good idea of what I need to get done before her baby arrives. I can't go too much into detail yet, since I don't want the gift surprises to be seen too early. I've even got a secret Pinterest board going for ideas.
However, this last week I bit the bullet and ordered from Southern Fabric, (super cute shop! tons of awesome!) because I found a some Salt Air/Fish Tales in Mist by Cosmo Cricket that was screaming to be included in my super secret baby gifts. And since I couldn't get just one thing, I picked up a sweet Freshcut/Dotted Paisely in Peach by Heather Bailey print as well.

And now that I've purchased fabric online (I hadn't yet because I usually like to touch the fabric before I buy it, weird huh?), it's like the virus has finally hit me, I don't have to go anywhere to buy fabric. Oooo this could get ugly. I've got multiple carts going at multiple online fabric shops I like. Which is a blog post in and of itself (for another day) because I can already see myself doing much more online fabric shopping.

(Ahhhh! I just bought more fabric online before I could even finish this post!)

Seeing as how I have a crap ton to do, I am outta here!


Linking up with that fab sewist, Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash!

Scrap Heaps & New Year Leaps

Hello! New Year is here! Welcoming 2014!
I wanted to share New Years goals um, days ago. But I was relaxing and procrastinating for the holidays.
Anyhow, I'm going to try a 365 project this year. I couldn't make up my mind until the other night when I realized it was time to take a break from my quilt pattern designing (which was successful, but is tideous in its fine tuning!) and dive into organizing the mountain of scraps I've been ignoring.

And this is just a wee bit!

First I had the pleasure of sorting the current mountain by colors!

( I also have many pre-sorted bags stuffed to the brims)

Followed by HOURS which has turning into DAYS of ironing. I find this to be the most relaxing activity oddly enough. Not ironing clothing, but fabrics and scraps. I get very excited to have a freshly pressed stack of color sorted scraps.

Just like doing dishes or coloring book pages, the slow methodical actions are meditative for me. I get to sort out my plans, come up with new ideas, listen to the sounds around me. Daydream. 

I'm about half way through my color bags that I assembled and in the midst of pondering my 365 day project I've been able to come up with fantastic ideas involving all these organized scraps.

I have a bit more ironing to do and some cleaning because clearing out a scrap bin is never tidy, but I'll return soon to share some creations!

Friendship Everlasting

I really can't believe that it's already October, but I'm glad. My birthday was over a month ago and I am barely putting away the pile of fabrics I purchased on the birthday trip.
I hadn't been sewing much, so the studio was slightly neglected.

I scored some nice Robert Kaufman prints on sale at my favorite fabric mecca, M & L Fabrics in Anaheim, the cows, chairs, and citrus prints. I'm still not so in the groove of paying attention to what is what when I buy fabric. I have designer prints all over in my stash and I only become aware of them when I pull them for projects. A lot of them are older designers and collections from when my grandma was building her stash, but as I become more and more obsessed with the idea of designing fabric and incorporate my love of blog surfing, I've found that I am becoming more familiar with fabric designers and collection names as well as companies. It's exciting to start memorizing the details. 

Of course I purchased all that fabric (15 yards approx.) I had not a single project in mind but rather colors that I'm lower on in my stash. (There's an addiction for ya!) Orange. It's still a mysterious one for me. I enjoy it. It's uplifting and positive, but I can't manage to find prints I like. Not to mention that I don't really use it often. So, I have something orange brewing in my mind, October is helping.

What also helped was the special visit from my BFF for the last 23 years! She drove down from the Bay area for a weekend of sewing and girl talk. When she arrive with her machine in tote, I was blown away to discover she'd never made any patchwork blocks/traditional quilts before. (Art quilts, yes!) So we set to making friendship wall hangings. 

I've had flying geese on the brain so we started with those. I tested out a method I'd found on the Connecting Threads website. The tutorial was excellent, easy to follow and makes four units at once!

We made dozens, then decided that we needed a central block. I knew of an easy one, Saw Toothed Star. She and I each made a center block, and traded. We had tons of fun mixing the Flying Geese we made into a nice boarder. Not too bad for our first time (I hadn't made Flying Geese before either).

We picked out a special egg print on black originally from my grandmas stash for the backing and decided we'd each quilt them up this week. It was an exceptional weekend! She is such a dear friend, I'm so happy she was able to sneak back down to our hometown for a sewing retreat!

It definitely helped me harness my sewing mojo again. I spent the following two days after she left cutting and sewing 64 more Flying Geese units to make a plaid version that I've been gawking over.

And after getting my friendship quilt (that we lovingly named the 'A''A' Quilt for our initials and the amount of beer consumed that weekend) basted, I decided that I'd hand quilt it, since I need some practice with that as well. 

Here we are with our projects!

Dreaming of Autumn

This is where I sew. Looking out onto the balcony. The sunsets. I miss cool weather. It hasn't been too bad this summer, but hot enough not to be able to work in the studio once the sun crosses to my side of the building. It gets muggy. Sticky. Thick hot air and no air conditioner. But I've been trying to put some time in after the sun sets.

On my table above, low-volume blocks being assembled from a never ending bag of strips I cut last summer. Yes, last summer. I will have that quilt done before Christmas though!

Before we moved out of our temporary apartment, I made this quilt top.

I added a new pieces to the eyebrows and the eyes to make it pop (see below). Now I think this beauty needs to be quilted up. I do have a show with Collaboration X coming. I'm going to try really hard to finish it in the next week.

Time to jump back into the purging of years of hoarded art supplies and random crap. So I leave you with a lovely photo of my main "Stash" recently relocated to it's appropriate spot in the 'Haus of Stitch' studio.

Happy Friday!

Peaceful Weekend

I'm really happy I was able to relax and get to work on some things this weekend. I set up a little sewing corner in a friends downtown studio. I was quite enthralled in cutting up fabric and working on doll pattern tests.

I tried my hand at adding gussets to the doll pattern I had drafted years ago. It was tiny tiny work. And as much as I dislike using pins ( i stab myself too much!), this was the only way to do it. Slowest sewing I've done on the machine in such a long time.

I realized after an hour of tiny piecing that I probably should enlarge the pattern a bit and give myself a break. Duh! What's with me and teeny tiny project attempts. Especially later in the evening. Am I trying to drive myself batty or what? Needless to say, I did take a break from the doll project after successfully putting in a head gusset. And I jumped right into cutting more 5in squares because apparently I have half-square triangle patterns on the brain. 

I am really into rearranging them on my design wall. I like the fact that when I throw a bunch up there, I can move them around and around and have a different look each time I step back. Which is not helping me make any decisions mind you. But it's fun and quick! I admit, I do have some friends and relatives having babies in the near future, so technically I am doing something productive. I've been toying with the idea of making a Beginners Quilt Class as well, and these HST quilts are simple enough that I might make this the class project. Here's the latest one that I still have on the design wall.

Though I've already rearranged it twice, I'm still liking this first take. I think it may end up looking like this. A viewer says it looked "too sophisticated" to be a baby blanket and that it reminded him of old man socks. I agreed with the sock reference, but perhaps someone out there has a "sophisticated baby". Hahaha. It made me laugh. I love getting input. I've got green and orange squares cut up now for today's HST quilt project! I'm on a roll!

Also! I'm very excited to have come across another quilt-a-long with an AMAZING project! The Perv-Along, (love the name) hosted by Charlotte at Displacement Activity.

The quilt is going to be amazing!!! It reminds me of a cosmic burst. And of course, I'm kinda hooked on the solid fabric quilts. So here's what I pulled for this perv-a-long.

I feel a bit odd not having "brand name" fabrics with cool color names like "papaya" or "moss". I generally find most my fabrics at swap meets, thrift stores and yard sales. Very rarely do I buy new fabrics. I love all the new prints and collections and I'm sure I have a nice smattering of them in my stash. But I've a complete novice at being able to name the designers and such. When I do buy solids, they are just a store brand name and nothing that exciting. Oh well. I'll get there someday. Kona's solids look delicious!

 How was your weekend? Hope you make something awesome!

Scrap!

                                                              Scrap irons, a photo by amandamillar on Flickr.

I love ironing....and scraps. And i haven't really been neat about storing them, so they come out all wrinkled.
These are stuck to my felt wall. Now, how to get them onto a backing of cotton.
How to keep the layout exact.....this may take me all day to figure out.
So far, i'm thinking freezer paper. We'll see how it goes tonight.

Am I seeing a good entry to the Scrap Attack?

Sunday Swapmeet Treasure

Carbon paper, floral/insect design book, maze book,
Book of Psalms circa 1899, metal H2O bottle 

2 yards floral fabric, blonde wig

Umm, i love the new wig!

Total spent $6 = happy day

Sunday Swapmeet Treasure

Found good stuff today.

I have photos of my first row of blocks for the Rockin' Robin QAL and I chose my fabrics for the Summer Sampler Series starting tomorrow, but unfortunately at this hour, i have a serious lack of photo skills and i am not happy with the color. So tomorrow for those.

So. Till tomorrow, with better photos, because i am SUPER excited to be tackling two quilts at once.