Weekend Sewing

Saturday was a sewing marathon day for the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild. When we scheduled it, I felt slightly guilty, giving up a precious autumn day to stay inside and sew. No guilt required. It snowed like crazy all day (and how crazy is that?!!) Here are a few things I worked on:

Baby Hats!

On Monday and Wednesday mornings I volunteer at the South East Early Head Start in downtown Baltimore. My job: baby holding. (that's my official title, but I'm often sniffing their hair, singing them songs, rubbing their backs. Gruelling.) Anyway, Miss Janie, the main baby holder was saying how the babies needed hats for when we take them on strolls. "I can make hats"  I said. And so I did. I dug out all the fleece in my stash and made up a dozen hats. Easy peasy. Let me know if you want instructions. And now the babies have warm heads.

Next, Ornaments!

I'm in two ornament swaps (so far!) One on flickr, the other with my guild. These are what I'm making for everyone (still need a little stuffing.) From one of my fave books, Scandinavian Stitches (blogged about here) I love these little Christmas cottages!

Then, Boy Quilt

This guy just needed quilting and binding. I used variegated thread for the first time. Not sure if I love it, or the quilting, but, it's done. There's a new baby cousin due this month. I'm hoping for a boy! Because I've got the quilt ready to go!

And a little prep work

I'm going to meet the DC MQG gals at Capital Quilts in a few weeks, where they have an Accuquilt machine! I stripped up these scraps of Spirit by Lila Tueller, to be cut into tumbler blocks (something that I'd probably not attempt, if not for the die cutting machine.) Excited to use the machine. Even more excited to meet the gals!

And last, a little something for me

Sometimes, you just want to play and see where it takes you. I took out my NYC charm pack that I got at City Quilter, and hst'd them with some bright batiks. I like where this is going.
Whatcha been up to?

Welcome Sew We Quilt Friends!!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you liked today's tutorial. Be sure to send thanks and smooches to Madame Samm! What an incredible ride!!! If you haven't been there yet, head on over to Sew We Quilt right now!

Shopping with Jenn, and other fun stuff.

It's occurred to me that I haven't posted much about quilt projects lately. Most of what I've been working on has been for other people (bee blocks) or super secret (revealed on Saturday) or totally top secret, (to be revealed much later.)

But, I do have a few things to show you...

A few weeks ago I met my friend Jenn for a day of fabric shopping in Amish Country, near Lancaster PA. The town is named Intercourse. Go ahead. Giggle. Get it out of your system. I expected to find a lot of civil war repro stuff (which I did) but they also had bolts and bolts of modern lines. Tons of Moda. And, the prices were great! Here's my loot:

If that wasn't enough to make me giddy (close to 15 yards worth), Jenn also gave me a pile of scraps and some figgy pudding yardage, just 'cause she's awesome! I had to dig into the scraps. This is now a pillow top for Katie Cakes (maybe a Christmas present.)

Still more scraps made their way into coffee cozies and a Farmer's Wife Block. Still others worked their way into my super secret project (stay tuned for Saturday!)

 I still have quite a bit left. But, had to put them away to get to some other projects.

And now to my bee blocks. These are from my 3 x 6 bee-mates. I think I have about 30 "black and white with a splash of bright" blocks now. Plenty for a quilt top. A good project for 2012!

And these are the blocks from my 4 x 5 modern bee. This is my first round, so just the starting point for quilt later next year.

Surely I've done some other things. They may still be in the cave. Or, maybe I just need to sew more!

Hi Pumpkin!

Never too old for a pumpkin patch picture.

Quilt Wrecks

Do you know about Cake Wrecks? This is some serious lol stuff. Literally. LOL. So funny. My sister in law, Andrea, told be about them (Jen and john) a couple of years ago. Well, turns out, they just came out with their new book, Wreck the Halls, and are on a book tour that stopped, in all places of Pikesville in Baltimore which is like 10 minutes from my house. Andrea, being all cakey like she is, came up from Reston to be part of the festivities. And festive they were! Elena, from Charm City Cakes brought a cake wreck of her own (which we got to eat later, yum!)

Jen and john did a little slide show, a little slap stick, a little song (no dance). It was hilarious. Part of the fun was a contest. The audience was invited to create a previously featured cake wreck in miniature cupcake form. Andrea entered last year and came in second. This year, she was in it to win it. This is her entry:

If you can't quite tell what it is (what, it's not obvious?) this is a cesarean cake complete with afterbirth. Duh.
And this is Andrea with her WINNING! cake wreck:

And this is Andrea with author Jen and Andrea's winning cake wreck and Andrea sporting her new Cake Wreck Apron! Way to go, Andrea!

And now to the quilty part.

After a really fun afternoon, my mind kept going from Cake Wreck to, of course, Quilt Wreck.

Can there be such a thing as a quilt wreck? Yes. I think so.

Exhibit A

This is one of the very first quilts I made. I'm not so much a heart fan, so don't know why I made this. Are you enjoying the stunning variety of cranston prints? Fancy! Let me zoom you a little closer on the binding:

Yup, that's bias tape all right! A bit yellowed from age. Check out my awesome hand stitching skills! (BTW, that would be the hanging loop.)

Here's another Quilt Wreck for you:

Wait, you say. That's not a wreck. It's a stunning, vintage, hand pieced and quilted diamond thingy.

And I would agree with you. Except it's been turned into this beauty:

A Quilted Vest?!  What?? Awesome! Perfect with red sweat pants. (Thanks for modeling, Katie!)

(Disclaimer: I did not wreck this quilt. If anything, I saved it. I purchased it in this form at a garage sale several years ago. And no, I have never worn it. At least not in public.)

So, there you go. Two Quilt Wrecks. Got one to share? Email it to me (email addy in my profile) and I'll feature it on my blog!

Flood Update

A few weeks ago I posted about our basement flood. Here are some before pictures of my quilt cave:

Here's what it looks like now:

And here's my temporary cave ~ above ground!

I'm slowly moving stuff upstairs, because I have a feeling it's going to a loooong while until things are back to normal (or maybe even back to better!) downstairs.

Pumpkin Mug Rug ~ A tutorial!

I love the look of white pumpkins in fall decor. A nice departure from all that orange! Originally, I came up with this mug rug tutorial for a guest blog post  for Sew We Quilt at the end of the month. But then I got thinking, maybe everyone will be over pumpkins by then and making a bee line to valentines. Oh wait, there's another holiday in there somewhere, right? Anyway, I came up with a new idea for that blog post (look for it October 29th!) and can show you this one now. It's super easy. You can make one this afternoon!

Here's what you need: Scraps of cream fabrics.

Scraps of green fabrics:

And all the usual suspects (batting and backing 10 x 12 should be plenty) plus some binding fabric (I made single fold binding, cut it 1.5" wide, and needed about about 40 inches or so. Again, I used up scraps.) BTW, if you're super observant, you'll notice those long strips are more like 10.5 inches long. When I drew up the dimensions, I screwed up a bit. 9.5 is the correct length!

Let's get sewing:

Sew the center up log cabin style, adding sides first, then top and bottom.

Next, we're going to add triangles to the corner, to give it a pumpkin shape.

On the wrong side of your fabric, draw a diagonal line down the center of your 1.5 inch background squares.

Line up the squares on the corners of your pumpkin unit, and sew on the drawn line.

 When you're done, it should look like this. Press your corner out. If you like, you can trim out the back layers.

Next, sew the stem unit together.



And add to pumpkin unit.

Add the borders:

And your top is finished! Now, make your sammich. (You can see I added a couple of little cross stitches to be fancy. Totally optional!)

Next, quilt as desired. I did a simple in the ditch quilting around all the "logs" on the pumpkin and on the stem.

Add binding (I chose single fold binding. Cut at 1.5 ", fold over 1/4" and press, then sew unfolded edge to quilt as usual. Bring binding around to back and hand sew ~ I always hand sew my bindings. I like to do it!)



You're done! A pumpkin mug rug! Which would go so nicely with a pumpkin latte, I think!