First Indianapolis Modern Quilt Guild Meeting!

For me anyway. It was at my usual fabric store this past Saturday, so I decided to go check it out. I had a great time. Even though I sat at a table with some ladies I already sort of knew, I discovered one woman is my neighbor! We shared stories of awful neighbors because the neighborhood is a little sketchy. She calls it “transitional” which I thought was fitting.

The best part of the meeting was show-and-tell. It was so awesome to see what everyone else was working on and had finished. There were lots of people with different levels of experience so there was a wide range of designs and styles. Here are some of my favorites.

Sorry the photos are not the best. It was a packed house. There were over 20 attendees which was apparently the biggest turn out yet. I’m excited for the next meeting and getting to know these ladies better and see more of their projects.

If you are in the Indianapolis area and interested in joining, you can check out their blog for more info.

 

Quilt Storage

My quilt collection is beginning to grow. I am tempted by beautiful images of cabinets full of quilts to get something for my collection. That way if they aren’t being used I can still display them without the cats sleeping on them.

While I totally am in love with this first one, I know the kitties would love it too.

 

I love this one too, but it’s a little pricey for me at the moment. (IKEA $399)

 

I’m not sure about this color for my house, but the shape is nice (IKEA $249)

 

The colors of this one are great, but completely out of my price range. (The Bella Cottage $1895)

 

This isn’t at all what I am looking for, but I still think I need it in my life (Anthropologie)

Does anyone know of anywhere I can look for something like this. I browse craigslist from time to time, but never quite find what I’m looking for.

Single Girl Baby Quilt

I am so thrilled! I finally finished my Single Girl baby-sized quilt. I just worked on it a little at a time. The quilting was kind of difficult. I can’t imagine doing it on a larger quilt. I’m planning on taking some better pictures, but it was fresh out of the dryer and I was too excited.

Here are a few work in progress photos.

New baby quilt layout and Valentine’s dessert

So things have been busy, as usual. Just lots of work things. I haven’t been able to do a lot of sewing, not to mention once I get home, I don’t really feel like doing much of anything except lay on the couch and watching trashy tv. I did recently start watching Archer, as in I started it to days ago and finished the first season yesterday.

I have been doing a little sewing. Last Saturday, I went to Downtown Sewcial at Crimson Tate. However, I forgot my phone so there are no photos of this awesome time. I got a request from the shop I sell stuff at in Chicago for some iPad cases, so I whipped a few of those up and got them sent off yesterday. I think I am going to make more and in different styles. I also have three (or maybe four, but I’ll save that for another day) quilts in the works. I have my personal project, the Solid Chevron Quilt. I’ve been pressing seams like crazy mostly. I got all of the squares sewn, now I just have to put them all together.

I’ve also been working on the quilting for the baby-sized Single Girl blanket. I love it, but the quilting is totally exhausting.

Then, while going through some boxes, I found a stash of pieces left over from the Bow Tie Quilt I made a while back. Instead of making a matching one, I mixed the pieces up and started sewing them together. I didn’t get much done, but it’s a start.

For Valentine’s day I made these. They are super intense. It’s a lot of chocolate. I wanted to dip them in white chocolate, but when warming up the white chocolate…I kind of burnt it…and totally ruined it. There was no salvaging it. Oh well.

Also, I applied for a pretty awesome craft fair here in the summer, so I am hoping I get in.

That’s all for now. Hopefully I will have more for you next week than I did last week. I have Monday off for President’s Day and I’ll be going to my first Indianapolis Modern Quilt Guild meeting on Saturday. Hopefully it will fire up my motivation to actually finish something.

Pillow case and Gus Sews

I went to Downtown Sewcial this weekend. It was super busy. There are usually only three or four people including myself and this weekend there were EIGHT ladies. It was so much fun and I had such a good time. I wanted to take some photos, but my phone went missing (which ended up just being in my car).

Anyway, I bought fabric I didn’t really need, but of course I HAD to have. One thing I decided to make was pillowcases from the Maria Anna Horner voile. I only finished one so far, but it is WONDERFUL! Gus really likes it too. (Sorry it’s blurry)

Also, Gus keeps discovering ways to make it harder for me to get anything done.

No Time for Sewing

I haven’t been able to spend a lot of time on sewing projects recently. Things have been busy at work and I have several projects that all have to go to the printer at nearly the same time. I love being busy at work, but that usually leaves me to tired to get any sewing done when I get home.

Also, I don’t know if you heard, but the Super Bowl was here in Indianapolis this past weekend. I am not really into watching sports (and honestly don’t even know exactly how football works), but it was fun to be in and around all of the excitement. It made me so happy to hear how great everyone thought the city was.

Also, my sister’s 21st birthday was last Thursday so I went down to Bloomington with my parents to go to dinner with her. We went to a tiny Turkish restaurant. It was delicious. We also stopped in Campus Candy, which was just pretty.

On Sunday morning, I went down to the fabric store to get out of the house and work on some sewing. I didn’t get a lot done, but it was nice just to hang out with my sewing buddies. We even got a little show when the Lawnchair Brigade of Woodruff Place (a nearby neighborhood) marched past on their way down to Super Bowl Village.

I did get some sewing done though! I worked on the quilting for my baby sized Denyse Schmidt quilt and worked on triangles for my chevron quilt. Gus helped.

Single Girl, Triangles, Gus and triangles.

Logos

The fabric store where I spend a lot of my free time, Crimson Tate, has something called Open Sew. Every other Saturday night, we get together and sew, or just hang out, or even do a little shopping. Anyway, we were trying to come up with a better name. We came up with Downtown Sewcial. Now I am working on a new logo for our get-togethers. (Also, please pretend I didn’t totally skip #5. Whoops.)

My sister also asked me to make a logo for her bike racing team’s t-shirts. Their team is named “Wing It.” Here is one of the samples they liked.

Plans for Chevron Quilt

I kind of have a thing for chevrons. I have ALWAYS loved them, even before they were cool. Just kidding.

Anyway, I have wanted to do a chevron quilt, but I couldn’t really decide on the best way to do it. Just two colors? A mix of colors? Prints? Solids? There were too many factors and plenty of other projects so I just kind of pushed it to the back of my mind. However I recently came across this beautiful quilt from Chasing Cottons.

I absolutely adore the bold colors and the stitching around the chevrons.

I am planning on using some of the Pastel Bella Solids with a Kona gray.

I finally received them in the mail last Monday and I hope I get some free time to get this started. Here is my plan for a queen sized quilt. I can’t wait!

Makeshift Curtain

The window over my bed faces east so on sunny weekend mornings, sleeping in is almost impossible. I am not a morning person and love to sleep in when I can so I decided to make a curtain for the window. Originally, I just grabbed some extra solid fabric and make a fast curtain.

But then I saw this beauty.

(via sotakeahike on flickr)

Aren’t these perfect?! I love the way the light coming through makes it look sort of like stained glass. I pulled down my curtain immediately and cut it in half. It took a little longer than I had expected (mainly due to being down and out for a few days due to food poisoning).

Here is mine.

And in the morning.

I put muslin on the other side of the patchwork part so it looks a little more finished from the outside. I am planning on making another for the other window in the bedroom. I think I may plan the fabrics a little more. For this one I just pulled out scraps I had and started sewing.

Purple and Orange

While at my local fabric store, I spotted this fabric. One of Erin McMorris’s fabrics from the Park Slope line. This one started it all.

I got an orange fabric from the same line and took them home to see what I could work with out of my stash.

After some mixing and matching, here is what I came up with. I was a little short on one of the fabrics, but luckily I knew my fabric shop had it.

And here is the finished quilt top.

Finished! And for sale.

This quilt was my first attempt at free motion quilting. I used orange thread. On the brown and orange fabrics, I used a decorative scallop stitch. On the pink and purple fabrics I did free motion quilting following the pattern of the fabric. It’s easier to see from the back.

I am so thrilled with this quilt! I love the quilting. After washing it, it was perfectly crinkly. I love it for a girl because it isn’t overly girly as well as bright and happy.