Did you see that The MQG put together a survey to get to know all of its members?
I hope that you'll take a minute to fill it out!
Thanks so much!
The winner of the Yoshiko Jinzenji fabric bundle is Lindsay - keep an eye out for an email from me!
Sew Modern online!
Some of you may have noticed that I have some sponsors over on my sidebar now. One of them is Sew Modern, my local shop where I also teach. We are so lucky here in LA to have access to such a great shop that carries so many of the wonderful new fabrics out there. I mean c'mon now, they carry EVERY color of Kona Cotton! How many people get to see that when they walk in to a shop?? We are a lucky bunch. But now you're lucky too because Sew Modern has just launched an online shop! Click on over and check it out - and don't forget their sale section - it's pretty killer... Now it's not every day that I go bonkers for a fabric, but now and then, some comes along that makes me feel faint. These latest arrivals at Sew Modern, Yoshiko Jinzenji's fabrics, are some of those!
The second they showed up in the shop I snagged two yards of each. They are so unique and gorgeous.
In celebration of launching their online shop, Sew Modern is giving away a half yard set of these three beautiful, sophisticated fabrics. Leave a comment here and I'll pick a winner on Friday.
P.S. The winner of the copy of Modern Mix was Sam. Congrats and keep an eye out for an email from me! P.P.S. I know it's been giveaway central over here recently. Not on purpose - just a timing thing. I promise I'll be posting some actual sewing at some point! Ha.
Modern Mix blog tour
It's my stop on another book blog tour today. This time around it's for a fellow Stash Books author, Jessica Levitt and her book Modern Mix.
The mix that the title refers to is solid and patterned fabrics. If you follow my blog at all, you know I'm a real lover of solids. Jessica's book proves over and over that solids set off a project and give patterned fabric some room to breath and be appreciated.
The book is chock full of projects that use all different quantities of solid fabrics and each one is beautiful.
The projects range in size and complexity. Everything from big bed quilts to pillows and little pouches. So many great projects here - you're certain to be inspired to get to the sewing machine and sew some of them up!
And I'll bet you seriously want a copy of this book, huh?? Well you get a chance to win one right now! Leave a comment on this post and one lucky winner will get a copy. I'll pick a winner on Wednesday the 12th.
If you'd like to follow along, the remaining stops on the tour are:
Monday 10/10: Stop Staring and…Start Sewing Tuesday 10/11: Quilting is My Therapy Wednesday 10/12: Stitch Magazine Blog Thursday 10/13: Oh Fransson Friday 10/14: Generation Q Magazine Saturday 10/15: Quilt Dad Sunday 10/16: Confessions of a Craft Addict Monday 10/17: Amy’s Creative Side Tuesday 10/18: Pink Chalk Studio Wednesday 10/19: Connecting Threads Thursday 10/20: Keepsake Quilting Friday 10/21: Juicy Bits
Good luck!
A quilt and a winner
The LAMQG had its second anniversary meeting on Monday night. It's crazy how quickly those two years have gone by and how much The MQG has grown since then! We coordinated an anniversary swap and I was sewing for Liz. Her adorable little baby girl is right at the age where they can always use one more quilt to put on the floor, so I quickly put together a little one for her.
I had to use scraps she gave me and I could only add one new fabric. Obviously I added the yellow. Oh and I cheated and added the binding too. Figured a stripy binding was worth a little cheating!
And thanks for all of your comments on the Quilt Retro blog tour post. I used the random number generator and the winner is Anita! Congrats and keep an eye out for an email from me.
Quilt Retro Blog Tour
I'm happy to be a part of the Quilt Retro blog tour today!
This book by Jenifer Dick is so cute! It's filled with clear concise patterns, along with lots of encouragement form Jenifer about how to make the patterns your own.
But what really stood out about it to me was that it's filled with appliqué. You don't see a lot of appliqué in modern quilting, and it's a nice change of pace to see it here. For example, check out the cover quilt, called Outside My Kitchen Window.
The book has so many detailed how to's and tips and tricks for appliqué - so helpful for me since this is an area of quilting where I have so much learn!
And oh what's that? You'd like to win a copy of Quilt Retro? Ok! Jenifer was generous enough to help make that happen! Just leave a comment here and I'll draw a winner on Wednesday.
This is just the start of the blog tour so tomorrow be sure to check out Quiltville for the next stop.
Around the sewing room...
I've been planning...
(Need to get started on the Habitat Challenge!)
...piecing...
and quilting!
This actually isn't how I usually work. Normally I have one project going that I finish before I start another but recently I've had too much on my plate to work that way. Makes me feel scattered but what can you do? I'm still getting work done...
And thank you all so much for all of your kind comments about my latest quilt. There were so many great name suggestions. I heard Crossroads from a few people and I really liked that, both because the piecing looks kinda like roads (let's go with it...) and because the piecing crosses itself. So that's what I'm going with! Thanks again for all of your ideas!
Another finished quilt!
Ok - so I have no clue what to name this one so if you have bright ideas please leave 'em in the comments! This is the one I was starting back here...
I have been leaning more and more on non-block based quilt designs but I also love to improv. piece so I have been thinking of ways to combine the two. I feel like this quilt is a good example of that. Personally, I love it.
I quilted with dense straight lines (as usual - expect to see a whole lot more of this outta me - I'm loving it these days) and then less densely through the piecing. You can see the quilting really well on the back.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Quilting the Queen Baby Quilt
Thank you so much for all of your nice comments about the quilting on the Queen Baby Quilt. I though I would share more about how I did it, so I put together some step by step illustrations that should make it very clear. I recently took a workshop from the amazing Angela Walters and one of her biggest tips about quilting is that you need to plan how you're going to work through the quilt in advance. This of course makes sense, but sometimes I get too impatient and just jump in. Not anymore!
I should add that my straight line quilting has improved dramatically since I started sewing on the Janome Horizon. (Full disclosure - they did sponsor me with the machine but I would recommend it regardless.) The combination of their feed system and being able to turn the pressure of my presser foot waaaay down have made it so that I don't deal with fabric shifting like I used to. Amanda Jean did a post on this recently and the follow up post has lots of helpful ideas.
Additionally, the size of the Horizon makes it so that I can easily turn the quilt in my machine as needed. And there's a lot of turning happening with this quilting because I turn a lot of corners. I keep my lines equidistant by just using the edge of my walking foot as the guide for each seam.
The quilting started with this basic idea.
We've all seen it before - the idea of making blocks into beads on a string... Pretty simple, right? But with all of that negative space, I knew that I wanted to fill it in with dense straight line quilting, so I had the idea to echo quilt this first concept.
So I started quilting!
First I sewed a line that was the beginning of the idea.
Then I worked my way out to the edge of the quilt, filling in all of the negative space. My quilt was in my machine turned 180 degrees (meaning sewing from the bottom to the top) while quilting these lines and I slowly worked my way out, so that more and more of the quilt was to the left of my machine. You can see that when a smaller section of the negative space got filled in (like between the blocks or below the bottom block) I just stopped making those turns.
Next up, it was time to fill in two of the blocks with freemotion quilting. I did this before finishing the straight lines so that I could keep the fabric smooth through the whole process. If I quilted dense lines all around the blocks, and then quilted the blocks, any extra fabric (in an ideal world there wouldn't be any but I've learned this lesson the hard way) wouldn't have anywhere to go and would bubble and ripple.
I then continued with filling in the straight lines. Because there's so little negative space between the blocks, I knew I had to fill in the framing line around the second set of blocks now or there wouldn't be room for it later. Lots of planning ahead!
Then I filled in all of the space between them. There was only room for a couple of complete lines (that run from the top to the bottom of the quilt) between the blocks, so I then filled in the top and bottom spaces, again echoing the pattern that the quilting lines created.
And then it was time to freemotion quilt the last two blocks!
Finally, the last framing line happened...
I echo quilted around it to the edge of the quilt...
And finished up by filling in the corners, again echoing the existing quilting pattern.
And there you have it! It is time consuming, all of these straight lines, but I think that the result is so worth it. I love that it is quilting that takes the piecing in to consideration, yet it is graphic and works to create a very modern feeling quilt.
Modern Quilt Guild happenings
So much going on with The MQG these days. We just announced a call for quilts for an MQG exhibit at Fall Market 2012! This is very exciting stuff and I know that it will be an amazing show!
And meanwhile, are you going to Market or Festival in Houston this year? There's going to be two different meetups kindly hosted by The Houston MQG. All are welcome and it's always so much fun to meet other like minded quilters from around the country and world.
Go MQG!
Sew, Mama, Sew! Modern Block of the Month - September
September's block is posted over at Sew, Mama, Sew! Triangles! How very unlike me, huh?? Hope you enjoy it!
Queen Baby Quilt
Sometimes friends having a baby have a great last name (Queen in this case) and you just gotta use it when naming the quilt! Well, that and the fact that I'm the absolute worst at coming up with quilt names and there you have it... The Queen Baby Quilt!
I loved the central gray sorta plus sign created in this quilt, and was doing that that again here. I was also exploring intentionally ever so slightly wavy seams. Not just cutting with no ruler, but also cutting both pieces of fabric at the same time (overlapping them a bit) before sewing them together. Fun stuff and something I'm gonna do more of. It's a subtle difference, but it does effect your "wonky" look and I'm ever continuing to explore that... It's endless that wonk exploration, isn't it??
I did dense straight line quilting (yes, I'm stuck there right now) but I tried to mix it up a bit by outlining the blocks and then echoing that outline. And I filled in the blocks themselves with the wavy watery pattern I just did on my mother's quilt. I will be handing this quilt off to its new lil' baby owner on Saturday and I hope he loves and cuddles with it for years.
I'm headed to NYC for Fashion Week for all of 36 hours tomorrow. And in other exciting news, I found out that I'm going to the Emmys this year! Fun!! Project Runway is nominated and my fingers are seriously crossed that it'll win. My outfit is 90% sorted out. Now I just need to get used to walking around in my new super high stilettos...
Home again.
I'm back in LA after a great visit to New Hampshire. It's always so nice to go back. I grew up there and then moved to LA for college and stayed. I've lived in LA for 17 years now. It's surreal to think I've been away almost as long as I lived there. Anyhow - it was a great visit with family and old friends and it was nice to take a break from everything for awhile. And now I'm diving right back in! A couple of friends having are baby boys. In fact, one was born just yesterday so I have to get cracking!
Just getting started on them but they will be simple and come together quickly. Just need to add some more negative space to this one...
And I dove into some fabrics I haven't touched in ages with this one! Hi brown. It's been a while... but their registry was all blues and chocolate so it should work out!
I hope to make a lot of progress on these in the next few days.
Gene Kelly Craft Along
It started over on twitter... just one mention of loving Gene Kelly and there was instantly a chorus of people agreeing and a suggestion of a Gene Kelly Craft Along! Who am I to say no to a combination of two things I love?? Gene Kelly and crafting?? I'm IN!
Gene Kelly is my all time favorite movie star ever. There's just something about his natural charisma and his amazing dancing (and ok - I admit it, his dreamy good looks don't hurt!) that just works for me. I have also always been a lover of classic films and many of the musicals that Gene Kelly was a part of are simply amazing film making. (Let's ignore Xanadu, ok??) Singing in the Rain, An American in Paris, On the Town... I just love them all!
Now HOW to make a quilt that's inspired by him?!? This is admittedly daunting but I'm gonna give it a shot! My love for GK runs too deep to not join in the craft along! The others joining in (so far!) are Sister Diane, Marlo, Rachel, Stacie, and Tara.
Why don't YOU join us too?? No rules, no deadlines, no difficult obligations! It's just all about expressing the GK love through your craft! Here's the flickr group so that we can all enjoy the crafty goodness that is certain to result from a Gene Kelly Craft Along!!
Clouds & Water Quilt
I finally got my mother's quilt all finished up!
To tell the story of this quilt again, it's 100% fabric that my mother gave me. She had slowly collected fabrics with cloud and water imagery and she wanted them all in one quilt. Along with the cloud and water fabric, she also had all of these solids and I knew I was going to lean heavily on them to make this a quilt that is my voice. I actually really love a challenge like this... I like being given certain confines that I have to design within - it forces some of the decisions. It's a bit small for my bed here but it's just the right size for my mother's bed!
I wouldn't have picked these fabrics myself, but I'm really happy with the end result. I really like the way the fabrics in the pieced strip go from dark, to light, to dark again and I think the fabrics are all featured well.
And I used more clouds for the binding...
Hope you all have a great weekend! I'm headed home to New Hampshire next week for a family visit. I can't wait!! Summer in New England...there's nothing better. Except the mosquitoes!
Sew, Mama, Sew! Modern Block of the Month - August
Did you see that Sew, Mama Sew! posted the second Modern BOM?
Action Kivu 2nd Annual Fundraiser wrap up
Ok so seriously - you are all the best!! I'm getting emotional over here thinking about all of the small (and some very large!) bits of generosity that we combined into the huge effort of reaching our goal and then some! Together we raised an amazing
$15,135!!!
We are going to make a real concrete difference for some women and children who who we are helping. The money we've raised here will go a long way. It will pay for the sewing workshop graduation kits for 43 women. They have learned the skills and now they will have the sewing machines and supplies they need to make a living. These are women who would not be able to do this without the money that we raised here together. Our money will also pay for the sewing workshop to continue running for a new group of women to learn. Additionally, our money will pay for children to go to school, altering their futures immeasurably. Together we have made the lives of some women and children a bit better.
It's often unbearable to imagine the pain and suffering these victims of the conflict in eastern Congo have lived through - but know that we've helped some of them to begin rebuilding their lives. All while sitting in front of our computers. Pretty amazing, isn't it?
So thank you. Thank you a million times over! Thank you to those who gave money, to those who gave prizes and to those who helped to spread the word that this fundraiser was happening. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
A big congrats to the winners of the prizes. We're sending emails to everyone one who won today, so keep an eye out for that! And everyone else, your donation is tax deductible so we'll be sending you a letter within the next couple of weeks.
I know that for some of you the needs of these women and children and the work that Action Kivu does really struck a chord. If you're wondering what more you could do, you could set up a monthly donation, (no matter how small!) or you could organize a bake sale or your guild could make a charity quilt to raise funds. I can easily connect anyone who's interested directly with Action Kivu and they would be thrilled to work with you. Know that the needs of Congolese women and children are huge and Action Kivu is always in need of more donations. You can also keep up with Action Kivu by liking them on Facebook or following them on Twitter.
And we'll be here again next year doing it all over again! Again, thank you all so much!
2nd Annual Action Kivu Fundraiser
The giveaways for this fundraiser are now closed but Action Kivu always needs donations. Thank you!
Here it is! Year two of the Action Kivu Fundraiser! Today is the first final day of this fundraiser that will be happening right here on my blog throughout this week. The fundraiser and giveaways are open through midnight (PST) on Monday the 15th.
There are amazing prizes to be had so please learn about this worthy cause and keep reading!
If you were were reading along last year (can you believe it's been an entire year?!?) you know about Action Kivu, but for those of you who don't know, Action Kivu is a nonprofit that helps women who are victims of the conflict in Eastern Congo by teaching them to sew. The conflict in Congo has taken the lives of over 5.4 million people since 1998. Rape is used as a weapon of war, with estimates putting the number of rapes in the hundreds of thousands. This is truly difficult stuff to think about but together we can really make a difference for some specific women who need our help.
By learning to be seamstresses these women can then support themselves and their families. Action Kivu also pays to send Congolese children to school. You can read a lot about them on their web site.
Last year we raised an amazing $10,000 over the course of a week and this year we're upping the goal!!
Together, we can raise $15,000 for this amazing organization and the women and children it benefits.
That's just 300 of you giving $50. That's realistic, right?? Please give and help us reach our goal! See that thermometer on my side bar? (click through if you're seeing this in a reader) This week we are going to make it move up and and up and up and we need YOU to help us do that!
As a sewing community we are so giving, generous and lucky to have each other and the amazing support we provide for one another. Let's spread that net of support wider and help these women and children. Together we can make a real difference. Please give!
Now - getting down to business!! The giveaways!! In order to be entered to win a prize, all that you have to do is give the amount assigned to that prize. Can't decide which giveaway you want to be in the running for? You can enter more than one! Just donate the dollar amount associated with a prize and you've got a chance to win it! However, you can only enter each giveaway once. Now let's check out all of the prizes that were donated by so many wonderfully giving people.
Added 8/11 – every one who wins a prize will also get one Anna Maria Horner pattern of your choice!
$10 Donation:
Every dollar counts so give just $10 and be in the running to win these two yards of incredibly hard to find fabrics. One yard of Erin Michael's paint by number birds in blue and one yard of her paint by number deer in blue!
Give $25 and you will be entered to win a fat quarter pack of the entire line of Happy Mochi Yum Yum by Monica Solorio-Snow donated by Sew Modern! That's 30 fat quarters of this wonderful new fabric line.
$40 Donation:
A fat quarter pack of the not yet in stores Sugar Creek line by Denyse Schmidt!! A huge thanks to Denyse Schmidt Quilts for their kindness in donating this bundle! Can you believe that you might be lucky enough to get your hands on some of this fabric before anyone else does? Give $40 and this bundle could be yours!
165 Fat Eighths of mostly Kona Cottons, but also Quilters Linen and Free Spirit Designer Solids!! Generously donated by Elizabeth Hartman of Oh, Fransson! We're talkin' over 20 yards of fabric here! Give $60 now and start daydreaming about the quilts you will be sewing up with this fabric if it becomes yours!
$75 Donation:
43 different fat eighths of Flea Market Fancy! Donate now to win this incredibly sought after and hard to find fabric line. Donated by Jacquie Gering of Tallgrass Prairie Studio. Thanks to Ashley Newcomb of Film In the Fridge for her contribution to this bundle! A donation of $75 and this fabric could be yours!
And please help to spread the word about this fundraiser! Tell your friends, post it on Facebook and Twitter or blog about it – let’s all join together and really make a difference!
More details you might want to know:
I got involved with Action Kivu because my twin sister, Cate, works with them. Action Kivu provides some of the eastern Congo’s victims of violence with the opportunity to rebuild their lives on a foundation of hope, dignity, and economic self-sustenance. Their approach is spearheaded through two programs. First, they run a sewing workshop that teaches women who are victims of the conflict to sew. Secondly, they pay for children to go to school which is not free in Congo.
Action Kivu is run in eastern Congo by a Congolese man, Amani Matabaro (you can meet him if you watch the video on the Action Kivu web site), who Cate knows personally and who is amazingly passionate and committed to his cause of helping women and children in his country. As an orphan who lost his parents in the conflict, he was driven to try to do something to help. We will not be throwing this money into the wind, not knowing where it’s going.
Additionally, here in the US, Action Kivu is 100% run by volunteers. Every dollar we raise here, aside from banking fees, will go directly to Action Kivu and these woman and children in need. If you’d like, you can learn more about the conflict in Eastern Congo here.
Any other questions at all? Just drop me an email or comment and I will happily get you an answer!
Check back Monday!
The second annual Action Kivu fundraiser is kicking off here on Monday. Come on back then to see how you can not only give to a great cause but maybe win fabric too! And I'll just go right ahead and say it... the giveaways are really pretty great...
Have a wonderful weekend and see you Monday!
Long arm quilting
Happy Monday everyone! I finished the top for my mother's quilt ages and ages ago and I finally got it quilted late last week. I have been wanting to get more time in with the long arm at Sew Modern and this quilt is big, so I dove in!
It's funny... there's a part of me that feels like I'm betraying the idea of making quilts on my home machine, from start to finish. Why is that? I need to get over it because the freedom and speed of working on a long arm just straight up cannot be denied. Especially with really big quilts. You're not going to find me zipping every lil' baby quilt I make on the long arm, but I think that I'm going to be using it a lot for the big bed quilts.
I have been trying to move away from all over quilting patterns but I thought this quilt, with all of its open negative space, lent itself to one. I've seen a couple of quilts recently have that have this sort of stretched out water looking all over pattern and it worked perfectly on the quilt.
I promise it won't be eleven more months (time flies, huh??) before I get the binding on, finish up and show you the end results.
Oh and thanks so much for all of your comments about Project Runway. It makes me happy that my two jobs/worlds overlap through sewing!
Watch Project Runway tonight!
Hey everyone. Lots of you know that my day job is in casting reality shows... The show I'm always the most proud of is Project Runway and season 9 starts airing tonight at 9pm on Lifetime, but tune in earlier at 8pm for a casting special! I hope that those of you who can will be watching!
