Defining the Modern Quilter

Hi!  For those of you who attended my schoolhouse, this is the blog post I promised you with all the links and photographs of projects I shared.  Thanks for joining me today and I hope you enjoyed it!

For those of you who did not attend my schoolhouse, this blog post is a brief overview of some of the projects I shared with my schoolhouse "pupils".

Mini Quilts

Square-in-a-square mini quilt by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory.

Wonky Log Cabin mini quilt by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory.



Wonky Stars mini quilt by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory.



Bags

Everything Tote from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross.



Small Tote by Jessica Toye. Download the free pattern here.




Simplicity 2396



Lunch Tote from Sewing Green by Betz White.



Carry All Bag by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory for Fabri-Quilt, Inc. Available as a kit from Fabri-Quilt, Inc.



Aprons

josephine from A is for Apron by Nathalie Mornu.


the waldorf from A is for Apron by Nathalie Mornu.

McCall's 5825


Dresses

Flower Girl Dress from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross.



Quilted Pillows

Flash Dance Pillow by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory.


Mixed Feelings Pillow by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory.


Split Second Decision Pillow by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory.



Table Runner



Engagement by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory.



Quilts




Split Second Decision by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory.




Jambalaya by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory. Download the free pattern here.




Flash Dance by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory. Download the free pattern here.



Framed by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory. Download the free pattern here.




Mortar by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory.



Mixed Feelings by Jessica Toye of Sewbot's Laboratory.

Thanks to those of you who were able to join me in my schoolhouse.  I hope you enjoyed it!

Plum Kebab

Remember the KCMQG No Prints Allowed Challenge I mentioned a few posts back?  Well, I finished it up.  If you happen to be at Quilt Market this week, you can see it in Robert Kaufman's booth. If you're not lucky enough to be at market, I'll indulge you with a few pictures.  :)

Apologies & An Explanation

Ahhh!  It's been nearly a month since my last post!  I am terribly sorry I haven't been able to post more regularly lately.  Hopefully that will all change soon.  Why has it been a month?  Where has the time gone?  Well... my last month has gone to getting things ready for my School House at Quilt Market.  Yep.... that's right!  I'm in Salt Lake City for my very first Quilt Market!

Tomorrow I am presenting a school house titled "Defining the Modern Quilter". 

If you, too are at Quilt Market, come see me in room 251A at 4:55 pm. 

I'm speaking at KCMQG tomorrow.

I have two new mini quilts I'm going to reveal during my presentation.


Here's a sneak peek at one of them.  :)

Hope to see your there!

Organic.

Did you see the Modern Quilt Guild posted Challenge No. 3?

The word is ORGANIC. 

Due date is June 30th. 

I have some ideas already.  How about you?

501 Quilting Motifs

Fabri-Quilt passed this book along to me.  I haven't tried any of the designs from it yet, but it looks awesome!


501 Quilting Motifs: Designs for Hand or Machine Quilting (That Patchwork Place)

It's filled with all sorts of different quilting patterns that you can trace onto your quilt.  It ranges from basic to more complex.  I think I'll probably use it as more of a reference than anything, but it is still an awesome guidebook to quilting.

Quilt Market is coming.

I've been stitching up a storm.  I finished these pole covers up recently for Fabri-Quilt's booth.  That is 28 of them.  Know what else that translates to?  7 spools of green thread.



I traded the completed pole covers in for this pile of fabric.  Yep... 5 bolts of the same fabric to make curtains and more pole covers for their booth.



That's a lot of stitching.  I promised Meredith (my sewing machine) a tune-up while I'm at Quilt Market.  I'm hoping she'll go along with the plan and keep stitching smoothly until then.

No Prints Allowed.

In one of the KCMQG meetings a while back, everyone who wanted to participate was given a charm pack of one of the Robert Kaufman Kona Solids color palettes.  I chose the dusty palette.  I didn't feel sorry for it like some other members mentioned.  I was drawn to it.  The muted, yet vibrant colors just called me. 

Our challenge was to use each and every color in the pack to make a quilt of some sort.  We could add any fabric we wanted; as long as it was a solid color.  Easy enough, right?  I decided I didn't want to add another charm pack to my scheme and I didn't want a lot of another color.  I also wanted it to be big enough for a smallish person like myself to snuggle under.  That's where things got tricky.

To accomplish the not adding another charm pack, I figured I had to cut into the charm squares as little as possible.  Well that simplifies things, doesn't it?  I even decided to keep it super simple and not mess with the color order of the palette.  I just sewed the pack one square next to the other in the order they came!


I was thinking a grey or a black for my "neutral background" color, but when I got the store to buy that fabric, I spotted this plum. Doesn't it just sing?


This is definitely my most modern quilt yet and it accomplishes everything I wanted it to: big enough for me to snuggle under, one charm pack, minimal neutral fabric.  Now, I just need to figure out what to do on the backside and how to quilt it.

Thanks Robert Kaufman for providing the KCMQG with Kona charm packs for our challenge.

KC Scrappy Bee Block for Carla.

Last month was Carla's month to be the hostess for the KC Scrappy Bee.  She had each of us make this awesome "X" block for her out of a really fun red/pink/aqua/grey color scheme. 



This is the block I gave to her.  Fun, right?

Spring is here.

The second daffodil  in my yard bloomed sometime overnight.  Isn't it pretty?  Daffodils just kind of make me smile.



Because it's springtime, I obviously needed a new purse.  I took Jaime's Amy Butler bag making workshop at Bernina a few weekends ago and started this bag there.

I chose the Sweet Harmony Handbag pattern and some fun springtime fabric from JoAnn.  This was my first Amy Butler pattern and I wasn't completely impressed.  I love the Amy Butler style, but thought the pattern was lacking in a few ways.  First, I'm pretty sure the dimension for installing a zippered pocket was wrong.  It could have been my mistake somewhere along the line, but I tried it several times and the dimensions given were not the same as the dimensions I ended up with when I lined it up myself.  Second, where are the diagrams?  Maybe trade in some of the words for some pictures? 

Those are my thoughts from the pattern.  I really like the bag and am happy to carry it and am really happy spring is here.  I totally have spring fever and want to get out and play every chance I get.

Sewing, sewing, sewing...

I just finished up a batch of sewing for Fabri-Quilt and am ready to share it with you. 


I did two of these fun little panel quilts.  I did both of them on the long arm.  I chose a snowflake pantograph to trace in gold thread.  I think they turned out fun. 



This apron is a panel that they gave me to do.  Don't I have the best model?



I think he's the best at least.  Perhaps he is pouting because I made him put on this less-than-manly apron. 



This turned out pretty cool.  I made it using Diane Tomlinson's Christmas Memories pattern from Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting, November/December 2010 issue.


I traced the letters in Merry Christmas with red thread.  See how it looks almost embossed?  I thought it was cool. 

So, that's what I've been up to lately.  How about you?

For Angela in the KC Scrappy Bee

This is the block I made for Angela in last month's edition of the KC Scrappy Bee. 


She requested a square-in-a-square block using only the fabrics she provided.  I loved the colors she chose to put together for this batch.  I ran into an "uh-oh-how-am-i-going-to-finish-this?" moment towards the end when I started to run low on fabric.  I used very close to every single inch I was given, thus the different colored corner on this block.  Funny how things sometimes just seem to work, eh?

Party Animals.

Jason and I had a VERY busy weekend.  We were MAJOR party animals.  My grandma turned 80 last week and Jason's grandmother turns 85 this week.  On Sunday we went to my grandma's party and Saturday we went to his grandma's surprise party.   



Oh boy was she surprised.  She thought she was going dress shopping for an upcoming wedding. 



I love the look on Uncle Tom's face here.  He looks so afraid that cousin Jenna is going to dump all those candles on his lap. 



Uncle Tom is turning 60 sometime soon, so he also got a pair of cakes.  One 6.  One 0. 



Grandma Vrooman, Jason and I. 



Jason and I had made something special for Grandma Vrooman's birthday.  This is her opening the box. 



The label I made for the back using my mom's floating eight-point star tutorial.  Thanks mom!  It was a breeze to whip this one together!

Jason made fun of my use of commas, but whatever... I like my punctuation to be correct; even if only on a quilt label. 



This is the full quilt draped on my bed.  It turned out ENORMOUS and really heavy.  The neutral I used is a fabric called Osnaburg.  It has a beautiful texture to it and I really like the way it looks, I just didn't like the way it handled.  It was an experiment, so we'll chalk it up to a learning experience.  The Osnaburg stretched and skewed and frayed.  I had several spots I had to repair before and after quilting because the seam allowances had disintegrated.  Even though I really like the way it looks, I don't think I'll use it again.

The quilting on this one seemed to take FOREVER.  I used a pantograph by Willow Leaf Studio called Whirlygig in a pretty gold thread.  I thought the design was just the right density of quilting for this one.  Unfortunately, I had a few issues with thread tension, borders, and stretching fabric and it took me 7 hours to finish!  Phew!

I had a bit of help from Jason on this one.  He did about a 1/3 of the hand sewing part of the binding.  Without him this quilt would have taken forever to finish.  I forgot to measure it when it was all said and done, but I think it was about 98x115.

Sadly, none of the pictures I snapped at my grandma's party turned out well enough to share with you.  Maybe next time. 

Modern quilters break the pattern

In this morning's newspaper, there is an article titled Modern quilters break the pattern.  Featured in the article are my friends Lauren & Jacquie. 

Jacquie is a fantastic quilter.  Just look at the quilts surrounding her in the picture above.  I LOVE the color wheel quilt that's in front of her.  And the story behind the "Proposal Moon" quilt shown in the right of the photo is so sweet. 


And isn't this photo of Lauren awesome?  I love that bird fabric she has shown in the bottom of this photo. 

Photos borrowed from the Kansas City Star.  Go here to see the full article. 

Awesome Advice About Free Motion Quilting

I've noticed I have a problem with my free motion quilting sometimes.  In some spots it looks perfect, but in other spots it looks terrible.  The bad spots have the top thread pulling and looping on the back of the quilt.  I've always wondered why this happens until last night when I spotted this blog post by Leah Day. 

She explains why stitches look bad sometimes and how to fix them.  If you're new to free motion quilitng, definitely check out Leah's blog.  It's filled with inspiration and tips for doing things beautifully. 

What's your favorite bag pattern?

I'm working on another project for Fabri-Quilt and I would like some input from you all.  What is your favorite bag pattern?  I'm supposed to design a bag that's sort of a tote/handbag/diaper bag hybrid. I'm thinking a large bag with lots of pockets.

I'm looking for some inspiration for a design I'll be working on and I'm wondering what you guys like.  



That bag above is one I made a while back for taking gear to sewing classes.  It's big and has a ton of pockets.  The downfall in my opinion is that none of the pockets seal.  If it doesn't tip over in transport, everything is gravy.  It usually tips over though...  :(

So what do you look for in a bag? 
Do you like a certain kind of pockets?  Certain size?  Pockets that close?
What kind of straps do you prefer?
Any certain bag shape you like?

Thanks for your help!  I'm looking forward to hearing all your input. 

Welcome to Mount Snowhog.

We're calling that mountain of snow to the left of the Vibe "Mount Snowhog".  We have unburied ourselves from the massive snow storm that passed through our neck of the woods yesterday.  I would guess somewhere in the 12" range is what we had sitting on our driveway.  It's kind of hard to tell for sure because of all the blowing and drifting that went on out there last night.



It really is quite beautiful in my neighborhood today. Hardly anybody is on the roads and the neighbors are all tucked away in their houses.  And how gorgeous is that house across the street from me?  I think I have the best view on the block. 

Also, because my mother-in-law would insist that I spread what she refers to as "the blessings of the season"; Happy Groundhog's Day.  :)