BlockBase Sew Along (& Giveaway!)

Over at the ol' 9-5 I'm hosting a sew along to celebrate the re-release of BlockBase and I'd love if you'd pop over there and check it out!

BlockBase is an amazing block pattern resource (4300+ blocks!) and to get the sew along started, EQ is giving away 5 copies of the software! To enter, fill out the entry form here by Wednesday, September 19th, 9 am EST.

We start sewing October 1!

Tumbling

I have access to an AccuQuilt die cutter at work and I've used it several times to cut little stacks of patches like this:



But I had yet to turn these stacks into anything. This weekend I finally got around to sewing some of them together!



I previously mentioned these tumblers here and here. All the prints are from the Weekends collection by Erin McMorris. At first I was planning to only use prints in the lime colorway, but all the tumblers just seemed to melt together. Then I added the solid aqua tumblers and it helped, but I still wasn't quite happy with it. This time I added a few prints from the violet colorway and I think it's just right!

Now, I'm not sure how I'd like to finish this quilt. Do I add a border(s) or just bind it?



Here's another project I've been working on this summer. I had planned to have a finished project in time for the Festival of Hexagons, but I had my dates wrong and missed the deadline-- boo! At least there's no pressure to finish it now. ;)



We went on a couple of mini vacations this summer and these hexagons traveled along with me. I made "busy bags" of activities and games to keep the kids occupied in the backseat. The supplies to make these little hexagons were in my busy bag!

As Seen on TV.... ME!

Yesterday I spent my morning at a TV studio in Cleveland taping a segment for Quilting Arts TV! I demonstrated how EQ7 can be a useful tool for the modern quilter. Here I am with the wonderful host Pokey Bolton.



I was quite a ball of nerves the last couple of weeks prepping for this segment! Public speaking is soooo not my thing. But everyone at the studio was so nice and friendly, it helped to put me at ease.



I love seeing how things work "behind the scenes". They tape the whole season in a week-- what a well-oiled machine! It was so interesting to see the other quilters/artists prepping their projects in the green room. I wish I could have spent more time hanging out there admiring everyone's work.

The episode won't air for several months; I'll be sure to post when it's available!

40th Anniversary Quilt

I am so happy to finally be able to say that this quilt is finished! It's a quilt to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary, which happened back in June, but really thoughtful gifts are worth the wait, right??



Each of the foundation pieced blocks represents something about my parents and their life together.



Pansy: Mom enjoys gardening • House: they built their house together • O: they met at the Ohio State University • Pig: they were hog farmers when I was a kid



Heart: for love! • Truck: my dad's job • Boat: boating is an activity they like doing together (this isn't the right kind of boat, but after several failed attempts at drawing a motor boat, I went with this easy-to-sew sailboat!) • Fish: fishing is another hobby they both enjoy

I had a fat quarter pack of Deb Strain's Cherish Nature collection I knew I wanted to use because it has my mom's favorite blues in it. It was pretty easy to find blocks I could use to represent my parents as I've known them all my life and have plenty of material to work with *wink*. But I took a ridiculous amount of time finding just the right layout. I almost always use EQ7 to work out my design choices, so I thought it might be interesting to see some of my rejected layout ideas.



The winner:



It's fun to see how a design evolves. My original intention when thinking about this quilt was to make the foundation pieced blocks a secondary design element. Not something you noticed right away, but saw after looking at the quilt for a while, which is why I made them all in neutral fabrics. That's not the way it ended up; I think the blocks are pretty center stage in the quilt. But I love the way it turned out. And I figured if I'm going to spend all that time making these intricate picture blocks, people better notice them!

A peek at the back:



Sewing time was pretty sparse these past few months, so this project pretty much took up my whole summer. But it was well worth it and the summer was spent doing lots of fun summery-type things. However, I'm so ready to tackle some new sewing projects! My oldest starts first grade tomorrow and I look forward to finding our new family routine, which I hope includes a bit more sewing time for me.

Progress!

I've made some good progress on this quilt. I replaced the four without much trouble, although it took quite a bit of time to rip out since I used tiny stitches for the foundation piecing. I'm just so glad the top is pieced together and the end is in sight!



Of course there's another border to add. And a backing to piece together... the quilting... the binding. Quiltmaking can really feel like a never-ending process sometimes, huh?

But I vow not to work on another project until this one is done. I hope to be able to quilt it this weekend (but I think I've said that the last 3 weekends!).

That Pesky Four

Although I haven't posted about it for a while, I'm still chugging along on this quilt. Now that I've gone back to see when I posted those first blocks, I realize I've really been dragging my feet on this quilt! The event it's meant to celebrate was a few weeks ago, but I won't see the recipients for another week and a half so that's my justification! I'll give details about the recipients and what all these seemingly random blocks are about when it's finished.



Obviously, since I first started working on this quilt back in May, it's been up on my design wall for quite a while. I finished this 40 block and noticed at the time that the ascender of the 4 didn't match up quite right, but I told myself to move on and no one would ever notice the bad match except for me. Fast forward a few weeks and that 4 had become my nemesis. Every time I added a new element to the design wall, I could see the 4 mocking me. But I was worried that I wouldn't be able to extricate the four without messing up the entire block and having to start all over. I finally asked for advice from the ladies in my quilt group-- should I let it go, or try to fix it? It was kind of a split decision but, in my mind, the people who spoke loudest to me were the ones who said I should fix it because it would forever drive me crazy. I figure they were the loudest to me, because that's what I really wanted to do. I just needed to hear someone else say it. :)



So here's the new 4 with much better matching seams. Now comes the hard part of taking out the old 4 and putting in the new. I'm a little nervous....



And here are the last of the paper pieced blocks I needed to make. These will be part of the border. I'm hoping to finish up the top this weekend, and then quilt next week!

Birdie Sling

I did it! I finished another bag in time for Purse Palooza! It's the Birdie Sling by Amy Butler; a pattern that's been sitting on my shelf for ages. Size-wise, this bag couldn't be any more different from the bag I made a couple weeks ago. This baby is substantial. It could eat 3 of those clutches for lunch and still have room for dessert.



It's rough to get sewing projects done in the summer. So much of my time is spent outside and keeping little people entertained (which is a good thing! most of the time...). It felt like it took me days just to fuse all the interfacing to the various pieces of this bag. There's a lot of structure to this bag and it doesn't make it the easiest thing to maneuver under the needle. After I was done with the final seam attaching the lining and exterior I felt like I had just wrestled a badger. I've never bent up so many pins— in trying to pin the many layers of fabric and interfacing together AND in running over them with the machine. That was a combination of being too lazy to take them out as I came to them and also not having a hand free as I tried to wrangle the beast.

But for all this whining, I am quite happy with the results. All that interfacing may be a pain, but it gives the bag good bones and makes it look more professional. And who doesn't love a good chevron print these days? I saw this home dec print in Hobby Lobby and passed it up the first time because I didn't have a use for it at the time. Then I decided to make this Birdie Sling and had trouble finding it again. So glad I did! The contrasting band and handle fabric is from the Summer's End collection by Hoffman.



The directions called for two pockets. I used the pattern for the smaller pocket, but made an even shallower pocket on the other side so it would fit my cell phone better. This bag will carry all my "essentials" and then some!