Brown Bag Quilt

So, I don't know if I've mentioned this on my blog yet, but I have the best brown bag quilt partner, Leona over at Leona's Quilting Adventure.  Not only did she send me some lovely fabric when the contest started, but she also sent me a bonus holiday fat quarter that's part of the collection she originally sent me!

The reason I love the brown bag quilt is because I probably wouldn't have noticed or bought this fabric in a store, but now that I have it I absolutely love it and may look at fabric differently while shopping.  I am going to use a pattern from my new book The Practical Guide to Patchwork.  It's not terribly detailed, but the fabric is so lovely and has such large patterns on it that I wanted to make sure that the quilt I made was a showpiece for the fabric.  I've cut all of the pattern pieces thus far.

I am going to pair it with some solid light blue fabric that I have.  I'm not as happy with this pairing as I'd like to be, but seeing as I've only see quilting for 6 months or so, I don't have quite the stash I would like to have for projects like this.  A few more trips to Fabric Shack and I'm sure I'll catch up!

My goal is to finish piecing all of the blocks this week, so stay tuned for progress.

And on a side note, since it's the last week of regular season NFL football, I just wanted to say that there is nothing that I love to do more on a Sunday than spend the day quilting while watching football.  I'm going to miss this when the season is over...

Stranded in Cincinnati

Like thousands of other travelers, my flight to NYC was canceled on Monday- the earliest I was able to get home after that?  Friday.  I was really annoyed, but my parents live in town, so I had a free place to stay and got to spend more time with them.  The best part though is I got to do some quilt-related stuff that I didn't have time for during Christmas- mostly quilt related.

First, my mom dug out an old quilt she has (we're guessing it's from the 1920s) that her great aunt made.  She was foolish enough to let my brother and me play on it as children, so it has stains and a lot of wear and tear, but it is truly amazing.  Completely done by hand and very detailed.  It has crossed my mind that I should try to recreate it as a project... we'll see if that happens.

 

THE most exciting thing that I did was go to the most amazing quilting fabric shop I've ever been to.  When my mom's best friend (a long time quilter) told me that we would be driving 40 minutes to a store called the Fabric Shack, I have to admit, I was quite skeptical.  I sure did eat my words when we finally got there- this place is AMAZING!  If you are ever in the Cincinnati/Dayton/Columbus area, you must go.  First off, they have great prices and a truly amazing selection. They still had bolts of Lizzie House's Castle Peeps (which I've been eyeing for months) for only $7.99 a yard (needless to say, I bought quite a few half yards of this).  I even could not resist buying fabric for a baby blanket for when one of my closest friends has an other baby- please note that she just gave birth less than two months ago... I think I'll be sitting on this fabric for quite some time, but it was just too good to pass up!

They also have great remnants tables, that were only a few dollars a yard for anything.  There is room after room after room of fabric.  We spent a couple of hours and around $100, I probably could have spent all day and four times that amount, but $100 goes a lot further there than in NYC.  I also got a lot of quilting tips and some new items that are supposed to make quilting a lot easier (although I did have to pass on the walking foot because it was like $90).

Not only did I get a bunch of amazing new fabric, but tons of books and magazines to add to my collect which, before my trip, was only a few magazines and photocopies of stuff from books from the library.  I finally got Elizabeth Hartman's book for Christmas from my parents.  I also got a fun Asian fabric inspired book from family friends, and then my mother bought be a really great book called "Fresh Quilts" (mostly I think because she felt sorry for me to being stranded in Ohio).  I also took a quick trip to Half Price Books and bought a hand full of old quilt books at a very dicounted price.  Thanks to all this new stuff, I now have about a million projects I can't wait to start (and hopefully finish).

I also was able to see the wedding dress exhibit and the Thomas Gainsborough exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum.  Both were really wonderful exhibits.  I always love to see old and amazing gowns and it was pretty amazing to see the actual pantings that I've studied and used as research. I, of course, bought a book on the wedding dress exhibit.

Well, that was my trip- twice as long as planned, but turned out really nice and productive.  I'm happy to be home though- with a cuddly kitty cat and tons of new projects on the horizon!  Happy New Year!

The Recreation of an Obsession

A friend of mine told me that when you that when you're 29 the moon is in the exact same place as when you were born, so all of the stuff that you didn't deal with in your childhood comes back around (or something like that).  Maybe that's why a few weeks ago I decided I was going to recreate my childhood baby blanket (which many of you know I still have).  I have been scouring Etsy and Ebay trying to find the fabric (which is a little tough -although not impossible- because this fabric was manufactured in the 1970s).

The main problems in recreating of 'Banky' is because over the time the fabric has faded and is now a gross grey/brown color, the only pictures I can find don't show the whole blanket, and my mother is no longer in touch with the woman who made it for me.  For these reasons I'm not sure exactly what it looked like.  So, instead of doing it the exact way it was,  I'm going to do recreate it from memory (even if my memory is inaccurate) or the best I can based on fabric I find.

The only fabric I really need is the blue version.  So if anyone happens to see some, I would really appreciate the heads up.

New Fabric!

Today I received fabric from fabric.com (my first experience ordering fabric online).  Some of it was fantastic, while I had a little trouble with a few- two were a crazy big scale (I guess I didn't pay close enough attention to the ruler) and two were little too heavy of a weight (I'm hoping that a good wash and dry will soften them up enough to use with my regular old cotton, fingers crossed).

Spent most of my quilting time finishing a baby blanket today, but also been practicing on a number of pot holders and, thankfully, getting better.  Maybe tomorrow there will be some picture worthy work.

*If anyone needs novelty fabric, fabric.com is having a blowout sale and they have a lot of nice cottons for under $3 a yard.

Early Delivery!

Last weekend I was in Ohio for a wedding and my mother was nice enough to drive two hours to have lunch with me.  In her trunk were two huge boxes she found in the attic- one was labeled "Fabric/Batting" and other, unlabeled.  She told me to look through them and decide if I wanted them or if she should get rid of them.  Talk about a find!  There was a huge box of fabric from when I first started sewing in college.  Back then I was obsessed with making pajama pants for anyone who wanted a pair and tiny clothes for my cement goose, Ferdinand.  In the boxes were yards and yards of silly cotton fabric, some cut in the shape of pajama pants that were never finished, there were bandannas from our late dog Lily, vintage hats I purchased at a theatre sale, some disgusting poly batting from my pillow making days, and some super weird fabric from a play I designed years ago.  There was too much stuff to travel back with me, so my mom generously offered to mail me a box of fabric.  It was supposed to arrive Wednesday (I've been going crazy waiting for it to arrive), but guess what came in the mail today?!  Yay!  Most of the fabric is very novelty and will be used for kids quilts for Project Linus.

Today also marked my first time I attempted to quilt on a machine and not by tying little embroidery floss or yarn at the corner of each box.  It wasn't a completely botched attempt, but I ran into some difficulties.  (I should mention, I do not have a walking foot.)

Here's what I learned:

• Machine quilting is much harder than the YouTube video I watched made it look.
• Spray adhesive may be the best invention of all time.
• I need a lot more practice at this!

Once the quilt is done, I'll post a photo of it.  It's for Project Linus and is made mostly out of left over fabric from the baby blanket I made for Danielle, along with some striped and solid fabrics I had lying around.  I'm a bit discouraged by the setback, but I keep reminding myself- everything is a learning experience!