Sewing with Friends! It doesn't get any better than this!

I spent last week with my Brown Bagger friends quilting away in the Berkshires. Karen, our fearless Berkshire's leader figured out that it was our 13th year out in Western Mass and made a list of all the places we've stayed over the years. Cheryl was our social director and put together a comprehensive list of restaurants for our culinary pleasure.

Marion and I started our trip on Tuesday morning. Our friend Debbie had recommended the $1.99 store in Auburn, so we made a quick stop there at Exit 10 off the Mass Pike.

Marion and I found some very nice batiks, and a piece of pink of pink oriental that we both liked. I also found some nice music fabric to make some more pillowcases for my nephews. At the last moment, we went back inside and I bought a backing fabric for a baby quilt. Then we hit the road again. When we got to the Berkshires we naturally stopped at the Pumpkin Patch (one FQ bundle, some dog fabric and two spools of thread for me/nothing for Marion), then we stopped at our favorite Berkshire's Chinese restaurant, the Panda, for a quick lunch. Next, on to the quilting room!

This year the Girls went a little nutty and extended the week so it started on Sunday. Marion and I didn't think we could quilt for 7 days straight, so we came down on Tuesday. The Girls were in full swing! Joanne S. had this beautiful batik panel quilt in progress (in the photo background). She finished the whole top (in fact all of her projects!) by the end of the week. In the foreground of this photo you can see some of the goodies that Karen had for sale...lots of beautiful bali pops and jelly rolls! The kind without calories!

Marion quickly got to work on some tops that she was planning to put together. I'm not sure why I don't have a photo of her beautiful black, white and red quilt, but here are some photos of her Nest Quilt, started in a class that we took at the Button Box last year.

Now, I may have to go back and finish mine! Marion and I like to take classes together and we often pick out the same project to work on. Except that Marion usually finishes hers and I get distracted and start something else!

This is getting to be a long post, so good night for now...to be continued...

Photos, the next frontier!

I've been dieing to try adding photos to my blog. Looks like I figured out how to do it, but not sure if I have control over where to put them. Last week I went to my annual quilting retreat (lucky #13) with my Brown Bagger buddies. I actually started my vacation the prior Friday, by going to an Embroidery Weekend in CT with my good buddie Joannie. Joannie is always game for anything! Here we are with Eileen Roche from Designs in Machine Embroidery and her sister, Marie Zinno, aka the Sewing Sisters. The weekend turned out to be more of a sales pitch than an embroidery seminar, but we had a lot of fun despite the fact that we had to share the machine with two other people (a total of 4), but we got some good tips and found a great diner (and a dog store) across the street.

My Quilting Identity Crisis

I tell people that I am a quilter, and I think of myself that way, but some days I wonder if I really am a quilter. 

First of all, I make lots of quilt tops, but I very rarely quilt them myself, except for the small ones, and even then it's only with straight lines and a walking foot. I've never mastered free motion quilting although I've taken many classes over the years. In my humble opinion, free motion quilting is a different skill set from piecing. Piecing is methodical and simple. You feed the fabric through the machine. I find machine piecing very soothing. In free motion quilting, you need to move the fabric in different directions to create the design. It's like doodling, which I'm not good at, at all. In high school, I occasionally felt the urge to draw a flower in the margins of my notebook, but that was about it. I can't draw at all. Which is ironic, since my Mother is a painter.

Second, I've been looking at my list. My quilting list is a little infamous among my friends. Right now it is about 6 pages long. It contains my finished projects for the year, and what I'm currently working on as well as all the "UFOs". I have lots of categories on it to break things up, such as "projects with deadlines," "gifts to make," and one of my favorites, "projects I've lost interest in".

So far in 2012, I've completed 27 projects, and I've given everything away as gifts except for a set of placemats and a small lap quilt. Out of these 27 projects, 16 were pillowcases and only two items were actual quilts. Although, I do have 11 quilts all quilted (in 2011, not by me, of course) just waiting to have bindings sewn on.

So, from now on, I'm going to identify myself as a "sewist with quilting tendencies" (sounds kind of fancy, doesn't it?). 

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

I love color

I always joke with my friends that when I get to be in charge of the world, I'm taking brown off the color wheel. I'm just down with brown. Brown, and its cousin, Beige, are just so blah. And navy blue and maroon aren't far behind. There are, of course, other colors that I'm not fond of, but I understand the concept of giving people a choice.

My sister-in-law, a beautiful redhead, favors autumnal colors such as olive greens, rusts and browns. Although I love her like crazy, I find it very difficult to use these colors when I'm working on a project for her. It's funny, every time, without fail, if I'm making something with these colors, one of my friends will peer over my shoulder and go, "that's not for you." My mother-in-law loves navy blue. Last summer I bought a pack of Japanese indigo prints to make her something, but so far they're still in the quilting closet.

My favorite colors to wear are hot pink, turquoise and purple. My house is decorated in shades of blues and greens. My garden flowers are pink and purple. My pugs are tan and black, but they don't come in other colors (although their leashes are purple!). My quilt studio is decorated in hot pink and zebra print. I almost didn't buy my house because it had beige siding. Fortunately I've painted the shutters purple and that seems to help. I recently heard that you can paint vinyl siding--watch out Mike!

Anyway, I digress...the other day my friend Joannie bought me this nifty little book: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-home-color-selector-david-willis/1009171152?ean=9781435106512 . Actually she bought one for herself, and I admired it so profusely that she went back and bought one for me. It is a neat little book with a color wheel (that turns!) on the cover. It is designed to help you pick colors to paint your home, but I also thought it would be a neat way to pick colors for quilts. It is in the bargain books right now at Barnes and Noble, so you may want to treat yourself and pick one up.

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

Ugly Vest Postscript

I broke down and wore the Ugly Vest to work today. The front doesn't look too bad, the back looks like a bad habit from the Flying Nun. At the end of the day, I literally gave the vest off my back to my friend Maureen (a skinny red head), who admired it profusely and was absolutely thrilled!

A Report from the Worcester Sewing and Craft Expo

My friend Marion and I have been going to the Worcester Sewing and Craft Expo for quite a few years now. This year the date was in conflict with the Machine Quilters Expo in Providence, Rhode Island, so we had to make a choice. There were several classes that I found interesting, so we decided on Worcester. One of the things that I like about Worcester is that you can see a photo of the project online, as well as register online, so you

1. Know what you will be making, and;
2. Know immediately if you got into the class or not.

Unfortunately, it seems like the show is getting smaller each year. They also seem to re-run the classes from year to year and every year it seems like there are fewer vendors. On the plus side, it's easy to get to, there's a parking garage across the street and they offer discounts for multiple classes.

I have decided that this is the "Year of Machine Embroidery" and I want to take better advantage of my embroidery machine. This means using it for more than embroidering names on blankets. So, I took two machine embroidery classes with my favorite machine embroidery instructor, Cindy Losekamp. Note, that at this point I'd add a link to her website, but she's in the process of redesigning it and hopes that it will be up in the next couple of weeks. Her business name is Sew Artfully Yours (if you're interested). I met Cindy about 8 years ago at a machine embroidery conference in Las Vegas and have taken many classes over the years from her. Cindy's best quality is that she is unflappable. She's able to fix anything...and over the years, I've seen students manage to come up with everything you can imagine and more. Another thing I like about Cindy is that she gives you extremely detailed instructions and she sets you up for success. She's road-tested every project and guides you through each step.

Anyway, the first class I took was a machine embroidered crazy quilt purse that was both pieced and embroidered in the hoop. We even put the zipper in on the embroidery machine! It was a 3-hour class and when we left, the only thing remaining was to sew the side seams of the purse.

In my next class we did a stuffed applique on a pre-made baby blanket. This was a quick project that was completely finished in 2 hours. It came out really cute.

I was disappointed in my other two classes. They were both on garment-making and I felt sorry for anyone who took them without any garment-making experience. Although I felt that the instructor (deliberately un-named) had a wealth of experience (and was a very pleasant person), I didn't feel like she did a lot of teaching. While she provided all of the materials for both classes (which we did pay a materials fee for), we definitely didn't have the same taste in colors, so I was unhappy with the selections. Plus, I felt there was a bit of "bait and switch" going on. I signed up for a lovely vest that was pictured in a frenzy of wild prints and dupioni silk. There was about 1/2 yard of dupioni silk for the entire class to share, but plenty of very ugly quilting cottons. Suffice to say, while I liked the vest pattern (everyone wears a size small!),  it is designed to be "drapey" and quilting cotton just won't work. I finished it last night and it is called "the ugly vest". I don't plan to wear it, EVER. I will use it as a prototype. I need to get some rayon fabric and try it again.

On a positive note, I finished 3 out of my 4 class projects, so I only have one new UFO for my stash. The sweater coat needs some re-engineering with some more fabulous fabrics, but since it is a freakishly early 80 degrees outside, I'm putting in on the back burner for now.

Pugs and kisses, (I promise photos soon!)

Nancy

In a cleaning frenzy!

My friend Joannie comes over to sew with me on Monday nights. I am fortunate to have a large quilting studio over my garage with enough room for at least three people to sew comfortably. Last night Joannie was working on her third Jungle Monkey plain patch/4 patch and I got bitten by the cleaning bug. Actually I was inspired by a new quilt blog I'm reading called "Fabric Therapy" http://fabrictherapy.blogspot.com/ . (Silent cheer: Yeah! I just added my first link!). Teresa is uber-organized, and her blog posts just resonated with me. Note: I will NEVER be as organized as Teresa.

Anyway, first I started by going through all 18 cubbies in my new craft table and making a numbered diagram and a list of all their contents. Surprisingly, about 4 or 5 were empty (I remedied that!) and I found a number of projects that I'm inspired to go back to. I also brought in a large zebra bin that I started throwing all the leftover pieces in. Eventually my plan is to pick out a couple of scrap quilts to work on and to work from the bin. In the meantime, I have plenty of UFOs to work from, so the bin contents are safe for now! I also made a bag of batting scraps and flannel scraps. And, as I emptied old, finished projects (I tend to keep the leftover pieces forever), I made a pile of empty ziploc bags for new projects!

Next I attacked the plastic bag mountain and threw away the nasty old dog beds that someone had "re-gifted" me. Although I had washed them a million times, they were still gross. Plus, the puggies have new zebra dog beds to match the new decor in the studio. There is still more cleaning and organizing to be done, but I feel exhilarated!

Tomorrow I'm going to the Original Sewing and Quilt Expo in Worcester http://www.sewingexpo.com/  I'm taking a class on "sweater dream coats" made from a bunch of different sweaters. Since I'm addicted to the sweaters by Jill2Day on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/jill2day?ref=ss_profile, I thought I'd try making one of my own. Although I fear that I'll start haunting Goodwill and Savers and start collecting sweaters! I'm going back on Friday night with my friend Marion. We're taking a Friday night class, sleeping over and then a couple of classes on Saturday. Naturally, we'll hit the vendor mall. As usual, Marion will spend nothing, and I'll break the bank. Oh well! It's great to have girlfriends to play with!

Next blog post, I will try to add photos!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy