Canyon Creek Quilt AND Pillow Talk

Another shop sample finished now that my long arm quilter is back from her break. This one is called Canyon Creek.

It features a new fabric line called Terrain from Windham fabrics. The pattern is fairly easy and is strip pieced. There are two different but very similar blocks. The hardest part is staying organized!

And we also got the new Pillow Talk book by Edyta Sitar.

I pulled some of our ombre fabrics and whipped up this pillow cover from the book.

The ombre fabrics made it really easy to get the subtle color changes instead of picking several different fabrics in similar shades as the pattern suggests.

We are going to be offering a Pillow Talk club at the shop. The book covers lots of basic techniques so the idea for the club is to teach folks a new technique each month. There are patterns in the book for strip piecing, a pieced braid, English paper piecing, regular paper piecing, a lone star and applique. In my club I plan to cover every kind of applique and let club members decide which method they want to use. We'll start out with a fairly easy technique then go from there.

Cross Body Bag

Recently I came across what has become my new favorite bag making book. I got the book to peruse as a possible book to teach bag making from in my shop. 

The great thing about this book is that it teaches you about all the basic elements of a bag - interfacings & battings, hardware, pockets, closures (like zippers and magnetic snaps), etc. You start with a basic tote bag pattern. Then working your way through the book you learn how to alter this basic tote bag by adding elements and changing the shape.

I love the book and ordered several copies for the shop. The bag I chose to make as a store sample is the Cross-Body Bag. It has two outside pockets, one zippered (photo directly below) and one open (second photo below).

It has a zipper on the top and no pockets on the inside.

In addition, the shoulder strap is adjustable and calls for cool hardware. It is large enough to carry a tablet but not so large that you can load it down with a bunch of heavy junk.

If you are interested in learning to make bags, this is a great book to own. You can follow the patterns in the book, as is, or use them to learn how to create your own unique "perfect bag."

A New FMQ Book for Me

Earlier this week I purchased a new free-motion quilting book.

I own one of Christina's Craftsy classes. I like it so much that I decided to purchase the above book. Check out the index of all the various designs in the book.

I tried out "Mettle" from page 80 on a project. Here is what it looks like from the back.

I love this book! As the title says, she shows you step-by-step how to create the designs. Many of them require no marking but a few require minimal marking. The design above for example requires you to mark the bottom points for the "humps" of the first row. This is all the marking that is required as the rest of the design is based upon the previous row of stitching. However, I didn't mark mine. I used the piecing lines as my marks and it worked just fine, but I like a more "organic" look to my quilting as opposed to precision perfect quilting. With more marking I could have been more precision perfect.

In the first few pages of the book she details each of the nine basic shapes referred to on the cover. After that, the next few pages discuss various types of design (nestled, branching, edge-to-edge, etc.), how they work along with samples and page numbers of designs from the book that are of each type.

The majority of the book is laid out so that on the left hand page she shows you step-by-step how to create the design. On the right hand page the design is drawn out to fill the page so you can see what it looks like "stitched out" over a larger area. The list of design names is shown in the second photo above. There are lots! You can mix and match them to create even more designs.

All of the designs can be stitched with either a long-arm machine or a domestic machine.

There is no information about basting or thread, this is a book of designs. If you need the basic information of exactly to how free-motion quilt, then this is not the book for you. If you want a nice, well-written and illustrated book of free-motion quilting designs, then I highly recommend this book!

I plan to get this project finished today so come back tomorrow to see the front side.

Disclaimer: I purchased this book with my own money. I have no affiliation with the publisher or the author, I just really like the book and wanted to share that with you.

Scrap HST and a Book Review

Last week my scrap group met again. This is what I made.

There should be 144 HST (half-square triangle) units in these three stacks. This represents clue 2 in the mystery quilt we started last month. The first clue gave the fabric requirements and cutting instructions. Since I'm the group leader this isn't a mystery to me, but I'm still enjoying the process. I think the finished quilt is very pretty. I cut all my pieces for my HST units using my GO! cutter so all that is left for me to do with this is press them open. I'm resisting doing that because it is so hot here right now. The last thing I want to do is stand over a hot iron for 30 minutes while I press these! Luckily I don't need to have them pressed until clue 4. I'm just going to wait for a not so hot day to press these.

Now for the book review. FYI: This is not a quilting/sewing related book. You may want to skip the rest of this post. It won't hurt my feelings. 

I finished reading "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo. The author is Japanese and has a very "Eastern" view of objects and tidying, but I think the basic principles apply to anyone. 

First, she says that if you really embrace her idea then you will only need to do a whole house massive tidying marathon once. After that you will need to do a bit of maintenance tidying, but you should learn through the process to let go of things you no longer need rather than storing them. I sure hope this sinks in with me!

Second, she recommends that you tidy by category, not by room. And the first category to tackle is your clothes. So I over the weekend collected every article of clothing, including shoes, coats, hats, gloves, purses, jewelry - if you wear it then it belongs in this category - and piled them on my big basting tables. She says it is important to make one pile so that you can really see how much you have. I was skeptical, but having done it with this first category, I will continue. It really did help me to part with things once I realized how much I had. For example, I had 17 pairs of white socks. Seriously! I do not need that many white socks. I kept 5 because these are the socks I wear most often.

It was harder than I thought it would be, but I did get rid of three garbage bags of clothes and one bag of shoes. I had more shoes than I realized! All of the shoes I parted with either no longer fit or hadn't been worn in years. Why was I keeping them?

Her method for deciding on whether or not you keep an item is to hold it in your hand (yes it is important to actually touch every single item) and ask yourself, "Does this item give me joy?" A little hokey, I know, but it did help to think in those terms at times.

I did this a little differently. As I picked up each piece of clothing some were very easy to determine. So I went through each piece and if I had an immediate reaction (positive or negative), I went with it. Then I went through the rest of the items. The things that I was neutral about. For example, I am indifferent about my snow shoes. I kept them because I need them, but they don't give me joy. They keep my feet warm and dry when I have to shovel snow off the sidewalk. The author might tell me that I should have snow shoes that do excite me, but I can't afford to throw out something in good working order that I would have to pay to replace.

She also had a lot of advice about folding your clothes vs. hanging them. However she cautioned against purchasing a bunch of storage/organization items. In her view, many of these things just make it easier for you to keep things you shouldn't. She advises that you wait for a bit after you are done tidying each category before buying any new storage items. See if you really need them first. You may find something during the rest of the process that you could repurpose to store your things. I think this is good advice.

Again, the author is Japanese and so are most of her clients. She is writing the book from the perspective of tidying a Japanese size home. For example, one of the things she advises is to store like items in only one place in your house. In general, this is good advice, but we have three bathrooms in our house. I am not going to store toilet paper in only one place. When I buy toilet paper, I divide it up and store the rolls in or near each bathroom. Same goes with cleaning supplies - each bathroom has their own set of cleaning supplies. Every bathroom has a cabinet or closet in or near it so the toilet paper and cleaning supplies are hidden, but each bathroom gets some. So some things I don't think are practical for most American style homes.

In closing, I think the book will be helpful to me. I plan to use the method and go through my entire house, including my sewing room. If a UFO no longer "gives me joy" I will get rid of it. The same goes for my other sewing/quilting related stuff. For me, I have too much stuff. My stuff is overwhelming me and making it harder for me to appreciate the things I own that I really love. My plan is to be as honest as I can with myself about my things and only keep what I need and love. The rest is just clutter.

I should add that I am only applying this to MY things. I will not do this for my family or force them to do it with their things. You can not do this for somebody else. Everyone has to make their own decisions about their possessions. This is why you can't hire someone to organize your house for you and have it stay organized, unless they happen to have the exact same values and way of doing things as you. And why I can't clean/organize my child's bedroom and expect him to keep it organized my way. *sigh*

Free Modern Quilts eBook

I'm reviewing another free eBook today. This one is from McCall's Quilting & McCall's Quick Quilts.

cover

The book contains patterns for three great quilts. The patterns are easy to follow and well written.

The last pattern, Lemon Squeezy, is a quilt as you go quilt and uses width of fabric strips on an angle. This would make a great charity quilt pattern and a great way to use up some of the width of fabric strips I have already cut.

The second pattern, Rainbow Rhythm, uses 5" squares and 2.5" squares. It calls for fat quarters but you could easily use charm packs instead.

Click here to get your free copy today!

Free Log Cabin eBook

I was contacted recently by Fons & Porter to review their new ebook, Build Your Best Log Cabin. Clicking on the link will take you to their website where you can download your very own copy of the book for free!

If you are familiar with their magazine, the format of this book is similar. Each pattern, and there are four, starts with the finished sizes of the quilt and the blocks along with a project rating (easy, intermediate, challenging). Next the list the fabric requirements and all the cutting instructions. I really like having all this information upfront. I may not cut out everything all at once, but I like to see all the cutting requirements in one place instead of scattered throughout a pattern.

I think all four patterns look interesting but the Woven Log Cabin caught my eye.

The project rating for this one is "challenging" but I think that is mostly due to the fact that it contains 12 different blocks. This really isn't hard but it does require you to get organized and stay organized throughout the project. The blocks are only different in the fabric placement required to create the overall design. The pattern includes a very clear chart which categorizes how many pieces of each color you need for the quilt making cutting and getting organized pretty easy.

Included within each pattern are helpful tips. For the Woven Log Cabin pattern the tips pertain to organizing your myriad pieces for the blocks, which could come in handy for many other projects as well.

The other thing I really like about Fons & Porter patterns is that they tell you which way to press your seams so they nest together nicely. I'm a pretty experience quilter now so I can figure this out for myself, but it is nice to have this already done for me. For new quilters I think this is essential information to include in a pattern so they can have a good piecing experience.

In addition to the patterns, there are instructions for Liz's Lumpless Binding. The end result is the same as the way I do binding, but she uses a different technique for joining the ends than I do. Other additions are Bobbin Work with Trapunto and Binding with Piping.

If you haven't already, click here to your own free copy of the book!

Disclaimer: I am not being paid for this review. I did receive a copy of the book for free, but so are you. All opinions are my own.

The photographs are courtesy of Fons & Porter.

New Purse and Book Review

A couple weeks ago I showed you the fabric I purchased for my new purse.

Last week I was able to make the purse.

I'm very happy with how it turned out!

I taught myself how to put in a concealed zipper!

I also put pockets inside.

A few months ago I bought The Bag Making Bible: The Complete Guide to Sewing and Customizing Your Own Unique Bags by Lisa Lam.

I really like to make bags, but I wanted to learn how to customize patterns to fit my needs. This book does exactly that. I used the Pick-A-Pocket Purse pattern design by Monica Solorio-Snow of the Happy Zombie. It is a free pattern on allpeoplequilt.com. The original pattern has no closure of any kind and no inside pockets. I really liked the basic design but wanted to tweek it to suit my needs and tastes. Lisa's book really helped with that.

Her book covers all aspects of bag anatomy and design. First she covers the basic equipment used in bag making - the usual sewing supplies but also tailors awls, pliers, bodkins and more. Then she covers what presser feet and sewing machine stitches you'll need and why. Next there are diagrams and photos covering the various parts of a bag. The chapters cover things like using a pattern and adjusting it to fit your needs, choosing fabrics for your bags, structure and reinforcement, linings, closures, handles and straps, pockets, edgings and trimmings.

So far I've only really used the chapter on closures. At the beginning of the chapter there is a chart listing the 7 different types of closures she covers, the page numbers each is on, the benefits of each and suggested uses for each. Then there are three pages worth of information about the various closure tools (zippers, snaps, locks, eyelets and rivets). All this before she gets to explaining how to use each of the 7 closure types! Can you tell that I really like this book?!

There are plenty of pictures for each of the techniques along with written instructions. For me, the pictures were not sufficient on their own to learn the technique but they do supplement the written instructions well. So I did have to actually read not just look at the pictures! Maybe if I was a more experienced sewist the pictures would be sufficient. I don't know.

Each chapter, and there are 8, ends with a pattern that features one of the techniques covered in the chapter. AND all of the patterns are included on full-size pull-out sheets at the end of the book. So you can get started right away making any of the patterns in the book. If you want to learn about bag construction and how to customize patterns to suit your needs, I highly recommend this book.

Goldie was "helping" me take pictures of my new purse last week. She wanted to be in the pictures with the purse but I said no. I placated her by taking some pictures of just her.

Then her friend, Sarge, from across the street wanted his picture taken too.

He's in Goldie's favorite spot in our yard and she decided she couldn't tolerate that.

They really are good friends, but Goldie has her limits of what she is willing to share.

Hodge Podge

(1) Our house guests left Friday afternoon. We all had such a wonderful time with them! It is so rare to find "couple friends" of which both you and your spouse like both of the other couple. Even rarer to like the whole family. Yet we have this with this family. The kids just picked up where they left off last time we got together, two years ago.

They brought the son a gift, the Battle of Naboo Star Wars Lego Set. To say he loved this gift really doesn't quite describe his enthusiasm. It has sparked quite a bit of creativity. Here are just two of the various displays and creations he has crafted since receiving it.

(2) I ordered a new book recently, The Bag Making Bible.

It includes 8 patterns will full size patterns but that isn't why I purchased it. The book is mainly a "technique" book that teaches you about the various components of a bag and how to create and customize them. There are eight chapters: Getting Started, Choosing Fabrics, Structure and Reinforcement, Linings, Closures, Handles and Straps, Pockets, and Edgings and Trimmings. I've only had a chance to read a little bit of the book and browse through it, but I think I'm going to really like it. I love bags but want to customize patterns I like and/or create my own patterns. I think this book will help me create the cute bags floating around in my head.

(3) I've started on my Glamp for Summer Camp. I've decided to make this one for me. If the boy decides he wants one too, I'll order another kit from Amanda.

(4) My new HQ Sweet 16 is AWESOME! I've only set it up and done some practice stitching with it so far. The "getting started" DVD said to change the needle before sewing if you just received the machine. I did this and put the needle in backwards. So then the tension wasn't right. I took out the bobbin thinking I may need to adjust the tension on the bobbin case. The bobbin fell out of the case before I had a chance to see which way it goes in the case. So then I had to wait until business hours to call the dealer I bought it from for help. All is well now! The dealer is coming to my house on Friday to check out my set up, make sure I got everything set up properly, answer any questions I have and give me some pointers and tips about the machine. I don't feel comfortable enough yet to use it on a "real" project, but I hope to test it out "for real" on a charity quilt soon.

(5) I'm driving back to Colorado Springs to pick up my regular machine today. It's 350 miles round trip, Ugh. I don't plan on doing much shopping, just up and back. We've got a neighborhood party this evening that I need to be back for.

(6) My local quilt shop changed owners at the beginning of this month, about a week ago. I went in yesterday for the first time. It was like going into a house a friend used to own for the first time after they moved to meet the new owners. The building is the same but everything else is different. I met the new owner and she seems very nice. I'm sure it will feel familiar again in time.

Cub Scout Quilt progress and a surprise

More progress on the Cub Scout quilt. I have two of the four borders made (a short side and a long side) and the long side is already attached to the quilt. I wanted to make sure that my measurements were correct and that the borders would fit before making any more half-square triangles. Looks like everything is working out as it should so now I get to make the rest of the half-square triangles.

And look what came in the mail for me today. A belated Mother's Day gift.

The Amazon Wish List is a wonderful thing! As I see stuff I want I just put it in my list. When there is a gift occasion my husband just picks something from my list. I love getting exactly what I want and he loves not having to do much shopping!

This is a beautiful book. It is small, just 8" square, but 1.5" thick. The kind of book you can look at over and over and see something new every time. If you are looking for some nice quilty eye candy, this book would be perfect.