Me+You Fabric Challenge with Seattle Modern Quilt Guild

We just recently had a guild challenge using fabrics from Hoffman Fabrics line, Me+You.

It’s a line of bright saturated batiks. When I first head batik, I opted out. Then I saw them and opted back in! Be sure to check out the hashtag #meandyouandseamqg and you’ll understand why I opted back in! The line is a great line of fabrics, with prints and solids.

I had grand plans for this project…. But they didn’t pan out as planned…

As you probably know if you follow me on IG, I’m loving the Quilt Design A Day FB group. So for this project, I had planned on making one of my QDAD designs into a mini quilt/pillow.

I started with the circle using the reverse applique process that I used here. Looking pretty good, I thought. Feelin’ good about it!

Then I added little squares using the needle turn applique process. I looked at a few tutorials…. I was originally inspired by Carolyn Friedlander‘s book Savor Each Stitch. But I hated how it looked. I need more practice….

Then I tried teeny tiny reverse applique. Didn’t like that either… So I cut up the circle! And made some improv quarter circles….

Added some circular quilting….

And it ended up looking absolutely NOTHING like the original design! Nothing! But I like it!

I wasn’t able to make it to the show we had at Pacific Fabrics in Northgate, but we ended up with quite an impressive group of designs!

All show photos via AllisonSews and SMQG! 

 

 

Olympics Craft Flashback

We love watching the Olympics around here! Just last night the kiddo decided he needed to ‘sleep’ on the couch. That was code for ‘stay up way too late to watch the Olympics!’

As we’re watching I remembered this post of the Olympics crafts we did 4 years ago and one of my favorite pictures of the kiddo! I love the one above of him pretending to win Gold! And I still have the Olympic Rings Wind Chime hanging in my sewing room. (no, I don’t get much tinkling from them in my sewing room!)

So I’m reposting our cute little crafts!

Using the same technique we used to make the sun catchers, we made the Olympic Rings and medals. Put the beads in a muffin tin, cook at 400 degrees for 25 minutes (with the fan on) (be sure to read the post here for more information and also cook while the kids are out and about and away from the cooking source and in a well ventilated room. See disclaimer at end of original post), pop out of the tin and drill holes. Yep, easy as that!

The wind chimes make a great little tinkling sound as they bounce around in the wind. And trust me… I heard a lot of it as I tried to take these pictures on a beautiful, yet windy, day

And then the medals!!! What kid doesn’t want their own medal? And they are fun to make!!

The Gold, Silver and Bronze! Ok, so the silver is actually clear, but I didn’t have any clear grey or silver beads…

 

The medals are still a hit and he busts them out every now and then! OK, back to watching.  Go USA!

Quilts for Pulse Hearts

We all know about Pulse and the horrible events that took place back there back in June. Most quilters also know about the Quilts for Pulse Call for Quilts organized by the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild.

As soon as the call for quilts came out, one of our guild members, Matt, stepped up and decided to organize a heart quilt block drive from our group! And what an outpouring of blocks! Matt ended up with enough blocks to make 6 quilts! 6!!!!

Orlando asked for heart blocks with a bright rainbow color theme. So bright is what I did! They also gave a few tutorials to choose from. For our quilts, we were also asked to use the tutorial from Cluck Cluck Sew. It is the easiest tutorial ever! I think it probably took about 15 minutes to make the three blocks! Way quicker than writing this post anyway! 🙂

You still have some time to make blocks! Orlando has had such an outpouring of support and are working hard to get all the victims families, the first responders AND all the survivors quilts! If you can whip up a block or two, mail them before the 15th! And if you want to make a whole quilt, September 15th is there deadline. All the information is here.

previous 2 photos via Matt’s instagram

Here’s one of the quilts from our guild! And the amazing quilting by Matt! He’s amazing!

These blocks are so quick and easy! I really enjoyed making them and could see where you could churn out quite a few in no time!

Sewing with Leather

Last weekend I took a class to learn more about sewing with leather.

It was a lot of fun! I made two pouches, a keyring, learned new things and got to hang out with my SMQG friends! The Guild brought in Krista Fleckenstein to teach for two days and give a lecture. The classes and lecture all revolved around projects in her book, Beyond Cotton.

The first class was about printmaking, the lecture was about mixed media artists and the second class about sewing with leather. Both of which are talked about in her book. I debated which class to take becuase I wanted to do both. I had taken two classes from another guest teacher and wasn’t happy, so I was a little leary to take both. Now I’m kicking myself! The printing class turned out awesome work! ANYWAY…. The book is really good. I get kinda annoyed when teachers books are ‘required’ for the class, but this one is worth it. I got the book from the library to start, to see if I wanted to actually add it to my own stash of books. It is full of useful information, so I did purchase it!

We learned about the different kinds of leather, things to look for when purchasing leather and how to cut leather…

And then we were off to actually sew with leather! There are quite a few tricks of the trade that I didn’t know about! Different stitch lengths and sorts of things like that. It is hard to get remember to switch back and forth between the right stitch lengths for leather and fabric!

We ended up with 2 pouches each! I still need to add in my fancy labels, but otherwise they are ready to be stuffed with something!

The class ended up with such a great pile of pouches! I love some of the others fabric choices! And some even used fabric they had made in the class before!

Then we got to play around with veg-tan leather and make a key ring. No sewing involved on this one. The leather is way to thick. But there was a lot of pounding involved!

If Krista comes to your town, take both classes! That’s my advice! The only problem with this whole sewing with leather class is that now I want to go buy leather!!! There’s a cool leather shop here in Seattle almost in my neighborhood… This could be bad…. but in a good way…..

 

 

More SMQG Giving Committee Quilts

I’m really enjoying working with my co-chair Debbie, and of course the rest of the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild,  to develop a nice lineup of Giving Committee quilts! 

 photo by A Quilter’s Table

I’ve already shown you the ‘first‘ quilt we made. These two quilts are the second batch of quilts we made also using fabric we ‘inherited’ from previous years. We inherited lots of black and white print fabric!

Debbie and I made a list of quilts we wanted to make and decided, of the list, the Improv Quarter Log Cabin lended itself best to the black and white fabric! We encouraged the makers to give their blocks a little wonk when they squared them up.

photo by A Quilter’s Table

With all of the blocks received back, we were able to make two quilts! The larger one we like to call Fade to Black! Debbie laid out all the blocks for each of the quilt and came up with the awesome overall design of the FADE! She also sewed the larger top together, which Arlene DeBuck kindly quilted with a delightful variety of quilting motifs.

photo by A Quilter’s Table

 

 

Then there were enough blocks left to make a baby-sized quilt, which we like to call Blue Trimmed Cabin. Debbie put this one together also, quilted it up, and passed it on to Yeechi Chen to bind. Yeechi even added a sweet aqua flange to this little quilt.

photo by A Quilter’s Table

Both of these quilts will be donated to Nurse-Family Partnership.

Quilt #1 Name: Fade to Black

Quilt Size: 72″ x 72″

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Pieced by: Debbie Jeske

Quilted by: Arlene DeBuck

Binding by: Arlene DeBuck

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Quilt #2 Name: Blue Trimmed Cabin

Quilt Size: 36″ x 48″

Blocks by: Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Members

Pieced and Quilted by: Debbie Jeske

Binding by: Yeechi Chen