A Week Of Finishes

July 14, 2011 in etsy, patterns, quilts | Tags: , , , , , , | by | 9 comments

Paige was on vacation the week of the 4th so we sewed, and sewed. We’re trying to get some of the samples and kits ready for the NSQG quilt show that’s coming up in September. It will be our first time vending…exciting! I loved every minute of playing in the new studio. We were super productive and I had no problem getting motivated. Projects finish fast when one person sits and sews and the other pins and irons!

We finished the Pick A Bunch and the Fluttering Butterflies quilts. We made 2 table runners. All will be kitted for the show.

North Garden Dresden Table Runner

And Which Witch Table Runner. The purple comes off really blue in the pics but it’s really a perfectly matched purple to this line. This turned out sooo cute!

A couple of Gumdrops …A couple of friends joined in on the Gumdrop fun. Kathy made hers from the Artful Home fabrics. We love how she fussy cut the green daisy for the top.

And Janet and Paige both picked the Groovy Bugs fabric with aqua Ta-Dot tops…fun, fun fabric!


Several last touches on patterns…all available soon in Etsy.

Summer tweets, which we showed you a few weeks ago.

Fruitcakes

And North Garden Dresden Table Runner

And we had countless ideas and brainstorming sessions and planned out this weeks projects. I’ll be working on the Hoo’s In The Forest quilt. I see a cute appliqued deer and big appliqued strawberries for this project so I’m looking forward to starting this one. Of course that all depends if we can keep the power on in the neighborhood. Lots of outages here..:(

We also had our 1st SewMod meeting in the new studio. It was nice and relaxing. We celebrated a couple of the girls’ birthdays with some wine and I made a cheesecake….I forgot to take a pic…I wish I had though because it was beautiful & yummy! They’re always yummy, but not always beautiful:)

Paige will probably be mad at me but….. everyone wish Paige a Happy Birthday today!!

French Flea Market

July 11, 2011 in fabric, quilts | Tags: , , , , | by | 7 comments

The month of June in the Flickr Tea Buddies group was a butterfly theme. So I searched Google for some inspiration and found this cute pattern by Black Mountain Quilts called Fluttering Butterflies.

Paige thought that the Anthology Fat Quarter set, Folk Life would be pretty made into this. The line has a French, scrappy, flower garden feel to it, so we’re calling our version, French Flea Market.

With the advice from our talented SewMod group, we added a navy flange around the center square to separate the border.  That was a great addition to the quilt. That’s what is so awesome about meeting with quilty friends.  Everyone has something to share and learn.

We also made a scrappy border from the leftover pieces of the FQ set and I hand embroidered the butterfly antenna instead of machine stitching it. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Paige and I have a hard time leaving well enough alone when it come to quilting, me with the visual and her with the designing. But I’ve always been like that. It’s part of the process of making something your own work of art.

We then pieced all of the remaining scraps and added them to the backing. We used every bit! This quilt was quick and easy just like the pattern says and pretty cost efficient when you think that the majority of it was put together with 12 fat quarters…I love that!

Thank you Gail & Kate for hosting the month of June. July’s theme is the beach. I hope to not be late with this months project:) Wish me luck. I may need it.

Pick A Bunch Of Sweetness

July 8, 2011 in quilts | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | by | 5 comments

The Northern Illinois Quilt Fest runs July through September and during this time some of the local barns and gardens are either featuring a painted quilt block or a quilt block garden, or both. Paige and I decided to hit the road yesterday for a little break from sewing and check out the ones that were being displayed locally in Crystal Lake.

First up was our local community college, MCC. The college has a small walking flower garden on campus. This was such a delight to me because I didn’t even know it was back there. If you’re a local, you should definitely take a little tour.

Everywhere we looked we saw perfect areas to drape a quilt, so we asked permission to come back and take pics. We had just finished up with one of our shop samples from the Pick A Bunch line. What better quilt to display in a flower garden than a sweet little quilt with colorful daisies on it.

This quilt was made from the Heather Mulder Peterson book, Living Large and the pattern was called Pretty In Pink.The original pattern had several appliqued flowers in the corners but we choose to leave them off. It was so sweet, it didn’t need any extras…it’s a Pick A Bunch of sweetness!

We took Summer Tweets along with us too. The Wrenly fabric was also perfect for these outside pics since it’s full of birdie artwork. There were two perfect spots to display it.

The quilts looked beautiful hanging in the sunlight surrounded by flowers and trees. This little garden would have made a perfect place for a small quilt display. MCC was featuring the quilt garden block on the tour, but to be honest, we still can’t figure out which block it’s supposed to be.

This barn is our local community space for people to plant a veggie garden who don’t have the space in their own backyard. There is acreage behind it and I always see the people back there tending to their garden. This block was the Weather Vane Variation.

Countryside Nursery hosted both the garden and painted quilt block…the St. Louis block.

And this one was a private participant in the tour. Their block was Ohio Star Variation.

I’d like to see them leave the painted quilts on the barns even after the show ends. Hopefully, Paige and I will be able to see more of the barns,  gardens, and festivities in the other cities in the quilt fest through the next few months. We’ll be sure and take the camera along so you can follow in on the fun!

Have a great weekend everyone!

FreeBirdie

July 5, 2011 in embroidery | Tags: , , , , , , | by | 3 comments

I hope everyone had a great holiday. It was pretty relaxed here. Some sewing, some embroidering…..what better way to celebrate Independence Day than stitching up these cute patriotic birdies.

I definitely should have used a muslin backing before stitching this block because you can slightly see my threads traveling behind the fireworks and that kinda bugs me…ugh. I changed the Birdies from holding sparklers to holding flags. Then put smaller sparklers on their breasts instead of the stars and stripes.

Thanks for a great 4th of July block Little Miss Shabby!

Have A Safe And Happy 4th of July!

July 4, 2011 in Uncategorized | by | 1 comment

Fabric Friday…Wrenly

July 1, 2011 in etsy, fabric, patterns | Tags: , , , , , | by | 1 comment

Tweet, tweet…

Valori Well’s newest line arrived last week! We have 11 bolts. The artwork is what’s really amazing. I was even thinking of stretching some on canvas to hang on the walls.

Aren’t these mamma birds cute?

We spent an entire Saturday ooohing and ahhing over these fabrics & Paige came up with a great pattern design to show off the big prints. The pattern will be available in the Etsy shop next week.

I picked up these rockers for my patio this weekend. The weather has been so nice. This is where you’ll find me if you stop by. So come on over. We can chat and sip some iced tea.

I’ll be looking out for ya:) Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Cordial Serenity

June 29, 2011 in etsy | Tags: , , | by | Leave a comment

I created our first Etsy Treasury the other night, Cordial Serenity, inspired by the SewMod colors…robins egg blue and chartreuse green. I choose the title based on robins egg being serene and chartreuse being named after a French cordial with a green color.

We’ve been in several Treasuries so I thought it was time for me to return some of the Etsy love. It was time consuming, but fun! To get a better view & description of what the items are, just click on the pic and it will take you to Etsy. I hope y’all enjoy!

‘Cordial Serenity ‘ by SewModDesigns

A pleasing collection of robins egg blue and chartreuse green inspirations.


 Pretty Paper Flowers – …

$2.00
Chartreuse green – Duo …

$5.98
13 Blue Green White Dis…

$75.00

 L’Amour Dress Robin…

$200.00
Small bowl in emerald g…

$26.00
Handmade Turquoise/Robi…

$19.50

 Oversaturated leaves O…

$23.50
Green Linen Tea Towel -…

$16.00
Vintage Shabby Blue Ste…

$55.00

 ROBINS EGG BLUE Cotton …

$22.00
Tiffany Blue Place Card…

$30.00
Green with Blue Dots Ha…

$15.00

 SET OF TWO – 16×16 inch…

$30.00
Bubble bracelet

$60.00
Summer Sky Collection -…

$11.25

 White Lily Handmade Boo…

$30.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

My Latest Obsession

June 28, 2011 in embroidery | Tags: , , , , , | by | 4 comments

Do you ever get something in your mind and can’t stop thinking about it, wanting it? No, this isn’t another food post. I’m not talking about cheesecake or chocolate:)

It all started with this cute bicycle embroidery I drew.

Then, I found out that my neighbor, Mary Lou, from Customphotopics was selling this beautiful greeting card of a yellow bike with flowers, and well, my interest grew a tiny bit more. I bought two of them and placed one in the studio for inspiration. I get to look at this yellow temptation every morning. Be sure and check out her site. The card was even more beautiful when I received it!

An Etsy search turned this up. An 8×8 print called Basket of Tulips by Simplyhue. Seriously, now I’m just torturing myself with all the vintage goodness.

And this one from tresureagain.

Many of you locals will remember this in front of Tammy Tadd’s quilt store.

My Google results turned up these..

A wedding pic found here.

It didn’t stop there. I did a bad thing and did a Craigslist search for our area and found this. All that’s missing is the flowers. I need someone to talk some sense into me.

Help…

Or…I could try to win one & you could too! Riley Blake is having a quilt contest. Get a chance to win a Cruiser by making a quilt with Riley Blake fabrics and enter it in the contest. Details found here..Woo-Hoo!

Flower Finds

June 28, 2011 in home | Tags: , , , | by | 5 comments

As promised I’m back with the results from mine & Daisy’s stroll.

Here is my neighbor, Gloria’s, flowers. Baskets of Geraniums and Cranesbill Geranium ground cover.

My flowers aren’t so impressive yet. July/August seems to be my best bloomers. Daisies, Cone flowers, Daylilies, and last year my Impatiens were a whopping 30″ tall. So, we’ll have to wait for mine to catch up. This is my Clematis. Pretty decent this year but not loaded with blooms. Why? Too much shade maybe?

This is one not too far from my house…beautiful.

Daisies and I can never remember the name of the hot pink ones… Coreopsis maybe?

I visited the pond and saw this crane across the way.

And a mamma and daddy duckie protecting their babies. You can barely see them..I didn’t want to get too close.

If you really want to see some beautiful pics of flowers, you should check out my tea buddy, Joyce’s, Flickr photostream set. Just beautiful! Thanks for sharing Joyce:)

Lazy Summer Days

June 27, 2011 in handmade | Tags: , , , | by | 4 comments

Sorry for our lack of blog posts lately. It’s summer here in Chicago…finally, and I gotta say, it gets harder and harder to do any work inside when you know that you only have a short window of hot weather to enjoy.

But, I have managed to make some more gumdrops:) We had a couple of custom orders last week. This one is a large gumdrop made from the Hoo line. Alternating pink plaid and sweet flowers with the strawberries on top. So cute!

And my neighbor requested a small volleyball one for her 13 year old niece’s birthday.

Since it’s so nice out, I think I’ll take Daisy and my camera out for a walk and see if we can get some good flower shots…I’ll share my finds tomorrow.

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