You are currently browsing Lorrie’s articles.
Author Archive
Our first official order..from a human, not a computer! It was exhilarating, exciting, scary and hopefully one day will be just another day at the office.
The Rep from Westminster/Free Spirit was at the house yesterday. With the rep, you get to touch the fabric, see the samples. The computer just doesn’t do the actual colors justice.We did have to pick some of the newer releases from the printed swatches because they hadn’t made it to the states yet. Which is why it’s so important to be at market.They have all the fabric samples there.
Now, I’m a planner. I was prepared for this meeting.
Printout out the products we were interested in..check. Ballpark range of the money we were going to spend…check. Ok, I can hear you snickering now.
You definitely get caught up in the moment. So you wanna see what we got a little caught up with?
A few of Honey Child by Jennifer Paganelli
Heirloom by Joel Dewberry
Wrenly by Valorie Wells
And Taza by Dena Designs
We also ordered Kaffe fat quarter sets. And I promise not to bore you with every meeting we have with the Reps:) But I just couldn’t help myself. I had to share our newest fabric adventure. We should also promise our Rep. that we’ll be more decisive next time. There might have been a little too much…”I don’t know, do you like that, do we need that, should we?”
Paige is going to be at a retreat this weekend. Check back on Monday to see what she’s been up to.
Thanks for hanging with us this week and have a great weekend everyone!
I’m struggling with the set up of my new sewing space and running out of room to store the bolts of fabric and supplies that are coming in. We’re been working on storage solutions. Next week neighbor Nick will be back in to do some painting and rearranging. It’s very frustrating for me when I’m not organized so I’m behind on my Birdie BOM for May and I won’t even bore you with projects I’m working on that you’ve already seen, so I thought I’d share some of the Anthology goodness we added to the shop recently.
These fat quarter sets are so yummy I just wanna eat ’em up!
High Society
Sweet Tooth
and Mod Charm
Batiks in 2-1/2″ strip collections
Bali Berries
Tropical Fruits
Hopefully by the end of this week Birdie will be done. I’m using my new Cosmo variegated for the flowers…sooo cute! And Paige is working on a custom batik quilt that maybe we will get a sneak peak of also.
Have a great day everyone!
Paige and I headed out again this weekend for another quilting journey. There was a quilt show near Rockford, IL. We saw some interesting quilts and did some shopping.
A New York Beauty
Tutti Fruiti Fanfare
This was a special exhibit. The theme was what you might see out your window on a plane trip. There were probably 40-50 mini quilts in this exhibit.
Navy Pier in Chicago
New York city
A farm
I think the highlight of our trip was going just a bit further up the road to Acorn Quilts. This store takes the traditional and spices it up with a modern flair. A great selection of bright batiks and modern fabrics.
A panel that had been turned into a work of art!
With a good selection of wools, they were able to take a primitive pattern, traditionally done in browns and earth tones, into a bright and modern quilt.
The Wool Club was in progress and was kind enough to strike a pose for the blog.
And me oh my, I watched my money say goodbye when I found all of this eye candy. Cosmo floss!! I couldn’t believe my eyes! I had to have one of each. They even had the variegated ones.
Thirty more minutes up the road and we were in Wisconsin for another quilt show.
An applique pattern by Blackbird Designs. This one was my favorite at this show. I was imagining it done in some more modern fabrics, which would totally change the look of it.
And of course, more shopping. This was bordering on dangerous when we found a booth with an collection of Kaffe fabrics, old and new! When we were done with our Kaffe frenzy, we noticed I had picked mostly pastels and Paige had picked brights. I have a feeling there will be a collaborative quilt soon!
Pick A Bunch by Nancy Mims for Robert Kaufman fabrics came in on Wednesday. Well, at least 1/2 of it did. The others will be arriving soon. Those purples are sooo cute! Here’s a peek of the one’s we’re expecting shortly…
Pick A Bunch is all organic cotton. You can visit Nancy’s blog or the website. There’s some pretty cool ideas for fabrics on the blog. They’ve recovered chairs,made pillows, and totes. The website has a room creator tab that’s pretty fun on it. It lets you pick fabrics for the walls & couches. You can even decorate the kitty:) Check it out!
I’ve been trying to get some of my bindings done over the last few days. I don’t like to have something unfinished. It haunts me:) I had a couple of the Christmas quilts left. One of them was the Fruitcake quilt with blue marker on it. As much as I wanted to throw it away and forget it ever happened, I just couldn’t do it.
Now, I’m a firm believer in hand stitching your binding to the back and take great pride in how my stitches are buried. My mom taught me well! The first quilt I made, I whip stitched and quickly learned that was not the “proper” way to hand stitch binding down.
No way am I going to spend hours hand stitching this quilt. In some instances, I can accept where it’s appropriate to machine stitch the bindings. A seasonal wall hanging, a table runner, place mats, even a kids quilt that will be repeatedly washed, or…….. a ruined quilt.
Vicki, over at Accio Fabric, gave the SewMod girls a tutorial on quick binding with Steam-a-Seam. I had never done this before and found it kinda fun. It took the pressure off hand binding all those extra items. I thought I’d share it with you.
It’s Steam-a-Seam 1/4 ” double stick fusible web, available at Joann’s.
Attach your binding the way you normally do. **My bindings are cut at 2-1/8″ to 2-1/4″. This is an even distribution on binding on the front and back and allows you to just catch the back binding while using this machine binding technique.** After the binding is sewn down, iron your binding flat. This helps you pull it around to the other side. BTW, this is the best iron ever! I didn’t think anything could ever replace my Maytag cordless iron but this Reliable iron is sooo awesome!
Turn the quilt to the wrong side. Cut a strip of the Steam-a-Seam the length of one side of your quilt and begin pressing it along the 1/4″ seam that you created while sewing your binding on. Make sure it’s sticky web side down and paper side up.
Working one side at a time, peel the paper side off the strip and press your binding around to the back of the quilt. Make sure the binding is overlapping your 1/4″ binding seam.
Now do the next side, working your way around the entire quilt. Tip: Don’t go all the way to edge of the binding when attaching this next strip like you did the 1st strip because your mitered binding wont cover the Steam a Seam and you will be left with a sticky residue at the corner. Go in just enough to “catch” the corner.
Using an open toed foot and matching thread, stitch into the “ditch” on the front side of your quilt. Go slowly grasshopper…it does require concentration to stay in that ditch.
You will always catch the backing with this method. Here’s a view of the Snowbound binding I attached using this method.
And your done in a fraction of the time it took to hand stitch!
Another tip to speedy binding…always cut your binding right after you finish your quilt top. That way there’s no procrastination when it’s time to sew it on. I keep all my binding hanging in my sewing room. I told my mom-in-law that if something should ever happen to me, she could just count the binding hanging on the clasp and she would know how many quilt tops I have in the closet or at the quilter:)
I came across this article in the Michael Miller blog and just had to share it with you if you haven’t seen it. The American Folk Art Museum has said that 2011 is the year of the quilt. To honor that, they hung 651 quilts, spiraling through the air at the Park Avenue Armory. The show was The Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts and was shown back in March of this year.
The quilts were donated from one collector, Joanna Rose. No two are alike! Can you imagine?
Breathtaking, isn’t it? I can’t even imagine how Joanna Rose felt when she saw her collection displayed for her to see all at once! If you’d like to see the full article, it can be found here.
Random.org picked #4. Congratulations Kelly P.!!
Kelly P
You all are doing great!! It sure doesn’t seem like it’s been long enough for a hundred posts. Well done!!!
I thought this collage I found at Oopsey Daisy said it all for the Mother’s Day post.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s. And to our mom’s… we love you!
Halloween arrived on Monday!
I love waiting for the UPS guy. Too bad he doesn’t bring them inside for me though. They’re too heavy to lift so I have to unpack them on my front porch. My neighbor’s probably think I’m just so excited to get packages, I can’t wait to bring them in before I unpack them!
It’s Trick or Treat from Riley Blake. We ordered 7 bolts.
Some ribbon and buttons to match.
And some charms squares.
I think Daisy needs a new Halloween leash out of the tossed candy fabric. That would be so cute!
Have a great weekend everyone and be sure to check back on Monday for the giveaway winner!
Doesn’t that title make you smile:) It’s a new embroidery book I found one day while shopping at Joann’s with Paige. I can’t tell you how thrilled and excited I get when I stumble upon new embroidery designs. And this one has stitches in it that I’ve never tried before! Yay!!!
It’s Japanese dimensional embroidery.
If you ever come across Japanese craft and embroidery books, don’t hesitate to pick one up. Most are written in Japanese but a seasoned quilter/embroiderer can figure it out. It’s even worth it if you want to just look at the pictures. They do amazing handwork!
Have you tried the Cosmo Floss from Japan? There is none better. The good ole stand by, DMC, doesn’t even compare. If I had a local dealer of these, I’m afraid I’d be broke. It’s like candy. All the colors we’re used to but it doesn’t knot, it slides through the fabric like butter, and lays flat. This floss is about $1.00-$1.20, but well worth it. It’s available at the Stockroom on Etsy.
Cottage Garden Threads from Australia. I bought these from her Etsy shop. I had been stalking this floss for a while now, and figured, why not? I might have a disorder though. I’m not sure if I’ll actually be able to use these. They are just too pretty to cut into and it would have to be a seriously special project! They’re sooo soft. Yes, I’m petting them right now:)
Remember my post on this cuteness? My life Embroidered.
I found its sister on Etsy, and it’s on it’s way to my home! It translates to My True Nature. These french embroidery books are adorable and I can’t wait to make something supercute from this one too.
Let’s not forget the USA on our trip. Crabapple Hill is my favorite embroidery designer. I must have this latest piece. Dresden Poinsettias!
And last, here are my latest embroidery purchases from the quilt store. A quilt pattern from This and That Pattern Company called “simple Things” and a redwork called “Winter Twitterings” by Pearl Louise Krush.
Time to get to work. I need more than 2 hands or 24 hours in a day to get all this hand work done!
SewMod