Quilt Fest: a little bit of eye candy!

Mikki and I spent a good five hours last Friday wandering through exhibits and vendors at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, just taking it all in (we spent a few hours on other days too... but the bulk was on Friday). Though I had my camera, I didn't take too many pictures (and that was only partly because I was chastised for taking a picture in a no-photo zone... oops!-- but I deleted that one right away). There is just so much to look at that pictures tend to be an afterthought. And it is often very crowded, so getting a decent shot can be very challenging. But I do have a little bit of eye candy to share (I've also included the artist information in each photo):


Bouquet by Keiko Morihiro-- all those tiny little bricks in the border? Each and every one was hand appliqued. Gorgeous, meticulous work. Truly.


An Unexpected Pleasure by Nancy Arseneault-- not sure what to do with those orphan blocks you have laying about? Well, this quilter found inspiration in many places and then took hers to the next level. Gorgeous!


Happy Birthday by Harumi Asada-- sappy mama that I am, this quilt actually brought tears to my eyes. Such a beautiful tribute to her granddaughter (I just love how the quilter integrated the photos through the design). And look-- there's Mikki! Hi, Mikki!


Alpha Quilt by Becky A. Grover-- how fun is this quilt? I just love the quilting in this. Such an awesome idea and beautifully executed.


B.S. I Love You by Janet Stone-- the look of this quilt really appealed to me. The applique is gorgeous. And that checkered background? Pieced. Lots and lots of little squares. Totally awesome.


Portland Reflection by Gay Ousley-- this is one I could just look at all day. Peaceful, harmonious, beautiful... I love it.

Sometimes we were in awe, sometimes we felt woefully inadequate-- but at all times, we were inspired. It was fabulous! We didn't see everything, but I think we both felt like we got a great view of much of what was available. And, best of all, I got to reconnect with my friend. It was an awesome adventure.

Escape to Quilt Festival!

Because of my wonderful friend Mikki (who proposed the adventure) and my incredibly wonderful husband (who willingly took three days off from work to watch the boys), I had the opportunity to attend the annual International Quilt Festival in Houston. Holy cow!!! How insanely lucky am I???

I arrived in Houston on Wednesday afternoon, just in time for a few Mexican Martinis with Mikki followed by Preview Night (when class enrollees are allowed a sneak peek at festival exhibits and shopping before it is open to the public).

Our self portrait:


On Thursday, I attended two classes. The morning class was "A Fine Line: Creating the Quilting Design" with Melody Crust. It was kind of a brainstorming class wherein participants hung their quilts on the wall and Melody led discussion on quilting options and various design considerations. I'm kind of kicking myself that I didn't have a top to hang too! (But I opted to have a less full suitcase that I could fill with goodies on the way home.) Then in the afternoon I attended another class with Melody, "Borders: The Final Chapter." It was another collaborative discussion class where people brought their projects and Melody led discussion on border options and considerations. Again, it was a great class (and, again, I was kicking myself for not having a top to hang on the wall!). Having those real-life examples and hearing so many perspectives was great for fueling my own creativity. It is funny-- I kind of justified the classes I took with the thought that Festival would allow me to take classes with teachers who I would never otherwise have an opportunity to see. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the teacher for both classes happens to be from Seattle. Ha! Still, I'm so glad I had the chance to take them, because they really were great. After classes ended on Thursday, we only had a couple of hours to wander around Festival-- but we took full advantage of it!


My last class was on Friday morning, "Wool Felt Applique" with Cynthia Regone. It was AWESOME! All of my questions about working with wool (and wool felt) were answered, the class included a super cute project, and it was just plain fun. Immediately after class, I went downstairs and bought some wool. And a few other things as well...


I didn't go too crazy-- some fun patterns, some gorgeous wool and wool felt, a new thimble. My biggest splurge was on those cones of King Tut thread (I love quilting with that stuff!).

There were also many amazing quilt exhibits. This post is getting long, so I'll share those tomorrow to split it up a little. Suffice it to say, there was an overwhelming amount of eye candy.

On Saturday morning I returned home to my boys. Homecoming is a lovely thing. I think we were all very happy to see one another!

The Little Merboy

A very rare species, indeed...


Recently, Big Bear read the story of the Little Mermaid and watched the Disney movie and declared that was what he wanted to be for Halloween. Then one of his preschool buddies pointed out that mermaids are girls. Uh-oh. Big Bear was not happy to hear this. But he thought about it for a bit and decided he could be a mer-boy instead. Phew! Crisis averted... (well, other than the fact that then I actually had to figure out how to make a merboy costume...).


For the bottom half, I used McCall's 4964, a pattern for fleece pants that included side seams. I then drafted a fin shape to insert into the side seam. I used fleece for the pants and overlaid each piece with the fancy fish-scale looking fabric. The fins were made of felt overlaid with the same scale material. I was worried about the weight of the fins, so I added in the gathered tulle on the backside of each to help support them so they wouldn't just flip backward.


The shirt is from Burda 9537, a basic t-shirt design. I changed it up a little by adding a center back seam and seams along the top of each sleeve so that I could insert some fins. Again, I used the scale fabric overlaid onto felt and used gathered tulle to help support either side of each fin (and to help tie in with the look of the tail fin). I cut the shirt extra long in the torso and sleeves to allow me to cut a jagged edge (in lieu of hems).


And then we finished it all up with some fun merboy face stripes, a little bit of blue hairspray, and some shell necklaces.

Now Merboy is ready for some Halloween fun!

Fierce!

Oh, my...

Have you ever seen such cuteness ferocity???


Watch out! He's on the prowl...


For cookies!!! (Tigers love cookies, you know.)


The costume is from Kwik Sew 3099. I made a size small (12 months), and it fits pretty well on Little Bear (he's 21 pounds and about 31 inches tall... I probably could have shortened it a little, but it is fine when he is wearing shoes). The body is fleece and then I used "bunny fur" for the belly and ear contrasts. The paws are just white fleece with some black faux suede that I found in my stash. This is actually the second time I've used this pattern, so it went pretty smoothly (other than sewing the hood on inside-out... thank goodness for seam rippers!).

I'm so thrilled with how it turned out. Super cute, nice and toasty warm (perfect for chilly night of trick-or-treatin'), and he actually seems to enjoy wearing it. Yay!

A little nail art

I've got a little something different to share today. For the last couple of years, I've been getting into nail polish. Love it. There's something about looking down and seeing happy color on my nails that just makes me feel good. Usually, I just pick a color and paint my nails and that's that. But last night, while the husband was out with his friends and the boys were in bed asleep, I decided to get a little crafty with my nails and attempted my first-ever water-marbled manicure.


Using My Simple Little Pleasures's fabulous video tutorials as a guide, I managed to successfully do all 10 of my nails. I started with a base coat of Nubar Faded Putty and then did the marbling with Nubar Edgy Umber, Zoya Dove, and O.P.I. Mermaid Tears. It wasn't hard, but it was definitely time consuming.

It was a lot of fun to try something new!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival, Fall 2011: A Quilt for Finn

I'm excited to have something new to share for this fall's Bloggers' Quilt Festival! I call this quilt "Gone Fishin'":


The design is adapted from "Sea Views" by Kate Conklin Designs. The print fabrics are all from the "Storyboek" collection by Jay-Cyn Designs for Birch Fabrics, and then I also chose a few coordinating Kona solids.


I really love the design with all of it's wonderful, flowy curves. But I really wanted to take advantage of the larger panel prints of the fabric. So I mixed in some of those as "plain" blocks. And then I embroidered the recipient's name in one of them.


As much as I love the design, the pattern was a little bit challenging. Cutting it all was easy-peasy. But sewing all those curves back together again resulted in some serious wonkiness. To get them to work, I ended up having to trim my blocks smaller than her suggested sizes. And almost none of them laid flat (despite repeated attacks with the full-on steam iron). But all ended up working in the end once everything was quilted. Yay!


The pieced back is fun too, I think.


And the finishing touch. I love making labels for my quilts. Not only can I easily personalize them for the recipient, but I can include some care instructions and information about the making of the quilt. I think of it as more than just a label-- it's also a sort of memory.


This quilt is for a baby boy named Finn. Hopefully he'll have lots of fun snuggling in it!

Style Stitches Monthly Bag Challenge: Blossom Bag

The Blossom Bag was the September project for Jem Jam's Style Stitches Monthly Bag Challenge.


This is a bag I've been looking forward to making. My mother-in-law (who gave me my copy of Style Stitches last year for Christmas) pointed to this bag as being her favorite in the book. So I knew right then that I needed to make it for her! I even picked out fabric for it a few months ago (extra notable because this is also the first project in the book that I've gone out and bought fabric for-- everything else I've made using my stash).

However, despite all of my enthusiasm, September was just not much of a crafty month for me (as my dearth of blog posts attests). But last week, I was finally ready! The preparations were mighty-- I think I spent nearly two hours just cutting out all of the pieces. Then I spent nearly two hours applying all of the interfacing. Then I spent about five hours putting it all together.


I chose to do the handbag style, with the shorter handle length. I also chose to use a regular quilting-weight cotton instead of the recommended decorator-weight. Following Natalie's advice, I decided to go ahead and double interface all of my exterior and lining fabrics in order to simulate the heft of a dec-weight. It was a lot of interfacing. But it really seems to have worked.


Natalie also said that though she loved her bag, she was finding that it was already showing signs of wear on some spots, probably due to the lighter-weight fabric. With this in mind, I went ahead and added some purse feet to at least help with that on the bottom. Also based on her recommendation, I plan to Scotch-guard the bag.


And here's the back of the bag. I love the handle details in this bag. They weren't too complicated to make, but measuring to ensure even placement is definitely something I would recommend taking the time to do.


This is a view of the side. It was a little tricky sewing the side in, due to the thickness and inflexibility of the Peltex. But lots of pins and just taking it slow got me through it just fine.


In putting the bag together, I ran into two main challenges. The first one: the zipper pouch. If ever a section needed an illustration, it was this one. I swear those instructions were on crack. She approached this zipper differently than every other one she has presented in the book thus far. But, similar to the other methods she has offered up thus far, this one is convoluted and far more difficult than it needs to be. Frankly, even after having done it, I am still wondering if I actually did it correctly. But it does work. If you decide to make this bag, I would highly recommend using a different zipper approach (this one, from Bree of My Crafty Crap, looks pretty promising-- I definitely plan to try it!). I think I'm officially declaring myself DONE with Amy Butler zipper instructions.


The other major challenge? The last step wherein one is supposed to bartack through the side panels in order to hold the dividers in place. So THICK! Ugh. My machine managed it, but I had to take off the foot and go super slow to make it happen (many thanks to Tori at James Family Blog for sharing that fabulous tip!). Thank goodness-- because hand stitching that would have been painful (literally, I think).


And here I am with the bag. Should I decide to make one for me at some point, I'll definitely do the longer straps. I'm a shoulder-bag kind of girl.


This view gives a little better perspective on the actual size of the bag. It really is a great size.

If you want to make one of your own, or even just get a taste of what an Amy Butler pattern is like, Sew, Mama, Sew! has a FREE Blossom Bag pattern download.