Modern Pillow Swap

Posted on May 21, 2013 by oliver's fancy

Just a heads up…there’s going to be a bit of radio silence here over the next few weeks. Baby is on his way soon, and I think my sewing is done for now. I will be taking a bit of a maternity leave to enjoy my time with him, but I’ll be sure to pop in now and then to update you on his arrival and such!

My local chapter of the modern quilt guild decided to do a pillow swap for our May meeting. We each filled out an info sheet with our favorite fabric designers and style and were matched up with a partner. I had a fun time making this pillow for my partner. I follow her on Pinterest, and she pinned this modern herringbone block tutorial a few weeks ago. That gave me the inspiration for her pillow. I made a small sample block to check the sizing and such and then just went for it. On her info sheet, she said that she loved the Cruzin’ fabric line and her colors were gray, white, orange and blue. I used Cruzin’ as my main fabric line and tried to pull the other colors into the block. I really like how it turned out.

Since this was for the quilt guild, the pillow needed to be quilted. I used my walking foot to follow the herringbone lines down the quilt and then quilted 1/4inch on each side of the white border. Loving my walking foot!!

I used the Cruzin’ fabric as the pillow backing and made an easy envelope back. The pillow measures 16″ square. The only sad part is that I don’t get to keep it. 🙂 But my partner did a great job and made me a pillow with Lotta Jansdotter fabrics so I am quite happy to swap for that!

Madrona Road Challenge

Posted on January 28, 2013 by oliver's fancy

Michael Miller Fabrics partnered with the Modern Quilt Guild to create a challenge for QuiltCon. The company donated fabric from the Madrona Road line to each quilt guild that wanted to participate in the challenge! I think that’s pretty generous.Michael Miller Fabrics and Violet Craft (the designer of the fabric line) will be picking some of the entries to display in the Michael Miller Fabrics booth at QuiltCon. The photos must be uploaded to the flickr group by January 31st, so I had a bit of a time constraint to complete my project.

I had such a hard time deciding what to make for this challenge. I knew that I wanted to make a mini-quilt because that has been on my list for a while and what better opportunity than with free fabric? I finally decided to try out Jeni’s Flagged Quilt that I have been dying to make. This quilt uses half-rectangle triangles. I used a combo of her directions and the Modern Quilt Guild’s directions that she links to for my quilt. I didn’t want my quilt as big as hers so I cut 5×7 inch rectangles. This is a super quick and easy quilt pattern! Once I got started, I just couldn’t stop because it practically flew together.

For the backing, I rearranged some of the leftover triangles to form a different pattern and surrounded them with my remaining fabric in large blocks. I used the fabric given to me plus some Kona White and Charcoal.

Quilting: I debated for a while about the quilting but ended up using the same loopy quilting technique that Jeni used in her quilt. It’s a fairly easy free-motion quilting technique so it’s perfect for a beginner like me. Except for the fact that I had only completed about 1/4 of the quilting and the timing went off on my machine. I am not sure what happened, but somehow I must have jammed it and then yanked the fabric. 😦 I was so upset- this close to finishing and my machine is down and out! I have some nice friends though and one of them let me finish the FMQ on her Bernina. (And can I say that I now have my Bernina fund started because that was the most fun I have ever had while sewing!! There really is a huge difference between my machine and that one!). The repair man was able to fix my machine quickly so I had it back within 48 hours and finished the binding last night.

I wasn’t sure what I would use for the binding because (I thought) I had used up every single scrap of fabric given to me, but when I was cleaning up from the quilting, I discovered more fabric on the floor! Perfect! Just enough to make my binding! I guess you could call that a happy mistake.

I am loving this quilt. It was lots of fun to make. (Other than the machine breaking part of it…grr) I don’t have any hope of it getting picked for the challenge but it was good to make something just because, and now I have a mini-quilt for my sewing room wall! The finished quilt measures 25×25.

This Weekend

Posted on August 31, 2012 by oliver's fancy

Hope everyone is looking forward to a long weekend! We are headed out of town tonight to spend the weekend with my husband’s sister and her family, and I know we are ready for some relaxing family time.

Here’s what on my agenda for the weekend:

Figure 8/Infinity Cowl- free pattern from AMH. This is a present for my sister-in-law’s 30^th birthday. Hopefully she doesn’t read my blog today! Of course it’s not done yet, and we leave tonight but I am thinking that it should be a quick project. Pictures to come when it’s complete. 🙂
Gender Reveal Party tonight for a friend who’s expecting twins!
Enjoying a cookout with an entire smoked pig- My SIL has a friend with a smokehouse, and we are excited about bringing home some smoked pork.
Hopefully getting some knitting/embroidery WIPs done during the short car drive there and back.

Note for all you local readers: the first official GMQG meeting was a HUGE success, and I am looking forward to many more fun meetings. We have the fall schedule planned out and posted on the blog for anyone who is interested.

And just in case you need some fabric inspiration for the weekend, Pink Castle Fabrics is having a Labor Day Sale- 20% off your total purchase with the coupon code LABOR20.

Do you have any fun plans for this weekend?

Modern Quilt Guild

Posted on August 1, 2012 by oliver's fancy

I am back from a whirlwind anniversary trip to New York and have tons of things to share with you including a new Tova top, but it is late and I must get to bed so I am just popping in here to tell you to check out the Greenville modern quilt guild’s new blog– moderated by yours truly. 🙂 Excited to see the unfolding of this new guild and hope some of you will join me!

Will be back tomorrow with New York pics- Purl Soho! and my new Tova…

This Weekend

Posted on July 21, 2012 by oliver's fancy

It’s been a pretty crazy week over here on the home-front. We had family here for a week and have been super busy cleaning up from that and getting things ready for our big anniversary trip to New York City next week. Whee!!! So excited about it!

Any-who, in my little spare time, I have been so busy filling up my etsy shop with lovelies that I haven’t had much time to sew for myself, but I have fabric waiting for a Tova Top that I really want to bring on our trip so I will try to finish that before Thursday. I had been focusing on embroidery hoop art for a few weeks and decided to work on some onesies this past week to give my shop some variety. I used some of the fabric that I picked up at Whipstitch (business expense 😉 ) and am loving my new creations! I have a few basic designs that I am fine-tuning: vests with ties or bow ties, fat ties, and suspenders with skinny ties or bow ties. Check out the mini houndstooth print I found- so perfect for the suspenders and vests! It’s so silky soft too that it is super nice for baby garments.

I was just commissioned to make a cloth diaper hanging wet bag for a friends and am trying to find the perfect fabric for her and her little girl. I am making something similar to Jeni’s lined drawstring bag here: except I will line the bag in PUL fabric to make it suitable for cloth diapers. I went ahead and bought Jeni’s pattern because she gives you a license to sell and that way I don’t have to do the math by myself- so worth it if someone else has already done math for me! I am excited to see how it turns out and will be sure to show you. I would like to finish it before my trip also so I am sure to be quite busy the next few days!

Last item to update you on. Greenville now has a branch of the Modern Quilt Guild! We had an introductory meeting today with a few people and are planning on meeting the second or third Friday of each month. I volunteered to take over the blog site and will be updating it as we find out more information. I have wanted to have one of these for a while and am quite pumped that it is beginning. Check out the website if you want more details- there’s not much there now but will be soon. I cannot wait to meet like-minded quilters and crafters in my town. If you are local, we would love to see you at our meetings, even if you are a novice quilter!