Weekend Update 7/15

I am in the mood for cooler temperatures! I finished a winter wall hanging and have a Halloween wall hanging all pinned and ready to be quilted. 

 

All quilted and bound!

 I had purchased a kit and cut out the pieces a long time ago and finally got to working on that again this weekend. I am only making the 8x8 size but the kit I bought looks to have enough of the batting to make at least 2 more 9x13 holders so that's nice. This particular carrier is a table runner and carrier all in one instead of just the carrier. I think that it will work really nice so then you have basically a really large pot holder to put all of the hot food items on and you don't need to worry about hurting the table. 

An 8x8 casserole carrier

 I also started on a beach towel dress. The tutorial that I am following is here. Beach towels were on clearance at Target and this one came with a matching bag to I think its going to be really cute to wear. I have all the shirring done and just need to add straps now. The fabric did not shrink up as much as I was planning so i did have to make some other alterations so that it didn't look too big on me. 

Beach towel dress

On another note - Quilts and Vines due date for quilts is August 4th. I have a few things quilted and bound but none of them have sleeves or labels as of yet so that will be my main concern for the next few weeks!

Keep cool out there!

Angela 

Weekend Update 7/8

 This week I worked on my Quilting Gallery Beginner's QAL block, the Friendship Star. I have made at least one of these before and I liked it then. Just a few half-square triangles but nothing too complicated to get the look.I made sure to fussy-cut the red fabric so that I had a different cat in each corner.

Block 5 - Friendship Star

A few weeks ago I had picked up the Bridget's Bagettes kit from Heirloom Creations. The kit had enough included to make 3 bags, one in each size. You probably could have made a few of the same size if you wanted but I thought I had better just try them all for the first time. These bags are just awesome and Terri is able to prove once again that zippers are not scary! I had thought that working with vinyl would be difficult but with a walking foot and some tissue paper it ended up not being a deal at all.

I also made myself a make-up bag this week using one of Atkinson Designs older patterns. The Cash and Carry pattern was the first time that I learned to put in a zipper. I had taken a class on it from Heirloom quite a long time ago but the directions made much more sense this time around :) The dimensions of the pattern were obviously made for a wallet or classes case of somesorts. I needed a larger bag so i just adjusted the measurements as I saw fit. I got a couple of fat quarters of fabric and the zipper from Heirloom and had this cute little bag a few hours later. 
 

This week will be busy with both guild and Sewtopia meetings but I am working on a few other projects that I hope to post about soon!

Have a great week!

Angela

Weekend Update 7/1

Hello July!!

The first day of July means that the Craftsy.com new block of the month video is up! July's theme is the Dresden plate. I am so excited to make a few of these blocks. I will post as soon as I get these finished.

This weekend I  put together my Quilting Gallery Quilt-Along blocks. I was previously a week behind so now I am all caught up. This quilt-along is really put together well. It seems like their plan is to build on skills that they have taught you the previous week. An example of this is that the week 4 block uses techniques from both week 2 and week 3 as far as cutting and piecing.

Block 3

Block 4

I was out of town for a bit last weekend and the below was my fabric haul. My sister-in-law was kind enough to get all of these goodies for me from her mother-in-law's garage sale. She said that each bag should have about 2 yards of fabric in it! There are a lot of fun fabrics in here so i am thinking that I will be making up some doll blankets for Quilts and Vines soon. Pictures to come on those :)

This weekend I also kept out of the heat by going to Freeman's Quiltfest. I was able to attend a great presentation on 'upcycling' from a gal who is not even a quilter! My husband was along with me and thought that is was really interesting as well. The show had a theme of 'First Quilt, Last Quilt'. It was really amazing to see how far people have come in their quilting choices both in fabric and in pattern. Some people seemed to stay exactly in the same color ways and others went in total opposite directions. The featured quilter there was Phyllis Schrag. She is a quilter in my guild and it was amazing to see so many of her quilts. She also brought along my favorite quilt of her's which is a wedding dress and man's dress shirt turned into a beautiful bed quilt. It is simply amazing and I want one...oh well!

In addition to Quiltfest, I started a clean-up project for my sewing studio -- before and after pictures will be here soon! 


Stay cool out there!


Angela

Weekend Update

Here are the full size pictures of what I was working on this weekend. 

This winter-cat scene is a wall hanging made from a kit. The hanging is rather small since the panel was only 10.5"x16.5". I am currently working on quilting the piece and I'm putting my new walking foot guide to work. I'm not sure how much quilting I actually want on the cats and the gifts so I think I will go with a clear thread on those. 

Pattern: Winterberry singles WH-158

www.whimsicalquilts.com
 

This wonderfully outrageous cat quilt is based around some awesome fabric that I found last summer.I knew that I didn't want to cut up the fabric and this was just the ticket. I'm not sure what kind of quilting I will go with on this but since I don't have a backing for it yet I'm got time :)

Pattern: Too Cute to Cut from Quilts and More Magazine, Winter 2010

Happy Quilting!!

Angela 

Weekend Update

I didn't spend as much time in my sewing room as I would have liked this weekend but we have to take advantage of nice weather when it comes our way. My husband and I also managed to get tickets to Sweeney Todd and it was wonderful!

I did cut all the pieces to a 5 yard quilt and make a new purse out of an old one. The 5 yard quilt was a kit that I picked up from Always Your Design when they were at the Brookings Quilt Show a few weeks back. The purse pattern is from the Summer 2012 edition of Quilts & More magazine but can be found here.

old purse

1 yard of each fabric - all cut up and ready to sew

Have a great week and more updates to come!

Angela