Modern Yardage

Hello there! I've been away for a while, sorry about that! I've got a lot going on these days...new baby...eldest starting school...etc. My sewing time has been a bit sporadic and you'll have to forgive me for spending my free time sewing and not posting on my blog. I think with school starting now, I'll have a regular schedule again and will begin dusting off this blog.

I finished my Bloom Bloom Pow quilt, I'll post about that soon. And I have 85 of the 100 Tula Pink 100 Blocks done. I will post about that soon too.

My post today is about a designer friend of mine who's working with this awesome new company Modern Yardage. They specialize in print-on-demand modern fabric at a fantastic price! Allison Beilke designed this fabulous collection called Business and Leisure and asked several of us to make projects with it. I was delighted to finally be able to put this collection into use. Not to mention I've been attracted to the red/aqua color combo for a while. Perfect solution!

In the works are a sew-a-long with members of the Milwaukee Modern Quilt Guild of Elizabeth Hartman's Sewing Circle Tote. I decided to make mine with Allison's cool fabric.

Here it is:

I also made a coordinating wide-open pouch by Noodlehead. I'm pretty happy with this little bag too.

Thanks for stopping by, TTYL!

WIP: A FEW PROJECTS

Although the excellent weather has been cutting into nap time, I've been keeping up with Lee's Bloom Bloom Pow QAL. In fact, it's been much harder to get this post up!

So here's my quilt top. I totally love it!! I think after all my purple problems, the purple bloom fits in perfectly. I am hopeful that after trimming I won't need to piece a back and I can get right to basting and quilting. Still not sure how I shall quilt it, or what to use for binding, but it's coming right a long!

I've also made good progress on the Chevron Baby Blanket. The pattern is free on the PurlBee website. I have two more colors to go and it's finished. Yay.

My LQS is doing a 100 blocks of summer club to make all of Tula Pink's blocks in her new book. I love the idea of working on that, but I have no idea how baby #3 is going to crash our naptime routine. I was also a bit overwhelmed at how to begin fabric choices, but after a suggestion by my good quilting buddy, I think I'm going to use my awesome stash of Glimma! I certainly have enough fabric to make all the blocks and if not, the shop is close by. I'm actually feeling pretty excited about it!

Now if I could just decide on a block to make for Flags of Boston.......I have to get that done by Friday. I'm just being rather indecisive.

That's it for now, linking up!

WIP: KEEPING UP WITH THE QAL

Another week, another hump day. Not to mention more darn rain. It's getting a little sickening staying inside all the time. Especially when your 2 year old is refusing to nap and is being rather demanding. I'm hoping it's his two-year molars and that he hasn't given up naps before the new baby arrives.

In any case, check out what was sitting on my front lawn eating a bunny. This guy! My husband opened the front door to go on his morning bike ride and this Cooper's hawk puffed up and screeched at him. Needless to say he went around to the back door. Now I know why I haven't seen as many chipmunks and bunnies around, these hawks must be taking care of them.

We had our monthly guild sew day on Saturday and I got a ton done! I'm still working on a secret quilt, but I also got most of the strips pieced for Lee's Bloom Bloom Pow QAL. I am very excited for tomorrow's post when we start cutting out 60 degree triangles and piecing the blooms. Really glad to have recaptured my sewing mojo again.

I should mention that I wasn't really happy with my previous purple selection so I made a trip to my LQS. Thankfully the ladies there helped me, it took us a while though. AND.....I was pleased as punch to see that they had Lotta Jansdotter's entire Glimma collection, including the coordinating solids! YIPPEE! How awesome is that! I bought a yard of the entire collection. Between that and a fellow guilder ordering me some Color Me Retro, I had a great fabric weekend.

I'm sure I'll be back there soon, they were getting Malka's new collection and they had Indian Summer. Since my guild's challenge fabric wasn't in yet, I see another exciting fabric purchase in my future.

TTFN, I'm linking up.

WIP: A QUILT-A-LONG

Hi There.

Well that cold really wiped me out. It turned into a sinus infection and since I can only take Tylenol and regular Sudafed, I didn't get much relief. My pounding headache meant a lot of resting for me. I lost almost two weeks to this beast.

But alas, I am doing Lee's Bloom Bloom Pow QAL, rainbow style. Nothing can keep me that down!

This is my first quilt pulled almost entirely from my stash. Unfortunately I really didn't like any purple combos so I'm making a trip to my LQS this week to get a better purple combo. My mom had an "aha" moment when she said, "I see why you keep buying more fabric." LOL, yep, even when you have a ton, you still could be missing something that ties the whole quilt together.

Besides cutting this quilt, I whipped up a couple of bow-ties for the boys for Easter. Unfortunately one of the bows was lost, not on my watch of course. Hoping it still turns up...grrrr.

I'm linking up!

WIP: CRAFT ROOM EDITION

I've been absent for a while again. As usual, lots going on. I finally got  my sewing mojo back, but now I caught the kids' cold. Ugh.

In any case, I've completed a few blocks this past week, met Tula Pink and am finishing up organizing my very own craft room!

My local guild's bee blocks are finished, I'm all caught up. Both very fun blocks to make.

Lots going on in the Milwaukee area, my LQS hosted Tula Pink for a talk about her design process and a trunk show. It was very inspiring and she is soooooo funny. She has a new book coming out soon, 100 Modern Quilt Blocks and the quilts she showed were awesome. I'm definitely buying that book, you all know how I like a good sampler quilt.

We finished another room in the basement to get ready for baby #3 and to give me my own space for crafting. It's awesome! I'm still putting a few boxes away and I have some larger fabric pieces to put on cardboard, but otherwise it's done. It's so great to be able to see my stash and to just leave a project out that I'm working on. The design wall was probably the best addition to my sewing endeavors. I can't wait to really start laying out quilts on it! I've been in my new room sewing up a storm.

So I can't really show you those quilt blocks yet, my current project is a pattern that's going to be published in Lee's new book. Once she gives me the ok, I'll be able to show you pics.

I'm linking up!

Testing blog readers

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WIP: THE ONE WITH LOTS OF PICS

I know I've been absent for a while! Three reasons: 1. I've had no real WIP's to show you, just finishes. 2. I'm moving my craft room so it's hindering progress on projects. 3. I went to QuiltCon!!!

So let's start with this new craft room. Here is what my fabric stash looks like and here is what is going to consume me for a while. I'm going to put my stash onto these comic boards so that they'll be all organized. Yippee.







Here's what I worked on and finished in preparation for QuiltCon. A Triple Zip Pouch and an Ideas Pouch for my iPad. Both turned out great.

And.....I went to QuiltCon! It was AWESOME. I'm going to avoid reliving the horrible trip down there because once we got there it was really great. Let's see....good friends....beautiful fabric...amazing quilts...inspiring lectures and a kick-ass workshop. Not to mention the food and weather in Austin were pretty darn good too.

Here's the goodies I bought. Mostly fabric, I finally got my paws on some OakShotts! Needless to say, I can't wait to tear into them. I also picked up some perle cotton, embroidery floss and Anna Maria patterns. Yep, that's an autograph and yep I got a picture with her.

I took an awesome textile printing class with Lotta Jansdotter, my fabric designing hero. I managed to contain myself and not act like a dork. She really liked my work and asked to take a picture OF MY WORK!! EEP! It was so much fun and I can't wait to hit my local art store up for more supplies. I also made it to her pop-up shop and bought a bunch of her stuff. FUN! Here are a few pics.

It was awesome making some new friends too. I won a prize for completing all my blocks in my Flickr bee so I met up with our Bee Mama, Julie. It was great meeting her in person and look at this lovely prize. She happens to live in Ft Worth, the home of MadelineTosh yarn which my local shop can't keep in stock. I got this beautiful Tosh Merino, a single-ply gorgeous red yarn. And it's all mine!

Sooooo here are my WIP's. I'm making hexies, yay, and about to start pattern testing with these triangles of fabric. I won't be able to share that for a while. Keep ya posted.

  I'm linking up!

WIP: HAND QUILTING AND SWAG

Well my Madrona Road quilt is finished enough to post in the Flickr pool, but I'm still hand quilting it. So far, I absolutely love it! It's like embroidering on my quilt, an awesome combo of two of my favorite things. I will definitely be doing more hand quilting.

One more block and I'm done with my online bees. Not sure I'll be joining an online bee again anytime soon. I have my local quilt guild bee to look forward to instead. Here is one block, I need to make another one with purple on the outside and orange on the inside. Very putzy paper-piecing.

My LQS had Kona Club last night and it was so very fun! Not only do we celebrate Kona solids, but we share ideas and happenings in the quilt world. My LQS owner informed us she booked Tula Pink to give a talk in March. Yippee!! Tula has a new book out in May and the shop carries her fabrics, it should be great. It's really awesome to see a modern quilter coming to our neck of the woods.

I also picked up some good stuff....my LQS has started making packs of 2.5" squares for making 1" hexies!! And I picked up a couple of charm packs to cut into 2.5" squares. I'm catching the hexie fever. I also bought a new quilting hoop online that should help me with my hand quilting. My 6" plastic hoop keeps popping off, argh. I tried a circular 18" hoop but that was really uncomfortable and I couldn't grip it well enough so this oval size should help. You'd think my long arms would work, but alas, I had to keep putting the hoop down, not good.

Gotta go, this block and my guilds QuiltCon quilt need to get in the mail tomorrow! More on that soon. I'm linking up!

WIP: STILL MADRONA ROAD

Yep, still working on my Madrona Road quilt. It's quilted with a few straight lines but as you can see from this picture, I'm about to start some hand quilting. Then onto the binding, therefore lots of hand work ahead.

I have a couple of small projects coming up next. I'm making the Idea Pouch from MichellePatterns for my iPad and then a matching triple zip pouch. I bought the Idea Pouch pattern over the holidays and I'm participating in the Triple Zip A-Long over at A Quilters Table. Super excited to get working on these two. No surprise, I picked some Bella to use for these.

Nothing has changed on my UFO list. Someday I'll start checking those off.

I'm linking up.

WIP: MADRONA ROAD

Still plugging along at this Madrona Road quilt. We got hit with the stomach flu last week so I went 3 days without touching it. One of which was my guild sew day/holiday party (big bummer). I was really flying along too, but alas, I'm back at it. I tried to float my blocks a little bit. Not sure quite if it's what I was hoping for, in retrospect I should have varied the block size more. In any case I like how it's looking.

I am hoping to hand quilt this but the local shops around here don't seem to carry a good selection of perle cotton #8. I am hoping to find someone with a color card to borrow from, otherwise I'll have to break down and buy one. Not sure I want to attempt to color match from a computer.


Finished this cowl over the weekend. Very happy with how it turned out.

UFO's:

Star Wars quilt (binding only)

Echo Hexagon Quilt

BOM from Sew Mama Sew

Tumbler Quilt (all cut)

Malka Quilt (basted already)

Top Secret Quilt (have top and back done)

Bee Quilt (one a charity quilt, one a girl quilt)

Possible:  I Spy and Polaroid Quilts (no real actual plans)

Other projects:

Reusable Baby Wipes

Sweat pants

iPad case

Swim cover-up

Star Wars curtains and pillowcases

Bean Bag chair

I'm Linking Up.

WIP: MQG CHALLENGE

I'm plugging along on my Madrona Road quilt for the Modern Quilt Guild's fabric challenge.

I made 8 random blocks and then I'm going to asymmetrically place them into the quilt top with solids and some of the gray-toned fabrics in the collection. I want it to have a "pieced-back" look. I'm not overly happy with the blue block. I think I'm going to add a solid around the pinwheel to make it pop more.

Our guild got mostly blue and yellow fabrics but I have very little pink in my house and I really loved the pink prints. I think I did the pink justice but I need a little more of that fabulous magenta. I might use that as the binding. In any case, I'll have lots of leftover fabric for my stash.

Speaking of leftovers....I'm using scraps from this quilt to make a covered notebook. My local guild is having our holiday party on Saturday and we're doing a swap. Very excited about this swap, I've been meaning to make one of these!

Up next (although I should work on my UFO's) is another pattern testing quilt for my mom. She picked out the colors, you'll be able to see that right away! Not what I would have picked but I think they are beautiful colors.

Trying to be better about my quilty UFO's, so here they are:
Star Wars quilt (binding only)
Echo Hexagon Quilt
BOM from Sew Mama Sew
Malka Quilt (basted already)

Top Secret Quilt (have top and back done)
Bee Quilt (one a charity quilt, one a girl quilt)
Possible:  I Spy and Polaroid Quilts (no real actual plans)

Other projects:
Reusable Baby Wipes
Sweat pants
iPad case
Swim cover-up
Star Wars curtains and pillowcases
Bean Bag chair

Eek! Better get cracking! I'm linking up!