Progress from my 1st Friday Night Sew-In

As promised, here is what I did last night for my 1st Friday Night Sew-In.






As I mentioned in a prior post, my small groups', Seams Sew Easy, challenge for September was to try something new. I was thinking about doing curves, but then I remembered that I had purchased a Christmas embroidery pattern about a year ago. I have been wanting to learn for awhile now, and since Christmas is creeping up on us, I figured "why not".  I watched a couple how to videos at We Love French Knots. On Sunday night I put on stabilizer and traced the pattern on my light box. This was extremely difficult. I came to find out at our meeting on Wednesday night that I had used the stabilizer for machine embroidery. So, for my next project I will be buying some much thinner stabilizer!

Here is the pattern that I am working on. I am hoping to finish it by Christmas. (Yes 2011)

The pattern shows a pillow, but I am thinking a wall hanging will work much better in this household with the two little guys and all.

Here is my progress from Monday and Friday nights. Not too bad for a newbie, heh?

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Hopefully I can make this a regular thing and get some WIPs done.

Our November group challenge is to have a Christmas present all finished! I have been working on designing the Brown Bear quilt for my little guy tonight. I have a pattern worked up. I'll see if I still like it tomorrow, and if so I will start cutting!

In other news, I quit my job on Tuesday and after training someone on my accounts for the next month or so, I will be a stay at home mom! No more crazy tax seasons! I will have time to sew between December and April 15th!

Check out all the cool projects at

Friday Night Sew In

This is what I am doing tonight as soon as the little guys are in bed!

Check back tomorrow to see what I worked on!

WIP Wednesday #2

I want to thank everyone who gave feedback on my Habitat challenge quilt for the DSMMQG. I decided to go with the two-tone background, but switched it up to more of the gray. I felt the circles "popped" more off the darker color. I still need to stitch the binding down on the back.

This is Veronica's Habitat challenge pillow. I love the way she used the fabrics! She took pictures of all the finishes at the meeting. You can find them here.













The day after our challenge reveal I went to a weekend retreat at the Quilts and other Notions retreat center in Creston, IA. It was located right next to the store which was great for inspiration-she has TONS of new fabric lines- but not so great for my fabric budget-for the same reason, ah-hem.
It was a great weekend! I had not gotten away since last November, and really enjoyed hanging out with the girls, sewing, chatting, and eating way too much.

I finally got started on the quilt for my dad. The stack on the top are snowball blocks that still need trimming. The rest of the blocks will each be eight of the other pieces sewn  together. I'm still hoping to get this done by Christmas.

The retreat center was full of inspiration quilts made by the owner Joyce. She was working on a couple new shop samples when we were there that are going to be just beautiful! Here are some of the quilts we got to admire all weekend.

This is a closeup of the previous quilt showing the different quilting used on each block.

I soooo want to do this pattern!

Love the bright colors!

Tomorrow and Saturday I am going to the Des Moines AQS quilt show. I can't wait to see all the amazing quilts, listen to some lectures, and do some shopping!

Tricia

My 1st WIP Wednesday!

I am working on my quilt for my Habitat Challenge for Thursday night's DSMMQG meeting. I am having a tough time deciding on a background color.




Here are my circles on light blue.

Here they are on a darkish gray.

Here I put them on a two-toned background.

I also have some Kona Eggshell and another fabric just a little darker than that... decisions, decisions. I think I will sleep on it and finish Wednesday night. Any input would be greatly appreciated!

I finished the quilt for my Seams Sew Easy small group challenge last Thursday. It is already hanging in the living room!

Other ongoing projects:

-Hoping to start working on the quilt for my dad that I got cut out last week.

-Need to finish the top of my Moda Blush lap quilt

-Have a couple other quilts that I just need to attach the borders. (Not my favorite thing!) and then quilt.

-Lots of other quilts-need to make myself a "to do" list!

-Need to pick out my palette and fabrics for the Dead Simple QAL over at Lily's Quilts.

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

Pattern Challenge

This is the quilt that my small group Seams Sew Easy made for the Des Moines Area Quilt Guild show challenge. The 2011 DMAQG Quilt Show Challenge was for the guild to make 150 patriotic quilts by the time of the quilt show, which is September 28th through October 1st (our show is in conjunction with the AQS show). The quilts will be donated to the residents of the Veterans Home in Des Moines before Veterans Day in November. All of the quilts will be displayed at the show.  

As my last post stated, my small group had a challenge for our September meeting, that was held on Thursday night, to make a project from a book or magazine pattern. Here are every one's projects.

This is Veronica's cute little bag! I love her fabric choices!

Here is the quilt that Emma is working on. She still has a couple more rows to attach. This was the size of her new design wall that her husband made for her. All the pinks are so pretty!

Here is Lisa's casserole bag unfolded and ready to load. Don't you just love the cupcake fabric? It makes me hungry for chocolate every time I look at it!

Here it is folded and all ready to go! She can use this to bring something to our potluck next month.

Teresa made 2 bags out of this laminated bright blue floral fabric. They will be great for her to use when she travels. She's thinking of making some more for gifts for her family for Christmas.

Dawn did not have a project to share. She just got back from serving in Afghanistan a little over a month ago. We were just so happy to have her home safe and back in our little group! We missed you so much Dawn!

Here is my finished project. It is from the Motif book by Jeri Kelly. I mentioned in my last post that I was working on a quilt for my dad. Well, I got it all cut out on Monday night and realized there was no way I was going to have it done by Thursday night (unless I didn't sleep or work!). So I decided on another project that I have been wanting to do for awhile. I have had this book for over a year and want to do many of the little quilts to hang up in my house for the different seasons. I decided to start with fall so I could hang it up right away!

Now I just have to work on my Habitat challenge for this Thursday...

Shop Hop

The local quilt shops had customer appreciation days last weekend. So...I went on a little shop hop!

The first shop I went to was Creekside Quilting in Clive, Iowa. I found some great bright, fun prints. I already have a pattern picked out for that Kate Spain Layer Cake.

The 2nd shop I went to was The Quilt Block in West Des Moines, Iowa. I found some fun black and white, gray, and orange fabrics.

Adel Quilting and Dry Goods in Adel, Iowa was the 3rd stop of the day. They had a lot of cool black and white prints. I have been collecting them for a while now to make a quilt. But, I haven't decided yet on a focal color to use. Any suggestions?

The last store of the day was Quilter's Cupboard in Ankeny, Iowa. They had some great bright floral prints. I had to really control myself here! I of course had to pick up a couple purple fabrics. Ahem-I have a little thing for purple...

The next day I stopped by Quilting Connection in Ames, Iowa. I finally found some eagle fabric for the back of little guys Brown Bear quilt. Yeah, I know those have nothing to do with each other, but he LOVES eagles! I had to pick up the Robert Kaufman Veranda Ten Square. Those fabrics were just so yummy. They also have some yardage that I might have to go back for when I figure out what I want to do with it.

The next day me and my big guy drove over to Jefferson, Iowa for their semi-annual quilt show. I picked up a few more things at the vendors that were there. There were a lot of great quilts to look at.

Here is my shopping buddy. After the quilt show we stopped at Dairy Queen for treats. He asked "Mom, when is the next quilt show that we can go to?" Ahh-Gotta love him!

Now I better finish cutting out the quilt for my dad. Me and my small group, Seams Sew Easy, have a challenge due at our meeting on Thursday. The challenge is to do a quilt or project from a book or magazine pattern that we have been wanting to do for awhile. I picked the fabrics and pattern out for this project almost a year ago, so it definitely qualifies. I'll already have one Christmas present done!

Jay McCarroll Habitat Challenge

The Modern Quilt Guild and FreeSpirit Fabrics issued a challenge to the individual modern guilds using the Jay McCarroll Habitat fabrics. Each guild was to design their own challenge locally.

I received these Habitat fabrics in July from the Des Moines Modern Quilt Guild. They are the Earth Tones Colorway. There are a total of 7 fabrics in each colorway (there are 3 colorways), and we received 6 fat eights. I have also shown some of the solids that I am thinking about using for this quilt.

I have a couple ideas of what I am going to do, but haven't ironed out the details or started yet. I will be deciding in the next couple days.

Here is a list of our challenge rules:

Challenge Rules

1. When sewing your piece, only solid fabrics may be added to Habitat fabrics.

2. You may add more Habitat fabric from your own Habitat stash. 

3. Use every print (six in your bundle) in your project. Your "unfavorite" prints may be pieced into the back.

4. The finished project should be no smaller than 60 linear inches, and no larger than 120 linear inches. That means you could conceivably make a square quilt 15" X 15" up to 30" X 30". However, other combinations of dimension are acceptable (IE: 24" X 36"). Your finished project could be a table topper, place mat, wall hanging, etc.

5. Bring your finished project to the September 15 DSMMQG meeting. We'll have a show and tell, and take a group photo.

6. Should you not complete your challenge by September 15, (or at a minimum, have the top finished), you will be asked to donate $8 (the cost of six fat 1/8ths) to the DSMMQG treasury

I will post pictures when it is complete!

My First Ribbon!

The Iowa State Fair was held this year from August 11th-21st. I entered my Minnesota Pines quilt and got a pink ribbon-4th place!

I took the Frieda Anderson "SunSet Pines Fused Applique" class at the 2009 AQS Des Moines Quilt Show. I really enjoyed this class. It was all raw-edge, free form cutting-no rulers allowed-and a collage method fusing process. I thought the process was very creative and freeing. I did no sewing on it until I quilted it in the ditch with a variegated thread. Even the binding is just fused.

This was a very fun quilt to make!

I Won!!!

I entered a giveway at Flourishing Palms last week for a $25 gift certificate to Marmalade Fabrics and I won!

Tammy at Marmalade Fabrics has many beautiful fabrics, I really like the loulouthi fabric!

Thank you so much Linda and Tammy! I can't wait to start shopping!

I'm a blogger!

Well, I finally did it, I started a blog!

I figured I would start off by showing my first quilt. I made this in a beginners class at the LQS in the summer of 2007. The class was a Birthday present to myself. I had to buy a sewing machine since I had not sewn since middle school.

I loved picking out the color combination and the fabrics! Looking back now, I can see I was quickly on my way to being a fabric addict...