Catching Up!

I’ve been really busy since we got back from our cruise!!  First we had our annual local quilt show!

It was fun seeing the quilts and visiting the vendors with my dear bee friends!

I was well behaved and only purchased some gorgeous hand dyed wool pieces!

Our new local quilt shop here in Haymarket- “Oh Sew Persnickety”, is participating in this summer’s Row-By-Row Experience quilting activity.

I designed their Row By Row this year!  Woo hoo!

The theme this summer is water.  Most shops designs are all about the beach and ocean, so we wanted something different!

Our design is simple- four umbrellas in a row.  Three standing in the traditional direction, but one upside down with a little bird perched on the handle.

After I put it all together, it really needed a little something MORE… so I added long tube-like silver beads sewn on randomly by hand.

It was just the right embellishment!

Yogi has finally stopped following us around all the time… and is back to normal!!

Need a Sewing Tote?

I had lots of scraps after making my last Moda project, so I decided to make a big tote bag to use for bee!

I took my leftovers and cut a bunch of 3” squares, and sewed them together and added a fabric piece all the way across the top,

but I just used all  3” squares for the back side of the tote.

I pressed fusible fleece on the wrong side of both the pieced front and the back.  Then I quilted them all over in a simple meander.

I sketched out the letters spelling “sew” in reverse, onto the paper side of fusible and pressed it onto a contrasting fabric.

I cut them out, removed the paper backing and fused them onto the front side.

I used the blanket stitch on my sewing machine all around the edges!

I added a double pocket with an elastic casing on at the top the front and embellished it with rickrack.

I also added rickrack across the bottom edge of the green strip on the front.  I used the finished front as a pattern to  cut two pieces of fabric for the lining. 

With right sides together, I sewed down one side across the bottom and up the other side on both the outer and lining of the tote.  Turn the outer bag right sides out and push the lining down into the outer bag, lining up the top edges, then baste them together.

I also added another row of rick rack around the top edge!

I bound the top edge just like a quilt by sewing the binding onto the front side by machine, then flipping it to the inside and sewing it down by hand.

I made some handles from another fabric

and sewed them onto the front and back sides at the top.

My tote ended up to be the perfect size to bring my sewing notions and project materials to bee!

I also just took it to our local quilt show this past weekend and got soooo many nice compliments on it!!

 

Our local annual quilt show was this weekend and I was so VERY pleasantly surprised to see my dear friend Susan there!!  And guess who we met and went to her trunk show at the quilt show???

Jenny Doan from the Missouri Star Quilt Co, with her awesome Daily Deals and tutorials!!

We got to see some of the quilts from her tuts

and hear her life story and meet her adorable hubby who was her assistant there!!

Two bee friends and I went to the trunk show together and then hit the vendors and the quilts!!

Sue bought an awesome black quilt ladder to lean against the wall in her family room for her quilts!!

Sooo, what are you working on this weekend??

Quilters Unlimited Quilt Show 2011

Today begins the 3 days of the Quilters Unlimited of Northern VA annual quilt show at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, VA.

The line was wrapped around the building to get in.  The venue is nice and big, but the cement floors are reallllly hard on your feet, knees and back….or was that because of all the purchases we carried around!!  LOL!!

Some of the quilts displayed were amazing.  It always inspires me to do more- learn more…especially the quilting…so stunning!

The vendors were plentiful and many were new this year, which is always nice when more quilt shops pop up in the areas nearby.

My bee friends and I have really noticed how much the fabrics have changed in the last few years…

influenced by all the new young designers who create such bright modern collections.

I was actually quite restrained at the show today…only bought a few pieces of fabric, some huge buttons for bags, two patterns, a cool magnetic scissor/pin holder, and a little Jim Shore sewing machine box.

There were lots of folks there…and it’s always amazing to me how many familiar faces I see at these events…from guild, the quilt shop I used to work at, etc…

Quilting is really a small world sometimes, isn’t it? 

When you go to a quilt show, do you go to the vendors first, then go see the quilts, or the other way around?

 

Mid-Atlantic Quilt show

Last weekend was the

Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

There was some really wonderful quilts exhibited, of course.  And even more delightful vendors!!

What my friends and I observed was how many more wool booths there were this year compared with previous years. 

Soooo not my thing!

Of course, I wanted one of EVERYTHING,

but I restrained myself and bought just a few things…

a McKenna Ryan pattern, a book by Nancy Halvorsen, a few pieces of a new bright floral collection, some fingertip cots, a yard of pre-printed labels…

We had such a nice day amongst folks who all love fabric and quilting!  Just getting away for a day is so renewing!!  And seeing all that eye candy really inspires me to get back in the sewing room and create!!

And guess what Yogi did the whole time I was gone??

What a good watchdog!! :-)