Week ending September 26, 2021

This week started off full of good intentions and ideas and finished with little to show.  I took my block I made testing the North Winds Quilt and put it on a tee and love it!

I cut out binding strips for my moms quilt, my deltille quilt, and a few others that I need to finish. 

The Moon Festival was during the past full moon and a friend came by to bring me moo cakes to celebrate. They are so pretty and they were delicious. I ate one before this photo was taken. 

I ate 3 and each was different. Some had an egg yolk inside to symbolize the full moon.  I had to snap a picture as I ate it. 

The patchwork pumpkins have been fun to make and I worked on a few more. 

I snapped a pic of my sewing room for the Entropy Quilt sew along and forgot to post it~ so you all get to see my space as I work. 

If you spied them in the photo above, here’s a better look at the pumpkins I made this past week. 

Have I mentioned that i will do anything to keep from sewing by hand? I made these pumpkins with a zipper to keep from needing to sew them shut after stuffing them.  The zipper is on the bottom so no one will ever know, unless they read this blog. I still need to stuff these babies. 

I then thought I’d work on a quilt coat. I decided to use quilt blocks made by a dear friends mother in law. She gave me a huge tub of quilt blocks and fabric strips. There were so many log cabin blocks and I thought they would make a super cute coat. 

I was debating what arrangement to do and also had these blocks that coordinate. I might use them for the shawl collar and maybe cuffs. Not sure yet. 

Here’s the tub full of wonderful surprises. Some of the blocks are a bit wonky and I’m thinking I might sew more onto them and then square them up before I sew them together to make the quilt coat. 

I got very little sewing done this weekend because our refrigerator went out! I spent Saturday getting my broken phone replaced, then going to get a mini fridge. The mini fridge currently resides in my sewing room. I had to put my design wall up and my quilt coat blocks in the process. 

The little bit of sewing I did was on my mask scrap quilt.  I’ve been putting it off too long. I was going to plan it out and decided that since it’s scrappy, there was no point in over thinking it.  I’m making a half square triangle quilt and really I’ve never seen a scrappy one not look great. 

I am really hoping to make a lot of progress on my projects this week and hope this weekend will be more relaxing. 

George + Ginger Janis Top

It's been a bit since I actually sewed myself any clothing. It was actually back in May. How do I know this? That was the last time I posted a blog about any clothing I sewed and when I probably misplaced my camera remote. I bought a new one, but I don't like this one as the handheld part is HUGE! And it's harder to hide. The other was smaller and I could hide it in my palm.

But alas - I bring to you my newest addition to my wardrobe. This is the Janis Top by George + Ginger. This was my first time making the Janis Top and I did make a few modifications to it. It is intended to be a slouchy off the shoulder top. But I find my shoulders are very narrow and off the shoulder tops often end up way too far off the shoulder that I can expose more than just my shoulder.

I narrowed the neckline by 1.5 inches on the pattern for a total of 6 inches narrower without accounting for seam allowances. I then measured the neckline and made my neck band at 90%. This allows the top to sit as a very wide boatneck on me and since the fabric is stretchy, I can  still pull it down off my shoulders or push the neckline to one side to expose a shoulder.

I did not remove length from the top for my height. I probably could have removed a bit of length from the sleeves as my sleeves are extremely gathered and it makes them a bit heavy. I did add a bottom band to the top instead of hemming. I was in no mood to pull out my coverstitch to hem my top. I made my band 4 inches tall unfolded and love being able to allow the top to create gathers around my waistline.

I used some super special fabric for my Janis Top. I bought this jersey knit from Mood when I went to New York City to meet Kristi (Designer Extraordinaire of G+G) and other online sewing friends when Kristi was participating in New York Fashion Week. Going to NY Fashion Week was something I had never thought I'd go to, but always thought it would be super cool to see in real life. I can honestly say that it did not disappoint. The shows were amazing and 

Going to Mood was on my sewing bucket list. I'm happy I went to experience it and yes it is a lot like what you see on Project Runway. However, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. The selection was not as immense as you would think. I found a lot of the knit fabrics to be a bit overpriced and lower quality than I would tend to buy. It took a lot of digging and pulling out rolls of fabric to find some gems. There were some unique items, but over all I was underwhelmed and only purchased one fabric. I found shopping in the Dallas Fabric District to be more enjoyable and friendlier to my wallet.

I bought just 1.5 yards of this knit and I really love it. They had this print in several different colors, but I was drawn to this one for the mix of blues, greens, purples, and brown. I felt it wasn't something I'd seen anywhere before. This fabric has sat on my shelf for many years now waiting for just the RIGHT project. Well, I'm here to say - Who knows what the RIGHT project is or if you will ever find it. I have realized the past year that I have hoarded too many fabrics because they felt special to  me and that I was constantly saying I wouldn't use them until the RIGHT project came along. I'm going to do you a favor and tell you something I wish someone would have said to me. Just use the GOOD fabric. All that special fabric means nothing if it just sits on a shelf. I have found so much joy this past year using all those long hoarded fabric in my stash. When I decided to start quilting, I had given away almost all my quilting cottons except those that I held most dear and precious to me. So when I signed up for a pattern test I had no choice but to use those special fabrics. It was terrifying! But then I had a beautiful quilt to cherish and use. Then the next project came along and it got easier. Now I am surrounded by items I have made with all these fabrics that mean so much too me. 

So do yourself a favor. Grab that special fabric and pick a project. Any project. Don't worry about it being the perfect project. Once you get started you will realize that it might just be the perfect project after all. 

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Week Ending September 19, 2021

I had a lot on my to-do list this week and I'm happy to say that I got it all done! I got to work on making the Sew Hungry Hippie Patchwork Pumpkins. I made mine slightly different as I deciede to quilt my panels using free motion quilting to get some much needed practice. Here's my big pumpkin before I turned it right side out.

Here it is finished -mius the leaves and moss. 

It turned out so cute that I immediately cut out everything to make 2 more!

I also joined the Pattern Testing Team for Frannie B Quilt Company and started my first test with them - the Northern Winds Quilt. 

After I finished the block above, I finished up my two smaller pumpkins - they are the medium size. They all still needed leaves and moss at this point. 

The Northern Winds Block was so fun to make, that I just had to make another. 

On Thursday I brought in my design wall and started putting my Deltille Quilt by Running Stitch Quilts up on  it. 

My design wall isn't quite big enough for a King sized quilt so I had to smoosh the rows together, but I got it all on there!

It looked so pretty that I couldn't resist a selfie in front of my wall of Ombre. 

I took my two Northern Winds quilt blocks outside on Saturday morning for a photoshoot and Momma Kitty couldn't resist rolling around on my quilt I was using for my background. 

Saturday was a good day to dress comfy in my second Quilt-Tee from Ruthlessly Handmade. 

I added leaves and moss to finish my trio of pumpkins. I might make a few more. They are so fun and quick to make. 

I have a few things on my list to do this coming week. I am going to make my Deltille Quilt a tad bit wider by adding a border on the sides. Then I hope to do the binding on my mom's quilt. Then - maybe work on a quilt coat or make a fall themed throw. I'm not sure which to do. 

Week Ending September 12, 2021

It's been a long short week. So much has happened, and not all of it was good.  

I did get to spend a lot of time sewing.  

On Labor Day I went to a fabric Sale in someone's backyard with my friend Sherry.  I was good and bought only 5 one yard cuts. 

I got to work on the George +Ginger Janis Top using some jersey knit I picked up at Mood when I was there for G+G hitting the runway at New York Fashion Week. 

Smaug wanted to help me sew.

I'm working hard on my Deltille Quilt (Pattern by Running Stitch Quilts). I have a 108" wide backing on the way from Minerva and I want to get it done by the time the backing arrives. 

I took my Entropy Quilt (pattern by Squats and Running Stitches) out for photos. Only to realize that I forgot my camera and had to resort to using my phone. 

I also took my finished Retrogradient Quilt (Pattern coming soon from Needle Down Chin Up). I'll share more photos of it soon in its own blog post.  

Then I was going to take photos of my Janis Top, but the remote to my camera is missing.  I haven't used it since May! After tearing up my sewing room looking for it, I ordered another on Amazon.  Better photos and a blog post coming soon for this too.  

I also got this cute tee in the mail from Ruthlessly Handmade. 

I took off from work Friday.  That morning I worked in the yard, dropped my phone and cracked the screen.. I'll get a new one in 14 days when I'm eligible for an upgrade. I picked up my mom's Quilt from the longarmer and it looks beautiful. Here's the back.

And a quilt swirl for the front. 

On Friday I saw Sharon (Sweet Mama Life) and we had such a good time catching up on work. Kids, and sewing. I left her house with fabric! I told her I'm planning on making these cute Patchwork Pumpkins -pattern from Sew Hungry Hippie.

I ended the week almost done with my Deltille Quilt Blocks! 

Hopefully the coming week has fewer mishaps. I'm already thinking I might need to plan to take a day off just to chill soon. 

Week ending September 5, 2021

I'm a bit late on last week and just saw the previous week never finished posting. Ugh. But here we go. 

I worked my tail off to finish the Entropy Quilt Scrap Along. First I had to get all my blocks organized and on my design wall.

I then sewed the rows together, pressed them, and got my blocks ready to sew together.

I then put all the completed blocks on my design wall and played around with placement until I was happy with it.

I had an urge to take a Selfie in front of my design wall. 

I finished my Entropy Quilt and got started on a pattern test for Needle Down Chin Up.

I trimmed half square triangles. Something that I probably do every week. 

Blocks laid out to sew.

A quick look at my sewing room.

My mom visited and brought me this cross stitch I made for my Grandmother when I was in high school. She asked me to turn it into a pillow for her.

On Sunday after my mom left, I worked on my Retrogradient Quilt. 

Here it is laid out ready for me to sew. I finished it and will share photos soon. 

It was a busy week.