Simplify

Mmm... Swirly.

Ding! It's ready!  Fresh out of the Moda Bakeshop oven.  Head on over!

Fat Quarter Shop Friday

It's Friday, it's Friday!  Oh, I am so happy it is Friday.  However, dragging myself out of bed this morning?  I wasn't so happy about that.  It's been a loooong week.  This whole 'getting kids to school everyday' thing is hard work!

Luckily, I had a nice surprise in my inbox this morning, my Fat Quarter Shop Friday's Feature looked a little familiar, even with my blurry early morning eyes:

Look familiar?  It's my Pint Sized quilt, all kitted up in Simple Abundance!  Yum!

I was so excited about that, I almost forgot to check the Jolly Jabber.... but sure enough, today is Simple Abundance/Thimble Blossoms/Cotton Way day over there too.  (How lucky is that?)

In fact, they are having a fantastic giveaway that you just might want to check out.  Piece of cake to enter, too.   (Not actual cake.  Although that does sound delicious...  Mmmm..)  

So hurry on over, leave them some love, 

then go have a piece of cake.  It is Friday, after all.  (Hooray!)

Thanks FQS!

An afternoon with The Material Girls

I bet you didn't know that I spent the afternoon at The Material Girls Quilts up in South Jordan, Utah, did you?  

I didn't know either, but apparently, I did! 

We lunched at Cafe Rio,

and even stopped for a Route 44!  And that's just the beginning!

(Not only do they have about a zillion of my quilts on display right now, but rumor has it their Simple Abundance came today.  Wohoo!!  Go check it out!)

Seriously, when I saw this post I just about laughed my guts out!  (I was actually on the phone with my mother, who was laughing equally as hard)  Nadine, you are a nut!!!  Those crazy Material Girls, sure love 'em!  

Can't wait for my next trip!

Deck the halls

(Please excuse the frequent blog posting lately.  I'm not sure what has gotten into me!  Lots to talk about, I guess?)

It may be 100+ degrees and sunny outside, not to mention it is still the month of September... but any way you look at it, it feels like Christmas over here!

This morning I got an email asking about an ad with a peppermint pincushion.  That was all the reason I needed to hop in the car and speed over to Target.  I hurried back to the magazine section, grabbed the nearest Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Publication, flipped a few pages and...

found myself staring back at me.  Well, sorta.  The me in the magazine has her hair done, makeup, and wasn't wearing a hoodie.  I may have showed the guy at the checkout counter.  I'm pretty sure he didn't believe that it was me.  I can't blame him.  

I didn't expect this magazine to be out for another month, so I don't have the tutorial for that little pincushion quite ready, but watch for it later this week.  I'll keep you posted.

My extra large face aside, doesn't Simple Abundance look so pretty?  I was so excited to see it in such a fantastic magazine, and owe a HUGE thanks to Moda for taking such good care of me.  Love ya'll! (Texas.)  ;-)

When I got home from Target (with a giant bag of Reeses to celebrate) I found my weekly email from Fat Quarter Shop saying Simple Abundance was (finally!) in stock and ready to go.  Yardage, people!  HOORAY!  I've been waiting for this for... forever, it seems like.  Also, it should be arriving in quilt stores everywhere very very SOON.  Keep an eye out!

One more Christmas-ish tidbit- a brand new order of ric rac in green, red and aqua arrived today, and since I've lost track of how many people I'm supposed to notify when it comes in, I thought I'd give you the heads up here.  

Feel free to contact me if you need it in anything other than 3 yard increments, otherwise, you can find it over here in my etsy shop.

Oh, and to top it all off, I just saw this Christmas version of Abundance that Brittany Davis posted to thimbleblossoms.com (scroll down a little bit to the comments).  SO love it!!  Thanks Brittany!

Anything else?  

I'm off to finish up a Christmassy little pincushion, drink some hot chocolate (okay, maybe not), and crank up the Christmas music.  

Is September too early for a tree?

SWE

I'm lucky, I've mentioned this before.  Even luckier than I thought, really.  Why, you ask?  Because I spent last weekend getting to know two cousins I almost didn't even know, and I found out that I have some REALLY fantastic cousins.  Well, wives of cousins.  And cousins, since the menfolk stayed home to watch the munchkins of my really great newfound cousins.  

I'm not sure that made any sense, but that may be because I'm still recovering from the sewing weekend extravaganza, now referred to as SWE.  Too bad it isn't SEW, huh?

Cari and Nicole flew in for the weekend for the SWE, just to sew, hang out, and drink delicious Route 44's.  We most definitely did all those things.  Plus laughing until we cried, watching Dan in Real Life multiple times, and eating delicious food (thanks Jarom!)

On Saturday my pal Renee came over to join us.  Here she is working on a Jelly Filled out of Cotton Blossoms.  What can I say, the girl has exellent taste.  ;-)

Nicole spent the weekend sewing out of Figgy Pudding and making a beautiful quilt for her mom out of Aviary (which hopefully wasn't a surprise....) while entertaining the heck out of us.

I made Joanna's Jelly Girl quilt (LOVE IT, nice work Joanna!)  out of some Urban Chicks, Heather Bailey, and other random scrumptious...ness.  I also made a Birdie Sling by Amy Butler out of my leftovers.  I want to make one to match everything I wear.  Seriously.

And Cari sewed a lovely Glace table topper, her Jelly Filled blocks, a Wild Thing quilt top out of some Lila Tueller, and a darling bag.  She won the prize for being the most productive, obviously, and made sure we always had a million things to talk about. 

I could go on and on, but to sum up, it was a perfect weekend.  Thanks for coming girls, come again SOON, will ya?!! I've already got my next project figured out, and am just about caught up on my sleep...

Who's next?  :-)

Stippling up a storm

Looking for me?  I'm here, sorta.  Tonight I'm spending some quality time with my darning foot and Project Runway, and loving every minute of quilting this fun little project from last weekend's sewing weekend extravaganza.  (Hi Cari and Nicole!  Miss ya!)

While stippling my Fig Tree Jelly Girl quilt tonight, I had a few random thoughts about stippling, and thought I would try to cover a few of the questions I've gotten in emails lately. And in case you were wondering, I took these pictures earlier today when it was somewhat light out.  You know me and my flash don't get along.  

So about that stippling... 

In the past, I've quilted most of my quilts on my sewing machine, and only a few have gone to the quilter.  Why?  Because I absolutely love to quilt my quilts on my sewing machine.  Does my quilting look as pretty as it would if done by a professional long arm quilter?  Nope, not even close. But thats okay with me.  Because really, I think it is my second favorite part of quilting.  Second only to piecing.  I also love binding.  And cutting.  So pretty much every part of quilting minus putting on borders (eesh, borders...).  

So, how do you machine quilt?  I've covered this here and there in the past, but to start, check out my stippling tutorial over there on the right sidebar under tutorials.  (I'm not linking to it here, because I want you to know where to find it when you need it.)

The whole size thing... in my opinion, the bigger the quilt, the more difficult is is to stipple.  At least in my experience that has been the case.  As a rule of thumb, I personally draw the line at about 70".  Anything bigger than that goes to the quilter.  Because there is nothing better than really fantastic quilting done by a really fantastic long arm quilter.  And because I have really wimpy little muscles.  Really.

About that quilting on my latest quilts... lately, my deadlines have been so crazy that I enlisted the help of a very talented friend of mine.  The two Double Dip quilts and bibs I quilted on my machine, but Red Velvet and A La Mode were done by the amazing Andrea over at Christmas Goose.  She did an outstanding job. Did I mention she quilted them in a day so I could meet my deadlines?  Thank you Andrea!  I owe you big time!

Alrighty, so to sum up...  Stippling: TRY it.  You'll love it.  After all of your crazy, pointy, messy practice squares that is, if you are anything like me.  :-)   Long arm quilters: Find a great one, and enjoy the amazing, wonderful talent and all that goes with it.  Especially if you are a wimp like me.

Now if you'll excuse me, my sewing machine is calling my name...