It's Alive!

Well no, not really.  But my stash has seemed to take on a life of its own and started to take over my sewing space.  The need to clean and organize has been pulling at me for months, but I haven't been able to make myself do it.

My car accident has changed things for me.  I am no longer able to sit and sew for hours or even minutes without excruciating pain in my lower back.  Oh how I miss sewing.  I miss my machine, I miss watching Friends on my DVD player next to my Pfaff.

 

I went into my sewing room on Friday night after dinner.   I just received Camille's new Red Velvet Cake pattern and finally knew how I was going to use my prized Rouenneries layer cake.  I sorted squares and started cutting, but then the mess all around me stole my focus.

 

I started to think how I could sort and organize my collection of fabrics.  I started to pull things off shelves, off the floor, out of the closet.  I started to open storage boxes.  I needed MORE storage boxes!  I woke up early Saturday and went out to get more storage boxes.  I would corral these projects strewn around the room into some semblance of order!

 

I worked all day Saturday and oh, my back was killing me when I went to bed, and still hurting when I woke up on Sunday.  I completely overdid it - my body is not healthy right now and all that activity really took its toll.  But I was determined to finish what I started.  I took some ibuprofen and surged ahead.

 

I worked all day Sunday, taking time out to iron my clothes for work this week and to make a killer pot roast for our Sunday dinner.   I was brutal - if I didn't love it, or thought there wasn't a snowball's chance that I'd ever finish it, out it went!  Projects were gathered together with all the supplies and labeled in storage boxes.

 

My room looks fabulous.  I feel a great freedom and also feel my creativity returning.  Sometimes purging can be a very good thing.   Stay tuned for my upcoming stash reduction sale!

New project

I had a lot of fabric piles fighting for my attention after finishing my batik quilt.  Do I start something with my Swanky fat quarters, or with the Sweet jelly roll?  I had all but decided to start the Swanky quilt, but remembered a quilt I cut out in November to take to my retreat that I didn't end up working on.

I'm using Atkinson's Designs book Time Out Quilts and this quilt, Lilypads, is on the cover.  We had a sample hanging in our shop made out of batiks and I just loved the design of it.  I decided to make mine using some fat quarters of Sandy Henderson's Farmer's Market fabrics in the pink and orange colorways (with a few blues and purples thrown in for fun) and a big cream paisley from Moda's Roman Holiday collection.

I really like Terry Atkinson's patterns - they are usually made with fat quarters and have a variety of sizes so you can make it as large or as small as you need.  I'm making mine a twin size with 20 blocks.  Her patterns are also very well written with very clear instructions.  Although I must say, I really wasn't enjoying this quilt the first couple of days I worked on it.  I am very much a product person, and due to the diagonal layout of the quilt, you can't see the actual "blocks" until you've got them all laid out and start to sew the rows together.  But Nicole convinced me to press on, and I put the first few blocks up on my design wall and fell immediately in love.

Now I can't put this one down and I'm really enjoying the fun, fresh, spring-like fabrics.

Speaking of fun fabrics, I won a Valentine's fabric drawing on Monday from Pink Chalk Studios and look at the fun fat quarters that made their way into my mailbox - thanks Kathy!  I am thinking of adding more pinks and reds and making the cute Xs and Os quilt I saw on a blog (but first I have to find it again!)

Sorry to disappear!

I was so busy getting ready to leave for retreat, I didn't even get a chance to blog that I was going!  I just spent the last 5 days at my guild's fall quilt retreat - food, companionship and lots of time to sew, uninterrupted by family demands.  Heaven on Earth, I must say.  Our guild is large, and this retreat hosted 85 quilters.

I feel like I got a lot accomplished - I bound a quilt that I just got back from my longarm quilter, pieced the backs for 2 quilts to get them ready to send out for quilting, and then I completely pieced 15 of the 30 blocks needed for my Starring Repros quilt, and got the second 15 blocks about halfway done.  Now that I'm home I can arrange and rearrange them on my design wall, which is hard to do at retreat because design wall space is very limited.

Since I don't have any photos of my own to show, let me share with you something that inspired me at retreat.  One quilter, Pam, was working on this Midnight Silhouette quilt, and another retreater had the finished top displayed on the wall in her room.  This beautiful quilt by Blackbird Designs is definitely going in my "future projects" file.  The first photo shows how Pam reduced the size of the quilt by 25% and added extra pieced stars, which I think I would like to do when I make the quilt as well.  Beautiful, aren't they?  Now, if I could only master applique!

Move along people, nothing to see here.

There is not much being accomplished in my sewing room of late.  I am starting to get some projects ready to take to my guild retreat in November.  I try to have simple projects all cut out and ready for production sewing, but long sessions of cutting really aggravate my rotator cuff injury, so I have to do it a little bit at a time.

I picked up a new magazine at the grocery store last week, McCall's Quilting America Makes FAST Quilts.   This magazine is great and has 4 quilts that are now on my "must make" list.  My favorite, though is this Starring Repros quilt.  I love everything about it - the fabrics, the size, the star blocks.

You can buy a kit to make yours just like this, but since I wanted to be able to choose my own background fabric, I ordered a fat quarter bundle.  The fabrics are from a collection by Pat Yamin called Come Quilt With Me.  These 1940s reproductions are so unlike me, but I just fell in love with the picture in the magazine, and the fabrics in person are prettier still.  Even the few prints that I wasn't in love with grew on me as I began to cut them up.  These big, scrappy stars will make the perfect retreat project!

Exciting new website!

Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Company has launched her website with a blog soon to follow!   I know her site will be well received - the majority of searches on my blog are looking for Miss Carrie, so I know she has a lot of fans.  I am a huge fan myself!!!  Go visit her site and tell her Lisa sent you!

Day 2 - Danville

I won't duplicate any of the photos that Nicole posted on her blog, so here are a few that she did not show.  First up, we have Diana's beautiful show and tell of a paper pieced New York Beauty made with these beautiful Kaffe Fasset fabrics.   These fabrics are so totally out of my comfort zone, but stay tuned and you'll see how I really warmed up to them!   Diana was also working on a beautiful batik quilt that was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.  I was really partial to the straight setting that she originally had up on the design wall.  I'm anxious to see how she decides to make the rows in the end - it seems the diagonal set was the crowd favorite.

This is Kate's project from last year's retreat (is that right, Kate?).   Look how beautiful and summery this quilt looks.  Just lovely!

Here we are playing a game called Left Center Right.   We had the rules all wrong, but it was still fun anyway.  We had a lot of laughs.

Saturday we went down into Danville for a field trip to the quilt store and for lunch.  Poor Nicole got so sick and had to be taken back to her bed.  I'm not sure how we managed to have fun without her, but there was fabric involved here - I am easily distracted.  Here is my new friend, Isabel, with the batiks we were picking out to play another round of Left Center Right on Saturday night.

Remember how I said earlier that Kaffe Fassett fabrics weren't for me?  Well the Quilter's Inn in Danville had this fabulous quilt on display in the shop and I fell head over heels for it.   They had a kit in a lighter color combination, but I really loved this one.  I asked if they had any more kits and even though they were swamped with customers, they offered to build me a kit, if I could just come back closer to closing time.  Could I ever!   Isn't this just beautiful?  The ragged edge machine applique seems like it will be very fun to do and who cares about precision???

Fun mail!

I'm somewhat of a fabric junkie (stop laughing, Nicole!).  And I've been manically checking the Internet since the end of Fall Market to get a glimpse at any of the new stuff that is coming soon, especially any Moda fabrics.  I found one website that had some stuff they brought back from Market, and I ordered the Posh FQ bundle (sorry, I got the last one!).  I received the fabrics yesterday and they are SO PRETTY in person! SWOOOOOON!!!!! They remind me very much of Chez Moi, but they are softer spring colors.  I don't know what I will make with these just yet, but I will have to find something fabulous to show them off.

I especially love these 2 mocha prints.  Lacy, paisley, polka dots... all my favorite type of prints!  Yum, yum!

My other fun mail was a box containing 2 more Annies from Raggedy Old Annies - a birthday princess and the Tiny Annie.  Aren't they adorable?   They will look super cute decorating our room at our retreat.  And - wahoo! - we leave tomorrow!!!!!!!!!