Diamond Affair - a peek

 

My latest quilt, which I designed, is at Quilt Market in Portland this weekend.  It features Raaga, the beautiful new organic fabric line from Monaluna and you can check it out in their booth.  There's a pattern coming soon for this quilt -- and more pictures.  But for now, just a peek.  If you're at Market this weekend send me a pic!

Mothers

What better job could there be than to be mother to these wonderful kiddos.  I am so grateful that I have these two in my life and that I get to spend every day with them!

Happy Mother's Day!

Not Cool.

I've been in a blogging funk lately.


I've been sewing and working like crazy (including a quilt for Market), but blogging . . . . not so much.


I guess it's because I've had several instances lately where my work has appeared on other blogs without my permission.  So what, you say???  Well, it is my work.  I work hard on it.  It takes up a lot of my time and I'm trying to turn this blog into a business.  I love staying and home and being there for my kids, volunteering at their schools and scouts, and helping out wherever I can.  I love that I can work at home and design quilts, handbags, kids clothes, tutorials and sewing patterns and teach something new or inspire others.  Playing with gorgeous fabrics and yarns doesn't hurt either.

I've gone back and forth on whether or not to write this post.  I purposely avoid discussing serious issues here.  If you're here you want to read about what I'm sewing or working on or to learn something new -- not read about something tragic that's happened in the world or the latest buzz on twitter.  

I love the online crafting community.  Everyone is so nice.  (I can't stress that enough!)  Ideas flow and creativity prospers.  If an idea inspires you, credit is given.  But sometimes, people copy your work and don't give you credit. 

In most cases, the person who copied your work didn't intend it to be harmful and I've found that they didn't realize their mistake and the problem is resolved quickly. 

However, there are a very small few who do try to pass of the work of others as their own or blatantly copy a tutorial someone else made onto their site without permission. 


Not cool.


I'm not going to disclose the last site who copied verbatim one of my tutorials (and used my photos) which put me over the edge.  I discovered it quite by accident and I contacted the blogger myself with no success.  I eventually enlisted the help of my fellow modern quilters who commented on the post over and over until the individual finally did remove the post. 

As a result of this and other similar instances lately, I've had to make changes to my copyright policy. Use of images and linking was a bit more loose before, but now I feel like I have to make a strict policy of no use of images unless you get my consent. So a quick email, tweet or message on FB and 99.9% of the time I'll say sure you can post that photo of my tutorial, but I'm asking you to respect my work and get permission before you use it.  That said, I want you to feel free link to my work on your blog/site and to pin my work to Pinterest without request. 

You'll also start seeing watermarks on my photos.  (Like you see above.)  I hate to do this to the photos because I feel that sometimes it takes away or distracts from what your eye should naturally see, but I need to protect my work and this is a simple fix.  


Thanks for listening and I promise some fun stuff in the near future!

Upcycled Chair for Earth Day

It's Earth Day!  I set aside the patterns I'm working on to recover a chair today.  It's been sitting in my basement for almost a year.  I picked it up at a rummage sale last fall for $6.  It has beautiful workmanship -- just needed a good wash and a new pad and fabric for the seat.

Love the curved wood!

And those curved legs!

For now I just gave the wood a good wash in Murphy's Oil soap and water -- perhaps one day I'll give the wood a proper make-over, but for now, I think it's still beautiful.

The fabric I choose was a bright fun orange mini houndstooth.  I used just a fat quarter of fabric so I didn't add much to the cost of the chair.  If you don't know how to recover a chair, here's a great tutorial (wink, wink).

Hope you have a great Earth Day! 

For the birds

This is a re-post of a tutorial I did for the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild blog last week -- just in case you missed it!

The snow is finally melting.  Spring is finally arriving.  Birds have come back and they're everywhere and soon they will be nesting.  Making a nesting bag is a great little Eco-friendly project to use up all of your bits of thread and some tiny fabric scraps too which will help the birds.  You'll be encouraging birds to build their nests in your yard and give you some great opportunities for birding.

There are lots of things you can put in your nesting bag.  A few easy things for sewers/quilters are dryer lint (from washing your quilts and fabric), yarn, twine, and string, all of your bits of thread, and of course thin small strips of fabric.  You can also add things like hair, cotton balls, leaves and shredded paper.  If you add scraps of fabric, make sure that you cut them into very thin strips (like 1/8" or so) and about no more than 6" in length.

For your nesting bag, you can upcycle a used onion bag or orange bag.  

Simply tie a knot at one end.

Grab a little helper.

And fill up the bag.

Tie a knot at the other end and put a piece of kitchen twine through the knot to hang it.

Hang it near a bird feeder so the birds can find it!

 

Ninjago

My son's recent obsession is related to all things Ninjago.  The little Lego ninjas are fun and he plays with Legos for hours and reads every Ninjago book he can get his hands on.  If you recall, he was also a ninja last Halloween (Kai, the red Lego ninja to be specific). 

Connor came to me with this sketch he had made asking if I could help him make it into a pillow.  In his eyes, I can make anything. 

He started explaining that he made some changes to what he really wanted - the eyes were simply shaped (to make it easier on me) and the yellow skin was replaced with red (so I wouldn't have to buy another color fabric for just a little bit).  So sweet.  I had lots of scraps of fleece so multiple colors was not a problem.  As for the simple eyes, I asked him to bring me his original inspiration so I could see.  He brought me one of his Ninjago books.

I told him I could make a face like the one on the book if he wanted.  He was very excited and he loved watching me draw my pattern which I used to make the face.

I'm slightly ashamed to say I had more than enough fleece in the house for this project.  I finished quickly, but I didn't have enough fiber-fill to fill up the pillow.  It would have to wait until morning to finish when I could run out and get some more.  When I told him this, Connor ran to his room and came back with $1 in his hand -- money he had earned from shoveling the driveway.  He told me he didn't want me to have to spend money on something he wanted so he asked if that would be enough for more "stuffing" and of course, it just melted my heart.  

Of course it was more than enough.  

Recess

I along with so many others, have fallen in love with the Swoon Quilt from Thimble Blossoms.  I am going to make a large version (one of these days) for my bed, but for now, I wanted to test it out and do a single block.

I had intended for this to be quick and done in a day, but things don't always work out like that do they?  Between kids getting sick, me getting sick and then spring break (which did not occur for both kids at the same time) -- it did make it difficult.  The pattern warns to cut the fabric very carefully as there isn't enough fabric left over to cut again if you make a mistake.  OK, well I took my time cutting to make it perfect.  . . . . I neglected to read the next instructions carefully.  Well, I made a big mistake (using the wrong size squares to make HST) and I realized it too late.  Anyhow it remained untouched for a while since I was angry at myself for making such a stupid mistake.  I tried to get a the same fabric to replace it, but I couldn't get it and I changed fabrics.

And after all that  . . . I like it more than what it would have looked like had I not made the mistake.

Aside from my mistakes, it is a lovely pattern and block and I'm very excited to work on my larger version at a quilt retreat I'm running off to in April.

I named this little doll quilt "Recess".  I don't think I've ever named a quilt before, but it seems very fitting.  Little girls playing ring around the rosie in the center, and hopscotch all round and the rest of the girls jumping rope, picking flowers and just having fun. 

The center block is David Walker's Circle of Friends for FreeSpirit, the yellow print is also David Walker,  Girls at Play from Hopscotch (also FreeSpirit), the blue is a bit of KONA leftover from Gwyneth's Cinderella dress (which I believe is Cotton Candy Blue) and lastly the cute hopscotch print is from Sarah Jane's Children at Play, Hopscotch.

The quilting design was simple.  I outlined the girls in the center with a circle and had squiggly lines all coming out from that (like the sun), which I've been wishing would melt all this snow away here.

The back is a solid piece of Girls at Play.

 

Gwyneth is ecstatic to now have two doll quilts.  She's designated this quilt for "Little Baby", whom she named when she was 2.5 yrs old.