Mini Monday: Nametag Challenge

The Orlando Modern Quilt Guild's monthly challenge for October is designing and making your own name tag.  I have been wanting to do this for a while now and the Pinterest pins have been accumulating.  Thanks Yanick for creating this challenge.  

the front

 I used this name tag for reference.  Megan has a paper pieced tutorial, but I "free pieced" the sewing machine using the picture as a guide (after my first unsuccessful attempt at paper piecing) and embroidered other details such as the spool of thread.  

The background is a linen in my favorite blue; the other fabrics are from my scrap bin.  I stitched half of  one of my labels (leaving off the "Creates") on the machine at an angle as my daughter suggested.

the back

 A safety pin on the back serves as the means for attachment.  Easy peasy!

with the optional lanyard

 The safety pin can also be used to hook on a lanyard if so desired.

Voila!

 I'm all ready for Wednesday's meeting!!!  Can't wait to see what my quilting friends have whipped up.

I am curious.  Does your guild have members design their own name tags?  

What about the "drop a quarter" in the bucket if you forget yours?  

Thanks for stopping by!  

Stitchy Gifts

Since my sister started quilting I've benefited from the fruits of her labor, especially around birthdays and Christmas time.  Each gift is equally as wonderful as the previous gift.  This summer's birthday gift was no exception.

made especially for me

Michelle broke her own "I don't SEW" vow by making Elizabeth Hartman's Sewing Circle Tote bag. 

A - MAZE - ING! 

I believe this picture was taken before my morning cup of coffee

I think she must love me more than a little bit, because this bag has zippers, elastic pockets, lining, QAYG technique and other Michelle-no-no's! 

got to have some Kaffe

very spacious inside

Look at the cute button fabric used for the pocket lining!  The inside bag fabric was purchased during one of our shopping trips together.  Love it!

gorgeous fabrics

close up

another peacock

There's some lovely scraps of Verna and Cuzco by Kate Spain as well as some Anna Maria Horner fabrics.  That peacock is the bomb!

Happy Birthday to me!

I  am not sure I would have given this one away, but my sister is much more generous.  She did such a great job it's hard to believe this was her first time installing zippers, making pockets or using fusibles.  I am not surprised, but I am very proud.

Love my sister

 Thank you so much Michelle!  The best gift was celebrating together this year!!!

If this were Instagram, I'd use the hashtag latergram....

Friday Finish: Hexie Quilt Top

Yay!!!!  All the hexies are pieced into a quilt top!!!!

I just had time to press the seams on the back side and snap a few photos.  I am so pleased with how this turned out.  Some y-seams are sweeter than others, but overall, I think they look pretty good.  I still haven't pressed from the top side, and I think that will help some of the little puckers.

This is a gift for a friend who's pretty tall so I believe after trimming the sides a border will be necessary.  We'll see.

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts.  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great weekend!

What's Up Wednesday: Experimentation

I've been doing some stitching around here but even more cooking.  Over the summer I didn't cook much at all, to the point I believe my family wondered if I had forgotten how.  It's nice to spend some time in the kitchen....not as nice as spending time in my lab....but nice nonetheless.

Southern Banana Pudding

I experimented with some recipes I found on Pinterest, and happily my family approved.  That has not always been the case.  The Herb Roasted Citrus Chicken was a big hit as well as the Southern Banana Pudding.

before grilling and baking

Nothing beats my husband's filets though.  These roasted sweet potatoes aren't as good as the sweet potato casserole made at Thanksgiving time, but the lack of butter and sugar is probably better for our waistline.

hexagon stitching

 Hexagon stitching is going on in the lab.  Just when I think I've mastered the y-seam, I realize I haven't.  It's frustrating, but I am determined to finish this quickly so I can move on to other projects.

latest quilt book

This Quilt Essential book just arrived in the mail.  I can't wait to find a free minute to open it up and start reading!  Anyone else have this book?

Thanks for stopping by!

Stitchin and Flippin

As I mentioned last week, our guild hosted two full day workshops with Jacquie Gering.  During the second workshop we learned Jacquie's Stitch and Flip technique. 

Jacquie's WIP

I really enjoyed seeing Jacquie's latest quilts in addition to quilts from her book, especially this one.

Love this quilt of Jacquie's

You can read more about the workshop here and see additional photos from the workshop on our Flickr page.  We had a full house and our members were working on a wide variety of prints and solid backgrounds.

Christmas tree?  Star?

I brought red squares and Christmas fabric scraps with a Christmas tree or wreath in mind.  Jacquie played around with different layouts, but after awhile it became apparent to me that green fabric for the background would have been a better choice than red.

progress

When I went home I decided to go in a different direction with my Christmasy stitch and flip blocks.  I fussy cut this cute Christmas llama from Laurie Wisbrun and went about stitchin and flippin.  I think I this will work better.  

Christmas llama

Wonder how many Stitch and Flip show and tells we will have at our next guild meeting?!!!

discussing important business  over dinner

The guild board took Jacquie out to dinner at a new to me Italian restaurant that served the most fabulous Limencello cake ever!!!  I was good though and didn't take any food pictures for a change.  I might need to go back and see if that cake tastes as good as I remember.

Thanks for stopping by.  Happy stitching,

Friday Finish: All Caught Up

Well all caught up with bee blocks and Block of the Month that is!

house block for Deborah

For July's MCM Bee, Deborah requested house blocks.  I wanted to make a house block of my imaginary dream quilting studio in Montana which in my dream looks something like this.

the process

I sketched a rough design of the barn quilt and then just went about winging it with the piecing from my scraps.  The process would have been much easier if I had paper pieced the block, but where's the fun in that ;-) 

artist at work

Here's little Leo coloring his own barn ;-)

X and O block

Mary requested scrappy pink Japanese X and + blocks for August to make quilts for her granddaughters.  This block went together much easier than I anticipated so I made three blocks.  I enjoyed going through my pink fabric scraps leftover from at least two quilts and one duffle bag.  

September bee block 

I was late with my July and August MCM bee blocks, but I have already completed my September block for Anne.  She is working on a new pattern, so the blocks are hush hush.

October BOM

I bought some of Alexander Henry's The Ghastlies fabric for a friend while on retreat, but cut off a little section to play around with before handing it over.  I'm not a huge Halloween fan but thought these fussy cut sections would be fun for our OrlandoMQG Halloween themed BOM.

So even though I don't have any quilt finishes this week, it feels SO good to be caught up on my MCM Bee blocks and on the ball with my guild Block of the Month.  Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilt's finish it up Friday.

Thanks for stopping by!  Enjoy your weekend,

Really Random Thursday:

Two days of blogging in a row!!!  Whoo hoo!

Funny card

It's good to write a Really Random Thursday post again.  I had a hard time finding random pictures that aren't already on my Instagram feed, so there are some duplications here. (IG just screams random, doesn't it?!)

so true

I saw this definition of tomorrow on my cousin's Facebook page.  I can so relate to this.  With the craziness that was our summer I have put off more than one to-do item until "tomorrow".

back to school time

Is it strange that I follow my son's university on Instagram (and Twitter) but he doesn't?  Well, it is my alma mater after all so that makes it OK.

What?!

Back to school time means new calendar and agenda time.  I opt for the Vera Bradley agenda because I like their format, but this time I was surprised to see an oops.  That's not good.  I rely on my calendar almost as much as I do my cell phone for a backup to my memory.

Mine's the blue one

I have taken to Whirly Word to help with my memory or lack thereof.  I can't get my family to play Scrabble with me - you know the old fashioned with a board and tiles kind of Scrabble (because I always win).  I did play Trivial Pursuit with my daughter and her friend over the weekend which was quite humiliating.

Doesn't everyone use mason jars for drinking glasses?!

My image wasn't improved later when this conversation happened:  Daughter to her friend:  Here's a glass of water.  Friend in a joking voice:  I don't drink moonshine!  Me trying to explain:  We use mason jars as glasses.....it's a Southern thing.  What can I say?

Linking to Cindy's Really Random Thursday party.  

Thanks for stopping by,

Wonderful Wednesday: Quilty Friends

It's been a crazy busy summer, but a crazy awesome summer!  I don't  know where to start or even how to start back blogging, but here I go again....

photo bombed

I might as well start with the most recent activity since I already posted a quick recap on our guild's blog.  (Hopefully I won't have the same problems with Blogger deleting the post and then publishing an older draft when I went to update.....UGH!)  If by chance you have read those two recap posts, don't go away, as I will put my own personal spin on it over here ;-)

someone borrowed my camera to take a picture of my rear

 The Orlando Modern Quilt Guild hosted two days of workshops with Jacquie Gering a few weeks ago, and it was a blast!!!!  Not only was I thrilled to see Jacquie again, but it was the first time I had touched my sewing machine since my Gruber's retreat in July (which I need to blog about...hmmm...wonder if my retreat friends have blogged about it yet....guess I would know that if I hadn't banned myself from the blogosphere...need to check that out because I am sure they have....but I digress), and I was itching to stitch.

proof

Jacquie taught her Piecing Hexagons by Machine class the first day.  I was super excited when I found the y-seam sweet spot on the first try (Jacquie's expression - not mine).  Of course as Jacquie pointed out, it only took me two classes to figure it out!  In my defense, the class I took at QuiltCon was only half-day, on the last day, we didn't get to use our own machines, and I had a sewing buddy distracting me ;-) 

Michele the teacher's pet

I was determined to be a model student this time around and didn't get in trouble at all.  I left that to Beth ;-)  Michele was my workshop buddy, and I obviously didn't distract her.  She had two columns of hexagons stitched together in no time.

future quilt for a friend

For this workshop I made my hexagons REALLY big thinking that would help my accuracy ;-)    I also have to say using your own sewing machine makes a huge difference, especially when one stitch too many can prevent you from finding that sweet spot.
  

Jacquie and I with her quilt/my quilt

 I brought Jacquie's neighborhood quilt with me for a photo opp.  It's been living with me ever since 2010 when Jacquie auctioned it along with her two others to raise money for the Red Cross.  The quilt now has her signature on the back (and a label), and my copy of her book has a lovely, sweet note from Jacquie inside!

label your quilts folks!

  Michele arranged dinner at a favorite local hangout where the owner showed us his own quilt.  It's times like this when a cell phone just doesn't do a picture justice.

showing us the details

Jay's aunt made several of these family photo quilts - can you imagine?  I love this type of quilt and have not seen one quite this beautiful.  The pictures are sharp and colorful, and the background fabrics are so soft and pretty.  I could have stared at the quilt for hours.  

attracting quilters wherever we go!

While having dinner, a quilter on vacation from California stopped by to chat and see Jay's quilt as well as a local quilter.  We may have a new member!

we opted for shots rather than tattoos

I have many more pictures from the workshop on Flickr if you care to see them.  Well, this was exhausting.  I think I'll save the pictures of the Stitch and Flip workshop for another day.

Thanks for stopping by!  Happy stitching,