sewtakeahike

i think i can, i think i can

finish this weekend.  Here's a sneek peek of the back of the "a little help from my friends" quilt.

UPDATE:

here's the complete back

I pieced some of my favorite scraps from the scraps to treasure swap together to make wonky strips by color.  I love how it's turning out!  I'm really drawn to gray right now, so I chose this gray bonnie blue basics I had in my stash for the background.

In other news, I was so surprised to find this:

in my mailbox this week from Jacquie at Tallgrass Prairie Studio.  She used some of her scraps to make this pillow cover and sent it to me!  I love, love, love it Jacquie!  Thank-you!

Hope you have a weekend like no other!

~Penny

p.s.  I'm now getting email notification of comments again, yay!!

Arlene's "shine"

"Shine", a special gift for a special friend. 

I'm keeping this short and sweet.  The fabric story for this quilt goes like this:

*The center green floral is one of the feedsacks Arlene gifted to me.

*The white linen/pink embroidery fabric was a clearance purchase a year or so ago at Joann's and I was waiting for a special project to use it on since they only had about 1/3 yard of it left.

*The tan linen was also a gift from Arlene.

*The burnt orange batik making the lower right star was a fat quarter freebie with an order.  When I got it, I tried to give it to Arlene, a tried and true batik lover, telling her that it was the ugliest fabric I had ever seen (sorry all you batik fans out there!).  Not only would she not take it, she made me keep it telling me that I needed to have a "little ugly" to put in all my quilts.  She should have taken the weapon away from me when she had a chance.  Now it's immortalized.  For good.  Amen.

Have a great week everyone!  My posts and visits to your lovely blogs will be sporadic until the end of September.  We'll catch up for sure after that!

~Penny

my quilting process

 

 

"Pieced Out" finished for DQS7.  Thank-you to Jacquie for taking the time to help me with the "how-to" quilt it. 

 

I didn't used to think that the quilting part of making a quilt was too important.  It has been the area of quilting I have put the least amount of creative time and energy in the past.  That's changing.

I recently purchased some books that focus on just the quilting process and hope to use them to hone in on quilting more creatively.  Do you have any favorite books on the quilting process you would recommend?

So about "Pieced Out".  When I got to the point of quilting it, I was at a total loss.  So what to do?  Email a very competent and creative quilter I have become friends with through blogging.  

Jacquie knew right away how it should be quilted and I followed her suggestion to a tee (and added just a few extra echos in the center).  More importantly though, as I read Jacquie's response, a light bulb came on.  I believe I'll look at quilts differently when I'm ready to quilt from here on out because of one comment she made.  It was, "I think the shapes this creates are so fun". 

It's amazing what one comment can do to your way of thinking.  I used to look at the quilt as a whole.  Which I think will continue to be an important thing to do for the sake of the quilt design.  But now, when it's time to quilt, I'm going to look for the little nuances like shapes, lines, and pictures within the quilt to play on and accentuate.  And hopefully this will make the quilting process more fun and less daunting. 

I'm so excited for all the possibilities in my next project!

~Penny

it takes a village....and winners!

Thank-you to Amy and Sheree for the scraps, Rachel for the instruction, and Jenn for the inspiration to start!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

22
15

Timestamp: 2009-08-10 20:45:36 UTC

And the snail lamp winners are:

#22- Victoria Nemecek

and

#15-  Lisa

Congratulations, you'll be hearing from me via email later today ladies!

xoxo,

Penny

simplythisthatandtheother giveaway

Don't miss it!  It's a good'un!

Amy's good sign giveaway

hurry, run!  go check out this giveaway on Amy's blog!

princess butterfly dress

for a friend's daughter's 6th birthday.  The fabric in the skirt is "Danielle", the same name of the recipient (spelled a little differently) and the fabric for the ruffle at the bottom and the sleeves is "princess butterfly".  Very suiting.  You can make your very own for your favorite little girl from the "Claire" pattern found here.  The directions were very clear and I did shirring for the first time ever!  My sewing machine handled the elastic thread like a charm and now I'm inspired to use a similar technique for some clothing for myself.  I'll keep you all posted!

-Penny

p.s. the truth just came out that YES, I did indeed try to put this dress on before I did the shirring since it looked pretty big beforehand.  But Wish I may, Wish I might, it did not fit.  So sad, I would really like to be able to wear this dress!

a way to my heart

 

  

one of many ways.  Thank-you so much Sheree!

 

the storyteller completed and colorful crochet

 

Thank-you all for your sweet comments about this quilt in my last post!  You all made my day!

This last week, I've had limited use of the computer while my husbands parents have been visiting.  Since my sewing/computer room switches to a guest room when we have company, I have not been keeping up on all your blogs as much as I like, but I will be back visiting soon! 

To prepare for their visit, we moved my serger table and fabric shelf (which has wheels, thank-God!) out and moved the bed in. 

 

They were gracious enough to allow me to use their room for sewing, and I am happy to have the storyteller completed.  The quilting is random, including top stitching around each flower and center and free motion eiffel towers and flowers.  Here's a close up of one of the eiffel towers.  You have to look close since it's white on white.

 

I wanted this quilt to have lots of dimension, meaning there will be some things that pop out, but some things will have to be "found".

I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I finished the top and bottom with the points, but am happy with the way it ended up.  I did have to bind this quilt completely by hand, my first time ever doing that.  It was a little daunting at first, but flew by quickly as I made some progress.  I'm very happy that process is done :).

Alrighty then, I should be back to visiting you all within the next week, so until then, I hope your days are as sweet as these little flowers I'm crocheting for an afghan I'm making!  ***edited to add link for flower pattern.

strip quilt progress and the storyteller

 

These last two weekends have been a whirlwind of quilt (top)-making for me. Here is the strip quilt I pieced last weekend waiting to be backed, quilted and bound. 

 

it ended up measuring 60 X 73 and I will hopefully have it done in the next two weeks.  My husbands parents are coming to visit this week, so hopefully I will be able to carve out some time to work on it.

THIS weekend I did something I never thought I would ever do.  I made a hexagon quilt top (out of 5 inch hexagons which are pretty big, but still!)   I never wanted to make one because I thought I would have to hand sew it together.  And that just wasn't going to happen.  I love to sew, but i like to go fast!  When I found this link via Kathy at Pink Chalk Studio, my dilemma had been solved.  I could in fact machine piece hexagons with the info given there.  Hurray!  I do love a good hexagon quilt and I am totally in love with this process. 

I'm not usually one to plan a project too much, I usually just start cutting and sewing and see what I end up with.  I decided to go a different route with this quilt top though.  It's a birthday gift for my dearest friend (who has been banned from reading my blog until I complete and give it to her)  who is very intentional with most everything she does.  So in honor of being intentional (but still random) and honing my ability to be patient and actually plan, I picked up all the hexes I had haphazardly arranged on the floor and started laying them out in flowers.  The next part nearly killed me.  I had to leave out half of the hexes I had cut out and cut more of a background color.  (I tried to get a really good photo, but there's some weird shadowing at the top right corner, along with the ends of the clothespins)

  

I'm calling this quilt "the Storyteller".  Each piece of fabric in this quilt has a story.  The fabrics were either given to me or is a fabric that Glynis has mentioned she likes.   For instance, do you see that orange and blue floral fabric in the center of the "Polly goes to Paris" flower?  Glynis gave that fabric to me in the form of a dress that was cut out, darted, and ready to be sewn together.  It belonged to her grandmother.  And do you see the sweet little hexes from the flights of fancy line and the orange Amy Butler polka dots?  Those were from some scraps Sheree sent to me with an order a while back.  I could go on and on about each and every fabric in this quilt top.   I love quilting like that!  I'm still thinking about what the back will be, but I also hope to have it finished in the next week or two. 

Have a great week everyone!

p.s.  I made a loaf of this oatmeal banana bread this weekend and it's my all time favorite banana bread.  The oats add a lot of texture and make it substantial.  One tip, use the walnut oil.  It's real good.  Oh, and I did not whip the egg whites and it turned out fabulous.  Next time I'll follow the directions better, I promise!