Crazy Quilt

I have finally finished my crazy quilt! I have to admit that I'm embarrassed because I started on it in 2008. That was the first time I went to Empty Spools Seminars in Asilomar, California. I took a crazy quilting class that year from Judith Baker Montano. She is an awesome crazy quilter, and a lot of fun as a teacher; check out her website and see some of her beautiful work.

Here are some close-ups of some of the stitching and trims I added to the surface. It was a lot of fun deciding what stitch or piece of lace I would add where.

Making a crazy quilt is almost like sewing two quilts. First you piece all of the background together, which is in itself a big project of deciding which fabrics to use and how to arrange them.

When that is all done, comes the work of going all over the surface of the quilt again, adding embroidery, lace, trims, beads, buttons, etc.

The above photo shows the "'08" that I embroidered at the beginning of this quilt.

And in this photo you see where I had to add "2009" because I wasn't finished yet. Little did I know...

The tough thing about a crazy quilt is knowing when to stop! Traditionally, each seam is covered with stitching or trim. But you don't have to stop there. There are so many possibilities. At some point you just have to say, "That's enough."

What really made me get my rear in gear was when I realized I would need to add a "2010" to the quilt. And I sure didn't want to add a "2011!"

In the above photo you can see the small "TEN" stitched where I hoped it wouldn't be very noticeable. And I can say it's done.

I finished it by adding some black fabric triangles to the sides so I would have an en pointe square. I fused some interfacing to the black fabric, so it would be closer in "hand" to the actual sewn part of the quilt. Then I added some very thin batting, and a backing fabric. I sewed the front to the back with nymo beading thread on the back with a few small invisible stitches.

It really was a pleasure to work on this quilt. And I can't wait to start on some more "fancy work." It is a lot of fun.

New York, New York

I went to New York last week! It was a wonderful trip, a theatre tour sponsored by Oregon Shakespeare Festival. There were about 40 of us, and we had a wonderful time, going to restaurants, seeing some NY sights, and of course, going to theatre.

Now, I would not call myself a Project Runway expert, but I do enjoy watching the shows and seeing the cool designs that the students make. So you can imagine my glee when I looked up Mood Fabrics and found the store is not

very far from where we stayed. I easily walked there one afternoon, and along my way I passed Parsons The New School for Design, where Project Runway takes place.

So there I was, right in the middle of the garment district. What fun!

Mood was actually a little hard to find, as the address I had turned out to be a service elevator loading sort of place. After some incorrect directions, I finally found it. There was no sign; I had to go into a small lobby and take the elevator up to the store.

Mood is just packed to the gills with fabric. All kinds, all colors.

I've sometimes wondered, while watching the Runway show, how in the earth do the "students" manage to find just the fabric they want?

There are three different floors, and as you can see, fabric is stacked everywhere!

It sure was fun to stroll around and look at

all the cool fabrics. They had some quilting fabric, but not much, and it was hard to look at because it was all on rolls, not bolts, and stacked on racks.

I hadn't exactly come to New York to buy fabric. I can get plenty of that at home!

But I did come home with one little swatch of fabric. And that made me happy.

Finished with Fabric Shopping Bags

I finished sewing the fabric shopping bags, which I posted about here. And now you see them all lined up in the photo above. These bags will go in the Project Santa boxes that are delivered to people in our community. Thanks to the great idea of Harmony, and the consultation with Teresa of The Green Bag Lady, they all went together quite easily.

I actually had quite a lot of fun sewing these. They go together quite easily, and I'm sure I'll be making more of my own now.

I think I was channeling the Green Bag Lady while I was sewing! I used her pattern, which can be found on her website, with just a little bit of tweaking for my purposes. It's a very simple, straightforward pattern. You should definitely check it out.

It feels great to have a big project like this (26 bags sewn) all completed and delivered.

Bling for Your Knitting

My great blogging friend Gail, over at Quilt, Knit, Run, Sew, did a lot of work to make stitch markers, which knitters to use for marking their rows. While I am only a fledgling knitter, and don't really do much with it, I really admire Gail for doing this project.

Gail made all these nice little markers and donated the proceeds of their sale to Run For The Cure. Aren't they pretty?

Some of the markers had pink beads, and some had pearls. I just had to ask her to send me a couple sets, so I can give them to some of my knitting friends.

And it's all for such a good cause. Thank you, Gail, for doing this.

May we find a cure.

Soon.