Saturday Stash Shop Hop

OK, so it's Sunday.  I spent most of the day yesterday making a quilt for a shipmate of My Little Sailor.

Quilt #41 for 2012, "Braids" is made with an Eleanor Burns pattern that includes a template to cut the braid pieces.

 
The template and pages of directions make this a fast top to sew.  It took about 4 hours of sewing, plus two hours shopping for the right fabric to match the braids.  The braid fabric is a "strip tease bun"  from  Island Batiks, "Iris."  Jacob had requested a purple quilt for his friend, so I bought a Tonga Treats Island Quilter on Vashon Island, Washington.  But when I got it home and opened it up, it was really more pink than purple.  So off to High Country Quilts I shuffled.  When I whined to Shelly that I needed a "purple jelly roll," she got down on her knees and dug around under the display table.  I heard "Marti, Marti," but couldn't see who was calling.  Shelly emerged from under the table proudly waving the perfect jelly roll.  Thanks, Shelly!








Speaking of Island Quilter,  here is a photo of the inside of the shop, lifted from their website. DH called the shop "the IKEA shop" because he felt like he had to follow a specific trail to get around the display shelves and out of the shop.  But what a display!

Vashon Island is accessible only by ferry.  We boarded the ferry in Seattle, drove down island to the shop and asked for a lunch recommendation. Not only did they recommend the Hardware Store restaurant, but they offered a 10% discount coupon!

In addition to the batik jelly roll, I found an "end of bolt" special on this lovely purple Laura Ashley print from 2009.  Only two yards, so isn't it lucky that Kwik Sew 3870 takes just two yards to make a tunic?

 

The first shop we visited in Washington was The Quilting Loft in Ballard.  We almost skipped this one, thinking it was too far out of our way.  Boy, am I glad we didn't!

I added to my growing Anna Maria Horner Field Study Collection:

I have about two-thirds of the complete collection now.  I love shopping for the fabrics at various shops rather than ordering the complete collection online.  It makes it feel like a treasure hunt!

And bought some pink and red "amelie" from The Alexander Henry Collection, along with black and red "rivoli garden" also from Alexander Henry.  This will make an Anna Maria Horner Multi-Tasker Tote requested by a niece in Idaho.

We then drove through familiar neighborhoods in Tacoma to Pacific Lutheran University.  PLU will always be "home" to me, it's where I earned my MA in Ed Admin, where the boys' first daycare was, and where I worked at my favorite job ever.  Plus, it's one block away from Parkland Parish Quilt Co.  Housed in an old church, Parish Quilt Co. offers the complete Marti Michell template collection as well as a wide variety of fabrics, from Civil War repros to -- Denyse Schmidt!

I plan to make an AMH Multi Tasker Tote for myself from this decorator-weight fabric:

I think Denyse's "pink seeds strip" will be perfect for the lining, don't you?  It's available from The Quilted Castle.

 

On Sunday, we took another ferry to Bainbridge Island to visit my nieces and Churchmouse Yarns and Teas.

(The photo of the Bainbridge Island ferry is from Churchmouse's website.  It's so much better than the ones I took myself.)

I was looking for yarn to complete my Color Affection shawl.  Found it, but not enough.  Terri graciously offered to contact her supplier and get more for me. 

While walking the streets of Winslow on Bainbridge, we happened upon a wonderful little shop, Esther's.  (Photo lifted from their website.  Visit:  You'll be glad you did!)



Best collection of modern fabrics I found on our trip.  I added two more AMH Field Study fat quarters, and this lovely fashion fabric to make another Fall tunic:

Burda 7213 is an oriental style tunic closed with seven buttons -- which gives me something to shop for this week.


We left Bainbridge Island on the south end via Gig Harbor and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.  This is the same location, but not the same bridge known as Galloping Gertie, slender, elegant and graceful, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge stretched like a steel ribbon across Puget Sound in 1940. The third longest suspension span in the world opened on July 1st. Only four months later, the great span's short life ended in disaster. "Galloping Gertie," collapsed in a windstorm on November 7,1940.  Watch a video of the bridge collapse here on YouTube.

 

52 Quilts has 198 followers.  When we hit 200, it will be time for another giveaway.  Wait 'til you see what I found for it!

 



From the desk of your

A Different Friday Finish

Well, something was finished this week, but it's not a quilt.  It's our trip to Seattle to visit family and the Pacific West Quilt Show -- and a few quilt shops, of course.

I'll report on the Seattle-Tacoma-Peninsula quilt shops tomorrow, but today, it's all about the quilts!

I only took photos of the quilts I thought I would like to make myself.  So I guess this post reveals my "quilty personality."

The first quilt really must be seen in person to appreciate.  Except for the blue background, it is made up entirely of selvages!

"Blue Zinger Selvage Quilt" was made by Virginia Anderson of Shoreline, WA.  She reports she saved selvages "for several years" to make this quilt.   I've never wanted to make a selvage quilt before, but looking at this one, I've decided to start saving my selvages instead of crocheting them into rag rugs.

"Hypnotic" was made by Melody Crust of Kent, WA.  She says she "makes quilts that celebrate life."    This one features my favorite color, orange.  DH was disappointed to see that the blue and white squares were printed fabric, not pieced.  But the effect is the same!

This quilt reminds me of Idaho, because it represents Larch trees.  In Idaho, we call this deciduous conifer a "Tamarack."  In spring, it is a lovely soft chartreuse.  Come Fall, it turns golden and loses its needles.  "Larch in Spring" was made by Heather Waldron of Mt. Vernon, WA.

This quilt made my fingers itch to get into my large collection of Kona cotton solids!  Don't you just love the variety of greens, sparked by red and orange?  Dorothy LaBouef of Edmonds, WA cut the leaf shapes freeform to make the blocks of "Leaf Quilt."

This is the quilt I really want to make.  Katie Kennedy of Bonney Lake, WA and Pam Seaburg of Bothell joined forces to piece "Mt. Rainier."  I love the way they added splashes of red "wildflowers" in the green triangles.

I confess, the last quilt isn't one I really want to make.  I photographed it because I am planning a quilt using the Easy Dresden ruler.  All the Dresdens in this quilt are made of various polka dots. Ann Rindge of Vashon, WA added appliques of flowers, leaves and bees to "Miss Dottie Dresden."

The show was held at the Tacoma Convention Center in downtown Tacoma.  Tacoma has really changed since we left there in the early 90s .  Downtown is now chockablock with cool little shops, museums and restaurants.  The view from the convention center is incredible -- and the Mountain was out!  Can you believe I took this photo from inside the convention center using my little Fuji point-and-shoot camera?

When Elder Son was little, he spent his days at University Childcare at Pacific Lutheran University.  For some (stupid) reason, they showed a movie of the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption to the preschool class.  The next time the "Mountain was out," he panicked, crying "it will explode and throw hot rocks on us and we'll all die!"  Now the towns in the path of the Mountain have evacuation plans in case the Mt. Rainier erupts, but I hope it doesn't for another million years!

Come back tomorrow for the shopping report on Saturday Stash.











From the desk of your

Another Mystery Monday

Funny that I don't really like to read mysteries, but I love to sew mystery quilts!

The next one, hosted by Ruth's Stitchery, started a couple of months ago.  I am seriously behind.  I have step one cut out, and my fabrics selected, and that's it.

I'm doing this one "scrappy," because, you know, "why use three fabrics when you can use thirty?"

As with most mystery quilts, this one requires lights, mediums and darks (although it also requires a medium-light and a medium-dark).

Here are my lights:

Here are my mediums:

Here are my darks:

Really, the background color on all these fabrics is black.  It seemed no matter what lighting I chose, they photographed brown.  You'll just have to take my word for it, they are darks.

And here is step one cut out:

I'm excited to get sewing on this  mystery.  Needless to say, this is not my usual style of fabric -- it's all Civil War Reproductions left over from my Farmer's Wife blocks.  I know just who will receive this quilt as a birthday gift next May (hint hint)!




From the desk of your

Sunday is for Scrap Vomit

In an ongoing (probably vain) attempt to reduce the scrap collection, I have decided my "Leaders and Enders" project for the rest of this year will be a "Scrap Vomit" quilt.

Now I know that sounds awful, but the SV quilts I've seen look beautiful!

The original design and QAL is from Katy of "monkey do."  Katy is probably the most fun blogger you'll ever read -- she is from the North of England and has lots of tattoos.  Here is a photo of her original "Scrap Vomit" quilt:

and here is the link to the QAL.  Even though the QAL is two years old, people are still making this quilt!

I love the color of Katy's "B" block, so I copied her.  I used my June Tailor "Shape Cut" ruler to cut all my blue, black and red squares.  I love this ruler, it is absolutely the fastest way to cut a lot of 2 1/2" squares.  My blue fabric is Kona "Peacock," the red is Kona "Red" and the black is my favorite Michael Miller blacker-than-black "Jet Black.

Here is a quick mini-tutorial on using the Shape Cut ruler (or you can click here to view the YouTube video).

Fold your fabric lengthwise twice, so it is about 11" wide and four layers deep.  Place the shape cut ruler on the fabric so that the "0" line is on top of the fold, and the vertical "0" line is just to the right of the left end. 

Notice the little orange tabs at 0, 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10?  That's so I don't accidentally cut one strip 2" wide -- this would be the voice of experience! 

Continue across the length of your fabric, or until you have as many strips as you need.  Then unfold the strips once (so they are two layers deep) and stack them three high (now you will have six layers of fabric).  Place them on the cutting board horizontally and cross-cut across the full length of the fabric.  Here you can see that I have four stacks of three strips each:

Et voila!  A whole pile of 2 1/2" squares!  I counted them out in stack of 8 each (each block needs 8 solid blue squares).

 

 
If you read Katy's tutorial, you will see she has a clever way to put together the blocks so the blue, black and red solids are in the right place.  Since I'm doing mine as "Leaders and Enders," I will have to lay them out next to the sewing machine as I get pieces sewn together.

I did make a sample of each block, Block "A" and Block "B," just to hang above my machine to motivate myself!

Each "A" block takes 49 2 1/2"squares, each "B" block takes 28 -- wonder how long it will take to make a dent in the 2 1/2" square scrap drawer?

From the desk of your

Where I Sew

OK, I missed out on the "Where I Sew" linky party because I was knitting Hats for Sailors.  But I cleaned up my sewing room and took all these photos, so I am going to have my own "Where I Sew" party!

After 20+ years in military base housing, when the DH and I bought a house for our "first retirement," the main thing I wanted was a really nice sewing room.

At roughly 600 square feet, I think I got it!

The top of this photo hints at what the original purpose of this room was!  It had 18 bar stools and racks for wine glasses (and martini glasses!) when we moved in.  We're not big entertainers, but that bar worked well for Cub Scout and 4-H craft classes.  Under the bar is "floor storage" -- bolts of quilt backing fabric and more bolts of Kona cotton solids.

Here is my cutting station -- the three laundry baskets hold quilt tops waiting their turn to be quilted.  At last count, there were 54 tops.  The red stacking bins under the cutting table are for scraps -- even spending an hour every Sunday cutting up scraps, I can't keep ahead of them.  (Notice the timer?  I work in 23-minute increments.  Cut for 23 minutes, sew for 23 minutes, do something else for 23 minutes.  It really works!  And the hand lotion -- we're in Colorado, after all!  Yes, that is a yarn winder on the cutting table.  I  miss having my little fiberisto at home to wind yarn for me.)

There's one of the few remaining bar stools -- I use it to reach the lights when the bulbs burn out.  To the right of the bar stool is a genuine typewriter table -- perfect for my serger.

My long-arm quilting machine, Meggie, sits where the pool table used to be.  Who needs a pool table when you can have your own long arm machine?  Under that blue sheet is My Little Sailor's 60" LeClerc floor loom, waiting for him to get a shore billet.

Here is my "sewing station."  That's Zippy, my Juki 2010 commercial machine under the white cover.  I have a little TV with DVD player that is usually playing an old movie while I stitch away.  All those plastic drawers under the table hold strips and squares of scrap fabric.  If it looks like everything is covered in plastic, it is -- we don't have much trouble with mildew in Colorado, but the dust (and smoke!) is a constant headache.  It's easier to just keep everything covered than it is to clean off the dust.

This is my Viking Rose and machine-side pressing/cutting station.  When I'm making strip quilts (like the Summer Block-a-Day quilt) it is quicker to have the little iron right next to my machine.

 

Here is the main fabric "collection."  Again, in Colorado we don't have to worry about storing our fabric in plastic bins -- it won't mildew, and my sewing room gets no direct sunlight. The little applique' quilt to the left was brought home to me from Hawai'i by the DH.


I keep most of my fabric sorted by color, except for the fabric by my most favorite designers -- they get their own bins.  On top of the fabric shelves are smaller bins for ongoing projects, i.e., Blocks of the Month, Strip Club and Fat Quarter Fun.

And here is the main pressing station -- with more fabric strip drawers!  (And a pretty good collection of interfacing, wouldn't you say?  Buy it while it's half-price, I say!)  I have a "big board" pressing table, but it desperately needs a new cover, so I didn't photograph it.

This is my favorite part of my sewing room.  Those shelves are backed by mirrors, behind the giant bar.  There is a sink there, and cupboards underneath (storage for projects-in-progress!).  I use the shelves to display my collection of tins and quilt kits and the occasional prize jelly roll or fabric collection.  I try to keep only the most current project on this counter top -- like my niece's wedding quilt, half cut out and overdue!

When I see the photos of quilter's studios with no clutter and beautiful white, clear spaces -- I just remember, I'd rather have my extensive fabric collection than a well-ordered sewing room!



From the desk of your