Freedom

How the year has flown by. I didn't believe adults when I was younger telling me that time just flies by as you get older but I am a believer. Now that I am 40, I can only imagine how quickly things will happen. Fingers crossed that I am ready for it.

I lost my sewing mojo for a while, hence the lack of posts in recent months. This was the first time in years that I didn't sew everyone's Christmas presents. I have decided to not put any stress on myself for any reason to finish any project. I have not signed up for any additional swaps (other than those I committed to before this year) and did not join my online sewing bee for this year. Letting go has been quite liberating.

I've been slowly getting back to my sewing space and working on my projects. I do have a few things to share and will post more of my progress this year.

Bought a new machine. This beast is pretty awesome!

Made a little pouch with this great Afro fabrics from Spoonflower.

Finished my last blocks for my online bee!
These were fun to make with one color way and selvages.

Designing for my Michael Miller Glitz
quilt for QuiltCon 2016.

Thank goodness for a design wall and post it notes
to help keep things organized.
I had a lot of fun putting this together.

My Houndstooth quilt.
Although it wasn't accepted into the show, I think it was a winner in my book!
(It was really hard to photograph this one. I need to up my lighting skills.)

Made a bag for our guild's holiday party swap.

It was made with lots of love!

Working on a design for the improv blocks made by
the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild.

Final top design before it went to our quilter for her to work her magic.
Check out: the quilted piece HERE

Took a great class with Lee Monroe of May Chappell.
She was such a fun teacher!
(This is all the progress I've made, too. I look forward to finishing
this quilt top later in the year with the Charlie Harper fabrics I've been collecting.)

Fabric pulls for my second to last mini quilt swap.
I chose a pattern from Make Modern Magazine called
Betty Hearts Fabric. These will be the rainbow pile of fabrics in
a stack for part of this mini.

I really love when paper piecing projects come together so nicely.

Betty Hearts Fabric
This is the finished piece that went off to it's new home in GA.

Pattern testing for an IG friend.
It had so many little pieces. This is a 12.5 in block!

Here's the mini rainbow quilt I was given from my swap partner!
She used all Tula Pink and created this amazing piece.
I love how perfectly the tiger's face came out from two separate pieces.

All the goodies from my partner! It was a rainbow of so much fun!

My latest project is finishing my economy blocks from last year's 
online bee. I asked for novelty prints in the center with a
coordinating color for the second square. 
The outer squares were made with black, gray or white fabrics. About 30 were sent from
my bee hive mates, the rest I made over the last few
months trying to get my "sewing mojo" back.
I plan to piece this together and quilt it over the next few months.

I joined one last swap with my guild to make a mini for a
Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild member.
She asked for a traditional block made modern so I decided to stick with the economy squares 
but made them a third of the size of the ones I have above.
She loves Cotton+Steel and Tula Pink so I tried to incorporate those in the center.
Then I used Anne Kelle (another favorite of hers) to make the rainbow border.
She loves rainbows like me!

Making a little baby quilt for my friend who is due in 7 weeks.
I have 1 week left before her "Baby Sprinkle" to have it done.
Her theme for this baby is this Gypsy Baby line.
I tried to pull from my stash colors and prints I thought would compliment this style.
(I am still not sure how I will quilt it yet. It's 36 x 36 and will fit nicely under my Juki.)
Wish me luck!

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I made gnomes!
My friend is a gnome maker and recently invited me over to work/play at her
house. She showed me how to make this little gems.
After trying 3 different dying methods, we used coffee to get a darker skin tone!
The bodies are made with super soft felt that I cut into tiny strips, too.
She made the tiny glasses and hair for my partner's gnome.

Because we also needed capes, she did some amazing
embroidery work on the back of each one.
(Can you see the little baby pick in my Super Afro emblem?)

I worked with raw wool roving to make my afro. I had to use a needle and
 Styrofoam board to get this shape to come together.
(I only stuck myself a few times before I got the hang of it.)

She is working on a series of vegetable king/queen gnomes.
These are her pumpkin and tomato royalty.

She made these stools for her kids using logs and
felt to make the seat top.
She's pretty crafty!

This is just one of her gnome tree houses where some of her
creations live. She has a gift for working with wood, wool, and felt.
It was pretty cool to see another artist work her magic and share her passion.
I came home from that trip energized and ready to get back to sewing.

Last but certainly not least, here's a quick set of picks of Artemis. She is doing so well and learning new tricks every day. I bought this book and cannot believe how simple the directions were and love the step-by-step photos. (Many of my dog-owning friends were given a copy of this book for Christmas.)

She really likes sleeping with a pillow and has laid claim to this one.

Our first purchase of a LootPets crate included a matching shirt
for Artemis to celebrate the return of the X-Files!
We have yet to wear our matching shirts out yet.
(It's way too hot to put her in black!)

A very rare, non-blurry picture of her sleeping.
She never stays still for photo ops.

This is what happens when I try to work on the couch.
She puts her head on the keyboard to make me stop and pet her a while.

We both wear each other out on long walks in this Florida heat.
(I often want to lay on the cool floor next to her.)
I am grateful that she makes me go outside every day because work has been hectic!

Artemis has stolen our hearts for sure.


I hope you are well and having a great year so far. Let me know what you've been up to in the comments below if you wish.

Spring Time

It's spring time in Florida and we went from warm to cool to hot in less than a week. I don't know that I am ready for 90 degree weather any time soon. On the plus side, I did find  insulated curtains for my craft room that keeps it really cool during the day. That makes idea of the upcoming summer heat more tolerable.

I've been working on a few projects at the same time trying to put a dent in my UFO list. The crazy thing is that somehow the list keeps getting longer. I just keep getting new ideas and will start it right away before finishing up what I was doing before the idea hit me. Do you have that same problem?

I think my resolution for next year will be to finish a project to completion before starting a new one. (Giving up new fabric purchases for a year is so hard! There are so many pretties that I want in my collection but will have to hope that I can find them in 2016.)

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In no particular order, here are some photos of things that are keeping me busy:

I am pretty addicted to Instagram swaps this year and signed up for way too many. This bag was for an Easter swap that uses the open-wide pouch pattern. It was so easy to make that I will definitely do a few more as gifts.

My partner likes nerdy things so I was happy to oblige.

This bag is for my Charley Harper swap. I used unconventional to me fabrics including wool and velvet to give my fox a cool texture.

My partner loves the foxes and I used
E. Hartman's Fancy Fox pattern to make her a tote bag.
I only had to modify it slightly.

So tempted to keep this tote bag for myself.

The Orlando Modern Quilt Guild is sponsoring a postcard swap with other guilds in the area. Here's mine:

Of course I had to make a rainbow!
(Sorry about the bad lighting...gave it away before taking a better photo.)

The guild also made and distributed quilts to our local veteran's hospital in April. I made the Giant Vintage Star in shades of green, gray, brown and black. The back was a fun eggplant color. The gentleman who was given my quilt loved it because brown is his favorite color. I also used a "new-to-me" technique for the binding and used the backing fabric folded over instead of attaching strips.

I will definitely make another one like this to keep.

My Stash Bee Hive #2 block for April. I really love how easy this pattern comes together and looks like you spent hours making it. (It seriously took longer to select fabric than it took to assemble it.)
I can already imagine making one with rainbows of color all over.

Blues and Greens for my hive mama.

That pretty much wraps it up around here. I have a few more things on the horizon including some minis, completing some UFOs and planning some bigger projects. I'll keep you posted.

What's keeping you busy?

September, where did you go?

Somehow September flew by and I am just now sitting down to post what's been happening. I was very busy and having lots of fun. This post will be mostly a photo diary, if you will, of everything since last month.

Festival of Tress

Earlier this year, our guild was asked to create a quilt that would be donated to a charity auction in Orlando. I was on the FoT committee and after lots of searching, I decided to make a pattern myself on EQ7 and propose it to the group. My design won and we set off to make this idea I had a reality.
All members were asked to make a 6.5 inch block that would be made into my Modern Sampler Tree. We used the 25th and Pine collection, various blenders, and a white on white houndstooth print for the background.

Finished top!
So in love with the way it all came together.

Started arranging the design and cutting out HST
to make the side line up just right.

I didn't love the idea of a straight line across the bottom
but didn't have enough for a full row.

I sewed more HST and a few leftover blocks
I was saving for the storage bag that was being made.Then I added
some brown strips and made a little trunk for this cute tree.

After all of my math, I ran out of white for the background!
I called and they still had the fabric so I made a quick run at 8:00.
(They closed at 8:30 and I just made it.)
Fun times!

The fun part was sewing each row together and seeing it take shape.
It was faster than you might think.

I asked the guild founder to make the star that goes on top.
I think it is such a lovely compliment!

Finished quilt measures 86" by 88".
Quilting and binding completed by OMQG members.
It's one of my favorites designs to date.

                       

 Stash Bee Blocks

Plus Cross block for August
(I was running a little behind.)

Mini modern plus sign with large color background for September. 
(I can't wait to see her finished Wombat-style quilt.)

Modern Quilting Salon

At our last board meeting, I proposed the idea of hosting a modern quilting salon in the evenings for those interested in the modern movement and cannot attend our morning Orlando MQG meetings. I think we had a nice turn out and I shared a little about the guild and what modern quilting means to me. I was so nervous but everyone asked questions and stayed until the end. (I think it's great when they don't run out kicking and screaming before the last slide on your presentation.)

Maker Faire Orlando

Part of the craziness this month was spent participating in Maker Faire Orlando. If you are not familiar with the maker movement you can learn more here.

Read last month's post on how we started things, here.

I made the banner for our table one night.
I made hexagon bunting instead of
traditional triangles because I'm geeky like that.

It was hard to get a great shot in my tiny, dark sewing room.

We spent some time meeting together before the faire to decide on demos to share, completed projects and supplies to bring. Kathryn kept us organized and we came up with ways to break up the weekend. It was a wonderful event and I had so much fun. I met a lot of creative folks and I'm already excited about doing this event next year.

Love this little robot in this logo.
(The shirt is super soft, too.)

Lots of prep work to complete before the event!

I was showing a few pixelated quilt designs and
my Accuquilt cutter got lots of mileage last month.
It's worth it's weight in gold!

I pulled out my English Paper Piecing project to share, too.

Mid-week shopping therapy at
Indie Craft Exchange.

Coffee is my go go juice when I needed to stay awake
 and keep cutting/organizing for the event.
(Wonder Woman always makes me smile!)

I spent a lot of time counting before cutting so I could stay organized.
I have an Excel spread sheet of all the pieced needed for each project.
This way I can maximize my cutting time with the Accuquilt cutter.

A cassette tape is a part of my retro pixel collection
I'm working to complete by 2015.

The Weekend at Maker Faire Orlando

We were on the 4th floor of the Orlando Science Center.
The Dino Digs room was pretty awesome!
It's where all the cool kids were hanging out.

Setting up the Friday night before Maker Faire Orlando.
(We were in the dark for a while until they dropped in our lights later.)

Geeky Chic of Florida
We won a Maker of Merit Award that weekend!
(The triceratops behind us was so cool.)

I love how diverse the four of us were.
We had lots of people stop by and ask questions
and advice on their sewing/art projects.

Tried to get a better picture of that ribbon
but the perfect shot eluded me.

Other Stuff!

A gift from my dear friend Kim.
(I made her a Tetris quilt for her 10-year wedding anniversary in March.)
It's my new favorite board game.

The last Friday of my vacation with a great sunrise on Lake Monroe.
I had ten glorious days off from work and enjoyed every second of it!

You've made it to the end, you brave reader! Thanks for taking the time to go through this month-long journey.
Let me know what you were up to last month while I was gone from the blogosphere.
I love reading your comments.