sewing room fabric closet

I posted before about getting my fabric closet redone. Well I am still putting fabric away. I am almost done  one group of novelties left to sort thru and put away and some odds and ends of fabric.  I have almost sorted thru the other stuff other than fabric not sure why all of that stuff was in my fabric closet I guess didn't know what else to do with it.  I found several old quilt tops from DH great Aunt not sure if she made them or her mother  not very good  so just put them in a box and labeled them also lots of hexies cut out for grandmother's flower garden love the old fabrics, but proabaly won't make them.  Most of this stuff is not going back into the closet.  Hopefully by the end of next week the closet will be done and the house will be cleaned up from it being all over the house or at least two rooms, our bedroom and the living room.  Have several totes for my quilting buddies to look thru and help themselves next time we get together and sew and then the rest will be donated.

Happy Sewing,
Sharon

Discount on Craftsy for Carol Doak"s class

25% Discount on Craftsy Paper Piecing Class!

 

Paper piecing is my favorite quilt making techniques! Carol gave us permission to share with my blog readers a special 25% off discount to enroll in her new Craftsy class called Mastering Foundation Paper Piecing. Just use this www.craftsy.com/ext/masteringfpp25  if link doesn't take you to where you can sign up using the discount copy and paste it into your browser.
The class has 8 lessons and covers all your paper piecing questions from the basics to learning how to join intricate blocks.
I’ve taken a couplr of classes with Carol when she came to Decatur, Ill and she is a great instructor! I also use her paper piecing techniques even if it is not one of her patterns. Come along and take her class with me. 

Quilt show winner

The quilt show in the Mattoon Mall was a huge sucess. Not as many quilts this year but great quilts. One of the better turn outs for visitors, didn't think we would ever get done counting ballots.
I was greatly surprised when I won a first place ribbon for my jacket. here is a picture of it with its ribbon

Now I need to get my quilts entered into the Decatur Quilters Guild show at the Decatur Civic Center.  need to measure them and writing a small story about them 

sewing room closet

Well my DH  took out my old shelves in my sewing closet where I keep my fabrictwo weeks ago  and when SIL arrived on the weekend they replaced them with new shelving system.  I had 3 shelves  2 foot apart and 20 inches deep before. Just wasn't working and fabric too heavy and pulled shelf out of the wall. I forgot to take a before picture but it wasn't pretty. It is a walk in closet but you couldn't walk in it..  Well I am in the process of putting all the fabric back into the closet all this last week off and on...   I am refolding all the fabric around a 6 x 12 inch ruler. so folding it in half again from how it comes on the bolt. Sorting out fabric I don't want and will let quilting buddies take what they can use and donate the rest.  Putting it back in color groups.   Will take a picture when I am done to show you. Will want to just look at it and not mess it up... Boy I sure don't need to buy any fabic.
Lots of kits to make also put them into a tote so they are together and making a list of kits, UFO's and quilts to quilt.

I also finished a couple of small projects.  One is a new purse called flip flop bag.  I really like it and its done in dark green fabric with leaf print on it. It is another over the shoulder purse. I really like them so I can have hands free and they don't come off my shoulder..  I put an extra pocket on the inside  it only called for one divided pocket so there is one on each side of the inside of purse. going to add decorative buttons to the bottom of the flap on outside. Then will be ready for my trip next week.

We were invited to an surprise birthday party this last Saturday night, so I decided I need to make her a small gift mid-morning..   I decided to make her a tea cup mug rug.  So off to sew.  Well I got it done in couple of hours  These are so easy, fun and quick to make.  I have taught a class on making this one at a LQS couple weeks ago.

here is her mug rug.

 



 well I need to get back to quilting the quilt that is in the machine so bye for now.
Happy Quilting,

applique block for class

I have finished an applique block for a machine applique class I am teaching at our Decatur Quilt Fest/show.  I will be teaching the block below on Friday March 22  from 10-4 at the Decatur Civic Center. You can sign up for the class on our guild website. www.decaturquiltguild.com
The block is from a applique quilt Sweet Sixteen designed by Edyta Sitar. She puts together beautiful kits.  the pieces are fused down and sewn with invisible thread doing a small zigzag stitch.
come join me for a fun day and have a beautiful block done at end of day.

Last Wednsday I  got out my embroidery quilt project and made four blocks and trimmed up many to correct size and sewed a few framing borders on some.   This may get done yet.    Also did some cleaning in my sewing room on the back side of quilt machine.   Took out all the VCR tapes of sewing programs  I filled a paper box that reams of paper come in to go out somewhere…  cleaned out 2 project boxes that had started projects in them that I no longer am going to do. Put fabric back in stash and parts into scrap bins….    So have 2 empty project boxes…    found a bag of quilt blocks that someone gave me long time ago so took them downstairs some sew day maybe we can arrange them into a quilt to donate somewhere…   sorted out a box of pieces of fabric  put fat quarter size pieces with other fat quarters and larger pieces in stash, smaller pieces in scrap bins…    felt good to get that far..   more to do.   Then can start on the front of the machine  and move some to the back…

 

I finished quilting and binding a quilt for our bed. It was a UFO from a class several years ago when Pat Speth was in Decatur for a class.   Here is a picture

 

Yesterday was 1st Monday of the month, so it was sew day in Charleston. I worked on another Pat Speth quilt called Woodlawn Clover. I got 6 blocks done and more parts to blocks.  We had Can Can soup for lunch it  was great.  You start with broth and add cans of soup whatever anyone brought.  Then couple of us brought dessert..  Good sewing and visiting.

I also decided on the fabric for my Summer Salsa quilt. It will be a winter salsa quilt since I am going to use snowmen fabric.  The rule for me was that it had to come from my stash the problem was that fabric needed 4 yards of one fabric and 3 yards of another. I didn't have that much of many fabrics.
here is picture of the fabric I am going to use.

 

Well I am off to quilt on a quilt in the machine this morning.

Happy quilting

Sharon



It is the first Monday of the month and that means a sew day with friends. I belong to a group called Quilts Etc. in Charleston ill  we meet on the first Monday of the month and sew on our projects, visit, and lunch of course..  today we decided to pick a simple quilt pattern called Summer Salsa and each make on by our Christmas party in Dec.in our own fabrics and see how different each one looks. This should be fun and interesting.   Also going to do a birthday block for each member  this year we decided to each do a block pertaining to a month of the year  there are 12 of us participating so put the months in a box and each drew out a paper and we will make a block for each other pertaining to the month we drew example Dec  person will make a Christmas block for each of us and we will get them in our birthday month...  going to be fun.  I have the month of September, so need to put on my thinking cap for ideas to represent September..

I worked on my basket blocks got all but two sen into blocks, hope to finish other 2 tomorrow then to design wall to arrange them and sew together with setting blocks. will post picture when they are on design wall.
Here is the picture of the tulip fields quilt I made for sample for class at Stewart's I will be teaching this on April 18, 2013. this was a fun quilt and loved using my scraps. I used a constant red fabric and the blue for sashing strip rest was from scraps.

Here is a picture of the tea cup mug rug that I am teaching at Stitch n Sew on Feb 15th  this is fun and fast.
I made many of these for Christmas presents.  there is a pocket in the tea cup for a card and tea bag.