Oh Where or Where has My Camera Gone?

Oh where or where can it be? 
With its SD card full
and it fancy lens on
Oh where oh where can it be?

Yep.  I can't find it anywhere.  Sigh. 

So you get lovely cell phone pics of my latest adventures in digitizing.  Yes!  A sock monkey.  Still too big for a badge, but I am working on it. 

Conservatively Cutting Fabric for a Morse Bag.

This is the Morse bag I made for a swap on Craftster.org.  

A Morse Bag is one of the easiest bags to make.  Its simple construction is accessible to the beginning sewist. This makes it a perfect project for learning new techniques.  Best of all, everyone appreciates a unique shopping bag.  You can practice all you like and not be overwhelmed with finished projects

There are tutorials for making the basic bag all over the internet.  The original Morse bag site is here.  Leslie of Leslies Art and Sew has a great tutorial here as well.  Her pictures are most helpful.

The classic Morse bag calls for two pieces of fabric that are 18 x 20 inches and two handle pieces that are  4 x 18 inches.  These pieces can be cut from any fabric, tablecloth, sheet, old clothes or whatever you have on hand.  When upcycling you can create a paper pattern or simply use a ruler and washable marker to draw the shape on the piece of fabric. 

The following diagrams will help if you are going to be making your bag out of yardage.  They are mapped out to conserve as much fabric as possible.  The final piece won't be exactly as called for but the pattern is flexible enough that they work.  I will show the necessary adjustments in later tutorials. 

If your print runs with the grain of the fabric (double arrow), you will need 20 inches of fabric.  Purchase 5/8 yard of fabric that is 44 inches wide.  Trim it to 20 inches along the fold.  Trim the selvages.  Cut at 18 inches from the fold and then cut along the fold.   (You don’t have to cut along the fold.  You can leave the fold intact, eliminating one of the French seams.  It is a matter of personal preference.  All of the directions from here out will assume that you have cut the fold.)   You will have two strips of fabric left that are close to but likely less than 4 inches wide by 20 inches long.   The original pattern calls for strips that are 4 inches by 18 inches.  You will be able to adjust for the width when you sew the handles.  You can trim to 18 inches if you like but the extra length is fine and this eliminates waste. 

If the pattern is perpendicular to the grain of the fabric (double arrow) you will need to purchase 2/3 yard of fabric 44 inches wide.  Trim it to 22 inches along the fold.  Cut at 18 inches.  Trim the 18 inch piece to 20 inches  (trimming off the selvage edge).  Cut along the fold to make two pieces.  (Again you can choose to leave it intact and eliminate the French seam along the bottom of the bag.)  Trim the selvage off and cut along the fold of the 4 inch strip.  This leaves two handle pieces that are 4 inches by about 22 inches.  You can trim these to 18 inches if you wish.

At this point you have all of the pieces necessary to assemble the classic Morse Bag. 

Fabric Swap

I joined the fabric printing swap on craftster last month.  I was a little hesitant to put my sunpainting in with the real fabric printers.  However, I went ahead and had a blast making fat quarters for my partners. This is the piece I made for my partner goatgoddess. 

 Here is a close up of a section where you can see the jumping sheep and goats.  It seemed appropriate to include a few of my billy goats on her fabric.  She has received so I can post some pics here.  I'll post the other pieces once they arrive at their destination.

I am wondering if I should start offering some of these pieces in the shop.  What do you think?  Any interest in some sunpainted fabric? 

Fabric Swap!

Take a look at these fantastic fat quarters.  I received them from Abbeeroad in the craftster fabric printing swap.  They are gorgeous. 

Memorial Day 2013

Picnic and party all you like but take one moment to reflect and honor those who have given so much. 

Low Volume or "Next Time Use More Contrast"

I had the opportunity to join the St Louis Modern Quilters on a sewing day yesterday.  It was wonderful.  We went to the  meeting room in the Webster Groves Library. It was a very nice facility and perfectly arranged for us to work as much or as little as we liked.  I have to say it was a fantastic day.  I really enjoyed getting to know these ladies better.  It was even more amazing to see the quilts they were working on.  What incredible quilters! 

Never having been before, I took a BUNCH of projects.  I figured seven hours of sewing time would be more than enough to get at least two or three projects done.  HA!

I spent the entire time I was there sewing and trimming the half square triangles for this quilt.  I know.  There aren't even that many there.  I even skipped lunch.  OK so there was a major fire in the area and getting out to find lunch seemed more hassle than not but I still stayed and sewed the whole time.

In my defense, I was an hour late and had to leave an hour early.  But still I spent five hours making half square triangles. I do have to say the time was well spent.  Ever since my precision sewing crisis during the craftster.org block swap, I have been making a conscious effort to do better.  It was absolutely horrifying to me to see how far off these blocks ended up being.  I used my swanky hst ruler to mark and cut them.   The original blocks were pretty darn close to accurate.  And still the final blocks were off by as much as a quarter of an inch.  Not any more.  They are all the same size now.

These pictures show them all laid out on the design floor.  Spud 3 came up to work his color positioning magic.  I was pretty close.  He didn't have to shift much but he did identify one pin wheel that didn't follow the 'rules' for this quilt.  On his way out the door he said, "next time use more contrast." 

(This is a project for a special person.  I'll tell you more about it when I can.)  

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Wall Hanging

Amy from Amy's Creative Side hosts the Bloggers Quilt Festival each year.  Hundreds of quilts are linked up and it is an amazing opportunity to learn, share and be inspired.  This year I am also linking up my Welcome to Leaf Springs Quilt.

  This quilt was made in response to a prompt from Project Quilting.  We were to choose a magazine, open it to page 28 and use that for our inspiration.  I let my husband find me a magazine.  Page 28 was an article about leaf springs.  With only a week to make the quilt I didn't have long to ponder.  I decided to make a picture of the Willy's Jeep I drove in high school.  I imagined it parked next to a creak in a place called Leaf Spring. 

The Madrona Road mountain has the perfect traveling stories.  The gears are a nod to the constant work on a 'vintage' vehicle.  The fluttery leaves are there to make it clear that this is leaf spring. 

And the daisy fabric on the windshield and headlamp are there because "Silly boys, Jeeps ARE for girls"! 

 For those of you who are new to this site, here are the details:

Raw edge applique fused on to a base of muslin.  All the fabrics are quilters cottons.  It is machine stitched and machine quilted in black thread using a straight stitch.   The binding is exactly 4 inches of my most favorite fabric ever. 
(Asked Spud one to measure it for me.  "1.1 x .6 cubits."   True measurements  14 x 20 inches.   Way off in his cubit estimation.  Blames it on a growth spurt!)  It is finished with fast finish triangles for hanging.

Bloggers Quilt Festival: Art Quilt

Amy of Amy's Creative Side Hosts the Bloggers Quilt Festival each year.   This Spring is no exception.  Quilters get to choose two of their quilts to enter in two different categories.  I am sure that is going to double the already huge number of quilts available for us to look at.

I decided to submit my little lotus flower mug rug to the art quilt category.  The origami flower has taken my quilt thinking process in a new direction.  The improvisationally pieced lily pad continues my experiment with that style of patchwork. 

This quilt was made for the Craftster.org Mug Rug swap.  I was inspired by some origami lotus flower votives, my partner had pinned.  It is approximately 12 x 10 inches.  It was machine pieced and quilted with hand stitching on the origami flower which is made out of muslin.  I have made one follow on piece and I expect I will be experimenting with this more in the future. 

Some new badges

The thread is a special order.  What color should it really be? 

And the Winner Is....

This comes from practicing yoga. "It's just you and your mat." I transfer that to my crafting, where I resist the urge to compare (and downgrade) what I made to what others make. And "everyone starts where they start". My "beginner" is different than someone else's. We all have our strengths and weaknesses

JLVerde from Just Something I Made.  

There are so many fantastic pieces of advice in the comments to my Words of Encouragement post.  It is worth spending a few minutes reading through them. 

Thanks to everyone for playing. 

Swamp Water

This is Lilypad quilt v.2.  I made some Sangria swamp water go with it.

2 small cans pineapple juice
Juice of 1- 1/2 oranges
Juice of 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 bottle of Muscato (I use Barefoot 'cause I got a case on a deal.)
Sweeten to taste with honey

Mix and chill.  Toss in orange and lime slices and a few berries for pretty.

Lucky Me

I get to work with these lovely William Morris inspired fabrics.

Busy Bees

April is always busy around here.  We had our annual stream clean up.  Almost 900 volunteers cleaned up 38 sites plus 6 river miles with the help our our friends in the municipalities, the US FWS and Missouri River Relief.  An awesome crew.  We did Earth Day events and worked with some where in the neighborhood of 1000 kids, teaching them to sunpaint and upcycle.  It is also the time when we make great inroads on the necessary paperwork and planning for the Race for the Rivers. 

To keep it interesting we had two different robotics competitions in April, a regional and the championships.  I love watching the competition, but my job was to support the team, primarily by keeping them supplied with food and drink.  The team rented an RV and tailgated for the 3 days of the championships.  That was an interesting experience.  It was a great crew of parents and mentors who all worked together to keep everyone fed. 

Most of my sewing time was spent on design work and sewing out badges.  That is a good thing.  But it left me short on time for quilting.  I did get a few finishes.  My lotus mug rug went out early. 

I was also able to put together this lap robe for a raffle at the annual Spring Tea at our church.  I put together a few gift baskets and had a blast making the buntings to go in them. 

And then the wee quilt at the top.  It was my offering for the Little Quilt Sew Vote Swap.  It will be on its way tomorrow as soon as the post office opens.  I added some of the extras including an embroidered center to my Sew Mama Sew Give away package.  That is open to anyone so feel free to leave a comment on that post.  That is all you have to do to get entered. 

Words of Encouragement: Sew Mama Sew Give Away Week

Contest is closed.  Winners will be picked on Saturday May 11.


Words of encouragement are important for beginners as well as for experts who are stretching their skill sets and trying new things.  I am always going on about the lovely lady who gave me permission to be less than perfect with the words "finish it up and move on, dearie".  (Google it in quotes, you'll find MANY versions of my story.)  What I am interested in today is what words of encouragement meant the most to you?  Who gave you that little push to keep making and creating?  Share your story or just the best advice you were ever given in the comments for a chance to win this prize package.

Give Away Prizes

• 16 inches of an Alexander Henry print
• 7 x 7.5 inch embroidered bee and flower 
• 3.5 inch WOF bee print plus a couple 3.5 inch squares
• 3.5 inch strip of matching yellow kona
• 12.5 inch square of chalkboard fabric
• Quilter's Newsletter DVD with 5 quilt patterns
• One CUSTOM EMBROIDERED QUILT Label or patch  ***

***  Once the winner is determined, I will contact you for the name, date and main color you would like on your label.  You will be able to choose between a modern, floral or country theme.    (Should you prefer, you can choose from any badge in my WaggonsWest etsy shop instead.
 
The details.  Leave your comment below.  Entries will be open until 7 pm CST May 10.  The winner will be chosen by random out of a selection of posts the  spuds determine to be the most useful or entertaining advice.  (I can't guarantee they will stick to useful in the elimination process so I had to add entertaining.)   The winner will be drawn on May 11 and notified by email as soon as possible.  If you are a no reply blogger, please be sure to leave a way to contact you in your comment.   If I don't have a way to communicate with you, you will be excluded from the drawing.

This giveaway is part of the Sew Mama Sew GiveAway week.  You should be sure to head over there if you haven't already and check out the thirty bajillion other giveaways going on around the world this week.

Give Away Day?

I love participating in blog hop giveaways.  One is coming up next week.  I am trying to decide what to give away this time.  Fabric?  Sunpainted fabric?  Another bit of chalkboard fabric?  Or perhaps a custom badge or embroidered quilt label?  Hmmmmm.....  What would you like to receive?