Travel Shop

 

The fabric shopping on the way to, and in Portland with friend Jaye, was pretty great. The above picture is  what I found at Sewlarium. First is the new Ruby Star toweling, I'll be making napkins out of this beautiful stuff. I think it'll go well with my pride month table runner. FQs of the PDX airport fabric, a black on grey houndstooth, and odd yellow grid, a pink/caramel ribbon print. A mushroom print that I plan to make a pillowcase with, a really interesting print with odd yellow shapes (I thought it looked like a tile floor), a beautiful (instead of ugly) Frida Kahlo print, and an on-sale pearl bracelets in a dark grey almost black. 

At Pioneer Quilts, I found more of the Ruby Star toweling, because I hadn't bought enough at Sewlarium. An odd grellow star print, a pretty purple halloween print and then the ingredients to make the witch hat "pin keeper" (not a pincushion I guess?). They have a great selection of wools in this shop.

At Mill End, I think I was fabric shopped out/overwhelmed with the vast array of choices, so I only got a couple buckles and a Tombow textile glue that I'd never seen.

In Eugene, we stopped in at Paramount Sew-Vac, a really great store, especially for sewing machine selections as they had all the brands and tons of room displaying them, I found a great remnant of this white and grey print, and then was excited to see Marcia Derse print on a lovely cotton jersey, I got enough to make myself a top.

In Ashland, we checked out Sew Creative and I found that I was really drawn to the Australian Aboriginal prints, they have a huge selection, but I managed to narrow it down and chose three and then found another print that I thought would work well with them.

The last shop we stopped at was Purple Frog Quilt Shop, where I found these 4 FQs, a Peanuts print, blue Grunge, and two lights on a string one dark green and one charcoal. They had a great selection of the American Made solids, so I bought the last of the light grey, a little over a yard. And a new nail file, because my travel one is worn out now and needs replacing.

And finally, at Powell's Books, I found this book, Ahead of the Curve(which includes 5 patterns!) by one of my fave curvy pattern designers, Jenny Rushmore of Cashmerette.

That was plenty of shopping to last me for quite a while, and now I get to add the new fabric purchases into my fabric tracker. At the last update, I was previously at a net increase of 11.8 yards. After adding all this new stuff in,  and subtracting out what I've been sewing since the last update, I'm up to a net of: 18.3 yards. I better get to finishing some big things before year's end to get that number down!

Another Slap Cover

Friend Jaye mentioned that she would like one of the covers I made for the Project Quilting Wearables challenge for her slap bracelet from last year's retreat to wear at this year's retreat. So of course! I still have my Mini Pearl Bracelet fabric out as it's one of the ingredients in the Bohemian Wife quilt. I chose a color as close to aqua as I could get and measured it out.

Some piecing later, and I was ready to get down quilting. I used some Kaffe flower prints, a Giucy Giuce print and some scraps of a dark pink that I dyed.

Quilting was done in intentionally not lined up serpentine stitch (love that one) in two colors. I got out the pearl button jar again and found a good group of buttons in 3 sizes.

I thought this was funny, the scene before the buttonhole threads are cut. I worked hard to center the big button on the design on the Giucy Giuce print.

Sewed it down to the lining on three sides and trimmed the corners, turned it out and voilá, done and all ready for Jaye to slip in her slap bracelet and hand stitch up the end.

Wearables: Project Quilting 15.5

I nearly almost forgot to check out the Project Quilting prompt this week. The prompt for 15.5 is Wearables. That means either something to wear, made out of previously worn clothing, or is somehow related to something wearable. I started thinking about this on Wednesday, worked on it and posted about it Saturday. And finished it in time to submit it on Sunday. I'm covering this blue slap bracelet with a quilt so that I can wear it. I found a nice scraps of stretchy grey knit fabric. I think it is left over from some old pajamas. It's very soft and will feel okay next to my skin.

I sewed it up on three size and turned it carefully using the forceps, and pressed out the end. The slap bracelet slipped right inside without a problem. It's not too loose and not too tight.

I slip-stitched together the open end and it's all done.

I like it!

It turned out great, it's not too stiff or heavy.

Here's how it looks on my wrist.

I may add more buttons, but I think I like them not being too close to the edge.

The buttons aren't exactly in a straight line, kind of echoing the wavy quilting stitch that I used.

Here's how it looks where it overlaps.

Here it is: Pearl Lucky 13, in all its chunky funky glory.

Wearable Project Quilting

 

The Project Quilting challenge for 15.5 this week is: Wearables. I knew I didn't feel like making a quilt out of formerly wearable fabric, or making a quilt block of a shirt, or make an entire shirt. My eyes just happened to have landed on the blue slap bracelet I got at last year's BAM retreat in the goody bags we were given. I was on a zoom call when it came to me: I can't wear this slap bracelet because the rubbery plastic feels yucky on my skin. Call me sensitive, yes, yes I am. So that meant I could make it Wearable. 

I pieced and quilted a strip that would work, using mostly prints from making the recent Boho Wife quilt blocks. I thought it kind of funny that the main fabric that I ended up using is called Mini Pearl Bracelet (Lizzy House/Andover Fabrics). That brought to mind pearl button bracelets, which I've always wanted to try and make, so out came my jar of white pearl buttons.

 This meets one of the challenge elements, that it uses previously worn materials, as you can see by the fabric and thread still on the buttons, they're definitely pre-worn.

I paced the chosen buttons in three graduated sizes. There was only going to be so much room for the buttons, as the bracelet ends wrap over each other.

I tried it on and took note of where the overlap happened and made sure that the buttons wouldn't get extended into that zone on either end.

I used the button sewing stitch on my machine to sew all thirteen of the buttons on. A bracelet of pearl bracelet fabric underneath pearl buttons.And there it is, Pearl Lucky 13, all ready to get stitched together in time for tomorrow's deadline.

Three Yes's

 

I was feeling a bit on a roll with paper piecing after doing the recent Pantone Project blocks, so I rolled right into making some more paper pieced letter blocks for my Y.E.S. coat. Here is the word repeated three times, some more subtly than others.

This one was a little hard because the letters were so much bigger, it was easy to confuse with the background.

So much so that I took to labeling the sections on the paper piecing patterns. It helped me not have to un-sew anything which was nice.

I'm really pleased with how this is looking. Each of the three yes's are quite different and will blend in well enough to not be too in your face. I think these will fit well on the back section of the coat.

The font on this one is very chunky.

When it was time to sew together the four sections of the S, I pinned them together just to check I was doing it the right way round. I had one off, so I was glad that I checked before actually sewing.

The letter going right up to the edge of the block was what really makes this font different from the other two.