Quilts for Boston (and a winner)

You may have heard about the Boston Modern Quilt Guild project to collect quilt blocks and assemble them to give to those effected in the marathon bombing.

The deadline is past to send in your blocks, but a few days ago, their blog said they had collected over 1200 from around the world. Amazing. They have quite a job ahead of them finishing up all those quilts! Thank you so much to the BMQG for providing us with a tangible way to sew up some love for that city.

So these are the four blocks I made to send in. The design I ended up with was a very happy accident that started at our last sew-in with the CincyMQG. I had planned on working on some Boston blocks there, but I was running late for the sew in and ended up just grabbing another project that was ready to go. But when I got there, member Sheila was also working on some great HST blocks for Boston. Her problem was that she had cut way too much fabric and wouldn't be able to assemble them in time, so I was excited to start sewing her fabric up. 

Instead of making HST's with the 6" squares she had cut out, I made disappearing 9 patches. But they ended up way to big for the 12.5" block requirement. So I slashed them up (disappeared them?) again, mixing all the pieces up. Then they were a tad to small so I slashed a couple more times and inserted a scrappy 2" wide strip in each direction. Those were actually they only parts that were my own fabric. 

I love the way they turned out! I definitely want to make a whole quilt this way at some point. Maybe using all low-volume and solid scraps? 

Make sure to check out the BMQG site for pictures of the quilt tops they are already beginning to finish up. And I also like to check the #quiltsforboston tag on instagram sometimes. (I'm alittlegressica there.)

Looking for the Roly Poly Pinafore giveaway winner?

It's #33 Mary Ann. Congrats!! And a have a great holiday weekend everyone!

Fabric Serendipity

I love my Modern Quilt Guild.

I do. Those ladies are the bestest.

We had our monthly meeting this week, and the swap this month was totes... Look what I got from the amazing Gillian! 

I hadn't joined in the swaps in the last couple months, but was excited to make an extra Verona bag for this one. Honest to goodness, every tote bag that was brought to swap was pretty fabulous, but I saw Gillian's and started drooling at an alarming volume. 

I was just telling a friend the other day that if I wasn't so cheap, I'd hoard all of Melody Miller's fabric. I just love her stuff! (And I'm not saying I think that fabric should be cheaper. I know why it's premo priced. Totally worth it.)

So I just happened to get to take this transistor tote home. Here's the kicker- I'm going to ATL for a little sewing retreat next weekend, and I'll be meeting Melody! The swapping fairies knew I needed this bag to take with me. 

Gillian, thanks for cutting into the good stuff, it was not lost on me :)

Modern Meet-Up

This weekend there a is a ginormous quilt show here in Cincinnati (IQF) and our guild is planning a fun meet-up on Saturday night for all the MQG-ers, or just anyone who is interested. You know, just some women talking quilts, ordering cosmos, (ahem, man beer for me please) and winning door prizes.

LOTS of door prizes. A lot of them have been arriving at my house in fact, and I have decided to show them to you so I am not so tempted to keep them all for my selfish self.

And this is really only a small fraction of it! Check out the Cincy MQG site for the full sponsor list and more info about when and where. I'd love to meet you if you are going to be in town for the festival!

Mug Rugs Swapped

Last Wednesday at our Cincy MQG meeting we had a big 'ol mug rug swap. This is my first mug rug, and I can now see why people say these are so fun to make. (It's because they are, in case you couldn't connect the dots there.) It was a random swap, so I hoped my little sewing machine would appeal to most anyone there. I also hoped it would be distinguishable as a sewing machine... hmmm.

I was inspired by the bird mini quilt my mom made me for Christmas that used this style of messy free-motion stitching for appliqué. It was really fun to do. Messy is definitely easy for me. And it's one little risk-free exercise that helps me feel that much more comfortable with fmq. Baby steps. 

I used the cheater method for binding, just cutting the back a little bigger and folding it over the front. I was also happy to use all scraps for this, so I'm entering it into the Scrap Attack. (I wish I could say the same about my Japanese + & x quilt, but that is not happening. Sheesh.)

And this is the lovely mug rug I got from Debbie. I don't know if you can tell, but the lines criss-crossing are pleated pieces. It's a cool effect I'd like to try sometime.


After finishing up some other sewing commitments last week, today is dedicated to attacking my to-do lists hardcore so that I can finally start on my first PR&P outfit. It's been living in my brain for a week, begging to come out and I can't wait to start!

This Week

We are operational again folks. 

So much has happened this week! The block above is actually part of a finished quilt now, inspired by the Sparkle Quilt-Along. Hopefully I'll be able to get some pictures and show you soon. I was so happy to find the perfect block to finally show off some of my hoarded Echino. 

I had lots of good mail built up after getting back from vacation. That definitely helped soothe the post-vacay blues. These adorable vintage dresses came from Stacy. She swapped for a box full of children's clothing patterns for the 50's and 60's. I know she will put them to good use, and Elsie will look pretty dang cute in these- thanks Stacy!

The top package is my winnings from Tara's jacket sew-along, and the bottom is some swapped fabric from Nicke. Both such very generous packages!

I couldn't resist putting Nicke's Kona Coal to use right away on some star blocks. Have you noticed that everyone seems to have gone star crazy lately? There are so many great star tutorials out there to try. I'm hoping that this eventually becomes a quilt with a plethora of stars on a dark nighttime-y background. On the left is Sheila's Quattro Stagioni star and on the right is Jeni's HST sawtooth star.




Since I'm kind of just dumping everything worth blogging about into this post, I'll tell you two more good bits of news-

First, that I'm the new vice president of the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild! Granted, the election was uncontested :) But I'm so excited to serve this year with president Andie, as well as the rest of the board- Sarah S, Sarah H, and Danielle. I've been a member since the fall, and the guild has meant so much to me creatively. It's kind of like my inspirational internet peeps come to life. I love it!

Second, on Friday I taught my first class at Sewn Studio! I was pretty happy with how everything went, and my students seemed to be as well. It was the first of a two-part sewing with knits class making this raglan tee pattern. I always have this totally unreasonable anxiety when it comes to those types of situations that I will suddenly forget everything I know about whatever topic I'm talking about... or that I don't really know what I'm talking about to begin with. Of course, neither of those things happened. And people said they actually learned a lot. That's pretty exciting to hear as a newbie teacher.




Just wanna say thanks for reading. Sometimes I'm such a flakey blogger that it annoys me. Other times, I'm flakey and I don't care one bit because I'm cuddling babies or having living room dance parties or making so many things that I can't find time to write about them. Either way, some of you come around quite often and your comments make me real happy. So thanks!