all kinds of sewing going on!

Two weeks ago I joined a group of friends for a retreat at Bridge Creek Cottage in Augusta, WI.  We tried out these temporary tattoos.

My body art!

Assorted adorned quilters' arms.

 One of the quilts I worked on at this retreat was derived from a pattern I made in 2010.  After publishing the pattern for this quilt, I added a modification for a little baby quilt using the center portion.  By changing up some of the fabrics, I gave it a new look.

Star Light, my design for Quilt MN 2010

This is the baby quilt version.  It's for a little girl due in December!  My nephew, Scott, and his wife, Katie, are having their first baby.  Scott is the son of my sister, Jan.

This will be quilted very soon and finished right around the time that this little princess arrives!  They are using nursery colors around the theme of the vintage Peter Rabbit pictures and storybook, so this will hopefully fit with that.  They live out near San Francisco.

I tackled another new project, too.  My machine got a good workout making 8 owls.  Each of those eyeballs has about 20 pieces in it!

I was relieved to get them all done, except for that poor fellow on the left.  I made a mistake in the cutting and didn't have the extra fabric along with me to correct the problem while I was there.

Forest Friends by Elizabeth Hartman

I picked up and worked on a project that I had started last year.  I made 3 of the 6 stockings in this pattern by Laura Heine. See the full set below.  These will be displayed at Bear Patch for our Christmas window.

Stopping By The Woods by Laura Heine (Fiberworks)

Here's something I started working on when I got back home--my little grandson, Ian, is going to be moving to a new sleeping arrangement soon.  A new baby brother in the house in March means Ian (4) moves to a new bedroom and a bunk bed!  He needs a special new quilt to make that move happen with ease, don't you think?  He's really involved with super heroes right now, they are his favorite topic of play and entertainment.  Thomas the Train is so 2015!  So I ventured into the licensed prints aisle at JoAnn's.  I was gobsmacked by the assortment there!  I don't think I've ever been in that aisle before!  I found some good choices for Ian's quilt, and drafted a simple design that keeps large sections of the characters intact.  Here are some blocks on my design wall--

I showed him, via FaceTime, some of the fabrics and he was so excited!

I had been looking at a pattern for a little bag, Sew Together, by Sew Demented.  I was a little hesitant to get it going because it had quite a few parts to it and I couldn't decide what fabric to use!  I wanted it to be just the perfect fabric because I thought it would probably be the one and only that I made from that pattern!  Do you ever have that feeling?  I finally took the plunge and put all the pieces together.

It has 3 zippered compartments inside.  I used mostly fabric from Cotton + Steel.  And some Moda Grunge for the pocket lining.  I added some beautiful ribbons on the outside for trim.  It actually all went together very well, my only stumbling block was putting together that long purple zipper with the striped binding at the edge.  I'm not real satisfied with my top-stitching for that.  I did have some helpful coaching from my friend, Mary, who was at the retreat and has made this more than once.  Thanks, Mary!

And here's something that is part of a much bigger plan.  A little birdie, part of the Urbanologie quilt pattern from Sew Kind of Wonderful.  It's made with the Mini Quick Curve ruler.

Can you find the birds in the picture below?  I'm considering making this as a block-of-the-month class at Bear Patch in 2017.  There are 12 different pieced units incorporated into the overall layout.

So that pretty well sums up what's happening in the sewing world at my house!  Today is the day before Thanksgiving, and I'm not scheduled to work but had thought I would go to the store anyway.  It's closed, and I have to get working on changing the window display to our Christmas theme.  It's nice to do that when there aren't customers observing the mess!  But it snowed during the night, and has started snowing again as I write this.  So I probably won't be driving the 30 miles to do that.  Instead, I will make it 10 miles to the grocery store to get what I need to make my pumpkin dessert for dinner tomorrow at my brother's house!  Priorities, you know!  And that will leave me more time for sewing at home!

Out of "Hibernation"

I've been sort of hibernating from this blog lately, just finding a whole lot of summer fun and not finding my muse for writing!  But I can show you some fun things that have happened while "the frayed edge" sat here taking a break.  Be prepared for a bunch of pictures!  Here are some things I have made (or started) lately:

I started working on a set of Christmas stockings.  This pattern is called Stopping by a Woods from Fiberworks in Billings, MT.  This is only #1 of 6 stockings, I have some of the others underway, too.  The background is a lightweight linen, all of the pieces are fused in place and I stitch all around them.  Takes awhile!

I've been trying real hard to stay focused on the positive and turning away from negative.  This book is interesting, considering the direction I am moving.

This is the Fat Quarter Pop-Up by the Fat Quarter Gypsy.  It has a heavy coiled wire that holds it upright, and can be compressed flat if needed.

I did some easy quilting on this quilt that my mom made.  It is made from my dad's shirts combined with a light colored background fabric.  It's good to see those shirts again!  It's the disappearing 4 patch block.

I finished this machine embroidered book for the grandsons.  It can be viewed with 3D glasses for a whole different experience!  R Is For Robot by OESD.

I made this pillow cover for my son, it features vintage pictures of Glacier Park and Whitefish, MT (where he resides).  The pictures came from American Quilt Blocks and I put them together with fabric from my stash in a design that I made up.  It fits a large 20" pillow.

Playing around with some Christmas pennants.  These were printed on a fabric panel and leftover from last year.  They might be just the right thing this year!  They were made by Riley Blake, and they have some directions along with a great free download of block letters and numbers if you want to add words to the pennants.

Working on a challenging quilting job for a customer.  It is all hand embroidered and shaded with colors (crayons).  I've been a very bad procrastinator in getting this done, but the end is in sight!  I think I was intimidated by it.  But we've become friends now!  Pattern is Gardener's Alphabet by Crabapple Hill.  The shading created with crayons adds to the embroidery.  The process is explained on the Crabapple Hill website.

So that's the fibery update from here.  Stay tuned for more!