Dragonfly Quilt Shop

An End, and a Beginning

2011-12-10T20:59:00.002-05:00

There are some dramatic changes coming my way over the next couple of months.

The end...
After five years as the owner of Dragonfly Quilt Shop, I will be closing the doors to the shop for the last time on December 17. It was a lifetime dream of mine to own a quilt shop and I am so thankful that the dream came true. The experience is one I will treasure forever, especially the many special people that came into my life.

The beginning...
I will be starting a full-time job in January. Let me just say that the job and the timing are nothing short of miraculous. At a time when so many people are struggling to find work, the perfect job came available at the perfect time.

With that said, I'll be ending this blog and moving to a new one. I hope you'll join me. All new entries will be posted over at Studio Dragonfly.

New Christmas Coasters

2011-11-28T14:05:00.008-05:00

This is the first time I've been home the Saturday after Thanksgiving in several years. To celebrate, we invited a few family and friends over to decorate for the holidays. I made chili and fixings and there was the constant hum of college football in the background. It was a great day that certainly put me in even more of a holiday mood. After everything was out, one of the kids noticed that there were no holiday coasters. I took care of that right away.

I had some bright Michael Miller Christmas prints left over from another quilt top. There were lots of strips and some other scraps. I decided to make some funky strip coasters. I cut 5" squares of batting and backing fabric. There were enough different prints so that each of the eight coasters has a different back.

I then took all of the strips and sewed them together into one long piece. I did not measure them at all and didn't worry about whether they were straight or right side up.

I took my ruler to the strip set at any crazy angle I desired and cut 5" squares. I was able to get seven squares from the strip set. I had to piece the scraps to get the last one. It is shown in the upper right.

To sew them together, I put a batting square on the bottom, a backing square right side up, and a pieced strip square right side down. I sewed around three sides and half of the fourth side. I like to leave a fairly big opening to turn the coasters right side out. I get frustrated easily when things are hard to turn.

Once they were all turned right side out, I stitched once around the outside about an eighth of an inch from the edge to close the opening. After that, I experimented with quilting them. I tried quilting on either side of the strip seams and near just some of the strip seams. In the end, I decided that the extra quilting didn't add anything to the coasters and settled on an extra line of stitching around the outside edges, about a quarter inch from the first one.

This was a fast project that adds fun to our holiday decorations. There are just enough scraps left over for me to make a matching potholder!

Mom's Cross Stitch

2011-11-24T08:00:00.001-05:00

Many years ago, my mom passed along some of her cross stitch pieces to me. She had never framed them and didn't think she would ever invest in finishing them. I pulled them out the other day and decided that now is the time to finish them.

I'm planning a wall hanging that pairs each season with a complementary quilt block.

I enjoy paper piecing and haven't done any in a while so I pulled out a Carol Doak book, 50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars.

Each cross-stitch block is about 6" x 10". I'll downsize the stars to be six-inch blocks.

I decided that soft batiks would be a nice complement and make pretty stars.

This may become my mom's Christmas gift.

We'll see how much progress I make in the next week or two.

BOM Top Finished

2011-11-23T08:00:00.001-05:00

I really gain momentum as I get closer to finishing a project. Every step I finish leaves me energized for the next. Here is the finished quilt top for the Block of the Month quilt I've been working on.

One of my concerns was that this quilt was going to be too pink. It is not. The gold in the setting triangles tones down the pink just enough. Next step is to choose a back and send this one off to the quilter.

Carry It All Folio Class

2011-11-22T15:19:00.002-05:00

The shop was all a buzz last Saturday as a fun group of gals made a Carry It All Folio with Mary Ann Mauney. I love this project and hope to make one for myself soon.

I wish I had taken a picture with all of them open. You can see from the one open on the table that there are some fun fabric options with the pockets on the inside. It is so easy to personalize these by changing up the pocket sizes and by adding embellishments to the outside. If you look closely, there's a beautiful felted wool bird on the outside of the green one second from the left.

I love a class where the students leave with a finished project. Everyone here left with plans to make more. Fun to make and fun to give!

BOM Blocks Finished

2011-11-16T10:22:00.004-05:00

It's just awesome how a little bit of dedicated sewing time can go such a long way. The last six blocks for next year's block of the month are complete!

My favorite one is the bottom right. Not only do I think it's pretty, but also because it is the last block I made. I had that happy "I can't believe it's the last block" feeling the whole time I was working on it.

I even had time to get the sashing, setting triangles, and borders cut. There are four more blocks to piece that are cornerstones for the border. My goal is to have this hanging in the shop after Thanksgiving. I think I'm going to make it!

Another lingering project

2011-11-15T09:59:00.004-05:00

A couple of years ago, I came across these fat quarters and knew instantly who should have them.

I especially like the note "Lunch w/ Deb Tues 12:30." I should give that to all of my friends and have lunch dates for life! Okay, back to the project. I mailed the fat quarters to my friend John with a promise to turn them into something wonderful. Several times over the next year or so we talked about what to do with them. Message board? Mouse pad? Laptop case? He was never very excited about any of these. What to do? When all else fails, make a quilt.

I ransacked the stash and found some friends for the fat quarters. Since two fat quarters is all there was for the featured fabric, I went with a disappearing nine-patch. Simple and good for letting a small amount of fabric shine.

Since John's birthday is this week (Happy Birthday, John!), I let him see the work in progress. There are nine blocks and they haven't been sewn together. We decided that it needed a little something more. I'll be adding some black sashing between the blocks and then will figure out something for the borders.

I'm hoping this one will get finished before the end of the year.

More BOM Progress - Blocks 5, 6, and 7

2011-11-13T17:10:00.005-05:00

While a few side projects have slowed me down a bit, I made good progress this weekend on the block of the month sample I'm working on for next year. Here's block 5:

Block five is the only other block that uses templates and it is the most challenging so far. Accurate template cutting is a must and I cut mine in too big a hurry the first time around. Once I had all those flat flying geese units together, the rest went together fairly quickly. Block six and seven were a breeze after the challenge of block five.

Block seven may be my favorite so far. Its simple structure makes the star shine and I like the movement of the star and swirl fabrics together. This means I'm over half finished with the blocks. Some dedicated sewing time tomorrow should get this project closer to the finished line.

The Danger of the Half Finished Gift

2011-11-07T19:28:00.008-05:00

Last year I gave my mom a finished quilt for Christmas. I gave my mother-in-law an unfinished quilt (the top was complete) with a promise to return it finished before the next holiday season rolled around. Honestly, the only reason my mom got a finished quilt is because I sent it out to be quilted.

The panic started to set in this year when the calendar page turned to November. While it might be time to start thinking about gift giving, I still had commitments to finish from last year. This past weekend was devoted to finishing her quilt.

I spent many hours hunched over the machine quilting away. It is finally finished.

This is my favorite block today. I rejoice at the completion of this project.

And I have learned a valuable lesson. This year, the only gifts will be finished gifts.

BOM Block 4 and a Distraction

2011-11-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

Two of the blocks in this block of the month set use templates. This is one of them.

However, I dodged making templates and used the Tri-Rec ruler. There's nothing like the right tool for the right job. I love extra pointy star blocks.

With four blocks down, I started thinking about sashing and borders. I should keep making blocks but what about the sashing and borders? I wasn't going to be able to make another block until I figured this out. My mind's eye is terrible at remembering colors. I brought home every possibility I could find. You can sort of see them lined up between the blocks.

I really, really wanted that first Amy Butler print to work but the colors were just too different *sigh*. None of these really worked for sashing. They were all too busy and took away from the blocks. I finally gave up and took the blocks to the shop. After more auditioning than I want to admit, and a fresh eye from my friend Holley, here are the winners.

The solid will be the sashing, the gold will be cornerstones and setting triangles (yes, this baby is set on point!), and the green leaf print will be the border.

Now I can get back to making blocks!

Fabric Covered Cork Boards

2011-11-05T08:00:00.001-04:00

The sewing room is complete. One fun little project I added was some fabric covered cork boards on the end of one of the cube units.

It was easy enough to use two-sided fusible to attach yummy fabric to the cork squares. I used the sticky part from some 3m Command Hooks to attach the cork to the furniture. Now I'll have plenty of pretty to look at among my notes.

Enjoy your weekend!

BOM Block 2 and Block 3

2011-11-04T08:00:00.002-04:00

Oh, I'm such a sucker. I made the first block for this block of the month and I was so happy that it went together quickly. I thought these blocks are going to be a piece of cake. I can make at least three each day. Right? Right... Silly me, I should know that projects such as this get more complex as it goes along.

Here's block 2...

and here's block 3.

I'm happy with the contrast in the blocks, and I like that the tone on tone prints allow you to really see the structure of the blocks. However, I usually go for wilder prints in my quilts so there may have to be some interesting action when this gets to the sashing and border stage. Three blocks down, ten to go!

New Block of the Month

2011-11-03T08:00:00.006-04:00

A new block of the month will be introduced at the shop starting in January 2012. To prepare, I'm working on a complete quilt top to hang at the shop along with a second set of blocks and block parts to use for teaching the class. The entire quilt uses only five different fabrics. The blocks use three fabrics and the other two are sashing and border. The cover picture of the quilt does a good job illustrating the five fabric version so my sample is going to be made scrappy style.

Most of my stash is sorted by color, but a few special designers get their own bin. Nancy Halvorsen is one of those designers. She has been a staple in our shop from day one. With at least two fabric collections a year, I've built up a good assortment of her fabrics. Another advantage in going with this designer is that no matter how much time passes, or whether her collections lean toward brighter or more muted, they all work together.

The first step was to dump the bin and sort it all by color family. Then it was time for consultation. "Hey hon, if you could only choose three colors for a quilt, which three would you choose?" Red, green, and yellow were his choices.

I didn't want this to turn into a Christmas quilt, but those color choices were certainly leaning in that direction. Time to add more definition to this project. I sorted the chosen colors by value.

The yellow is definitely the light. To the right is green as medium, red as dark. To the left of yellow, pink is medium, green is dark. For this project, the left side won (I decided not to go for another consultation!). I'll choose a different fabric from each group for each block.

Here's the first block:

Only twelve more to go!

Holiday Sewing UFO Style

2011-11-02T13:29:00.004-04:00

Pulled this cute project from the unfinished bin a couple of days ago. It's the perfect start to holiday sewing.

The pattern is Little Scraps Spring Garden by This & That Patterns. It uses a little more than one charm pack. I didn't read the pattern closely enough to realize it took more than one charm pack but it was easy enough to supplement from my stash. I caught myself humming holiday carols while sewing, which is a good sign for this season of sewing.

Just Cutting Scraps

2011-11-01T08:00:00.000-04:00

It almost happened again. I was cutting scraps into usable sizes and I found another set of half-square triangles. It was really late at night and I was too tired to cut much more and too tired to sew, but not too tired to play. Here's what was left on the floor when I went to bed:

Oh, the temptation was great, but I didn't know what I would do with the finished pieces and I decided I'd rather have a bigger quilt. Everything was neatly stacked and kept together.

Whenever I get back to them, they're going to become an awesome quilt.

Scrappy Fabric Tree

2011-10-31T08:10:00.003-04:00

Holley, a dear friend and awesome quilter/sewer/knitter/crafter, stopped by the shop with her latest creation. It is from a current magazine issue, but I can't remember which one. I took the picture to use as a reference for making my own, but I just couldn't resist sharing this cutie with you.

It is five fabric circles held together by a button sewn in the center. Toss them in the wash to get the frazzled edge effect. Pin them to a styrofoam base with dressmakers pins. Cute, cute, cute! Of course we started talking about all the other colors and shapes that these fabric circles could be applied to. Use a standard wreath shape, use a sphere to make an ornament, or use a heart for Valentine's Day. Go formal with silver or gold buttons, or make a winter version with blues and whites.

What a great use of scraps! This project is definitely going on my list of gifts to make this year.

Scrappy Bow Tie

2011-10-27T14:04:00.009-04:00

One of my favorite things to do with down time in my sewing room is to cut scraps. It's like a walk down memory lane. How did I come to have this fabric? What project was it originally used for? It is very satisfying to take odd size fabric and make useful units for future projects. Very therapeutic.

With the recent sewing room clean out, I had discovered several small "special" bins of scraps. I really don't know why they were special, but they had garnered their very own bin. So I dumped one out and commenced with cutting. Quickly, I noticed they were very well color coordinated. I think I used this set to teach cutting techniques a few years back. After cutting a good stack of fabric, I started playing with them. Hey, this looks good as a block. Pretty soon, I had a rough layout for a quilt.

It was time to call in the family. What do you think? What should I change? Once the invitation is issued, anything goes with the arrangement. More random? Less random? What about these smaller squares? After a few iterations, it was time to get to sewing. All the while, I'm trying to figure out how I wrangled myself into making a quilt when all I planned to do was cut a few scraps.

Here's the finished top. Most of the half square triangles were already sewn in the bin. Sometimes it is fun to just work with what you have and make it happen.

This was NOT going to end up in the unfinished project pile. I stuck with simple quilting. It is all straight lines about a half inch inside the bigger blocks and in the ditch around the border rows. A dark brown binding finishes it off. I was all set to do scrappy brown binding, but found a piece big enough to do the job.

Whew! I didn't know I needed to get a quilt out of my system. Now, maybe, I can get back to scrap cutting for a while.

Post Show Thoughts

2011-10-26T15:54:00.003-04:00

With a full day of vending under my belt, it was time to revamp the booth. While I didn't officially have a prime corner booth, it just so happened that there was a pass through on one side of me. All it took was a little push of the curtains, the addition of a few signs and, voila!, a corner booth.

This really helped with traffic flow and seemed to increase sales a bit. The show ended on Saturday evening. The end of the show was the one time I was happy to have one of the smaller booths and less stuff. We had it taken down and packed in an hour. While I enjoyed the entire experience, my body needed a break. I slept twelve hours Saturday night.

What I like most about vending is the short time frame of setup, show, and take down. It's intense while it's happening, but then there's a nice break once it is over.

What I didn't like about it is the lack of relationship building. I love all my customers. I love helping people decide on and put together a project. I love being able to call you by name when you walk through the door. And I love that there's time to get to know your quilting vibe. I mentioned this to one of the veteran vendors and she told me that instead of a relationship with customers, the relationship centers on other vendors. A lot of the folks I met had toured the country together vending at this show or that throughout the year. I'm not sure if that is an adequate substitute, but certainly better than no relationships at all.

Will I do it again? Probably. I'll at least be pondering the possibilities.

Show Set Up and Day 1

2011-10-20T21:21:00.007-04:00

Today was the first day of the Georgia Quilt Show. Yesterday was set up day, which I left in the hands of two wonderful fellows. They took the booth from this:

to this in a matter of a few hours.

They did an awesome job. There are a couple of things to note about this booth. First, I thought I was getting a 6x10 booth. About two weeks ago, I learned I was getting a 10x10 booth which is a great thing, just difficult to fill on short notice. Also, I thought the side walls were going to be three feet tall rather than the full eight feet tall so I didn't have anything to hang on them. We added one more quilt and some signs right before the show started to help them look less blank, and I'll know to have extras and backups next time around. Here's another picture of the booth that makes it look quite full.

And here's what I spent most of the day doing:

I am demonstrating our no sew fusible coasters to show how all of our no sew fusible products are made (fast and easy!). As you can see, there were lots of interested passers by.

I've had a few minutes to meet my neighbors who are all very encouraging. My next door neighbor is Pam from NH Quilter's Emporium. She's been doing shows like this for a long time. Her cash register is just on the other side of the curtain from my demo station. She gets to listen to my demonstrations all day long. A few times, she's leaned over and offered tidbits to polish up my presentation. They've been good tips, too.

The show continues on Friday from 10am-6pm and Saturday from 10am-5:30pm. If you're able to attend, stop by booth 129 and say hello.

Playing With Food

2011-10-15T10:30:00.000-04:00

Some time during the summer, I decided that I wasn't doing enough fun stuff with the kids. I started looking for recipes and crafts that we would all enjoy. Last night was an adventure in food. My youngest insisted that we document the results.

Large pasta shells, sloppy joe mix, carrot slices, American cheese, some pickles, and a little creativity turned our meal into a parade of monsters.

Even with food this fun, one kid ate the sloppy joe mix and not the shells and another ate the pasta shells and not the sloppy joe mix. At least it all got eaten one way or another.

This is one meal where it was perfectly okay to play with your food.

Apron Style

2011-10-14T10:10:00.000-04:00

Once I finished sewing all of the samples for the show next week, I still had a couple of things I wanted to make for me. One is an apron and the other is a name tag holder. I designed and finished the apron this week. It's meant to hold change so that I can get to it fast and easy during the show. I'm always losing and looking for things here at the shop so I knew the more things I could attach to my body at the show, the better.

The bottom pockets are loose and intended to hold coins, while the top pockets are smooth and flat for paper and a pen. This is the first apron I've made without a pattern and I'm pleased with the way it turned out. I made the ties extra long so that I could wrap it all the way around and tie it in the front. I'm not sure I like the big bow in the front so I tried just wrapping it back around to the back.

The last way I tried it was to just tie it in the back without wrapping it around.

My daughter likes the big bow in front the best. It's almost a bit too much fluff for me. I'm leaning toward the simple tie it in the back version. The logo stands out better and the whole thing looks cleaner and simpler. I'll have to shorten the ties if I go with this option. What do you think?

Getting Ready for the Show

2011-10-13T14:07:00.001-04:00

I am preparing to vend at the Georgia Quilt Show next week. It's my first big adventure into vending so of course it's been a whirlwind of activity. I'm going as FourKidZooDesigns which is the part of my business that designs patterns and makes no sew fusible kits.

We've been making lots of kits. Here's the very unglamorous kit making central at home. Teenagers are very good at kit assembly. I am so thankful for one who helps without complaint.

There weren't any classes scheduled at the shop until Thursday this week so I took over our classroom to mock up the booth. The interesting thing is that I won't be going to the show on setup day. Handy husband Duane and dear friend John have the honor of booth set up. I'll be staying behind to keep the shop open. It's great that they are able to take care of it for me. They will be able to work out all those little tweaks that happen during set up which will ease my stress level tremendously. I drew a map of where everything should go.

The booth is 10 feet by 10 feet. This seems like a huge amount of space to me and it took a bit to get it just right. This is what I hope the back wall will look like. I'm not exactly sure how the quilts will be hung and I'm leaving it to the guys to figure that one out. They'll take sticks, clamps, chains, and string. Some combination of those items should do the trick.

This is at the front of the booth. On top of this set up, I'll be doing fusible coaster demonstrations. Seeing is believing when it comes to fast and easy projects. Demos are also a good way for me to meet and chat with folks. You can see where I turned tables on their sides to mark the booth boundary.

In the mousepad department, I'll have kits to make your own as well as finished products.

In the center of it all will be this spinny rack, full of fat quarters. There will be a few project kits too, which you can sort of see in the cubes behind the spinny rack.

It will be fun to see how these pictures compare to the real booth. If you're going to the Georgia Quilt Show (at the Gwinnett Civic Center October 20-22), stop by and say hello. I'll be in booth 129.

Ribbon Organizer

2011-10-12T12:36:00.006-04:00

The sewing room continues to improve. The second set of cubes went in last weekend.

The third set is scheduled to be built this weekend. It's come together way faster than I thought. It's so nice to have all my books and patterns in one place. Before, they were scattered all over the house on whatever shelf space was available.

Here's the first set of cubes from the initial set up. Check out the stacks of ribbon in the top center cube.

They look pretty good in the picture, but they are just a mess waiting to happen. You can already see how some of the ends are starting to unwrap. I snagged a great idea from pinterest for organizing ribbon. Look at it now.

I used a crochet hook to pull each ribbon through the hole. It took a while to get it set up but it works great. No more unwinding, tangled ribbon mess. The bins are a fairly common size and style and can be found at most big box stores. I'm such an organization nerd.

Sewing Room Face Lift

2011-09-30T14:53:00.011-04:00

It all started with a phone call from someone I had only met a few times. She is a fellow quilting professional and just happened to think of me. I love this industry. We all do what we can to take care of each other. She says, "We're getting ready to move and I have a cutting table and some storage cubbies I'm not taking with me. Would you like to take a look at them?"

Duane (my handy husband) and I went to her home to have a look. I was overwhelmed. I wish I had taken pictures of her basement studio. It was, for the most part, packed up, but it was a fabulous space. And she didn't mean just a few cubbies. She meant over 70 cubbies. I was in organization heaven. The cutting table was 4 feet by 8 feet, which is huge! And she was giving me all of this free. It's probably as close to winning the lottery as I'll ever get. It was much more than I expected so we headed back home to get our trailer, some tools, and a teenager to help. After deconstruction and reconstruction, we have finished the first phase of this project.

Here's my sewing room before the new additions. The chair on the right is pulled up to my cutting table.

Pay no attention to the ugly sofa. It's the dog sofa and the only piece of furniture the dog can lay on.

Here's the room after.

Much neater and more organized. Here's a closer look at the table. It was too big for the room so Duane cut it down to 4 feet x 6 feet. It is fabulous.

That is an 18"x24" cutting mat, to help you get the perspective of how big this table really is. The first thing I did was put a skirt on it. The two sides that can be seen as you enter the room are covered in a dark blue fabric. Here's why:

Look at all that storage! My son told me it looked like a whole basement was under there. All of my overstuffed plastic bins fit under there perfectly and all of the supplies I like to keep close by are right beside me in the white cubes.

Remember, there were over 70 cubbies. Duane reconstructed, reinforced, and painted nine of them. He will be building two more identical units to go with this one.

I love being able to see everything in the open cubes. The glass jars on top hold all of the scraps I have been cutting. Each jar holds a different size square or rectangle. It's been fun watching them fill. There is definitely a scrap quilt in my future.

This was a totally unplanned and unexpected project. I have always appreciated having a dedicated sewing space, and these latest improvements just enhance the joy that sewing and quilting bring me.

Photo Shoot

2011-09-23T10:01:00.008-04:00

You just never know what is going to happen next at Dragonfly Quilt Shop. One evening this week, photojournalism student Kimberly Parks spent some time taking pictures of me at the shop. She is a good friend of my daughter and needed subject matter for an environmental photo assignment. I didn't understand exactly what that meant but learned that she needed a photo of a professional person doing what they do best.

I hate, hate, hate having my picture taken, but I know this is something I just need to get over and hey, I'll do just about anything to help advance the education and career of an up and coming photojournalist. And I also keep getting asked to make YouTube videos for stuff at the shop so there's another reason to just do it. Yep, it won't be long before you can see me in awkward poses not only in still photos but videos, too! Life just keeps getting better.

One reason Kimberly wanted to use me for her subject is that she had a new flash for her camera that she was not familiar with and thought it best to fumble around with someone she sort of knew rather than with a total stranger. Let me just say that she caught on to that flash pretty quickly. I was impressed.

After walking around the shop a bit and talking to me about what I do, she decided to set me up at the cutting table. My only job was to act like I was cutting fabric and look directly into the camera.

She proceeded to take pictures from all positions and angles while trying the flash at all different angles and exposures. I just stood there and looked into the camera. We had to reposition a few things to get the shot the way she liked it, too. And I just stood there. Modeling is definitely not in my future. I know you were all wondering about that.

After we finished with her assignment, she offered to take some head shots of me so, you know, when I become famous, they'll be right there ready for publication. Here are the final results:

Thank you, Kimberly, for taking great photos and pushing this camera shy girl into the spotlight for a bit.

Kanzashi Challenge Results

2011-09-16T11:09:00.010-04:00

The Kanzashi Flower Challenge projects are on display at the shop throughout the month of September. I love the variety of projects that were completed. It is always inspiring to see the many interpretations of a single idea.

Fay Rawls made this cute necklace...

...and this bouquet of flowers.

Pat Schroder made these darling teddy bears. Apparently, they've been rolling in the flowers. She called her creation "Evolution of a Honey Bear".

Shirley Bryant made a beautiful floral piece. Shirley has an excellent eye for color.

Holley Downs made two projects for the challenge. The first is "I love ewe". This was the first project turned in for the challenge and when I saw it, I knew this was going to be a fun challenge.

Holley's second project is a conversation quilt. And she was right; we had a great time standing around the cutting table talking about the various elements in her quilt. I love the paint stick and clothes pin hanger.

And here's my finished pillow.

So, of course my mind is spinning with what we should do for the next shop challenge. Ideas welcome!

Sample Sewing for the Shop

2011-09-12T13:39:00.006-04:00

The hint of changing seasons always reminds me that it is time to make other changes, too. I've been sewing away on some new samples for the shop. The first two went up last week with many more to follow.

This pattern is a good one for a fast project to show off a beautiful fabric. It's a good size for a baby quilt, too. One lesson I learned on this one is to wait until after the border is pieced to cut the center square. My center square was smaller than my border so I added a skinny border to make it the right size. This was one of those happy mistakes since this quilt would be really bland without the splash of color the skinny border brings. I'll also bind this one with the darker color. I just love how the pink, brown, and gold work together in this quilt.

This table runner is one of my favorite go to patterns when I want to show off new fabric in the shop. It's fast and its classy. The pattern is Mirror Image by Pieced Tree Patterns. We've probably used this one four or five times in the shop. This time it is showing off fabric from Nancy Halvorsen's newest fabric collection, Bittersweet.

I just finished this one this morning. It is an Atkinson Designs pattern called Happy Holidays. The pattern has instructions for three sizes so it can be a table topper or Christmas tree skirt. This is the smallest size. I was going for a subtle holiday look. The trick to success for this project is accurate 1/4" seams. Those 60 degree triangles become uncooperative in a hurry if your seam allowance is too big or too small.

I made these placemats over the weekend. They work best on a round table. This was a fun project. Rather than choose just one fabric layout for all four placemats, I used each fabric in a different place each time. This was a good study on how the same fabric and the same pattern can yield some very different results.

There are three more projects waiting for me on the sewing table. I'm excited to get the shop all freshened up for fall!

Kanzashi Challenge

2011-08-18T13:39:00.011-04:00

Kanzashi...I really like saying that word. Customers keep asking me how to pronounce it and I say it for them even though I have no idea if I'm anywhere close to being right. It's okay. Foreign words spoken with a southern twang enrich society, right?

Anyway, we're doing a Kanzashi challenge at the shop. Entries are due by the end of August. Though I don't do many, I love participating in challenges when I can. The challenge is to make something using the Kanzashi flower makers by Clover. I added to my challenge by deciding to make something that did not require any additional fabric purchases. While I was sitting in my sewing room trying to decide what to do, my eye wandered to my bowl of selveges.

Yes, that's it. I'll make something using selveges. I cut an 18" square muslin base and went to work sewing the selveges to the base. In the process, I started thinking about making a pillow. When the square of muslin was fully covered, I squared it up and sewed two sides together to form a tube.

At this point, I was ready to abandon the pillow and turn it into a wind sock. But I didn't. The next step was to sew circles to each end. I wanted to do something with the flower makers other than just make the expected flowers, so I used the small pointed flower maker and made trim to go around the circles on the end. This worked out perfectly because the 2 1/2" blue squares from my stash fit just right into the flower makers.

It took about 30 petals to make it around the outside of my circle. I sewed one end to my pillow.

It reminds me of a sunflower. I almost forgot to leave an opening to turn the pillow right side out so I had to make some handy work with my seam ripper before sewing on the other end. I opened up the middle of the main pillow seam. That will leave me a place to turn it as well as a place to insert my stuffing. Once both ends were on, I turned it right side out. It still needed a little something so I used the large pointed flower makers and made two flowers to embellish the front. The blue buttons are part of a vintage set that I've been wanting to use for a long time.

For stuffing, I used all the fabric trash I've been saving.

All of these bits are too small to be used for anything else. They make for a very soft pillow but I didn't have enough. I haven't closed up my pillow yet so I'll save some more and then cut up some odd batting pieces to finish it off.

Pretty good for the tiny bit of planning that went into it. I think it's quite cute and I'm so happy to have found a good use for all those selveges. I can't wait to see how it looks once I get it fully stuffed.

In the Patch

2011-08-09T19:10:00.002-04:00

I've been moving at a slower pace the last couple of weeks, relishing those last lazy days of summer. Without any exciting pictures to post, you'll have to settle for a laundry list of what I've been doing. More details and more pictures to come in the next few days.

- Made a cute, cute purse using a pattern by Atkinson Designs and high heel shoe fabric!

- Working on a class to teach above mentioned purse.

- Cut out a pumpkin wall hanging from an Eleanor Burns pattern.

- Working on a class for that one, too.

- Working on a secret project for the shop's Kanzashi flower challenge.

- Making plans for a booth at a quilt show this fall.

- Procrastinating machine quilting two quilts that must be done soon!

- Prepping with the kids for back to school (which starts tomorrow).

- And last, but not least, participated in an interview that lead to this article about Dragonfly Quilt Shop in the Oconee Patch!

New Patterns

2011-07-27T09:59:00.003-04:00

My two newest patterns, Pocket Palooza and File Folder Holder are hot off the presses. Thanks for all the great feedback. Your comments led to the creation of the File Folder Holder pattern.

You can purchase a copy in the shop or, even better, make one in class with me this Saturday from 9:00am-1:00pm. The pattern is included in the class registration fee.

Organizing the stash

2011-07-24T16:59:00.008-04:00

Yes, today is the day to start organizing the stash. I have been reading about various ways to organize and I finally decided to go for it. These baskets house less than half of my stash. It is already fairly well sorted by color, except for a few special categories that I keep separately (Kaffe Fassett, Nancy Halvorsen, Batiks, Christmas, and large multi-color prints).

The problem is that within a basket I can't see everything and I have no idea how much there is of any particular fabric.

Most of the articles I read had a lot of talk about how to fold and store yardage. My stash has very little yardage and a whole lot of scraps. My friend Fay turned me on to the Bonnie Hunter method of dealing with scraps and that's when I started seeing the possibility of a real solution. Bonnie encourages you to go ahead and cut your scraps into pre-determined sizes so that when you're ready to make a scrappy quilt, your fabric is already cut and ready for you to sew. At first I was really nervous about cutting up my already small pieces of fabric, but after looking at all the quilts Bonnie has made using her scrap system, I was hooked. Check out Bonnie Hunter's web site Quiltville. Here's one little stack from the blue bin. See what I mean about all different shapes and sizes.

Can you believe this is the same fabric? I love it already.

Everything has a home and I'll know just what I have. On the cutting mat are 5" squares, 3 1/2" squares, 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" bricks, 2 1/2" squares, 2" x 3 1/2" bricks, 2" squares, 3 1/2" strips, 2 1/2" strips, and 2" strips. A strip is considered anything that is 12" or longer. In the first jar is scraps for the birds. It's the tiniest of pieces and threads from squaring up fabric or blocks. Put them outside in the spring and the birds will use them in their nest building. The birds around here will have the prettiest nests around. The second jar holds crumbs. These are tiny pieces that are too small to be cut into any standard piece, but still big enough to be sewn. The third jar holds strings, which are narrow strips and scraps used in string quilting. The last jar holds 1 1/2" squares.

I was very excited to be making my fabric stash more accessible and usable with very little waste. I was even cutting off usable selvages and putting them in a special bowl. And then I looked in the trash can.

Look at all that fabric. I am trying to be more conscientious about wasting things so this much fabric in the trash can just would not do. To rescue it, I am making a muslin pillow form. All of the scraps that are too small to sew will be thrown in the pillow form. When it is stuffed full, I'll make a scrappy pillow cover for it. Waste resolved.

Cutting up an entire stash of scraps is not a job for the faint of heart. What I've shown here represents about one tenth of my blue fabric stash. It will take a really long time to get this all done. However, I enjoyed what I've done so far. It is relaxing in the sense that as I cut a fabric, I think about what it was originally used for, who else I know that has some of the same fabric, and what else was going on when that fabric came into my stash.

As an added incentive, I asked my husband to pick out his favorite quilt on Bonnie Hunter's web site. We're trying to have a homemade Christmas this year, so a scrappy quilt just got added to my list. I guess I better get busy cutting some more scraps.

Zipper ornaments

2011-07-21T18:17:00.004-04:00

I've been seeing lots of zipper crafts and have been wanting to try some for myself, and possibly for the shop. Indygo Junction has some really cute zipper patterns and I love how they made ornaments out of them. They also have packages of zipper tape in assorted colors that is perfect for their projects. I ordered one of each to try and here are the partially completed results. I think they're cute.

They still need to have hangers attached. I like the look that is on the pattern but I'm not sure how secure they will be over time. The pattern suggests hot glue which is not something I'm fond of using. It would be okay for a temporary bond but I'm determined to figure out a way to securely sew them.

These will look good with some of the other ornament ideas that are in the works. These pattern and ribbon packs will be showing up at the shop soon.

Feels Good to Finish

2011-07-11T17:17:00.006-04:00

Oh, how good it feels to mark a few things off the to do list.

Last week, I mentioned that I was participating in a blog sew along with Daisy Janie. It was a great experience and I really enjoyed making the project. There were lots of reasons I decided to participate:

It looked like fun (and it was!)
It allowed me to use up some really old supplies.
Not a planned reason, but it really helped me understand better how to write good instructions. Jan did a fabulous job in both words and pictures.
I might want to host my own sew along some time in the future, and what better way to learn than to participate.

So, from my point of view, it was a huge success. It is a really sturdy hip pouch because it is lined with canvas and has two interior pockets. I love the use of the overall buckle. This is definitely a project that will get used on a regular basis.

The other project I finished is the Nancy Halvorsen Jingle All the Way quilt top. This quilt top will be hung in the shop tomorrow morning. I'd love to get it quilted first, but that will have to wait a bit.

I really like the scrappy look and the pieced border. It is a bright, cheery quilt that will certainly freshen up any place it hangs.

There are still plenty of projects hanging out on my to do list. The next couple of priorities are to write a pattern and prep for a class I'll be teaching in a couple of weeks and to make some cute Christmas ornaments using zippers. I'm looking forward to sharing both with you in the not too distant future.

Fun on the 4th

2011-07-10T20:09:00.008-04:00

Even though it's been almost a week since our country celebrated its independence, I wanted to share all the fun we had that day. It all started with a good ol' southern parade, which included an entry by my dear friend John and his beautiful truck.

I really appreciated him advertising the shop while riding in the parade.

From the parade, we visited Lake Buckhorn where we enjoyed a traditional hamburger and hot dog cook out, watermelon, pound cake, and homemade ice cream. I was determined to fit in as much fun as I possibly could in the day so I...

canoed,
paddleboated (pedalboated?),
and fished.

The little guys preferred to play in the water, and did so almost the entire day.

It really was a great day for all of us.

Progress and Projects

2011-07-03T14:08:00.004-04:00

The Jingle All the Way quilt top is coming along. Here's the finished top without borders.

There are three borders on this quilt. I'm at a stand still until the fabric arrives in the shop. None of the three borders are typical (the middle one is pieced) so I think the finished top is going to look fabulous.

So while I'm waiting for fabric to arrive, I found a sew along that I'm going to participate in. I recently started following Daisy Janie's blog and she's doing a sew along on July 6, 7, and 8. She's making a cool hip pouch. If you'd like to play too, you can find the supply list here. I've never participated in a sew along and I thought it would be fun to try it.

The best part about this one is that it uses supplies that I already have on hand. Over the years, I have collected quite a few notions. I think about cleaning them out from time to time, but they all fall into that "you never know" category. This project is one of those "you never know" times.

Check out the packaging on the supplies. I am certain they were purchased in the 1970s. We'll see if they self destruct once the package is opened. It will be a fun sew along for the next few days.

Laptop Cover

2011-06-28T10:24:00.005-04:00

Had to take a break from the quilt top today because my daughter, Erica, asked me to help her make a case for her laptop. She had been thinking and talking about it for a while so it was just time to get it done. We make a pretty good team. She chose the fabric and talked me through the design she wanted. The chair and sofa fabric came from Etsy for a steal.

I figured out the measurements and did the cutting. We both sewed and pressed.

She loves it and so do I. We're going to do a bit more work on the closure. Right now it has a velcro strip to keep it closed. The flap corners stick up a bit too much so we're either going to change the flap so that it angles in more like an envelope or we're going to add an elastic closure that wraps around the entire case.

I have a thing for fabric with chairs on it. Not only did we get the sofa print in red, but in purple, too. There were enough scraps from all of it to make yet another cute something.

Quilt top in progress

2011-06-26T20:19:00.004-04:00

Quilt top in progress...and it's going to be a good one. The fabric is Jingle All the Way by Nancy Halvorsen. We are big supporters of all things Nancy Halvorsen at the shop and this year her holiday fabric collection has a bit more of a kick than in previous years. The colors are brighter, the prints more whimsical. As with most of her collection, the prints are small scale or tone on tone. They are perfect for scrappy quilts or quilts with smaller pieces. I haven't made a quilt top with this much detail in a while and I'm enjoying the challenge of precision piecing. It's not the quilt on the cover, but one of the great projects inside the book.

I've made more progress since this picture was taken and am very pleased with the results so far. One of the things I like about this sort of project is that you can never be certain of the end result until the quilt top is completed. My goal is to get the quilt top finished by the time the fabric arrives at the shop, hopefully by the end of this week.

I can't say enough good things about the book 40 Fabulous Quick-Cut Quilts. With most books, there are one or two projects that cause me to purchase it. More than half the projects in this book are on my "to make" list. This is a great book if you love precision piecing.

It's going to be an exciting sewing week. I'll show you the results as soon as I can!

Stash Frustration and A New Project

2011-06-13T20:24:00.006-04:00

Why does it take so long to choose fabrics from my stash? I only needed four fabrics. My sewing room was relatively clean when I started and here's what it looked like after I found the fabric I needed. I've really got to come up with a better way to organize my fabric stash.

Here are the four pieces of fabric I selected.

Here's the project at the half way point. I was skeptical at this point because this looked very boring.

And here it is as a finished top. It still needs to be quilted and bound, but I think it turned out quite nice.

This was really easy to make. It only took an afternoon and that includes cleaning up the sewing room. In the next month or two, I'll be adding the Twisted Wreath as a class at the shop.

New DIY Kits

2011-06-12T19:12:00.007-04:00

There are two new DIY kits available in my Etsy store. One of them came about as part of a special customer request. She had purchased both the mousepad making kit and coaster making kit. She was looking for something bigger, say the size of three mousepads, to use under her sewing machine. What a great idea! After a bit of research, I was able to find a 10"x16" base. It works great for most machines. The base is 1/8" thick so it's very flexible and easy to store so if you take your machine to classes, you can take your mat, too. It sure helps minimize the bouncing and vibrating that can happen on some tables.

The other new DIY kit is to make your own fabric covered note cards. I've had finished cards available for a while, and thought it would be fun to make a kit for you to do your own. Each kit comes with four cards, four envelopes, and four pieces of two-sided fusible web. You can choose white or ivory. Use florals, novelty prints, or even orphan blocks to make beautiful cards like these:

Enjoy!

Simply Squares Pattern

2011-06-04T15:01:00.005-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about customers who come into the shop and find a fabric they love but don't have a project in mind. For those who always make big quilts, two or three yards seems to be the right amount. Others tend to make more smaller projects. That's who I've been thinking about lately. With so many of us pinching our pennies, less is more. With that in mind, I'm developing designs that can be completed with half a yard or less of each fabric. Here is my latest design, Simply Squares. It is perfect for newer quilters because it is very straight forward. It's also good for those with some experience. It is a fast project to make and also includes instructions for mitered borders. The quilt top finishes at 36" square and requires a half yard or less of five different fabrics.

I was playing around with the design a bit to see how it would work as a big quilt. Here's what happens if you make four of the quilt centers and rotate them to make a symmetrical design.

A bigger size like this would need more substantial borders than the smaller version. If you added six inches to each side in borders, this quilt would measure 68" square. You would need two yards each of the three fabrics for the blocks, a half yard for the inner border, and 1-1/4 yards for an outer border. I like that it's possible to make both a small quilt and a big quilt from the same pattern.

This pattern is available at the shop and in the Etsy store. I'll also be teaching it as a class on Saturday, June 25 or Tuesday, June 28 at 9:00am.

From fabric to a Flirty Flower

2011-05-26T18:37:00.013-04:00

It all started with a little sewing trade. I would do some sewing in exchange for some fabric. Sounds like a good trade, doesn't it? You'd think that since I'm around fabric all day long that this would be no big deal. It turned into a very big deal. The earned fabric stash came home with me and my mind exploded with ideas. I started sketching and arranging and sewing and just going crazy. It has been a whirlwind of creativity with no signs of a slow down coming anytime soon.

Today, I have the pleasure of introducing the first FourKidZooDesigns pattern. Say hello to the Flirty Flower Wall Hanging. I love projects that have some dimension to them. This cute wall hanging finishes at 17" x 27 1/2". The first sample is made using Jennifer Heynen's Polka Dot Garden fabric. The second sample is made primarily from Amy Butler's Soul Blossom fabric with a touch of Heather Bailey thrown in. The Amy Butler version is on display at the shop.

The pattern is available in the shop and through the FourKidZooDesigns Etsy store. Hopefully, this is just the beginning.

Cereal Box Files

2011-05-19T18:13:00.006-04:00

Got a little crafty with my girl today. She recently moved home for her last year of college and wanted to do some organizing in her room. We are both tired of the basic, boring plastic storage boxes and bins. So we started collecting cereal boxes. We added some paint, some fabric, and a little Mod Podge.

First, the boxes were cut to the right size. Then all four sides were painted. The paint was leftover from when the room was painted so we had a perfect match.

We cut fabric to fit the ends, then used Mod Podge to glue and seal it.

The result is a fashionable, inexpensive set of files. We're working on a cute way to add "In" and "Out" to each box. Turn them to see the papers when you need them, then turn them to face the wall when you just want to look at something pretty.

There's a great tutorial for making these, and lots of other projects over on Sew Many Ways blog. Find the entry here.

A Wedding Reception for Quilts

2011-05-18T11:45:00.014-04:00

Have you ever been to a wedding reception where no one got married? We did just that at the shop this past Saturday. Fay Rawls hosted a fabulous wedding reception and show and tell party. Last year, she and Mary Colley spent a year teaching blocks from the Sylvia's Bridal Sampler book. All of their students worked really hard and finished some beautiful quilts.

There was wedding cake.

There was punch.

There were nuts, mints, party favors, and rose petals.

All of this was great fun. But the best part was the quilts.

The next two were made by the same maker. She named them "Sylvia" and "Andrew".

This one hasn't been pieced yet, but it was made from old shirts. The blocks look great.

I love show and tell parties. It's always fun to see how the same quilt can be made in so many different ways. It's also great inspiration for starting a new project. Most of the finished tops are on display in our classroom for the next couple of weeks. If you can, you should stop by and see them in person.

A big thank you to Fay for putting on a great party, and to her husband Jess, who took all of the pictures in this post.

Movie Night

2011-05-15T12:16:00.009-04:00

Once a year, our community sponsors a movie on the lawn night at one of our local parks. This is our second year attending. The fun started at 6pm with games, a moon walk, and big slide. There were food vendors, too. The weather threatened rain all day but by the time the event started, the skies were clearing. We packed a picnic for the festivities so we had good food and good temperatures for the daylight hours.

It's becoming a rare thing for us to do something like this with the entire family in attendance, and I was very happy we were able to be together for an evening. Here's me and the hubby (in a totally unplanned pose):

the oldest and the youngest,

the oldest son and his girlfriend,

and the two youngest in a semi-pose that I caught between their wrestling rounds.

After the sun went down, the temperature dropped quickly. We had jackets but still had to snuggle to keep warm. The movie was Despicable Me. It just gets an "okay" rating from me, which is fine since I was going much more for the family time anyway.

New Mouse Pads

2011-05-04T07:37:00.001-04:00

Made some new mouse pads for the Etsy shop this morning. My two favorites from this group are this funky orange mushroom print and the red chairs. Both are super fun.

Cultural Arts Night

2011-05-03T13:07:00.011-04:00

Hello all. Long time no blog. It's been a little busy, which means there are lots of things to blog about, just not much time to get it written down. Last night I had the pleasure of exhibiting at Oconee County Elementary School's Cultural Arts Night. My job was to show things quilty and answer questions for anyone interested in the art of quilting. It was a great event and full of fun activities for the kiddos.

Don't you love the artwork on the wall behind me? Makes me want to make a quilt with kid art all over it.

What I was trying to show with my display was how quilting has changed over the years. I had old quilts from my grandmother, some quilt magazines from the early 1980s, cardboard templates and scissors. On the opposite side of the table, I had my rotary cutter, ruler, and mat. There were current quilting magazines and books. I also had some smaller projects to show that you can do so much more than make a big quilt. There were quilts draped on chairs all around my table.

At the entrance to our room, there was a big sign that said "Quilting Demonstration". Throughout the event, I worked on hand sewing the binding to a quilt. Not much of a demonstration, but hey, it was the best I could do.

I was fortunate to share the room with Jennifer Heynen, who was doing bead and button making demonstrations. She is also the designer of the fabric in the quilt I am binding. Beautiful.

There were music demonstrations, physical education activities, student art displays, and an instrument petting zoo where the kids could try out all sorts of musical instruments. All during the evening, I kept thinking my phone was vibrating. It wasn't until the end of the night that I realized it was the low horns being tried out by the kids that I was hearing!

Even though this isn't the school my kids attend, they went with me as assistants. At the end of the evening, they were ready to sell our house and move so they could attend this school. I'd say that is a sign of a successful event.

Featured Fabric of the Week

2011-04-18T15:56:00.009-04:00

A friend of mine recently suggested that I start featuring a bolt of fabric at the shop. Just one? Really? Well, why not! So here is this week's fabric. I may be jumping the gun a bit by saying "of the week" but we'll see how it goes. It was certainly fun putting together something for this week.

Here's the best part. This bolt of fabric, and only this bolt, is available to in store customers for only $5 a yard. And we're not talking clearance or discount stuff here. This is top quality, top designer fabric. It's Kaffe Fassett's Cogs in yellow. Very fun and very springy. And look, we've already selected a great set of coordinates to work with it (Thanks Jessica!).

Jessica says she would take the entire group of coordinates, use the Easy Dresden template and make a dresden plate pillow with the featured fabric as the center of the dresden and then also as the back of the pillow. Great idea.

How about taking a few of those coordinates and making an adorable girl's skirt from the book Sweet Sassy Skirts?

And after you make the skirt, you can make a cute butterfly yo-yo, attach it to a headband, and have a very well coordinated little girl. Add an applique of a butterfly shape to a t-shirt for a complete spring outfit.

I love the Four Corners Apron pattern to show off any fabric. Pair the featured fabric with any of its coordinates for a great spring apron. My personal favorite coordinate for this project is the blue swirly fabric about halfway down on the left behind the pattern.

Another idea is to play around with the blocks in one of our newer books, Fusible Magic.

Just think, if you played around with five of these blocks, set them on point, and used the featured fabric for your setting blocks, you'd have an awesome spring wall hanging.

There are even more ideas that you can see in the shop. There won't be a big sign with the sale price. Just tell us you saw it here when you check out and we'll be sure to give you a great deal on our first ever featured fabric special.

Hope to see you in the shop this week!

Inspired by Zentangle

2011-04-16T23:12:00.013-04:00

I love quilter's gossip. It goes something like this:
Did you see last Thursday's episode of Quilting Arts? Well, I didn't see it either, but I was talking to Holley, and she said they were talking about this new way to design a quilt. You just take a piece of paper and doodle on it, you know, like you used to do in school when you were bored. Wait, let me think. Oh yeah, they called it Zentangle.

And that's all it took to get me started. A little quilter's gossip. I wanted to try it just because the name sounded fun AND I was an awesome doodler in school. So, with only a name and a brief description, I set out to create my own fabric Zentangle. I decided to make a design for a small embroidery hoop. I took a pencil and drew/scribbled randomly on a piece of paper. I drew the circle of the hoop as my boundaries, and filled in each section with a different fabric.

I was off to a good start, but wanted to do more. For my next project, I decided to add an image to the center of design.

Next, I traced the inside of the embroidery hoop to establish a boundary. Then I closed my eyes and lightly drew lines all over the design. I drew in a pattern of gently curving lines horizontally and vertically. They can barely be seen in the picture.

Next, I darkened the lines that I wanted to use as part of the design and made a few adjustments to make sure I didn't have any super tiny pieces.

Next, I numbered each of the sections.

I remembered a charm pack of dragonfly prints that had been given to me several years ago. It was perfect for this project. I chose 15 of the charm squares and tried to stick with blue, purple, and pink.

Then I traced all of those sections onto double sided fusible interfacing. Steam-a-Seam 2 Lite is my fusible of choice. I tried to be careful and trace exactly on the line if it was on the outside of the circle or directly connected to the dragonfly. All other lines were traced about a sixteenth of an inch inside the line.

I cut the numbered pieces apart and assigned them to a fabric. Normally, I would let this occur in a totally random fashion, but I wanted to be sure that light fabrics were next to the dragonfly and since I was using most of them twice, I wanted to be sure they weren't too close together.

I ironed each piece to the back of the fabric, and cut them out. Then I began placing them on the background fabric. This was a little tricky since the resulting picture is the mirror image of the drawing I made. If I do more of these, I will be sure to reverse the image before tracing it onto the fusible interfacing. It can be tricky to put together a puzzle using the mirror image!

Nothing was ironed down until the entire piece was laid out. It's a good thing too because I had to make a number of adjustments to make everything fit. I can tell I need to be more precise with my drawing and cutting. Again, if I make more, I will spend more time drafting the pattern and tracing the pieces to make sure they fit together better.

And the finished piece...

I'm not quite sure what to do with it from here. I know I don't want to sew around each piece individually but I need to do something to secure them a bit. I may try using some sort of light translucent thread and stitch a curvy, loopy line that mimics a dragonfly in flight. Or a sheer fabric stitched over the top might be fun, too. I'm not feeling too Zen about the next step of this project just yet but I'm certainly ZenTickled about ZenTangle!

Oh, one more thing. I actually looked up what real Zentangle is and it's a very cool art form. Check it out at zentangle.com.

Dreaming About Chairs

2011-04-11T07:40:00.009-04:00

After being off for a week, my first day back at the shop was fabulous! Designer and teacher Alethea Ballard was in the shop for a day of instruction on her Dream Chair Quilts. She is a delightful person and the students had a great time in her class. I had a blast watching each project unfold.

Since Alethea's home is in California, she wasn't able to bring all of her finished quilts, but she was able to show lots of examples on her computer. All of the students were able to complete most of their design in class. Here are their works in progress:

One of the great features in her pattern is that each project comes in two sizes, so you can make a big statement with a single chair, a small statement, or put together several small chairs into a group. I'm sure there are hundreds of other combinations, but I love it that the multiple sizes are there without having to use your copier to create a larger or smaller version.

After seeing all these great examples, I have started thinking about making one. I think it would be fun to make two chairs side by side. One is reality...in my case, there would be a dog toy and stray army men underneath, a blanket draped over the back, and probably a book laying in the seat. The other is fantasy...I'm going to have to think about that a bit. Would it be a rocker on a porch, a luxurious chaise lounge, or a chair and ottoman? It's so great to be freshly inspired.

Inside Outside

2011-04-06T10:45:00.004-04:00

I have a dual personality when it comes to where I like to spend my time. When I'm home, I prefer to be inside...sewing, organizing, reading, cleaning...all those inside things to do. It is a rare day to find me in the yard doing something productive. Fortunately, my husband Duane, enjoys taking care of the outside of our home.

However, when I am away from home, all I want to be is outside. It's spring break for the kids and I'm taking most of the week off with them. They made a list of things they wanted to do this week and we're working through it. Here's what we've done so far:

Friday - We attended the University of Georgia's annual insect zoo. Not only can you see all sorts of insects and other critters, but can also experience bug cuisine. I was brave and tasted meal worms in a chocolate snack mix and crickets mixed in caramel popcorn. There was also pasta salad and brownies, but the bugs were a little too prominent in those dishes. If I were in the midst of a culture that ate that sort of thing, I'm sure I would have tried it, but not just for fun. I also pet a tarantula who was bald on part of his back where he had been pet so much. The kids enjoyed it just as much as I did, though none of them desired to pursue bugs as a career.

Saturday - We played tennis, or I should say, we attempted to hit a ball back and forth over a net. It was great fun, but tired muscles and a sunburn led to a wonderful afternoon nap for me.

Sunday - The only request from our teenager for the week was to go to Six Flags over Georgia. We thought about going with him but decided it was too expensive, and I just wasn't excited about going. Is it possible I've outgrown theme parks? I wasn't comfortable with him driving himself and it's too far to take him and then pick him up. The perfect solution emerged. Duane and I dropped him and a friend off when the park opened and proceeded to Sweetwater Creek State Park for a day of hiking. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful park. About a third of our hike was along the banks of this creek, and the rest was through the surrounding woods.

Monday - My mom and niece visited and brought lunch. We attempted to go pick strawberries but they aren't quite ready yet. Instead, we went to the playground for a while, then came home and played Scrabble while the kids did their own thing.

Tuesday - A lazy day at home with reading and relaxation.

Duane is home with us for the rest of the week. I think we have more hiking, a night camping in the backyard, and maybe a late night game of kick the can on the itinerary. We'll see what other adventures the week will bring.

Next week, I'll be back to more sewing and crafting. It's fun to take a break, but it's also fun to get back to the routine and the things I love to do.

First Quilt Progress

2011-03-27T14:52:00.006-04:00

Erica's first quilt is coming along nicely. Since she finished all the blocks, we spent some time this weekend laying out the quilt.

One of her goals was to make a quilt that wasn't a specific color. I think she did a great job accomplishing that one. After she was happy with the overall layout, we did a bit of rearranging to add a special surprise to the design.

Once we were finished, we carefully stacked up and bagged each row.

She'll be sewing the rows for the next few weekends. There is a deadline associated with this quilt so she's decided to let someone else quilt it for her. Our goal is to get the top done before the end of April. We'll keep you posted!

Dream Chair Quilts by Alethea Ballard

2011-03-25T14:00:00.000-04:00

It's fun trying to find new, up and coming, and veteran talent to bring to the quilt shop for workshops. Most of the time we stick with the southeast just to keep down travel expenses but sometimes we get lucky and go outside those parameters. This time, talent found us! Alethea Ballard is the author of this fabulous pattern, Dream Chair Quilts. Lucky for us, Alethea's sister-in-law is a quilter who lives here in town and helped make the connection. We'll be having a Dream Chair Quilt class here on Saturday, April 9 from 10am-4pm.

Alethea sent us two quilts to display in the shop. They are so much fun! I hadn't looked at the pattern in detail before the samples got here and I was thinking they were going to be a small little wall hanging. One of the quilts is from the cover from the pattern and it is 32 inches across.

The other is a crazy Halloween chair. It looks good from the front and the back. If you can, you should stop by the shop to see these. Her stitching and embellishments are wonderful.

There are a few seats left in her class so stop by and sign up if you'd like to make your own Dream Chair Quilt.

A New Quilter!

2011-03-17T13:30:00.005-04:00

It is always exciting to me when someone new enters the wonderful world of quilting. I did not believe it would ever happen, but my daughter has caught the bug. She's working on her first quilt and loving it. When she told me she wanted to make a quilt, we broke out my collection of quilt magazines and started looking. She's a college student and didn't want to spend a lot of money. The solution...go scrappy. I just happen to have a few scraps here and there at home ;-)

We chose a pattern and she's taken it from there. She selected all the fabric and did all the initial cutting.

She's about a third of the way through making the blocks. This pattern is a good one for beginners because the cut size is a good bit larger than the finished block. I've been helping out by squaring up the blocks (there will be 208 in the finished quilt!) It's been fun for both of us to watch the quilt top slowly reveal itself.

I can't wait to see the finished quilt top.

I haven't been sewing much, but Robin has!

2011-03-09T19:38:00.006-05:00

My sewing life, like the rest of my life, tends to have peaks and valleys. I seem to be in a valley right now, so both me and the sewing machine are taking a little rest. I do have a couple of small works in progress to show. Our Hot for Halvorsen club meets tomorrow morning at 10am and, as the facilitator, I thought I should be showing a little Nancy Halvorsen love to the girls. I started these two wall hangings today.

I'm thinking about quilting the March one in a fun gold metallic thread since I'm sure there has to be a pot of gold near this project. I'm not sure how I'm going to quilt this next one, though that big ol' egg screams for something fun to be done to it.

The main quilt I wanted to show you is this fabulous quilt made by Robin Cook. Robin teaches lots of classes at the shop including First Time Quiltmaking and Beginning Quilting II. She has introduced lots of ladies to the passion of quilting over the past couple of years. She's starting a new club with us in April, the Marti & Me club. All of the projects in the class are by Marti Michell. This quilt is the first one.

I love, love, love the bright colors in this quilt and I especially love that the each sashing is in a different color. Can you tell I like this quilt? The pattern it comes from shows a sample in batiks which is equally stunning. Here's a close up of one of the blocks.

I'm looking forward to all the quilts and techniques that will be introduced by this club. This club will meet on the second Thursday evening of each month from 6-8pm. Join us if you can!

More Fabric Covered Mousepads

2011-03-02T10:52:00.002-05:00

Over in the FourKidZooDesigns Etsy store, fabric covered mouse pads are the best selling item. I thought it was time to add a few new ones. I made these this morning and will have them available in the shop before the end of the day. Enjoy!

New Shop Samples and a Bonus - All Caught Up

2011-02-28T10:36:00.006-05:00

It took a little longer than I thought it would, but here they are:

This bright spring wall hanging was fun and easy to make. It is from the book Stop, Drop, and Roll. I like projects that use lots of different fabrics. The sewing never gets dull when your eyes are constantly entertained with new color and design.

This one was another fast one. That blob at the top of the center in the picture is the light shining through from behind the quilt top. The borders with corner posts are easy to cut to size and easy to sew accurately. The flowers are fused on. We like this one so much that we've put together a few kits for it. The kits come in two colors...one is just like the sample and the other uses the same black and whites, but pairs them with turquoise. Yum!

No, the quilt isn't crooked, just the camera shot. This sample shows how simple blocks and simple colors make a great design. The fabric is from Nancy Halvorsen's Forever Spring line and the pattern is from Sweet & Simple Baby Quilts. The nine patch blocks use a variety of blue fabrics while the yellow in the half square triangles remains the same. I love the softness of this sample.

Here's a bonus! We are getting Moda's Hullabaloo line in April. I ordered a fat quarter bundle in advance so I could get a closer look at the prints and start working on a sample. The prints in these blocks represent the softest of this line. It gets to be lots of fun with the brighter colors, too. I stuck with a classic quilt from the Happy Hour book, since it so easily shows off a variety of prints. I love the animal print in this group. All of these fabrics are perfect for bibs, burp cloths, and other baby items.

The girls did a fabulous job tidying up the shop over the weekend. We want to look our best while the Cotton Patch Quilt Show "Hot Threads, Cool Quilts" is in town. The show is March 4-6. If you get a chance to go to the show, look for our full page ad in the program and then come on over for a visit.

New Projects On the Way

2011-02-17T12:01:00.005-05:00

I am so fortunate to have a great staff at Dragonfly Quilt Shop. Recently, I asked for some suggestions for new spring shop samples. The next day there were six or seven ideas laid out for review. I picked three and asked for the fabric to be cut so I could get started on them. Usually, that means simply cutting the yardage needed from the bolt. But this time, they moved ahead with the next step and cut all the individual pieces for the projects and left little notes to make my job easier. Here is the "before" picture. I'm thinking that I'll whip these up over the weekend. Look for "after" photos very soon.

A table runner or wall hanging using lots of fun Kaffe Fassett fabrics:

A baby quilt using Nancy Halvorsen's Forever Spring collection:

And a black, white, and pink quilt:

You know I'm gonna have some fun this weekend!

Scalpel Please

2011-02-06T20:49:00.004-05:00

My sewing area isn't all that big and it gets messy when I'm working on a project. I kept losing basic tools under project pieces or on the floor or behind the sewing machine. I needed a way to keep up with everything. This is a tray that my oldest, now 20, painted in elementary school. It was in a closet just waiting to be discovered.

It is just what I needed. Just like a surgeon, I now have a tray with all the essential tools at my fingertips. It is extra clean at the moment, just for you, and it works great. No matter what I'm doing, I now have a habit of tossing my tools back into the tray. No more stopping the flow of creativity to look for lost tools. Now, to think about that next project...

Finishing, even when I don't want to

2011-02-06T18:28:00.006-05:00

Sometimes, I take on a project that I don't really want to do. It will sit and sit on my sewing table while I spend time avoiding it. One good side effect is that I tend to start (or finish) a hand sewing project. My latest hand sewing project is a dragonfly sashiko piece. It was given to me by a dear colleague, Deb. She knew I was interested in sashiko and she is good about encouraging creative pursuits. It's not quite finished, and I'm going to incorporate it into a quilted wall hanging when it is done.

Finally, yesterday, I tied myself to the sewing machine and finished the project I was avoiding. It turned out fine; it's the last of the grommet bags I have been making as shop samples. I have never seen a bag like this. It has a separating zipper that goes all the way around. You can make it bigger or smaller. This is smaller...

...and this is bigger.
I'm relieved to have it done. Now, I'm ready to move on to something new.

Thread Sketching for the First Time

2011-01-30T15:41:00.011-05:00

I have been exposed to lots of thread sketching over the past couple of weeks. Susan Brubaker Knapp was at the shop a week ago and then Sarah Hubbard was showing some of her work on her blog. I just couldn't wait any longer to try it. It didn't matter to me that I didn't have all the best supplies. I had thread and I had fabric and the rest would just work itself out. It is rare for me to sew just for me, so I seized the moment.

I started with some fabric that I had been holding on to for awhile. It is one of those "too pretty to cut" pieces. It was hand dyed by Anita Heady. I laid it out on my table and selected every spool of thread that might work with it.

I was just sure this was going to be some sort of nature scene. The fabric just screams sunshine, sky, and water. So I did a bit of doodling to get some ideas for what I might thread sketch. The photograph isn't very good, but I hope you can see rays of sunshine near the top, some circles in the middle, and icicles near the bottom.

However, every time I looked at the fabric, all I could see were people and faces. I was especially drawn to this part of the fabric which looks like a woman with her arms held out.

So I got my paper back out and sketched some more.

Again, not such a great picture. It's a woman with her arms held out and the word "dream" over her head. There are some arched lines in the background and some zigzag lines around her feet to give some sort of ground around her. Enough drawing...time to sew!

I have never sewn with a hoop so I thought I'd give it a try. I had some Sulky Tear Away stabilizer on hand so I put two layers behind my fabric. I have free motion quilted before and I thought this would be similar. I found it to be easier than quilting since there was less bulk than with the three layers of a quilt. It was also easier because of the small size of my project. I started by sewing the woman and worked my way around her.

This was FUN! I had some tension issues, and some areas with crazy stitching since the project had minimal planning and sometimes I changed my mind in the middle of stitching and used my thread to scribble rather than sketch. I like how the woman turned out. She looks sort of like a ghost or spirit. Here's the finished project:

The finished project is about seven inches by nine inches. That means I still have a lot of hand dyed fabric left to play with. I hope I can fit time in my schedule for more experimentation. This one will be hung on the wall behind my sewing machine to inspire me to try again.

Projects This Week - A Little Bit of Everything

2011-01-28T09:05:00.006-05:00

The sewing room is never quiet for long, and I've managed to squeak out a few fun things this week.

Here's a cute banner I made from Nancy Halvorsen's Count On It book. Saturday, January 29 is our annual customer appreciation party to celebrate all of our wonderful customers and to mark our 4th shop anniversary (my how time flies!). I thought this banner would be the perfect welcome as you enter the shop. Everyone who walks through the door on this special day will receive a gift. It might be a fat quarter, a book, a pattern, or a number of other goodies. Stop by if you can.

Our mannequins have been hiding in the back of the shop, patiently waiting for something new to wear. One of them finally came out of hiding this week. This is Kaffe Fassett fabric and Amy Butler's Mini-Dress pattern. I thought this would be a garment suited to the younger set, but once I finished it, I think it's perfect for all ages. The big pleat in the front does a great job of masking the less than perfect figure, and it can be made in several lengths. It can be a shirt, a tunic, or a dress. This one is tunic length.

The last thing I worked on is a pair of pillowcases for my younger boys. This was their payment for helping me at the shop over the winter holidays. They each selected their own fabric and I promised to have them done in January. One thing that has always been a problem for me with these pillowcases is that when they are washed, the trim tends to flip up or wad. This time, I remembered to stitch the trim down so it wouldn't do that. The fun thing is that I remembered that I had some glow in the dark thread from Superior Threads. Yep, I top stitched the trim with it. It is very cool. Each pillowcase has a pin stripe of glow in the dark awesomeness when the boys get tucked in to bed.

The thread is white in the daylight so that sort of limits its applications. If it were clear, I'd be using it all over the place.

Fun at Work and Play

2011-01-23T20:30:00.013-05:00

From the work side of life...

The classroom was busy all day Friday and Saturday while Susan Brubaker Knapp taught two workshops. We were thrilled she made time for us in her busy schedule. On Friday, she taught Start with a Photo and on Saturday she taught Thread Sketching. Though I was not a student in the workshops, I was at the shop working part of each day. Susan brought lots of her quilts with her and it was a great opportunity to see her work up close. Most of the class pictures shown here were taken by Susan (Thanks for sharing!).

From the play side of life...

I spent a good part of my weekend transporting teenagers to events associated with the University of Georgia's Janfest. This is an awesome music festival for high school students in Georgia and surrounding states. It gives young musicians audition experience, clinic instruction, and participation in an honor band or clinic band. Evan, my 17-year-old, and several of his friends participated. Somehow my camera didn't make its way to any of the band events but was with me during some of the waiting. My two younger children decided it would be fun to pose on rocks that were spread around the parking lot while we waited. Those crazy kids.

Give Me a "D"

2011-01-17T18:16:00.015-05:00

This project comes straight from Nancy Halvorsen at Art to Heart. It is in her latest book, Count on It. We're sold out of the books at the shop so if you can't wait to get one, try the Art to Heart web site. I'm hoping we'll be restocked by the end of January. The garland in the book says "Happy Birthday" but I wanted something that could be used every day, and she includes the entire alphabet so your garland can say anything.

The steps for this project are standard for any fusible applique project.

1) Trace the appliques onto two-sided fusible webbing.

2) Iron the traced appliques to the wrong side of your fabric and cut them out.

3) Fuse the appliques onto a background.

All I have left to do on this one is to sew the blocks to a ribbon and hang it at the shop. Very cute.

The part of this project where I'd like to offer an alternative is in the construction of the background blocks. If you like to make small projects, they often do not require binding in the way a traditional quilt does. My least favorite part of these projects is when it says, "Sew right sides together leaving a small opening to turn." Those small openings can be a pain for getting a project turned, making neat corners, and getting the opening closed so that you can't tell where it was turned. I prefer to construct them in a way that is often called an "envelope" or "pillow cover" method. Since this specific project needed 18 background blocks, I was interested in making it as easy as possible.

First, determine the cut size of the background block. For the width, add half an inch to the finished width of the block. For the length, multiply the finished block length by 2, then add three inches. My finished width is 4 1/2" so my cut width is 5". My finished length is 6 1/2" so my cut length is 16".

From my background fabric I cut 16" by the width of fabric.

Next, open up the fabric and finish the long edges. Turn under a quarter inch and top stitch 1/8" from the folded edge.

Now, it's time to cut them into five inch pieces for the individual blocks. I was able to get eight background blocks from each 16-inch panel.

At the ironing board, lay one background piece right side up. Fold one of the short ends towards the middle so that there is about four inches folded in. Then fold the other short end toward the middle overlapping the first piece so that the total length of the folded piece is 6 1/2". Press.

Take this piece and lay it directly on top of a piece of batting cut 5" x 6 1/2". Sew a 1/4" seam along both long sides. The result should have fabric on one side and batting on the other.

It's time to turn it right side out. It's so nice to have a full side to turn. The corners turn out clean and crisp since there is stitching only on one side of the corner. Use your favorite turning tool to poke out the corners. My favorite tool is a bamboo skewer.

Here's one finished background block.

Iron on all those appliques for a fun garland ready for any occasion.

I Heart You UFO

2011-01-15T21:17:00.005-05:00

It all started with an unfinished project (known in the quilting world as a UFO). I remembered that I had a Valentine's Day something that I hadn't finished from a year or two ago.

It's somewhere between a too big place mat and a too small wall hanging or table topper. I had no place in mind to put it and not much motivation to finish it, so... I cut it up! It worked perfectly to cut it into six rectangles. I applied double-sided fusible interfacing and fused the fabric to some blank note cards. The result...fabulous.

They're even cute on the back side.

It felt good to finish a project, even if it was in an unexpected way. These cards will be up for sale in the Etsy shop in the next few days.

My Sewing Space

2011-01-14T11:01:00.004-05:00

Here's a quick look at my sewing space from afar. It usually isn't this messy. Really, it isn't. I'll get in there and share more details when it's cleaner. I tend to let it get a little messier than this, then the world has to stop spinning until I clean it up. It's the bonus room over the garage; we fondly refer to it as "the orange room". It serves many purposes. In the back right is where Duane services sewing machines. My work table, sewing machine, and ironing space are just in front of that. The sewing machine is right under the sky light and it's perfect for daytime sewing. The back left houses my stash. In front of my stash is a computer area where you can generally find one of my kids playing computer games. In front of that is the dog sofa. It's the only piece of furniture in the house he's allowed on and it's his favorite spot. In front of my sewing area is a small television. It is not unusual for the entire family to be in this room for one form of entertainment or another.

The rest of the shop samples...for now

2011-01-13T12:52:00.008-05:00

Here are the last of the new shop samples. Don't fret, we're already conjuring up a few more.

This sample says it all about our part of the world over the past few days. Suzanne Butt made this cute Snow Day wall hanging from Patrick Lose's book Poster Quilts. She used fabrics primarily from Robert Kaufman's Fusions collection.

Jessica Howard made this darling apple quilt. She said the apple blocks were lots of fun to piece. The pattern is Eleanor Burns Apple Cake and was made using a mix of fabrics from our 1930s area.

I wish I had a full picture of this quilt. It is fabulous. Suzanne Butt brought this work in progress to the shop last fall and my first question was, "Can I hang it in the shop?" Our black and white area needed some freshening up and this was just the piece to do it. It is from the pattern Lady Madonna by Abbey Lane Quilts.

Suzanne Butt also made this wall hanging from the pattern Freedom by Cottage Creek Quilts. We have samples from several of the patterns in this series, but this one might be my favorite. It's a simple reminder of something that I so often take for granted.

Last, but not least, is this little cutie that is perfect for Valentine's Day. I whipped this one up and learned that I need some practice making tiny pinwheel blocks. Wouldn't this make a great baby quilt? For those of you with embroidery machines I can picture a name and birthdate in the center hearts. It finishes up at under 30" square.

More soon!

Girlie Fashions

2011-01-12T09:16:00.003-05:00

With the new year, we added some new girls patterns to our collection. It is only natural that we add some samples to go with them. Here's a cute and sassy skirt made by Suzanne Butt from the pattern Reversible Skirt by Sew Baby. Yes, it is reversible! The other side is a single fabric version using the fabric around the top band of the skirt.

The pattern for these pants is Easy Pieces Pants and it is also by Sew Baby. What a great way to use up scraps. They were fun and easy to make. I just love the ruffle at the bottom of the pants legs.

This adorable top is from the pattern Beverly Belle by Izzy & Ivy. It was a good break from basic straight line sewing. Talk about being able to twirl. The curved pieces make this top quite flouncy and full. It has elastic in the sleeves, around the top and above the waist.

One more blog entry and you will have the full tour of new shop samples. It's been fun sharing them with you.

How to Make a No Sew Fabric Coaster

2011-01-11T16:29:00.017-05:00

This is a fast, no sew project that we did at the shop on our Make and Take day. It's a great way to use up scraps; they make great gifts, and they can be an additional accessory for other handmade projects. Here's the final result:

You will need a rubber coaster base, a four-inch square of two-sided fusible web (I prefer either Lite or Regular Steam-a-Seam 2), and fabric that is at least 4" square.

The rubber coaster base is black on one side and white on the other. Fuse the fabric to the white side of the coaster. Another thing to know about the coaster base is that it is heat resistant; great for hot drinks or under a hot bowl of soup.

Remove one side of paper from the fusible web. It is paper on two sides and sticky in the middle. Usually, one side of the paper comes off easier than the other. You can fiddle with a corner to see which paper comes loose first.

You should be able to rub your finger over the surfaces between and feel that one side has the rough, sticky fusible while the other side is smooth paper. Peel the paper off and discard. Position the fusible sticky side down on to the WRONG side of your fabric. I emphasize wrong side because that is one of the most common errors for new users of fusible web products. Iron the fusible web to the fabric. Set your iron as you would to iron the fabric. This example uses cotton fabric, so I chose a cotton setting with steam. It takes about five seconds of ironing for the fusible to set. You can check the corner with your finger to make sure it is fully bonded. Iron a few more seconds and try again if it isn't.

Cut out the fabric around the fusible. There's no need to be neat about this step. You will be doing final trimming later. Make sure you cut on or just outside the edge of the fusible area.

Pull the remaining paper backing off the wrong side of the fabric. Again, you may need to fiddle with the corner to get it started. Discard the paper.

Center the fabric on top of the white side of the coaster. The fabric is four inches square and the coaster is 3 1/2 inches square. This gives you some play room in determining the final fabric placement on the coaster.

Once you are happy with the placement, use your fingers to smooth the fabric onto the coaster. It is easy to get a wrinkle in the final result if you do not carefully smooth the fabric to the coaster.

Here's what it should look like from the back.

With the fabric facing up, iron it to the coaster. Trim the edges around the coaster. It is better to leave a tiny bit extra rather than to trim it too close.

Tah-dah! A finished coaster.

If you'd like to make your own, kits are available in the FourKidZooDesigns Etsy Shop. The kits come with four coaster bases, four squares of fusible web, and instructions. Enjoy!

A snow day is a sew day

2011-01-10T18:20:00.009-05:00

Life has a way of giving you an intermission. In Georgia, it comes in the form of a snow day. The kids were out of school today and will be out tomorrow, too. We measured seven inches. I like the unexpected break, but I'm hoping things will start returning to normal on Wednesday.

I took advantage of the day and finished a UFO. This wasn't my UFO, but one that belonged to my husband, Duane. Last year, he took the First Time Quilt Making class at the shop. He wanted to have a better feel for what all the quilting fuss was about. Robin Cook teaches all of our first time quilters, and does a great job of leading her students to a love of making quilts. In class, he selected fabric, cut, pieced, and quilted his project. At home, we worked together on a label. The only thing left to do was the binding.

Somewhere along the way Duane decided that he didn't like the quilt. He thought there was too much white. Every time I asked, he said he would finish it, but it continued to sit. Nine months later, I decided to help him out. I still like the quilt, and I'm sure his mom will too.

Duane wrote a message to his mom for the label and I stitched it in thread on some white fabric. The fabric was a square that I folded on the diagonal and stitched into the binding. It's easy to do and makes a nice pocket on the back for care instructions or a special letter to the recipient.

I'm looking forward to another snow/sew day tomorrow.

Fabric Design Insights

2011-01-09T12:00:00.008-05:00

We had a fun class on Saturday at the shop with Jennifer Heynen (http://jenniferjangles.blogspot.com) and Genevieve Swinford (http://genevievegail.blogspot.com). Both of these girls are very talented artists who made their way into fabric design over the past couple of years.

It was interesting to get two different perspectives on the design process and the business relationships they each have with the companies that produce their fabric.

Jennifer has a fine arts degree in ceramics so most of her designs for fabric start as a ceramic concept. She is also a button and bead maker so all of her fabric lines have coordinating buttons. Her first collection, Happy, is in its second printing. Her second collection, Polka Dot Garden, will be released to stores in March, and her third collection is in the design process. Jennifer had a table set up with her products and a great Powerpoint presentation.

Genevieve has a fine arts degree in graphic design. Her career path taught her a lot about product design, development, and licensing. She has released two fabric collections, Flower Bucket and Gypsy Garden. She also has her designs coming out on reusable tote bags this year. Her third collection is in the design process. Genevieve had an awesome presentation board as well as specially made candy for each participant.

The one thing I took away from their presentation is to not be afraid to try. Jennifer told us that she is constantly working on new designs and ideas and that for every twenty she tries, maybe there will be one that she's happy with. They both told us that they sketch constantly and take ideas from everyday life.

They shared with us a cool website (www.spoonflower.com) where you can upload your own original design and have it printed on fabric in small quantities.

One of the participants asked if it was possible to earn a living as a fabric designer. Both answered yes, but that your efforts had to go beyond the fabric. Buttons, patterns, and other licensed products based on the fabric add to the initial fabric release.

Thanks to both Genevieve and Jennifer for taking time out of their busy schedules to share their knowledge and experience as fabric designers. I'm looking forward to watching the future unfold for both of these talented ladies.

Classes and Clubs at Dragonfly Quilt Shop

2011-01-07T16:15:00.009-05:00

I am really excited about some of the clubs and classes we have coming up.

Jennie Weaver is teaching our Sassy Quilters Club. The first project for this club is this fabulous quilt from the pattern All Around Minnesota. The club will meet on the first Saturday of each month in February, March, and April from 10am-1pm. After this quilt is done, Jennie will introduce a new one for the next three months. It should be fun and having three classes should give you lots of time to get it done.

Fay Rawls and Mary Colley are teaching a three session class called Patchwork Garden. They will meet on the first Tuesday of each month at 10am starting in February. These girls are lots of fun and will teach and encourage you through this very pretty project.

Robin Cook will be teaching this bright wall hanging in her class Stars & Crosses. This is an Eleanor Burns pattern and Robin is a certified Eleanor Burns instructor. Look for this class on the last Saturday of February from 10am-4pm.

Holley Downs made this quilt from Nancy Halvorsen's newest book Count On It. Holley is always making something fun for us. We'll be having a club for all the Nancy Halvorsen fans starting in February. There will not be any formal instruction, but there are always new ideas and techniques flying around the room when this group of ladies gets together. We'll meet on the second Thursday or Saturday of each month at 10am.

Jennie Weaver is our Girls Sew In teacher. Every few months, Jennie will offer a class for girls ten and up. On February 5 from 1:30pm-4:30pm she'll be showing the girls how to make a pillowcase.

You can find more information about all our classes and clubs on the shop website, http://www.dragonflyquiltshop.com.

Haberdashery

2011-01-07T09:08:00.007-05:00

Even with all the new samples that were revealed at the shop this week, there are still a few projects hovering around my sewing machine that did not get finished. One of them is this cute hat pattern by Sew Baby.

As you can see by the pattern cover, there are lots of options in this pattern. There are also lots of sizes for each one. I thought it would be "kids hat - ones size fits most", but instead, there are five different sizes for each hat style to fit a newborn up to a size 10. So think about it...that many hats times that many sizes...makes for about a million pattern pieces. It was sort of like playing a Where's Waldo game to find the right ones, but I conquered the pattern tissue and found what I needed. It really is pretty awesome to include so much in one little pattern, so I didn't mind sorting through the options. My goal for the afternoon was to make the girl's tulip hat and the boy's engineer hat. I decided to go for a smaller size and make both of them in size 2T.

The girl's hat has six petals and it was oh so tempting to do every other one in a different fabric (it would also be great to do in scraps). I resisted because, even though I didn't see that it said this hat is reversible, I think it will be (and it was!).

Here's the closest model to a size 2T that we have living at home. Both of the hats were very easy to make. The instructions were clear and I love the results. The only tricky part was pressing them because of all the curves and dimension. The easiest way to do the pressing is with a ham or a rolled up towel. The other thing to keep in mind if you want a reversible hat is to be sure to sew neatly and carefully when you close the hole used for turning the hat right side out.

If you make children's clothes, just get an extra 1/3 yard and you'll have enough to make a matching hat!

Fabric Fortune Cookies Finale

2011-01-06T09:56:00.009-05:00

I'm pleased with the final results from the fabric fortune cookie experiment. Once they all dried, it was easy to fold up the fortunes and tuck them in one side of the cookie. The take out boxes I found are smaller than I thought they would be, but work perfect for four cookies. We'll see what the etsy world thinks of them. If you'd like to make your own fabric fortune cookies, check out my how to blog entry from a few days ago.

Highlighting Kaffe Fassett

2011-01-05T10:17:00.006-05:00

One of our favorite fabric designers is Kaffe Fassett. We try to keep a good selection of his new prints along with many of his classic fabrics. These new shop samples all highlight his fabric.

Deb Henderson made the first three of these. This one is from the Eleanor Burns pattern Pinwheels & Rectangles. It uses Kaffe's Plink and Roman Glass.

This sample is the cover quilt from Alex Anderson's Super Simple Quilts #2. It uses Kaffe Fassett's Persimmon and Paperweight along with two of Robert Kaufman's Fusion prints. It was quilted by Sherry Paul.

This hot sample is from the book Four Patch Frolic. The small squares are a variety of Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mabley prints all framed out by one of Kaffe's Spot prints.
I pieced this last one, but Jessica Howard is responsible for the pattern (from Sweet and Simple Baby Quilts by Mary Hickey) and fabric selection. Holley Downs did all the machine applique. I love the way it turned out. It's perfect for a baby quilt. With the exception of the block background fabric (which is by Annette Tatum for Free Spirit), all of the fabric is by Kaffe Fassett.
Tomorrow, I'll highlight all the new samples for which there is a class or club to go with them.

Shop Samples for the New Year

2011-01-04T09:10:00.007-05:00

Today is our first day open for the new year at the quilt shop and I'm ready. I came in early and decided to take pictures of all the new shop samples. I knew we had all worked hard, but I had no idea there are more than twenty new samples in the shop. Rather than overwhelm you with them all, I'll post a few each day. Today, enjoy a new area we set up to feature grommets. Grommets add a great touch to any bag, and the newest ones don't require any special tools. They simply snap together. If you use these, make sure you have enough interfacing or stabilizer between your fabric layers to give them something to grab on to. My favorite is the Grommet Grab Bag. The braided handles were fun to make and should be very durable.

This next one is called the Wallet & Grommet by Maple Island Quilts. I just love the name since I'm a big Wallace and Grommet fan. Fay Rawls made this sample for us.

And finally, two more by Indygo Junction: The Grommet Hipster and the Grommet Wallet.

I'll get these patterns posted in the Dragonfly Quilt Shop web store this week. Look for more fun samples tomorrow!

Fabric Fortune Cookies

2011-01-03T16:51:00.014-05:00

I've been working on some new ideas for the Etsy store...something special for Valentine's Day. At the quilt shop, we used these last year for door prizes at our customer appreciation party. The fortunes hidden inside revealed a special gift for each recipient. I wanted to try for a more romantic version this year. These are really easy to make and involve no sewing. Each cookie has an inside and outside so choose two fabrics for each. This is a great way to use some of your fabric stash and is also perfect for those 5" charm squares. My 20-year-old daughter helped me with these so she chose the fabric we would use.
The first step is to fuse the two fabrics together using a two-sided fusible web product. I use Steam-a-Seam 2 light. It comes in lots of sizes. I used about a half yard of the 24" wide and four different pairs of fabric. Follow the product instructions to fuse the fabrics together. Once the fabrics are fused together, trace circles onto one side. I cut a 3 1/4" circle from a piece of heavy template plastic. No special marking tool is needed. A ball point pen works great. Trace as many circles as will fit on your fabric.
Use scissors to cut the circles out. The action of cutting the two fused pieces of fabric helps seal the edges for a better bond.The next step is to fold the circles in half and fuse just the edge together. I used Steam-a-Seam 2 light for this step as well. It only takes a small rectangle to hold the cookie together.

Here is what they will look like once the folded cookie is bonded. There is no need to create a crease or hard fold. The goal is to attach the edges so that the cookie is a semi-circle.The next step is to make the final fold into a fortune cookie. To fold the cookie, insert your index fingers in each end. Put your thumbs in the center and pull the ends together.

Use a paperclip or clothes pin to hold the cookie together. This will also serve as a good handle while you are painting them. In order for the cookies to last, they need to be coated with a fabric stiffener. I use Stiffy, but there are plenty of similar products around. You can also use watered down Elmer's glue.

The cookies need drying time. I inserted straight pins around a styrofoam bowl and hung the paperclip around the pin. They could be hung from a string to dry as well.While they are drying (which takes a couple of hours), it's time to think about what will be written on the fortunes. I stuck with basic Valentine's Day sayings, like "XXOO", "Be Mine", and "All You Need is Love". My daughter suggested that it would be fun to just put one letter on each fortune and have the recipient figure out the message.

I'm off to find some Chinese takeout boxes to hold the cookies. I'll show the final product when we're done.

The Boys Grow Up

2011-01-02T16:30:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not, I'm not always working at the shop or sewing. This week, I helped our youngest two boys clean out their closet and rearrange their room. The holidays brought a few new toys into our lives and it was time to clean out some of the old. They were also ready to outgrow their bunk beds and have a more big kid room. Here's what it was like before the move:

We had to work hard to pare down the collection of toys, but there were many things they had grown out of. We'll be contacting some of our friends with younger kids to see if they want to share the love with us, and what's left will be donated to Good Will. We decided that yard sale weather was just a little too far away. After cleaning out the closet and moving things from the room into the closet, we converted the bunk beds to twin beds. There's still some wall repair and painting to be done, and more art work is needed for the walls. The boys love the result, and so do I.

They each got a new quilt from me for Christmas. The pattern is adapted from one I saw in a recent issue of Quilts and More magazine. I changed the measurements to more efficiently use my stash of Kaffe Fassett fabrics as well as to be a good fit for their twin beds. We sorted the scraps into color families, then each of my guys picked the ones they wanted used in their quilts. One chose reds and yellows and the other chose blues, browns, and golds. I like the same, but different look.

A Favorite Tool - The Angler

2011-01-01T21:55:00.007-05:00

I've been working on lots of shop samples over the past couple of weeks. We like to freshen up with a blast of new samples when the shop opens for the new year. My most recent is an adorable quilt using Amy Butler's Soul Blossom collection. The pattern is from Alex Anderson's Baby Quilt book and is a great pattern for showing off a large scale print. The finished top is 39.5" x 39.5".
I am not a fan of drawing diagonal lines on the back of fabric squares for accurate half square triangles or flying geese. It just takes up too much time for me. Last year, Pam Bono visited and taught at our shop. She is an awesome pattern designer, especially patterns with detailed piecing. Her husband, Robert, developed a tool called the Angler to help make more accurate 45 degree seams without the extra steps of drawing lines on your fabric pieces. I love this tool and use it everytime I make half square triangles or flying geese. Here it is attached to my machine:
It is really easy to set up on your machine, and a little masking tape holds it in place. The angled lines are used to keep your fabric correctly positioned, and once the bottom point of your square approaches the needle, it can be lined up on the center line. Here is one of my flying geese in progress:

I'm not one to grab up every new tool out there, but when I find one that works for me, I'm hooked. We carry the Angler at our shop, and I'm sure you can find it at your local shop, too.

Biding my time

2010-06-14T22:34:00.005-04:00

My oldest child (who is 19) is away until mid-July and I'm sewing to help make the separation easier. Here's my latest quickie creation. I always loved this bird fabric by Joel Dewberry for Westminster fabrics. I was happy to find a way to use up the few scraps that remained in my stash from this collection.

Conquering a UFO

2010-06-07T17:11:00.026-04:00

After we started a UFO club at the shop, I decided it was time to go back and visit my stash of unfinished projects. Most of my sewing time is spent either making samples for the shop, or working on projects related to classes I am teaching there. So, it was fun going back to something I was making just for me, and finishing it

I found the pattern by Kay M. Capps Cross in the Winter 2008 Fabric Trends magazine, and while it looks amazing in black and white, I wanted something a little more earthy. Here's the project as I found it, with the top completed, paper still intact from the paper piecing sections.

After removing all that pesky paper, finding a suitable back and some batting, I set out to choose some thread for quilting. I wanted to accent the red fabric with some shadow quilting in red thread on the dark brown background, but I wasn't overly confident in how it would look in the end.

I was happy with one round of red quilting, but not so happy when I started the second round. I ended up taking out the second round, and finishing off the quilting in a manner very similar to the original quilt in the magazine. Here's the finished quilt, and it's final home in my kitchen.

It feels good to finish a project. One down, many more to go.