My Domestic Bliss quilt top is finished!  And it has already been on vacation!  We headed up to the lake this weekend, following my appearance at the Festival of Alabama Fiber Arts in Montgomery, and spent the first few days of the kids’ Spring Break enjoying this shockingly unseasonable weather at the waterfront.

This is the 1600 quilt, which is almost obnoxiously easy to stitch up.  We did it for the Whipstitch Winter Sewing Retreat this year, and sincerely: my retreat quilt top took about an hour and a quarter to stitch the entire quilt top (which makes me think it’s a great option to make a teacher gift for that teacher who’s wonderful but you don’t have weeks and weeks to make a more complex quilt to gift–just a thought as we zoom toward the close of the school year).  I did not angle the ends of my jelly roll strips (you can still get yardage of this collection!), just stitched them straight-on, but I did cut off the 18″ on the end of the first strip, to stagger the joins across the body of the quilt.

The back was just a handful of Domestic Bliss half-yards that I had on hand when I completed the quilt top and was too ready to keep going to head to the shop and buy yardage of a single print.  I love a pieced back, anyway, and think this one turned out especially well.  I pin basted the whole thing together while re-watching Season 2 of Downton Abbey on Netflix.  Oh, yeah.

See how perfect it was on the lake this weekend?  The weather was obscene–85 degrees every day–and the sky was a picture-perfect blue.  The ducks kept swimming past the dock, and the children even SWAM.  IN APRIL.  Craziness.  Our eldest wanted to lay out and get some sun (with lots of sunscreen, naturally), so I dug out a pillow I made for Stitch by Stitch whose colors work with the quilt and voila: instant beach.

I wanted to try a new quilting design on this one, and had one in my head that I was trying to work out.  Then my dear friend Kim sent me a link to Denyse Schmidt’s new book, and whaddya know?  That was the exact design I’d been searching for!  (I think I must have tucked it away in the back of my brain after seeing some images from the book at the Heather Ross retreat in January, but now that I have the book, I find the pattern completely captivating.)  I learned this weekend from a lovely quilter named Agnes that this is called a wishbone pattern, and it was seriously fun and simple to quilt with free-motion.  Lots of practice, though, to get all those swooshes evenly sized, which is one reason I was grateful the 1600 quilt is such a quick one to piece: I didn’t mind doing some experimenting on a quilt that hadn’t required a huge time investment to piece, and the visual busyness of the jelly roll strips and these prints was sure to hide any errors.

At first, I thought I could free-hand the whole design, and just swoosh it out without needing any marking or guidelines.  But that first row sure does slant to the right a good bit, and I wanted them to be more even than that.  So after row 1, I took the whole quilt and marked 4″ increments down the length of it.  From there on, I swooshed between the lines, making a much more even result.  There was a little 2″+ section leftover, so on the edge of the quilt, I free-motioned in our little girls’ names in cursive along the edge, since this will be their “backup” quilt in their room.

Fabulous weekend, and if I do say so myself, fantastic quilt.  It’s small–about 48″ x 55″ or so–but it’s just right for sitting under to read or lying on to read or tucking around your legs as you read…  Clearly, I am in Vacation Mode, where all I want to do is READ.  (Checked off on this lake visit: a re-read of all three of the Hunger Games novels.  Woot!  Thanks, honey, for letting me lollygag!)

And what could be better thanks than seeing your child giggle with delight at her new quilt??  All those years I thought I’d never be a quilter because it was “for old ladies” and I couldn’t imagine where it would fit in my life–I laugh when I look back.  Because now, I laugh when I look forward and see what a big part of my sewing and my family quilts and quilting have become.

Hello, Sewing Buddies!  I have been typing my little fingers to the bone the past week or so matching up folks from near and far, playing yenta so that stitchers here and there (and sometimes way over there) can connect and share ideas and get inspired and maybe even find the encouragement to make those projects that have been languishing and begging to be sewn.  This is one of my favorite things that I do, and each year it has gotten to be more fun and exciting to see who finds a perfect match and what they do with it!  I’ve heard from dozens of Sewing Buddies from the past two years who are still going strong, and I am super excited to see where 2012 will take us.

This year, we’ll be doing a couple of things that I haven’t done in years past.  First and foremost, Sewing Buddies will be eligible to win fabulous prizes by taking part in three quarterly challenges over the course of the remaining months in 2012: one begins TODAY and runs through June; one begins July 1 and runs through September; and one begins October 1 and runs through December.  Each will be different, but each will rely on the shared efforts of Sewing Buddies to win!  (Note: non-Sewing Buddies are more than welcome to participate–that would be awesome!  But only Sewing Buddies are eligible to win prizes.)

Challenge #1

The first challenge begins today.  Hooray!  Sewing Buddies, your task is simple: work together to complete the challenge.  These challenges are all completely optional, and if you and your Buddy determine that you’d like to skip one, no worries!  But what a fun way to win prizes, yes?  By communicating through email or snail mail, coming up with a plan and sharing skills and techniques and ideas, you’re sure to stretch your sewing at the same time that you work toward world sewing domination.

The task: Create a boy/girl project using coordinating fabrics in any sewn format you choose. 

The finished project will include TWO sewn pieces: one for a boy and one for a girl (or one for a man and one for a woman, if you prefer a grown-up version).  These can be stitched independently (one Buddy makes one while the other Buddy makes the other) or they can be stitched collaboratively (by shipping the pieces back and forth between you, with one person doing part of the project and the other doing the rest).  “Coordinating fabrics” can be a particular fabric collection, or colors that work together, or fabrics with a particular design theme.  Format can be clothing, quilting, home decor, bags, toys, wall art, embroidery, anything you can think of that involves needle and thread.

For example:

• I am currently obsessed with brother/sister outfits, which would be great for this challenge–maybe one of you makes on and the other makes the other?
• mini-quilts are spectacular for a challenge like this, and if you wanted, you could ship them between you with one Buddy doing the piecing and the other doing the quilting
• a framed embroidery piece is lovely, and an unusual solution to making matching male/female pieces
• what about baby toys?  that would work!

Remember, these do NOT have to be for children, though they can be, there is no required size, and this first challenge is specifically designed to be do-able regardless of geography–if you don’t want to ship anything to your Buddy, no worries!  The only requirement is that one sewn project is male-centric, and the other is female-centric.  Deadline for all prize-eligible entries is June 15, 2012.

I know you’ll do awesome things, and I can’t wait to see them.  Y’all should have all received your Sewing Buddy introductions by now, so use these next few days to cogitate and come up with a plan that suits you both!  In two weeks, I’ll set up a Flickr group for Sewing Buddies to which you can upload your photos as you get to know one another better.  In the meantime, be on the lookout for Sewing Buddy emails and periodic blog posts with tips and treats just for you!

I am REALLY excited about spending 2012 with all of you–nearly 175 Buddies this year!  Let’s get sewing, y’all.

We are spending a few days of our childrens’ spring break lounging at the lake right now, but I’m still sending out emails, because I’m too excited not to: I’m writing Sewing Buddy introductions to welcome new Sewing Buddies for 2012!  No April Fools, if you got an email from me today, you just met your new sewing pen pal.  Woot!

The first of our quarterly Sewing Buddy challenges begins TOMORROW here on the blog, but it’s not too late to snag a Buddy for yourself!  Leave a comment on THIS POST and I’ll match a final batch tonight to get you all paired up in time to take part in the first challenge and reap the benefits of sharing your Sewing Buddy love!

When I was in the fourth grade, my entire class took a field trip to Old Alabama Town.  It’s an historic district in the center of downtown Montgomery where nearly 100 buildings from the 1800s and 1900s have been transplanted, creating a village of history.  There are frequent events there featuring costumed historic interpreters, and most days are a day in 1862.  I think it’s dreamy.

Restored cotton gin at Old Alabama Town.  There are also historic looms that the public are allowed to try, and they’ll mail you your section of completed weaving!

This weekend, Old Alabama Town is being taken over by the Festival of Alabama Fiber Arts, and I’m going to be there!  I’ve been invited as an instructor in the Society of Alabama Fiber Enthusiasts’ event, their first annual festival dedicated to establishing a central, yearly forum for celebrating all the fiber arts.  There is a juried fiber arts competition, as well as noted speakers from across the nation, all gifted stitchers and knitters.  They’ve planned a fiber market, so we can all indulge in a little touching and oogling and purchasing while we’re there.  They’ll have vendors and presenters who are experts in knitting, weaving, spinning, quilting, sewing and dyeing–and I am very flattered to have been included.  (They didn’t even know I was an Alabama native when they asked me, so that’s nice!)

Ginned cotton at Old Alabama Town; image from this fantastic set of Old Alabama Town images over on Flickr.

The Festival takes place Friday and Saturday; my live machine quilting demonstration is on Saturday at 9 am and I’ll be teaching an applique tote bag workshop on Saturday afternoon at 1 pm.  The demo is totally FREE, as are many of the presentations and events this weekend.  Use the links to RSVP so I can bring you goodies and treats!  Montgomery is a short drive from Atlanta (just two hours! great riverfront entertainment and yummy food! activities for the kids in Old Alabama Town!), and I’d love to see some familiar faces!  If I haven’t had the chance to meet you before, this would be such a fun chance to connect.  See all the information on the Society’s page, and make time for classes and workshops!

An Open Letter to Suzanne Collins.  BEWARE: spoliers abound after the jump, along with strong opinions.

Dear Suzanne,

Here’s the thing: I came a little late to this party, having only read your Hunger Games trilogy since March 1, when I downloaded all of them to my new Kindle.  So maybe I don’t get to have the strong opinion I now hold about the film version of the first book in that series.  Actually, I think no one is more surprised than I that I care as much as I do, but there it is, all the same.  Partly it’s because dystopian literature is my favorite sub-genre, but also it’s because I love the movies, and think that even a film based on a book ought to stand on its own, without needing to be propped up by the novel’s pages.  And what’s bothering me is that the film version seems to have forgotten that your book had a message.  And YOU wrote the screenplay.  What’s up with that??

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