Happy Dance (the first of several this week, I'm sure!)

Serious strides were made today in arranging my studio.  My husband helped me move some big things, such as taking book cases into another room, and placing the new/antique industrial Singer in it's new, although unfortunate home.  He also hung my Dresden Reflections quilt on the wall.  I LOVE IT!  It's on the wall that you see when you walk into the room, and it just makes me happy.

There are still some things out of place, but it is really coming together.  On the left is our piano.  In order to get this room, part of the deal was keeping the piano in it.  I'm okay with that.  It's a handy place to keep my rulers in a little stand.  =) In the center is my new cutting table.  It's 36" x 36", just right for a large cutting mat (my mat actually hangs off the sides just a touch, but that's okay), and it's 42" high!  I have never liked cutting at a table until now.  Seriously, it's so lovely.  It makes me want 42" counters really badly.  I love things that are made for my height.  The table is a little pub table that I found at Target.com.  Under the table lives the Singer.  It's sad that I can't use it where it is, but someday when we outgrow our house, it will have a better place to live.  I'm just grateful to have it.  My little sewing machine is on the right, along with my ALEX drawers from Ikea.  It's a little tight, but it works.

So the reason for the happy dance is that I got a call this evening saying that my new longarm will be delivered on THURSDAY.  I am so excited, I'm not sure how I'll sleep until then!  I'd ordered it just over four weeks ago, and the only update I'd heard was that they were really backed up.  I called this morning to get a ballpark estimate for delivery, and they told me they'd call me back.  I wasn't expecting it for another week or three, so this was very very good news.  The longarm will go in the middle of the room, parallel to the wall you can see in the picture, and I have cabinets lining the opposite wall.  It's so exciting to see the studio all come together.

In other news, I'm selling my current quilting system.  It's been a great machine, I just outgrew it much faster than I had expected.  If you're local and interested, let me know and we can arrange a time for you to come try it out.

Madrona Road Challenge Finish

I'm not really naming this, but if I would, it might be "Migration Around the World."  Maybe.

 

 I started this during the Scrappy Trip Around the World craze.  It looked like a lot of fun, but I knew I didn't have time to make a whole quilt right now.  Our local Salt Lake MQG guidelines for the challenge added that we needed to incorporate triangles, so I added flying geese around the outside.  They are tiny, finishing at 1"x2".  The whole quilt is about 15.5" on each side.  I've given this to my 4-year-old daughter as a doll quilt (stuffed tiger quilt?) so I let her help me on it.  She operated the foot pedal while I did the straight-line quilting.  It was just a little scary. =)  A few of the lines ended up a little wonky because it is hard to control everything with a kid in between me and the machine!  She loved it and is looking forward to sewing more with me, especially when it's something pink.

I pieced the back and used up many of my scraps, and did a scrappy binding as well.  My munchkin is very  happy with it!  Hannah the tiger seems to like it too.

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday and Link a Finish Friday.

WiP Wednesday: Back in the Saddle

I am finally sewing again!  I'm not completely finished with rearranging my studio, but I just HAD to do some sewing.  It has been too long.

 

I'm participating in my first bee, a local bee through the Salt Lake MQG.  We only have 6 people participating in this round so we each make two blocks each month for the same person, and we'll be done in six months.  This month was Sarah's month, and she asked us to make these wonky star blocks.  I had never made wonky blocks before.  It was fun to try something new, and I think they turned out really well, but I think wonky stars aren't really my thing.  I guess that is partially what bees are all about, right?

Next month is my month in the bee, and I decided that we will be making X Strings blocks (shown untrimmed here).  I had started making these a long time ago by sewing all the center strips together. At some point I lost steam/got busy doing other projects, so this seemed like a great way to get them done.  The hard part is already done so it shouldn't be too much work for everyone.  I made a paper piecing pattern and made a test block, and I LOVE it.  I can't wait to see this quilt come together.  I am planning on posting the pattern and a tutorial in the near future. 

On Monday this beauty (that needs dusting!) arrived at my house.  This was my husband's grandmother's industrial Singer.  This thing is fast.  I sewed on it a couple of times at her house before she passed away, and it is so much fun.  I'm happy that it came to live with me. 

 Unfortunately, with the new longarm on the way, I won't have room to have it in a place where I can use it.  It will be living underneath my new cutting table.  Sad, I know, but someday when we move to a bigger house, it will have it's own special spot and I will use it all the time.  Grandma kept all of the accessories, and even the original sales receipt.  Those are all tucked in that box in the background. =)  Grandma had a drapery business in Solvang, California for many years and made beautiful drapes with this machine.  I'm glad to have a special part of her life in our home. 

Finally, the last project I'm working on this week is finishing up my Madrona Road challenge piece.  I finished the top quite a while ago, and just couldn't decide what I wanted to do with it, so it sat unfinished.  I finally decided that I'm going to turn it into a mini quilt and give it to my daughter.  She is looking forward to getting it!  I pieced the back today, and now I need to hurry and quilt and bind it before our guild meeting tomorrow night.  Good thing it's tiny!  I think it's about 15" square.

On a completely unrelated note, I recently got a new computer that runs on Windows 8.  The Windows Photo Viewer doesn't seem to have the option to do simple editing on your photos.  Anyone know where to find that on Windows 8?  I don't do lots of editing, but sometimes you just want to crop or adjust colors a little, you know?

Linking up to Work in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Bloglovin'

With Google Reader going out of service July 1st, I'm switching to Bloglovin', at least for now.  If you want to follow me, please do so here:
<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/3785034/?claim=68nrh3ax7d8">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>
I've heard of some other services that people really like as well.  I still need to look into them.

In other news, I've been working hard on the rearranging of my studio.  It's almost done, enough that I actually took a break to work on bee blocks today.  More to come, sometime.  My computer died a few weeks ago, and while we do have all of our pictures backed up, I'm dreading the first time I put pictures on my new computer because there are SO MANY on the camera right now.  I've kind of been putting that off.  One of these days I'll get over it and just do it. =)

Sew-vivor!

After mulling this over for nearly too long I've decided to enter my Dresden Reflections quilt in Sew-vivor: Season 2.  Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post, I appreciate all the input I received!  It was a hard decision because I love to sew all kinds of things.  It was hard to choose one item to represent me and what I do.  For anyone new stopping by, thanks for visiting!  I hope you like what you see here.  For those of you who already read my blog, sorry for the repeat pictures. 

 As I mentioned, this quilt is called Dresden Reflections.  It is made using a combination of parallelograms and the wedge created with the EZ Dresden ruler.  It also happens to be a jelly-roll friendly pattern, although I didn't use one this time.

 I love how it looks like curves, but I promise, every seam is 100% straight.  It is strip pieced and goes together more quickly than you might think as well.

 The pattern for this quilt can be found in Fat Quarterly Issue 12.  It is 39"x39" and is going to hang on the wall in my new studio.  This is actually the third quilt I've made with this basic idea.  You can see a tutorial for a different version here, and see another finished quilt here.   

 I had so much fun quilting this!  I've been working to expand my repertoire and really enjoyed quilting a different design in each color.

 The fabrics in this quilt are Pure Elements by Art Gallery, and the binding is Nature Elements in Charcoal.

 

I love the back of this quilt, you can see so much texture!  I used thread that matched the fabrics as closely as possible, so the quilting really stands out on the solid backing fabric.  It just makes me smile. =)

Thanks for stopping by!  I would love to participate in Sew-vivor.  There are some really stunning entries in the pool!  (For instance, #59 is my friend Camille.  Check out the amazing dress she made!  She's got mad skills.)  Best of luck to all who have entered!

Update:  The top ten were announced this morning, and I was not one of them.  There were 146 entries so I'm really not surprised.  I'll admit I'm disappointed though.  On the other hand, I've got a lot on my plate right now, and the added stress of the competition probably wouldn't fit into my life at this time anyway.  Good luck to all of the top ten!  I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Looking for Input

I need some input.  I recently heard about the Sew-vivor contest at Family Ever After, and I'd really like to enter.  The only problem is that you can only choose one item you've ever sewn as your entry, and I can't seem to decide!  I think I've narrowed it down to these two:  my most recent quilt finish, Dresden Reflections, or my munchkin's super-ruffled princess dress.  I made the dress in 2011 for Halloween (before I started this blog), and she wanted to wear it again in 2012.  It took so many hours to make, that was just fine with me.

 

 





So far quite a few people have chosen to enter dresses and only a few quilts have been entered.  As of now there are 80 entries, and only ten people will be chosen to participate.  It looks like a lot of fun!

So here's where you come in: do you have a preference?  Which one do you think I should enter?  Do you think I should enter something else entirely?  All comments would be very appreciated. =)  Thanks in advance!

Unfortunately I haven't done much sewing in recent weeks, besides the SLMQG's Sewing Saturday this past weekend.  I've been really busy assembling furniture for our bedroom (which is done now!) and now I'm working on assembling new wardrobes for my new and improved studio.  The most exciting news is that I ORDERED MY NEW LONGARM!!!!!!  It will be delivered sometime in the next 3-5 weeks, so I'm working on getting the space ready for it.  It's going to be great!