Tag Archive for 'Lizzy House'

OH MY STARS! QUILT : FIRST BLOCK

Published on April 7, 2013 in patchwork and stitchery. 6 Comments Tags: constellations, Lizzy House, Oh My Stars! Quilt.

I have a new strategy when making a quilt – make one block first. So many quilt projects start off with hours or days of cutting out pieces. By the time you start sewing, you’re exhausted by the whole thing and maybe you don’t like how the fabrics look together or maybe you can figure out a more efficient way to cut or piece the blocks by doing a test block to start.

Here’s the first block for my Oh My Stars! Quilt by Sheila. I’m using mostly all Lizzy House Constellations fabrics with a few other prints mixed in for good measure. Here’s my stack of fabrics.

My thoughts about this first block? LOVE IT. This quilt won’t be quickly finished, but I’m going to have fun sewing up stars in little batches.

I have never been compelled to base a quilt around a collection of fabric, until now. This collection needs it’s very own quilt. (I have been carrying around a custom iPhone case with the Constellation Fox for well over a year in anticipation of this fabric being released!) Of course the quilt needed to be filled with lots of stars. This is a match made in heaven.

MARK’S FIELD STUDY QUILT

Published on April 5, 2013 in patchwork and stitchery. 3 Comments Tags: field study quilt, Lizzy House, quilt, tula pink.

Let’s not talk about the start date of this quilt. (November 2011). Let’s just focus on the fact that it is done and that I finally gave it to my brother for Christmas this year. Wait. But, then I took it back to add the label and just gave it back to him at Easter. Oh boy. But it’s DONE!

Despite the fact that this project has spanned over a year, it was really very quick to make. (If you don’t already have 10 quilts in progress, run a small business, etc etc)

It’s a little bit crazy, but I have 3 more gift quilts in my closet that are beyond overdue. Let’s take care of that this month, shall we?

Coincidentally, my brother told me he has been thinking of getting a hedgehog, so maybe the timing is actually perfect.

FABRIC STACKS

Published on March 5, 2013 in colour, patchwork, stitchery and the workroom. 4 Comments Tags: constellations, feather bed quilt, hand pieced star sampler, learning curves table runner, Lizzy House.

Without a doubt one of the best parts of making a quilt is choosing the fabric. What’s even better is if you can just ‘shop your stash’ for the fabrics. I didn’t really understand the importance of having a stash as a quilter when I first started out. All these stacks were made from just what I have at home. They represent a range of time and memories and they are all fabrics that I really like. My fabric purchasing strategy is to buy fat quarters of fabrics that I like. If I like it a lot then I’ll get a half metre. If I think a fabric is amazing, I’ll get between 1-3 metres so that I’ll have enough for a large project or for lots of projects and not have to worry about it running out. I’m also always on the lookout for great neutrals (greys! whites, creams) or background type fabrics – when I find those, I’ll usually get between 2-3 metres.

Let’s take a look at these fabrics stacks.

First up is a stack for an Anna Maria Horner Feather Bed Quilt. This quilt has been on my mental list, but last week I saw Lalu’s version and suddenly it’s at the top of the list. I started a test block on Sunday to see what it would look like. Love it! The background fabric is a Lecien Vintage Paper print that I got recently, knowing it would be amazing as a quilt background fabric.

Next is a stack that is mostly Lizzy House Constellations. I wanted to do a quilt that would showcase Constellations. I feel particularly sentimental about this collection. I have lots of wonderful memories of seeing this collection emerge from our visit to Salt Lake City and a year’s worth of Skype dates with Lizzy. I searched around for ages and finally found Sheila’s Oh My Stars! Quilt pattern. I love the layout and I’m looking forward to making this quilt and spending time with these fabrics that I adore so much.

The Hand Pieced Star Sampler class is coming up and these are my choices for the class. I’ve wanted to do a quilt with red for a while and I’ve also got lots of star fabrics that I’ve been collecting. I used the red & navy plaid as my inspiration for these fabric selections.

Superstar Quilt is Johanna’s version of the Lone Star. My idea for this quilt is peach and grey. I wanted to use some of my favourite prints from the new Architextures line. The pieces in this quilt are larger, so it’s the perfect place to showcase fun prints.

The last stack is for the Learning Curves Table Runner class. I’ve picked out fabrics to make two different runners. I plan on getting really good at doing curves!

I started a list in ‘My Crafty List of Things to Do‘ for my ’12 Quilt Tops in 2013′ goal (scroll to the bottom of the page). I’ve got fabric here for four, so I’m off to a good start!

BANKSIA TOP : LEAVES & BERRIES

Published on May 31, 2012 in clothing, stitchery and the workroom. 10 Comments Tags: banksia, hello pilgrim, Lizzy House, megan nielsen.

Banksia Top by Megan Nielsen Patterns
Hello Pilgrim Leaves & Berries Print by Lizzy House
Photographed at the Black Walnut Chalet, Mount Horeb, WI

I’m making good progress on my summer wardrobe. When I packed for this trip, I planned on bringing dozens of unfinished things to work on. As I started to edit out due to space constraints, all the quilting projects got left behind and I was left with a duffle bag full of clothing patterns and yardage. Perfect for building my summer wardrobe! I had cut out this Banksia top a little while ago. The adorable strawberry fabric by Lizzy just couldn’t be more cheery and sweet. I love that when you make your own clothing you get to choose the fabric that is going to put you into a good mood as soon as you pull it out of the closet. Some days, you choose those items because it matches your upbeat mood, other days, you hope the cheery vibe of the garment will rub off on you, literally.

This is my first try using a Megan Nielsen pattern. I had not heard of her patterns until Angelune mentioned I might consider this line for their cute maternity options. It’s true, I have not seen such cute little tops and dresses for pregnant and nursing ladies. Luckily, there are also a few patterns in the line for those of us that are not expecting a bundle. All of a sudden, it seemed like everyone on the internet was making the Banksia or Darling Ranges dress. We have had them at the workroom for a couple months and we’ve just put them in our online shop too.

The packaging is charming, with a little velcro dot on the envelope to reseal it. (nice touch!) You get a nice little booklet of instructions that you can also make your own notes in. The day that I worked on this was extremely hot here, so I was a bit cranky and impatient. Not ideal sewing conditions, but I was determined to sew and tried to keep in mind that I was feeling slightly unreasonable. There are two ways to sew the placket. I chose to do the more complicated way (of course!), so I had to read slowly, several times through the instructions. It wasn’t as complicated as it sounded, but often when you’re not sure the direction that something is going in, you have NO idea how you’re actually going to get there. Yes, even I feel this way!

The top is fairly easy to put together. I found that the bust darts were not at all right for me, so I had to undo the side seams, stitch rip out the darts and extend them to make them a bit longer. After that the fit was so much better.

I did have enough forethought to bring along a selection of buttons on this trip for a few projects. I had some good feedback on my button choices from my Instagram pals. Some of whom had the brilliant idea to use all different buttons. What a great idea! I got to use three different cute buttons to finish this off. I’m also a sucker for a Peter Pan collar and this one is nice and big! Some people have extended this pattern to make it into a dress and I think that would be pretty sweet.

I’ll be making the Darling Ranges dress next. I’ve got the perfect Liberty fabric picked out for it.

FIELD STUDY QUILT : QUILT TOP

Published on November 27, 2011 in patchwork, stitchery, textiles and the workroom. 7 Comments Tags: field study quilt, Lizzy House, outfoxed, tula pink.

This was a fast quilt top to make. Really fast. I kinda love it.

I cut out all the pieces for it in less than an hour and a half. The main reason for this was that I actually had the exact size rulers that you need, a 6.5″ square and a 12.5″ square. If you can, make sure you have these rulers! They are handy to have in general but seriously made the cutting for this a breeze.

I sewed up all the blocks in one night. It was actually pretty fun and incredibly satisfying.

PLUS! I used a trick that Katrina taught me to save the triangle off cuts and create easy half square triangles (HSTs). You simply draw yourself an extra sewing line that is 1/2″ over from your first sewing line. Sew both lines and then cut in the middle. You get your main block and a ‘free’ HST. By doing this I made 72 HSTs that are about 5.5″ and there was ZERO waste. This will all make sense if you get the pattern. I’ll be using these extra blocks to create something for the back of the quilt.

All in all, the quilt top took me less than 2 days. Whoo!

FIELD STUDY QUILT : FABRICS

Published on November 21, 2011 in patchwork, stitchery, textiles and the workroom. 7 Comments Tags: field study quilt, Lizzy House, outfoxed, tula pink.

My goal right now is to finish as many quilting projects as possible before the end of the year. I’ve been making good progress and I’m close to finishing three quilts!! Somehow, I started pondering a new pattern and before I knew it, I had picked fabric and started working on it. When inspiration hits in sewing, I like to run with it and see what happens.

This is another Christmas gift and I’m really hopeful that it will actually be done in time. The pattern is Tula Pink’s Field Study quilt. I’ve chosen to do the Medium size (72″ x 72″). What I like about this pattern is that I think it is perfect for a guy and it’s very simple to make.

The fabrics are Tula Pink ‘Prince Charming’ Aqua Snail, Lizzy House ‘Outfoxed’ Brown Vine, Basic Grey ‘Curio’ Aqua Grunge, Lizzy House ‘Outfoxed’ Hunter Green Jewel, Michael D’Amore ‘Wordplay’ Espresso Text and Lizzy House ‘Outfoxed’ Yellow Hedgehogs.

I am actually almost done the quilt top. It took me one day to get the blocks cut and sewn! I’ll take some photos and show you what I’ve got so far this week.

SEWING SUMMIT MINI

Published on October 23, 2011 in patchwork, scraps and traveling. 7 Comments Tags: free motion, improv patchwork, Lizzy House, mini quilt, outfoxed, sewing summit.

Here’s my improv patchwork from Sewing Summit. Half the scraps for this came from Amanda and the other half came from Lizzy, who let me & Katherine dip into her collection for some bits we wanted for our stash. I really like sewing with other people’s fabrics. It’s fun to sew with fabric that I might not normally use.

I’ve been a bit afraid of free motion quilting. Okay, ALOT afraid. So far all the machine quilting that I’ve done has been straight lines, using a walking foot. I mean, after all the time that I’ve spent putting together a quilt, the last thing I want to do is ruin it with some bad quilting. This is why I knew I had to sign up for the Free Motion Quilting class at the Sewing Summit.

Our teacher, Alison, showed us lots of examples of different styles of quilting and quilts that she had done. She gave us some tips and gave demos on her technique. Then we just had to go for it. We had quilt sandwiches to practice on. This is definitely the best way to learn. Practice on little fake mini quilt sandwiches! There was a lot of wonky stitching on my practice mini, but I really liked the look of the overlapping square pattern, so I kept practicing that pattern over and over. Finally, I just decided to just go for it. SCARY! If you look really closely, this quilting is hardly perfect. But it was really exciting to finally let go and stop worrying about how perfect my little squares are. From a distance, it looks pretty good. Of course, now I want to do all kinds of free motion. I’m going to stick to mini quilts for now, but I can’t wait til I am ready to tackle a larger quilt. Bring it on FREE MOTION!

SEWING SUMMIT

Published on October 22, 2011 in stitchery, textiles and traveling. 8 Comments Tags: Lizzy House, mrsmcporkchop, salt lake city, sewing summit.

This year was the inaugural year for the Sewing Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sewing Summit is a two day sewing & blogging conference that was held at the Little America Hotel. Since Katherine and I had such a great time at The Makerie in the spring, we knew we had to be a part of the Sewing Summit, too. It was also a chance to meet up with lots of friends IN REAL LIFE that I’ve made on the internet. Most specifically, Amanda aka Ms Mcporkchop! Amanda and I have been chatting pretty much every day for well over a year. We’ve worked on projects together, sent each other packages in the mail and video skyped with each other. You can imagine how amazing it was to meet up with her at the SLC airport and room with her & Katherine for five whole days. It was the best!!

We had flown down a few days early so that we could spend time with Lizzy House and have a chance to explore Salt Lake City. This was one lesson we learned from our Makerie trip. We didn’t schedule in time to really check out Boulder and Denver. Thursday was our shopping day. Armed with a list of local quilt and yarn shops, we headed out in our rented SUV. We took a short drive outside the city to visit Material Girls and Quilt, Etc. Both were huge shops with so many great fabrics. We had a lot of fun scouring the shelves and picking out fat quarters for ourselves. Back in SLC, we visited Piper’s Quilts, which sells both fabric and yarn. This shop is in an adorable house with quilts hanging out on the porch and a classroom upstairs. The last stop on our craft tour was Blazing Needles. It’s been a really long time since I’ve knit anything, but I always love to check out the colourful skeins of yarn. Something about this wonderful shop inspired Katherine & I to buy yarn and start knitting a cozy cowl. The owner, Cynthia, spent a lot of time with us making sure we got everything we needed and giving us advice. We left the shop feeling really inspired. I think everyone who visited that shop felt the same thing because at night huge groups of gals were huddled together in our room or the lobby knitting away.

Friday was another exploring day. This time with Lizzy and her sister, Melissa. We drove out to Sundance Resort, which is located in a gorgeous canyon surrounded by mountains. It was actually snowing in the mountains, which made them even more breathtaking. We also drove out to Park City, which is actually the setting for the Sundance Film Festival. In our wandering around we happened upon a Banksy, which totally made my day.

The Sewing Summit started early on Saturday and wrapped up Sunday afternoon. We took Handbags 101 with Bari J, Free Motion Quilting with Alison of Cluck Cluck Sew, Creative Fabric Selection with Jeni B of In Color Order, Marvelous Minis with Amanda of MsMcPorkchop Quilts, Photographing Your Creations with Vanessa of V and Co and Improv Piecing with Jessica of Urban Patchwork. That’s a lot to jam into a couple days, but I learned a lot and felt really inspired.

In particular, Jeni & Amanda’s classes were totally energized and informative. Jeni gave a really thorough presentation on how to choose dynamic colour palettes and surprised the entire class with Kona colour cards. Such a useful tool for selecting colour. Amanda brought so many examples of her minis and they were all incredible. My favourite all time mini is her Oregon Star. I felt like I was in the presence of the Mona Lisa, seeing this mini quilt in person. Incredible. Also, you have never seen anyone as passionate about getting you excited to make mini quilts and be creative. I am pretty sure everyone in her class went straight home after the weekend and made a mini quilt. I know I did.

There were so many friends that I met at the Summit that were so fun to hang out with. I’m so happy that I made sure to take lots of ‘people’ photos on this trip. Amanda J, Amanda Hall, Jeni B, Kait, Lindsay, Angela, Deedrie & Jessica – I had so much fun with you ladies! Saying goodbye to everyone on the last day was really hard, but I hope we’ll meet up again soon!

Check out my 100+ photos from Salt Lake City and the Sewing Summit here!

COLOUR THEORY + MINI QUILTS

Published on September 17, 2011 in colour, patchwork and the workroom. 3 Comments Tags: colour theory, Lizzy House, mini quilt.

Somehow I was catapulted out of August into the middle of September, (WTH?) so don’t mind me while I reminisce about the last bits of summer.

Colour Theory + Mini Quilts with Lizzy House was a phenomenal class. The first class was spent mixing paints and learning about colour theory. It felt like being back in art class, but it truly drove the lesson home. Right away we were putting together dynamic colour palettes that surprised us. I saved mine and I’m making a mini quilt out of it this weekend.

For the mini quilt portion of the class we had to design something from scratch. I’ve done lots of improv quilting, but never really planned a design, so this was a challenge. We were also supposed to try to only use solids. Another challenge for me since I rarely use solids.

I added one more personal challenge on top of all that. I wanted to try to convey transparency with my design where parts were overlapping. Let me tell you, I was frustrated by the whole thing. But for me, I know that this means that I’m actually learning something!

My mini turned out to look just like my sketch and I can’t tell you what a thrill it was the first time I pieced together a component with the transparency layers.

It was really special watching each individual mini quilt come together from a sketch to a little mini work of art. It was even more special to see everyone achieve little milestones of personal challenge and achievement. I’m not going to lie, there were some joyful tears at the end of this class. Yep. That’s the kind of teacher Lizzy House is.

CHAMPION RIBBONS

Published on August 31, 2011 in scraps and the workroom. 1 Comment Tags: champion ribbons, Lizzy House.

Oh boy. What an awesome week we had with Lizzy House last week! I can’t believe that it’s over already. I took a crazy amount of photos so I’ll be posting those over the next few days in batches, starting from the end and working back to the beginning.

We ended the week at the workroom with Lizzy’s Champion Ribbons class. What a perfect and fun Saturday morning we had. This project is pure genius, using bits of felt, ribbon, buttons and any other craft materials you’ve got lying around. Plus, I’ll take any excuse I can get to make a trip to Mokuba to buy fancy trims. What’s great about this project is that it is so playful and relaxing. We sat around the huge table together, making a mess, cutting felt, turning ribbon and chatting away.

To add to the festive mood, Andrea made a delicious spice cake that she decorated with mini bunting made from Lizzy’s fabric. So sweet! It was so pretty but we didn’t seem to have any problems gobbling it right up.

I ended up making six Champion Ribbons. My favourite part was going through my scrap bin and finding the perfect bit of fabric to cover a button with for the centres of my ribbons. I made a few for myself and a few for gifts. I think these make a special gift and I can’t wait to award some special people in my life with a Champion Ribbon. I already know I’ll be making more ribbons very soon, I spent the other night organizing all my trims into mason jars so I’ll be ready for another ribbon making session.