Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Psst...I'm teaching!

So, the cat's officially out of the bag...


I'm teaching at Sewing Summit!!!  Yippee!  I'll be team teaching an advanced piecing class focusing on paper and foundation piecing with the wonderfully talented Lee from Freshly Pieced.  I'm so looking forward to making paper piecing and foundation piecing less scary, because it really can be fun and create gorgeous precise blocks!

It's funny, this teaching gig makes me think of my old working days, as I spent a lot of time teaching physicians and researchers how to use PowerPoint and other audiovisual tools for presentations and lectures, so it's kind of wild to think of myself teaching about something I'm so passionate about.  I am so looking forward to getting to meet all of you who are attending Sewing Summit this year and to have another fun weekend with my wonderful gal pals.  I know the tickets for Sewing Summit are currently sold out, but you can learn more about the wait list at the Sewing Summit site, if you're interested. I so hope to see some of you there!
Monday, April 9, 2012

A little weekend sewing

A little weekend sewing led to a finished bee block for Brooke.  She's working on a Mod Mosaic quilt, and each of our blocks uses a gradated color scheme.  My color was green, and I think I may have gone a bit overboard in both adding from my stash as well as in emphasizing the gradation.  I had fun working on it, but I'm worried I didn't do a good job following direction here.  I hope you like it, Brooke!!  If not, I'll try again!  :)

IMG_8447
 
I also managed to make a boatload of tiny HSTs (thank you, Thangles!) that I'm thinking of using to border my NY Beauty mini. Still pondering on this one...

IMG_8442

Hope you all had a good weekend!  Happy Monday!
Sunday, April 8, 2012

Tag, I'm it!

Happy Easter to you and your wonderful families today :)

I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I checked my email after our family egg hunt and found a little note from Cindy of Hyacinth Quilt Designs.  Do you know Cindy?  You should :)  She's the wonderful quilter behind the wildly popular Garden Fence block tutorial, and she is such a sweet person.  I made a Garden Fence quilt, using Cindy's tutorial, last year using Tula Pink's gorgeous Prince Charming fabrics.

Alex's Garden Prince quilt

Cindy got tagged by some blog friends recently and tagged me in return, asking me 8 fun questions...here goes...

1. If you're not quilting, what are you most likely doing?
Reading...or maybe baking.  I used to spend as much time reading as I now do quilting, it was my first real hobby to speak of.  It's shocking to me that I now own more fabric than I do books, since my book collection was always something that seemed overflowing and humongous to me.  I do definitely still read, but these days I mostly read e-books on my Kindle.  Baking is another fun hobby of me, that I've been doing my whole life.  I love the precision of baking, whereas cooking is way less fun to me.  I have a mean sweet tooth :)

Mmmm...cake


2. Do you buy fabric with a specific project in mind or "just because"?
Rarely.  I tend to buy fabric I love, regardless of whether or not I have a project in mind for it.  I usually purchase fabrics in half-yard or yard increments, depending on the price, when I'm buying frivolously.  This could explain why my fabric collection is starting to outgrow its current space...

IMG_8294

3. How many quilting projects do you have going at once?
I'm usually a multitasker, flitting between several ongoing projects, but lately, I've been trying to tame that habit a little bit.  In the past, I'd try to juggle as many as ten different projects, but I'm trying to prioritize my time better, rather than spending 30 minutes trying to decide which project to work on.  Sometimes I really wish I were the kind of quilter who could work on just one project at a time - maybe I'd be less messy that way!

IMG_8339

4. How many completed quilts do you own?
Um...I had to go count them :)  I've given many of the quilts I've made as gifts and also some to charity, but I currently own 11 of my quilts, including 3 that belong to my son.

5. How do you use your quilts, or are they stored away somewhere?
I rarely feel cold.  I mean, I live in Florida, and even in the winter, it's never really all that cold here.  I tend to keep our air conditioning cooler at night, as I like to snuggle under my big warm/cool quilt on my bed at night, and my husband is always griping that it's cold, so he often will snuggle under a quilt on the couch.  When my mother visits, she sleeps under a few quilts.  I definitely put my quilts to use.  They also make great forts!

6. What is your favorite food?
My all-time favorite food in the world is my mother's fried chicken with biscuits and gravy.  So down-home and tasty, it's the kind of meal that just says "home" to me.

7. What is your current favorite color combination?
Such a tough one!!  Um...I'd have to say teal, gold, and aqua.  It's funny, before I started quilting, I was a bit of a color snob.  There were colors I would often say I just didn't like, but now, it's almost as though I appreciate color more than I used to.  There really isn't a single color I think I would say that I don't like, but if you looked at my fabric collection, it would be super easy to see what color I like best, and that's blue.

penciled brights

8. Where do you get your ideas and/or inspiration?
All over the place.  I take pictures all the time, sometimes of plants where I see beautiful color combinations, or of fences or tile where I see a pattern that interests me.  I've been inspired by pieces of furniture, fabrics, credit card commercials, you name it.  Inspiration is everywhere, you just have to look.  :)

This was fun!!!  Now I get to tag some people, too...hmm...
Kelly from kelbysews (who's starting a fun new quilt-along - check it out!)
Jess from Sew Crafty Jess
Kati from From the Blue Chair
Kim from My Go-Go Life

Here's my questions:
1. Do you have other hobbies other than quilting?
2. What's the smallest size scrap you save when quilting?
3. How many of your quilts do you actually own?
4. Are you a pre-washer, or do you wash your fabrics after the quilt is finished?
5. What do you do while you sew?  Listen to music?  Watch TV?  Enjoy the silence?
6. How many blogs do you read?
7. What is your favorite food?
8. Are you a morning person or a night person?

I hope you're all having a wonderful Sunday :)

Welcome! I'm Elizabeth, mom to a mood teen boy and a chatty six-year-old girl and I sew for my sanity. Let's get to quilting, shall we?
The Epic Sampler BOM Club kicks off Oct 1st
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