Quilt Guild night

Just wanted to report that against usual rules, I went to the quilt guild meeting on Thursday night. (Yes, Survivor night.) Unfortunately I did not stay for the whole meeting, but I did see the sponsored speakers. They invited Faye and Merie Pitts to speak about their quilting career. They are a couple that works in tandem to create prize-winning quilts. He designs, cuts, pieces, and then marks the quilts, and she quilts them. They've even won best of show at Paducah. Holy cow. They passed around a lot of lovely quilts and it was really interesting. I guess worth missing most of Survivor, though I hear the challenge at the beginning was pretty awesome. I wish I had a picture to post from the meeting but I didn't take any and I can't find any website that Faye and Merie have. So anyways, that was pretty cool. I heard my first quilt speakers.

Oh, and my last hand-piecing class is tomorrow night. I think my class project is going to become a doll blanket for the kids. That is really the only thing it would be suitable for. It's little-girl pink and mint green, with a touch of baby blue. Not colors I would normally pick--I had it from the anniversary meeting of the quilter's night group.

Peter Pan & eBay

Well, the Peter Pan costume is finished. Unfortunately I have not yet taken any photos, but I assure you The Boy is thrilled. He even loves the somewhat wonky and a tad-too-tight hat.

The other day I went a little crazy on eBay and bought some vintage patterns. First was a dress that I loved but I'll probably look like a dork in:



The second was a lot of thirty little girl patterns. I figure this can keep me pretty busy with The Girl for awhile:


I know. I have a problem.

Tinkerbelle Lives!

I've finished the Tinkerbelle costume! Hurray. Only thing is, The Girl doesn't want to put it on. Hmm. This could be a problem.

I bought fabric yesterday to start The Boy's Peter Pan costume. He is very excited. Unfortunately I still don't have a pattern for it, though, so I'll be winging it. Hopefully it doesn't turn out lame.

In other news, I went a little nutzo on eBay this past week. More news on that later. For now, here's a picture of Tink:



And a close-up of the zipper, since I'm proud it turned out semi-respectable:

Packages for me

When I got home yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to discover not one but three packages for me! Woohoo!

Package 1) The Girl's coat fabric has arrived. I love it. I hope it turns out right.

Package 2) Mail order from Angry Chicken. This was not as glorious as I had expected but I must admit it was very professionally done.

Package 3) Partylite! A friend of mine had a candle party a few weeks back and my order is in. Ginger Pumpkin, though ist the scent of October.

In other news, I broke out the sewing machine and started on the Tinkerbelle costume. The sewing machine is sewing like a dream, though the needle must not be the right type for the fabric because it is making sort of a tick-tick sound as it punctures the fabric. I stayed up too late working on it, and knowing that it was late I started to rush, and thus I have a seam to rip out later on tonight.

Sorry, no picture today. I can't do pictures from the lunchtime post. :(

Happy Holidays!

Happy October 1st! At our house, that signals the beginning of the holiday season. The children have already demanded that Halloween decorations go up (and The Husband didn't object, even though it was not yet technically October, which is his acceptable date for such activities) and The Boy wants to know when we are going for pumpkins. Soon, my son, soon.

I picked up the sewing machine Friday evening without incident. I am sad to say I still have not had the chance to sew anything on it. But it will be in full swing within a few days for Halloween Costumes and the Where's-My-Head coat project for The Girl.

In celebration of the Halloween season, here is a photo of our pumpkin family. Enjoy!

lessons

Ya. So I started to fill in what I learned in the last post and didn't
finish it. Here is the list:

1) I need to think more carefully about contrast. It's not enough for the
fabric to match; there has to be some difference in the color values for a
design to really pop and have dimension.
2) A month is not long enough to make a quilt-show caliber quilt
3) I need to be more careful with my piecing--in particular, I need to learn how to accurately and consistently stitch a quarter inch seam
4) Next year I want to be a scribe for the show. The scribes go around with the judging and write down their comments. Another white-glove lady told me she learned oodles doing that.
5) Simple can win; so can complex. It's all about what works--and the
personal opinion of a group of judges that have their favorite styles.
6) Don't bring The Kids to the show. Maybe they'll be ready for that in
2008.

Quilt at the quilt show

In other news, I bought patterns and fabric for two new projects. Project One I am super-excited about. Angry Chicken gave me the bug to sew The Girl's winter coat this year. I bought some beautiful plum-purple wool and velvet, and also some periwinkle flannel-backed satin lining yesterday at fabrics.com. The pattern is Burda #9736.

Project Two is The Girl's Halloween costume. She wants to be Tinkerbelle. So
today I swung over to JoAnn's at lunch and bought some lovely green satin and tulle. Get this. With coupons, I have so far spent less than 15 bucks on the costume. Ching! Usually at Halloween time I feel the sting of cheap costumes off the rack. That will be done with Simplicity 5835.

And never fear, there is a Halloween costume in the works for The Boy as
well. He wants to be Peter Pan. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a pattern for that particular costume around. I figure I'm going to make
something t-shirt like and give it pointy edges. I'd also like to get him
some green sweats to wear under it. The Husband thinks he should wear tights but I don't think that will be warm enough. I do intend to make The Girl wear something similar under her costume, for the record.

The sewing machine comes home tomorrow! La!

The Quilt Show

The Quilt show was kind of bittersweet. As I rationally expected, I did not win a ribbon. However. That is not necessarily what I emotionally expected. When I arrived I went through the quilts right away, skipping right past fund raising raffles and vendors. Mine was close to the front and I saw it very quickly. 1) The label didn't show that the name of the quilt was Blisswork. 2) It had no prize.  Of course that was not shocking. But it was, somewhere deep inside, a disappointment. Also the categories were very confusing and I had a really hard time finding the quilts that "beat" mine.  In fact, none of the quilts that beat mine were pieced. They were all appliqué. Also there was no honorable mention in the small-hand quilted quilt category.

The quilts were of course mostly beautiful.  There were a handful that I thought were rather unattractive.  And one of the other white-glovers showed me some qualities in a few quilts that caused them to be judged harshly, which was pretty educational. Though she wasn't very nice about it and I hoped the quilter was not standing nearby. It wasn't likely as it was towards the end, but still. It seemed a bit catty, actually. Though I did learn a few things from what she had to say.

When The Husband arrived with The Kids, all heck broke loose.  The Girl tried to shimmy up a display pole and the boy was hopping in circles.  The president of the guild approached me and I asked about leaving my quilt instead of waiting to pick it up.  All I wanted to know was where I could collect it at a later date.  She took it to mean that I wanted the quilt NOW and she took one more look at the rather destructive behavior of my children and took it down for me.  Hurray for not having to wait for all the quilts to be taken down and organized…but now I feel indebted to her AND I didn't get my feedback sheet. That was a big part of the point of entering the show! 

So.  Stuff I learned:

Hey howdy hey

So the sewing machine is due to come back home September 29th. I can hardly wait. The Husband was going to be running a marathon on the 30th so I didn't think I'd get time to do anything crafty, but he injured his foot. My poor guy. He doesn't think he is going to run now, so maybe craft time with the machine will be a possibility!

In other news, I signed up for mailorder over at Angry Chicken. I can hardly wait to get my first packet. It was a bit pricey but I think I'm worth it. He.

Also, I went to Old Navy today to buy The Boy some pants. I bought four pairs of (adjustable waist, halleluyah!) pants, two long-sleeved shirts and two t-shirts, plus some really cool wrapping paper. The baby/toddler pants were on sale 25% off, so I spent just over 75. I think I did pretty good for ten items! Ok, two of the items were paper products. But they are really cool.

Hey, check out these beautiful plate/tea cup sets The Husband's mom gave me! She was cleaning out her cabinets and I admired them. She packed them up and handed them over. They belonged to The Husband's grandmother. I love them. They are so hostess-y! I must now admit to not being a very good hostess. But I still love the plates. It's so cool how there is a little divit to put your cup so that it doesn't slide around.