The world, in pictures, according to 3 year old ms. e

Ms. e has been taking pictures with my iPhone for a while now, but just recently they started coming out clear.  I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of her world and what she finds important, literally through her eyes, every once in a while.

So here is her first installment.

I was in the shower when she made her request to “take pictures of her cooties,” and I think that most moms will agree that pretty much all requests are granted when you are dripping wet and have shampoo in your hair!  There were over 60 pictures taken!  She put her cooties in ALL KINDS of places and made her feet do all kinds of funny things, but these are the highlights.. and the ones that are clear-ish.

We’ve been playing Cootie, LOTS, in an attempt to stay busy inside while our a/c keeps us cool and sane INSIDE and away from the 110+ days we have been having in our neck of the woods!

For a very special girl

This quilt is for Miss Lucy, a very special girl who just turned one and who’s adoption was finalized this month!  My neighbors, and friends now have two fully adopted daughters and it has been QUITE the journey, to say the least.  I can’t think of a more deserving family to receive my first gifted quilt!  Congratulations Elliott family of FOUR!

I finished this quilt top a couple years ago and put it aside because of one reason or another… probably because I had a baby or some weak excuse like that.  Buuuuut, Kelli showed an interest in it back then so I thought it would be perfect to finish it up with a modern back to reflect more of my current style and send it along to a loving home.

At the time I was SO jazzed about the pattern I stumbled upon– someplace I can’t remember, in a book called Super Simple Quilts #1.  By “Super Simple” they mean strip piecing!  Oh MY!  It was like a light bulb went on, this thing is Super-Stinkin’-Simple, even at my snail paced sewing speed it came together so quickly!  I recommend this little booklet if you want to wip something up quick– you know as fast as a quilt can be “quick.”

So far I am the most satisfied with my stippling on this quilt   I am improving with my Bernina Stitch Regulator (BSR), understanding tension much better, what needs to be adjusted on the bobbin case, the pressure on the foot, and what the appropriate stitch length is for my hand speed!  Alllllllll of that to get the perfect free motion stitches!  SO worth it!

Because I thought I was getting this to her last Saturday, before the previous week blew up on me, it is label-less but I went ahead and quilted it on her adoption day anyway.  I will stitch one up over the next couple weeks and ask for the quilt back so I can attach it.  I don’t think Lucy will mind.

It is backed and bound in Kona Bone and measures 39.5 x 51, and I machine finished the binding for the first time on a big quilt.  I will NOT do it again… between the ironing and fixing of mistakes I am not entirely sure it is ANY faster than attaching it by hand.  Maybe with a special biding attachment it would turn out better… but NEVER again!

My first dress!

Big deal, people.  HUGE.  I have been sewing for three years and for some reason clothing has been this far away someday dream that I may or may not be able to figure out when I get around to it.  I realize it isn’t THAT big of a deal, but I have had some sort of mental ability block or something crazy, and FINALLY the walls have been broken…

… and I owe it all to Jaime, a friend of mine from high school!  Thanks to the wonders of facebook we have reconnected and she put out an open invitation to join her for an afternoon of sewing in which she would help us with a girls pillowcase dress or a Woman’s Cotton Top!  How fantastic, right!?  I was IN!

I have had a couple vintage pillowcases that MY grandmother embroidered for me when I was a babe that I have been itching to turn into a dress for ms. e!  The only thing is, I have been chicken!  Mostly b/c I have never made ANYTHING to wear OR anything from a pattern–  you know those intimidating things that come in those envelopes with all the complicated directions on tissue paper– yea, those.  Anyway, the class was a couple weeks ago and this is what I made!  I think she should have called the class “patterns demystified,” because it did just the trick to give me the confidence to try something else on my own… you know, with maybe only a half dozen phone calls for advice!

This is Simplicity 2391 if you wanna know, complete with bias binding and casing, OH YEA!  It fits her perfectly, could be a bit longer, should have made a size 4 rather than 3, BUT It will look great with jeans and fit her next year as a shirt so no harm done.

And, no I did NOT tell ms. e how to pose for ANY of these pictures, only that I wanted to take pictures of her in the dress and I also insisted that her hair be done first. The rest is completely her, crazy girl!

I was the only one at the sewing day that made the pillowcase dress, the other girls made crazy things like shirts for themselves!

Before you click through the rest of the pics I have to point out something.  See that cute little machine in the bottom left?  That’s Jamie’s featherweight, AND what sparked my memory that I had one of those in my garage too!

Thank you SO much Jaime for providing this AWESOME opportunity for all of us to learn something new with your expert guidance!  I had a great time!

figuring things out!

I realize to most people this isn’t such a big deal, but to me who first learned to sew from a Brother instructional DVD, complete with a plastic drop in bobbin, this is a liiiiittle different– to say the least!

I have spent the morning hunched over the original manual, which I think alone is just charming, I’ve learned to thread the bobbin, then the machine, adjust tension, stitch backwards, adjust stitch length, & learned which way to thread the needle by hand (yes, I have been suuuper spoiled with both my previous machine’s needle threaders).  In one word, I am Smitten!  She sews like a dream.

When I finally recovered from my utter excitement two days ago, I took a good look a my new beauty and the cord looked a little sketchy, so after calling three different sewing repair stores I finally found the best gentlemen who was just as excited as I was and proclaimed that he has ALL the replacement parts in stock and that he couldn’t wait to see it!  SCORE!  My excitement got the best of me, as it often does, and I woke the kids from their nap (WHICH I NEVER DO) and off we went to see how much information I could glean as I held my breath about how much the cord repair would cost.

I learned SO dang much, and cord repair was only 24 bucks, not bad eh?  I also had him do a complete tune up– balance, timing, blah blah blah.  I don’t really know all of what he did, but he was suuuper impressed with the overall condition and apparently the hook was in excellent shape… which is a really good thing I hear, and the Centennial Plate is sorta a big deal, and he made me promise that I wouldn’t let anybody else use it.  Also to oil it every eight hours of use, don’t use any dual duty thread on it (just 100% cotton or 100% polyester), don’t’ let your daughter touch it, oil it every 8 hours of use… and did I mention not to let anybody else touch it?  He put it at the top of his priorities and had it back to me the next afternoon, I’m one lucky girl!  Happy early Birthday to ME!

I can’t wait to start doing some real piecing with her on the go, though I think I will be getting a quarter inch foot I’m not sure why such a thing didn’t come standard back then.  But if you want some ruffles, I’ve got you covered!

ASHAMED!

You are not going to flippin’ believe this!  THIS has been sitting in my garage for as long as I have had a garage– 6 years!  I sorta kinda forgot about it/didn’t realize what I had!  PEOPLE, I am that stupid person who puts a treasure like this in a garage sale for 5 bucks thinking it is just some decoration.  NOT THAT I DID!  I am just saying… I wouldn’t put it past me!

I know nothing about it’s worth, how to thread it, oil it, or turn it on.  But if you know me… I am officially obsessed– and I had to share before I got too engrossed!  I know there are at least a few of you out there who can appreciate this!  I think the centennial plate may be a good thing…

I have a handful of bobbins, and what looks like all the accessory feet made for it…

…the original charming box…

…and the manual!

SO! Here’s the story… This belonged to my Grandfather’s first wife who passed some 30 years ago– who didn’t sew according to my grandmother.  It was passed to Grandma when she married Grandpa the same year I was born!  Grandma had a hunch that it was sorta something great so she got it serviced, and there it has has sat in it’s fabulous little black case ever since.  She says she hasn’t used it… but somebody has, there are a couple bobbins that have thread on them, but otherwise the machine looks pretty untouched!  CRAZY, right?

I pretty much feel like I hit the jackpot!  I am excited to figure it out, get it serviced if it needs it, and trek it to my LA MQG sewing days instead of my beast!  Thank you Grandma for bringing it back to me today, I can’t wait to show you what she can do after I get her all figured out!

I am going to dig for info, but please if anybody knows anything about this particular one I would love to hear from you!  I have a lot to learn I think!

Ms. E’s art table!

This is my girl’s art table…

… you see, everything is juuuuuuust so.  Exactly how she wants it.  She collects things on top to keep away from her brother and rearranges and straightens it OFTEN.  I am now off limits from “organizing,” errr, touching it.

Don’t tell her, but I DO get in there every so often and tidy up the drawers so she can find things again, but I am stealth, I’m not sure she has figured it out yet.  But she keeps her cups incredibly organized, it is most impressive, really.  Have I mentioned that she is only 3?  And After every “art project” she puts everything back in place and likes a nice, clean, and clutter free table.  THREE, I tell you… I’m 27 and still can’t do that! (see mess on MY “art table” in following pictures!)

It’s her default, her happy place, the place she goes when nothing else is going right in her three year old word.  Originally I thought we would add another chair to sit opposite her when Mr. A was ready to get dirty, but there is no way I am asking her to share this corner of the world with anybody.  We all need our own “corner,” don’t we?  I am just amazed at how early she has figured this out and is able to soothe herself with it!

This is her most recent addition, not her framed art, but discovering that she could make it better by adding stickers on top and more art behind.  It was quiet the ahhh haaaa moment, and not quiet the look I was going for… but who am I to argue with The Boss of The Corner?

What you don’t see is that she has a cell phone stashed in that basket that she periodically answers ,and she chats with Ponyo (also sitting in basket) about what colors she is using.  She has learned to joyously talk to other things when she knows that I am no longer 100% engaged, doesn’t bother her a bit!  It’s awesome!

And here she is doing what she does best….

… and organizing, organizing, organizing…

… and getting everything juuuuuust right.

You are snickering at her get-up, I know you are, admit it!  Let me explain– this is pretty standard issue attire around here.  I’ll start from the top:

*  The headband – She loves them, that is all I can say, and when I am not an over bearing parent this is how she wears them.   I think it may be her make-believe crown… but I still am trying to figure the fascination out myself.

* The WINGS – OH, the glorious wings!  Lets just say I am SO GLAD I finally found the damn things!  Again, I am not quiet sure how she got it in her head, but out of the blue about a month ago she came to me very politely and asked to get “some wings at the store as soon as possible so she could fly.”  We had a good heart to heart to make sure that she was just talking about pretend flying, and I was stuck not knowing WHERE to get wings… seeing as it is not Halloween!  Lets just say we had a heck of a time finding them, lots of tears, gas tanks that wouldn’t open to get gas to go and GET the wings… lots of stuff even a very organized three year old had trouble understanding.  But ALAS, we found them on our most recent vacay to Mammoth, HALLELUJAH!  Needless to say they have not left her side!

* Undershirt – Ahhh, the undershirt, she owns clothes– honest… and she does understand that undershirts go under your shirt, but she insists that this is the closest thing she has to a leotard “like the ballet dancers” she watches on DVD.  And there I am left without words to tell her otherwise.

* Leggings – Let me just say that usually she is not so white, or monochromatic for that matter.  But I guess this day was all white day.  Here is another one of her compromises… I keep actual tight wearing around the house to a minimum because, a) good pairs of tights are difficult to find and I don’t want them getting holes before their time and b), tights she needs my assistance to get on, leggings she does not.  Need I say more?

* Over-sized Ballet Shoes – Ms. E wears ballet shoes all. day. long. when we are home.  Her smaller sized ones are THRASHED, so we scooted up to the next best thing we had.  She isn’t thrilled about it, but I hid the other ones so she is dealing.

All that being said, art is pretty much the coolest thing in my girls world, tomorrow I’ll show ya her giant easel she loves to talk us into dragging out.

July Meeting

Holy Smokes!  Our LA Modern Quilt Guild Meetings are always soooo dang GOOD!  I really hope those of you hosting your own MQG meetings  have as much fun, inspiration, & support flowing as we do!

To kick things off Latifah and Lori passed around a few pieces of LA MQG merch they already picked up from our new Cafe Press Store!  Fabulous!  I am still trying to make up my mind about what I want to get!

This was our last meeting we will be having in Jenny’s cozy & welcoming Home Ec. space. :(  BUT we are not loosing Jenny, that is the important thing!  She will be closing her brick and mortar store but still keeping her online presence.  More about her decision, here.

In honor of her being the hostess with the mostest since The Guild’s inception, we presented her with a gift certificate to a local spa & 30 or so blankets made by Guild Members to donate to the Pasadena Humane society where she volunteers!  Oh, and we also celebrated with champagne and sparkling cider, because after all we are the modern quilt guild! ;)

She was pretty darn excited about it!

And LOOK!  The second of our charity quilt tops is finished, thanks to Leslie.

And the back is equally as fabulous, I LOVE it!

Lori, our super fab Secretary, gave a great talk/rundown on her experience learning how to use a long arm quilting machine at The Sewing Arts Center! I have to say after listening to her talk in detail about the process, how the machine works, and how simple it is to mount your quilt I am DIEING to try! But as I told Mr. K… there really isn’t any place to do it locally… that I know of… and I am intentionally not going to make an effort to seek it out. Dangerous I tell you, DANGEROUS!

Aaaaand while in Austin visiting her family a couple weeks ago, Leslie got together with the wonderful Laurie Wisburn over coffee and she sent along some journals and fat quarter stacks of her yet to be released Urban Circus line to giveaway! How great is that!? Here are the randomly chosen winners (minus one who did not want to have her picture shared).

THANK YOU LAURIE for your thoughtfulness and generosity! The winners were SO EXCITED!

And what would a meeting be without a fabulous show and tell??

Leslie swiped a few quilt tops from her mom’s house when she visited Austin a couple weeks ago that her Great Grandmother made!  How cool, right??

I’m even in here this time around, with some Wonderland goodness!  But you’ll have to hunt for me…

ummm, could we be any cooler?

Hot off the press thanks to our fabulous in house graphic artist, we now have our OWN official LA MQG logo– complete with a Cafe Press Store filled with more shirts, sweatshirts, and odds and ends than you can shake a stick at!  Check it out, and support us!

for Leila!

In the same week that I made Peyton’s bag I also made this one for Ms. Leila Ann, another sweet little girl who just turned one!

This time I cut into my fat quarter stack of Joel Dewberry’s Modern meadow, and I went a bit more pink than I usually do becuase I knew that Ms. L’s mamma would like it best.  I also interfaced the outside just as the last bag, and I STILL love how it helps with the linen wrinkles!

And the inside… still no label… but I do like the pink magnetic clasp!

Aaaaaaand I just so happened to have a couple sweet pics of my kids with Leila when they were over last just after they all woke up from their naps drinking their milk in bed.  Leila didn’t quiet know what to think of her new bed buddies!

for Peyton!

I haven’t made a bag in a suuuuuper long time, and STILL my kids don’t have one.  I really DO need to get on that!  But in the mean time a couple of my friend’s little girls turned one in May, so I just HAD to make a couple.  It seems to be a pattern of mine… at least for baby girls. (see Carly’s and Haislea’s)

Anyway, this was for Ms. Peyton!  Her momma reeeeally LOVED the Alexander Henry (“lola”)  print that I used in the drag along blakie I made for Corinn’s baby shower.  So getting started was easy, no analysis paralysis this time!

I used the same measurements I posted for Haislea’s bag a couple years ago, it really does seem to be the perfect size.  Maybe I should just name this The Haislea Bag!  Whatdaya thing? Also, for the first time on a tote bag, I used pellon interfacing on the entire outer part of the bag just like I did with the buttercup bags since I LOVED the way they turned out!  This will definitely be what I do from now on if I am using linen!  I love linen, but OH HOW I HATE how quickly is wrinkles!

And here is the inside complete with a sweet white magnetic clasp I found someplace.  I really do need to start labeling my stuff better.  Any suggestions for labels out there!?

June Meeting

Our June meeting was ACTION packed, and since I know most of you are here to catch a glimpse of all the mini quilt goodness from our swap, lets kick it off with that!

Jake Finch, managing editor of Quilter’s Home, the one that wrote the article on the Modern Quilting movement in this month’s issue, and the one that featured Alissa’s quilt on the cover… YEA, THAT one!  She came to our meeting!  How exciting, right!?

And if that were not enough of a treat, Kaari Meng from the WONDERFUL French General came to talk to us about her passion for French textiles, her line of fabric with MODA!, how her shop came to be, aaaaaand her adventures & travels in the south of France!

It was fascinating to learn about her journey into creating fabric, how the process works, and more about MODA’s philosophy.  Thank you Kaari for joining us, it was a treat!

AND LOOK!  The first of the two quilt tops for our charity/raffle quilt! Thank you Nicole for so skillfully putting this together for us!

There were a few newbies as always, I hope they all come back!

And last but certainly not the least exciting, SHOW AND TELL!

… and just a few more actions shots for good measure!

categories LA MQG, feature | 1 comment, YEA, be #2!

mini quilt swap!!

Last night was our June LA MQG meeting and we had a mini quilt swap.  I have been itching to do a modern dresden, and this was just the excuse to get it out of my system with minimal commitment and time!  Those fab Heather Ross Gnomes were a lucky acquisition from Chris at one of our weekend sews!

I thought it fitting to pass on the fabric goodness to another MQG member, and THE PERFECT person got it!  Terri (and Chris) were my inspiration in the first place!  I fell in love with Terri’s mini quilt at the first meeting that I attended, and Chris’s @ that same meeting made me look at the traditional dresden in a whole different way!

Oh, and thank you Nicole for loaning me your dresden ruler!  It was THE BEST, I have GOT to get one now!

Alissa’s got a great mini quilt blog post and book review over on her blog today too, check it out!

Tomorrow I’ll post all the June meeting pictures including all the other mini quilts that were swapped!!

Hey, remember that trim….

Remember that trim that I used on my last baby shower gift? I got a lot of oooohs & ahhhhs over it and today good ‘ol Strawberry Patches has it for sale on their website in white & natural.  So go and snatch some, but just leave a few yards for me please, I can’t wait to get my hands on some more!

Just thought you would like to know!

New design wall!

Around here laying out anything on the floor is no longer an option with little ‘a’ running around, so I finally bit the bullet and put a couple of nails in my wall to hang some batting as a removable design wall!  This is until I cash in on next years planned Mother’s Day gift and a get a real one like Ashley’s!   Until then, Ms. E and I are going to get some good miles out of this solution.

Please excuse her end-of-the-day-wild-hair and flash photography… but I’m usein’ what I’ve got!

LA MQG charity/raffle quilt blocks

Remember when Cate and Rebecca came to talk to us about the Kivu Sewing workshop in the Eastern Congo at our April meeting?  And remember I mentioned that we were in the process of making blocks to make a quilt to support them and get out non profit status?

well, here are mine…

We were just given the polka dot fabric and told to do a log cabin block, or improv piecing and to keep the green dot block in cool colors, and the orange-red dots in warm colors.

There will be TWO quilt auctioned off!  And you can bet your lunch money that I will let ya know when it all goes down and how you can get in on the action!

May meeting…. eeek, sorry for the delay!

umm, I went from diligently posting pics and highlight of our LA MQG meetings the day after to… ugh, hummm, a delay of almost three week!  Sorry about that, I’ll blame it on the usual I have two kids, sickness, and the general “I’ve got other stuff going on!” K?

If that weren’t bad enough I feel like I didn’t take enough pictures, I was in La La Land!  I’ll stay more focused next time for ya though!

on to the fun stuff…

Latifah shared the much talked about Dale Fleming 6 minute Circle Technique that she has made famous at out meetings and “sews!”  We have all admired her circles she has been using in her projects lately and she was so kind to share the magic with us all first hand!

…and look what can be done with our new knowledge– completely pieced!

And of course there were some newbies that I hope we didn’t scare off…

… and our usual thrilling, inspirational, and drool worthy show and tell!

The start of something great…

In celebration of keeping two children alive, well, fed, and clothed for 3 years!– and for mother’s day, I present to you the start of something great!

Herbs!

Chamomile, parsley, apple mint, chives, stevia, thyme, & basil, to be exact!  There are also some peony seeds in the naked looking one too.  Rosemary Lorraine (a trailing rosemary) is above along with a butterfly wild flower mix in the other one that is already starting to sprout!

This is just the beginning!! This weekend Mr. K will also be building me some mega boxes on our back patio for a complete container vegetable garden!  I can hardly contain myself!  The thoughts of soil, compost, and worm castings have been keeping me up at night!

Technically these are not sitting on our balcony edge, they are hanging, but they are also covertly anchored so they won’t sway too much in the wind!  Our HOA is suuuuuper strict about ANYTHING sitting on the edge.  I am hoping we found enough of a loophole and will not be getting a nasty letter come next week!  I am really enjoying seeing these from my dining room table, and sewing table, PLUS I don’t have to worry about Mr. A eating dirt when I am not looking… yet.

Just in case…

Just in case a few of you may still think I am a little nuts with this “Modern quilting thing,” let me just state for the record there are plenty of other nutty people out there too!  Today Sew, Mama, Sew has a great summary of our crack pot fun and how it all started, check it out! There are 59 chapters now, and it has gone international!  Wowzers!

Triple B Bee March blocks

Here are Latifah’s March blocks for our Bricolage & Butter bee!

She requested 14.5” pieced blocks any way we fancied, BUT no Log Cabin Blocks!

She was inspired by the blacktop and colors at a playground/park (the dark gray is Kona Charcoal).  Latifah is the queen of solids, if it isn’t obvious enough!  I can’t wait to see how all of our different blocks come together for this one!

While piecing the first improve block I almost went nuts, so there was NO way I was going to do it again. A little more planning the second time around with crayons & graph paper restored my sanity and view of the world as it should be– measured and precise.

for corinn

SO yesterday I had a surprise baby shower to attend for a friend of mine, and true to my nature I didn’t start on the gift until just hours before!  WHY do I do such foolish things, you may ask?!  Well, in my defense I have been working on all kinds of other things for Ms. E and her birthday TOMORROW, AND I really wasn’t inspired until the last minute.  Does anybody else operate like this?  I have such a difficult time sometimes all-the-time making decisions about how to put things together until I am paralyzed!  So if I wait until the last minute it FORCES me to make decisions, and in this case, also use a bit of horded trim that I had been “saving”… for what… I. have. no. idea… this was most certainly a worthy occasion.

Lets reminisce about the positive side of my “method” before we address the glaringly obvious negatives, shall we?  Yes, lets!  It puts me on a deadline so I work unusually fast and more efficiently, I finish what I started in the same day, and 100% of the time I LOVE what I create.  I haven’t made any bad last minute decisions, YET… I think it forces me to go with my gut and not enter into analysis-paralysis, as Lori would put it.  And, ummm, the negatives are… that it leaves NO room for error, mistakes, machine hiccups, temper tantrums, feeding your kids, keeping the house straight, feeding your kids, effectively parenting, or feeding your kids. :)  Crackers?  We’ll that’s all I’ve got right now.  Take it or leave it.  Awful. I know.  Oh, before your get undies in a knot, most of it was done during their long afternoon nap, but it never fails that there is about an hour and a half of overflow.  And my kids do not like when Nina has my attention and not them.  Just eat your crackers!

The final dimensions are 30×30, which is a bit over sized for a drag-along blankie, but I find that it is more useful for a longer period of baby-hood.  The brown is minky with textured dots, the great dusty lavender is a corduroy I found at Joann’s a LONG time ago, the dots are Kei Dots of course from Sewdeerlyloved, and the trim was (as I said before) a horded find ages ago from Stawberry Patches!  Oh, and the back is a premium creamy minky I got from SP, too.  I just LOVE the trim, and also how the Hope Valley Thistle Leaf (from fabricworm) coordinates with it all!

P.S. Does anybody know what that Alexander Henry floral print is called??  I had a request to make something else out of it, but I don’t know where to begin to track down more.   Thanks!