Paper Pieced Portable Mixer Apron

Here's the other item I made for my paper piecing presentation at my modern quilting club. 

The pattern is by Penny Layman and it's from Lucky Spool's Essential Guild to Modern Quilt Making.  Her paper piecing chapter had a lot of patterns, but I only had time to make one.  I didn't want to just make a block and have it sit around as an orphan, so I picked the portable mixer and used it as the apron's bodice.

Once I chose that block, I pulled my fabrics and made a little cheat sheet so I could remember which color went where.  Then I colored it in as I finished all the sections for each fabric.

And believe me, this little pattern had A LOT of sections.  I wrote each letter on a chalkboard and crossed them off as each one got done: A B C D E F G H I J K L M.  

Plus most of them were tiny!  What you see in the photograph above is life size.  There's not much room for stitching and flipping and pressing seams open.

The cord is embroidered with a back stitch.  I completely faced the top, left the bottom open, then turned it inside out.  I tucked the bottom seam allowance inside and top stitched all around - no raw edges anywhere.  Then I sewed it to the waistband with another top stitch.

I could wear it, but I'm not going to.  I'm going to leave it on my mannequin for the time being.

Chinese Lanterns - Front and Back

Last week I about drove myself crazy with an overly ambitious list of paper-piecing projects.  I wanted to make a quilt, an apron, and a pincushion for the paper piecing presentation I was doing for my modern quilting club on Thursday.  I started just one week before the meeting, and although I didn't quite finish everything, I came close.  

I pieced the Chinese lanterns quilt top and made the apron, just finishing it 1/2 hour before I left home.  The pincushion will have to wait for another day.

This is the front of the Chinese lantern quilt.  The pattern came from Paper Piecing with Alex Anderson.  

I changed up the border from what's in the book.  She had a narrow inner border of white and an outer border of piano keys.  I'm having just this one white border with cornerstones.  The more of a border there is, the less modern it looks.

I pieced the back this morning. Although I had some fabric (not used on the front) that was large enough to cover the entire back, I decided to use the lantern fabric instead.  I like the continuity with the front.  Plus I'll be doing most of the quilting with white thread, and that will work out just fine on the back.  With the other fabric it would have been too visible.

Quilting shouldn't be too difficult.  I'll get at it while the project is fresh, and make the sandwich this afternoon.

Next post will have the apron.

Tea for Tuesday - Piano Teapot

Here's the second of the three teapots I bought at a resale store earlier this month.

 

Some vintage sheet music in the back.

Someone dashed in from the garden and sat right down to play.

They did a fairly good job making the handle look like a treble clef.

It's quite diminuitive at 6" tall and 8" wide.

Monday is Fun Day - Housework Girls Chalkware

I found these three chalkware wall plaques at a flea market earlier this month.  They're sort of a more modern version of the dutch figures found in 1950s kitchens.  These were made in 1973 and used to hang in the kitchen of the seller's grandmother.

They're 8" tall.  Each one has a small animal helping out with the chores. 

 I was drawn by the vivid colors.

My intention was to pair them with some vintage patterns that have the theme Monday is Wash Day, etc.  But my patterns either feature roosters, weird-looking dogs, or roses as the actors.  I'm going to hold out for something with people in them before I commit to an embroidery project.

Large Chinese Lanterns

I was hoping to make all the lanterns for my Chinese Lantern quilt by yesterday, but I only finished the nine large ones.

I was slowed down a little bit by operator error.  I made the green one first and managed to make three mistakes that I had to rip out.  This was very annoying since the stitch length was only 1.5.  

I eventually got the hang of it and proceeded happily along, assembly-line fashion, until I got to the block you see at the top.  Each block starts with the center band, and I had wanted to use the small Heather Ross print from The Sewcial Lounge on all of them.  But I accidentally grabbed the wrong fabric, which I didn't notice until after I stitched the narrow grey bands on either side. 

Aack - here we go again!!!    I couldn't bear the thought of ripping out more miniature stitches, and I didn't really have the time to keep correcting mistakes if I want to finish a quilt, an apron and a pincushion by Thursday.  Therefore, I assured myself it was OK!  And it didn't take me long to believe it, either.

Here's the "correct" version of that block.  I think I prefer the "mistake."

If you're counting, you see I only showed seven blocks, but said I made nine.  The other two are additional green and turquoise blocks.

For the seven small lanterns coming up, I'm not sure what colors I'll use.  I do want to have a nice mix of warm and cool colors, so I'll probably just plan one at a time, throw it up on the design board with the large lanterns, then see what's needed next.

Paper Piecing Push

Next week I'll be the presenter at a Modern Quilting Club, sponsored by a local quilting store.  We're covering one chapter a month from Lucky Spool's Essential Guide to Modern Quilt Making,  and members can volunteer to be presenters.  Last month we covered  color.  

This month, I volunteered to cover paper piecing.   There was some early discussion on skipping this chapter, since some of the people thought paper piecing wasn't modern.  Hmm.  I quickly volunteered, and now I need to make some knock-your-socks-off paper piecing projects.

Somehow I boxed myself into a corner with only one week to prepare, so I'm on a paper piecing push to make one quilt, one apron, and a pin cushion.

This is the inspiration for the quilt.  A friend bought me this gorgeous collection of fabric at Sew Special in Maui, on her recent Hawaiian vacation.  

I was eyeing the stack on her sewing table during a recent visit.  I thought it was about the most beautiful fabric I'd ever seen, but I didn't say anything because we were talking about other things.  Then she turned the conversation to the fabric and asked if I liked it.  Yes!  When she said she bought it for me, I was beyond excited.

We'd been talking about this new book of her's, and the Chinese Lanterns quilt she's doing.  I also love Chinese Lanterns!  And I was on the lookout for an exciting paper pieced quilt pattern.  I decided to buy this book, and use the fabric she gave me, since it's about as modern looking as can be.

We took the stack and her copy of the book with us when we went shopping at a suburban quilt store.  

The lanterns are made with three fabrics - a solid (or something that reads as a solid), something for the central band, and one other (my circles).  Oh, and then there's lots of white fabric around the blocks.  I wanted to use the same fabric for the central band on all of the lanterns, to tie them together.  

There were several fabrics there that would have worked, but this stripe is the one I bought. When I got it home and laid it out like this, I hated it.  Don't know why I bought it, since I don't like stripes and I don't like brown.

I went shopping in my stash and found this.  That's more like it, but it seems to draw the eye too much. 

This was another piece from my stash, a Heather Ross print, and this one seems just right - harmonious and modern.

I hope to get all 16 lanterns done by the end of tomorrow.

Tea for Tuesday - Sewing Store Teapot

Over the weekend, a friend and I made a jaunt to a neighboring small town to check out their quilt store and flea market.  It's been awhile since I bought any teapots and I found three that were too fun to pass up.

This side features the display window and entrance door to an all-purpose sewing establishment named Needle Works.

And this side features a quilt for sale, only $500.

Monday is Fun Day - Walnut Shells

Last week I was looking at some really cute pincushions that Amanda Jean Nyberg is making.  I had heard other people talking about filling their pincushions with walnut shells that you buy at a pet store.  I used to use fiber filling, but the pincushions are too light, so I decided to follow Amanda's advice.

On Friday I made a trip to my favorite pet store.  It's a good thing Amanda said it was sold as lizard litter, because when I asked where were the bags of crushed walnut shells that quilters use for pincushions, the clerk said she didn't know.  When I asked where the reptile aisle was, that put me exactly where I needed to be.

Now why I didn't just ask for reptile litter in the first place, I don't know.  Maybe subconsciously I wanted to be identified as a sewer, not a lizard owner.  Not that there's anything wrong with lizards, but I'm more of a dog person.

The shells are ground as finely as sand - I was expecting something larger.  Now I think I need a funnel in order to fill the pincushions.  First I should try to find the two I already bought (and misplaced) for other purposes.

Fabric Challenge Finish - Juggling Snowballs

I finished my fabric challenge quilt on Thursday, like I planned.  Yesterday was photograph / hang-it-up day.

For the pattern, I chose Charlotte from 3 Times the Charm!    That's a great book - 7 cute patterns for only $9.95.  More of these patterns in my future, for sure.

The quilt is just over 31" square, which is about 1/2" shorter than the pattern says it should be.  Somebody doesn't sew very accurate 1/4" seams.

This was our challenge fabric - Juggling Summer, part of Moda's Zen Chic collection by Brigette Heitland.  

The quilt pattern is a combination of snowballs and bow ties, so my quilt was either going to be named Juggling Snowballs or Juggling Bow Ties.  I went with snowballs, since that shape is more prominent. 

Last December, I joined a Modern Quilting Club sponsored by my local quilting store.  For 2015, the book we're using is Lucky Spool's Essential Guide to Modern Quilt Making.   In January we covered the chapter on Color, and after the leader asked us which two colors we dislike as a combination (mine were red and brown), she challenged us to go ahead and use them in a quilt.

I added a little of both of them, and since they aren't the entire color palette, it worked for me.  It also opened my mind to the possibility of using colors I don't like, and somehow making them work.

The other thing we talked about was value (lightness/darkness) and this quilt has a mix of light, medium, and dark fabrics.  I don't always do that in my quilts (because I don't think about it), but I think this mix is one reason why this turned out to be one of my favorite quilts.

The inner border is 1" strips of the block fabric, and I had enough of one of the fabrics to use for the binding.  Luckily, that fabric pulled together all the colors.

For the back, I was originally tempted to go with a piece of fabric that was large enough so that I wouldn't need to do any piecing.  Trouble was, it didn't go with the front, and I didn't the fabric at all.  I discussed this earth-shaking quandary with my husband who pointed out I would always be thinking about the fabric on the back that I didn't like.  But what else would I do with it, I asked?  If you don't like it, give it away, he said.  

Can't argue with logic.  So I went ahead and pieced a back that I like.  It has nice warm colors that complement the front.

What's with that humongous quilt label?  Well, it's all the fault of the bright yellow fabric I used for the hanging sleeve.

It stood out like a sore thumb, so I decided to use it in my bow tie label.  Then I wanted an aqua border, but I didn't have enough to make it very wide, so I couldn't stop there.  I decided to add a dark color (now that I know about value), but I didn't have much of that either, since I was pulling all these from my scrap drawers.  Ooh, a little pink would be pretty, but then that didn't pop enough against the background.  Hence the chartreuse green.  By this time, the label was almost as big as the quilt back, so I made myself stop.