Pearl Bracelet Pillow and Roll

Pearl Bracelet Pillow

This pillow was inspired by the fabric .....Pearl Bracelets by Andover Fabric. I needed some pop in my bedroom and wow this fabric and pattern made that happen! I would love to see it in many other fabrics; how fun. These pillows were on display at the Andover Fabric booth at the Market in Oregon in May and are featured on their Facebook page. 

Pearl Bracelet Roll

This pillow was inspired by the need to have additional comfort and color in my car. This roll uses the Pearl Bracelet Fabric from Andover Fabric. Pastel colors accent the car seat color and add comfort for backseat passengers. This is a simple pattern that gives relief on long rides and is wonderful to fall asleep in the car on! You will love this pillow no matter what fabric you make it out of--but Pearl Bracelet Fabric from Andover clearly brings a punch to an otherwise dull car ride. This Roll was featured at Market in Oregon in May and is also featured on Andover Facebook page.

Me and my Pets

This is the tutorial for the Hive 2 November block.

The background I choose is Kona Orchid....but if you don't have that you can use a coordinating Kona purple. The block should measure 10X 10 when you are finished. I would like you to make two blocks one of you and one of your favorite pet. I made one of myself and one for each of my three pets......They are all my favorites! Here are the finished blocks and brief instructions on how to make the blocks. Be creative and use whatever you would like to enhance your block. Beads, sequence, flowers...whatever represents you and your pet. If you don't have a pet you could make the second block of your favorite animal or guy, child just have fun with it. Please send me a brief description and the names along with your squares so I can put them under each picture! I hope you find this bunches of fun!

This is my self Portrait---on a good day!

This is snuggles 

 Mr.s Spine

Okay so it only kinda looks like me--My hair is in a ponytail.....

This cuddles

Instructions:

1)Draw or copy a picture of your favorite pet--I went online and looked up coloring book pages "FREE" http://www.clker.com/clipart-12190.html. They have all kinds of pets and peoples faces to work with.  

I traced them onto a separate piece of paper so that I could cut out the individual pieces.....fewer is better. 

I spray starched each of the fabric so they were very stiff. This is a quick way of doing appliqué. If you are not turning the corners under....but you can choose to use whatever method you like the best. 

Next I laid out the pieces and cut them out of the fabric that I choose.

Next Glue the pieces using fabric glue so they don't move around...of course you can baste if you don't like or have any fabric glue.

I found this in my halloween stash and thought it would make great eyes for my pets.....and then decided I liked enough to use for my self portrait as well. 

Using a fabric pen (Iron off) draw where you would like to sew lines onto the drawing. satin stitch around all of the little pieces and then satin stitch to the 10X10 square.

I think it really looks like Snuggles! So much fun!

Mr. Spine was not as happy to get his picture taken with the quilt block version. Let just say this was the best of around eight shots!

Summit Connection

How exciting, during the Sewing Summit I met a few very fun, creative and interesting folks! One in particular has been so much fun and exciting to meet: Carol. She designs fantastic fabric that sets my soul on fire. So you can imagine that when she came over the Monday following Summit and dropped off her some of her fabric with the hope that I could turn it into two pillows to display her wonderful fabric at market...I was so excited that I stayed up all night creating two pillows and patterns for her to take to market.  I would love comments on the pillows: The top pillow is called Paisley Leaf Pillow, a comfortable and cuddly shape which is designed to accompany the second: Fizz Flower Pillow.

Whatever

Whatever!!

I designed this little wall hanging for one of my favorite women at work who always says Whatever!! after just about anything anyone says. She is such a creative women with swag in her walk and sunshine in her attitude. I created the design using a Lorelee women and appliquéd it using the starch method that I learned at the Sewing Summit last year. Sewed around the words and the hot woman with a fun stitch finally, attempted to quilt it with my machine. I'm new at machine quilting but I really want to get good at it --I started learning how to do machine quilting at the Sewing Summit last year too! Really was worth going. 

Martini Bar

 I worked with a women who upon deciding that children were not in her future would turn her attention to making a Martini Bar and working hard enough to deserve one! She assisted our company in the design and development of a new department which I had the good fortune of being one of the first to be hired into. What makes this even more interesting is that the department is one where most of the employees work from home. With this in mind she actually was the director of the department with the ideal of stepping down and working from home after the department was up, running and successful which she did. Because of her tremendous work most of us were able to work from home and I thought it appropriate to give her one of my quilts as

 a thank you gift from our department for all that she had accomplished.  I found the most appropriate material and decided to make this quilt which I designed specifically for her. (FYI, this was made in 2012, computers are new things for me, so I did not know how to change the dat eon the camera!) I learned a lot about quilting, design and working with different materials on this project. 

Since we all worked from home

 we developed a theme of bees flying to the beehive once a month for our monthly meetings. You will notice the "Queen" bee sitting on the lip of the glass which represent the women this was made for, in addition to the queen bee there is one bee for each of the folks who work in the department. I glass is made from silver ribbon with wire to allow it to stand out from the quilt.

 This bee has found the olive inside the glass.....drink up baby and eat the olive last!

This is a link to Blogger's Quilt Festival! .You will find it very interesting!

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Blog One

Addict: to devote or surrender (oneself) to something habitually or obsessively

There are obvious things people are addicted to and people talk about them all the time. Being addicted to something or someone does not have the same definition as having an addictions to something which most often is considered taboo, (meaning it is harmful). Whether you are addicted to sewing or have an addiction is merely the difference between sewing until midnight and staying up all night to finish your project and having no real deadline to meet. Sewing can be an addiction for me when I decide it is more important to finish a project rather then get a full night of rest on a work night! Most often folks think of an addiction as something to sneer at, frown upon and even be to ashamed to admit they have.   I venture to say that most true quilters do have an addiction but is it really harmful?....or does it bring so much passion and joy to your life that the line is to thin to really say it is harmful!

I have decided to devote a bit of time...days, months maybe even years to making quilts that represent activities that people are addicted to.....perhaps an addiction....if taken too far. The first quilt was designed as a gift for a women in my life who built a $20,000 martini bar in her home. She is an exceptional women who puts exceptional effort into whatever she does and when the day is done enjoys a martini! I say she is addicted to enjoying life not to martini's but either way this quilt was made for her to enhance the enjoyment of her new martini bar!