Sandy's a Big-Ole Meanie

She knocked us out for a while!  We were Powerless for several days, and for several more we had no telephone or Net access.  But the house and my humans are intact and we lost no major trees so we are among the very fortunate. 

 

The upside of having power but no communication is, time to craft!  I finished a mess of crochet and quilting projects - word to the wise, it's MUCH easier to crochet than to sew when working by candlelight. 

 

Here is one of my finishes.  Are any of you playing with Konda's latest quilt along?  It's my first foray into mini quilts and I've got to tell you, I love it!  Here's my Mini Number 3 from her book - I chose to make it a Halloween quilt, another first!

 

OK, I hear you - but if you squint a bit you'll see a pumpkin, several bats and some ghosts!  This is her "Flying Around in Circles" pattern, finishing at 16" square.  It was a total blast!  Easy and satisfying. 

 

When I left you last time I offered up my bag-o-selvages as an incentive to back Threadbias on Kickstarter.  Alas, the project did not get the backing it needed to be Kickstarted.  Hope is not lost however:  the community is very much still in place and they're going to try to fund the software directly through the site.  So you can still back them and be a beta tester if you wish!  And - the selvages go to Jyllybean!  Jylly, I'm emailing you now; look to your inbox so you can send me your snailmail!

 

 

Just for fun, here is number one from the quiltalong, "Mosaic:"

 

 

And number two, "Fire and Rain:"  I need to re-bind this because it popped - eek!  Every quiltalong is a learning experience and this one is no exception.  But Konda's schedule has a built-in get-it-done break so I have time to do it and keep on schedule for the rest of the quiltalong! 


 

  

Threadbias Giveaway

Note:  I'm piggybacking on Katy's post, hoping to snag a few more supporters for Threadbias' Kickstarter campaign. 

Have you heard about ThreadBias yet?  It's a free community for quilting and sewing enthusiasts with sharing of projects, forums and groups, shops for fabric and for patterns (with freebies, yay!), a personal corkboard and more.

Now, the community is great and I've signed up but I've not posted much yet.  I'm really in it for the software.  One of the founders, Alex, is a coder by trade who, with his wife and sister, found a huge gap in the tools available to quilters and decided to create their own.  It'll be a Cloud-based (that means you don't have to download it to your computer) application you can use to design your quilts: you can upload pics of your own fabrics and with a click here and a click there, insert your own fabrics into your own design.

Do other programs exist that will do this for you?  Sure they do - if you're willing to spend lots of money for the install disks and store everything on a single workstation and then get a PhD in Geekology to learn the software.  To my knowledge there is exactly one product intended specifically for quilters; there are other apps, meant for other primary uses, that you can use for designing your quilts but the learning curve is STEEP and there will be huge pieces you don't use because they don't apply to quilting so much.  With the Threadbias tool you'll pay a subscription fee for access to the software - easy to use, easy to pay for, sounds like a great deal to me!

I grilled Alex pretty heavily at Sewing Summit and he knows his stuff, both in terms of programming and quilting.  We discussed some of the really geeky bits (architecture, platform) but also how a user would change all of their triangles from fabric A to fabric B, for instance, and I can honestly say there was no "Oh, yuck" moment while he was showing me the tools.  It's going to be drag-and-drop friendly, very intuitive, so you can think about your quilt instead of which axis goes where and which filters apply and all that nastiness.

The Threadbias team has an open campaign on KickStarter to fund this new quilt design tool.  You can read all about it HERE - and like Katy, I really want you to.  Please don't make me learn CADD, it's scary.

To help out I'm offering up a giveaway.  I have a large pile of SELVAGES ready to be mailed to your home;  I may be able to find another little goodie or two to throw in the box as well.  Make a pledge on Threadbias's Kickstarter campaign and come back here to let me know you did.  Giveaway is open to all backers of this project and will end when the funding campaign ends.

 

p.s. - I am not affiliated with the Threadbias team and know them only through Kickstarter and Sewing Summit.  The only profit I will gain from their success will be the chance to have a great tool for getting my quilting ya ya's out.

Charms Winner and Orange You Glad Finale

Another irrepressible blogger, Mama Spark, has won the charms!  Check your email, Mama!  Pam will make sure the next round is lots of fun so make sure you check in with her blog if you don't follow her already - if you don't you should, she's always got something fun cookin'.
I'm not going to offer up a pic of the edited charm pack but here's my finished Orange You Glad quilt!  I had such fun with this Flickr group.  I chose the Courtyard Square block by pamkittymorning.  The Orange gals each made me a block and I finally finished my borders just recently.  The front:

and the back:

OYG I will live at my house; it will be at Things with Wings in September so if you're in New England stop at the Air Museum and say Hello, the cheery block design and colors will make you smile!

I'm playing with layout ideas for OYG II.  Because I was a bee noob (as opposed to a newbie), I wanted to make sure I could tackle every block before cutting into others' precious fabrics.  So I took my own oranges and made a practice block for each one.  Here they are all together!  I haven't decided on sashing/borders so I'll let it stew awhile.  I've decided this will be my method for any bees moving forward; it's a great confidence builder and I get a second top out of it too! 

Look at all those neat blocks the folks chose - you can tell at a single glance what a great collection of humans we had participating!

Charming Travelers Swap/Giveaway!

***If you're looking for the tablerunner, bids are still open for a few more days at Summer's house! ***

















I just won a slot in the Charming Travelers Giveaway!  The irrepressible Jeannette had them last and she picked my name, whoopee!  Stop by Jeanette's house for awhile, if you haven't seen her Firebird quilt you've been missing out.  I met her last year at Sewing Summit and she is sassy and sweet and well worth meeting!

Here's the deal:  I will ship 56 lovely charms to your home in the US or Canada; you can take what you like, replace those you've opted to keep, and send 56 charms along to the next person.  Whether you're thinking I-Spy or Granny Squares (charms make a BIG block!) or a charming bag, it's likely to be great fun! 

Here's a glimpse of the charms as I received them.  There will be changes as I pick and choose and replace.

Want to play?  Leave a comment.  I'll draw a name on July 31.

String Quilt Giveaway - winners!

Well, nobody told me that hosting a giveaway was so much fun!  If I had a bigger stash I'd do it all the time.  As it is, I decided to do One of Each!  I tried to make each one a little bit bold and a little bit sweet - I was surpised at how many B*tchy Pies there are out there!  Very gratifying to know.

For the Brazen Beauty set, Kristan wins!  I started with a jelly roll of Pizzazz, then cut a mess of bright green and orange for the focal strips and added a bunch of bits-and-bobs:

For the Sweetie Pies out there, I started with a jelly roll of Sping Fever and added focal whites and some sweetness from the stash.  here's what Puk won:

I've sent out the emails - send me your mailing addresses, Kristan and Puk, and look through your stash for fabrics to add to these.  I hope you decide to String It Forward when you're through!

A Finish, and a Giveaway!

The lovely Tara gifted me with a string quilt kit a while back – I used her strips, plus some of my own, and made this! We both used the now-famous filminthefridge tutorial . I used 5-inch squares for mine, for a final size of about 52 x 65. Wow, what fun it was to sew right over the paper!  I found a mess of pre-cut squares from some former craft project so I used those; I'd probably go a little larger next time, LOL!  I offset the white by one rather than using it as a center strip and I do like the effect. I must say, I’m not generally a “sweet” kinda gal, but this piece really grew on me and by the end I loved it. I sent it to a friend who lives in a farmhouse even older (and possibly even more crumbly) than mine; it felt like it wanted to live with her. The USPS says it has arrived so I can share it with you now!

And since I had so much fun with it, I thought I’d start a little “String It Forward!” Leave me a comment telling me whether you’re a Sweetie Pie (think spring brights and pastels) or a Brazen Bi*ch Beauty (saturated colors, batiks, etc.), and I will make you up a strip set based on your choice so you can make your own top. Hopefully the winner will have as much fun as Tara and I did and will keep it moving forward so someone else can make one of these fun quilts. I’ll draw a name on the 28th!