Tuesday, April 21, 2015

my first major creation....

ah that bow! 
Although I have been making things my whole life, 25 years ago today my first major creation made her appearance......

She's still my tiny one (not as tiny as the photo above, but still tiny!) but she has become a woman of strong faith, big adventures, love of travel, curiosity about the world around her and wonderful kindness to her family and friends. I encourage you to read about her adventures here.
exploring the Cleveland Art Museum during our most recent time together
 I wish you a very happy birthday Leigh Anne! You have brought me so much joy and I can't wait to see what the future holds for you.


Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Hexies forever

Friday evening I met for the first time with Stitched with Love's New Hexagonalong club. Six of us worked away on our hexies. It was fun to see what the others are doing. Amazing how six ladies can use the same lovely book and come up with such different results! Here are some of the hexies I've finished so far...

Next month I'll try to get pictures of the other ladies hexies too so you can see!

Saturday, April 11, 2015

not the color of the year....

I'm sure you know by now that Pantone's color of the year is Marsala. Hmmmm...... not an exciting color in my mind and not a color that is readily available in modern quilting fabric. Our Modern Guild board decided to choose our own color of the year for 2015 to challenge our members.

Each board member chose a different color she liked, and in January, we put fat quarters of those colors up on the design wall and let all of our members vote for their favorite. The chosen color was a beautiful turquoise.

The next month, everyone brought a yard of fabric that had that turquoise color in it and we had a One Yard Rip Off..... if you're not familiar with what that is, I described it here. Each guild member took their pile of fabrics home and challenged themselves to make something to share. What a wonderful collection of projects they had to share last Tuesday! I thought you'd like to see pictures of some of them here....

There were some mini quilts....

Joellen made this sweet mini

check out Stephanie's paper pieced bunnies! Fabulous


Kelly designed this fabulous Texas mini
Sarah called this here "ran out of steam-punk quilt". 
some bags and baskets....

 And lots of others. Does your guild ever do a color challenge?

Thursday, April 9, 2015

geranium dress

As soon as I saw this sweet Anna Maria Horner print I knew I wanted to make it into a Geranium dress for my sweet niece, Mackenzie.....

I love that this pattern is so quick to put together, finishes so beautifully with all of the seams encased and has so many wonderful options. I chose to use the little cap sleeves, a scoop neck and pleated front for this version. I also included side seam pockets (a must for every little girl's dress, don't you think?). I lined the top with a contrasting solid purple that perfectly matches the centers of the flowers, and decided to insert a little strip of faux piping between the bodice and skirt. I am really happy with the end result and hope she gets lots of wear out of this!