so nice to sew with friends!

 Anyone else tired of the whole "shelter at home" business? Me too. While I am thankful for the safety of my family and friends, and incredibly aware of the privilege to be able to stay at home, I am also so thankful for vaccines and dropping Covid numbers that allows us to cautiously be with other humans again. While zoom is a wonderful tool, nothing quite matches being with others in person. 

This past weekend I was invited to retreat with 10 others who are all fully vaccinated for four days. What a treat!

Along with the whir of sewing machines, there was so much laughter and joy! Old friends were hugged, new friends were made and bonds were strengthened. In preparation for the retreat, I made some pin cushions for all of the attendees, using some of my woven scraps.

I finished up several projects (and admittedly started several more. oops). I've been working on my second Plaidish 2 quilt for a while now, and was able to put the final hand stitches into the binding.

One project begun and finished last weekend is this double gauze tunic (Simplicity 9113) which I love! I will say, the fabric was a bear to sew on. I did use a solid cotton for the facings which helped some. 

I feel so refreshed and ready to return to my "normal" life now.

puppies

Many years ago, maybe 12-15 years ago, Ally and I bought the Allie dog pattern from Bunny Hill Designs and made bunches of puppies for all of her friends. I had tucked it away and recently pulled it out to make more puppies from my hand woven scrap fabrics.

Whenever I weave a batch of towels I save the small bits of woven fabric that are left at the end of the run. I knew these scraps would come in handy one day! The puppies are backed in quilting cotton from my stash and stuffed with fiber fill. 

 These will be donated to our church bazaar for the kids shop. I think the kids will love the bright colors! 

some weaving

Well it's a blogging miracle! By some freak of nature my blog has decided to start loading photos again! Nothing I tried to do to fix it seemed to work, but suddenly it works. hmmmm...

Anyways, I wanted to share a lovely weaving set I recently finished and delivered to a happy customer. She requested two towels, four placemats and four cloth napkins in these lovely blues and teals...

I am delighted with the result! I had not done placemats before. A wide fabric binding gave them a nice sturdy frame and nicely coordinated them to the napkins I hemmed on my machine.

 I will be doing more sets like this down the road for sure!

Happy to be back blogging... I've missed you!

Plaidish 2

 In an effort to use my scraps this summer, I decided to jump on the plaids bandwagon and make a Plaidish 2 quilt. This quilt is a free tutorial from Kitchen Table Quilting and it's a good one! The quilt top was fun to make and when it was finished, hubby declared it one of his favorites. I decided right then and there to finish it up for him for Christmas.

My friend Anne quilted it for me on her longarm. We bartered for woven towels and shoe laces, which I was so happy to make for her! 

It's a great big quilt, 69"x86", which I knew hubby would love for tv snuggling in the evenings. He was very happy when he opened it up on Christmas morning.

A couple of weeks before Christmas I told him I was making him a Christmas gift and I challenged him to do the same. If you look carefully in the photo above, you can see my gift behind him.

He built me a wonderful storage unit for my rigid heddles and shuttles! It's perfect and much needed.

Christmas sure was different this year, with none of the kids here to celebrate (we visited all of them on zoom) but we made the best of it and enjoyed each other's company. I'm so happy my kids are all choosing to stay safe and make wise decisions. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday as well.

weaving

Wow, it's been a while since I blogged! I've been very busy filling weaving orders for kitchen towels. I'd love to fill my etsy shop with towels, but I can't seem to get ahead of the special orders. It's a great problem to have.

I saw someone warping their loom on you tube (can't for the life of me remember who it was) and she had a board with multiple pegs to help keep her warp even. I showed it to hubby and he set to work building me one! It works really well....

Here are just some of the towels I have woven and shipped off in the last month or so...

                               

 I still have several orders to fill then I can start to fill my shop!

Inkle weaving

 Not a lot of quilting going on here these days. I've been flooded with weaving orders, which I love! In the last month I've woven a dozen towels and there are more on the loom now. At the same time, I've been keeping my smaller, inkle loom busy too. I've woven several pair of shoe laces and a couple other projects I'll share with you today.

A friend asked if I could make a camera strap for her to give as a gift. I did some research, ordered some hardware, and set to work. I'm thrilled with how it turned out and she was too.

The woven band is about 2 inches, the widest I've woven! 

When I got an order for a guitar strap, I knew I could do it! Similar band, only longer, and different hardware. A few you tube videos later and I had it all mastered.

I even sewed one of my leather labels on the back, the perfect touch I think. In case you are wondering, the yarn I used is #10 crochet cotton.

I'll be getting back to my sewing machine soon but in the meantime, my looms are keeping me happy and busy!

recent weaving

I've had a couple of orders for hand woven towels lately, in beautiful colors requested by the customers. First for Sarah....

 I'd really love to see Sarah's kitchen where these will live!

Then these for Nicole.....

These were all woven in 8/2 cotton from Webs on my rigid heddle loom (double threads warped in a 10 dent heddle, double weft as well for inquiring minds).

And now my loom is empty, but not for long, I'm sure!

inkle weaving

Because a girl can never have too many hobbies, I've added inkle weaving to my list. Several months ago, my friend Chris introduced me to these little band looms. Off we went to the weaving store where I acquired one of my own (for the record, I also talked Chris into buying another for herself.)

Here's my inkle loom loaded into the car. We went straight back to my house where Chris helped me warp it up....

This is the first band I wove, about 1 inch wide. The selvages are a bit wonky but I am otherwise very happy with it. So I wove a wider band, in the colors of the MCKMQG logo....

I intended to make it into a lanyard, but alas, I misjudged and it is MUCH too wide! No worries, I will find a purpose for it.

Most recently I have begun weaving shoelaces!

This is my first pair and I really love them!

I have several pair of converse and I suspect they will all have hand woven laces very soon!

towels

Sometimes I'm a bad blogger but that doesn't mean I haven't been creating. I tend to default to Instagram lately (follow me at Ellynz) but then it's always good to check in here now & then. I've been weaving lots of towels the last month or two. Always playing with color. And all of these have new homes now....

These are Christies.

Two of these went to Diana in exchange for some of her gluten free/vegan cookies. Oh man were they delicious! You can order some for yourself at Suspiro Bakeshop. Diana was part of our mission team in Africa this past summer. When she told me she bakes gluten free cookies I couldn't wait to taste them. She sent me chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies. Don't ask me which ones were my favorites - I could never choose! 

The other two of these towels went to Martha.

These were for my friend Chris.

And these are Mari's.

And so, my loom is currently empty. BUT..... I got to visit Hill Country Weavers for the first time last weekend and came home with delicious bamboo/cotton yarn that I can't wait to warp on the loom. More on this awesome shop and the yarn I bought there coming soon!

preparing for Africa

In 24 days I leave for Africa! I think I've mentioned the trip a couple of times here on the blog, but I have not given much detail. I will be traveling with my daughter, Leigh Anne, and a team from her church, Liberty Church, to do mission work in eswatini. There will be 11 of us going, and we will work with Liberty Manzini and Children's Cup, helping at children's care centers, visiting families, hosting a family day for families of disabled children.... oh and a safari! 

I have 2 sponsor children over there who I am hoping to meet, Okuhle, an  8 year old girl and Phumla, a 13 year old boy. Both of them write to me frequently. In fact it was Okuhlel who wrote 2 years ago "wouldn't you like to come see my beautiful country?" which set this trip in motion.

I've been collecting little gifts for my kids and wanted to take something to their moms as well. So, I set to weaving....

This woven piece became dish towels that I can take as gifts...

The color palette came from a piece of quilting cotton I found in my stash. It looked African to me. I'm really pleased with how these turned out. One for each of the moms, including one for my daughter's sponsor child's mom, and one for me to keep.

I plan to write each mom an encouraging letter. Being a mom is hard work in the best of circumstances. I can't imagine doing it in extreme poverty. 

Meanwhile, I needed to make a new improv quilt as a shop sample for Not Your Mamas Quilt Store where I teach. Why not continue my color story? 

I'm calling this Okuhle's wish. I had fun with the quilting, matchstick quilting some of it and wavy lines for some.

I'll be teaching Improv Quilting next week at the shop and there are still some spots open. We have great fun! If you're local I encourage you to come.

weaving more towels

I love having such a great assortment of colors of yarn to play and experiment with! I just finished up these towels using a combination of red and orange yarns...

I'm tempted to use these in my own kitchen... we'll see! The yarn is a combination of Valley 8/2 cotton from WEBS and  Bluegrass Mills cotton 6/2 yarn from The Woolery.

They are done in waffle weave using a 10 dent heddle on my rigid heddle loom. The binding is an Allison Glass quilting cotton that I love!

With my extra warp, I played around with learning how to do a clasped weft. This is something I look forward to exploring further! On the bottom is a clasped weft with doubled threads, on the top is single. I think I like the subtlety of the single threads much better...

I also wove some solid fabric to use for bag making. And now my loom is bare... time to warp up something new!

Amber Clutch

Svetlana Sotak from Sotak Handmade has done it again! Her newest pattern, the Amber Clutch, was released this week and I was lucky to get to pattern test for her again. Testing for Svetlana is such a pleasure, as her patterns are professionally done, easy to follow and produce such great finished products. This one was no exception.

I had some good sized pieces of my fifth Saturday challenge fabric sitting on my cutting table & decided it would make great bags. (don't worry, you'll get to see my actual challenge finish soon! I'm really happy with it). Anyways, back to the bags...

They turned out so cute! I even added my personalized leather tags to the front. As you can see, the pattern comes in two sizes (the small one is just big enough to hold my iPhone 8+).  The larger clutch has a welt pocket to hold extra small items...

opened up it looks like this...

I loved making these so much, I decided to jump in and make one from a piece of my hand woven fabric...

I even put in the welt pocket! Using Svetlana's awesome directions, it went in without a hitch (I MIGHT have held my breath snipping and turning my handwoven fabric but I shouldn't have!)

I will definitely be getting braver with my hand woven pieces after this!

Here's a peek at the cute lining fabric I used (quilting cotton)

Hop on over to Svetlana's blog for more cute clutch pictures and a link to her shop!

dish towels

oh, hello! I didn't mean to go missing. I've been working away on several different projects that I can't share just yet. 

Right now I have pretty, neutral dish towels on my loom. I've been spending my weekend weaving waffle weave.

I love the texture of it and it makes for nice, absorbent towels when it's done.

What are you working on?