AMTA Mid-Atlantic Conference this weekend!

Privateer Festival was a blast!  Literally, since we're still celebrating the war of 1812 'round these parts each evening featured a ship-to-shore cannon battle.  Sadly, I have no pics of such, but here's a pic of Cap'n Flint and Hoppin' Tom to make you smile:

This weekend I'll be at the annual AMTA Mid-Atlantic Conference in Ocean City, which may be a thinly veiled excuse to go to the beach.  Anyway, I will have a variety of suitable items for massage therabists, including table scarves, for those who are chilly in just a sheet and knickers:

Pirates are coming!

 

 

Fell's Point Privateer Festival is this weekend!  Music, Grog Garden and the War of 1812 all happen 4/19 20 - 4/21.  Check out the schedule (linked) aove for concert and cannon times.



 

Just a quick update - Friday 4/19 events are cancelled due to the rain!

 

Tool Talk - Clover Wonder Clips

It seems like everyone else in the world already has Wonder Clips, but as with so many things, I'm a slow adopter.  I'm partial to Clover products, because they always last for just about forever, but have happily gone through quilting life with my office-supply store binder clips (which are much cheaper and easier to come by).

Thanks to the Missouri Star Quilt Co.'s recent generous gift with purchase offer, I am now the proud owner of a pack of 10 clips.

The primary selling points from the manufacturer seem to be that they are light, bright, have a smooth flat bottom and are marked with 1/4" lines.  There's also a newer larger 'Jumbo' Wonder Clip, but I have only the original.

I've used them for hemming pants, matching seams between chunky jersey knits and cotton shirtings, and clipping ribbon to felt-backed bunting:

I'm sold - they are all they advertise: small, convenient, strong, and while I have yet to use the markings on the reverse as intended, I do find them just the right size for clipping over a wrap-around binding.  They also have a benefit over reguler binder clips in that they are smooth - my fingers don't become tender or sore after repeated opening and closing of the clips.  Of course, as I like to press and clip the binding to a whole quilt at a time:

 I'm afraid I won't be making an investing in several hundred of them just yet.  I will definitely picking up a pack here and there everytime I find them on sale - definitely worth the price!

Texture!

Once again there's been a pregnancy in my orbit, so of course I had to make another quilt!  This time it's a baby sister for a very rambunctious boy who's room theme was safari animals, so I went with a sort-of-matching theme for her quilt.  Instead of piecing, this time, I used a pre-printed figural panel and quilted the bejabbers out of it, mostly all over.

 

I use needled cottong batting, usually Warm & Natural or Fairfield, which can be quilted up to 10" apart, so the animals are done in outline (including the curves of the elephant's headdress, the giraffe's hex-spots, and the zebra's stripes), with heavy stitching in all the background areas. 

 

 The fabric was pre-printed with echo-stitching around the background trees, so it was fairly easy to free-motion on the dotted lines, as it were.  The result is a 30"x40" quilt that won't be terribly warm (except maybe under the elephant), but is wonderfully textured.

And, yeah, I wanted to keep it for me - it's always a good sign when you want to pet your finished work!

Events update 2013

Hello, again!  I have a fairly exciting Spring Season Scheduled, including:

The 9th Annual Fell's Point Privateer Festival: 

 

Fell's Point Privateer Festival 2013

 

The Privateer Day Festival is a fabulous event - and is not just rum and pirates!  The event takes over Admiral Fell's point and events include:  a War of 1812 discovery area at the Broadway Pier, Family Friendly urban pirate treasure hunt and free children's craft areas at Ann Pier, and (my personal favourite) a Golden Age of Piracy - roughly 1700-30 living history encampment at Thames Street.  (Please note both the encampment and all areas of the Privateer Festival are weapons-free events and no smoking is permitted at the encampment or in the vendor booths - even replica weapons and pipes are not allowed!)

 

I will, of course, be vending my altered Pirate Flag quilts to Privateer Day.  Calico Jack will be there and I'll be debuting new quilts featuring the standards of Ed Lowe and Captain Jack Sparrow, the most famous pirate who never lived!  A limited number of quilts will be available at the show, orders will be taken for quilts to be shipped beginning May 8th.

In June I'll be at my favourite end of spring event, Art Park, inaugural weekend of LakeFest June 14-16!

Columbia Lakefest Hours and directions

I love LakeFest and, for me, it is the unofficial herald of summer.  All the usual suspects will be there: quilts, bunting and a selection of needlework folios in my Well-Versed Purse collection.

See you there!

Memento Quilt - finis!

I have fi-nally finished the memento quilt I've been working on and couldn't be happier! The fabrics were a true treasure to work with and have left an amazing quilt top. I always underestimate how long these will take and my husband suggested I quantify it, so maybe next time I won't blithely suggest I can get this done in three months.

Yes, this means you have to stick with me through facts and figures (or, you know, just scroll down to the piccies). Before anything else I had to start with measuring allt he emblems, appliques or focal images on all the garments to find out what the average size was and what sort of block would work best. Fortuantely, there were only two very small images and only two very large ones, and the rest all worked themselves happily at about 4.5" square.

You should be able to see in this image the template plastic, marked with centering lines from each corner, over the image of the house:

 

Of course, part of what takes so long is my underestimating how long it will take to cut that many 4.5" patches.  42 blocks, plus one for the back means over 300 patches.  Oy.

Of course part of the difficulty is that, with infant and toddler clothes, there's not always that much real estate, fabric-wise.    There's quite a few patches that were cust so close to the edge the seam allowance includes the stitches of cuff or ribbing.

Then, of course, there's the pinning. Miles and miles (and miles) of pinning:

One of the basic things I tell all beginning sewistas is to always pin more than you think you need to.  Because you really need to.

It was absolutely worth it in the end:

Having so many different fabrics makes an all-over stitching pattern preferable, as it unifies the top, across all the various colours and textures.  Rather than a stipple or loop that goes all over everything, we went with a traditional diagonal within each block, excluding any appliques:

The texture on the reverse actually makes me giddy - It's a delight to behold!

Oh, and that big number I know you're waiting for - 14,066 feet of thread.  That's right, between top and bobbin threads that's nearly three 500-yard spools!

Memento patches update

The memento quilt currently in progress is coming along well.  So far I've been to the butterfly jungle:

Found pockets hidden in some very busy flowers:

Discovered a thoughful Pooh bear in a rose garden:

And neatly mapped the miles to go before I sleep: