Constellation Quilt

Hello folks. I give you: my latest quilt.

This quilt top has been hanging out in my work cubby for MONTHS and MONTHS. Its folded up little self mocked me every day with its unfinished-ness, yet I couldn't muster up the energy to get it done.

Then I finally came across a sheet I had been hoarding saving for a number of years. I shall choose to refer to it as "vintage," although it is quite humbly from a Target sheet set I had in within the last decade, so I believe the more accurate term would be "just kinda old." Old sheet or vintage sheet, I very much liked the print, and it happened to go perfectly with the top, so quilt back it became.

Before you try to decipher this constellation and use it to draw conclusions about my personality, know that a) I'm not intro astrology and b) this is a completely made up constellation. I like constellations in general because I find their constance reassuring. I like looking up wherever I am and however many years have passed and seeing the same celestial friends shining down on me. But when I was caught up in the ferver of just a'wingin' this quilt top, I did not have the time [read: I was too lazy] to map out a specific constellation. So made up constellation it was.

I think it's convincing, no?

For quilting, I outlined each of the stars a few times, then filled in the space between them with a some swirlies. The fabric is a beautiful drapey yarn-dyed linen rayon blend, which was lovely to work with, but my paranoia about those 1/4" seams fraying in the wash led me to be quite thorough with my star-outlining.

This is when I said, "Pretend you're a catalogue model."

Apparently people in catalogues wave at other imaginary people.

I really love how this quilt turned out. It's currently residing on the back of my living room couch, and will be at the top of the rotation for winter time TV watching warmth.

Christine Haynes Patterns Emery Dress

It always makes me excited when an independent pattern designer comes out with a new pattern. Well this is EXTRA exciting: my friend and sewing comrade Christine Haynes just released a new pattern called the Emery Dress. Naturally, I had to make one as soon as possible. Luckily Christine had an extra test pattern, and luckily I was able to snag it. Can you blame me? I mean just look at it!

I LOVE this dress. I barely had to do anything to the fit - after making the muslin, I just moved the front darts a little. And that was it!

There's another view of the pattern that has a prim little bow at the waistband. I had to exercise a lot of self control to not do the bow AND the collar.

I thought in the stripes it would be too much. But there are some versions out there already that have both and they are adorable. I'll have to do it on the next one!

This is one of those dresses that you could make a million of out of a million different fabrics, and it would never get old.

The Emery Dress will be available very soon. You can pre-order the pattern here.

Quilts for Sisters

One of my latest projects that I've actually gotten my act together enough to photograph is a pair of quilts for two little girls in Australia. This is a custom project that I've had for well over a year [eep!], and I'm so excited to finally be able to box these up and ship them across the Pacific.

The girls' mother had her friends and family bring fabric to her baby showers that meant something to them - clothes, pillowcases, sheets, yardage, anything - so that she could make quilts with it. She started cutting thinking she would sew it herself, but after getting a bit overwhelmed with the project she sent everything to me. Since a lot of the fabric was already cut into squares, I thought I'd do a sparkle punch quilt.

The first [pictured above] was for Frankie. Each girl's quilt is laid out pretty much the same and has a lot of the same stars, but a few different ones here and there. Offset at the center is a special block pieced with the girl's name and bits of a t-shirt of their father's [how sweet is that! *tear*]

The back of Frankie's is a beautiful vintage floral seersucker with a pieced stripe.

Here is the front of Emilie's quilt:

For the back of hers, I used a Japanese fabric with cute little houses and cars.

Everyone that saw it asked if they were cupcakes. Cupcakes and cars would be fine too. She got her own version of the pieced stripe:

It was a little interesting and sometimes challenging for me to work with all the different types of fabric in a quilt setting - knits, slippery polyesters, even washcloths. The craziest was a dark red polyester velvet. That stuff knows how to wiggle. But all in all, especially considering no one consulted each other on fabric choice, I think it all goes together surprising well!

One of my favorites was a vintage Sesame Street pillowcase. Cookie monster!

I hope Frankie and Emilie will enjoy their quilts for many years to come!