If you happen to remember the first quilt I ever made (also a birthday present for my mom!), this year I made her a pillow to go with it! I really like how it turned out. I also got her to open it while she was on the phone with me and the kids, and that was fun!

I’ve recently gotten addicted to sewing Pearl half-yard a-line kid skirts (full tutorial here) and when Ellen Luckett Baker was kind enough to send me some beautiful FQs from her Stamped line with Kokka, the gorgeous purple ladybugs and gingko leaves told me they wanted to be a skirt too. I joined the two FQs with French seams on both short edges and then made a hem and waistband the same way as with a single-fabric half-yard. She LOVES her two-sided skirt! It’s really awesome on. She’ll start out with the ladybugs on the front and then switch to gingkos later in the day. Why not?? Anyway, I highly recommend the 2-FQ approach to kids’ skirt-making! A huge thank-you to Ellen – I love Stamped, her beautiful new collection Folk Modern, 1-2-3 Sew, and now 1-2-3 Quilt!

So now, speaking of sewing awesome things that are purple, I have a yard and a half of Pearl Bracelet in Grape Jelly pre-washing for Pearl’s special fifth birthday dress! I can’t believe she’s going to be five – she is very, very excited and I picked up the big giant 5 candle today for her chocolate cake. I’m also making myself a new Barcelona skirt in Pearl Bracelet Pond (love that color – this will be the seventh Barcelona I’ve sewn!) so we will be sort of matchy. (PS – if you want a cool full-line PB color chart PDF courtesy of Ms. Lizzy House, you can download it here!)

I’ll be writing more about this on the PMQG blog soon, but as guild historian this year I got to help organize our first Documentation Day! Bill Volckening, who has a fabulous quilt collection and appraises quilts professionally as well as working with the wonderful Oregon Quilt Project, photographed each quilt and worked with us to carefully document each one for the Quilt Index. It was a very cool afternoon! We documented ten quilts, including PMQG’s collective Graphic which I love so much, and my Modern Crosses. That made me very happy. We’re planning our second Documentation Day, so stay tuned over there for lots of details coming soon!

I was invited to try out their fabulous Quilt Design Tool recently, which has been super fun. I have never used any kind of design software before – I always sketch my ideas on paper, then use graph paper to formalize things and get my numbers organized, then start cutting and sewing. The QDT was a very cool departure from my usual analog approach! You can create simple or intricate shapes, maneuver them around very easily, switch colors or fabrics with a single click, set a block, and transform your initial idea into an overall quilt design with tons of flexibility. The program even adds borders and gives fabric requirements, and you can export the design onto your desktop to look at as a whole and get a sense of how it will live as a quilt. At only $10 a month, it’s a wonderful resource and I think it really transforms the design process into something special.

When I was at Quiltcon, I got a beautiful charm pack of Lizzy House’s 26 new Pearl Bracelet colors from the Andover booth, and immediately knew I wanted to make a quilt for my almost-five-year-old daughter, Pearl. She loves rainbows and color, and I pictured a bright, happy design that would grow up with her. The charm squares were such a cool gift, and I wanted to use every bit of the precious 5″ squares, rather than cut them up into secondary shapes, as pops of color on a twin-size quilt she could use on her bed.

So once I had a chance to work with the Quilt Design Tool, I thought I’d try some different ideas out and see what worked. My first thought was a basic 12″ two-tier log cabin block (I love log cabin!) with a larger, asymmetrical center charm square (that I filled in with yellow Pearl Bracelet from their fabric archives). I used the workspace software to make a simple block layout, then tiled that into a 6 x 4 grid and rotated some of the 24 blocks to create movement throughout the design.

I stitched up three real blocks using these dimensions, mixed in a little off-white in the logs for color interest, then set them out in that rotation to see how I liked it. And it just didn’t do a whole lot! I liked it but I didn’t love it, and I felt like this cool chance to use a design tool, just for quilting, deserved more. So – back to the drawing board, and opening a new workspace.

I kept thinking of roundness, and somehow arranging an array of the small charm squares to create that feeling of a bracelet of color – a beautiful, simple circular design instead of a regular old grid. I could shape the 12″ blocks into a tight, tall oval with some major maneuvering, but they were just too big to make a circle on a twin quilt.

So a couple of math problems later, I reduced my block size and widened my quilt a little bit, and came up with a 10″ one-tier block that offered a lot more flexibility – and even could be coaxed into a symmetrical 16-block circle!

We narrowed the 26 colors of Pearl Bracelet down to 16, and arranged them in a joyful ROYGBIV circle on the dining room floor. Pearl loved this part!

I chain-pieced, pressed, and squared up the blocks. I love how quilt blocks look in a neat stack.

Here’s how the top mini-row of three will look in the bracelet. It’s very similar to my first idea, but the fact that it’s the top section of a circle instead of the heart of a grid just really gives it a lot more life, I think.

I used the Threadbias design tool to fill in the other parts of the quilt (inside and outside of the circle), and get the measurements for cutting and piecing each section into a whole. This was really handy and made the math and other arrangements very quick.

With such a generous circle design, a huge section of the center was a completely blank slate. I love improvisational piecing and writing messages in my quilts (like the “good night” quilt back I worked on for the PMQG Quiltcon charity quilt) so I pieced a subtle, large-scale “pearl” in white-on-white Pearl Bracelet, against Michael Miller Bright White Cotton Couture. For reference, this section measures 51″ wide by 30″ tall.

Pearl loves that her name is in the quilt. She is just learning to read and it made her super happy to see it there.

I had hoped to have the top all done for today, but here’s where I’m at:

so I’ll be sharing the finished Rainbow Charm Bracelet top at our April 18 PMQG meeting, and I’m super excited to hand it off to Nancy to quilt! Speaking of PMQG, Threadbias has generously offered a prize of a free month of the Quilt Design Tool (!) to a lucky winner… and instead of giving it away through comments here, we’ll draw a name at the meeting! They’re also offering a nice bonus to PMQG members, which you’ll hear more about then too.

Don’t miss the rest of the blog tour – there are some wonderful reviews and quilts up already, and Jen will be reviewing the QDT for Sew, Mama, Sew tomorrow!

Monday, March 25 – Freshly Pieced
Tuesday, March 26 – Don’t Call Me Betsy
Wednesday, March 27 – Generation Q Magazine
Thursday, March 28 – The Sometimes Crafter
Friday, March 29 – Diary of a Quilter
Monday, April 1 – Swim, Bike, Quilt
Tuesday, April 2 – Fresh Lemons Quilts
Wednesday, April 3 – West Coast Crafty
+ Portland Modern Quilt Guild (me!)
Thursday, April 4 – Sew, Mama, Sew!
Friday, April 5 – Alison Glass
Saturday, April 6 – Pink Castle Fabrics
Sunday, April 7 – Ellison Lane Quilts

Thank you to Andover for the gift of the Pearl Bracelet charm pack and to Threadbias for the chance to review the Quilt Design Tool! (I bought my Bright White Cotton Couture and the additional white Pearl Bracelet at Fabric Depot here in Portland.) If you’re interested in more detail on my cutting, chain-piecing, and row assembly methods, you can check out my book, Modern Log Cabin Quilting. Thanks, and happy Wednesday!

I got to interview some of my fabric industry and sewing heroes for this article – thanks to Mariko of Super Eggplant, Marie of Cool Cottons, Cynthia of Fabricworm, Patricia of Okan Arts, Kim of True Up, and Naomi of Patchwork Quilt Tsushin for their contributions.

I also got to profile two amazing fabric designers, Rashida Coleman-Hale and Melody Miller.

Rashida’s new Tsuru line with Cloud 9 and Melody’s Ruby Star collections for Kokka are both spectacular. They are both American, but their work is gorgeously inspired by Japanese design and culture, and (I think) perfectly reflects what Kim Kight calls the “inventive, cute, oddball and beautiful” qualities of Japanese fabric.

And Stitch excerpted and shared my Block Pocket Apron project from Modern Log Cabin Quilting – plus I got to re-make the pocket using three different combinations of Japanese prints to put a new spin on things! Thank you to Rashida for sending me prints from Tsuru, Fabricworm for sending me Kei and Kokka, and Cool Cottons for helping me with the Echino. I loved working with these fabrics and I hope it inspires lots of small-scale projects like these little pockets. A little goes a long way with these gorgeous prints.

Speaking of, I had a little dream project in mind for Quiltcon and was so happy to pull it off this week. I needed a neat little bag to hold my MLCQ book postcards, PMQG business cards, and the new moo cards I ordered (yay!) while I’m at the convention. I knew I wanted to use Melody’s Viewmaster cotton/linen print from Ruby Star Rising, and Rashida’s aqua Tsuru prints were the perfect complement. I found a vintage Coats and Clark zipper in my stash (“Bermuda Sea” blue) to go with it. I signed up for Kristin Link’s free Craftsy class on zip bags and totes, and used her stellar instructions. Her blog post on alternate sizes was also very inspiring. (And check out Amber’s cute version with typewriters!) After a little math to adjust the finished size upwards, I had this pretty little bag all stitched up!

I am so happy with it!! I wrote about my size adjustments on my Craftsy project page if you’re interested, and added a D ring (as Kristin suggested on her blog) to the tab loop. My friend AnnMarie Cowley of PMQG made the other loop with the Denyse Schmidt dots for another pouch she gave me, but I borrowed it for this one – I love it! Makes it a perfect little clutch purse.

And Rashida’s cranes make me happy every time I see them! I have to be honest, I’ve had this Viewmaster print for ages (along with a few others of Melody’s – I love her prints) and have hesitated to cut into it, thinking it was too precious. This little project was the perfect way to use both of these treasures. Now every time I reach for a card at Quiltcon, or want to tuck in someone else’s card to keep it handy, I will enjoy these pretty prints.

Speaking of Quiltcon, I wanted to mention that I’m on a panel on Friday at 2:00 on writing for magazines and would love to say hello if you can come to that! Latifah Saafir is moderating, the other panelists are fantastic magazine editors and publishers, and I think it will be a great hour. Thank you to the Modern Quilt Guild for including me! I fly to Austin in a week (!!!) and I am so excited. See you then!

Kristin of Sew, Mama, Sew! graciously cut and gave away four bolts of a Kona gray for charity quilting at our November PMQG meeting, and that gift came in very handy for this project. I also pulled some yardage of serene, beautiful Michael Miller Cotton Couture in Aqua, and a Japanese elephant print I bought a FQ of last year seemed like it might find its way in, too.

I adore improvisational piecing and had a lot of fun making a LOVE “bumper sticker” quilt block for Michelle’s Design Camp bee last year. For this project, my idea was to design and stitch a quiet, comforting message for the child who sleeps under it, in an unfamiliar place, so he or she felt a bit more at home… and mix stars of some kind around my words. I chose the simplest little phrase, good night.

Anne offered to piece some stars, big and small, and ended up making 32 of the super easy, slightly wonky log cabin mini-blocks I used for my Starry Night pillow in Modern Log Cabin Quilting for her tiny “twinkling” yellow stars! She emailed me a photo while I was still on the east coast, and I was really excited!

And then, finally home from our Christmas trip and so ready to get started, cutting lots of strips for improv letter-piecing, and waiting and waiting for my trusty iron to heat up… I noticed something. Surprise! My iron had a gnarly injury on its side and was stone-cold and broken. My friend Mary lent me hers – but I couldn’t get it for a couple of hours. So with precious childcare time ticking, my first two un-pressed letters, “go,” were a wrinkly, puffy mish-mash that should clearly illustrate to anyone why ironing is way, way important in our craft. I can’t believe I’m posting this horrible photo, but there you go. Wow, was I happy to get the borrowed iron later that night and press these guys!

So, using simple strips and improv piecing (and a working iron), I stitched up g-o-o-d and n-i-g-h-t and joined them together to form a simple heart of the back to pass along for Anne to work her star magic on. I truly loved this process – meditative and simple and intuitive. No pattern, no tutorial to write. Just good night. On an impulse I fussy-cut a little elephant in the same width as the body of my “i” and dotted it with that. It’s one perfect elephant and one little section of another one floating above it peeking down, reminding me of a mother watching over her child. My children loved the elephants. They both gave the tiny little dot over the i a kiss, and I hope that some of that warmth stays in that quilt when it covers another little one.

The next morning, along with last-second packing for our San Francisco trip, I snapped some quick photos of my little good night block. I loved how the reflection of the blocks’ back – full of seams and stitching – read so clearly in the mirror. Kind of cool!

Then we zipped over to meet Anne for a coffee, handed the blocks and some last bits of fabric to her, and headed out for our trip! Imagine my happiness when she sent me a preview picture of her stars. So awesome!

And here is another snap of the back with extra gray sashing, right before she brought it to Nancy for its beautiful quilting (thank you, Nancy, for your unfailingly generous gifts!!). It’s coming to the PMQG meeting so we can all see it! Then, Petra and Anne will bind it, Michelle will label it, and we’ll ship it to Austin for Quiltcon.

I feel deeply drawn to charity craft projects, and as the mother of two young children, I am especially grateful to contribute to families in need. Quilts for Quake Survivors was a huge gift to be part of with Daniela, and donating to our own Bradley-Angle House through QfQ was a beautiful end to our project.

And I can’t wait to see our collaborative quilt at the PMQG meeting tonight!!! Room 205 at PNCA, 7 pm.

PS – Thank you, THANK YOU for the iron rec comments on my last post! I’m going with a Black & Decker from Fred Meyer for now. Unfortunately they’re currently out of the one I want (this one) but yay, Michelle lent me her back-up iron for this week!

If you contribute $10 to the cause, you are automatically entered to win this package of prizes. I’m so thankful to Stitch and Pendleton Woolen Mills for generously adding their contributions to make it really special!

One donor will win:
• a signed copy of Modern Log Cabin Quilting
• the new Winter issue of Stitch, with a nice feature on wool sewing, donated by Stitch, and
• a brand-new set of 8 wool fat quarters, and a baby quilt kit (which includes 2 FQs and 1 full yard of wool), donated by Pendleton Woolen Mills.

If a friend or a blog reader wins I’ll add an extra prize, too!

This blog entry from Pendleton shares more about what makes this winter issue of Stitch so special – I’m so proud to have my feature article on the history of wool in America included alongside some amazing sewing projects, including Michelle‘s midcentury-inspired quilt and Daniela‘s Northwest Modern laptop case!

You can find out much more about Action Kivu and donate here.

I’m still catching my breath after a beautiful three-day marathon of buttons, fabric, ferries, Modern Crosses, tote bags, name tags, and hugs, but thank you to all who joined up with us and hope to see you all again next summer! For everyone in Portland, see you Thursday for our PMQG meeting – we have some fun things planned…

I love improvisational patchwork (and was very lucky to take Denyse Schmidt’s classes at PNCA), and Katie and Jacquie’s thoughtful designs, techniques, tips, and details are wonderfully illuminating. They cover many facets of modern quilting, like improvisationally piecing curves, creating sharp, perfect triangle designs, and one of my favorites, the log cabin makeover – they offer seven core techniques in all, each with three projects to sew. The table of contents gives a nice peek at the diversity of approaches and techniques (and I love the names they chose for their quilts!).

I’m sure many of the other bloggers will cover the 16 beautiful quilt designs in the book – but for my review I wanted to spotlight the striking smaller projects Katie and Jacquie designed for the home. With two little ones and not much free sewing time lately, a beautiful pillow or table runner is more my realistic speed, and these projects are also very scrap- and stash-friendly… a nice bonus! When I first got my copy and read right through it, I was immediately drawn to the Winging It Pillow, which builds a simple, stunning design around a focus-fabric scrap. The mix of erratic-height vertical piecing, bright, strong colors, and ultra-streamlined background is so appealing. This one is at the top of my to-sew list (and I love Katie’s invisible zipper technique, which is also included in the book).

The Southwestern Pillows are similarly striking. I especially love the Tumbleweed (the center asterisk-like design) – it’s such a fresh take on my favorite design style, mid-century modern. I’m picturing how fantastic a quilt made up of all Tumbleweed blocks could be… hmm, maybe when Pearl starts kindergarten…

My favorite of the three is the Sardinia Table Runner, a calm, serene, and gorgeous design with neatly curved “pods” (that Jacquie’s husband thought looked like sardines, so that’s where the name came from). This is another one I could see as a larger quilt. Angela Walters did a great deal of the quilting in the book, but Katie and Jacquie quilted these three projects. I loved the simplicity of these neatly alternating-angle diagonal lines over the curves and solids – a beautiful texture.

I will bring a copy of Quilting Modern for everyone to check out at our PMQG All-Day Sew tomorrow afternoon (at Fabric Depot from 9-9, though the book and I won’t be there til around 1:30), and I’m so thrilled that we’ll also be giving a copy away at the June 21 PMQG meeting. Thank you to Katie and Jacquie for including me in their book party, and to Interweave for sending two copies of the book for me to review and offer up at PMQG!

Be sure to visit the other bloggers reviewing (and giving away!) the book, too at the Quilting Modern blog celebration weekend:

A Stitch in Dye – Malka Dubrawsky

Fat Quarterly blog – Tacha Bruecher

Film in the Fridge – Ashley Newcomb

Generation Q – Jake Finch

Handmade by Alissa – Alissa Haight Carlton

Happy Zombie – Monica Solorio-Snow

iheartlinen – Rashida Coleman-Hale

Oh Fransson – Elizabeth Hartman

One Shabby Chick – Amber Carrillo

Pink Chalk Studio – Kathy Mack

Quilting is my Therapy – Angela Waters

Red Pepper Quilts – Rita Hodge

Sew Mama Sew

Sew Take a Hike – Penny Layman

West Coast Crafty – Susan Beal

Whip Up – Kathreen Ricketson

Wise Craft – Blair Stocker

From cocktails to crime scene carpets,

Shawn has created some pretty incredible projects for mystery, thriller, and noir lovers. They range from the super-simple (Invisible Ink)

to the cleverly complex (Case-the-Joint Craft Caddy).

A few other favorites of mine include the Pulp Fiction Pendant

and the Instant Disguise Drink Bling.

Shawn will also show you how to hide a file in a cake, mix an absinthe cocktail, add a secret smuggling compartment to a vintage handbag, and stitch up your own voodoo doll. She is incredibly awesome, and I am so excited that we are teaming up for a book party at my favorite-favorite neighborhood bookstore, Murder By The Book, in a couple of weeks!

MBTB will be hosting an event for both of us on April 29 at 4:00 for snacks, drinks, craft projects to make (think invisible ink, ransom notes, and comics magnets) and a book signing. Along with Criminal Crafts, they’ll have copies of World of Geekcraft, Modern Log Cabin Quilting, and Button It Up on hand!

I will bring my most mysterious book projects along (like the Coraline mystery sewing box and Linda Permann‘s crocheted Tribbles) for folks to check out, and word on the street is that MBTB will be getting their very own Shawn-made Crime Scene Carpet to decorate the store. Speaking of decorating…

I was amazed to see a brand-new addition to my favorite part of the shop a few months back… Crafty Crimes! Jean set aside all the light-hearted crafty mysteries into a new mini-section and let me bring in lots of vintage craft supplies to decorate the shelf. It was so much fun and I LOVE stopping by and finding something new – I think crafty mysteries are very relaxing to read, and most of them have a free pattern or project included, which is a nice extra. For anyone else who’s interested, here are a few of my favorite series I’ve read. Monica Ferris is a prolific author whose amateur detective heroine, Betsy, owns a needlepoint shop in Minnesota called Crewel World.

Maggie Sefton’s detective heroine, Kelly, is part of a knitting circle who meet up at their Colorado yarn shop, The House of Lambspun.

Sally Goldenbaum’s Seaside Knitters series is set in a tiny town on Cape Ann, Massachusetts, centering on a yarn shop as well. (Are you starting to see a pattern here??) I really love reading this one, I love her characters especially.

My absolute favorite crafty mysteries series is Cricket McRae’s, which is beautifully done. It follows a multi-crafting (like me, she does all kinds of stuff) heroine named Sophie Mae, who lives in Washington State (PNW pride!). There are five books and counting in this series – highly recommended. I also really enjoyed Buttonholed, by Kylie Logan… a mystery about vintage and antique buttons, what’s not to like there?!

You can swing by Murder By The Book to pick up Criminal Crafts or any of these crafty mysteries (or they do mail-order by email – books@mbtb.com – or over the phone at 503-232-9995)! I love MBTB – well worth a stop when you’re in Southeast Portland… or in my opinion, a destination worth planning a trip to Portland around.

If you go:

Criminal Crafts + World of Geekcraft + beyond Book Party
Sunday, April 29 at 4pm
Murder By The Book, 3210 SE Hawthorne Blvd. in Portland
Drinks, snacks, craft projects and book signing
Free!

PS – On another crafty note, I’m teaching my wool cross pillow class on Saturday, April 14 at the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store (another SE Portland treasure!). The class is from 10:30-1 and $40 covers all the materials you’ll need to make a cross pillow in class, plus fabric to bring home for your next one. PMQG members always get $5 off classes… hope to see you over there too!

It was a bit of a whirlwind trip. Nancy and I drove up Friday night with a Burgerville stop, and got to hang out with Michelle, Brittany, Kaci, Rachel and Cherri for a glass of wine and some fabric-shop-hop show and tell. Saturday morning, I did my book event at the Pendleton Woolen Mills booth, which was great – thank you to everyone who came to say hi!

Then, Nancy, Brittany, Michelle and I walked the show for another five hours of awesome treasure hunting – the four of us brought some good things home. Here are my finds, roughly in the order I snapped them up. I started with this fabulous plaid waterproof laminate tote at the Pendleton booth, which held everything else I got all afternoon.

And I could NOT resist these Sublime Stitching sew-in labels, also from Pendleton (if you’re in Portland, they have them at the WMS in Southeast). Genius.

I bought a yard each of the new ice blue and fresh green Pearl Bracelet from Island Quilter,

assorted yards and half-yards of Lotta Jansdotter Echo prints from Heartway International,

a beautiful 8.5″ x 11″ card of 42 vintage pearl buttons, “carded between 1945 and 1955 in Pennsylvania,” from Betty Henry,

two yards of this darling Tammis Keefe holiday reindeer reissue from Michael Miller for a tree skirt (can’t remember the vendor but will look for the receipt and try to update!),

and a pezzy mono-color jelly roll from Sandy of American Jane herself. She was so nice and so happy about the reissue, and I was so excited to get some of this fabric!!

Then, I got some very special trims and ribbons from Nifty Thrifty Dry Goods. I fell in love with the scissors ribbon, and needed the bluebirds too (I already have them in pink), plus the tiny red-and-white trim and the measuring twill tape. Then I saw a $9 package of 3 large shank-style milk glass buttons – very nice, but not my button style – with this darling scanned “baby pearls” label.

Since my daughter is a Pearl and I love pearl buttons so much, I asked the owner if she had any other buttons or trim packaged with this same vintage image that I could buy instead. She cut the label free of the three buttons, handed it to me and charged me 50¢ for it. So sweet of her! I will definitely be shopping with NTDG again soon.

I also got to meet Angie from The Quilting Loft, who is lovely! I fell for a gorgeous sample of this Indygo Junction dress in her booth sewn in a Lotta print, so I got the pattern, plus some adorable dot laminate, a yard of Valori Wells’ birch trees, and a yard of the Melody Miller typewriters.

I got this celebration print from Pacific Fabrics (plus two things not pictured – some large, unphotogenic placemat blanks that I’m going to try out with patchwork this week, and a beautiful vintage-button embroidery pattern they’d sold out of but are shipping me this week, no extra charge).

Two and half hours and another Burgerville stop later, we were back in Portland in time for the big game I’d DVRed to watch with my nephew who was in town this weekend (hi Julian!). Now I’m trying to decide what projects get what fabrics, in between finishing my Craft Hope tote bags and Think Outside the Block bee blocks, and dreaming of a PMQG –> Seattle ferry-powered shop hop weekend with friends…

If you are also sewing littlest warriors tote bags for Craft Hope (or making hats) and want to ship them together, or share photos, that would be great! Thanks to everyone who has contacted me or commented here or at PMQG. I will try to mail out Friday so they arrive in time, and would love to add yours (I’ll gladly cover shipping). Please email me over at portlandmodernquiltguild at gmail.com if you want to team up!

It took me awhile to finish my name tag (you can see a couple dozen awesome ones from February’s meeting over here btw!), because I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to write/print/embroider West Coast Crafty. I was dreaming of Gocco, but finally went super-simple with a lovely turquoise Sharpie from Collage.

Loving my 2012 craft project journal from Ex Libris Anonymous…

Finished name tag! I used blue Pearl Bracelet from Lizzy House for my main section and binding-tape lanyard, and yellow Peacock Lane from Violet Craft for my pennants, and the back. I embroidered my name, stitched down my bias tape, pinned the pennants in place, and then used Pellon 71F heavy interfacing for it instead of batting, stitched around 3 sides, trimmed and carefully turned it, fully fused it on the back, and then turned the raw edges in on the bottom and top-stitched the perimeter.

I’m confident there’s a prettier way to add the pinback than invisible thread, but oh well. I like the back and that cheery yellow!

At the February meeting (which was completely awesome and included a stellar talk by Kathy Miller and a Cotton Couture color card for each of us!),

I got to wear my finished Lisette market skirt. Hooray! I bought the Denyse Schmidt fabric at JoAnn at the end of January, started cutting and sewing it at the Fabric Depot All Day Sew and stitched the buttons on the day before the meeting. I really like this pattern.

Here are my thoughts:

1. I made View B which I think is super cute, but it’s short. Really, really short by my late-thirties’ standards (I think 18″) so I “hemmed” it with folded twill tape right over the raw edge, instead of losing any more length. When I sew it again, I’m adding a couple inches to its length for sure!

2. The six pieces (front center + sides, back center + sides), look REALLY similar on your sewing table. I notched them all (thank goodness) and was still struggling to figure out which were front, back, side, center, anything. Don’t unpin them all at once (oops).

3. Choose big, striking buttons for the plackets. I really loved how that defined the skirt style along with the neatly top-stitched panel seams. It’s really cool how the plackets also create an avenue for a belt, tie or scarf, like stylish belt loops.

4. This is a nice efficient pattern that will give you good-sized scraps for patchwork – yay – or… a headband! I sewed a headband to match and I really love it, on days where my messy hair is kind of driving me crazy it is a nice polished feeling. If you’d like to make one too, I love Caitlin’s tutorial, I just adapt it a bit for my love of vintage and excessive amount of long, thick hair.

Ok, last sewing thing! I’m really excited for our PMQG field trip to the Sew Expo in Puyallup, Washington this weekend! Nancy, Brittany, Rachel, Kaci, Cherri, Michelle, and I are all heading up to check out the show, the first time I’ve been in 10 years. If you are going too, I’m doing a book signing for both Modern Log Cabin Quilting and World of Geekcraft at the Pendleton Woolen Mills booth on Saturday from 10am-12noon, please come by and say hi and get a free quilt block or magnet kit. I’d love to meet you!