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!

A quick note: I sew in a basement room without a whole lot of childcare time, and it’s February in the Pacific Northwest, so be forewarned that these photos aren’t exactly professionally lit or painstakingly staged. It’s a simple tutorial though, so hopefully you can follow along easily – I made these two tote bags in about an hour and a half, counting all the quilt block piecing! If you use stash blocks or just cut solid pieces of fabric, you can fly through these. My goal is to make 5 for the littlest warriors by the March 12 deadline – all the details are here.

You’ll need:

-Two quilt blocks (or solid pieces of fabric) in the 11”-12” square range for the outer sides of the bag. I used 12” blocks and fabric squares.
-If using quilt blocks: muslin, the same size as your blocks, or slightly bigger, for reinforcing them
-Lining fabric of your choice, the same size as your outer blocks or fabric
-1.5 yards of webbing for handles
-Thread, rotary cutter, quilt ruler + mat, scissors, iron, sewing machine

1. Cut two pieces of fabric (I used an Alexander Henry zoo print for my blue bag) or piece two quilt blocks of your choice, approximately 12” square. (You can also make them smaller or bigger if you like – 12” makes a nice toddler/preschooler-to-elementary-school size).

This is a great project for stash quilt blocks, or if you need to piece up two quick ones, log cabin is an easy one! I made a random log cabin block in the six yellow fabrics I originally used in my Bright Furrows quilt from Modern Log Cabin Quilting. To make two 12” blocks like these, cut 6 selvage-to-selvage (44”) strips that are 1.75” wide, in the quilting cottons of your choice. Here’s a short video of how I piece log cabin blocks…

For an approximately 12” block, you’ll start with a 1.75” center square in one of the fabrics and add 4 tiers of logs using different fabrics in any order, piecing clockwise and pressing when each tier is completed. Press front and back and square up your blocks.

2. If you’re using quilt blocks, quilt them with a muslin backing (or use the technique of your choice) to add stability. I quilted a square outline pattern about 1/8” outside the center square and then each tier (you can see this more easily in the photo that precedes step #4). Press again and trim excess so your blocks are square. (This would also be a great project for foundation piecing/quilting as you go!)

3. Now, cut two pieces of lining fabric the same size as your blocks or outer fabrics. I used my guildmate Violet Craft’s Peacock Lane for my lining.

4. Pin the two outer pieces together around three sides, right sides facing and leaving the top open, and then repeat the same way with the lining fabrics. Stitch the three sides with a 1/2″ inch seam allowance, back-stitching at the beginning and end to hold the seam. You’ll sew the outer and lining sections together the same way.

5. Make box corners by pressing the corners into flat triangles with the seams pressed open, pinning them, and stitching 1” in from the corner. You’ll do this the same way for the outer and lining bag sections.

6. Trim the extra fabric at each corner, as shown.

This is what your finished box corner will look like from the outside!

7. Now turn the outer bag right side out and tuck the lining in, making sure they fit snugly together. Turn the raw edges of both the bag and lining under and press them evenly (you can turn under 1/4″ to 1/2″, depending on how bulky your quilted outer section is – just keep your bag and lining consistent). Pin the bag and lining together all around the perimeter of the opening.

8. Cut two 18” lengths of webbing for handles and pin each of them in place. I placed mine 2” (patchwork) and 2.5” (wholecloth) in from the side seam – I followed the outer edge of the second tier of my log cabin blocks as a guideline for my patchwork tote, and eyed it with my wholecloth one. Just make sure they’re even with one another and match the handle on the other side, and that the handles aren’t twisted!

9. Edge-stitch around the perimeter of the bag, catching both layers evenly, and then reinforce the four handles with double-stitching.

You’re done!

To make a larger/adult size, try starting with 15” or 16” quilt blocks or fabric squares (and same-size lining) instead of 11”/12”, and reinforcing the blocks with a home dec weight fabric instead of muslin. You can cut your handles to 24” each (instead of 18”), too.

Some other tutorials I like:

-The Purl Bee’s Twenty-Minute Tote (my original inspiration – an adult-sized bag without lining or box corners)

-My guildmate Monica’s adorable Pick-A-Pocket Purse (with clever outer pockets!)

-The Pink Penguin’s Lunch Bag tutorial

-And here are four other tote bags I’ve made for my own kids and their friends in this same style!

So, the March 12 deadline is two weeks from tomorrow… I would love to cheer you on if you are sewing for the littlest warriors too! Please comment or keep me posted on what you’re making, and I will be so excited to share photos of all the finished bags and hats I see. Thank you!!

So, I made Jaime this… well, not a potholder. She was my wonderful hostess in KC and happened to mention that she has tons of potholders already. I was thinking about what else to make her in that same realm, and totally loved Megan’s presentation at our October PMQG meeting on quilted fabric buckets.

So I made this small standing bucket/bag with little binding-tape handles, and filled it with the rest of the blue and green fabrics I pieced with (she said blue and greens were her favorites on the swap card). This small, deep bag was made with a 7″ x 12″ block, joined at the sides and finished with box corners. I lined it with one of the solid greens.

In return, I got this charming potholder from Nancy – her first piece with free-motion quilting! Wow! She stitched in a sun, moon and stars, it’s gorgeous.

I just love it and it’s such an honor to have her very first free-motion quilting project as a gift. Thank you, Nancy! The back is so cute too…

Meanwhile, here in Portland, we did a holiday swap within our guild. Everyone filled a small ziploc bag with pieces of their favorite fabrics any any requests, and we chose someone else’s to sew with. I drew Rachel, who asked for a potholders or a placemat. I have a pretty placemat I love that Adaiha made and sent me, which I use on my sewing table every day, so I thought I’d make Rachel something similar.

I let the fabric piece sizes dictate the size of the placemat – three joined together, with a thin patchwork strip, made a nice-sized back so that was my template. I cut the rest of Rachel’s fabrics into 2″ wide strips and pieced them all randomly, then joined them vertically and top-stitched each seam. There were a lot of spectacular larger swap gifts on the table, but Rachel said that she really liked my humble little placemat, so I was happy!

I had the great good fortune for Anne to draw my name and assorted orange, yellow, and woodgrain fabrics. I said on my tag that anything would be great, and she made me a darling potholder and dishmat set – so cheerful!

I’ve been using the dishmat since I got home from the meeting. Here it is in its natural habitat, with a bowl and pan – it fits perfectly next to the (usually overflowing) dish drainer, in front of the toaster oven, and next to the coffeemaker. It looks so happy in my 1950 yellow and orange kitchen, I just love it. Thank you, Anne!

I’m also doing my first ever online quilt block bee, Michelle‘s Design Camp [think outside the block], and it’s been super fun. I just finished month #3 (for Michelle, but she hasn’t seen it in person so I’ll wait to post a photo). The first month, October, was a block with red Xs for Dustin:

Then, November, Coastal Dreams, was for Krystina:

I’m August, so I have a long time to think about my block fabrics + ideas. I’m considering sending out yellow, brown, and blue fabrics like the ones I used in the Denyse Schmidt class last summer, and getting everyone to improvisationally piece them as they’d like so I can mix them in with the ones I made. Hmm.

One last quilting note: I just posted a new correction for the Market Tote (page 141) from Modern Log Cabin Quilting. The seam allowance is incorrect on the first page (says 3/8″, should be 1/4″) – lots more details here. I’m so sorry about the error, but you can make a beautiful, sturdy, slightly smaller bag with the 3/8″ seam allowance, like Mary‘s here on the right (approximately 14″ blocks instead of 16″).

I will mail a box of my log cabin quilt kits to the shop on Monday to give away to any customers who wanted to come to the event, or pick up a copy of the book over the next few weeks. I’m also so happy to report that Angie has kindly offered to host a trunk show with lots of the book projects next spring, once The Quilting Loft moves to their lovely new location. So we’ll plan a make-up party for a few months out!

Again I’m so sorry to cancel at the last minute, but I’m really looking forward to the spring party – huge thank-you to Angie and the Quilting Loft for being so understanding. Happy weekend everyone!

Please stop by if you’re free! I would love to say hello and talk quilting with you, and I will definitely do some fabric shopping while I’m there…

Huge thank-you to Angie at the Quilting Loft, Katie of the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild, Megan, Kristen, and Blair for helping me set up something fun in Seattle. We are making a weekend mini-vacation of it and I can’t wait! Hoping to take a ferry (Pearl’s favorite thing to do there), visit the Olympic Sculpture Park, see some buddies and go to the art museum…

If you go:
MLCQ book party
The Quilting Loft
2601 NW Market St. Seattle, WA 98107
Saturday, 10/22 from 1-3pm
Free!

By the way – my class (#S300 in the booklet) still has 3 spots open out of 20, so if you happen to be interested you can register at the front desk there. This is the project (above), a very simple elongated coin quilt made from three Pendleton wools, and the class fees include a kit with all the fabrics in either pink or blue color families. I can’t believe I’ll be teaching 17 (possibly more!) students on Saturday and I am super looking forward to it. (If you’re not going to the Expo, I’m also teaching it again at the Woolen Mill Store on Saturday, October 1 from 1-3:30 pm, $40 includes all three fabrics in a kit.)

Back to the Expo… Michelle and I saw this amazing quilt (one of dozens, maybe hundreds on display) and both stopped in our tracks to love and admire it. I adored the kids’ book The Hundred Dresses and these beautiful rows of vintage-fabric-pieced dress blocks, each with tiny hand-stitched coat hangers, amazed me. Renee Newstrum (who I would love to meet!) designed, pieced and quilted it:

Oh, the little dresses!!!

We also stopped by the Pendleton booth and among many awesome things, they had a nice display of my books and my Winter Woolens Quilt (made with their wool, I bought everything for it at the Woolen Mill Store). So cool.

And the tempting pick-any-8 wool FQ sets were going fast.

I also saw Diane‘s marvelous book with the Clover Kanzashi kits [video link] at the Fabric Depot booth. (She’ll be there Friday from 11-2 demoing the Kanzashi makers!)

Speaking of books, I was happy to see all three of Terri Thayer‘s quilting mysteries at the Expo! She came to my event at the Bobbin’s Nest in May and brought me a signed copy of her first one in the series, Wild Goose Chase.

I’ve bought the other two at Murder By The Book, my favorite mystery bookstore (right in my neighborhood here in SE Portland). By the way, if you are interested, they have a new Crafty Crimes section with all the knitting, sewing, needlework, and scrapbooking mysteries in one place, which I personally love. I’m going to bring some vintage craft supplies by so they can decorate the shelf, actually!

Anyway, Jean at MBTB recommended a mystery called Quilt as Desired, which is at the top of my stack of books to read next, and I met the author, Arlene Sachitano at Expo this morning! So I bought the second one in the series, Quilter’s Knot, and she signed it to me.

Ok, see you super-early Saturday morning if you’d like to make a wool baby quilt, and if you’re in Seattle please save the date for Saturday, October 22 from 1-3 pm – I’m so happy that we’ve just set up a MLCQ book event at The Quilting Loft in Ballard! More details soon…

Jaime picked me up from the airport and we started off with a trip to Urban Arts + Crafts as the first stop on my own personal Holiday Shop Hop (two months early in my case – but if you are anywhere near there, mark your calendars for November 5 and 6!).

Urban Arts + Crafts is a super cute and colorful store with beads, yarn, fabric and many other craft treasures (plus lots of books). I love shops like this, since I like to do so many different things myself… but my heart belonged to fabric on this trip.

I ended up with this nice zig-zag print and some Denyse Schmidt Katie Jump Rope and County Fair! Loved seeing these again and getting a second chance to buy some.

Then Jaime took us to lunch at the Bluebird which was lovely, and downtown to visit Hammer Press (no photos of my finds, since there is a secret Father’s Day gift for Andrew in there that has to stay hidden til next June… but I did find this for a certain 3-year-old I know). Loved seeing the TWA building – so beautiful!

She showed us some other beautiful neighborhoods and we crossed from Missouri into Kansas for the first of many times. I hadn’t realized, with my total ignorance of KC geography, that we’d get to hang out on both sides of the state line, a bunch of times even! Very cool and now Everett has been to five states total. After some time to chill at Jaime’s gorgeous 1950 house (same year as mine!), we headed over to Eden’s Alley for dinner with Jacquie and Jenny. It was so great to get to hang out and chat, and Jacquie and I even found out we are both UNC grads (plus, she and my dad went to the same high school – !). Then it was time to head over to the KCMQG meeting…

I was so excited to see my dear friend Rhonda, who came from Lawrence to see me!! We’ve known each other for ten or eleven years through crafty things online and it was awesome to get to give her a hug in person. The meeting was amazing – KCMQG got their 100th and 101st paid members (!!), and the show and tell ended with a teary surprise – Shea organized a beautiful collective gift for beloved outgoing president Jacquie, a quilt called Windy City.

photo by KCMQG

Then I gave my log cabin quilting presentation and showed book projects, and people were really wonderful about it – I got a lot of great compliments, and signed some books, thanks to Elaine from Harper’s, who sponsored the meeting with a fantastic mini-shop in the back! What a great evening.

After a lovely end of the night back at Jaime’s, she took me over to the KC Bernina store in the morning and we had to say goodbye. I snapped up this Betz White hat pattern and some handy pre-wound bobbins,

and got to admire their beautiful collection of vintage and antique Bernina sewing machines.

Jenny picked me up (with her adorable 7-week-old son, Carter, who Everett was fascinated with!) and we headed over to Harper’s. I loved seeing the Kaffe Fassett shot cottons in person, and how cute is this orange sewing machine?!

I picked out two of the shot cottons, plus this cute deer print and a tiny rotary cutter I’ve been wanting forever. (The quilting ruler was a gift from Elaine!)

Then we headed to the Nelson-Atkins art museum to meet Kim. I absolutely loved the museum and I wish I could have spent a whole day there (next time for sure). Everett let me see most of a photography exhibit before his baby-timer went off, and then we went outside for a more mellow visit to the completely amazing sculpture garden.

We dodged a hailstorm nicely and went back downtown for lunch with Kim, where I got to set foot on the other end of the Oregon Trail,

and then our last stop was Bon Bon. I was so excited to look through these tempting bins full of rolls of vintage and new fabrics! I picked out a nice selection, including this blue and brown colorway of my favorite vintage sheet pattern (!!!!),

and I got some half-yard cuts of two Cloud 9 fabrics I’ve been wanting.

Here we are at Bon Bon with Jenny and a sleepy little Carter. Jaime and Jenny were the sweetest tour guides ever.

Then we had to head out to the airport again and say goodbye to Missouri (and Kansas)…

and Everett and I were on the way home with a suitcase full of awesome souvenirs! Here is everything I found on my mini-shop hop. Love it all.

Along with everything I bought, Jaime gave me one of Shea‘s quilt patterns (can’t wait to try it!) and Lauren gave me this beautiful stack of vintage fabrics. Thank you so much, ladies.

I just want to thank everyone in KCMQG for welcoming me so warmly and to Jenny and Jaime for showing me your beautiful city. It was a wonderful couple days and I loved it all! I was sad to leave, but I’m excited that we’re doing a log cabin potholder swap with the KC guild – I can’t wait to see what my partner has in store for me… photos of the whole swap coming in November. And if you’re here in Portland, hope to see you tomorrow night at our PMQG meeting, too.

Speaking of, I’ll see you tomorrow for my Sewing For Boys review and giveaway – I had a lot of fun with this one and will be sharing my project then!

This was my recent score at JoAnn – 3 yards of my favorite print from Denyse Schmidt‘s Picnic line earlier this summer. I pre-washed yesterday and then started cutting around noon. I’ll post more about the Continental pattern if anyone’s interested, but it felt like it ran very big on me in my measurement size (18) and I ended up doing various pleats and tucks at the armholes and neckline (front and back), and bringing the sides in substantially. The length was perfect as-is, though.

My favorite change was skipping the tie belt (which is very cute in the pattern envelope photo) and making an improvised 4.5″ wide reversible obi sash instead. I really needed the definition and the wide, graphic sash turned it from billowy and indistinct on me, even after all the streamlining, to a more tailored waist and party-dress silhouette. LOVE the fabric – just love it. I did the sash in half Picnic, half County Fair (her 2007 home dec collection). I really love the contrast side out, and then the matching side is more subtle but also pretty.

Here’s what they look like together closer up… I’m calling the dress Picnic at the County Fair. By the way, I hadn’t had a chance to press it or even trim threads before I started losing the light, so forgive my super quick photos. Today flew past me!

My goal was to finish the dress before it got super gray and fall descended and it was time for jeans every day. Well, it was 95 degrees here today and summer is sticking around for now, so I’m hoping for several outings in my new dress! And the first one will be at the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild meeting tomorrow night… huge thank-you to everyone there for inviting me to come visit and speak. I am so excited, and I’m bringing a big stack of PMQG members’ cards for our log cabin potholder swap!

See you next week! Or if you’re in Kansas, tomorrow!