Michelle asked me and several other sewists to make some projects with Pendleton’s wool, especially their marvelous plaids, for their Sew Expo booth. I sent her several ideas and was so excited when they picked my favorite one, the George the Puppy softie from Jennifer Paganelli’s book, Girl’s World.

I’ve made several in quilting cottons for my kids and I knew they would be so adorable in wool plaids of different scales and colors. It’s a super fun little pattern to sew.

A few tips/details on sewing them in wool instead of quilting cotton: I cut mine on the bias instead of on the straight grain as directed with absolutely no issues.

For the curves, I “clipped” them with pinking shears, turned them right side out, and then top-stitched them for stability. No interfacing or any other materials necessary.

I love how the ears turned out!

And how the bias lines of the plaids looked along the seams.

Pearl and I named them Oliver and Madeleine and had a little indoor-outdoor photo shoot.

One of my favorite things was making a tiny wool-felt binding collar with a mother-of-pearl button “tag” for each of the puppies.

Buttons just find their way into a LOT of my projects. I love them so much.

The two puppies are so cute together. I used Pendleton’s ombre plaids in shirting weight, which is lovely to sew. I mixed larger-scale plaids for the bodies with smaller, more delicate plaids for the ears.

If you go to Sew Expo, I hope you’ll stop by the Pendleton booth and say hi to Oliver and Madeleine! Check out all the beautiful Pendleton project samples everyone sewed in Michelle’s post here.

If you go:

Sew Expo
February 28-March 3, 2013
Puyallup, Washington

I’m in town for the weekend this time, but I sure wish I could make it to Seattle for the Urban Craft Uprising show! Kristen has organized another awesome line-up with tons of vendors, author signings, and craft demos.

Two of my favorite crafty ladies will be up there sharing a booth with their lovely jewelry, accessories and clothes! Cathy Pitters of BossaNova Baby and Crafty Wonderland has making gorgeous embroidered jewelry… bracelets and locket-style pendants. She is still screenprinting hoodies and skirts (you can see lots more of her stuff in her Etsy shop and at Crafty downtown).

And Torie (aka Totinette and the other half of Crafty) has these striking wooden necklaces for sale, along with filigree metal earrings and other charming bijoux. She also has a newly updated Etsy shop if you’re not local…

I’m looking forward to the PMQG exhibit at Sisters and the new Denyse Schmidt class at PNCA (oh, can’t wait for that one), but in the meantime Pearl and I are planning to make raspberry freezer jam and try our hand at some potato printing during Everett’s nap. Have a great weekend!

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

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!

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!

I first met Kathy at the 2009 Oregon State Fair when I got to try felting at the Pendleton booth – it was really fun! I wrote more about it then, but here are a couple of my photos…

Each person got to choose from beautifully dyed hanks of Pendleton wool and spindles of yarn for their mini-felting adventure. I would absolutely love to take the whole class!

If you go:

Felting for Young Crafters taught by Kathy Monaghan of Pendleton
Friday (#3021B), 2:30 – 5:00 pm/Sunday (#3021D), 11:00 am – 1:30 pm
Sew Expo, Puyallup, Washington
Kit includes: multi-needle felting tool, Pendleton carded wool, needle felting base, wool fabrics, wire armature, and instruction sheets ($20)

Along with my regional picks for out here, Julie Schneider handled the East Coast, Amanda Mauer Taflinger covered the Midwest, and The Wondercraft spotlighted the Southwest – there is some awesome crafty stuff around these days, to say the least!

I’m also very happy to be posting weekly at Geekcrafts.com again, and I just fell in love with this sweet little amigurumi R2D2 pattern by Janama on Etsy. I need to get a refresher course from the super-talented Linda and start crocheting again…

Thank you, Venus! Thank you, geekcrafts! I have one more writing-related announcement tomorrow that I am super excited about as well, more on that whenever Pearl lets me have a little more laptop time.

I’m part of a panel on Teaching Your Craft on Friday (2:45-4:00) and leading a discussion on Craft Activism on Saturday (1:15-2:30). I would love to see you at either one, or at the panels I’ll get to attend the rest of the time! We’re also planning on dim sum, a Bainbridge ferry ride, a park picnic, and a visit to the big beautiful public library.

Many thanks to Megan for her fantastic blog post this morning detailing a whole slew of great places to eat, shop, hang out, and enjoy yourself in the conference neighborhood. I don’t know Seattle well enough to confidently run around on my own (after a mere 13 years of visiting from just south) and her tips and links are super inspiring.

Hope to see you there!!

p.s. If you are into photography and looking for some new things to try, I wrote up my five favorite photo-related things lately over at CRAFT: for the July Bazaar round-up: Big Huge Labs, Photobooth Finder, Blurb books, Photo Transfer Fabric Sheets, and Qoop Calendars (here’s the September 2010 page of ours, featuring my teeny little Pearl in a big covered wagon at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City). Happy picture-taking!