The Mother Ship of Fabric Shops

Yesterday 2 quilting buddies and I took a little road trip to Paducah KY to the mother ship of all fabric shops, Hancock. I truly love this place. It's a little bit of a drive from Nashville but so well worth it. I mulled over the catalog several days before the trip to select fabrics I just had to have. But you do have to have nurishment to shop so on the way we stopped at Patti's  for lunch. This is a wonderful place to eat if your in the Paducah area. They are famous for their pork chops that are 2" thick. Not wanting to be too full to shop thou I had the chicken salad. I didn't want to be too good thou and followed that salad with a slice of Sawdust Pie. 

LeeAnn and Kay waiting on our good food. 

They serve bread baked in a flower pot with 

strawberry butter, which is too good to put into words. 

This is more than just a good restaurant and has beautiful winding paths threw gardens and many shops and other things to do. This caught me eye cause I love dragons and he was just too cute. I can see this in my back yard. This would cause eye rolling from DH for sure.

Couldn't leave these cute towels behind. 

I've tried to stop putting pigs in the kitchen, 

but what can I say they had to be mine. 

Now down the road to Hancock!

We lost track of time so I don't know how long we were shopping, but time flies when you are surrounded with so much fabric. Here are my goodies I picked up. Two new patterns. I'd wanted the Athena's puzzle one for a good while and finally broke down and got it. The second one was a spontaneous purchase when I saw the sample hanging in the store. It was made of different fabrics and was just beautiful. Read over the instructions and it looks pretty easy. 

Love Moda Fruitcake and found the 

large section in the salvage bin! 

Half price, gotta love it.

Almost always come home with an oriental 

and these 2 I just loved. 

The one on the left is a panel with 4 different images. 

Have a new quilt in the planning stages and it will be a

Gone With The Wind with other civil war fabrics. 

All of these were from the half price bin but 1, score!

Well now I need to put all the fabric away and get started on the

new version of my Fall Colors block for the swap on Quilt With Us. 

Just boxed up a sale from my Etsy shop, it's a good day.

Best Laid Plans

After a few days of working on my next swap project I was ready for some feverish free motion, but it just wasn't to be. This is the first time I've used heat & bond on a project like this and I do think I just had too many layers. First the needle broke, then I replaced it and put in better bobbin thread and the Phaff sounded like someone's old lawn mower - not good. So I stopped before I pulled my hair out and decided to move on to plan B. One thing I find with quilting out into the unknown is don't invest time into things that continue to go wrong - move on quickly. So I just shifted gears and did some new photos and added some things to my Etsy shop. At least the day wasn't a total loss. So now I'm back to selecting fabrics again and drawing up a new idea. 


Tomorrow I'm off to Hancocks so I'm sure I'll come home pumped up and ready for something new. For today thou I'll work on patterns and do more computer junk. I have lots of blog reading to catch up on. 

Christmas Wall Hanging

I finished my Christmas Card holder the other day and I think it turned out so cute. I've been lucky enough to have 2 other great quilters make the pattern and all seems to be well with it. This was my first pattern I've actually written down and have ready to share. More to come on this shortly.

Got a good start on the current swap I'm working on yesterday. It's the "Fall Colors" swap on Quilt With Us. Worked on it while over at Stefanie's on our sewing day. It will be a multi layered block with a lot going on, but I can't share any photos just yet.

Need to get busy with my class prep for my Wire Workshop tomorrow at JoAnn. It's a beginner workshop on how to work with wire. We'll be hammering, bending, coiling and so much more. I also teach classes in polymer clay, beginner art classes (water color pencils & basic drawing) so if you are interested in any of my classes just drop me a line for full schedule and info. I've put class schedules in the notes section on my facebook page.

Going to try to go to the Quilt show at the Sam Davis Home tomorrow. That is one I've never been too and would like to check it out.

Parts of the Whole

With my inchies completed I started the design of this wall hanging. The background fabric was repurposed cotton which I painted and hand stamped. The subtle colors of the background and variegated threads blend into a rich foundation. Layers of distressed fabrics form a textured surface for the small quilted squares.

Swap Goodies

I am planning on starting a Civil War quilt around the end of the year. Actually I'm planning on making 2 of these. One for my little sister and one for us. I've been collecting civil war fabrics for months and have what I need to get started. I didn't have any blocks in mind yet and had mentioned to my buddy Paula that I wanted this book and...SURPRISE! she got it for me. It's just a wonderful book with over 100 block patterns. On each page is a block pattern and the letter that inspired it. It's so interesting to see where the block names came from. I started reading some of the letters, but had to put it down or I wouldn't have gotten an thing done.

This has been a wonderful week for getting goodies in the mail. I was lucky enough to stumble upon a group called Quilt With Us. The link is below on the right. If you have not checked it out yet you really should. I've met some wonderful on line friends here and the swaps and friendships are priceless. We just started a new swap for book marks. I've made a few book marks but wanted to try out some samples before I made the ones for our current swap. So yesterday I worked on these while over at Stefanie's house on our sewing day. I just used 2 fabrics and some knitting "ribbon" and really liked the way they turned out. I did a lot of free motion on these too. I also made a small pile of inchies that will be going into a wall hanging later today. Hubby even liked the book marks so much he wants one.

While I was at Stefanie's yesterday she was working on a Christmas wall hanging which she should have on her blog shortly. It's very cute, even if I do say so myself. It's my design. Can't wait to see her finished piece.

On Tuesday I got my inchies from Gwen from our swap on Quilt With Us. In our ATC group we have side swaps and this one was for inchies. I'd like to make a small wall hanging with Gwen's inchies. I'll have to go up and look threw my fabrics to see what will work best. I love the blue bird inchies.

We also had a swap in our Art Quilts group on Quilt With Us for a art block and I was lucky to receive this beautiful block from BJ. I just love this block and it fit perfectly in this plain black album frame I had. It's a wonderful addition to my sewing area. The damsel fly is 2D. The background is woven strips of fabric and at each intersection is a hand sewed bead. This photo will just not do this art piece justice so pop over to BJ's blog and check out her work. I was so thrilled over this it was out of the package and on the wall in a record 15 min.

New Toys and Finishing A Big Project

Went over to Stefanie's to sew yesterday, but we got a late start - had to do a little shopping - oh darn. Well we started off at JoAnn cause I needed some Peltex 70 for my post cards, ATC, and inchies. I used to put batting in them and got the suggestion from a member of Quilt With Us to use this and it's 100 times better. Ads the stiffness I need and is very easy to free motion over and the edges look wonderful when you ziz zag them. Another thing I'd heard about and wanted was this pencil from Fonts & Porter. So I am testing it on this postcard. As you can see the marks show up great and the eraser does work and takes off all the mark even on this black fabric. It's a great little tool.

Stefanie had been using these clips to hold her binding when sewing and when she ordered more for herself I said oh get me some and I got them yesterday and used them today to finish up this quilt.

They really speeded up the process of binding - not something I enjoy at all. Ranks right up there with cutting, but a must all the same. They open easy with one hand and come off with one hand too while you are sewing. I always fear pins being dropped worrying about the "babies" stepping or rolling over them. Then of course there is always me sticking myself about a dozen times while moving the quilt around.

Every time I move the sewing cabinet away from the wall to do any bigger quilts there are always a few lost butter fly pins on the floor back there. These are bigger and I hear them hit the floor so hopefully no more escapees.

With this binding being done I can now put this quilt behind me. It was started back in April! It's for the foot of the bed and is 40" x 72". It's for keeping feet warm when you need that little something extra.
I'd bought the wide backing fabric but later determined to snazzy up the back with a similar block from the front. I had wanted to quilt feathers in the light triangles, but wasn't brave enough to try them on a real quilt till I practice more on them. I guess now I can use my new pencil to mark them.

Got the top done for a Christmas table runner and will hopefully get it quilted by Sunday. I'll be tackling a new project next week and it will be going into totally unknown territory - upholstery. I got this very nice foot stool - good bones as they say - but it's leopard skin. I got some nice worn look pleather to cover it with. I'm sure that it will be a learning experience. I'll take photos as I go - one will be of me confused I'm sure.

Santa Wall Hanging

This is a wall hanging to hold your Christmas Cards! I'll am near the end of writing up the instructions and just need to make the wall hanging. I more than likely wouldn't have made the pattern if it hadn't been for my quilty buddy Stefanie. So here it is and the pattern will be available soon. The only thing left to do is make the wall hanging and take a photo. I may make mine in civil war fabrics, but need one in bright holiday fabrics for the pattern cover. So I'll save mine for later. I hope to have the pattern available by the end of Sept at the latest. Still plenty of time to make this 12" x 36" wall hanging for the holidays.

Worked on my children's illustration today - no sewing, but tomorrow is sewing with a buddy day. I'll be starting a new table runner. I have a sketch done and just need to figure out fabrics and finalize the design.

Almost Done

Well I'm getting very close to being finished with this quilt. I was really glad I had the sewing cabinet on this one. This quilt is for the foot of the bed and it's 40" x 72". It will be a good way to keep little toes warm this winter. I'm getting some new clips to hold the binding and I'm thinking I'll hold off on sewing the binding to the back till I get these.

I have several swaps to get done and then...well who knows. Should I finish up my 2 UFO's, yes, but will I. One is so close, it's half quilted!

Pillow Talk

I've never done any sewing for garments or much home dec stuff so making a little pillow for my sister out of this cute 50's fabric seemed like it would be a quick project. This was my fist little chat with pom poms. They don't seem to like me a bit! Well I showed them I'm not going to be pushed around - yea right. Well they were a little pain in the butt, and I'm in no hurry to trim with them again. It is a cute little pillow thou. I just shrieked when I saw this fabric one day out "hunting". Had no idea what I'd do with it, but it was one of those had to have items. I have enough left over to make those cute little pillows that hang on door knobs - this small one will have no pom poms - maybe some hand sewed on bells.

To recover from all that cute I wanted to make a fiber cuff bracelet. This one had some heavy experimenting in it, but was a lot of fun to make. I really like making things when I truly have no idea how it will turn out. I started off with some pleather and just wandered off into Royceland.

Hammered copper help the cuff keep it's shape.

I STILL have that one quilt left to quilt that is a Christmas present, I do think I'm dreading doing the quilting due to the quilt being a bit larger than most I make. Well hopefully tomorrow I'll just open the sewing cabinet all the way out and get started - maybe. I'm also coming down to the last few pages of my current illustration project, only four pages left.

I'm also working on a wall hanging pattern to hold my Christmas cards this year. This pattern will be showing up here next week. 2 Free PDF copies of the pattern will be given away, remember to check back, it's really cute.