Red Ribbon News! (and other goings on)

It always seems the busier my sewing life gets, the harder it is to keep up with posting.  Lots of fun and fabulous things have been happening.  Let's start with the most exciting part...

I WON A RED RIBBON AT THE SUN PRAIRIE SHOW!!! Woooot!

It was for my Elephant Parade quilt.  I was so surprised and happy!

After the dust settled from the Sun Prairie Show, I had a few days to pack up and head to my "Super Most Awesome Retreat".  Last year at Quilt Expo, I won a drawing for a weekend at Dragonfly Retreat Center in Bangor, WI (not far outside of LaCrosse).  It was every kind of fantastic! I invited all kinds of friends and it was a rather eclectic mix (12 of us total).  I planned out our meals and did the shopping and some cooking in advance.  We had soup/sandwich lunches, chicken tacos on Friday, lasagna on Saturday and yummy eggs and bacon breakfasts.

If you are in the upper midwest and are looking for a weekend getaway spot, I can't say enough wonderful things about Dragonfly.  The owners have thought of everything!  And the craft room...WOW!!! Big, well lit, comfy, basically perfect. Go to their website, look around.  I intended to take pictures of the place, but time flew too quickly. =(

What did I work on?  My main goal was to complete tote bag/travel sets for both of my featherweights.  I bought Jeni Baker's pattern and made progress.  When I got to the point where I needed to sew the straps onto the tote panels, my little featherweight was struggling.  I decided to put this aside and finish it with a friend's machine on another day. I did get the foot pedal bag completed!

My friend made the cutest troll hair headbands for her daughter's birthday party.  Behind me, you can see part of the finished grey plus top for my friends' soon to be baby.  I don't have a great picture of the completed top, but once it is quilted, I'll do a proper photo shoot.

I brought the second/rainbow plus top with me, but I'm short just a few fabrics and I'll hold off on starting the rows until I have that figured out.

 While packing, as an afterthought, I threw in 3 yards of fabric that I bought about 8 years ago.  I pulled this out of my stash to donate to Project Linus, because it wasn't something that inspired me any longer.  After letting it sit on my step for a bit, my mind started wandering to think-- you could do a simple rail fence with it and *then* donate it to Linus!  I'm very happy I ended up bringing this, because I was stalled on my other projects and it was a great, simple thing to make while chatting with friends and I was able to whip up an entire top in less than one day.

I'll share one last picture of our weekend-- a fun selfie!

xoxo,
Kristin

Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Mondays, Lorna's Let's bee Sewcial and Cynthia's  Oh Scrap!!

On Ringo Lake - Top complete!

Great news-- I sewed the final seam on my On Ringo Lake last week! Wooot! Do I call the top done? I'm not sure-- it's mostly queen sized, but if I were to use it on a queen bed, I would like it to be just a smidge bigger.  So I might add about a 3" border of orange/coral 'bricks'.  We will see.  It can age while I think about it. 😊

Now that I'm done with that monumentous project, I can try and tidy up my sewing room.  It has been a bit out of control.  In January, the Mad Mod guild had a speaker that talked about how to go about organizing your sewing space.  She has a business where she will help you bring your space to its fullest potential.  I contacted her to help me and we have a date!  April 27th! I can't wait to improve how I work and to make my closet more than a "throw stuff in and shut the door" place. =O

Yesterday, to celebrate Caturday, Finn assisted me in my sewing room.  He is such a 'helper'! =/  Ay carumba! I love him and that he spends time with me while I sew, but he can be relentless about where he thinks he needs to be!! Apparently it is not enough that I've gifted him the office chair I used to sit in...

I worked a little bit on the first of 2 plus quilts and have all of the blocks sewn into rows.  It won't take much to call this top complete!  I have been curating and cutting brights for a second version of this, but I still haven't snapped a picture.  Maybe next week?  I have some fun quilty things on deck-- Tuesday is the Sun Prairie Quilt Show and Friday I leave for a retreat weekend near LaCrosse.

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Mondays, Lorna's Let's bee Sewcial and Cynthia's  Oh Scrap!!

Scrap Happy Sampler + New Baby Quilts

Do I need another new project? No.  Does that matter? No!!
I'm starting a few more quilts! Woooooot!

One of my local quilt shops (Blue Bar Quilts) is offering a block of the month series of classes/get togethers to make this quilt: Scrap Happy Sampler

Normally wouldn't say I'm a big fan of samplers, but this looks like a lot of fun and a great way to use my bright scraps-- of which I always seem to have oodles of.  Here are a portion of what I've cut into for the first block.

I bought several yards of this Wilmington Criss Cross to use as my background.

In addition to starting the sampler, I'm starting two new baby quilts. I've wanted to do a plus quilt for ages and it seems like a great way to make something quick, but still graphic and interesting.  This is for some local friends that are expecting their first baby.  They are letting the gender be a surprise and are decorating the baby room in grey and white.  I have been making a ton of quilts with these colors and have a lot of left over hunks and chunks, so this is a great way to use up those bits.  After the black/white/grey quilt, I'm going to do another plus, but with rainbow/bright fabrics.  There are babies everywhere!

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Mondays, Lorna's Let's bee Sewcial and Cynthia's  Oh Scrap!!