I kept busy over the last quarter of last year. I shelved my quilting projects for some last minute gift projects. I made the Amy Butler lap top cover for my mother, aprons and skirts from Sew It Up for my nieces and daughter
, matching headbands, an Amy Butler Madison purse for myself,
and a little stow it bag for my son (for all of the guns and pieces that came with his new Star Wars figures).
Now I'm really excited about the Sew Sweet Shoppe Scrap program at Wish Upon A Quilt. Since I'll be sewing the sample quilts for the club I'll be finishing a quilta month! Wow. This is definitely going to be a fun year. All the quilts in the program are sweet and fun. I can't wait to get to them. I think I'm even going to have to make the optional "What's Up Cup Cakee " - it's just too cute.
I've also been gearing up to teach a hand piecing workshop at Wish. I love hand piecing and still can't believe how much progress I make on my hand projects compared to my machine projects. There are just more opportunities to sew by hand. I finished the class sample this week and dropped it off at the store.
Now I'm on to designing a hand quilting sampler - I've had one in the works for a couple of years but now I'm thinking about how it could be turned into an opportunity to teach hand quilting. The original sampler had been inspired by a Laini Lady I saw in a Signals catalog. Revisiting the project had me looking for the lady and I fell in love with Laini's ladiesagain. I love quotes and words- especially by Austen and Louisa May Alcott. Each Lady has some phrase our quote written on her garments. The vintage pictures just have such attitude and their clothing is rich in texture and color. So now I'm planning some sort of applique quilt featuring 12-20 of the ladies, _limited_ to my favorites. I have a lot of favorites. So I imported some of the images and started playing with them in EQ6. I don't know what colorway I want to make the quilt yet. I was really just playing around with the photo library in EQ6. As I played with the photos Irealized this isn't going to be a quick project. I think I'm going to savor the collecting and searching for the right fabric for each ladies dress. I'll probably end up hand painting their faces onto cloth and applique the rest of the pieces down. Yes, this is definitely a project to be savored. Laini uses beads in her artwork. It's tempting but I like my quilts to be washable and serviceable. So I may have to resist the temptation to put ribbons and beads on the surface.
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