Basic Grey at the CHA

Right now, the CHA trade show is happening and of course, Basic Grey has a booth. I had the pleasure of making four samplers to showcase two of their new scrapbooking lines. The first two samplers were made using the "What's Up" collection. It's a fun collection featuring hot air balloons, envelopes and pendants.

I was inspired by the hot air balloon theme as well as the pendants for the first canvas.


In the second, I went with the envelopes. I used some of their envelope stickers and then I folded my own mini lined envelopes using the papers in the collection.

The second new line of papers is called Plumeria. I love the colors in this line. There are wax seal stickers too that are fun. Oh, and the buttons! I love the buttons.

The final sampler canvas also features Plumeria.
I added a little handstitching on this one, on the leaves in the lower right and for the butterflies in the upper right.
They are both beautiful collections. Be on the look out for them as they will be in stores soon!

If you check out Jaybird Quilts and scroll down to picture 22 and 23 there are pictures from the Basic Grey booth. I spy I three of the four samplers.

Swap with Allison from Field Wonderful

(edited to add: Allison just informed me that the cowl is upside down here! I just took it off, flipped it and put it back and and what do you know? It looks even better. Eye roll)
Yesterday, I received my swap from Allison who blogs at field wonderful. Isn't it beautiful? I tried to take a picture while wearing it using the mirror and let's just say that didn't work out very well. First off, it showed how dirty the mirror was! And secondly, it was too dark to work without the flash and flashes and mirrors apparently don't mix! It's so funny that she chose this cowl pattern because I think it is the same pattern that we gave my mother-in-law along with yarn and buttons, for her Christmas present. I chose the pattern for my mother-in-law and Allison chose it for me. As Mark made the buttons for his mother's cowl, Allison made these! See here. I felt pretty honored that she shared some of her handmade buttons with me. In fact, she looked for a cowl pattern that used buttons because she knew I'd appreciate them.

I had mentioned how much I liked her crocheted stones as one suggestion when we were talking about what to swap. In my mind, it was an either or but she did both! I really adore it.
It was another wonderful swap with a blogging friend!

Kerry's Teapot Fancy

Also in Issue 8 of the Fat Quarterly, is Kerry's Teapot Fancy paper pieced block pattern. I tested it for her right before Christmas and made this tea cozy for my mom's birthday. Kerry made a tea cozy with her test block as well and offers a free tutorial on her blog for making your own. Mine was not made using her tutorial but is very similar.

I had a little fun fussy cutting some of my Petticoats screenprinted material for some of the stripes on the pot. I also did a little free motion quilted steam coming from the spout. And I added a teabag. The tea bag is made of natural linen and was stamped with the word "tea." It dangles freely from a piece of embroidery floss. It might be my favorite part.

Fat Quarterly goes on sale Tuesday!

Blitzen Quilt Top

Do you have big plans for your Saturday night? Here's mine. I am planning to start quilting my Blitzen quilt top. It just a little lap quilt so it should be done and ready to show soon, though I'd love to wait for a snowy day to photograph it.

Skating on Frog Pond

I have exciting news! I designed this paper pieced iceskate block and pillow pattern for issue 8 of Fat Quarterly. The issue is all about paper piecing. I took a quick look through the ezine and there are some great projects in there!

My project was inspired by a New England tradition, skating on Frog Pond at the Boston Common. I designed a paper pieced iceskate; the traditional white figure skating sort.



I really enjoyed embellishing it. I added eyelets and brads and embroidery for laces.



The iceskate block is bordered by a "frame" using drunkard's path blocks at the corners. I used my Accuquilt Go Baby for those. I love the way that the "frame" worked and can see using that again in combination with other blocks.

Issue 8 was sent to subscribers today and is available for general sale on Tuesday, January 31 right here. There is still time to sew this wintery pillow before spring! If you make one, please add a picture to the During Quiet Time flickr group and the Fat Quarterly flickr group.

iPhone Pouch

If you click over to the Basic Grey blog today, you will find my free pattern for an iphone pouch. I know, it isn't terribly new. I've had the tutorial up on the right hand side of my blog for a number of months now. But this has been one of my most popular tutorials so I enhanced it bit to include directions for using a button closure. You will find those changes at the end of the pattern. So you can make it one of two ways, velcro or button! Enjoy!

Swap with Kerry

Again, I am counting my blessings for all the wonderful people I have met through blogging. How else would I have met Kerry in the UK from over here in New England? It's not likely given the fact that I never travel! Kerry and I have been talking about a swap since sometime this fall and I can now report that it is complete! We both received our packages. This is the mini scalloped dresden bag that I made for Kerry. I used my free pattern but reduced it by 66% for the body and 75% for the flap (I think, but forgive me if I am slightly off if you try it because I forgot to write it down). As I said in an earlier post, I first mistakenly reduced the flap by the same percentage and ended up with a flap that was much too small.

It became this little coin purse/wallet.

I was the lucky recipient of this beautiful frame pouch. It's so incredibly soft and I love the vintage fabrics she used and the delicate handstitches around the perfect petals. I think it is funny that she included my initials as I did her's...that wasn't a planned part of the swap! It's lined in a beautiful sewing print too.

She also included a drawstring bag made from this vintage print. She thought it would appeal to my curator side and she was correct!

And look at all those fabric goodies and chocolate! I was most spoiled. It's going to be hard to cut into those fabrics as I love them so much.
Thank you Kerry for this fantastic swap, and for your friendship!

Seam Ripper Alert!

Seam ripper alert! My husband fired up the wood stove in the barn this weekend and spent some time by his lathe making another batch of seam rippers for my Etsy shop. You can find them listed here.


Yesterday evening, this surprise came for me in the mail! It's an out of the blue, just because surprise from my friend KT. Look at the mini spectrum in tiny stacked coins! And I love the material with the thimble and zipper. She even used precious bits of out of print material. Thank you KT for a wonderful surprise!
I've included a hint as to what I am working on in the photo above. I cut into Blitzen!

Knitting Project Bag

Allison has received her knitting project bag so I can share it with you now. For the second time, I cut into my Yuwa alphabet panel from Sew Fresh Fabrics. I didn't regret cutting into it to make Penny's library bag so I did it again! This time, I used the "Y" for "yarn." Allison had asked me to use her favorite colors of yellow, pink, red and blue for the bag but the "Y" panel had orange and green balls of yarn. The picture was to perfect not to use so I embroidered over the print to change the yarn colors.

The front of the bag is a log cabin style block and the back is simply pieced with a solid stripe on which I stamped "knit purl."
I find myself wondering what project Allison will use it for first!

Winner!

Who says that the first to comment never wins? The "Walk in the Woods" charm pack plus one other charm pack of your choice from Quilted Treasures goes to:

1 Kelsey Jan 20, 2012 05:05 AM
Nothing handmade planned....but I did see an adorable pillow on pinterest I would like to make if I have time!

Thank you Kristina from Sew Domestic for this great giveaway. I hope you have all had a chance to visit Quilted Treasures. Here are a few of my favorites:


I love this Curio Fat Quarter Bundle from Basic Grey.


And my kids would love, love, love it if I made them a quilt from "Welcome to Bear Country." I wish I enjoyed reading these books as much as they like having me read them. They are among my least favorite but they adore them!


This Kokka Hello Kitty print would make such an adorable back pack for a little girl, wouldn't it?

Happy shopping!

Stash Trad Bee-Arkansas Traveller

I finished up my February block for the Stash Trad Bee. It's the Arkansas Traveller which you might remember from the Summer Sampler Series. Lee from Fresh Pieced has a tutorial for the block here and this block happens to be made for her! She asked for beachy shades of blues and sea foam green and beige/sand. It's meant to be a part of a beachy quilt for her sister. I really think that MY sister would like these colors too.

Introducing Kristina from Sew Domestic (and a giveaway!)

Do you happen to remember this little beauty? It's the doll quilt I received in DQS11 from Kristina of Sew Domestic. Today, I am happy to introduce Kristina as a sponsor for During Quiet Time. She wrote up a little guest post:

"Sometimes you just get lucky.
The internet can be such a powerful thing! I was lucky enough to get Amy as my partner for DQS11 (Doll Quilt Swap.) When I received her list of requests and looked at her inspiration mosaic I was pretty pumped to get started on the project. I spent a lot of time on her blog investigating her likes. I realized we had a lot in common which made the process even more fun. I felt lucky.
I have been a reader of During Quiet Time ever since and am so excited to be a new sponsor here! Amy’s work is colorful, inspiring and just plain fun. I adore her original screenprinted fabric and clever designs, sewing and quilting alike. It’s just good stuff. She’s good stuff. She definitely inspires me.
I’d love to extend an invitation to you to visit my blog Sew Domestic. It started as a quilting blog, but has transformed into more of a lifestyle blog. I am a wife, mother and web manager at a quilt shop. I share a lot about my daughters, my love of organization + quilting + scrapbooking and some of the yummy stuff (in my opinion) I like to make for dinner! Bottom line, I love to make stuff. My ultimate goal is to find balance in it all so that my family is taken care of and my creative spirit is fulfilled + happy.

(Kristina's Little Leaves Quilt)
So grateful to have an amazing job that I love. My mother in law owns Quilted Treasures Quilt Shop in Rogers, Minnesota (near Minneapolis). I have been lucky enough to work beside her for the past seven years, whoa!! I forgot how long its actually been! Anyways, I started out cutting fabric and assembling quilt kits and have worked my way up to managing our website and helping plan events, classes and inventory. We are also now offering Long Arm Quilting Services which has been such an awesome life skill to learn! We specialize in Quilt Kits and Installment/Block of the Month Programs. Our Minky Tube Scarves have also been a huge hit! One of my other responsibilities is managing our etsy shop. I pull together specialty fabric bundles and list stuff that I think is cool. Fun huh? I sure hope you like what you see and stop back often!
Be sure to stay in touch…I’d love to hear from you!!"
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/sewdomestic
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/kristinawilberg/
Flickr Gallery: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristinawilberg/sets/

Thank you Kristina! Kristina is also offering a fun giveaway! The winner will receive a "Walk in the Woods" charm pack plus a charm pack of her choice from Quilted Treasures on Etsy.

To enter please just leave a comment and let us know if you are making anything handmade for Valentine's Day this year. I'll announce a winner on Monday (1/23).

Another Sneak Peek

This one's for you Allison! This is a sneak peek of Allison's zippered knitting project bag. Her favorite color is yellow and she also likes red, pink and robin's egg blue. She picked the DS Fabric as a favorite so I built around that print. I'll show pictures just as soon as she receives it!

The Plunge

Well, I took the social media plunge. I might live to regret it. I have been avoiding Facebook for ages now but finally caved because I wanted to join Pinterest. To join Pinterest, you have to have a Facebook account. Then to top it off, Aurifil was having a contest with really great thread prizes but again, you needed a Facebook page! Since I had to set one up, my friend Vanessa told me that I should really have a During Quiet Time facebook page too. So I do. I have three followers and one of them is my husband. Care to help me up those numbers a bit? I added a "Like" button on the right hand sidebar down below my followers button. Right above that, you will see a button for following me on Pinterest. Should you choose to like me on Facebook, maybe you could go the extra mile and click on my Aurifil entry and vote? My computer geek husband is so proud.

Edited to add, the link to my facebook page is here.
I have no idea why my Facebook button isn't showing up! I can see it at home but my husband can't see it from work either. We will work on that.

It's Christmas Again

I received some adorable Christmas material from BasicGrey! This is their new line of fabric called Blitzen. It will be available in June 2012.

I love the range of colors...deep reds, greens in so many shades, grey and white. These are really my kind of Christmas colors. They are traditional with a twist.

And who wouldn't smile when looking at these little snowmen? My favorite part? Look at the selvages! Blitzen has snowman selvages. I just love that!
I am looking forward to working with this fabric even though Christmas as past for this year. Some projects using Blitzen are sure to pop up over the next few months. Right now I have to go work on another little private swap item. This time, I am swapping with Allison. She is knitting me something! I am making her a zippered bag to hold her knitting projects.

Sneak Peek for Kerry

You might recall that I am working on a swap project to send Kerry. She asked me to make one of my scalloped dresden bags (see tutorial link in sidebar) at about 3/4 size. I tried simply copying the pattern pieces at 66% but the dresden flap ended up much too small. I wasn't thinking about the fact that the dresden has so many seam allowances and therefore, couldn't simply be copied at a smaller percent. I believe it was about 75% that finally worked out correctly. So I started off with a mistake resulting in a cute little mini mini dresden. Since it was personalized with a "K" I decided to applique it onto a little wallet/change purse to coordinate with her bag. I think it is sweet! I'm sending this out tomorrow and when Kerry receives it, I will show the full picture of the wallet along with the bag.

New Seam Rippers

How's this for glitzy? Mark has been working on filling a few custom seam ripper orders but threw in a couple of extras that looked like fun to him. If you are new to my blog, my husband makes these hand turned acrylic handled seam rippers and they are sold in my Etsy stop from time to time. This new acrylic is a gold and silver glitter. Boy does it sparkle. I think to use this seam ripper, one should be wearing black heels and have a manicure.

This is another new color called Marinara. It really looks just the color of Italian tomato sauce.
The two seam rippers shown here are in my shop.

Jeannie's Quilt

I bet you've been wondering where I have been. I'm not normally quiet for a whole week! I've been busy finishing up a six week collaborative project. You know how it's so easy to get down in the dumps thinking of all the horrible things going on in the world and all the terrible people doing awful things? Every now and then it is nice to have an experience like this that reminds you how wonderful and loving and caring people can be.
I had the pleasure of meeting Jeannie nearly two years ago through blogging or Flickr. I am not even sure how we met, but am so grateful that we did. She is such a wonderful supporter of all my crafty efforts. She always has positive comments that she leaves here on my blog and on each and every picture I post to Flickr. She has tested my patterns on more than one occassion and always does it so quickly. Jeannie also has a huge heart. She is so upbeat and cheery that you would never know that she is often working on very little sleep. She helps her daughter care for her very sick granddaughter around the clock. They have numerous doctor's appointments and treatments. Recently, she has really been stretched thin. Her granddaughter's health has been failing and I thought it was high time someone take care of Jeannie. Since she is too far away for me to cook for her, I did what any quilter would. I decided to make a quilt.


I picked the Greek Cross block because it is simple, can be made by quilters of various skill levels and there is a tutorial available right here (thanks Faith). Since I wanted to invite others to make blocks for the quilt, this seemed the perfect choice. I started by inviting people that I knew Jeannie was friendly with and then I hunted around through her Flickr contacts and noticed who commented on the pictures she posted and invited some more people to the group. In turn, they recommended a few more people. Before I knew it, I had a group of 22 wonderful women happy to contribute to the quilt. 21 of us made blocks, someone paid for the batting, another made the binding, and many contributed to the costs of making and sending the quilt. I was overwhelmed by their support and actually started to worry that the quilt was going to get to be too big!

I asked that the blocks have scrappy grey corners and white background with brightly colored crosses. Jeannie loves color; the more the better.

I hope this quilt comforts Jeannie. Making it certainly brought joy to my heart. It was wonderful to see how many people so willingly stepped forward to help me. I'd like to thank each of the participants as listed here:

LilyClaire on Facebook
PattyAnnD
100billionstars
chriso10kids
{Leila} Where Orchids Grow
LBG Studio
Noodlehead
redthimble
ayumills
verykerryberry
dutchcomfort
Arbonnegirl
aaaandreaaaa
applekrisp
cindys0707
keykalou
chickenjulie
amydunn
lizh2
LethargicLass
love2quilt7

The Back

A couple of you pointed out that I neglected to show a full view of the back of my courthouse steps quilt. You would think that with all those photos, I would have taken one of the back! I didn't though. I snapped a quilt picture beside our barn.

I am starting to put together a mini Scalloped Dresden Bag (see my tutorials) for a private swap with Kerry. She requested a mid to dark grey for the body of the bag so I pulled the grey crossweave that you can see in the background a stack of prints and solids in some of her favorite colors. I'll wait to see what Kerry thinks before continuing. Is it too dark for you Kerry?

Courthouse Steps Quilt Complete!

Forgive me, there are going to be a lot of pictures. I enjoy taking pictures of completed quilts as much as I enjoy making them. My husband and daughter and I took a walk this morning at a local state park. Because it was so cold, we had the place to ourselves so we didn't feel too silly taking quilt pictures! Above is one of my favorites. The quilt is hanging over the roof supports of an old greenhouse that is dug into the ground. Mark hopped in and took the picture.

Here is the obligatory quilt roll shot. You can see the binding here. I am really happy with my binding choice. I love polka dot bindings and the greys in these dots work so well with the quilt. The fabric is Juicy Blossoms Grey Dot.

The backing is pieced. I used the full width of Echo and then a strip of Kona Mustard with an improv pieced strip to fill out the width.

I mentioned that I asked Rita for her opinion on the quilting. She suggested turning the quilt so that the colors are in vertical lines rather than horizontal. When I hung it on the barn, I hadn't really thought much about direction. I was more anxious to get back inside where it was warm and to get a picture before the quilt blew away. Since the quilt measures 60" square, it doesn't really matter. But I did need to pick a direction since my backing print is directional. I looked at the quilt both ways and I decided to go with Rita's suggestion because it makes the grey a more even player when it is hung this way. She suggested straight lines through the colored sections. I did this and also varied the width of the lines as I did the width of the steps in the piecing. I used a light grey thread on the top and a mustard thread in the bobbin.
The spray basting worked well with the shifty materials and there are no puckers, front or back. I may be a convert.

I promised a list of fabrics. This is nearly complete:

Kona Azure
Kona Aqua
Kona Ice Frappe
Kona Mustard
Kona Raffia
Kona Medium Grey
Kona Ash
Kona Coral
Cross Weave Aqua
Cross Weave Red Yellow
Kaffe Fasset Shot Cotton in Tobacco
Kaffe Fasset Shot Cotton in Galvanized
Alexander Henry Heath grey
Alexander Henry Heath black
Art Gallery Pure Elements in Ash
Robert Kaufman Quilter's Linen Grey
Circa 1934 Gold Solid
Aqua Essex Linen
Orange Essex Linen
Aqua Linen Texture by P and B Textiles
Juicy Blossoms Grey Dot
Echo Florine Brass Mesh

I found the majority of these fabrics at my go to source for solids, Marmalade Fabrics, where Tammy was kind enough to help me find the Orange Essex Linen and Red Yellow Cross Weave to coordinate with the Kona Coral. The other fabrics were purchased from the Fat Quarter Shop, Fresh Squeezed Fabrics, Sew Modern and Fresh Modern Fabric.