QuiltCon was amazing!

QuiltCon was an incredible 20 hour trip for me.  I started the day leaving the house at 4:15 am, drove to downtown Dallas, caught a shuttle to Austin at 5:40 and arrived in downtown Austin by 9am.

I met up with Ruthie & family and we headed to the Austin Convention Center.

It was great to meet Ruthie in person, (she's the gal I met doing swaps). We hung out at QuiltCon all day, visiting booths, sitting in on seminars, and even managed a little shopping. 

Once we checked in and got in the door, it was amazing seeing all the booths from the different fabric vendors.  First we stopped by the Spoonflower Booth.  They had a cute backdrop for taking pictures. 

They also had a wheel you could spin for various prizes.  I won a custom printed fat quarter, I can't wait to redeem-- even the coupon was made of fabric!

Here we are at the Michael Miller Booth, it's it cute with the colorful raindrops!

 

Here I am with the umbrella prop.

 

The Moda Bake Shop Booth had an actual photo booth that allowed you to take pictures and immediately share online.  We took several pictures there, this one is my favorite!

Here is a picture of the Robert Kaufman booth, it was really incredible!  The pennant banners had clear lights woven in the bias, totally adorable and definitely an idea to copy!

 There was quilts everywhere-- obviously.  This commemorative one is one of my favorites.

This quilt was a banner  in the Modern Quilt Guild booth at the entrance. 

 

All in all we had a great time.  We left the show at nearly six, said our goodbyes and went on our separate ways.  I met up with my former college intern for dinner and later hopped on the last shuttle back to Dallas at 8pm.  I was back in Dallas by 11:30 pm and home by 12:30am! 

 

It was an incredible 20 hour trip and so much fun.  We hear that QuiltCon will happen again in 2015.  I hope it's in Austin 'cause I am ready to do this again! 

Thanks for letting me share.

QuiltCon Met Jill "Quilts & More" Editor!

One of the most exciting things that happened at Quiltcon was meeting Jill Abeloe Mead, the Editor of Quilts & More Magazine.  I have been reading this magazine for several years, subscribe to their newsletters and frequently watch thier video tutorials, so I felt like I knew her (kinda sorta).

American Patchwork & Quilting sponsors the One Million Pillowcase Challenge so they had a sewing workshop set up with Janome sewing machines & sergers and baskets of darling fabric kits for making pillow cases.  All you had to do was pick out a kit and sit down and go to work. 

I made a pillowcase with butterflies, bees and dots, hoping it will go to a little girl like Micaela.  Mine was number 339!  I was so thrilled to meet Jill, this made the trip even better!

Sweet Pouch Swap- What I sent

I just got an email from my swap partner D in Austria.  She just received my package so I can finally share what I sent her on my blog.  Woo Hoo!

The Sweet Pouch Swap was coordinated by Ros from Australia at Sew Delicious blog, .

Here is the loot!  Notice that perfectly matching pen?  Would you believe my husband made it!  My husband recently started doing wood turning on a lathe and he made that pen from a block of wood.  I got lucky and found some that matched my fabric choices perfectly!  Isn't it fabulous!  Thank you honey!

Ok, on to the other handmade stuff.... I poured over D's blog to get an idea of what she likes.  Danica has quite a few owls on her blog so I decided to make an owl pincushion first.  I shopped around for the perfect fabric that would have green and blue (her favorite colors) in just the right pattern and finally found this Moda Simply Color print by V & Co. 

Isn't he adorable!  The wings open up so you can place your needles and pins inside the flaps. 

 The other fabrics were from my stash. I used some rhinestone brads from Stampin' Up for the pupils in the eyes, I think they add a little sparkle.

Lastly, I used a white on white "Quilt Across Texas" fabric on the back side of the owl just to send something obviously Texas.

After I made the pin cushion I made a matching zipper pouch using the same fabrics.  Danica does not like alot of bling so I only embroidered a D and added a simple owl charm that I got from my friend Ruthie. 

Along with the handmade items, I sent some luggage tags and the required candy.

This is the note I received from her, completely warmed my heart!

Dear Martha,

YOU ARE THE SWEETEST MOST GENEROUS PERSON I KNOW!!!!!  Thank you so much!!!!!  I LOVE THE LITTLE POUCH!!! Those are the exact colors I would have chosen! And the Owl! How sweet is that! Martha, you don't know, but I grew up reading Dahl, I loved Charlie and the chocolate factory so much and now you are sending me Wonkas Rainbow Nerds!!!!

The pen! I love the colors!  And you know what? I never had good baggage tags!  Martha! You are such a nice person!

I love everything you sent me!  Every little detail is perfect.  I am humbled by your big heart and generosity! Thank you again!  Every time I will look at those wonderful things, I will think of you! And send you and your family loving thoughts.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

You made me very happy. All the best to you  I have to try the Rainbow Nerds now :-)

Big hug  D

QuiltCon Nametag

Jumping on the handmade name tag band wagon for Quiltcon TOMORROW.

My attempt at being scrappy. I spent several hours on this and have just decided this is it!    (Try to figure out the symbolism behind every piece-just pretend the bird in the tree is a cardinal.)  The only thing that is missing is a KitchenAid mixer-- somehow I have no baking themed fabric-- I must remedy that!

Quiltcon

I am so excited.  I will be at Quiltcon in just a few days.  I can hardly stand it.  It's been hard to concentrate on work with all the excitement online at Instagram and Facebook. The convention officially starts today and I can't wait to be there.

I am so glad this is in Austin which is about four hours away from me.  I am taking a shuttle at the crack of dawn on Saturday and I will be there at 9 am before the doors open at 10!  Ifyou're going let me know!

Happy Valentine's to my hubby!

Here is the Valentine's Day present I made for my husband (he got it early).  I almost forgot to post this with all the swap & Quiltcon excitement going on.

Ok, I am sure you are wondering what this is...  It's a Pen Role!  Since T has taken up wood turning on his lathe and making pens, he needed something to display and store the pens.  I made this simple pen role so he could keep his pens together, protected and easy to display.

I didn't really use a pattern, just kinda put it together with some canvas fabric, batting and some elastic.  He loved it.  Hope you had a great Valentine's Day!

Tote for Ruthie

I made a tote for my friend Ruthie.  I am going to give it to her in Austin at Quiltcon in a few days but I already shared a picture so I can finally post here. 

This has been done for a few weeks and I have been looking forward to giving it to her since I finished.   Most of the fabrics I used have a sewing theme (Scissors, buttons, sewing machines) and then I sprinkled a chevron, some dots and hexies and lastly I added a Hello Kitty Print (she loves HK) and a weenie dog fabric (Micaela wanted to include the dog fabric so Ruthie would think of her and her dog Oreo).  I embroidered the R and top stitched a cross stitch stitch in the ditch to make it stand out a little.  I hope she likes it! 

Hope you are having a great week!

Swap items for Leah

My Swap Partner Leah was finally able to pick up her Love Day Swap package at the post office a few days ago.  I am so glad she was finally able to get to the post office, Leah lives in Canada right on the NY border and they got a ton of snow last week. One day she said she had to shovel her way into the driveway-- I just cant imagine dealing with that amount of snow.

Ok, on to the fun stuff....

I used a hot pink and black color scheme for everything I sent Leah.  Leah & her hubby are newly weds and she said they didn't have too many valentine's day decorations so I thought it would be fun to send her things for their home.  Here is what I sent her...

A pennant banner which was real difficult to photograph-- it spans about 60 inches.  The pennants are reversible.  The second item was a set of four stipple quilted coasters in the same fabrics.  The next item was a pot holder and dishtowel set.  I cheated on this, purchased a plain set and just added the heart and personalization, ribbon and ricrac.  I had never done a pot holder before and probably won't do it again, I broke four needles just getting the name embroidered--- never again!  The fourth item was a little personalized bathroom fingertip towel and the last item was an embroidered blanket.

I also included some freebies from work, a book she could read to her neices and a card.  She raved about the stuff in her thank you message and that made it all worthwhile.  Thanks Bonnie at Pink Stitches for hosting a great swap. 

Thanks for stopping by!

My prize arrived!

My prize of from the Dare to Dresden Blog Hop arrived from from Mdm Samm at !Sew We Quilt in Canada!

Here is all of the loot!

My favorite part is the 13 fat quarters of Windham Fabrics, in the "I Like You" collection by Amy Sedaris.  Thank you to everyone that commented on my little Dresden Stool that allowed me to win the prize!

 Hope you are having a fabulous weekend!

Love Day Swap from Leah

More fun mail arrived a last week.  Here's a picture of all of the wonderful package I received from Leah in Ontario through the Pink Stitches Love Day Swap sponsored by Bonnie.

Everything was in this adorabe draw string bag!  I absolutely love that heart button fabric! 

The bag was loaded with stuff, including a darling white apron with heart pockets, lots of chocolate, cute package of trims, cupcake picks & liners, clips, magnets, fun straws and a bunch of other fun stuff.

Thank you Leah, it was so much fun to be your partner and I hope we will continue to keep in touch!

Patiently waiting...

This afternoon I sent my swap to Austria for the Sweet Pouch Swap sponsored by Ros at Sew Delicious blog.  It's going to be about 7-10 days maybe longer before it gets there...  Tap Tap Tap...  I am waiting patiently to show what I made my new friend....  stay tuned....

In the meantime, here is a sneak peak.

Fun mail

Look at this fun package I got from my friend Ruthie...

A Moda "Flirt" Charm Pack, Roll of Twine and a make up roll made from Flirt Fabric.  Ruthie is not my Love Day Swap partner, but we have been friends since Halloween Swap and chat about sewing just about every day.  I cherish her friendship and it would of never happened had it not been for my first Pink Stitches swap & Flickr!

Sewing Baby Shower

This weekend I hosted a baby shower for one of my dear sewing buddies, Anita.  I hosted the shower at the new Stitched with Love quilting store in my neighborhood.  All of the guests are members of the Plano Quilt Guild so they are seasoned sewists and I thought the quilt store would be a great setting.

The colors for the shower were hot pink and black, chosen by Anita.  I have been making alot of things with this color scheme so I had alot of fabrics in my stash.  During the shower we had snacks and sweets.  This was the sweets table.  The pennant banner was made of fabric and the daisy chain banner was made with cardstock with the baby's name Diana Grace.

Here is a close up of the gourmet Strawberries & Cream popcorn in individual dishes.  I wanted to serve in individual dishes because I thought that would be easier than a big bowl to serve out of.  I had plenty of little bowls but not a single platter that could accommodate them all.  I brainstormed and decided a frame would do the trick so I framed some fabric and tada!   It worked perfectly, the platter and popcorn got great reviews!

Apothecary jars filled with candy are all the rage so this was the perfect excuse to purchase some.  I found some cute scoops at the Container Store.  I was surprised that hardly any of the candy was eaten, I even had little bags and only a few ladies filled them. 

Micaela and I made little favor boxes using my trusty Box #3 Sizzix SU die.  The ice bucket pictured was actually vinyl orange and yellow and at the last minute I covered it with fabric so it would match.

During the shower, we made bibs for baby Diana.  Shirly, one of Anita's friends handled the bib making process and had kit packets made up for everyone.  Here she is explaining everything to all of the ladies.  The bloomers hanging on the design board  behind Shirley are Micaela's bloomers from her toddler days.  I saved them by accident and then when I came across a bag full when I was going to take stuff to a resale shop I decided I could not part with them. 

All of the ladies had a great time sewing. 

Here is a picture of everyone with their bibs!

Here are some of the fabulous handmade gifts Anita received.  

Aren't these little fabric shoes adorable? 

 Here are some of the others.

 It was so much fun to host this shower, thanks for stopping by!

Another Blur

So things were going fine until Jan 30.  That day our daughter came home from school with a fever.  Off we go to pediatrician.  Pediatrician tests for flu, nada, just sick and prescribes antibiotics.  She misses school Thursday and goes back Friday.  We have a hectic weekend, Master Gardener volunteer work, a church event, Super Bowl, lots of homework to prepare for a HUGE day at work on Monday but all feel good.

Monday, I have a HUGE day at work and Micaela comes home from school with fever AGAIN.  Third trip to peditrician.  This time she tests positive for flu.  We had crazy week juggling but somehow I made it to all my meetings and presentations and thank God she seems to be getting back to normal.

I managed to mail out my Love Day Swaps during the week... late but considering the challenges I had during the week and then lampoon type issues on my way to Post Office, I am pretty proud and relieved they got on their way.

One of my partners, Leah is in upstate NY and although my package has arrived in her town, they are buried in snow so it will be a day or two before she gets it.  My other partner Marissa in UT got her package so I will post those in the next day or two.

I spent the week getting ready to host a baby shower, look for that post above.    Thanks for hanging in there.