Sewbot's Laboratory

Potholder Swap

2011-12-19T08:13:00.000-06:00

I participated in the Log Cabin Potholder Swap between the KC Modern Quilt Guild & the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. Each of us was given a name of someone in the opposite guild & we had to research that person as best we could and make them a potholder.

My partner was Nancy Stovall. She didn't give a lot of information, so I was left to my own devices. I gathered from her blog that she's a long arm quilter. She didn't give any specific color preferences or style preferences, so I went with some fabric I had & quilted the potholders for her very heavily and pieced very minimally.

My piecing is based off of a pattern called Northwest Modern Quilt in Susan Beal's Modern Log Cabin Quilting book.

The quilting was all out of Judy Woodworth's Freemotion Quilting Handbook. I've been practicing my freemotion skills on my domestic machine on every project I've done lately. What do you think? Am I improving?

Nancy, I hope you like the potholders I sent for you. I had fun making them; especially the quilting part of it. Hope you enjoy!

Robot Baby Shower

2011-12-01T07:00:00.002-06:00

A few weeks ago, my mom, sister, & 2 close girlfriends threw a shower for little guy and I in Omaha. The decided upon a robot theme to celebrate & came up with some really great ideas I know you'll want to steal.

This little guy is made from a bunch of random things. His head is one of those sorter toys. His nose is a snot sucker. His chest is a dishwasher box thing for bottle parts and such. His belly is a plastic bin filled with plastic blocks. His arms are bottle scrubbers. He has candy piggy banks for legs & baby shoes on his feet. He was stationed on the table right inside the door to the party.

Amber made a robot centerpiece for each table. Aren't they cute?

Do you see the robot paper cut-outs that were on the table? And nuts & bolts were scattered about, too!

My last name on a bunting. My mom made this with some robot fabric.

The snack table. My sister made little signs with the robotic name for all the snacks and drinks.

Well, all except the robot cake, but that one is kind of a give-away.

Micro Chips = Potato Chips

Nuts and Bolts = yummy popcorn, pretzel mixture with pumpkin spice and caramel I think.

Laser Beams = Veggie Tray

Cogs and Gears = Cucumber Sandwiches

Liquid Hydrogen = Water

Robot Juice = Capri Suns

Battery Acid = Punch

Tammy & I.

I'm ready to tackle the present opening.

There were lots of presents.

Little guy has lots of clothes.

He has lots of toys.

Amber took photos of Jason & I when she came down for the shower in Kansas City. This book has some of them printed out in it.

My mom made the little guy a robot quilt. Fussy cut robots in the centers of wonky log cabin blocks. Super cute!

My gramma & mom. My mom got a gift, too. Emily brought her a brag book to tote around photos of little guy.

We played games. This game was fun! Katie, my sister, came up with it. Everyone got a little jar of playdough and had to make a baby out of it.

Even little Lucy got in on the action.

There were some funny looking babies!

I had to be the judge, but I couldn't pick just one baby as the winner. I picked 2.

Michael's baby was awesome.

Look at the back of it!

Emily's baby was too cute. I love the hair! So, Michael & Emily were the two winners I chose.

Everyone got to take one of these little guys home with them. Aren't they fun?

It was a really fun party. I got to see people I hadn't seen in a long time. I got to play games & celebrate the little guy. I was given lots of good presents to dress & entertain the little guy with. I can't wait for him to get here!

Pumpkin Baby Shower

2011-11-30T10:37:00.000-06:00

Jason's family threw us a shower over a month ago now in Kansas City. We all partied at his mom's house.
Isn't this little pumpkin cute?

There were lots of yummy snacks.

This cake was delicious! I only had a nibble of it though, since I'm temporarily diabetic and it was pretty rich.

See? Lots of yummy snacks.

Fruit skewers stuck into a pumpkin.

This was a cheese ball! I love cheese balls. :)

And crackers for the cheese.

We were fancy and got to cut the cake like at our wedding.

We played the what kind of poop is in the diaper game.

Elle tasted it.

Jason's face is not reassuring of our upcoming adventures. It's fake poop; what's he so grossed out by?

Tammy & Michael were the best fake poop guessers.

The boys played a game. They were each given a bottle with 4 oz. of beer. The winner was the guy who could chug the beer from the bottle the fastest.

Joe was one of the two last guys remaining.

Michael was the other.

Oops! Joe choked up.

Michael was committed. Check out the beer drips down the front of his shirt. Perhaps that's why he won.

Joe & Kathryn.

My mom in the background; Katie & Amber in the foreground. Isn't my sister cute? I think so.

Michael & Tammy.

Mel & Alex.

Elle.

Jason & I. And Squirmy, too, but you can't see him all that well.

These were the party favors.

We had a lot of fun. We got a lot of really cool presents for the little guy. It was a really nice party. The weather was beautiful that day; great for the people who drove 3 hours to party with us.

Diapers!

2011-11-28T09:57:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, I went to Omaha for a baby shower my family & friends were throwing to celebrate my little guy. I stuck around an extra day and a half so my mom and I could whip up some diapers. I had picked up this pattern a while back for making all-in-ones.

I dug through my stash of fun fabrics before I left Kansas City & my mom dug through her stash. The pile of fabrics shown above are what we ended up using from my stash. I didn't take a picture after she added her fabrics to the mix. :(

Cutting things took FOREVER. I hate cutting. Have I mentioned I hate cutting? It's my least favorite part of sewing.

I love that the dogs are never far from any possible action.

Our babylocks got to play together again.

We spent about a day and a half at the dining room table. We cut fabrics. We sewed parts together. We attached elastic. We topstitched stuff.

This is what we ended up with. 20 diaper shells & 21 of the soaker pad inserts. Some of the outer shells are from flannel & some are just quilter's weight cotton. I think the next time I make some, I'll just use the cotton; it seems to form a little better than the flannel.

Aren't they adorable? They're super soft inside. I think little guy will like wearing them. How could he not like wearing such fun panties?

A suggestion I would offer for the pattern making people... I wish the pattern would have said how much fabric and other supplies was necessary for each diaper, not several. I found a fat quarter was enough to do one of the outside shells, so that may help you pattern following people.

How we did them:
We used either flannel or cotton for the outer layer.
The inside layer you can't see is a white PUL.
The lining is a white fleece.

The soaker pads are all fleece. I serged the edges of each of them. The serging is a little tricky to do with 4 layers of fleece, so be careful. My soaker pads aren't the prettiest things, but we must keep in mind what is going to be done on them. I think they'll do the trick. :)

I'm really excited to give cloth diapering a try. Currently my stash consists of:

20 AIO's that are a size small
21 soaker pads for the size small AIO's.
36 newborn chinese prefolds
6 small prefold covers
20 regular sized prefolds
1 medium prefold cover
5 size 1 snappi's

I need to make some prefold covers to fit a newborn, so if anyone has some suggestions on good patterns to use in a newborn size, I'm all ears. I'll also need to make or obtain some larger prefold covers, but I'm planning to hold off a while on those and see how this cloth diapering thing works out for us.

Also, I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to work the pail system. I picked up a lidded trash can to use as my diaper pail & was planning to go with a dry system. Anybody have suggestions on how to work that? I have to carry my diapers from one end of the house and down the stairs to the laundry room, so I'm liking the idea of a dry system to avoid spilling a heavy wet pail.

Is there any diaper stuff I will absolutely need that I'm forgetting? I'm open to suggestions!

Cyber Sale!

2011-11-28T00:01:00.000-06:00

I feel a little bit bad about not being around the blog the last month and a half, so I'd like to share another coupon code for the etsy shop with you. Today only, you can type in 2011CYBERSALE and receive free shipping in the United States.

Does that make up for me getting ready for my baby to come instead of hanging out sharing cool stuff with you? Don't worry... I've been making lots of cool stuff that I'll share when I get a chance to take a breath from my nesting habits and sit in front of the computer for long enough to upload loads of pictures. Be ready to see some fun baby shower ideas my family came up with, cloth diapers, and few fun things I made for in the baby's nursery.

Black Friday!

2011-11-25T00:01:00.002-06:00

Did you survive the food coma yesterday? Are you crazy like me and headed out shopping bright and early this morning? Well, to kick off the official holiday season, I'd like to share another coupon code for the etsy shop with you. Today only, you can type in 2011BLACKFRIDAY and save 25% off anything you purchase. Be sure to stop by and shop around for gifts for all those special people in your life.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T00:01:00.001-06:00

Jason and I are cooking up a storm for our family today. We're really excited to be able to have everyone over to our house to share in all the food and festivities.

Because I didn't want you to feel left out, I thought I'd share a coupon code for the etsy shop. Today only, you can type in the code TURKEY2011 and receive 10% off anything you purchase in my shop. Be sure to stop by to see all the fun Christmas things I have listed currently.

Enjoy your day and don't eat too much turkey! Happy Thanksgiving!

Roundabout

2011-10-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

This little quilt is also making it's way into Fabri-Quilt's Quilt Market booth in Houston in a few weeks. It's title is Roundabout.

This little quilt was a lot of fun to make. I used the six-minute circle method to make all the dots you see. They take me longer than six minutes, so don't feel bad if you try it and they don't go as quickly as you hoped. I made each of the 25 circles on a separate block and stitched them together to make the quilt top's center. It went pretty easy even if it took longer than 6 minutes for each block.

I tried trapunto to puff up the circles. The rest of the pink background was quilted in a simple stippling pattern on my domestic sewing machine. I even stitched in the ditch along the blue and orange borders since my husband thinks I need to learn how to do it.

I really like the way the cirlces bubble out from the background. I think it turned out really bright and fun.

Quilt stats:
Pattern Title: Roundabout
Designed by: Me
Pieced by: Me
Quilted by: Me
Size: 48"x48"
Fabric: Calypso by Paintbrush Studio

Square Dance

2011-10-12T07:00:00.004-05:00

I just dropped this quilt off to Fabri-Quilt last week.

This little quilt is about 48"x48" and was made to head to Quilt Market in Houston in a few weeks. I titled it Square Dance. Doesn't it look like the geese in the center are dancing in a square?

I haven't done a lot of this sort of quilt before... there's only 4 blocks in the center. The majority of this quilt is made from the borders. I think it turned out pretty fun.

I quilted it on my domestic sewing machine. You can see a little of the quilting in the last photo. I used orange thread and just did a random overlapping rectangle pattern. It took way longer to quilt than I thought it would.

Quilt stats:
Pattern Title: Square Dance
Designed by: Me
Pieced by: Me
Quilted by: Me
Size: 48"x48"
Fabric: Calypso by Paintbrush Studio

Boxed Breezes

2011-10-10T07:00:00.003-05:00

This is another one of those quilts I made a while back and forgot to blog about.

This one is titled Boxed Breezes. It was made for Fabri-Quilt using Paintbrush Studio's Cape Cod fabric line.

I think this one turned out pretty cute. I think this is basically a Bento Box pattern, but I'm not sure. It was nice and easy to put together, but was rather time consuming to cut all of the parts and piece the top.

Quilt stats:
Pattern Title: Boxed Breezes
Designed by: Me
Pieced by: Me
Quilted by: Me
Size: 60"x60"
Fabric: Cape Cod by Paintbrush Studio

Seismic Shift

2011-10-08T07:00:00.008-05:00

I made this quilt a while ago, but forgot to blog about it.

This quilt is titled Seismic Shift. I made it for Fabri-Quilt from Paintbrush Studio's Color Explosion fabric line.

The back of it turned out pretty cool. I rented time at Jackie's shop and traced a pantograph.

Quilt stats:
Pattern Title: Seismic Shift
Designed by: Me
Pieced by: Me
Quilted by: Me
Size: 58"x58"
Fabric: Color Explosion by Paintbrush Studio

Quilts on the Quad

2011-10-06T07:00:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday was the KC Modern Quilt Guild's first quilt show, Quilts on the Quad. It was a lot of fun & I think we can call it a success.

We had a lot of fun quilts. How cool is this Mario quilt?

We had a steady stream of traffic the entire day.

Don't you just love that bright Dresden Plate quilt on the left?

We had almost all of our quilts hung on clotheslines throughout the quad on UMKC's campus.

All of them except for these ones that were draped on the fountain and a few other large ones that were draped over a wall. Isn't that fun the way they are just hanging out there?

I had my own section. All the quilts on this line are mine.

I had fun hanging out under the tent with the other KCMQG ladies. It was a beautiful day to be out in the sun enjoying the quilts and the fall weather.

Flash Mob!

2011-10-05T16:10:00.000-05:00

Last week I went to AQS in Des Moines. A few days before the start of the show I received an email informing me that there was going to be a quilt mob. How could I resist?

The instructions were to bring a small quilt and meet in the hallway. The rest of the instructions were shouted out to the crowd when we had all gathered.

I brought this quilt with me.

There were lots of people.

They had us line up on the stairs outside after we had marched in a little parade down the street outside of the hall where the show was held.

Then, row by row, we lined up and had our pictures taken.

It was kind of fun to participate in this little event. There were lots and lots of quilts; way more than I thought would come to a quilt mob. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I definitely had fun.

Quilts on the Quad is today!!!

2011-10-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

Come visit with us and see quilts made by members of the KCMQG displayed in UMKC's quad. We'll be there from 10-4 enjoying the beautiful fall weather.

Quilts on the Quad is tomorrow!

2011-09-30T07:00:00.001-05:00

Come join us tomorrow in UMKC's Quad from 10-4. We'll have a whole bunch of quilts hung on clotheslines. It should be a really fun venue and the weather is supposed to be beautiful.

I'm planning to be there all day, so come and visit.

KCMQG's Blog Post on Iron Quilter

2011-09-21T09:01:00.000-05:00

Here's the link to the post about Iron Quilter on KCMQG's blog.

There's a great video included at the end. You must check it out. The intense music is PERFECT!

Iron Quilter

2011-09-19T14:31:00.000-05:00

I was kind of nervous to participate in the KCMQG's Iron Quilter Challenge. I had no idea what to expect and wasn't sure I was cut out to make a quilt in a group in that short amount of time. I sucked it up and put my hat in the ring and am so glad I did.
Iron Quilter worked like this:

Pack up a gallon sized ziploc with scraps of fabric from your stash.
Bring your quilting tools and show up at the Bernina store at noon.
Be assigned to a group upon arrival.
Decide to share or not to share your group's scraps with the rest of the Iron Quilters.
Be given a secret ingredient.
Make a completed quilt over the next 5 hours, minimum size of 18"x24".

I ended up on a team with Mary Anne & Toni and we had so much fun. Our secret ingredient was from Anna Maria Horner's Innocent Crush fabric line. The title of the fabric print is Bubble Burst and we ended up with it in the Sweet Cream Color way.
We used or stash fabrics to make the blocks of our quilts. We used the secret ingredient fabric as the sashing and outer borders.

The blocks we chose to make were basically strips of our scrap fabric sewn together. We ended up with 9 multi-colored blocks on the front and 5 on the back.

I cut strips of fabric for most of the day, but I did spend a few minutes in front of the machine. I did the quilting on our little iron quilt. I jumped onto the machine around 4:40. Our deadline to finish the quilts was 5:00. 12 minutes (I think... no longer than 15) after starting the quilting, I had quilted the entire 26"x26" quilt.

We didn't quilt make the 5:00 deadline. It was closer to 5:30 by the time it was all bound and completed.

That photo above is me, Mary Anne, and Toni holding the quilt. That photo is the backside of the quilt.

Here's the top side of each of the quilts made during the challenge.

The backsides of each of the quilts.

This is all the iron quilters and the finished quilts. I think we all had a blast trying to throw together finished quilts so quickly.

Modern Log Cabin Quilting

2011-09-17T07:00:00.001-05:00

I bought the book, Modern Log Cabin Quilting, a few months ago. At this month's KCMQG meeting, I was lucky enough to hear Susan Beal speak about log cabin quilting. She talked a bit about it's history and when it was popular. Did you know that it was popular in the time of Abraham Lincoln? I didn't, but for some reason, traditional log cabin quilts have always reminded me of him. Funny how your brain connects things like that, eh?

I learned what the difference is between a log cabin and a courthouse step pattern is. Basically, it's a very similar block. The log cabin is formed by sewing fabric one side at a time in a circular pattern. To make it, you sew one side, turn it 90 degrees and sew the next side, repeating that process until you have the block as big as you want it. A courthouse step block is made by sewing opposite sides to the block. You start with the center square and add "logs" to two opposing sides. Then you turn the block 90 degrees and add "logs" to the two bare sides.

I also learned the term, "snip & flip" which is when you cut one long strip of fabric, leave it long, sew multiple blocks to it, snip it apart, and then flip it open. How fun is that term? I had no idea... I do it all the time, but didn't know there was a name for it.

So, I learned a lot about log cabin quilting that I didn't anticipate learning that night. That's always fun. I really like when we have a guest speaker like Susan come and share something. I think it makes it more interesting to see how somebody else views the quilting world and how they go about using their views to create.

Quilts on the Quad

2011-09-15T07:00:00.000-05:00

Are you ready? KC Modern Quilt Guild is preparing to put on our very first quilt show.

Want to come join us? It should be a pretty good show. We're planning to have over 200 quilts hung up in the quad on the UMKC campus.

The show will be October 1st from 10am - 4pm at UMKC's Quad near 52nd & Rockhill Road.

Windy City Quilt

2011-09-13T07:00:00.005-05:00

About a month ago, I made a quick block to be included in a quilt for our (now former) guild President, Jacquie who is deserting us to move to Chicago with her husband. :(

A few people were hard at work over the last month, making it possible for us to present this beauty to Jacquie at last week's guild meeting.

You can see the block I made in the above photo. It's the one three from the top left corner. It kind of looks like a cross over a white square with an orange square in the middle of it.

I think Jacquie really liked it. She started wearing it as a cape after it was presented to her. :)

Thanks, Shea, for letting me steal some photos of it. :) Jacquie, we wish you all the best on this new adventure.

David Taylor

2011-09-06T13:39:00.000-05:00

Way back in 2009 at my first International Quilt Festival in Chicago, I discovered David Taylor. David Taylor is a fabulous quilter who uses hand applique to create photo-realistic art quilts. Well, today, I attended the Blue Valley Quilter's Guild to hear Mr. Taylor speak. Oh boy, was it better than I expected.

He talked a little bit about the two quilts I had seen in Chicago and shared with you in this post. This one of the goat is titled Little S'Tinker.

The other quilt he talked about that I saw at the show in Chicago was Christmas Chickadee. I REALLY like this one. It was interesting to hear that this one was made from 3 separate photographs. One of the bird, one of the light, and one of the branch. Would you believe that there are 17 different red fabrics making up the christmas light? And would you also believe that they are all hand appliqued? And yep... all of those pine needles are hand appliqued, too. Have I mentioned he uses hand appliqued and doesn't use what he calls the F word? F word being fused.

There's no way I'm converting to hand applique anytime soon. I like the quickness and ease of fusing. I was totally blown away when I learned that he doesn't fuse anything. All his work is made using hand applique and fabric choices. Yes, that's right... he doesn't dye or color or alter his fabrics either. He spends weeks choosing the right fabrics to get shade and shadow. Yikes! I really love the finished product, but I don't think I could handle the process he uses. It was really interesting to hear all about how he works, though. Very inspiring.

Now that I've shared a little with you, I must go and burn off some of this inspiration by going and working on some quilts. :)

A little bit of progress...

2011-08-25T07:00:00.004-05:00

Last week, I mentioned a new project I've been working on. Today the last of the fabric I ordered came in, so I have my completed palette of KONA colors for making some photographic mini quilts.

I ended up with 37 different colors. I was lucky enough to find some of them at shops around town here for cheaper than what they are online and avoiding the 1/2 yard minimum. All in all, it took me 4 brick and mortar stores and 2 online shops to get everything I needed.

Why KONA? Well, I've played a bit with some other solids and have found that the KONA holds up nicely when you cut it into very tiny pieces to fuse onto other very tiny pieces. Some of the other fabrics I've tried must have had lesser thread counts, because when you cut them nice and small, they just fray and disintegrate. KONA seems to have a nice range of colors that I can work with and holds up to what I need it to do. So, that's why I choose to go with KONA when I can.

Jay McCarroll Habitat Challenge

2011-08-23T13:18:00.001-05:00

The Modern Quilt Guild is putting on a challenge once again. There are the four challenges that have been going throughout the year, but there have also been a few fabric company sponsored challenges, too. We had the Robert Kaufman No Prints Allowed challenge featuring KONA Solids that finished up a few months ago. Now, we're just getting started on the Jay McCarroll Habitat Challenge.

In Kansas City, anyone who wanted to participate got a little bundle of 6 of the fabrics in the Habitat line in the Earth colorway. The challenge is to make a finished quilt of any size using each of the fabrics we received. We can add more of the Habitat fabric from any colorway and as much solid fabric as we wish.

I am having a hard time figuring out where to start on this one. This youTube video gave me a little bit of an idea about what the fabric line is intended to represent. It's about nature & organic sort of things colliding with city living. Kind of urban meets rural. I love that idea. It's nice to find a little bit of green living in the big city. Currently I'm thinking that trying to design a quilt that has the same focus on green urban living is how I'm going to go. I don't know how I'll do that or what I'll end up with, but it sounds like a good starting point, doesn't it?

Working on something new...

2011-08-17T19:17:00.000-05:00

Here's a little sneak peek of what I've been working on. The sketches are of some ideas for new mini quilts similar to these I made a few months ago.

This is a little snippet of my process for making these. The images you see above are photographs that I have altered in Photoshop. I've printed them out in black and white and used colored pencils on them to see what they'll end up looking like. Using my KONA color card, I decide which colors I am going to use to build my images.

Today I spent my morning refining my fabric list. My afternoon was spent hitting a few places to pick up all the colors I can get without paying shipping or having a 1/2 yard minimum of each color. Tonight I'll be working on ordering all my remaining colors online.

Once I end up with all the colors in my palette, I'll start tracing my pieces onto fusible web, ironing the fabric onto the fusible web, and building up my images.

So, why am I making a bunch of mini quilts? Well, the KC Modern Quilt Guild has a quilt show coming up on October 1st. I'm considering renting a table where I can sell some of my work there. It's also something I've been thinking about putting up on my etsy shop for a while now, so if I don't make the deadline for the quilt show, I can still always sell it there.

Watch for some more progress photos of my projects coming up before too long.

Patterns for Sale!

2011-08-08T10:13:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned on the blog that I've been working on making a couple of patterns to sell in my etsy shop. Well, the time has finally come. I have just released 2 brand new patterns for sale in my shop.

The first one I have is a quilt I designed as a sample for quilt market back in May. It's titled Mixed Feelings. You can purchase this pattern for $7.50 by clicking here.

The second pattern that is now available is titled Oliver's Fox. This quilt was originally designed for a friend's baby boy. This pattern included a lot more detailed diagrams and is more complicated than Mixed Feelings. Because of this it is $10.00 and can be purchased here.

To celebrate the release of these new patterns, I'm giving you all a discount on anything in the store. Now through the end of August, use the coupon code NEWPATTERNS2011 and you'll recieve a 10% discount on anything you purchase from me.