Uppity-Mama

Happy Mochi Yum Yum Quilt

This quilt was a group effort. Lisa cut it and my employee, Ariga, pieced it and I did the quilting and binding.

The pattern and fabric are both by Monica Solorio Snow of Happy Zombie fame.  The pattern is called Taking Turns and is available in the spring issue of Quilts N More.  I was more than thrilled when Monica contacted me and asked us if we (Sew Modern) would provide the quilt kit link for the magazine!  Monica is hilarious, even in emails, but for an example you should check out her post here.

We chose to use Kona cotton in orange for our quilt.  Monica, appropriately used Snow in hers for the magazine.

I quilted it on Harley (our long arm machine at the shop) and did a daisy chain for the first time!

Karavan Whole Cloth Quilt

Oh, I just LOVE this fabric from Valorie Wells' Karavan collection.  I added borders (art gallery pure elements in Cozumel Blue) to my two favorite prints and used one on the front and one on the back.

I pebble quilted it on the longarm machine at the shop.  I quilted all around the circles on the front which gave a lot of texture to the quilt.  The circles are puffy!

The binding is Art Gallery Lace Elements in Plum.

I tried wool batting this time and it was really nice to work with and gave a bit of extra loft to the circles, I think.

And my kids do claim this one is warmer than the quilts with cotton batting.  Nice on these chilly Los Angeles mornings!

 

Growth Chart Quilt

At fall Quilt Market, back in October, Thomas Knauer did a schoolhouse (lecture) about his new fabric line and gave all who attended a pattern called Growth Chart.  Isn't it sweet?  And so easy.  The pattern calls for a differnent back but still utilises the rest of the strips used in the front. You can purchase a PDF download here.

This fabric line is called Pear Tree.
I went with the pink and green colorway for my quilt as you can see and echo quilted around the "chart."

Thomas' next line is called Flock and
I can't wait to get it in the shop in February.
It's really groovy!

Zig Zag Quilt with Terrain

I made a baby quilt for a friend, using a charm pack of Kate Spain's new line, Terrain for Moda.  I actually didn't use all of the prints as some were, frankly, not my cup of tea.  Which is odd because so many of the prints in this collection are right up my alley.

 I'm often an all or nothing kind of girl so this surprised me!  I started by making 1/2 square triangles thinking that I'd mix up all the zigs and zags but when I layed it out I found it much too busy for my eye.  So I put it together with the zigs and zags in one print each. Am I making any sense?  In the second photo you can probably see what I mean, and that this could have been done using strips of the fabric instead of charm squares and would have looked better that way.  Live and learn, I say.  It's still pretty cute.

My First Finished Long Arm Quilt!

Well, all I've had time for up until now was playing around with Harley (our long arm at Sew Modern) what with running the store and the 4 kids and all.  But finally... 

...tada!  A finished quilt!

It was really fun doing this wavy stitching...my hips even got into it!  I will definitely be doing this stitch again.

I used a layer cake (10" squares) of Just WIng It by Momo for Moda, added some Kona Caribbean for a border, and 2 fabrics from Riley Blake's Daydream collection for the backing and binding.  I used salmon colored Isacord thread for the quilting.

Oh and my friend Alison won the Project Modern challenge with her awesome quilt using a similiar style of stitching which she did on Harley at Sew Modern!  
Yay, Alison!

Cape Ann Baby Quilt

My parents were in town and my mom wanted to choose some fabric and have "us" make a baby quilt (my mom doesn't sew).  I showed her the Cape Ann fabrics by Liesl Gibson I had gotten at sample spree at Spring Quilt Market.  She loved them and we got to work! She picked out a backround fabric (Kona cotton,Loden?), some binding fabric (from 1001 Peeps), and a backing fabric (from Summersault).

I threaded 2 machines and got my mom and my stepdad to piece the strips!

All done!

Piecing like the Seminoles

My friend Tanya is teaching a techniques class at Sew Modern and this is what we learned last week. 
Apparently there are many ways to do Seminole piecing!  It's really quite fun and you can mix it up any way you like.

I think this way would make an awesome guitar strap.

All-Star 2 Quilt

With a little help from my Triple B friends, this baby quilt got made as sample for the store of the adorable fabrics in the All Star 2 collection from Riley Blake.  If you haven't tried them yet, wonky star blocks are  really fun to make.  Check out this tutorial.

 

Sew Modern Update and A Bit O' Sewing

Well,  this little blog is suffering a bit what with all my attention going to the store right now.  Something had to give, I guess.  Hopefully I'll be back on track once we're up and running. 

Some sewing did get done for the store. I made some throw pillows using fabric from Pat Bravo's Modern Affair line and some medium gray Kona.

Lisa made new cushions for my flea market rocker from Kona Emerald.  More Modern Affair fabric for the piping.

And my fantastic employee, Liz, decorated the check out desk with even more Modern Affair.

 

Ups and Downs

Well, here are the ups:

an entire wall of Kona cotton solids-every color they make!  and help from my awesome friend Lisa (pictured below).

MORE help from Leslie and Emily...with data entry and figuring out my POS system, Lightspeed. I have such amazing friends and am so grateful for their generosity.

The number one down is:

VERIZON.  I can't overemphasize the awfulness that is their system.  JUST to get the right person on phone takes 20 minutes...every time.  Twice in the first month of service with them, my internet has gone down due to errors on their end.  They only discover that they have issues after I spend hours on the phone with them.  Those same hours, if THEY spent them helping ME, would cost me 150 dollars each.  HUGE DOWN!

Next down:

Almost all of my orders have come in with mistakes.  Mistakes that cost ME time calling, repacking, and shipping the mistakes back.  Argh.  Gimme a break!

But I don't want to leave you on a negative note so...

some of these gorgeous linens from Valori Wells came today!