No Sewing Lately

There has been a lack of sewing recently in Stars Hollow, but not for lack of want. The sewing machine is buried. My in-laws were here and thus the sewing room went back to being a guest room and hasn't quite recovered. Plus, in the hubbub of moving it has also become a storage room for boxes! So now its really buried. However, my mind is racing. Ive been designing quilts lately. I get out my trusty box of colored pencils and color my heart out. I'm hoping to create patterns to sell in an etsy shop. Anyone interested in being a pattern tester? email me keggensperger@gmail.com. That might light a fire under my rear.

Sewing Space

Here is my sewing space. Its a small cabinet...











That opens into this:

I love it! There's places to put my thread and ribbon and whatnot so I can find it, there's shelves to put WIP's and scraps and books and patterns, and there's a place to store my machine when I'm not using it. Brilliant! The best part - - It was a gift from Mr. Stars Hollow.

Favorite things: Sewing Caddy

Last summer before we moved to Virginia, my church quilt group gave me a gift certificate to a local store. I found this and immediately knew I HAD to have it. I will say, it was a great buy. I love it. Its so handy and keeps things soo organized. I have all my rulers and cutting utensils and various sewing related odds and ends all together and easily available. Plus, it makes clean up a breeze, and I'm not always rooting around for stuff. Brilliant! The best part is that it has a lazy susan type swivel mechanism on the bottom for turning.

Pink & Purple: Quilting

I will confess, the actual machine quilting is NOT my favorite thing. All I know how to do is "stitch in the ditch" and I'm too nervous to try stippling or anything else! I piece blocks and tops till the cows come home, but quilting is kind of the dreaded task, much like mopping the floor. I decided to do stitch in the ditch (Surprise!!) and go around the blocks on the diagonal. I used a purple thread. I also figured out the key to laying out the quilt and keeping it from getting scrunched up. I laid out my backing, then used an iron set on low to smooth it out and spread it out. Then I laid the batting on, then laid the top on and did the iron thing again. It made a huge difference!! I used safety pins to keep everything in place.

Pink & Purple: Borders

I decided to go with an inner pink border and an outer purple border. My thought was a continuation of pink in the middle, purple around the edge. I used scraps for the pink fabric. (Can you believe its leftover from the toga I wore to a party in college? We just bought fabric instead of messing with sheets and then our togas were all unique!)The purple was purchased, as I didn't have enough of anything else to go all the way around. Its all scraps, remember? Anyways, I like how it turned out! Now onto quilting and binding.

Favorite Websites: Ric Rac

One of my very favorite sewing websites is Vintage Ric Rac. Jodi has the most amazing creativity and can actually follow through to create beautiful things. I love all of her softies! The turtles, the hedgehogs, etc. etc. I have ideas in my head but I don't quite know how to implement them into fabric. I would love to just hang out in her studio all day and pick her brain. She is pure inspiration! Whenever her blog title turns bold in my blog roll, I get really excited and filled with anticipation at the awesomeness that awaits. I'll confess, I have a sewing crush on Ms. Ric Rac.

A Lady Bug Softie

I'm trying to edge my way into the world of sewing softies. This was my first attempt at my own pattern....its a Lady Bug softie that could also double as a small pillow. It could still use some tweaking, but its definitely a start. The wings are separate from the body and have batting in them to create form. Hopefully I'll have a tutorial of this at some point...

Awesome Hubby!

My hubby is amazing! Mr. Stars Hollow took me out on a *surprise* date night. Guess what the first activity was? You won't believe it. He took me to JoAnns so I could pick out some fabric! How sweet is that? Almost the whole store was on sale, so I got border and backing fabric for the pink and purple quilt, plus a few yards of white on white (I don't have ANY) and a few remnants. He's so awesome. And THEN, he took me to dinner at a cute mexican restaurant. The way to a girls heart is through fabric!

Pink and Purple Progress

Heres what it looks like all laid out. Hard to believe thats all from my stash. Each block is 8" square. Laid out like that the quilt is 48"x64". I think I'll divide it in half and make two smaller quilts. I'm more into the lap/throw/baby size quilts than the huge ones.

Next up: Borders!

One of My Favorite Sites for Ideas...

The Moda Bake Shop is a favorite stitching website of mine. I follow it in my blog reader so that I catch every single new blog post. Although I have yet to purchase a Moda baked good, their fabrics have been among my favorites forEVER. One of my favorite fabrics ever was a Moda design from the first major quilt I made. It was dark blue with somewhat wonky bright white stars in a log cabin that is still on my childhood bed. I LOVE it. Anyways, Moda is a great place for tutorials. I like to look at the quilt recipes to find inspiration, as well as crafty bloggers to follow. Just this morning I looked through the quilt recipes looking for an idea for a baby quilt for our friends' brand new baby girl. There were tons of options for me! The hardest part was narrowing it down to one that I could use scraps for. I think this might be the winner. However, in true me-style, I will make a few adjustments. I can't do anything just by the book.

A new project!

I started a quilt for one of my cousins. Its pink and purple scraps. Amazing that I have that many! Heres a few pics to pique your interest.