Bright Lights - Bloggers Quilt Festival

If you're visiting from the Blogger's Quilt Festival, hello... and thanks for stopping by!

I'm entering my Bright Lights quilt in the festival, and realized I hadn't yet shared it here on the blog. This is the second quilt I've made. Ever. That's right. I made a quilted table runner in 2012-13 (It took a while!), and then this one, so it was very much a learning process for me.  Which, really, every quilt is!

© leiyagami

The design was inspired and made for a 'Modern in the City' challenge organized for the International Quilt Festival show in Chicago last year.  It's loosely based on this photo I found through a Google image search: a blurry image of a city street at night. (Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything more to credit the artist/photographer, other than the copyright info above.) I blocked out some general shapes/sections based on the one-point perspective of the photo, then improvised the piecing using different width strips.

I pieced the top while at a retreat with the the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild in March 2014, just a few days before the deadline. Then I quilted it to emphasize the perspective lines. The fabrics were all from my stash. I didn't really know what I was doing, which made it a fun challenge. I just put it together without thinking about it too much; it felt a little like painting! This was also the first time I needed to bury threads, since my only other quilt was a narrow table runner that I quilted so all the stitching ended at the binding edges. And I attached the binding by machine because I worried I wouldn't finish it in time otherwise. Since then, I've come to love binding by hand, and wouldn't dream of doing it otherwise!

It was fun to see it in the IQF show, along with other quilts created by members of both the Chicago and Naperville Modern Quilt Guilds.  I hope you enjoy seeing it (and all the other quilts!) in the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side.  I'm entering it in the Original Designs category.

My Aragon bag

Back in the beginning of February, I took a workshop with Sara Lawson of Sew Sweetness and made this lovely bag.  The workshop was an all-day event, organized by the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild, a group which I am so happy to have joined about a year ago.  Many of us braved (yet another!) snowstorm that day, to gather and sew and eat and sew and chat and sew... as Sara expertly and patiently walked us through the making of her Aragon bag.

The Aragon bag was designed as a diaper bag, but it would also make a great carry-on tote.  I'll be using mine as a "retreat" bag to carry fabric and sewing supplies.  The thing has nine pockets (!) in all, which are perfect for stashing rotary cutters, rulers, thread, elastic, zippers, and more.  And the interior is easily large enough to hold several yards of fabric, as well as some in-progress projects!  If you're interested, you can find out more about the Aragon bag in Sara's pattern shop.

I enjoy making bags, but I'm not sure I would have attempted one this complex without the workshop.  Despite having done a lot of prep work beforehand and sewing all day (okay, so maybe I should have been talking less...remember the part about chatting?!), I still hadn't completely finished the bag at the end of the workshop.  Another hour or so of focused work at home, though, and it was done!

I used fabrics from Jeni Baker's Nordika collection for the outer bag and side pockets, with a teal polka-dot print from Joann's for the interior, top, and shoulder straps.

I cut out the pattern pieces using the cute little pattern weights my mother-in-law made for me for Christmas.   No more cans from the cupboard as pattern weights for me!  I stuck to the pattern for the most part, with just a few (three, in fact) modifications.
1) I changed the shape of the front flap pocket to be more rectangular, but still with rounded bottom corners (see top photo).  The pocket in the pattern is more of a semi-circle.  I liked how the shape of my revised pocket was more connected to the overall shape of the bag, but, more importantly, I just wanted to be able to fit more stuff in it!
2) I made the shoulder straps a few inches longer, because I'm tall and wanted the bag to hit my hips, not my waist, when I carry it.
3) I used a different interfacing than the pattern called for -- Pellon Peltex 71 (an ultra-firm fusible stabilizer) instead of the recommended Soft and Stable foam interfacing.

If you ever have a chance to take a class from Sara, I would highly recommend it.  She was a great teacher, was very well prepared to walk us through each step, and was patient and personable.  Plus, you'll likely end up with an amazing new bag as a result!!

A quilt collaboration

Last Spring I joined the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild in order to meet like-minded creative people and to be inspired.  As it turns out... it worked!  I've met some great people who are doing similar, and also different, things than myself.  And now I'm actually working on a quilt (in fact, I'm working on two at the moment)!!

Pictured here is about one quarter of a charity quilt that I'm collaborating on with three other CMQG members.  It's made up of scrappy log cabin blocks cut into quarters and then randomly re-pieced -- very similar to the Scrapper's Delight pattern from Sunday Morning Quilts.

I'm also finally putting the binding on my quilted Mondrian table runner which has been a work-in-progress for an embarrassing long time!  Since I volunteered to put the binding on our charity quilt and... ahem... haven't actually bound a quilt before... you know, where I have to turn corners and stuff... I decided I should practice!  I machine stitched the binding to the front of the quilt and am enjoying the somewhat meditative process of hand-stitching it to the back.  I'll post photos soon of that finished quilt.

In the meantime, I'm plotting a bit of selfish sewing this week.  This seriously could not be happening at a better time.  I've been pretty overwhelmed with a new, big volunteer job I've taken on at my kids' school this year.  I've been feeling absolutely sewing-deprived... and, now, the perfect excuse to sew (for myself, no less!) has come along.  Here's a peek at some of the fabrics I recently splurged on in anticipation of sewing for myself.  Yes, sewing... for me.  I won't feel guilty.  Nope, not at all.  Okay, maybe a little.  But I'll get over it when I put on my brand new sewn-by-me duds!