My First Market...Part 2....With A Giveaway!

With Friday here, it mean the Convention Center would be nice and cool and that it would rain all day!! Since set-up was finished, a majority of my job was done, except for checking in for the occasional potty break. 

Someone that I KNEW that I had to meet Tula Pink. She was featuring her new fabric line. She loved my purse- actually both of them as I had a different one each day!! She was super sweet and her brother was super nice!

As I was walking around I glimpsed a convo between two amazing ladies in the industry. Kay Whitt and Amy Butler. I couldn't help but take a non-selfie selfie as I walked by.

As I strolled along, I took some pics of my favorite booths. Hopefully I can remember where each one is from....

These first ones are from Thomas' booth. He covered the walls in come lovely frabrics. 

These were from the Michael Miller booth.

I am absolutely in love with Violet Craft (above) and her paper-pieced wall hanging with the animals! Can't wait for these patterns to be released and her new fabric line is beautiful!!

One of my fabric booths was from my gal pal Sara Lawson. She is know for her bag patterns and she has a line of fabric coming out next month focused around her home city of Chicago. It was all so pretty!!

The Robert Kaufman Booth also had some very pretty things!

 NEED to make this pattern

Yet another pattern I love!

Moda

Ghastlies

I don't remember where I saw the following quilt but it was at a machine dealer's booth and it was beauteous!!

After a long day of walking and meeting people and walking some more Friday ended on a wonderful note. 

Today's giveaway is from the wonderful people at Swatch Buddies who teamed up with the BadAss Quilters Society to make customized Swatch Buddies. These are great to use when you are needing to keep track of the fabrics you are using or just know what you have where. 

I got to pose for a picture with them too!!

So today you can win this package of Swatch Buddies. All you have to do is leave a comment with your go-to thread brand!! This give-a-way will end Sunday at noon EST.

Have a great day and sew on!!

~Kim

My First Market.....part 1....with a giveway!!

So, through a serious of events that included the stars aligning in 3 different universes, I was given a chance to go to International Quilt Market in Pittsburgh as a helper monkey to Thomas Knauer who had a booth there. This involved me devising a way of being gone from my 3 boys for 6 whole days and not having the universe implode! Thankfully, my mom came out to help, along with her sidekick Maggie- the most annoying barker I have heard. While she keep things together on the home front, I enjoyed myself immensely and wanted to share some things with you. I took this picture as I got up in the morning before I left for my 7.5 hr drive. 

Set-up- as glorious as this sounds, it's a lot of really creative people packed in a convention center without A/C (which doesn't come on until the public comes in) sweating their butts of as they make their booth look amazing. We (Thomas and the Amazing Lisa Sipes) spent Wednesday unloading and setting up. We got to take a walk down the strip and found a nice Italian Restaurant where we sat under the canopy on the sidewalk to eat.

Thursday we completed the minor details and cleaned the place up. Just in time for Thomas' Schoolhouse where he talked about his AMAZING book Modern Quilt Perspectives. He brought the quilts out that were in the book and discussed them. It was price-less to see them in person and TOUCH THEM!!!! Which is allowed and welcome in Thomas' world!!

There are many, many more pictures of this (I was taking them with Thomas' camera) that have yet to surface. 

After this talk, I spied someone that I HAD to get a pic with!

This is the gorgeous Scott Hansen, who works for the amaze-balls Generation Q Magazine.  He is also on the cover and featured in my Quilter's Shirtless Man and Spicy Burrito Calendar. 

Do you understand why I couldn't pass up this opportunity to grab a selfie with him?? lol

Something else that was mind-numbing was that a gal by the name of Kay Whitt came over to me because she recognized me!! This was unreal that someone that I had admired for so long to even have a clue who I was!!! She remembered things about my life from Facebook and everything. And she was so super sweet! This picture wasn't taken when we first met since we were gross and all, but a couple days afterwards. 

Thursday evening wrapped up with a little party back at the loft where Thomas and Lisa were staying. It was a nice time to get to know some new people and catch up with old ones. I got to meet Victoria Finday Wolfe and her pal Shelly Pagliai. This picture was also taken later but I thought I would share here!

These gals were sweet, nice and treated me like I had every reason in the world to be there....which I was kind of doubting at this moment in time!

That night I also got a picture with my pals for the week!

This rounded out the first part of the adventures. Fun times were had by all!!

I also thought that I would share some goodies that I picked up along the way! 

This first giveaway is for a 6 spool set of Aurifil thread. They are all the same thread color but are in each weight of thread that they offer! Gotta love this stuff! I have also included 2 Fat Quarters from Tula Pink's new line that comes out this fall!! So yummy! Can't wait to pre-order this line. 

In order to be entered in this giveaway, please comment below with your favorite designers name! 

Contest will end Friday at noon EST.  

Good Luck!

The Purple Monster

So over a year or more ago my step-mother-in-law and I were on a trip to Georgia to visit my brother-in-laws family and we went to some local quilt shops. She had recently asked if I would make her a quilt for her bed and I had agreed. She got her first glimpse of batiks and she fell in love. This started us grabbing bits and pieces of purples as we came across them.

She liked a variety of designs and shades. She wasn't particular about the pattern so I chose one from the first Turning Twenty book that was published. It took fat quarters, assembled a block, chopped it up, and resewed it to give it a mixed up look. 

Now in all honesty I am not a fan of batiks and I don't love purple enough to make an entire quilt of it. Isn't it amazing what we will do for our in-laws?? lol

Once I had it all arranged I made sure that I pieced it all before our move so that nothing would get misplaced.

Old House

New house

I added on thin and thick borders and mitered the corners. The finished top size was 85 inches by 85 inches. Lovely and big. 

My lovely MIL wanted the backing to be jersey. I bought a purple king size jersey sheet set. I kept the flat sheet for the back of the quilt. I used some light interfacing to try and take some of the stretch out of it. I did the best I could-lol It was no easy job! I used Pellon Soft & Warm as the batting and used my island to baste the quilt. 

I got some dappled purple for the binding and away I went.

That's the finished project. It is hard to tell but I diamond quilted the inside. Stitched in the ditch around the thin border and then continuous line quilted the thick border. I couldn't wash it as it was too big for my washer. My MIL did when she got it and threw it right on her bed. I think she likes it!!

And now I hope it's a VERY long time before I have to make another purple quilt!!

Take care and happy sewing!!
~Kim

You know you are getting old when....

you get excited about buying new vacuums!!!

So some of you may remember a couple of years ago when I talked about getting my Dyson. If not, you can refresh your memory here. Well Hubby got his bonus check on Friday and I got "permission" to go spend some of it today. 

Last night at work I got some Target gift cards so that I could get me some extra fuel points and after a coffee stop, I headed there first this morning. I picked up a Bissell Pet Cleaning vacuum on sale. Plus I got a $20 gift card to go back and use later. 

This is an awesome machine. It picks up a lot and will be staying upstairs. It even has a pet hair brush from removing hair from the furniture and any where else it might land. lol

Then I headed to Meijer where they had the SpotBot on sale. 20% off on it as well as the pet specific cleaner for it. 

All you do it fill it, put it over the spot, and press a button. 3 minutes later the spot is gone. So far it has worked great on pee, mud, and puke stains....all dog related while hubby is in charge!! lol  It can also be used manually. It does make a loud noise which isn't all together bad. It keeps the dog away while its being used. 

Would have to say that I am pleased with my purchases and my 2 new friends!!!

Take care and happy cleaning!!

~K

A little bit of show and tale!

So in the past couple of weeks I have finished 3 quilts. I figured now is a good time to share them since they have been received (well all but one but the receiver knows about it!!) And then I started getting the pictures off my phone and realized that I made a 4th one last fall and never blogged about it. Maybe this should be multiple blogs but I think I can manage with one post. 

The first is the one from last fall. Hubby's cousin was expecting her first child and she wanted a custom quilt. They live in TX and are big Longhorns fans. She wanted something western but not cute-sy and she liked the colors blue and green. After sketching I came up with an idea and went for it. 

 I did the math and made it strip by strip. And pieced it together.....

Good thing Texas isn't too curvy!!

I used Pellon Batting and a fun fleece backing. 

I'm not sure why I didn't take a better picture of it but in the middle of the state, I quilted the Longhorn sign and then quilted around it until it became wavy lines. The rest was quilted on the diagonal.

I think that he enjoyed it!!

The next quilt was also a custom order. She wanted pink and grey in chevrons and dots and loved sock monkeys. Plus a name on it.

Some sketching....

And then whipping it up!

 The name is appliqued on and the monkey is a combination of applique and hand sewing. This was the basis for the monkey. I didn't use a real bow because I wanted it to be baby-safe!

Here's the finished product.

I used Pellon batting as usual and quilted the chevrons with vertical lines and quilted diagonals with the dots. I did a simple echo around her name and the monkey. Baby is due soon and I can't wait to see pics of her on it!

This next one was a quickie for my cousins baby shower. I hadn't planned on making it but I found this super cute Minky (yes I said that word) panel of the Cat in the Hat and coordinating backing so I had to throw this together!!

 I have heard of stories from others about sewing with Minky and I will never do it again! I don't care how soft it is!!! It made such a mess that I trimmed it outside. And then, with a layer of Pellon batting, it was so thick that I had to cut it down in order to bind it. Such a pain in so many ways.

 I quilted it in Aurifil black and a matching shade of blue. I outlined the cat and then sewed wavy lines between the lines of text. So stinking cute and a day project but Minky is BAD!!! lol

I have decided that this post is getting a little long so I will stop here and continue on with the Purple Monster of a Quilt in the next post!!!

Stay warm and keep on creating!!

~K