New York Beauty Zip Pouch--Riley Blake Challenge

I finished up my little project for the MQG Riley Blake Challenge the other night.

  

I had been thinking about this idea for a little zip pouch for a while, and then realized the orange, yellow, and light blue challenge fabrics would work really well. I hand quilted it with orange, yellow, and aqua embroidery floss.

  

The back is another one of the challenge fabrics. This one is quilted with gray perle cotton. I quilted it while we watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.

I made a big mistake when I was getting ready to assemble the bag, after the quilting was finished. I've made several zip pouches with machine quilting, and I always use my rotary cutter to trim the edges of the quilted pieces so they will be the same size. I didn't even think about it before I rotary cut some of the slightly crooked edges off the front piece for this bag... then I realized that cutting hand stitches is a bad idea. I ended up pulling out a couple inches from several rows of quilting, enough so I could tie a knot, and then requilting the areas I had needed to undo.

I'm glad I fixed it--the quilting stitches should all stay in place now--and I won't make that mistake again!

Valentines and Winner

I made some simple Valentines for my family today. We still have leftover pink construction paper from a birthday party a couple years ago, and I used a glue stick (to baste) and then free motion "quilted" the hearts to the paper. If my machine had been set up for regular sewing, I might have zigzagged them or done a cute decorative stitch.

  

Random.org says that the winner of the Seams Unlikely book giveaway is #2, Vicki W. I've already emailed her. Thanks to everyone who entered!

Seams Unlikely Book Review + Giveaway

I was asked to participate in the blog tour for Nancy Zieman's autobiography, Seams Unlikely: The Inspiring True Life Story of Nancy Zieman, and today's my turn to tell you what I thought.

And here's what I think: Nancy Zieman is an amazing example of hard work and determination and has endured significant physical and medical challenges to become one of the most recognized names in the sewing industry. She built Nancy's Notions, her sewing supply mail-order business, from the ground up starting in her basement, and has had a successful sewing television show for over 30 years. She is a true inspiration.

In her book, Nancy describes health challenges that started when she was a baby, including Bell's Palsy, knee problems, and multiple surgeries. She describes her life living on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and the work ethic instilled in her by her parents. I especially liked reading about her experiences in 4-H because I took sewing 4-H for four summers too--and I got an amazing education in apparel sewing through 4-H, even though I was so young.

It was very interesting to read about the growth of her business over time as technology changed and her customer base grew.

I appreciated reading about Nancy's family as well, and I loved the chapter near the end that described the adoption of her younger son (and her older son's reaction to the new baby... so, so sweet.) Nancy worked with her husband for many years and was honest about the challenges and benefits of them being in business together.

Visit Nancy's blog to read her explanation of why she wrote the book, and to enter in her giveaway of 20 copies of the book.

And I have a copy of the book to give away, too. Comment on this blog post and I'll choose a winner on February 14.

You can read more about Seams Unlikely at the other stops on the blog tour:

February 4          Nancy Zieman           http://www.nancyzieman.com/blog

February 5          Eileen Roche          http://dzgns.com/blog/

February 5          Pat Sloan          http://patsloan.typepad.com/

February 6          Melissa Stramel          http://melissaslilaclane.blogspot.com

February 6          The Long Ladies          http://www.mariemadelinestudio.typepad.com/

February 6          Tori Thompson          http://totallystitchin.net

February 7          Amy Barickman          http://www.indygojunction.com/blog/

February 7          Melissa Mora          http://mellysews.com

February 8          Shari Butler          http://www.doohikeydesignstudio.com/blog/

February 8          Vicki Christensen          http://www.sewinspiredblog.com/

February 9          Carolina Moore          http://alwaysexpectmoore.com

February 9          Kate Mclvor          https://theconfidentstitch.squarespace.com/blog/

February 10          Amy Ellis          http://amyscreativeside.com/blog/

February 10          Melissa Mortenson          http://www.polkadotchair.com

February 11          Ilene Miller          http://happyvalleyprimitives.blogspot.com/

February 11          Liz Hicks          http://blogerisms.blogspot.com/

February 11          Rachael Pannepacker          http://www.jaybirdquilts.com/

February 12          Bill Gardner          http://www.quiltersnewsletter.com/blogs/insideqn/

February 12          Elizabeth Evans          http://www.simplesimonandco.com

February 13          Amy Webb          http://www.amylouwhosews.com/

February 13          Lindsay Wilkes          http://thecottagemama.com/blog/

February 14          Gertie Hirsch          http://www.blogforbettersewing.com

February 14          Veronica Philips          http://cloverusa.wordpress.com/

February 15          Jenny Gabriel          http://www.sewvacoutletblog.com

February 15          Laura Wasilowski          http://artfabrik.blogspot.com/

February 16          Frieda Anderson          http://friestyle.blogspot.com/

February 16          Rita Farro          http://ritassewfun.blogspot.com

February 17          Cindy Cloward          http://www.rileyblakedesigns.com/blog/

February 17          Joan Hawley          http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/blog/

February 17          Patty Young          http://modkidboutique.blogspot.com

February 18          Nancy Zieman          http://www.nancyzieman.com/blog/

 
Disclosure--this blog post contains an affiliate link. I was given a free copy of the book. All opinions are my own.
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Seattle MQG Retreat

I spent this past weekend at the Seattle MQG retreat on Vashon Island. I had a great time, sewed a ton, ate good food that I didn't have to make, didn't sleep enough, and came home happy to see my family and watch the Big Game last night.

One of the things I've been wanting to make good progress on is my scrap block quilt. I started making 6.5" scrap blocks sometime in 2011(in Kansas) and have worked on them off and on since then. I've made about 35 since the end of December. Here's the final stack:

 

I had a number in mind when I was finishing up the light blues and dark blues, but I ended up with more than I expected. I had to make one more block at the retreat to finish up the last row, and it was kind of fun to use scraps that a few different people gave to me for that.

This is the final layout:

and then here's what it looked like all sewn together (but not pressed yet.)

 

This was an instagram photo and the bottom row is cut off. The quilt has 117 blocks in it.

I pressed all the row seams open this morning and I'm hoping to get it ready to quilt later on this week. 

I worked on a couple other things too, here's a few more scrappy trip along blocks:

 

I have 21 of them now, not sure how many I will end up with.

And I participated in a group Improv Round Robin session which was a ton of fun. We had groups of 4 people, and each person started with her own fabric and then passed it to the next person in the group a total of 3 times, so we all ended up working on each others' quilts. Here's my mini after Louise, Debbie, Chandra and I all worked on it:

I'm not sure if I'm going to add more piecing or not, but it's a beautiful start and it was so fun to work with my group on this. I think I'd like to do this on a bigger scale someday, too. 

Overall the retreat was such a good experience. I didn't know anybody in the group really well before going, but I feel like I made friends and it was so cool to get to know people better in a setting of sewing and chatting all day long.