the last of the bags

I finished the last of the graduation 'money holders'.

This gal's mom told me she liked pink, pale aqua and gold.

I fretted a good bit over fabric choices,

thinking I really didn't have anything just right,

and almost ordered fabric.

Then I reminded myself,

these are just supposed to be simple bags,

to take the place of a greeting card;

they aren't the entire gift.

It would have not been a bit prudent of me to order fabric.

But still, 

I want the young lady to like it....

I was folding my fabric immediately after cutting it on my last project

(I never do that.

In fact, my black and white remnants and scraps are still in a box in the dining room!)

when I realized that The Way of Flowers by Rashida Coleman had all of those colors :-)

(and then some!)

What is the secret to pressing a bag? I sure need to figure that out!!

I paired it with some gold Cotton + Steel,

a mauve-y pink solid for the lining,

a berry pink zipper,

and a little scrap of teal with white polka dots Lecien for the zipper.

I tried the fusible fleece again.

 I liked the structure it added to this one,

and since the bag is much bigger than the other one I'd used it on,

the puffiness didn't bother me.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out

and hope the graduate likes it, too!

~

It's not for graduation,

but I had one more bag I needed to make.

A few months ago,

while I was still piecing Ties That Bind,

I found 

(what I thought was)

the perfect fabric for the back.

But it was from Ikea,

and the nearest Ikea is 5 hrs away.
They don't sell fabric online.

I put our a plea for help on Facebook,

and one of my friends

went and bought some for me,

 and got it in the mail right away!

(That's huge - I have a horrible time getting to the post office.

My nieces and nephews, poor things, can vouch for that.)

I wanted to make a little something

to thank her for her trouble.

(Actually - some other friends went to their Ikea and tried to get it, too,

but it was out of stock.

I should probably make them a little something also.... hmmm...)

The fabric ended up not being perfect for my quilt after all,

but hey,

I've got a lot of Ikea growing things themed fabric....

I decided to use some of it :-)

It looks fabulous with red, so I used a red zipper

and a scrap from my still-being-quilted

- but only when I'm not working on other projects -

Any Which Way quilt.

I added batting and quilted the exterior pieces  in a 1" square grid 

with a little bit of hand quilting thrown in for good measure :-)

I do love a mix of hand and machine stitching!

It's becoming my signature, I think.

I used some leftover black Widescreen for the lining and the little tab on the zipper.

Leftover from what you ask?

The binding for Ties That Bind.

That's right, I ordered 108 inch wide backing fabric

to use as the binding.

Which turned out to be a fabulous (and inexpensive) idea;

It only took me 62 minutes

from the time I opened my package

to make,

attach,

 and press to the back,

binding for a queen size quilt.

Yay for backings for bindings!

Back to the bag...

Again, I just made up the size, letting the fabric lead me,

and installed the zipper ala Anna

Sadly,

getting this deliciousness to my friend will require super human effort on my part.

I have to take it to the post office.

I really hope she likes it ;-)

linking up with the scraptastic Amanda Jean and Finish it up Friday.

I'm also sharing the link at Elizabeth Foss' recently resurrected With Needle and thREAD.
I read Coal Run on our trip and finished it up after we arrived home.
It was an enjoyable read;
I teared up a few times, and laughed several times, or at least chuckled, too,
but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

introducing.... Ties That Bind, a unique Dresden plate quilt

You guys!

I am so pleased to introduce to you,

officially,

in its entirety,

my made with 150ish hours of love

(and a little blood, a lot of sweat, and even a few tears)

Ties That Bind

a black and white quilt for my awesome baby brother, Matt,

and his beautiful (inside and out!) bride, Marin.

After Marin showed off her gorgeous engagement ring at Thanksgiving festivities last year,

she said,

"So - I guess we need to order a quilt now :-) "

We talked a little bit about what she wanted 

- namely a bunch of black and white print fabrics.

No other colors.

(I am just a little bit of a rebel, 

so I defied her wishes and added a tiny bit of red stitching to the label ;-)
(She didn't mind)

We decided (I decided) that instead of them hiring me to make it,
the quilt would be their wedding gift.

She wanted to leave the design totally up to me,

and reminded me
that while she normally doesn't like quilts, she's loved every one of mine...

(like this one, this one, my hubby's, this one - which is for sale, and even this manly quilt.)

After several hours of searching pinterest and googling  'black and white quilt' for inspiration,

but not finding anything that seemed remotely right,

I remembered this dresden quilt,

a knew it would be perfect!

Using my handy dandy graph paper and a sharpened pencil,

I designed a quilt with 11 (mostly double pointed) dresden plates,

some whole, some partial,

ranging in size from to 15" - 33" in diameter.

My brother and his lovely wife are both so special and unique
 and I wanted the quilt to reflect that
so I planned for all of the dresdens to be different sizes,
both inner and outer circumferences.
(then I had to spend a good bit of time figuring out what size to cut my blades so I'd get those sizes!)
The insides of the dresdens were all quilted differently, as well.

I spent about a month buying fabrics,

some basic B&Ws that I thought played well together,

and some that were especially suited to Matt and Marin, 

based on their hobbies and professions.

I cut into my 38 fabrics on Jan 12th,

and started making Dresdens.

When I had those all sewn onto their background fabrics

and into a quilt top, 

I decide it wasn't really complete

and made more whole and partial plates

until I was happy with the overall composition.

Then I pieced a back with leftover fabrics

and made a label.

(stupidly forgetting to add both the name of the quilt, and my name. sheesh)

Their wedding date was pieced using kona white, a black dot fabric,

 and a pricey calendar fabric I purchased from Mary's shop,

because I totally fell in love with the idea after seeing it.

At Mary (the big-stitch hand quilting master!)'s suggestion, I used wool batting
(which is just lovely and I will definitely be using it again)

and Tyler helped me baste it in late February

and I spent the next 7 weeks quilting,

both by machine and by hand,
going around and around and around.
(and through...)

I don't know if you know this,
but a dresden plate has 20 blades
(well, normally - some of mine don't (?)
which means, for each time around a plate,
the quilt must be turned forty times.

Forty dang times!

I used about 1 1/4 balls of size 8 perle cotton and 2 needles for the hand-quilting.

My favorite needle for hand quilting remains a size 8 straw needle from foxglove cottage.

I've tried various needles, recommended by various quilters far more experienced than myself,

but I always return (very quickly!) to my beloved milliners.

I can only conclude that those women have not yet tried my favorite ;-)

and have decided to not spend any more money trying other needles.

I finished sewing the binding (by hand) (with a size 10 milliner ;-) on April 19th,

13 weeks and 6 days after I cut into my stack of black and white fabrics.

~

Matt and Marin,

Congratulations!

I hope you love your quilt and use it.
And I hope every time you use it, or even just see it, you feel treasured :-)

We love you both ever so much!!

If you are here from the quilt festival, 

welcome!
Thanks for stopping by;

I hope you enjoyed your visit - feel free to poke around a bit :-)

If you're a regular visitor ~ thanks for cheering me on
on this quilt journey!
(and patiently indulging me as I carry on ;-)

Your kind words and 'atta girls' bring a smile to my face ~ thank-you!

(and of course, thanks to my guys for helping me photograph this beast :-)

I'm entering this queen sized quilt in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival in the large quilt category
and linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced, even though it is no longer a work in progress :-)
and fabric designer AmandaJean's Finish it Fridays

what a lot of works

I have been busy.

Not necessarily overly productive, mind you,

but that's not for lack of trying.

First - the flower girl skirts.

The bride wanted tulle skirts to match the bridesmaid's dresses.

The bridesmaids dresses are dark navy.

Not navy, mind you - super dark navy.

The problem with that, 

was that I could not find any dark navy tulle in Fort Smith.

So then, I scoured Hancocks for anything that might work.

I touched every single darkish blue fabric in the store,

excepting denim and quilting cottons.

I didn't feel good about it

(that should have been a clue to me!)

but I ended up going home with 2 yds (all that they had) of a dark navy nylon mesh chiffon, 

and 1 7/8 yds of a slippery dark navy something or other

(again, all that they had).

Because that wasn't going to be flouffy at all,

I stopped by Hobby Lobby and got 4 yds (not nearly enough!) of what they called navy tulle.

I figured between the layers, the off color would be okay...

I'll spare you my horror stories of cutting and handling the mash-up of fabrics. 

We'll leave it at

there were multiple texts sent regarding my supreme distaste for tulle.

My heart just sank, the more I worked on the skirts.

They were just horrible.

School uniform was not the look I was going for,

and yet somehow, 

that's what I had.

After some tears, 

and texts with the bride,

we decided white would be just lovely.

And I was so relieved!!

Never mind that I was going to have to work with damn tulle all over again.

I felt sooo much better about the choice,

and instead of trying for a more elegant circle skirt silhouette

I went all out pouffy.

(used 10 yds per knee-length skirt!)

Pinning the tulle to my cardboard cutting board made it much less annoying to work with

and each skirt only took about an hour.

I still need to add snaps to the waist, but that will only take a few minutes.

While wasting time and money buying the dark navy fabrics,

I also grabbed some fabric for a dress for me.

All that fabulous fabric from LA, and I had nothing that would work.

Well.

That's not entirely true.

I have a few fabrics that would work splendidly,

but what I have in mind for them 

wouldn't necessarily work for a dress for the wedding.

I cut out a trusty Lady Skater dress on Monday,

(love that pattern! 

I can't believe the only thing I've posted that used it was this shirt.

Oh, and this top, too.)

and sewed it up yesterday evening 

after the gang left for TKD.

I lined it

(using black swimsuit fabric I bought in LA :-)

 and made the skirt a little more twirly by measuring out 2 inches from the hem

and drawing a line from the waist to my mark.

Without my mentioning it,

when I tried it on for him, Tyler said it swirled nicely,

so I guess it worked.

I'm hand-sewing rayon seam binding to the hem.

The fabric is a 2 layer stretch 

and the outer layer is kind of netting-ish and is therefore a little 'grabby'.

I'm hoping that by enclosing all of the raw edges in the seam binding

I'll eliminate the the velcro-like grabbiness 

and not end up flashing anybody.

see what I mean? velcro like grabbiness!

(I have a way with sewing terminology, huh? ;-)

Let's see what else?

Ties That Bind.

(previously known as the black and white quilt).

please excuse the horrible photo - it was only taken to confirm my suspicions.

This thing is huge and heavy!

I thought I had a finished quilt top.

According to my design, when I finished sewing all of my background pieces together,

I should have had a finished quilt top.

What looks fine on paper

doesn't always work out so great queen-sized....

I think I need to add about 4 smaller dresden plates.

So - maybe 10 more hours.

Then I'll have a finished quilt top.

~

It's been awhile since I've mentioned my EPP project.

I still quietly work away at it when we watch a Netflix show

when I have no other hand-sewing

and I've got 7 more hexagons completed.

I've not improved my time any.

I actually think I may even take a little longer per side

than I used to.

Bill said, "You think you should improve in both speed and quality?!"

Well.

Yes.

I had hoped to.

I guess I will have to settle for improved quality (for now).

The next thing I have to work on is finding shoes.

Shoes (that aren't sandals, it's winter after all) that will make my legs look good,

- okay, decent, at least -

but also be comfortable enough to run around in most of the day,

and dance in.

With my twirly dress. 

:-) 

Linking up with Lee
and Amanda Jean, although, what I have are a bunch of almost finishes....