Guild Exhibition - Part II

Hi again!

This is part II of my quilt guild's 10-year anniversary exhibition, which was held recently September 26-28.  Be sure to also check out part I and part III.

So today I thought I would share our exhibition challenge event, my Haberdashery group's challenge display and my own projects I entered.  Let's start with the very impressive challenge event.

Challenge: Celebration
The challenge theme was celebration and entries could either be a wallhanging or a bag.

Challenge Entries

Okay, I'll admit, I was biased toward the wallhangings so while the bags did also receive their own first, second and third place winners/prizes, I only photographed the wallhangings.  Sorry, don't hate me.

1st Place: Marion Loftberg

2nd Place: Birgitta Hortin

3rd Place: Name Unknown

My friend Ingrid also submitted an entry into the challenge.  Both she and Birgitta included the tiniest little LED lights onto their wallhangings, but unfortunately not all of the lights were turned on or working - shame.

by Ingrid Hortin

Haberdashery Challenge
Then my Haberdashery group had all of our Persian Pickle (mine and the group's) projects on display.  They looked fab!  Shame the lighting isn't better but they looked nicer in real life.

Haberdashery Challenge

My Submissions
And finally, I submitted a few things of my own to the exhibition; not many since I have a very bad habit of not finishing my sewing projects without great effort but still...

Happy Spring Wallhanging

Mobile Phone Holder

Woven Milk Carton Basket (large blue one)

And finally, Ingrid, Birgitta and I submitted the baby quilt we made at the start of summer for a co-worker who was due mid-June.  More information on this particular project will be shared in the coming month.

Bugsy Baby Quilt

All right, that's it for part II!  Thanks for stopping by.  The final part III will be shared shortly so please stop around again for the final photos.

Persian Pickle Project 2014 - Part II

Welcome back!

So as you know, my Haberdashery group had our big reveal this Tuesday of all of our Persian Pickle-inspired projects.  In case you missed it, I shared my wallhanging here.

Today, however, I wanted to share with you the wallhangings the other ladies in my sewing group made.  I know, how exciting!

Tea Time by Ingrid

Birds by Karen

Houses by Lena N.

Cottage by Annika (WIP)

Attic Windows by Britt

Cathedral Windows by Hanna

Dresden Plate by Lena F.

Singin' in the Rain by Birgitta (held by Ingrid)

House in the Woods by Inger (WIP)

Flowers by Marion

Puzzle Pieces by Lisbet

This was such a fun project, I'm hoping we continue to do a group project each year.

Persian Pickle Project 2014

Hello, hello!

I'm so excited to be sharing a completed project with you today!  In case you haven't yet noticed, I'm not always (cough, cough - usually) very good about finishing sewing projects...  But this one had a deadline and I usually work well towards deadlines (if you count waiting to nearly the last minute as working well - thanks, Mum).  Anyway, personal foibles aside...

You may recall that at the beginning of the year, my Haberdashery sewing group had decided to do a group project based on the fabric swapping principle behind the book The Persian Pickle Club.  You can find the full details of our project in this post.

In February we made our fabric swaps, which you can read up on in this post.  And here is the photo of all our fabrics together (unsurprisingly, mine is the orange dragonfly print).

Right from the beginning I had an idea of what I wanted to do for a design - a paper pieced circle of geese blocks.  I had intended on using basic white as the background colour but since so many of the fabric contributions were pale or light coloured, a darker background would be necessary.  Except that I didn't want to use black, because it felt very flat so instead I found a mottled brown with warm and cool tints throughout it; it's not really my style but I think it works with the rest of the prints and sometimes you've got to work outside of your comfort zone.

And so...the big reveal!

Ta da!  The wallhanging finishes at 40cm square (as stated in the project requirements).  It features a central circle of geese block in counter-clockwise rotation (yeah, I'd meant to do it clockwise and printed off the wrong pattern by mistake - oops but not the end of the world).  I added a one inch border into which I used some off-cuts of the fabrics to lick & stick tiny geese around the edges using odd numbered groupings and gaps for added interest.

The quilting was a little challenging as my machine is quite old; so old it's been impossible to find a quilting foot that will work with it so I had to go slowly with a regular sewing foot and ease in fabric manually where needed.  My machine can also sometimes have tension issues when quilting but luckily I seemed to find the right combinations of settings this time around.

Originally I had thought to reinforce the circular concept by quilting concentric circles in the center.  Unfortunately you can imagine my dismay (and laughter) when I realised that I'd effectively quilted a bulls-eye into the center of my geese...  Open season, anyone?

Time for Plan B: geese flying by star light.  I stitched in the ditch around the large central star shape and added some additional lines in each arm of the star.  Then I drafted a smaller star template which I quilted into the corners.  For the geese I stitched in the ditch around each goose and then added arched lines on the insides.  I repeated this quilting on the small one inch geese in the borders (not easy, I can assure you).  I also quilted simple geese shapes into the rest of the borders; 12 geese per border, one every inch and some I reversed, again for interest.

The final touch, I recorded the project and contributors on the hanging sleeve on the back.  This Tuesday we will be revealing all of our wallhangings to each other at our next Haberdashery meeting.  Then the whole collection will be put on display at our guild exhibition end of September, which will be exciting.

Persian Pickle Project Fabric Reveal

I'm tempted to say 'Good morning!' but the truth of the matter is it's actually noon and I'm still tucked up in bed - glorious.  So instead it will be a merry good afternoon to you (dear reader)!  Pardon me while I enjoy a random Miranda Hart moment - love it!

So this week my Haberdashery group met to exchange our fabric choices for our Persian Pickle project.  I have to say, it's been hard waiting to see what everyone chose - I'm not always very good about anticipation like that.  Just to refresh your memory, this was my contribution fabric.

Anyway, here are our twelve fabrics, each measuring 15cm square:

My friend Ingrid and I had many a conversation about what fabrics we thought people would choose - I think there's a fascinating psychology to all of this.  Incidentally, Ingrid's fabric is the beautiful fuscia batik and Birgitta's is the rich, electric blue.  I thought it was interesting how many pinks/roses and neutrals were selected and then there's Lisbeth's fun sewing supplies fabric, just to really throw in a fun twist.

I already have a plan for what I'm going to make.  As there are a dozen of us, and the group is about talking just as much as it is sewing - and you know what they say about woman sounding like a gaggle of geese...  So the Circle of Geese block seemed like a fitting choice.

I had already bought some white for the background but considering how pale many of the fabrics are, I'm going to change that up to something more dramatic; just haven't decided what yet.  The block is paper pieced and finishes (without borders) at 12 inches square.  I'm contemplating simplifying things by hand appliqueing the geese straight onto the backing fabric and skipping the whole paper piecing process - not that I dislike paper piecing but appliqueing may give me more flexibility on the final size dimensions.

And so now begins the next big wait to see what everyone does with their pieces!

Persian Pickle Project

Hellooo!  Yes, I know, I've disappeared again.  I've had such good intentions of posting this month but the days have been jammed packed and just flown by and that means trying to recover with as much sleep as possible.  Now that I've enjoyed a full 12 hours in bed (luxurious, right?) I'm feeling motivated to catch myself up on a few things so here we go...

Persian Pickle Project

What is this 'Persian Pickle' thing, you ask?  Well, the idea is based on the book, The Persian Pickle Club.  It's a story about a quilting circle of women in Kansas, USA during the Great Depression.  They come together to sew, quilt and support each other and because times are difficult, they swap fabric scraps with each other.  One of the women has a large bolt of Persian pickle fabric (AKA paisley) that her husband bought for her and she shares it out among the women and so this one fabric infuses itself into all of their creations, binding them together, as it were.  It's a book on my to-read list and I should probably see about reading it this year.  My friends whom have read it highly recommend it, so if it sounds like something you'd like, go for it!

Anyway, back to the project.  My Haberdashery club has been looking for a group project to work on together and as you might now have surmised, we've decided to use this book as our inspiration.  So here's how it's going to work:

1. Everyone will donate a 15cm square 'scrap' of fabric to each member of the group.  We can either give a different or identical fabric to each person, the choice is ours.  I personally like the idea of giving the same fabric to everyone, as it will be easy to pick out each person's contributing fabric from everyone's creations.

2. Each member will create a finished project (could be a mini quilt, wall hanging, table topper/runner, etc.) measuring 40cm square and it MUST have everyone's fabric scrap donations used in it somewhere.  We can also add additional fabrics to complete the design, too.

3. The project needs to be completed for our up-coming quilt guild exhibition September 2014.

How fun is that?  I'm thinking that I'd like to choose a fabric that really represents me, so something with bright colours (probably including a splash of orange in there somewhere) and retro/modern prints, likely very geometric.  We'll be swapping fabrics at our next meeting in February so I'll share a snapshot of my fabrics then.  So excited - can't wait to see what everyone makes!

The Sewing Corner Project
So two weeks ago I mentioned my plans to convert my old desktop computer corner into a permanent sewing corner.  Well, I have been making some (slow) progress on that project, I'm pleased to say.  As I mentioned in that post, I spent part of the day hauling an old wardrobe in pieces out of my attic storage into a trash container.  Doing so has made a big space in the attic where I plan to store the shelving unit for the old desk.

I know some of you suggested that I keep the shelving unit on the desk, as it might come in handy but unfortunately, the design of how the shelves attach to the desktop severely limits the amount of workspace and wouldn't work with the way I want to position the desk in the room so I'm happy to remove it and find other solutions.  The unfortunate consequence of having moved an old wardrobe in one day, however, is that I woke up Monday morning almost completely lame from the knees down and could barely stand or walk.  It took a week to get back to a pain-free state.  Not one of my finest moments.

Anyway, last weekend I spent some time cleaning off all of the 'stuff' that had accumulated on said desk for the last year - it had sort of become my random dumping grounds for stuff and then turned into a black void.  Most things have now either been pitched or found new (proper) homes.  There are just a few things that I plan to pack up into a box to relocate in the attic along with the shelf.  So, progress indeed!  Now the next step is to do a final boot-up of the old desktop computer and backup the files onto my new external drive and then it will be shipped off to a friend's to use the monitor and spare parts for whatever she wants.  Nearly there - more photos coming soon.

Birthday!
And in other news, it was my birthday yesterday!  Nothing exciting, I have to say.  I went out to supper the Thursday night with friends and that was lovely.  No birthday cake but I did have some truly awesome panecotta at the Italian restaurant we went to:

This year was the year of little notebooks and owl decoration gifts.  My friend Ingrid really hit the nail perfectly on the head with the little notebook she got me:

Travel Tidbits Notebook

How cute is this?  This little notebook is filled with all sorts of fun pages - some lined paper, some library-style pockets, some plastic insert pages, etc.  There's even a plastic zippered pouch at the back!  It's like a traveling scrapbooker's dream notebook.

Now you know, when I go on holiday, I save all sorts of little things - entry tickets, postcards, local stamps, brochures, business cards, etc.  I always come home with a pile of things that I've saved to later incorporate into my travel LOs.  Well, my current 'organisational process' for this goes along these lines: fly home, unpack suitcase, put all ephemera into random plastic bag, store plastic bag with X-number of similar plastic bags from previous trips alongside scrapbooking supplies (creating an increasingly unsightly mess in lounge).  As Ingrid stated, now I can pop all of these little bits and bobs into my new travel notebook - brilliant!

As for my actual birthday yesterday, I had a bit of a lingering headache / eye strain all day yesterday, which was unfortunate, but my students were super excited that it was my birthday (they're 7 and 8-years-old, remember, so birthdays are a BIG thing).  They sang me Happy Birthday in the morning, including clapping out my age (really *didn't* need that...heh) and then insisted that I choose a birthday treat from my teacher prize drawer, which they said would be their gift from all of them to me (even though one clever soul pointed out that all of those prizes were already mine to begin with - ha!).  Then during choosing time at the end of the day, many of the girls made me handmade cards and even gave me some of their own special pencils and rubbers.  All together now: Awww...

There's a bunch more on the whiteboard, not shown.

Today I'm enjoying a whole weekend to myself, where with the exception of needing to go grocery shopping at some point, I'm intending to leave my bed as little as possible - pure bliss.

Haberdashery

I broke back into my new box of goodies for a second LO and decided to work on a photo from this summer.  Now, as you may recall, I live in Sweden and belong to the local quilt guild.  There are many lovely ladies in the guild and recently one of them decided that she wanted to practise and improve her English further and what better way to do that than to create a small sewing group where we all speak only in English for the meetings?  Naturally they needed some native English speakers to help so myself, my best friend Ingrid and her mum (Swedish but lived abroad in the UK and English-speaking military bases most of her life) were also asked to join.  We have such a great time together - language is so much fun to play with and use.  Anyway, it only seemed fitting that we should be called the Haberdashery group - so that's the little story behind this LO.

 Haberdashery

So in planning out this LO, I realised that Carta Bella's Hello Again collection would be perfect with all of its cute speech bubbles, friendship quotes/sayings and patchwork hearts.  The sticker sheet was great for those little accents and I also used one of the pink papers in the layering.  I also loved this watercolour floral from Crate Paper's The Pier and decided to put it center stage for the background - you know I must love it because I'm so not a floral person, normally!

You may also have been wondering, after I spent all that time last month gushing over my 'new-to-me' manual Olivetti typewriter, when I would finally start using it with my LOs.  Well, this is the one; the big debut!  I thought it would be fun to add a definition of 'haberdashery' under the title so out came the typewriter and I merrily typed away on some vellum.  I really liked how it turned out.  I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that these green flocked Thickers (that I have a secret loathing towards) perfectly matched - I'm always so thrilled when I find something I can use them on and I usually enjoy them more once they're part of a LO.  And no LO about a sewing group is complete without some stitching, of course.

I have to admit, my embellishment clusters were more eclectic than they usually come together, especially this top piece.  I really loved that twisted arrow with the text and I was over-joyed when I found a small doily (just what I'd been looking for to add there).  I added the red geo tag to bring out a bit more of the red in the background paper, then felt the red needed more balancing in the bottom cluster...

Hello, enamel dots!  The perfect embellishment when you just need that small pop of colour.  You'll notice I also added in buttons and tufts of thread to again re-inforce the sewing theme.

In the center of the page I did a little DIY embellishment.  The speech bubbles sticker was too large to fit so I cut out a set from the paper, then added the 'chit chat' with my Olivetti and layered it up with some other bits and bobs.

And this may sound silly but my favourite part of the page (along with the vellum typed definition) are these little dates I typed onto the journaling card.  I was just so chuffed with myself that I got them lined up so perfectly on the faux tape detailing and they really look like part of the original card.  Small things.

I shared this LO on my FB so many of the ladies in the group have seen it and they're all so tickled about it; none of them scrapbook (it's not overly popular here) and they asked me last month to bring my current album, which was fun and different.  Sharing my creations with others is always such fun!