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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Quilty Girls Take Atlanta

Whoop! Whoop! Fabric shopping at the Scarlet Thread! #quiltygirlstakeatlanta
Otherwise known as: What's QuiltCon? :)  8 of my most fabulous quilting friends and I decided to get together for a long girls weekend in Atlanta since Quilt Con proved to be a little to pricey for our liking.  Let me just say, there is no way I would have had as good a time at QuiltCon!  We had the best weekend!  Lot of laughter, wine, sewing, wine, shopping, wine, eating, wine.........truly, it was one of the best vacations I've ever had!
As a side note, I'd like to point out that I'm squatting way down in this pic!  We have so many shorties in our group I felt like giant if I stood all the way up!  Kaelin (far left) and Kristie (far right) are my tall-girl posse!


Cara joined me for our road trip and we filled the car!

Mmmm, wine!

Elena loved my Scrappy Trip Along quilt so much I gave it to her.  I think she liked it! :)

Kristie thinks ironing is sexy!

Elena got started on her Weekender while Cherie snuggled in her quilt.

*edited to add this pic* Angela and I ditched the other girls to head to IKEA (after a necessary Starbucks run!)

Michelle basted this beautiful Little Folks quilt!

We did a little secret swap and had a blast opening everything!  Cara was so excited she couldn't keep her eyes open!

Ali made Kristie these adorable pouches for her knitting!

This is the spectacular mini Michelle made Kaelin.  Elena might kill me for posting this picture, but I thought it was cute and perfectly represented our entire weekend!

A close up!

Michelle totally wigged out over all the goodies Cara got her!

It was hard not to steal this pincushion from her!  So cute!

Stunning pillow made by Cara for Michelle.

Kristie made Cara a super sweet fabric covered book (to write down funny quotes you kids say), fingerless gloves, and 3 pouches for her three girls!

Tracey wasn't able to come to Atlanta, but we had her on speaker phone when we all opened gifts.  

Angela gushed about how much she loved her new Echino cross body bag and pouch!

Angela made Elena a mini quilt filled with precious Heather Ross!  Elena was ecstatic! 

She was also pretty thrilled with the mini stuffed lab she got!  Elena has the most handsome dog ever, Seamus!  One day I'm going to doggie-nap him!


Cherie made my most favorite pattern ever (Seeing Squares by Empty Bobbin) in this jumbo sized mini!  Cheeky thing that she is, she used QuiltCon colors for it! :) 

my gifts from Kelly!
I had to mail my swap items to Tracey since she wasn't there, but I sent her an Amy Butler Teardrop bag, a pouch, some fabric and other goodies.  I know we were all really sad that she couldn't make it.  I got a little teary when we had her on speaker during gift exchange!


I missed getting close ups of everything made, but this is all the handmade loot we exchange!  Such a wonderful group of talented, generous ladies!

Le sigh.  People on IG love taking pictures of their feet.  We joke about it within our little group so we decided to post the MacDaddy of all feet pictures.  We all laughed that our husbands would probably be able to tell which one was their spouse by their foot alone!  Anyone want to guess which one is mine?

There was a gas leak at the house, so we all escaped to a pub while it was fixed.  Never a dull moment!

busy bees!

Michelle changed her mind (many times) on how to quilt her Little Folks quilt!

Kaelin made HOMEMADE cinnamon buns....

...and eggs, bacon, and the BEST BEST BEST creamy grits ever!  We all gained 5 pounds just looking at them!  

 
Michelle gave lessons in handstands. 

Kristie is going to try!

And she did it!!!

We totally took over the house we rented!  Every inch was covered in fabric and craft!

Sorry Angela, I had to post this!  Angela is little, cute, and conservative, but turn her around and BAM! Best Booty award goes to her!  I'm a tiny bit jealous.  Ok, I'm a lot jealous.  

Kaelin brought out this rainbow of Heather Ross hexagon goodness to work on

Elena plugged away on that Weekender some more!

Ali worked on her emerald mini (she's having a contest on her blog, check it out!)

I made Michelle an infinity scarf!

Brought Bea (my Tiara) along to help @cuttopieces quilt some projects! First up is her asterisk quilt! #quiltygirlstakeatlanta
One of 4 quilts I quilted over the weekend.  This one is actually Angela's that I volunteered to do.  I quilted one other quilt for her, but I'm not allowed to show it.

Finished quilting @meamom quilt!!!!
I quilted this one for Cara!

Finally finished quilting this for my mom! @ridleysmom1
I finally got this quilt for my mom quilted too!

I'm ready to steal @kristieocd quilt!!! #quiltygirlstakeatlanta
Kristie made this beautiful Sho-fly quilt in Good Folks!

My loot!
My loot part 1

My loot part 2!

Swag from my girls sewing weekend in Atlanta! #quiltygirlstakeatlanta Miss you girls! @hotpinkstitches @a_2_w @meamom @cuttopieces @kristieocd @wright_cherie @ilikeorangetoo
A number of the girls brought other goodies for everyone--like our own person swag bag!  

Can you tell I had a blast?  We're already planning on another trip!  We started missing each other as soon as we left!  Thank you girls for a fantastic weekend!!!  I love you all....and stuff that's stuffed. ;)

If you want to check out more pictures from our weekend, check out the Instagram tag #quiltygirlstakeatlanta  For a HILARIOUS account of our trip, check out Kristie's post here





Sunday, February 17, 2013

Gifts, Quilting, and WOWZA!

I'm meeting up with 8  of my favorite girls in Atlanta next week and I'm busy making some presents for them!  I bought these wooden frames a while back (sorry, I don't remember where!) and I painted each one a different color using acrylic paint.  Then, I cut a piece of fabric that is slightly larger than the frame and 3-4 pieces of batting a tiny bit larger than the frame opening.  I'm sure you could use fiber-fill stuff too, but I have tons of batting scraps so that's what I used!

Push the fabric with batting through the frame opening and place the cardboard frame backing in place.  Pull the fabric taunt over the batting.  Use hot glue to secure the excess down to the cardboard frame backing.

Ta-da! instant mini pincushion that can't tip over or roll off the table!  This is a great way to use that precious scrap you've been hoarding! :)

I'm busy quilting my Scrappy Trip Along!  I decided to use a cathedral-like quilting (see my video tutorial).  

This process is pretty speedy and it's super forgiving if you're new to free motion quilting!

I finally broke down and sent out a quilt to be professionally quilted.  I made this top using blocks from two of my quilting bees--see my post about it here  I knew this top needed something special so I asked Krista to take care of my baby.  I did not give her instructions.  I simply trusted her.  Obviously, she didn't disappoint!  

She totally blew me away with this "K" quilted into one of the blocks!


Can you believe this????  It's absolutely stunning!

Every square inch is covered in awesomeness!!!  I truly cannot thank Krista enough for her fabulous artistic talents!  This quilt is better than I could have ever dreamed!


I even love it from the back!  I'm waiting on my binding fabric to arrive to finish this up and I can't wait to snuggle under it!