Stitches West 2009

Stitches West 2009 is a knitting convention that is on this weekend very close to my house in San Jose, California. My buddy Sharon and I will be off to check it out tomorrow morning.

My quilting friend Marianne already went, and said it was super cool. Thanks again for visiting Marianne, and for the sock yarn! Perhaps there are more socks in my future.

I did actually finish the sock (photo above) after taking the sock class at Green Planet Yarn and spending some quality time with a knitting book. I'm still wondering what an SSK is....sigh...I will never be a 'real' knitter.

For all you Dear Jane Quilt addicts, and you know who you are (ahem, Lynn of Craft Sew) - check out Purl's sale on Dear Jane fabric. At 40% off who could resist?

Happy Fat Tuesday!

Today is Fat Tuesday - the day before the start of Lent - a season in which Catholics often give up something ie. coffee, sweets, diet coke...I'll be giving up all of those three. Think I'll make it to Easter without cheating?

Here's another fabric design that I made with my fav new buddies at Spoonflower.

Being able to design your own fabric and have it sent to your door is such an awesome pleasure.

My one concern with their fabric is - will it stand the test of washing and UV and time in general? I suppose the only way to answer that is to make a quilt with it.

Chalk another project onto my to do list.

In case you feel the urge to applique a tulip quilt, please visit Samsy and check out the adorable block that she just made. Love it!!

Hand Dyed Fabrics

The above is a picture of a quilt that was hanging up at PIQF last year, I did not make it, but I drooled over it and photographed it a couple of times. The quilt maker took a class from the owner of Primrose Gradations.

Primrose Gradations used to be my favorite vendor at PIQF. Each year I would visit their booth and scoop up pieces of fabric large and small.

Their colors are awesome, and really were 'my kind' of fabrics.

I made a baby quilt for a friend's baby using exclusively their fabrics.

Until now, I thought that they were out of business, but it looks like you can buy their fabrics online! Yip-eee!!!

I'm dying (har har har) to take a class from them on how to dye fabric. Maybe some time in the future. They don't live all the far from my in-laws.

Christening for our little one

On Saturday, we Christened our baby son. He was an angel and did not even cry a tiny bit when the water was poured over his head.

So many friends and family members were here to celebrate with us, that the weekend was one of the nicest on record.

I managed to do a tiny amount of knitting on my sock, but that was all in terms of creative work for the weekend since lots of other cool things were going on.

I must say that Blogger is making me a bit nuts by not letting me left justify my text. Perhaps a sign that I need to go to bed.

Let me leave you with a link to some beautiful paintings by Duane Keiser. He has a very interesting project to paint 1000 tiny paintings. They are pretty affordable and tiny and adorable. I'm thinking of saving up to get one...in any case, enjoy.

Wouldn't it be fun to make 1000 tiny quilts? I think I'd settle for finishing 100 of them!

Spoonflower

Of course, the fabric from my last post was designed by me!

Spoonflower, for those of you who don't know, is a web site that allows you to upload your own designs and they make fabric out of them. I had so much fun playing around with the colors and the dots.

I took some color samples from an antique quilt that I ran into, and used those colors in the dots on the fabric that I designed. It was a unique color combo, one that my mom really liked, and I thought it might make some interesting fabric.

I do love the results that I got with Spoonflower's fabric printing service, but I will mention that they do warn you that they don't have a 'true black' color. I think my design would have been better had I stayed away from using black all together.

My in-laws gave me a giant gift cert to use them for Christmas, and I'm only now just getting around to doing a few more designs.

Anyhow, the above tiny quilt is something I picked up for less than $10 at our church antique sale last weekend. Score! Another addition to my doll quilt wall.

Olive fabric

Oh, thank you for having so much faith in me, but I will confess that the baby girl's quilt is NOT done!!

I started to quilt the border in a really elaborate pattern, and it didn't show up well with the busy border fabric, so I'll be taking it out before I do anything else.

But I just got this new fabric shown above. The colors are from an antique 1840's quilt, but the pattern is hip and modern.

Any ideas on who the brilliant fabric designer is? Hint...hint...

Happy Groundhog Day

Today is Groundhog Day, and like the movie, I sort of wish it could last forever. Tomorrow is my last day of maternity leave.

Last Saturday I became the Godmother to my beautiful niece. I was sweating a bit in order to get her baby quilt finished before the big event,

Think that I finished it in time? Take a guess!