2013 umbrella prints trimmings competition

These days, I'm pretty much smitten with screen-printed fabrics. I love the look of one and two-color prints and I love being able to support independent designers who produce their work by hand. One of my goals for the year is to incorporate more screen-printed fabric into my work, so when I saw the posting for this year's Umbrella Prints Trimmings Competition, I decided to enter for the second year in a row (you can see my entry from last year here). I love Umbrella Prints' screen-printed fabric, and this competition is such a great motivator for me to cut into fabric I typically hoard.

I mulled over my options of what to do for weeks, and this past weekend I finally decided to make something from my growing to-make list: a drawstring bag using Jeni's tutorial.

For the front, I scaled down Faith's Greek Cross block from the Summer Sampler series and made a mini quilt block.

I sewed the remaining scraps together at random to create a panel for the back, and used chambray for the remaining panels.

I lined it with a Denyse Schmidt print that complemented the Umbrella Prints' fabric in both style and color, and used up some leftover Kei Honeycomb Dot binding (originally made for this quilt) for the drawstrings.

Voting for the competition starts Saturday and runs through June 5. To vote, simply pin all of your favorite entries over here.

Will you be entering the contest this year? If so, please share a link to your entry in the comments; I'd love to see!

P.S. You can see some of my photos from the recent Portland Quilt Market over on Instagram! You can find me there under the username @saltyoat. 

striped zipper pouch

I never had a chance to blog about it in December, but for Christmas, I made my mother-in-law a zipper pouch using Pink Stitches' excellent tutorial.

I've made a few zippered things recently, and I've enjoyed tackling my fear of sewing zippers (turns out it's not so bad).

The green stripe and lining are Lizzy House's Jewels, and the raindrop fabric is from Erin McMorris's Summersault line (which I bought way back here).

P.S. Here's my other recent attempt at sewing with a zipper: leather and canvas foldover clutch.

flying geese pillow class

There are still a few spots left in the Flying Geese Pillow class I'll be teaching in the Spoonflower Greenhouse on Thursday, May 9. If you live in the area, I hope you'll join!

do. Good Stitches: March Blocks

Last month, Sonya requested wonky star blocks for the March quilt for our circle of do. Good Stitches.

Working within her suggested color theme---which I loved!---I made two blocks using quilting weight, linen and voile.

You can see all of the past blocks I've made here. 

hand-printed hexagon wall quilt

English paper piecing has become my go-to project when I'm traveling, so after finishing my star blossoms quilt, I immediately switched over to a hexagon project I started ages ago, but had never finished. During plane rides this past fall to Salt Lake City for Sewing Summit and Houston for Quilt Market, I stitched away.

The main fabrics I used were hand-printed scraps by Sara Lee Parker, which I bought from her table at Crafty Bastards a few years ago. I paired her prints with an olive linen from my stash. I took an improv approach to the layout of the hexagons---I pulled basted hexagons from a pouch without looking, and stitched together whatever I pulled.

Once I'd stitched together all of the pieces I had, I decided to machine appliqué the entire shape to a rectangular scrap of muslin. I did echo quilting around the edges and then framed it all with a black binding.

I love how this piece turned out---and loved working with Sara's fabrics---and can't wait to hang it on my studio wall.

handprinted: a fabric swap III

For the second year in a row, I participated in the hand-printed fabric swap organized by Leslie from Maze and Vale (one of my favorite fabric designers!). You can see the triangle fabric I printed last year here.

For this year's fabric, I decided to use a stamp that I carved in a surface-printing workshop I took at Lotta Jansdotter's studio back in February. The bowl design is based on an image I found in a book in Lotta's studio, and reminds me of Cathrineholm enamelware. 

Using navy blue fabric ink, I printed the bowl on a few different fabrics: two types of linen and a quilting cotton. It was interesting to see how the fabric weave changed how the design printed. I mailed the four fat quarters to my swap partners in England and Australia, and have already received some great fabric from them in return.

I really love printing my own fabric, and am looking forward to trying out screen printing in an upcoming workshop at the Cloth Fiber Workshop in Asheville. My goal is to have enough hand-printed fabric by the end of the year to make a quilt!

sample making for penguin and fish

This past month, I stitched up a few samples for Alyssa, the fabric and embroidery pattern designer behind Penguin and Fish.

Alyssa sent me five animals to embroider: a giraffe, an elephant, a lion, an owl, and a hedgehog. I was able to stitch up each of the patterns in one sitting, and I loved the results!

The designs were adorable, and I loved the small details, like the satin-stitched giraffe spots and one-stitch lion's mane.  I'm excited to see what Alyssa does with all of the samples!