A Collaboration Between Cloud 9 Fabrics, Silhouette America & Me

A Collaboration Between Cloud 9 Fabrics, Silhouette America & MeBack in July, I took place in a collaboration between Cloud 9 Fabrics and Silhouette America. I was sent an awesome fat quarter bundle of Cloud 9′s new line Arcadia by Sarah Watson to make something using my Silhouette CAMEO. All they asked of me was to make it an applique project.

A Collaboration Between Cloud 9 Fabrics, Silhouette America & Me {an Art School Dropout's life}

A Collaboration Between Cloud 9 Fabrics, Silhouette America & Me {an Art School Dropout's life}

 

I had so much fun designing and making this project! I wrote up a full tutorial, with pictures, over on Silhouette America’s blog. Trust me when I say, this project was way easier to make than it looks!

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 Also, if you are new here and would like to keep up on all the new projects I will be posting then please add me on BlogLovin!

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WIP: A Collaboration With Andover Fabrics

WIP: A Collaboration With Andover Fabrics {an Art School Dropout's life}About a month ago the very kind folks over at Andover Fabrics sent me a sweet package filled with some precut bundles of brandnew and yet to be released fabrics for me to play with. They wanted to see what I would come up with.

I’ve been a huge mess lately preparing for BlytheCon (2 WEEKS LEFT TO PREP) and working on my Silhouette America projects so I can focus on that BlytheCon stuff, so I haven’t been able to play with all this fabric uninterrupted.

WIP: A Collaboration With Andover Fabrics {an Art School Dropout's life} work in progress potholders using the new 1Canoe2 fabric line from Andover fabrics #quilting #chevronI did attempt to make a pretty, kinda chevron looking pillow out of the new 1Canoe2 line. Halfway through though I realized I had cut a bunch of pieces wrong and now I am reassembling what I can into pot holders. Luckily the line has food related items in it, which actually makes it PERFECT for potholders. Why didn’t I think of potholders before? I’ll share the finished set soon!

WIP: A Collaboration With Andover Fabrics {an Art School Dropout's life} The new Chillingsworth line in hexie form #hexagon #quiltingI also attacked the Chillingsworth charm packs and made a couple huge piles of hexies. They have already been pieced together and are just in the queue waiting to be quilted. (I like to do all my quilting at once. I may be a weirdo like that) Just like the potholders, I hope to share  the finished piece soon.

I also have BIG plans for those fat quarter bundles shown in the background of the first photo. I’m just not ready to share yet.

So, on a slightly different note, this post is just a sweet reminder of the changes I’ve made in how I spend my days! I can now sit down and sew, draw, bake and more without all the stress involved with what I was previously doing. I feel like I’m actually making progress in my goals I talked about last month and I have learned so much in that time too. I’m happier and a bit less stressed (I’ll be even more stress free after BlytheCon).

So I’d like to say thank you to everyone who encouraged me and has been supportive along the way.

You are all awesome!!!

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My “Carolyn Friedlander’s Favorites” EPP Hexie Pillow

My "Carolyn Friedlander's Favorites" Hexie Pillow {an Art School Dropout's life}I had mentioned a few weeks back that I was working on other hexie projects that were almost finished. Well, here’s one of them!! It’s a pillow made completely from mini charm packs, specifically the Carolyn Friedlander Favorite’s mini charm packs I was given when I visited the Robert Kaufman booths at Quilt Market. It’s a mix of Carolyn’s newest line Botanics and a bunch of different solids by Robert Kaufman.

My "Carolyn Friedlander's Favorites" Quilted EPP Hexie Pillow {an Art School Dropout's life}I was so excited to get a hold of these little things, and I seriously cut right into them the second I got home. Well, after I made custom paper hexagons specifically to fit these with little waste. I used my Silhouette Portrait to do that btw.

I documented the entire process on Instagram, so I’ll be sharing some of those photos too.

My "Carolyn Friedlander's Favorites" Quilted EPP Hexie Pillow {an Art School Dropout's life}Making the hexies themselves took no time at all. There were 120 2.5″ squares total (3 mini charm packs worth) and I can do about 35-40 a night. The part that took me the longest was whipstitching them all together. There wasn’t too much rhyme or reason to where I placed everything, I did make sure to keep similar pieces as far apart as I could, but thats it.

My "Carolyn Friedlander's Favorites" Quilted EPP Hexie Pillow {an Art School Dropout's life}I know some people stitch their hexies on the bottom and don’t go through the paper, but I found that doesnt work for me and my slightly uncoordinated hands. I work much cleaner and faster when i baste through the paper. You can see me taking out the basting stitches and papers above. I always use neon pink thread because it allows me to see every stitch so i don’t miss any before quilting.

My "Carolyn Friedlander's Favorites" Quilted EPP Hexie Pillow {an Art School Dropout's life}The above photo was just taken for fun! This was right after taking all of the paper out and steam pressing the entire thing. Isn’t it pretty?

My "Carolyn Friedlander's Favorites" Quilted EPP Hexie Pillow {an Art School Dropout's life}I seriously could not decide how I wanted this thing quilted. I’m really only good at straight lines and tracing around objects right now, so to make sure I secured all the hexies and still had a pretty design in the end I went with the above combination. I used the edge of the hexies and the edge of my basic walking foot to line up all of the lines. It went pretty fast this way and I absolutely love the texture it added.

My "Carolyn Friedlander's Favorites" Quilted EPP Hexie Pillow {an Art School Dropout's life}I squared off the edges, quilted a simple back piece using Robert Kaufman’s Essex Yarn Dyed in Denim, added an invisible zipper and stitched the entire thing together…

My "Carolyn Friedlander's Favorites" Quilted EPP Hexie Pillow {an Art School Dropout's life}Tada, I have a finished pillow! One that has already been taken by my four year old as her own. She even gave me a hug and said thank you for making it for her. Ok, I guess it’s hers now.

My "Carolyn Friedlander's Favorites" Quilted EPP Hexie Pillow {an Art School Dropout's life} My "Carolyn Friedlander's Favorites" Quilted EPP Hexie Pillow {an Art School Dropout's life} My "Carolyn Friedlander's Favorites" Quilted EPP Hexie Pillow {an Art School Dropout's life}I’m waiting on an invisible zipper for my other hexie pillow I’ve been working on. This one actually IS for my daughters room. I’ll post photo’s of that project soon enough.

Who knows though, I might start working on a 5th and 6th hexie project too! I may be a little obsessed…

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2014 Spring International Quilt Market

qm_sp2014_001I mentioned the Spring International Quilt Market last week when I talked about the quilt I made for Silhouette America’s booth. Well, as thank you they made it possible for me to go to market!!! It was in Pittsburgh this year, and even taking back roads it only takes us 3 hours to get there. We had some hotel points and I had money put aside for BlytheCon that I could make up, so we figured “why not?”, and drove up last minute.

I figured it would be awesome just to see some online friends in person along with seeing all the new fabrics coming out. Little did I know just how much was there. Every type of tool of the trade was featured, from sewing machines to interfacing to thread and more! It was very inspiring and totally awesome. I left with so many ideas swirling around in my head, and a little anxiety trying to think of how I would make the time to try them all out. I’ll talk about all that at another time…

I didn’t bring my nice camera, but luckily there was a lot of natural light in the convention center. I took SO MANY photos, and decided I’d share a few (or a bunch, all depends on what you think a few is. haha) of my favorite fabrics coming out soon.

I’ll warn you now, theres so many, they take up two posts!!

qm_sp2014_002One of the first booths I saw walking around was the Irome Collection by Kokka. I absolutely love the large scalloped pattern!

qm_sp2014_005Actually, most of the stuff Kokka had was awesome! Check out that calendar/numbers print and ALL the Hello Kitty Prints! I wish I had looked at the proper names for the collections. I was just a bit overwhelmed! I so badly want to recreate that gray bag, so if you know what line this is, please tell me!!!

qm_sp2014_003 qm_sp2014_004Alexander Henry Fabrics is putting out more of their “the Ghastlies” line. It’s just as awesome as the last ones!

qm_sp2014_007Tula Pink has a new EPP hexagon kit coming out. I love the look of the warped hexies and I love how the box comes with everything you need. Also, as always her quilting is gorgeous.

qm_sp2014_008I have some pieces from the Riley Blake Geekly Chic line, and love them. The pieces from the new Geekly Chic 2 line are just as cool. I’m already picturing a dress out of the camera fabrics.

qm_sp2014_009I love the jewel tones featured in Katarina Roccella’s line Indelible for Art Gallery fabrics.

qm_sp2014_010 qm_sp2014_011Dear Stella‘s entire booth was super cute! Plus I’ve already had an eye on their Wee Gallery line ever since I discovered Nicole of Modern Handcraft (who made the adorable little dress up piece above). I had the pleasure of meeting her at the event! It’s awesome to meet someone with similar style who just happens to be super nice too.

qm_sp2014_006I also had the pleasure of meeting and briefly speaking to Thomas Knauer the author of Modern Quilt Perspectives. He was super energetic, nice and spoke freely when I asked him questions (rare these days). I absolutely loved the way he made his sign and I wish i could have taken all of his quilts home with me!

I also had the pleasure of meeting a few other friends and such while wandering around. Plus I was able to talk to a handful of industry experts and ask loads of questions and trade some business cards. It all makes me wish I could just play with fabric all day, every day!

Like I said before, I have more photos to share tomorrow. More specifically my four favorites. So if it doesn’t bore you, you should come back and check it out!

Appliqued Baby Quilt for Silhouette America

Early last week I was contacted by my “handler”, Jeana, over at Silhouette America and was asked if I would like to make a quilt for them. It would need to be finished pretty quickly and would need to showcase how to use their products in quilts. The icing on the cake? It would be used in their booth at the spring International Quilt Market. Yeah, that last sentence made me say “YES! of course!” as quickly as my fingers would allow.

If you’ve been reading my blog or following me for a bit, you know I am a huge fan of fabric! I love sewing with it, designing it, and just plain touching it! (not in a creepy way, I promise) So of course I’ve always wanted to GO to Quilt Market. It’s not open to the public and you need to have credentials to go, so of course I haven’t had the chance YET. So the idea of something I made going instead was the next best thing.

qm_silhouette_quilt_001 qm_silhouette_quilt_002I used this cut file from the Silhouette Design Store and cut it all using my Portrait and Silhouette’s sewable interfacing (that they provided). If I had tried to cut out those letters by hand it would have taken me FOREVER! With my Portrait it only took about an hour. Most of that time was spent ungrouping the letters and figuring out the best way to utilize my supplies.

qm_silhouette_quilt_003I could have just used a solid piece of fabric for the background, but can you imagine trying to line up letters on solid fabric? Let alone patterned fabric? I chose to do 4″ squares in an assortment of, low volume, gray fabrics. They add a bit of whimsy to the quilt AND gave me a built in grid to work with. I also set up the cut file in Silhouette Studio on a grid that mimicked the quilt and printed it out as a guide. I doubt I would have been able to line everything up without it.

qm_silhouette_quilt_004To attach all the letters to the background I pinned the quilt top to my ironing board, while using my clear grid ruler to square everything up. This process made it so I could only do one line at a time, which is another reason I’m glad I had the guide! I knew that If I followed it, every line would match up with the one below it. It did!

I used a dry iron and made sure to give attention to each letter so they were secure and could deal with lots of manhandling (aka: quilting). After each letter was ironed on and cooled down, I went right ahead and started stitching a straight line 1/8″ inside each letter. I felt like the top stitching gave it a neat look AND secured the letters in case I missed a spot ironing. This was probably the longest process, but it was worth every second.

qm_silhouette_quilt_005As for quilting the whole thing, I went super basic! I used the background squares as a guide one last time and just stitched across them like a chain link fence. I kept the binding neutral again, using a gray polka dotted fabric, because I wanted to words to stand out as much as possible. It was their show, not the rest of the quilt! It was just the back up singer. Oh and the back is a nice black essex dyed linen, super simple.

I am so happy with the outcome of this quilt! I feel crazy for finishing it as quickly as I did, but it was worth all the hard work. I really wish I had taken more progress shots though. I feel like this would have made a nice step by step tutorial. Should I make another, smaller one, to show the process? Would anyone be interested in that?

Disclaimer: First off, I only used the phrase “handler” because it’s funny to me. Also, I THINK this would be considered a sponsored post. I’m not sure. Silhouette provided the supplies but in the end the quilt is theirs, forever. So maybe it’s a gray area? Though even if they hadn’t provided the supplies, this style quilt was still on my to-do list. Ugh, the rules of the internet are weird…

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