Coffee Design Fabric Contest Open for Voting

Just a quickie - thanks so much to all of you who voted for my "Fishie Coral"  entry in the  Spoonflower Fabrics  design contest in June: 

Although I wasn't in the top 10, I was thrilled to place in the top 50 - not bad for a first time entry - thanks to all of you!

Now the Coffee Design fabric contest is open for voting - the rules were harder, as you could only use three colors - here's my entry:

A Cuppa Caffe'

You can view all the designs from the many talented fabric artists out there by clicking on this link:  Vote for Coffee Design Favorite.

The Coffee Fabric Design Contest ends August 4, so I hope you'll cruise on over and vote!  Next subject in the Fabric Design Contest......SHARKS!  Now THAT will be a toughie, but I'm on it!

Binding Blues

Well.  I am here to tell you that binding ANYTHING, whether it is a napkin or a quilt is NOT my favorite thing to do. However, after searching the internet from stem to stern, watching about a dozen binding videos, and applying myself rigorously to learn how to do this - since I love piecing things together and they have to be finished somehow - I have cobbled together a binding for my runner.

After all my research, I decided that bias cut was the only way to go.  I worked furiously on Sunday to cut, piece together, and press mountains of binding:

And then thanks to Julie, over at Jaybirdquilts.com, I picked up the following fabulous tip:

Hair clips to hold everything together!  Here's another shot:

Feeling pretty smug with the clip trick, I began sewing the binding to the back...after which I brought it around to the front and machine stitched it close to the edge to finish...I am NOT into hand stitching anything.  What resulted was a roller-coaster edge, wavy and just ugly.  So, rip out, press again, and start over.  After two rounds of that battle, I wound up using Steam-A-Seam to attach it to the front.  Nothing I did would remove the waviness, and it is still slightly wavy (although pretty) on my dining room table.  I've resolved to go with straight cut seam binding from now on - I think it was too stretchy from being cut on the bias!

Here's a link to Julie's tutorial on binding:     Binding tutorial at Jaybird Quilts

Now, back to the workroom!

Up In My Attic!

While my fabric pieces are drying, I thought I would show you my new(old) digs.  Here is my backyard with the creek running through it...

             

And, here is the back of my house...

             

Being Spring and all, of course we have Robin Red Breast and all his clan...

It rained all night last night, along with thunder and lightening, so it was cozy sleeping, and this morning I had these views out of my new Graphic/Office/Studio window...

                   

And this is the view from my desk:

         

So that is the tour for today - I'm off to check the dryer, and to figure out how to link to the binding tutorial that I'm going to use for my project!

Cranking the Engines

So, now it's time to work!  This is what I've been doing since coming to Atlanta...cleaning out six years of neglect, mold, mildew, dust and -UGH!- rat and squirrel poop from my poor house.

Here's a before shot of the graphics and sewing side of my workroom/studio on March 3:

Pretty awful.  Just open the door and throw it in for years while I tended to the store in North Carolina.  After a couple of day's work, this is what it looked like:

Getting better!  So, today, after spending ALL DAY yesterday cleaning up the new office area I will be using for the graphics and computer work, I decided to crank my creative engines and get started on some multi-panel table runners:

I'm going to make these quilted runners about 90" long and they'll finish out at about 14" wide.  Now that they're all cut, I'm going to put them in the washer for a few minutes to take the sizing out.  After they've dried, I'll start sewing them together and figuring out what to use for the backs.  And the binding!  I have to find enough fabric to be able to cut it on the bias without buying any more fabric.  That's the rule.  I just sold a fabric store, for crying out loud!