Atkinson Designs - Molten Chocolate Cake Mugs

For the last two months I have been participating in the Groovy Girls Club at Shiisa Quilts in Bloomington, Indiana.  The projects featured in the GGC are from Atkinson Designs.  All of the projects have been super easy, super fast, and I love them.  One of the ones featured at our December meeting was the Molten Chocolate Cake Mugs.  The instructions are available here on Terry's Blog.  Above are the ones I made up to give to the gals I work with, and they loved them!

There are all kinds of tutorials on Terry's Blog, so spend some time reading through the blog entries, and be sure you click next at the bottom of each screen.

Billie's Favorite Things - Clip It Up

If Oprah can have her favorite things, I can have mine too. This is my latest favorite thing, the Clip It Up by Simply Renee. These originally started as organizers for scrapbookers, but they are great for us sewers and quilters, too. Check out the website by clicking the link above and see all of the cool items they have.

The pictures below are what I have so far, and I have all of my rulers, cutting gadgets, etc. on these. I have the base unit and an upper tier. I've already ordered another base unit because I think this will be my solution for my patterns. I have so many and I can never find what I am looking for.

All of the rulers I have on this are from 4 drawers that I used for my ruler collection, plus 1 drawer I used for all of my rotary cutters. As I was sorting things out to hang up, I came up with enough duplicate sizes of rulers to supply my tool case that I am working on that will be packed and ready to go for any classes or retreats I attend. I never seem to have what I need where I need it.

Clifty Falls Retreat

I attended another great retreat at Clifty Falls State Park in Madison, Indiana the last weekend in October that was put on by Sharynn's Quilt Box in North Vernon. What a wonderful, relaxing time. I went with the idea that the only thing I was going to accomplish was to relax and de-stress, and that's exactly what I did. I worked on a few projects, came home with patterns and ideas for more projects, and generally just had a great time. This is one of the most amazing places to hold a sewing or quilting retreat.

The Indianapolis Chapter of the ASG will be holding their first retreat there in March. I can't wait. More information on the retreat can be found on the Indy ASG website (click the link above).

Where did September, October and Half of November GO???

Whoa, I can't believe how fast time is slipping away. I've been busy with everything but sewing, but that should start to change shortly. The thing that took up the majority of my off time the last couple of months was planning the 2010 Annual Meeting for the Indianapolis Chapter of the American Sewing Guild. We had Mary Mulari as our guest speaker. The meeting was great, everything seemed to go smoothly - and all enjoyed Mary's presentation. I came home with tons of new ideas and the items needed to do some of them. I can't wait to get started, but first I really must clean my sewing room again and put everything away. I don't know how things can get so messed up when I'm not even sewing! The picture is what it should look like, but right now you can't even see any white space on this table or anywhere else. I'm too embarrassed to even snap a picture of it.

Ah - September - National Sewing Month

September is National Sewing Month - I plan to do a lot of sewing this month. I hope the word "plan" turns into "did". I so need to re-bond with my sewing room and get creative!

New Serger!

I'm back at it again - never satisfied. I have a perfectly good serger, but I've always wanted a Baby Lock. Went to a day with Margaret Tully, Baby Lock serger educator extrordinaire, at Select Sewing Service in Indianapolis last week and came home with a new Evolution. Can't wait to get up to speed with it and start accomplishing some projects! The ease of threading is what put me over the top. I'll share some projects when I get something done.

Field Trip to Vogue Fabrics - Chicago (Roosevelt Road)

The Indianapolis Chapter of the American Sewing Guild had their annual bus trip last Saturday. This year's trip was up to the Roosevelt Road area of Chicago. We had a wonderful time and came home with lots of goodies.

Our main stop of the day was at Vogue Fabrics. Who wouldn't love that store? If you love fabric and you are in the area, you owe it to yourself to stop in and see them! The customer service was the best!

Sole Cool Hot Iron Bag

A while back I got the Quickie Chick's SOLE COOL HOT IRON BAG pattern from my local quilt shop. I have now made 4 of these bags, one for me, and as gifts my mother, sister-in-law and a friend. The bag is a great way to carry your iron to/from retreats, workshops, classes, etc. The pattern was very clear and easy to follow.

The pattern is for 2 sizes, large and small. The bags I made were the large ones, but I will probably make a small one for my small travel iron.

I've now used the bag several times and it is so nice not to have to wait for your iron to cool when you are packing up just so you can transport it. The only modification I made to the pattern was in additional to the InsulBright and batting, I also added a layer of teflon material. No particular reason, I just wanted to be double sure.

Bernina Endless Embroidery - Table Runner

I made a table runner last week using the project from Bernina (Bernina USA Projects - Ode to Ireland Table Runner) for the 830 to learn how to use the endless embroidery feature. I was hesitant tackling this, but in the end it came out great. It took a little practice to figure out how to adjust to get the designs lined up, but now that I've got it, I can't wait to try more projects using the Endless Embroidery feature of the 830.

The photo below is a closeup of the designs.

Every time I do something new on this machine, I love it more and more.

Wedding is History - I'm Back Again

I've been busy the last few months making my daughter-in-law's wedding dress, so I haven't been able to post much. Now that the wedding is over, I thought I'd share some pictures of the dress in progress and then the finished dress.

Next is the finished dress with the beautiful bride and groom.

I had a blast making it (even though it stressed me out to the max) and learned a lot of new things along the way, including how to install an invisible zipper. In all the years I've been sewing, I've never done one, and can't believe how easy it was; there will be plenty more invisible zipper installations in the future!

And Sew On....Part 4 - Finished Jacket

This is a picture of the finished jacket. I actually finished it in time to wear to the Indianapolis Chapter ASG Annual meeting the first part of November, but just haven't gotten around to updating the blog with the finished jacket.

I love this jacket, it is so comfortable and very flattering to wear. This is the second one I have made from this pattern (Kwik Sew 2801). The pattern lends itself to a lot of different design possibilities for using embellishments. I think I may try doing something out of denim with it next.

I have a whole lot of projects that I want to tackle this year, in addition to all of the commitments I've made to do some projects (not the least of which is my soon-to-be daughter-in-law's wedding dress), so this will be a busy and productive year, I hope.