Last week I made a quick trip to my LQS to pick up my Pfaff 1475 with its brand new motherboard. Ouch on that. The machine is probably nearing 20 years old and it’s been packed up in the original box for about five years. When I took it out a few weeks back hoping to use it when my Bernina needed repairs, the Pfaff was DoA on the sewing table. It was NOT a great week to try to sew anything! 🙁
Despite being essentially a backup machine these days, I decided I should go ahead and repair it now since it’s a really wonderful machine (one of the older Pfaff machines that was made in Germany before Husqvarna Viking bought Pfaff out and moved production to cheaper areas), and if I didn’t have it repaired now it wasn’t likely to get done at all as the parts for it are no longer manufactured. And who knows? One of my girls might eventually decide to sew and need a machine… maybe… okay I’m reaching here I know!
While I was at the LQS, I did the mad dash through the fabric in hopes to pick up some more of that yummy Kate Spain fabric that I ran short on, and maybe a couple of bluesy aquas to go with it. Continue reading →
I’ve decided that Paisley Pavane is my favorite quilt, if I’m just thinking about the design. I made this quilt for the New Quilts from an Old Favorite contest a few years ago, and I enjoyed every minute of it’s making. Every part of the quilt was a leftover from other (failed) projects, and it’s just so fun that it all came together so well. I used my embroidery machine seriously for the first time, and developed some really cool techniques to solve various issues along the way that I still use today. Continue reading →
I was totally sidetracked over the weekend by this little project. I’ve been meaning to make something like this for a while, and finally just did it.
If I have to change the type of needle in the machine, but it’s not really an old, ready to throw away needle, then I have to store it somewhere separate from the new needles, so that I can find it easily and use it later. And then there’s the issue with two different brands of needles as well, one brand that I use for some things, and the other brand for others, and the dang numbers are sooooo small and hard to see (or maybe I’m just old now and can’t see anymore!). Continue reading →
File this under “Possibly silly, but pretty cool:”
Will you lookit that?!? Hmmm…where have I seen that design before? Hey, it’s my quilt, on my shoes! How. Cool. Is. That?!? I discovered custom Keds shoes at Zazzle.com a couple of weeks ago, and just had to try it out!
I took bunches of new pics of the quilt, since the ones I had weren’t quite the right layout or positioning to get the designs on the shoes just right. Other than that, the creation process at Zazzle was pretty easy, considering that we’re talking about a pair of shoes here.
I could wish that the quilting designs had shown up as well on the shoes as they did in the pictures and on the preview during creation, but maybe that’s just too much detail for the printing on canvas process. What a great thing this is: you upload your pictures, position them on the shoes, place your order, and Zazzle prints your designs on the canvas and custom assembles your shoes in your size.
Pretty soon they arrive in your mailbox, ready to wear! Who knew? They’re very comfy, and the perfect size (I checked the sizing on a pair of Keds that I already had; for me, Keds seem to run about a half-size big). I’ll probably wear these when I travel and teach classes, since there’s always a lot of walking and standing on the feet all day.
I think some Swarovski hot-fix crystal embellishments are in order to make these shoes even more special, especially since the quilt they were inspired by is covered in crystals! Watch out Jimmy Choo, I’m comin’ at ya! (Okay, in all honesty, Jimmy Choo is probably not in any danger from little old me and my Keds, but hey, a gal can dream!)
Check out Zazzle to make your own shoes, or buy one of the cool shoe designs already available (there are over 100,000 of them!). If you want to design something a bit more outre than a pair of Keds flats, check out Shoes—The Agony and the Ecstasy, an online exhibit from the Tyne & Wear Museums in the UK. There’s a shoe designer applet where your shoe dreams can become a reality, at least on the screen! Have fun!
I had a nice surprise in the mail last night: a box from the Museum of the American Quilter’s Society with my quilt inside! Paisley Pavane has been on tour or at the Museum since late 2005, so it’s good to have it home again.
(Click on the photo for a larger pic and detail shots.)
I made this quilt for the MAQS New Quilts from an Old Favorites Contest at MAQS; the block theme for the 2006 contest was Dresden Plate. The purpose of the contest is to showcase innovative interpretations of traditional blocks. I’d had two other quilts accepted to the contest in prior years and I really wanted to enter, but couldn’t come up with a design I was happy with until really late in the game.
I’d really sort of given up on entering, and then I was digging through my stacks of in progress work looking for something else entirely, and I came across the pieces for the medallions that were made using a 9° wedge ruler. The idea took shape and I managed to complete the quilt in time for the contest, and the quilt was awarded a Third Place ribbon. Continue reading →
After all that paper yesterday, I came home and had to have some HOF (hands on fabric) time. ITMan and I each received a slick new iPod Touch as a late Christmas present. We got them free because I took some programming classes in November and December. Great freebies! Not that we needed new iPods, but we do love our techie gizmos…
So now comes the inevitable search for just the right cases for the things. I’ve really never had cases for my other iPods, because I generally don’t take them out of the house. I connect them to players and speaker systems just to make it easier to have more music at my fingertips in whatever room I’m in without burning cd’s constantly. ITMan has a case for his iPod Video from DLO, but it’s really trash, since the case itself put scratches and permanent marks on the face of the iPod after long term use. Isn’t that what cases are supposed to prevent? Obviously, we won’t be buying cases from them again.
When I decided I had to have some sort of case for my newer iPod nano that I got last Christmas, I made a little quilted sleeve from fabric and thin batting. I just wanted something to protect it when I sling it into my purse on trips or something, and this way, there’s nothing inside the case to scratch the finish on the iPod. Perfect. So when ITMan and I were contemplating cases for the iTouch, he mentioned that some sort of a sleeve would be all that was really needed, so I whipped up two cases with that in mind:
Soft on the inside, cool looking on the outside. I was going to say “pretty,” but ITMan probably doesn’t do “pretty.” He did spend quite a bit of time picking out his own fabric for his case though, finally settling on the red silk dupioni. The purple silk dupioni was a close second, but in the end he liked the way the red silk shimmered. I chose a couple of coordinating cotton fat quarters for mine, and made the front from one fabric and the back (which also acts as the flap to enclose the iTouch with a bit of Velcro) out of the other.
I left the seam allowances on the outside and used the serger to finish, because I didn’t want the seams on the inside causing lumpy bulk. There’s nothing on the inside but batting, and I think it was Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Black, or maybe it was Dream Cotton in black. Either way, it’s the perfect thickness and very soft and didn’t cause any problems with the machine when I quilted it to the top fabric with no backing.
Now I’m looking at mine and thinking how cool it would be to add some embellishments, like beads, embroidery, crystals, buttons, etc., etc.! Or I could make another and embroider and embellish before assembly. Hmmm, I could get totally sidetracked making these. It would be like making fabric postcards, but making something useful (I’ve never done the postcard thing. What do you do with them besides send them away to someone else, and then what do they do with them??) I’m not sure I have time to get involved in making more of these, but I might not be able to resist this temptation…
