Mini mini Monday - Wee Thistle!

You might have noticed in my posts about Glamp Stitchalot that a little someone came along for the adventure. I'm not talking about Anja @ Anja Quilts or Julia @ Jada's Quilting Adventures. I'm talking about Wee Thistle!
She stowed away in my suitcase. ☺She's very wee... just 6½ inches square.

Wee Thistle looks an awful lot like her cousin, Hazel the Hedgehog, designed by Glamp Stitchalot instructor, Elizabeth Hartman. It's not a coincidence.
Her spines are made from Carolyn Friedlander's Dentals in Green from her recent Carkai collection. The rest of the fabrics are Konas - Silver for the background, Storm for the binding, eyes & nose, Green Tea for her face and Peapod for her body.

Here's Wee Thistle with her big sister, Thistle. My initial plan involved taking Thistle with me to Glamp, but she just seemed a bit too.... well, big. And perhaps a little conspicuous. So I enlisted the help of the infamous Dena @ No Frickin' Blog yet. She whipped up a paper piecing pattern for me. What a friend!

As part of my little plan, I had Carolyn and Elizabeth sign the back. There's a souvenir for you! Carolyn was hesitant to sign "I didn't make it!", she said. But I told her that it wouldn't be the same without her fabric. That sold her!  And it was super cool to listen to Elizabeth and Dena chat about how Dena designed the pattern, particularly the spines. And I was worrying about whether she'd be bothered by the adaptation of her Hazel!
And for the record, here's the real Thistle who has long since gone to the great hedge in the sky.

Bless her little spines. I think she would approve of Wee Thistle.

J

P.S. This was one of my goals for Q2 of the 2016 Finish Along!

Glamp Stitchalot - Day 2!

Are you tired of reading about my adventures at Glamp Stitchalot? It's okay. Feel free to mark as read if you need to!

 

Okay. Day 2. First class of the morning was Rashida Coleman-Hale's. You might know the fabric line she does with a few friends, Cotton + Steel? I was a true suck up and used her XOXO Basic print.

Umm. It was at this point that I realized I had switched my background and plane colours. Damn. Oh well, keep rollin' and call it a design choice!

The majority of the block is paper pieced, but some is pieced construction and the the nose of the plane is a very, very wee curved section. Yikes.

I managed to whip up another block as I had originally planned. Much better! I'm going to make a second one of these to complete the plane row.

I wasn't crazy excited about the plane block, but once I met Rashida, that feeling disappeared. She was so warm and funny, laughing at her own design issues with the block, and making mistakes in her demo to put us at ease!

Can you even believe I'm standing next to a Cotton + Steel founding designer? I was definitely starstruck!

And then things got crazy. Second class, queen of low volume, Carolyn Friedlander. So much paper piecing. Lots of opportunities to use that handy wooden roller!

Carolyn's game changer? For those long pieces that always seem to shift when you're paper piecing, use a basting stitch to hold them in place. I've used glue, but I like the basting as well. Definitely a new idea for me!

I will admit here and now that I am NOT happy with how my blocks came together for Carolyn's class.  It was 100% my design choices, not her block. I tried scrappy. It looks like the dog's breakfast. I'll reveal it when I re-work it! ☺

Our sixth and final class was one I had been looking forward to from the moment I signed up for Glamp - quilting rock star, creator of Hazel and Preppy, Elizabeth Hartman. I will say here and now that my prep work paid off during this session!

 I love the colours that Elizabeth chose for her sample row. As if I ever don't love her fabric choices!

Elizabeth's game changer tip was one I didn't use. I pre-cut all my fabric and didn't fussy cut as she did for the windows and doors. But I'll definitely be doing as she did in the future. She cut a square of freezer paper to the finished size of her fussy cut. Then you can iron it right on the fabric and make sure you have a perfect fussy cut.. i.e. you don't cut off a wee kitty's tail! Then you just add your seam allowance before you cut it out. That's how she got those kitties so perfectly placed!

  And here are my houses! I even finished them during the class!

One of the highlights of this class was this moment...

Introducing Wee Thistle to the person who inspired her creation! More on Wee Thistle at a later date. So many things to blog about. And I swear I am not a giantess. Elizabeth Hartman is wee. Very wee.

Thanks for reading about all my Glamp Shenanigans. Is it wrong that I'm plotting thinking about how I can get to another event like this? It was restful, inspiring, pretty much awesome. I've even been wondering if it's something I could organize. Hmmmm....

J

Glamp Stitchalot- Day 1!

So a while back, I posted about a wild and crazy quilting adventure that Anja @ Anja Quilts, Julia @ Jada's Quilting Adventures, and our friend Dena had signed on for! It was all that I had hoped for and more!

The structure of the week-end included three two-hour classes on Friday and Saturday with the six instructors rotating from classroom to classroom. First up, Monica Solorio-Snow of Happy Zombie and her Binge Watching pattern.

For each instructor, there was at least one game changer moment. Usually it was a tip so simple and perfect that I couldn't believe that I'd never thought of it. For Monica, it was covering a printed template with packing tape on the front and back before cutting it out.

Due to my lack of advance cutting, I didn't make a lot of progress. Well, that and the fact that my templates were printed incorrectly, causing me to have to recut a bunch of triangles. But I did catch up by midnight!

And it turns out that this isn't the first pattern of Monica's that I've made. She designed the Christmas Tree Pants that I made for my parents a while back! 

Next up, Penny Layman (you know, my swap partner BFF). Try not to be too shocked. I actually had my picture taken a couple times over the course of the week-end!

The game changer for Penny's class came in the form of this little wooden wall paper roller. It was a suggested notion for Glamp and I decided to take the plunge. Rolling those paper pieced seams is so much more effective than finger pressing and beats hopping up and down to the ironing board!

She also had a sweet technique for matching up sections called "pinch and pin" using forked pins to really secure those key joints. Even with poor hotel lighting, these mountains are very cute!

Last class of the day was Violet Craft. Curved piecing isn't what I think of when I hear her iconic name. I tend to think Jungle Abstractions and Domino Dot. But this lady knows of what she speaks when it comes to curved piecing.

Violet's game changer? Pin very, very little. "The fabric knows what it wants to do. Let it." Yup. I let it. And it worked. I also discovered that a ¼ inch foot with a guide is not nearly as awful as I thought it was! I will also say that the blocks pictured above are pieced... not appliquéd. True story. I want to make an Orange Peel quilt more badly that ever!

This may sound like the craziest thing ever, but it was amazing to me how down to earth and friendly the instructors were. They're frickin' quilting rockstars with their own fabric lines and publishing deals. But they chatted with each and every student, answering questions, admiring our work, laughing and carrying on. 

Want to read a different perspective on the day? Pop on over to Julia @ Jada's Quilting Adventures to check out my roomie's take. I'll share Day 2 later this week! You can also read about my fabric deliberations and preparation, pouch swap, and fabric haul in past posts.

J

Glamp Stitchalot - The fabric haul

I'd be lying if I said the fabric shopping wasn't a big part of Glamp Stitchalot for me. Pink Castle, the shop behind the Stitchalot events, has some AMAZING fabric. It's a damned good thing that it's a long way to Ann Arbor. It would be dangerous to have this spot as my LQS. Seriously. And their website? Just as deadly. It was nightly reading for weeks before I went.

Since we could place orders to be picked up at Glamp, I bought myself this lovely bundle. It's a custom bundle created by the owner of Pink Castle, Brenda. You can pop over to their site for the run down on all the FQs.

We had a 2½ hour flight delay out of Toronto which messed with our plans to go to the hotel, then the Girl Scout shop and Pink Castle. Instead, we had our airport shuttle take us right to the fabric shop. We parked our suitcases in the corner and got to shopping. No one seemed to mind!

Given a large enough budget, I could have cleaned the place out, I kept myself to low volume prints. I have an idea to use my Birthday Bonus Club squares and want some more variety. I snagged pieces of Newport, Carolyn Friedlander's Ledger, and Alison Glass' Abacus Artifact.

I fell in love with these Alison Glass panels when Kitty @ Night Quilter used one for the cover of her Quilter's Planner. When I saw them in person, I just had to have them. What will I make? Who knows! But I have eight of them!

Dena @ No Frickin' Blog Yet and I got a little out of control and bought a half yard bundle of this Lizzy House Mini Pearl Bracelet goodness. 

We split it at Glamp so each of us went home with a FQ bundle. Delish.

I got so excited about the Mini Pearl Bracelet bundle that I forgot I had purchased some yardage to be picked up at Glamp. Lucky me... it's not in the bundle!

I had another awesome moment on Saturday night. It was giveaway time (8pm!) and there were a pile of Violet Craft's new (yet to be released) House of Hoppington fabric bundles to be given away. I literally turned to Julia @ Jada's Quilting Adventures and said "I want that so bad, I can taste it." And then they pulled my number. I should buy more lottery tickets.
The main motif in the grey fabric above featured on the shirt Violet designed for Glamp. You know, the one I bought! As if the fabric wasn't adorbs enough, there's the selvages! Squee!!!
And here are the perils of pre-washing. A mountain of ironing. ☺After a haul like this one, there's a lot to catch up on!

I'm linking up with the fabulous Molli Sparkles for Sunday Stash. You know, because I love a link-up!

J

Glamp Stitchalot - Processing...

I can hardly believe it that it's already been a week since Glamp Stitchalot. Honestly, I'm still reeling...  But it was time to share some of it with those of you who've been waiting patiently to hear about my adventures!

Packing for a quick jaunt to Ann Arbor wasn't too bad. Of course, I had to pack the sewing stuff first!  I went as minimalist as possible... tough job for an overpacker! I resisted the urge to pack extra clothes. Couldn't risk running out of space for fabric on the return trip.

I had to make sure I didn't forget my swap pouch. My partner said she liked Carolyn Friedlander fabric and rainbow. I shrunk Kristy @ Quiet Play's free paper pieced "Create" pattern by 70% to make it fit the panel I had already created for the back.

The back is my own design. Rainbow-y. Match stick quilting in white with a single line of each colour. I've got to do that again... it tempted me to keep it for myself!

 And for the lining, more of my precious low volume Friedlander supply!

The swap didn't require goodies, but I like some good zipper pouch karma, so I loaded mine up with some local stuff. Who doesn't love a chocolate lobster?

I wasn't expecting that my first evening at Glamp would be mind blowing. Seriously.

Pick a classroom seat, eat some supper, give away a zipper pouch to my partner, get a zipper pouch from a different partner. Oh yeah. Turns out my swap partner was one of the fabulous instructors, Penny Layman.  You know, the author of Paper Pieced Home? Yup. Mind blown. I almost cried.

As if the pouch wasn't enough, she included some very cool FQs from Korea, a vintage inspired notebook, and some Washi.  Check out that fussy cut bottle label! And there are few beverages I love like orange pop!

 

Phew... hard to believe that's only the pre-trip and first day. Tomorrow I'll share my fabric haul from the trip and next week, more on the amazing instructors, blocks made, and lessons learned!

J

WIP Wednesday - And the Glamp prep goes on and on...

Ack... the Glamp prep. How is there only ½ a sleep until I go? Ack! Fabric was still arriving on the week-end. I didn't even bother with my LQS for this one... just click click clicked my way to Mad About Patchwork.  I love that she'll cut fat quarters of pretty much anything!

Does this picture confuse you? The colour of this allegedly Kona coordinated Carolyn Friedlander print is Leaf. And that's a Leaf swatch. Yikes. Not to so much. I wish I could get the ear of dear Mr. Kaufman because this Kona Coordinated business needs some tweaking.

 So off to the colour card I went. Wasabi was the ultimate winner.

 It might not work perfectly with the CF print, but with the other lime-citrony prints... it's a go!
And then there's the background. I ordered these lovelies from Dinkydoo Modern Fabrics. Mmmmm... Lizzy House Whisper Palette. I love 'em. But they just didn't speak to me once I put them with the ever growing Glamp pile.

 Then I piled them all on a hunk of Kona Silver. When in doubt, Kona.

And with that decision made, I could get to cutting. Four of the six Glamp Stitchalot instructors have opted for paper piecing, so there's not much cutting I can do in advance. But Elizabeth Hartman's row is blissful piecing. No paper required! So many wee pieces. So much labeling with my trusty masking tape!

Next up Violet Craft's block. Curves. Templates. Oh my. I was wracking my brain for the best way to cut those pieces. Thanks to my Skill Builder shenanigans, I'm well versed in the world of freezer paper. Easy peasy!

The fabric is pulled. Many of the pieces are cut. My swap pouch is made. My pick up at Glamp order from Pink Castle Fabrics is placed. Flight? Hotel? Check. Check. What more is there to do? Oh. Guess I better pack some clothes and stuff!

I'm linking up today with the lovely Lorna @ Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social!

J