Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Territorial Quilt Show

Little kids and quilt shows may not always mix, but what can I say? We like adventure. So when the Territorial Quilt Show came to a town "near" me, I convinced Mr. RLQ that it sounded like a fun family thing to do, and we packed up the kids and went.


I would like to show you some pictures of my family at the show - or at least of the show grounds - but it turned out that wasn't in the cards. Fortunately, the show was extremely well attended, and my daughter (then 2) was HUGE into the quilts. Trying to follow an excited 2-year old through the crowd *does* tend to keep one on one's toes!


Fortunately, everyone was really nice, and I think most of the attendees were more amused than offended by my daughter running from quilt to quilt yelling "Mommy, this quilt has butterflies! This quilt has cats!" or stopping in front of a Grinch quilt to say "what's that!?!"


Someone even gave her a "judge's glove" so she could run her hand up and down her favorite quilt reverently, which then led to her "feeling" every quilt on the row through her glove (show rules said attendees could handle quilts IF they wore gloves).

My husband and 2-month-old son were also a big hit: the announcer was so intrigued at their presence that she stopped to give him a short interview (apparently a man and his infant aren't the target demographic for a quilt show - who knew?).


Unfortunately, our daughter's enthusiasm for quilts wore out a little before mine did, so we had to cut our visit short while people still liked us. But, I did get to run around and take pictures of a few of our favorites, and buy a few raffle tickets for this gorgeous Singer featherweight, which I sadly did not win. :-(


Next year I think I might leave the kids at home (they were warmly welcomed, but made it difficult to take things in at a leisurely pace), but I am still glad we all went: I would have hated to miss such an awesome (and friendly!) quilt show.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

My Little Birthday Shirt

I'll admit to having lost a little bit of momentum on my Dinosaur quilt, but for a very good reason! My daughter just turned 3, and I made her a party shirt for her birthday.

This year, the party was My Little Pony themed. Last year I made the ModKid Kyoko Shirt, and really liked the results, but this year I wanted something a little more playful and feminine. So I chose Foo Foo Thread's Peasant Girls' Easy Tunic Top on Etsy.


This was less a "pattern" than a tutorial - in fact, the only "pattern" that comes with purchase is a template for the armholes - otherwise, the entire garment is constructed of squares with strategic gathering. Since I'm a quilter, that made it super easy to cut out for me.

Putting it together wasn't too bad either - I'm an "advanced beginner" at best when it comes to garment sewing, and I was able to put this together in 4-5 (interrupted) hours. My main complaint was that the photos in the tutorial were pretty small and could not be zoomed in on - I spent plenty of time either resizing the PDF file to look at the photos (and then losing the ability to see an entire line of words on the screen) or squinting and leaning in to look closer. I have a 15" monitor and 20/20 vision, so I don't think that problem would be unique to me.


The MLP fabric came from Fabric.com, and the blue vine print was specifically acquired from a Local Quilt Shop for this project: This combination was a little "out there" for me composition wise, and I agonized about it quite a bit, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with this shirt! I love the bow in the back, and despite some early skepticism, the sleeves shaped up really well. My daughter was excited to wear it for her party, and we'll see how much use it gets going forward.

Linking up to Sew Cute Tuesday at Blossom Heart Quilts to participate in some community fun!