My Favorite Ceramics Piece at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

Sewing: Embroidered and Appliquéd Tote Bag

I took up English paper piecing a couple months ago and brought a bunch of hexies to stitch together on a recent business trip and finally finished this project this a.m.  Next up?  A laundry bag with the logo, "Laundry Tonight or Naked Tomorrow."

Sewing: The Scout Tee

I loved my garment sewing class at Stonemountain and Daughter fabric shop in Berkeley, California.  For the first time ever, I feel like I can tackle sewing an item of clothing.  My next class is the Cabin Top, and I have to decide whether it will be a tunic or a dress.

Charity Sewing: Cat Bed

I hate waste, so all the little pieces of fabric that don't get up cycled into my English paper piecing called schnibbles and my small quilt sandwiches on which I practiced free motion quilting have been stuffed into this cat bed.  It goes to my local cat shelter.

Slow Sewing (aka Handsewing): Hexie Pillow or Quilt in Progress

This is what I do when I have 15 minutes of spare time, usually before I leave for work in the morning.  I baste scraps of fabric leftover from my piecework that I can't bear to waste into new piecework.  I watched a Creativebug video of Liza Lucy on how to English paper piece, downloaded some templates from the internet and then started basting with this large spool of black thread in my mom's sewing supplies.  And so I think of her when slowly stitching.  I'll be flying this Thursday and then holed up in a hotel room in Kansas City.  My sewing machine is too heavy to haul, and so basting and sewing hexagon grandmother's gardens will fill my empty evenings.

Sewing: Quilt in Progress

I re-started my hobby of sewing about 5 years ago while in grad school, needing a creative outlet from all the reading and writing.  I signed up to sew a log cabin style pillow and then a kimono bathrobe and then a blouse (UFO!)and fell in love with Amy Butler fabrics though not so much with her garment patterns.  When the shop where I was taking classes was closing, I bought a bunch of Butler's fabrics on clearance and also took remnants that were being discarded.  I wish I knew then that I would fall in love with Amy Butlers pink color line of her Midwest Modern fabric line, but you can tell from this quilt top that I was enamored at the time with aquas and chartreuse.  I bought so much of this Amy Butler fabric that I have enough for another quilt if I make the back just a solid.  However, there was only 6 yards of the Kona Iced Frappe fabric left on the bolt that I used for the solid strips in between the Butler strip patchwork.  My ceramics instructor also loves blues and aquas and celadon, and so I may sew a lap quilt (an Amy Butler pattern in her In Stitches) and find another coordinating Kona solid For this quilt I want to stitch text in the solid color strips:  SLEEP IS THE BEST MEDITATION (a quote from the Dalai Lama).