Last night at slow sewcial, the other Anna in the group kept laughing as I kept describing the dream sewing getaway with a monotonous emphasis of just sewing and nothing else. No trips to a quilt shop, no exchanges of quilty gifts, just a sew your stash interrupted by companionable talking and eating in a lovely Airbnb by the sea. A stay in natural surroundings for hiking and walking when not stitching. And so I'm gonna research if there's a boutique hotel with a community space or an empty homestay for the short term this October as wished for by Bonnie. Annemarie said she'd love to go sewing retreat like Medomak. Oh yes! I thought of Craft Napa or Gathering of Stitches in Maine. Anyway sewing trips are on my backburner.
In the meantime, I am sewing like a motherfucker summer 2023. Here's what I started at home after finishing the Swim Camp baby quilt top and while piecing my 80-block ROYBGIV in my sewing sweatshop at my school library. It started with one of 12 patterns I spied in Brigitte Heitland's Zen Chic with lots of negative space and words--features that I love in modern quilting. And I was determined not to buy more fabric for this quilt. I didn't have the Moda terra cotta in Heitland's quilt, but I did have one- and half- yardages of peach and cantaloupe that I could sew with all the fat eighths pinks and light oranges from my Kona solids subscription from Pink Castle. Right away I started piecing into a stripe all the solids for the quilt.
Instead of some of the neutrals in Heitland's quilt, I used pink-orange and medium orange solids.
I quite like the combination of pink and peach.
I subbed out Heitland's yellow and other neutrals with the pewter and chocolate solids in my quilt.
I especially loved these blush tones below.
Since I didn't have enough yardage to substitute for the one terra cotta panel in Heitland's quilt, I pondered using this one yard of fuschia with my peach panels.
But the garish pink didn't look good to me. I decided to save that yard of fuschia for another project or maybe even the back of the quilt. I broke down and bought Kona coral at Joann, but at least I needed only a half yard, which score! was on sale. And I like the three colors so much.
I had dark gray, light gray and silver gray yardages in my stash. I opted out of the dark gray and sewed the silver panel to the coral, cantaloupe and light peach panels.
Time to add text to the quilt. I had old Wonder Under, but only enough for one S. Buggers. Back to Joann. Score again! A doorbuster sale made it only half off; I also needed some cream fabric (but the closest color to that at Joann was the Kona bone.
Dummy me. I needed a yard and half of cream for the letters on the right side panels, and I bought only enough Kona bone for the shorter word.
There was enough light gray fabric, however, to make the letters for the word on the silver panel. Once cut, I placed the letters on their panel.
I was not gonna go back to Joann to buy more bone-colored fabric, and so I used the Kona Natural in my stash. I pinned down the letters with the paper still on them to where I placed them on the quilt panels. Luckily, I remembered to trace the letter on the rough side of the fusible web, and not the smooth side. Well you could trace the letters on the smooth side of the paper--BUT the letters then need to look backwards in order to fuse them to look right on the fabric. Instead of peeling the paper all the way off, I would unpin one half of the letter and just unpeel and tear off with the other pins holding the placement. I then pressed my iron on the unpeeled paper side, and once half the letter was heat-stuck on, I unpinned and unpeeled paper from the other half of the letter.
Once fused to the fabric, it was time to stitch the raw edges of the letters to the fabric. I used the zig zag stich on my sewing machine. Took a pic to remember which stitch.
All stitched! I laid the quilt top on my bed to measure. And oh! The colors of my quilt top coordinate the colors of my pillows. Funny.
I couldn't bear to throw away any scraps from Kona fat eighths solids that I cut into, and since there were at least 2.5" or more wide, I stitched them into an improvisational scrappy back that's getting bigger and hopefully big enough to extend those extra couple inches on each side of my quilt top to stitch those 3 layers.
And I've got some Kona bone and natural to integrate into this scrappy back.
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