Farm Girl Vintage Retreat and Blocks

I had a blast last week attending a sewing retreat hosted by Thimbles and Threads (a local quilt shop) featuring Lori Holt of Bee in my Bonnet.  Lori is a local fabric celebrity and designer for Riley Blake Fabrics. Her new line, Modern Minis is to die for! And since I am participating in the Farm Girl Fridays sew-along, this was a great chance to meet ladies who came to Utah to participate.  What a blast!

But let me backtrack a few moments and get caught up with other things. This will be a picture-heavy post.

I am lucky that I get to have my granddaughter Lauren every other Monday throughout the summer. She loves to sew and has been sewing for about a year, since I gave her a sewing machine for her birthday in April of 2014.  Last week when she was here, she made herself a tote bag out of this cute pink guitar fabric I surprised her with. She is taking lessons from her granddad (my ex-hub, Scott) and the bag will be useful to carry her music in.

Lauren and I also made zip pouches from a tutorial we watched from Missouri Star Quilt Company. They turned out so cute. Hers has the red stripe and mine is the pink horsey Tula Pink fabric. It is the perfect size to carry my travel iron in!

sorry for the blur.....

Another fun thing for me was that I was able to acquire, quite unexpectedly and rather inexpensively, a complete set of Pyrex Cinderella bowls in the Gooseberries pattern. They are highly sought after by collectors and are over 50 years old. Pristine condition!

Next up are the two blocks I created for week 8 of the Farm Girl Fridays quilt-along.

Farmhouse

Farm Fresh Flower

So, on Wednesday evening, the Retreat began with Lori Holt giving us a trunk show of dozens of her recent quilts. She is unbelievably talented and prolific. The majority of the attendees of this, the 3rd and final weekly retreat, was mostly locals (as the hotel space was limited due to the Utah Arts Festival). But we did meet about a dozen fun ladies from other parts of the country, too!

Here my new friends Betty and Rae Ann introduce their long-time friend and quilty peep, Lori Holt.  

Interestingly, for both Lori and me, was that I brought pictures from 1976 in California when Scott (Flox, my ex-hub) and I were newly married and joining the LDS (Mormon) church. One of our missionary teachers (and the elder who baptized me) was Kelly Holt who lived in Riverton, UT.  I asked Lori if they were related, and she said Kelly was her (late) brother-in-law. I showed her pictures of Kelly from 1976 and the cake he baked (complete with taper candle stabbed through the center to hold the layers upright, LOL). We had a hug and took pictures so she could show her hubby and parents-in-law.  It was really quite a heartwarming moment. I am just so sad I waited too long to look him up....

Apple Quilt

Farmhouses and Trees

Large Farm Girl Sampler

Lori kept us busy with new block designs, as well as all sorts of inspiration, tips and tutorials.  Below is Penny Pig and a new apple block. 

Penny Pig and apple

Lori always sews on her featherweight. So cute!

We also learned how to use many of her blocks together in “mash-ups”. We learned and made two new tulip patterns and combined her Crops (leaves) blocks with other flower blocks to make wall hangings or table runners. Mine just needs to be (pressed, then) quilted and bound!

Table runner

Below is  (right) a postage-stamp 6” block inserted into a 12” star block. The block on the right is my Feed and Seed block for this week’s Farm Girl stitch along.

Fresh Pears block for this week’s stitch along

Two of the ladies that I hung out with were from my home state of California.  Erica is pictured below with a huge tractor block she made one night. Several of the ladies stayed up until the wee hours sewing!  Erica came with her friend Joanne, who was also a delight and an amazing sewist. But I did not get a pic of Joanne (sad face).

Some of Lori Holt’s pincushions

My pig pincushion poses with Penny Pig

My friend Wannell  shows the cute patchwork top she made for her watering can pin cushion. Wannell joined Erica, Joanne and me for lunch together every day.

So, wow, is that enough cuteness for you????  Whew! It makes me tired just looking at it all. But it was a great week; fun, productive and hot as hell (over 100 degrees F every day). 

This week I am working away at my scraps for June’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge (light blue) so that I can begin working on July’s color, RED!!    Have a lovely holiday weekend and a Happy Independence Day!

Skirting the Issue

Another post, another finish!  This is a 2-piece skirt set that I made for my granddaughter London, who is 5 1/2. I bought the “ingredients” last summer, but never made it (made her a couple sundresses instead).

The pattern is called the Vivienne Skirt by Violette Field Threads . The ruffles (3 rows) are supposed to be sewn to a straight underskirt, but I chose to buy pre-made ruffles and add an elastic waistband so that they could be worn together or just the ruffles alone.

It looks rather wonky pinned up on my design board and would have looked cuter modeled by London herself. But Herself is not around so this will have to do. The color looks a bit greenish in the photo, but the underskirt is as bright yellow as the buttons.  Since there is nothing to indicate scale, this is a girls size 5-6.

This is my second finish for the 2nd Quarter 2015 Finish-Along hosted by Adrienne of On the Windy Side.  It was my goal #5.

I still hope to get the trim and finishing done on the black crazy quilt, but I will not be able to work on it until at least Sunday the 28th as I am attending a local retreat.

Until next time,

Quilt Finish!

They don’t come often, but they are very welcome when they happen.......... quilt finishes.  I finally quilted and bound Bruce’s banjo quilt.

It finished out at about 55x68”, a nice sized throw.  The back was the orange ombre cotton from Riley Blake Fabrics that I found in the thrift store (an entire shrink-wrapped bolt worth). To that I added some fat quarter solids in oranges, red and blue down the back.  The binding is the Kona blue.

This is my Goal #2 finish for the 2015 Finish Along with Adrienne of On the Windy Side.

I have got more finishes to show, but they all need to be in individual posts for the Finish-Along rules.

Tomorrow I have my granddaughter Lauren (age 11) coming to visit for the day. We will do some sewing and baking and who knows what else. So I may not get around to posting again until Tuesday.

Blogger/Google has really messed up my blog, and in checking the Help and forums, I see that it is a widespread problem due to some updates. A lot of my sidebar stuff is gone, and I am in the process of reconstructing it.  Must get the CQI (Crazy Quilting International) link and logo back up, plus my Etsy shop link and some other things.  While I was working on that, I installed a new blog template because I was sick to death of the old one (which is still on my Etsy).

So, I will be back to you in a couple days!

Catching Up (or....Seduced by Instagram)

Hi all,  it has been a busy month for all of us I am sure. Here we saw school get out and the garden go in.  We have had family gatherings, a day spent at Plant Con (the local water conservancy district has wonderful gardens, displays and classes) and helped our grown kids move into new digs. As well, I did the local Utah Shop Hop with my cousins (nieces, really) and have been sewing my brains out.  Aha! you say..... that is where they went....

First, a couple pix from the Utah Shop Hop, where the theme this year was Quilts Over Broadway. Each of the 13-14 shops were themed after a Broadway play, like West Side Story, Grease, Paint Your Wagon, Wizard of Oz and Little Shop of Horrors.

Here we are (L-R: Kim, me, Jen) as Oz characters:

The highlight of our 2-day trip around the state to visit the shops was seeing lots of Lori Holt’s quilts displayed at Thimbles and Threads. And in fact, I will be attending a 3.5-day retreat there next week with Lori herself...

And, it’s time to post the Farmgirl blocks (from her book and above quilt) that I have worked on, two per week, for the last three weeks....

Churn Dash

Corn and Tomatoes

Cool Threads

Country Crossroads

Crops

Egg Basket

I have learned (from Crops, above) that these photograph much cleaner (straighter) when laying down rather than being hung by pins from my design board....

I’ve also sewn, but have not pictures of, a small ironing pad for my travel iron and a quilted mat for my sewing machine with pockets for scissors, etc.  Both of those will be used regularly here at home and also at the Retreat next week.

Garden News:  Two pix of my back yard showing our climbing roses and our garden grow boxes.  You can see how small the garden was about 3 weeks ago when the roses peaked. Then, how much the garden veggies grew by the time the roses were waning. Now, with the roses needing deadheading so they will re-bloom, the garden is even bigger, but no pix of that for now.

Rose glory

waning roses, growing veggies

Lately I’m feeling so discombobulated because I have been taking some pictures with my camera, some with my iPad and some with my iPhone. The latter two I can, and do, use for Instagram, where I seem to keep more up to date with my sewing postings. The camera pix are mostly for my Etsy and sometimes the blog.  But sometimes I need my iPhone/iPad pix here on the blog, then I have to email them to myself, and they will not save in the new Photos section on my iMac (thanks a lot, Apple). In short, I have pix scattered about here and there..... *deep sigh*

By the way, you can follow me on Instagram. I am   @cathy_k_in_ut
I have more to blog about, including a quilt finish, but I am going to put that in a separate post.  Also, I have NOT given up on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, but hope to begin working with my light blue and aqua scraps (June`s monthly color) this weekend....

Finally, I am closing out most of my Etsy Shop (see link at right). As soon as I get back from the Lori Holt retreat next weekend, I will begin a 20% off sale on all merchandise; lace, fancy fabric packs, vintage patterns, vintage sheet fabrics, etc - even clearance.  The percentage off may increase as time goes on (and inventory decreases).  The plan is to convert the shop to vintage sheets/fabrics, vintage sewing patterns, and vintage linens only. Lace will always be my special love, but I have commercial clients now that I must focus on instead of the shop.  So, watch for that sale!!!

Whew!  See you soon!

Hugs,