Using Kaffe Fassett Shot Cotton in a Baby Quilt!

I'm sure I'm late to this party, but I recently fell hard for Kaffe Fassett's "shot cotton" collection.  I even splurged and bought the entire palette of colors, and as you can see by this image, it is a very big selection of colors!  I bought this quarter-yard assortment from Glorious Color.com.

My first project using these gorgeous colors involves a baby quilt.  I co-hosted a shower for a young (LA Modern Guild) friend recently, and decided to pre-fuse the fabric with Mistyfuse, then die-cut circles and flower petals in a selection of colors she is using in the nursery.  Each shower guest was asked to write a word describing a characteristic they hope the baby will have.  I used Pentel gel roller fabric pens for this and they worked beautifully.  For ease of use, I temporarily fused the die cuts onto squares of parchment.  

The fabric on the left is stretched over a canvas for nursery decor.  I am basing the baby quilt colors on it.

A close-up image of one of the shot cottons.  Gorgeous!

After fusing the cloth sections are doubled up and die-cut with my Go! cutter

I cut 4.5 inch squares from all these prints.

The flowers & circles will be fused onto the squares after the shower.

Rather than a traditional batting I have decided to use one layer of diaper gauze to keep this lighter in weight.  This is, after all, a California baby.  I also know that the baby has received two other beautiful quilts!  

 Here is the Pentel pen.

A sample....

die-cuts fused temporarily onto parchment squares....

After piecing the quilt top the die-cuts were fused to the surface

Two sections of diaper gauze yardage were zig-zagged together for the "batting".

This stuff is lovely!  (although I found out later that it causes a lot of tension issues when I attempted to free-motion quilt it!)

I pinned the quilt top to the gauze.

I decided to pillowcase the quilt and avoid the additional bulk that a binding would create.  Therefore, I pinned the gauze to the quilt top-only, stitched the quilt back (right sides together) around the perimeter and left an opening.  The quilt was turned right side out and the opening hand-stitched closed.  The edges were steam-pressed and re-pinned.  

I found that I had to use my regular presser foot (#1) and use feed dogs up to stitch this quilt together. 

Painted Bunting

My friend Molly sighted this beautiful Painted Bunting on her back porch.  She sent these pictures to me and I wanted to share.  I had one of these in my garden last summer but was unable to capture good images.

Preparing to leave for the Long Beach festival 2012

By now, many of you know that Jamie and I get very silly when we are together.  Don't get me wrong:  we work hard, too, but we REALLY get goofy.  If someone told me 10 years ago I would be stopping off at a Target to get a new Barbie with pink highlights I would have snorted in my tea.  Well......

Prior to leaving Jamie's house for the festival we worked on placement of 

the quilts to be hung in "Rituals".  Judy Coates Perez looks on and gives 

some excellent suggestions

Now, inside the convention center, the "girls" oversee the installation of the show!

An impressive packing job (by Judy) in the back of Jamie's car.

(the tag on the handle of my beloved green Eagle Creek bag says,

"We All Have Our Baggage".

This was lovingly referred to as "the coffee corner" of the exhibit

Posing outside my Warehouse 104, part of our 

Artist Village in Tactile Architecture.

Hoffman Fabrics

Jamie and I were invited to visit the fabulous location of Hoffman Fabrics once again.  It is always such a pleasure to see what the talented designers and staff of this great place are up to!

I love looking at the stacks of "archived" fabrics!

The Hoffman family are quite famous in the surfing world!

Here are a few of their vintage surfboards...

We were able to take a peek at some of the new batik designs/colorways.  We really enjoyed seeing all the new swatch collections.  Thanks, Michelle Flores, for your generosity!  It is always a treat to visit.

California Road Trip: Los Angeles and a Baby Shower!

For the past several days my focus has been on helping my friend Karen, her daughter, and son-in-law prepare the nursery as well as get ready for the baby shower.
Many trips to IKEA for furniture and curtains, Babies R Us for  changing pad, sheets, and a few other supplies, and things were shaping up!

Karen sits on the nursery floor feeling her granddaughter kicking

Yesterday was spent printing fun "lemony" images onto tea towels, which were wrapped around Carley's homemade Meyer Lemon Marmalade for take-home gifts.

Today was the long-awaited baby shower, and it was so much fun!

Carley made wonderful cupcakes, pie pops, and cookies

Shower guests wrote a note to the baby, and signed die-cut flowers with fabric pens.

I am taking the flowers home and using them to embellish a quilt!

Alissa gets ready to open her gifts

This is one of my baby gifts:  an infant cap (found on Etsy) that resembles a boob.

I love this so much!

The first of two beautiful quilts!

Here is the redwork quilt that Carley made for Alissa.

(Carley poses with Alissa)

Her wonderful friends, many of whom are members of the Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild, made the most wonderful things.  The baby received lovely handmade sweaters, hats, and adorable clothing.  

I had to throw Harvey Karp's wonderful dvd into the mix.  

Carley's mother generously offered her beautiful home as the setting for the shower.  In the process of preparing for the event, I made another friend.  

Jamie came up from Orange on the train, so after I reluctantly said farewell to Carley & Roz, Karen, Alissa, & Micah, I drove south to Jamie's house for phase three of the California adventure:  preparing for the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach.  In just a few days our newest exhibition, "Rituals", will debut at the show.  I can hardly wait to see these quilts "in person"!  Stay tuned!

  

California Road Trip: Los Angeles

Karen and I are enthusiastic converts of staying at the Los Angeles Athletic Club! We had such comfortable beds and a very nice complimentary breakfast.
We were picked up by a friend and co-host of the upcoming baby shower to run errands.

The club logo as seen on the elevators

TOday was spent running errands, which was lovely since I didn't have to drive at all!  I've done every bit of the driving on this road trip, which is my preference, but a day off was welcomed.

A trip to IKEA, ordering the food for the baby shower, etc., and then we ended the day at an incredible

French restaurant, Comme Ca.  

California Road Trip: Cambria to Los Angeles

Greetings!  This was mostly a day of driving and no sight-seeing.  We were on a mission:  get into LA and meet Karen's daughter for an appointment.  Another beautiful drive as we transitioned from Highway One to the 101 into LA.

Karen took this (are you relieved?)

Have I mentioned the car-singing?  We do a lot of singing on our road trips.  We delude ourselves into thinking we are pretty good (insert laugh track).  We have been searching for songs that relate to where we are, as well as anything else we can come up with.  This is a full service road trip.

In the waiting room.  We are excited to hear the baby's heartbeat and meet the doctor!

Karen's daughter is in the LA Mod Quilt Guild.

I'm looking forward to meeting some of her friends and fellow guild members at the baby shower on Sunday.

To IKEA to choose some things for the nursery...

And then, much later, Karen and I checked into our room at the LA Athletic Club.

This place is just great, and very near the fashion district in downtown LA.