Wednesday's Wanderings #51 - I Heart New York

I heart NY!

It was one of my best fiber trips to New York City. 

Armed with a list of places to visit, a group of us headed to Manhattan.

 One of the locations was new and other places were new to me.   We touched down at 10AM and walked our feet off until we boarded the bus at 5:00PM to head home.

Our first stop was to load up on Dupioni silk, but on our way there we walked down 38th St and what did we find?  Shops filled with trims and notions and all sorts of embellishments.

Zippers in every size and color that you could imagine.

And check out these feather boas and racks of trim.

                                                   My favorite place - Butterfly Silk

Location: 257 W 39th St.

I had trouble controlling myself.  I have not met a color of dupioni that I did not covet.

Look at these gorgeous colors! 

 luscious pinks

a bit of orange and yellow

 wonderful greens

and my favorites - blues and purples.

I do have a project idea that is marinating in my brain.  Now I can't wait to start.

Then we headed downtown to 15th Street to check out Chelsea Market.  I had never been, but have heard lots about it.  We planned on eating lunch there and so did a lot of other people.  A lot.

It's indoors with about 35 shops off of a main concourse and I had a list of shops to visit to finish my holiday shopping.   Chanukah is early this year.  It starts Saturday night.

 We were really lucky to snag a table to eat a yummy lunch to fortify ourselves.

Most of the shops had a food theme.

 Eleni's was featured on The Today Show as one of the best cookie bakeries in town.

And they had cupcakes too!

I can't show the goodies I bought as gifts, but my kids will have an inkling when I write that

Jacques Torres, master chocolatier, had the most tempting shop of all!

Chelsea Market was well worth the trip.

 Next stop was the Lion Brand Yarn Flagship store, just a few blocks away.

 The window was amazing.  Everything in that window was knitted.

 Even the birch tree.

 Marimekko is a Finnish fabric company that was started in the 1950's.  I made my first quilt from their fabrics back in the 1970's.  The fabric with bold bright designs disappeared for a while, but now is making a resurgence.  I don't remember the price I paid when I was a graduate student, but now it is a bit out of my price range.  The quilting weight fabric was $45/yd and home dec weight was $75/yd!!  We shopped with our eyes.

 The City Quilter, located on 25th St was our last stop.  It is a great quilt shop with lots of contemporary fabric. We needed one last fabric fix. We were pretty tired by the time we arrived.  I wish that one of us had worn a pedometer.  I don't know how many miles we walked, but it was a lot.  Our bags filled with what we had bought were getting pretty heavy by this point.  They let us leave them behind the counter at the register.  That rejuvenated us enough so that we could buy more fabric. Just what we needed.

Since I visited last, they opened up some space and created a gallery for art quilts.

There was an exhibit of Judy Blaydon's quilts.

On our way to catch the bus to head back to Philly, we stopped to look at Macy's holiday windows, but this display of Michael Kors' red sequin stilettos really caught my eye.

So my block for the week summarizes our adventure in NYC. 

I printed a map of Manhattan depicting our route.  I created the map with Mapquest, cropped it to focus on where we went and printed it on EQ Printables.

 After quilting it along the avenue and street lines, I added the marquees and the footprints.

 I really heart NY!

How about you?

The Most Adorable Keepsake Quilt

Adorable, but maybe impractical.

A friend came to visit today.  Dina brought 2 quilts that she wanted to show me. 

 I couldn't wait and I wasn't disappointed.

 

One of them was a chuppah that her Aunt made for her wedding.  It was waaaay too big to photograph.  Her Aunt sent out squares of fabric to friends and family and they personalized them.  That has been done before, but  the unique part was that the friends and famed out a sheet of paper with the whys and how they made their blocks. Dina's Aunt made it into a book.  That was very nice.

 

But the best quilt was this:

 

Those are all things worn by her daughter, Miriam - dresses, hats, bibs, onesies and even booties.

Some cut in half and stitched down.

A bathing suit



And this adorable child in it.

 

And look at some of the other blocks:

 

 

 

I think it's a great keepsake.

But... it has not been used or washed. Practical?

What do you think?

New Friend/New Shop

My morning started with my annual mammogram.  Arghhh!

But my afternoon was wonderful. I drove to The Round Bobbin with my friend Linda to meet a new friend that I met on-line.  Now I know that sounds kind of creepy, but here's the story.

Back on September 6th, the theme of my Wednesday's Wanderings was my birthday.  Since I love cake, I made myself this whimsical cake.

I made one for my WW and one to give away on  to celebrate. 

 Judi won the giveaway and I was so happy that she did. 

 She told me that it would be wonderful to win and it would cheer her up

because she lost her son on 9/11. 

 So I was so thrilled when she was chosen using a random number generator, but here's the rub.

I couldn't get in touch with her because she was a NO REPLY COMMENT BLOGGER!!!

I then pinned the piece to my design wall to enjoy myself. 

Then a few weeks ago Judi's name surfaced as she left a comment on one of the computer lists to which I subscribe., and it said Judi from PA.  Hey, I'm from PA! I e-mailed Judi and it turns out she lives not far from me. I was so excited and knew I had to get this piece to her.

What's better then to meet a new friend at a new quilt shop that is located halfway between us.

That's the story behind my meeting a stranger that I connected with on the internet.

Now that stranger is my friend.  We have so much in common and couldn't stop talking.

Some projects from Sew Embellished!

A wall of fabric!

On the far wall are bolts of batiks.

View when you enter

This section of the store is all about wool with lots of patterns by Gretchen Gibbons.
If you like her book, Pennies From Heaven, you would have a field day here.

One of her wool projects that is available as a kit.

Yay for quilting and beautiful fabric and new friends.

Nothing could be better - especially after a mammogram.

Wednesday's Wanderings #50 - There's No Place Like Home

This was definitely a stay at home week.

  I think this is what happens to me after all the excitement and hub bub of Thanksgiving.

Company leaves and the house is quiet.

It was a perfect week to stay inside.  The temperatures dropped and it was pretty cold.

You think I would have gotten a lot of sewing done. But I didn't. I took care of all the things I have neglected.  Each day I made a "to do" list that included phone calls, errands, Dr's appointments and even cleaning my closet.  Oh boy do I have lots of clothes to donate. 

So why did my lists not include sewing? Avoidance.

I am starting a new project - a big project- and I am just afraid to start. 

Sometimes this fear is paralyzing.

The root of the fear is the one nagging question that just sits at the back of my brain.

What if it doesn't turn out the way I envision it?

 I know the answer to that question.  I will adapt and adjust and my original idea may morph into something else or it may get shelved until I come up with a solution.  But I still would prefer to clean my closet than work in my studio.  Who knew?

Does this happen to anyone else?

But I have taken the time to make my block for this week.  There's no place like home. 

I know I say this over and over, but I love blanket stitching around fusible applique.  To me it is calming and I enjoy experimenting with different types and colors of threads.  Sometimes I match my thread to the applique and other times I use a contrasting thread. 

I free cut all of the fusible applique to add to the whimsy.  And I really enjoyed using sequins to make the tree look like it was made of polka dots.

I chose to cross stitch HOME at the bottom. I wanted this to bring a homieness to the block. The X's are not perfect. I drew them by hand with a chalk pencil. The remnants of the chalk is visible but after the block is handled a bunch the chalk will wear off..  To me it adds to the folk part of the art. But what a nice contrast between the vintage lettering and the bling of sequins. 

What a nice place to be.

Big Book Sale

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Day

and that you aren't still in those stretchy waistband pants!reat suggerstions and a name

 

I loved everyone's suggestions for names for my new cutter.  I was standing in the kitchen yesterday telling my husband about all of the great names, when it hit me:

BUSTER! as in stashbuster!

 

On another note,

Martingale emailed me about their Black Friday sale

and they wanted me to share it with all of you.

It starts today.

 

Click HERE for the link.

Happy Shopping!

Wednesday's Wanderings #48 My New Toy & #49 WHEW!

Today I am posting 2 WWs since I am behind one.  This will bring me up to date with 5 more to go.  I chose to make 54 blocks, even though I committed to weekly or 52, but 52 isn't divisible by much.  So I chose to make 54, so I can make my 2012 wall hanging with a configuration of 9 across and 6 down. It's hard to believe that I have made 49 blocks already. Time does fly.

The block this week is about MY NEW TOY!!

It's hard to tell from the block, but it is supposed depict a bunch of 2 1/12" strips. 

And the significance?

A couple of weeks ago I went to my friend Betty's house.  I actually invited myself. I wanted to try one of the Accuquilt cutters.  She has the Studio model, which is the Papa bear of the trio.  If you follow my blog, you know that I am a  blue and white fabric lover.  I have so much of it that I keep the smaller pieces in a clear garbage bag. 

I brought this bag to Betty's house.  In 2 hours, including us talking, all of that fabric was cut up!

Most of it into 2 1/2" strips

A bit of it into half square triangles

and another bit of it into pieces that when sewn together makes a 5" block.

In less than 2 hours!!

My husband wants to know how many quilts it will make.  I don't know!

But I will pack it all to bring to Key West with me.  I think it will keep me busy for a while. 

 There are a lot of quilts that can be made with 2 1/2" strips :)

 I had a very busy  and productive year and worked very hard, so I decided to treat myself to my own Studio Cutter.  I gave up my desk, that is really only home to piles of papers.

I have not registered it yet, because they want you to name it.

Any ideas?

So I made my WW with scrap strips. 

I ironed a piece of freezer paper to the back of the fabric to stabilize it.

 I wrote on it with these markers.  The marker didn't bleed at all, but check out the label - washable. 

To keep the strips in place, I put a piece of white tuille on top of everything and quilted a grid.

My second block was based on my visit to court a few weeks ago.

I really wasn't arrested.  I went to court because of a traffic accident that I was involved in.

I was very nervous that I would have to talk to the judge.

It turns out all I had to do was say "yes".

But my DH and I joked about how I would look in an orange jumpsuit.

I asked him to bring me a coconut cake without a file.

It turns out everything was fine and I am off the hook.