Megan Sowyer

I've been following watercolor artist /maker Megan Swoyer  (www.greenbushmedia.com)
 for some time now on Instagram. (meganswoyer)

I was made aware of her work by my daughter who worked under Megan at a local/regional publication.

I've been admiring her work, and kept hoping my life/schedule would allow me to take a class with her but that hasn't happened yet.

I did, however, get the opportunity to meet up with her a couple of weeks ago and see some of her work AND I left our meeting with a nice little bag of her scraps.

I immediately went home and spread them out all over the floor.  

At first I had a hard time figuring out exactly what I could do.  The fabrics are a heavier weight than quilting cotton, so i needed to be concerned about bulk.

Also, they are larger, directional prints so I had to take that into account.

And lastly....self-doubt crept into my thoughts .

  The kind of self-doubt that I find paralyzing at times. 

Even worse than self-doubt is my terrible habit of procrastinating.
Here it is, OCTOBER 26.  Well over a month since my meeting with Megan and I am JUST NOW finishing up this blog post.
I'm going to partially blame my daughter who told me I really needed to make an extra effort in staging pics of my makes...
Frankly, I'm just happy to finish things.  Take a picture and share before I no longer care or even have the item I made. 

Now comes feelings of guilt that it has taken me so long to post this.
(My head Is indeeed hanging in shame.)

So here goes.

(This is going to be SO anti-climactic!)

 I made this from a pattern I have used many times.
It's the Ca$h and Carry by Atkinson Designs.

So...there's one project.

And here's Rex, showing a super simple little eyeglass case.  This one has a simple lining but no batting.

 I will make another WITH the batting so that it has more body and will hold the glasses a bit more snuggly.


So there you have it.  There is more to show, but it is going into the next blogpost.
(procrastination.....)

S

Charity Sewing

A little charity sewing...

 

 

5" sqs, cut from thrifted shirts and scraps from stash.

S 

Another Pixel Heart

How many pixel hearts will be too many?

(How many have I shared?)

(I think there are 3 you haven't seen yet!)

This time around...I used 2.5" squares rather than 5" squares.

The result was a baby sized quilt.

Terrible lighting has that left side of the quilt looking yellow and wont allow the quilting to show.

I'll take a better pic after it's been bound....

Just wanted to share.

S

A Quick Peek...

Here's a quick peek at one of the projects I made at the 

Tri-County Quilt Guild retreat this week.

Just a quick little zip bag, made with Nancy's scraps.

S

For Haley

Just a little something for a fellow maker.....

 S

A Simple Finish

My original mini-group members will know what this quilt is supposed to be.

It's my decade-late 

Library Quilt.

Inspired by a quilt that we saw one afternoon at the 

Oxford, Michigan library,

it became our Material Girl's challenge for that year.

The other three members of the group made their own beautiful versions...

I, on the other hand, for whatever reason which is now long forgotten, never made mine.

So last month, rather than work on something that I was supposed to be working on ,started and finished making this little quilt in just a couple days.

It is comprised mostly of thrifted shirt fabric with a few of Nancy's scraps.

Backed with a happy blue and white polka dot, bound with some leftover binding, I can both proudly and sheepishly announce that my Library Quilt is complete.

I will be donating it to the Tri-County Quilt Guild this next month.

S

My Bucket List

My bucket list got shorter this summer.

This past August I went to the AQS show in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was fortunate enough to get to take a class with Joe Cunningham.

He has been on my bucket list ever since I created one for myself.

The class I took was Rock The Block

My original plan was to use all neutrals...but that was derailed when Joe critiqued our fabrics and he pushed me to use more color.

And so, I took the chance, dove into my fabric and created 

CatTastrophe!

I wasn't immediately in love with the quilt when it was just a top, and it sat, folded up, in my project bag for a couple months.  I pulled it out and decided to just get it quilted and be done with it.

Once quilted, I absolutely loved it.

It was a wavy mess after the circular quilting, so I blocked it and it flattened right out.

 It's a great tangible memory of a fun week.  Many thanks to Joe Cunningham for pushing me to try something new!

(www.joethequilter.com)

S

Black Cat

This is one week during the year where I tend to focus on getting things done, and here is the first finish I have to share.

Black Cat

Kit by Laura Heine / Fiberworks

Quilted with Neon Affinity thread.

I bought the kit at the AQS show in Grand Rapids this past August.

It was a fun challenge...a technique that I haven't tried before and I'm feeling good about the outcome.

I have a couple other Fiberworks kits in my stash, and I'm looking forward to making another!