Guide to Shopping and Eating in Downton LA's Fabric District!

Tomorrow is the kick-off of the annual American Sewing Guild Conference, which will be held this year here in Los Angeles! As a member of the host Los Angeles chapter of ASG, I gladly volunteered to help to put together a guide to the fabric district in downtown Los Angeles. The printed version of this guide will be distributed  to attendees of the conference this weekend, but for those of you who can't attend I share some of the highlights here. Bookmark it, share it, bring it with you the next time you head to the fabric district! Thank you to Sue Vite and Kathi Rank who contributed to this guide. I would love to hear your feedback - let me know what you think!
 

Work in Progress Wednesday #3

 This weekend I took a long-awaited class and got to work on a spiderweb quilt that has been on my bucket list. My plan is to use white linen with the crisp blue/green colors of Denyse Schmidt's "Picnic" line paired with some matching solids. I started out by cutting a LOT of strips. I have to say, one thing I learned by taking a "class" to start this (as opposed to just tackling it on my own, which is what I would usually do) is learning shortcuts and tricks. For a quilt this complex, that helps to save lots of time and headache! For example, this June Taylor Shape Cuts ruler that helped me cut accurate strips quickly.

 

This was my first time foundation piecing. Here I started with muslin half-square triangles and marked lines which were my guide for placing the strips for the spider web rings (using another June Taylor tool, the Grid marker).

The funny thing about this class was that with one exception, this was a completely "vintage Singer" class, I loved it! Look: each of these women has a featherweight! Mine didn't even fit in the shot! In addition there were two women who brought their Singer 401As, which is what I sew on at home.

After what felt like hours of cutting and marking, FINALLY I was finally ready to start sewing!

Here's the block so far arranged on the design board. I gotta say I love the way it's looking, but I really underestimated how time consuming this design is to put together. It's at least enough of a start that I feel confident chipping away at this on my own and the rest will most likely go more quickly.

I'm linking up to Lee @ Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday. Head over there to see what other folks are working on!

ZipZag Valleys Pillow Finished

So I am finally done and ready to ship of my package for my first swap! I hope my secret partner likes it. I'm calling this "Zig Zag Valleys" pillow. Can you guess why? I used Denyse Schmidt's "Hope Valley" fabric, which is one of my swap partner's favorite lines. And mixed with grey solids. Here the pillow isn't completely stuffed, I'm planning to send it flat with a pillowform  my partner can fill.

Here's a close-up of the quilting and my favorite bit of selvage that made an appearance. I only quilted the solid parts of the top, both to let the prints stand out and to draw attention to the zigzag shape. The quilted lines are really dense, more or less 1/4 apart, to give a nice texture.

The piping is one of my favorite touches! I made it from another Denyse Schmidt fabric line, "Picnic".  I think the print coordinates well with the brighter color giving a nice "pop" to the pillow.

Here is the pillow unstuffed. The finished size is almost the size of a king size pillowcase, about 32x15. Back has a lapped zip closure. Instructions for this project is in Malka's Dubrawsky's book, "Fresh Quilting".

 

I'm linking up to Megan @ Canoe Ridge Creations for Sew Modern Monday. Click on over and see what other folks have finished this week!