Row by Row Experience

Did you participate in last year’s Row by Row Experience shop hop during the summer? If I counted right, a friend and I went to about 30 shops over several day trips. We stopped in shops from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut. I even did a couple extra on the way to and from doctor’s appointments in Massachusetts. And I started out great, making rows as soon as I got the patterns. Now, as is my habit, it all sits in a project box waiting to be finished.

The 2016 Row by Row Experience theme is Home Sweet Home. I’m sure this is going to produce some wonder row patterns. You can look at their website and blog for more information. There is a fabric line from TimelessTreasures, designed by Debra Gabel, coming out now. Hancock’s of Paducah has it on sale! There is also a coloring book available.It looks like the shops will be listed by state on Facebook. If you don’t know, you do not have to belong to Facebook in order to view public pages.

I found a blog post from The Little Green Bean on how to make a fabric map, complete with .studio files for each state. I don’t have a Cameo cutting machine to use the files but I am planning on getting a Brother Scan n Cut in the near future. You can convert the cutting files to your format but I’ll save how for another post, once I’ve actually done it. If you have a summer road trip planned you could combine that with Row by Row quilt shop stops and make a map of your trip. I’m envisioning a black map outline with scrappy states appliqued for where you were. My family took a trip to California from Connecticut when I was 7. I have the atlas that mom marked, and lots of photos. Wouldn’t that make a fun memory wall quilt?

Thanks for visiting, and don’t forget to share this blog with your friends.

Mary

More Embroidered Monogram

Just a quick post today to share the next part of the Ruby Short McKim Monogram Font from the Decatur Review.

Click on image to save.

To download a pdf version click here.

Please share this blog with your friends who might enjoy it.

Thanks, 
Mary

Ruby Short McKim Embroidery

To introduce Ruby Short McKim’s designs I am going to post a weekly alphabet installment. This is intended for use as an embroidered monogram with both left and right versions of the letters provided. Ruby designed this during the early part of the Art Deco period. There’s a nice article about this style, popular in the 1920s to 1940s, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco.

Click on image to save.

To download a pdf version click here.

I found these in the Decatur Review newspaper from Decatur, Illinois. I do a lot of genealogy research and there are historical newspapers included in my Ancestry.com subscription. Decatur is in the middle of Illinois in farm country. I lived in Bloomington/Normal for five years in the 80s. It was a shock to move from New England to the middle of the corn fields!

Thanks for looking today. Please share this blog with your friends who might enjoy it. 

Thanks, 

Mary

Welcome Back!

Welcome to the revival of my blog. I spent the last three years having two spine surgeries. Now I need my knees replaced. It’s never going to be a perfect time to relaunch so I’m starting today. I make no guarantees as to the frequency that I’ll post. Mostly, if I want to share something I’ll post it. This can be what others are doing, or something I’m doing. I spend way too much time on my computer reading other’s blogs. It is time to shift the balance to my work.

I am in the process of trying to clean/organize/purge my sewing room. This hasn’t been done in several years and it’s gotten entirely out of hand. I don’t even know where some of the fabric I’ve found came from. But Sew Mama Sew just happened to have an article today about possible places to donate fabric you no longer want. As hard as it is to let anything go, I must. I will never sew all the projects I have in mind and it’s time to accept that. Visit http://www.sewmamasew.com/2016/03/12-places-to-donate-your-unwanted-fabric/.

A fellow member and I are writing the finishing instructions for a block of the month pattern for our guild, Seabreeze Quilt Guild, and as part of that I am going to add some general reference pages with cutting sizes, basic block sewing, etc., here. The program started in July 2015 and will finish in June 2016. I am also about to start writing the July 2016 – December 2016 shorter pattern with the hope that some quilters will be able to finish in time for the biennial guild quilt show in April 2017.

The other big project I’m preparing is a tribute to Ruby Short McKim. It is the 100^th anniversary of her first pattern publication.  Most quilters are probably familiar with 101 Patchwork Patterns. The website has all the patterns as downloadable pdfs, including templates for hand piecing. I am going to write rotary cutting instructions and create a sampler from some number of the 101 blocks. I haven’t settled on a quilt design yet so the number is up in the air. It will be about half of the blocks, I think. Applique blocks will be offered in addition to a rotary block sometimes. I’d like to think I could post one block a week after I get going, but that will take us into next year, for sure. No commitment necessary. Sew as many or as few of the blocks as you like.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Mary