Pink Chowder: Bloggers Quilt Festival Quilt

Hello old and new friends! I am so happy you are here. Welcome.

I am re-sharing Pink Chowder today as my entry in the Bloggers Quilt Festival hosted by Amy's Creative Side. I decided to enter it as a large quilt.

This is my favorite quilt I have ever made. I finished it a couple of months ago and I still just stare at it sometimes thinking, "I made that" (picture a wondering look and an awed voice). 

This quilt is me. 

It was born from a late evening desire to start a new project, when I just started randomly grabbing some of my favorite and most precious fabrics. I brought that giant stack of fabric to a retreat with my best sewing people and then I met the Accuquilt die cutter and the, then brand new, clam die. I knew I had to learn to sew curves just so I could turn my stack of fabric into a clam quilt. 

The reasons this is my favorite quilt of all time:

1.) I learned so much sewing this quilt. These are my first curves ever. It was my first time using the Accuquilt.

2.) I used some of my most hoarded fabrics on this quilt. Now when I look at it I get so see little happy surprises everywhere. Reminding me to use my hoarded fabrics!

3.) Some of my best sewing people gave me scraps to use in this quilt. Now every time I see those clams, I think of them. 

4.) It is pink and aqua. 

5.) There are cats on it. 

6.) I did it. I felt like I was really starting to get this quilting thing while working on this quilt. The quilting looks so good, the clams came together so well, and the colors just make me smile. It gives me such a sense of accomplishment.

Thanks for stopping by! Thanks for being patient about seeing this quilt twice on here. I think you are the best. I love this community and this festival illustrates everything that is good about the online quilting world. I only just wish we were at a real quilt festival 'cause then we could meet. Maybe have a coffee? I would love to hear about your day. 

Pink Chowder Stats

Size: 72" by 72"

Pattern: I used the Accuquilt to cut my clams, but you check out The Quilt Engineer's pattern on Craftsy here. 

Fabric: Too many to list. Just so many bits of precious in this one. 

Quilting: Organic matchstick quilting with Aurifil Thread done by me on my home machine.

Finished: January 2014

Sewing People are the Best People. Creeper and Rainbow Dash Pillows.

I sat down to recap my past couple of weeks and then I started to feel a bit overwhelmed trying to remember everything and commit everything that has happened to pixels. What if I forget something important?

Then I realized, you won't know if I forget something. In fact, you may secretly be hoping I forget something so I just get on with this post already. I am not Tolstoy, we can keep this down to a quick read.

So here you go, I went to Austin, Texas.

I went to Austin to attend the Society for American Archaeology's annual meeting. At this meeting, my coworker and I were co-chairing a session (!!!!!). Writing about this I realize I have residual butterflies in my stomach. This is a sewing blog, so you all don't care that people came to my session or that it was well received. You may care to note that I did not vomit in the conference.

This post is not about a boring archaeology conference, it is about how sewing people are the best people. Before my conference, I spent two nights and approximately two days hanging with one of my bestest internet/real life sewing friends Amy. Amy and her two little boys picked me up from the airport, we ate lots of queso, drank some tequila drinks, I got to read a bedtime story (omg, the cuteness), we drank some beer, we ate some queso, went fabric shopping, did some sewing, did some hanging out, and ate some more.

Amy and her family really know how to show a girl a good time.

Before I left for Austin, I asked Amy what her boys liked. She told me they and just gotten bunk beds and we decided they could use new pillows. I had so much fun tailoring these pillows to each boy's taste.

Gus is five. He loves Rainbow Dash, sparkly things, and rainbows. I decided to make him a Rainbow Dash cutie mark pillow. I also fount this rainbow dash ribbon on Etsy. The rainbow lightning bolt is unfortunately something I sketched out and did not save my original. But, paper piecing for the win!

Bowie is eight. He love science, Minecraft, and paracord knot tying (????). I went with the creeper design I found through Amy's help and some google searches. I love this so much! Those patchwork pixels make me so happy.

I put their first initials on the back. Each pillow measures approximately 19" to fit in a 20" pillow form. They are all quilted with Aurifil thread and mostly pieced with Kona solids.

If anyone here has kids (or is around kids) you know presents are hit and miss. Let's be real and say at five or eight I might have thought a pillow was a totally lame present. As Amy put it, you just never know when they will forget their manners. But that was totally not the case with Bowie and Gus! They loved the pillows! They were bringing them all over the house with them while I was there and they slept with them at night! Bowie even played a game of Minecraft on his Minecraft pillow, just because he loved it. It made me happy (As a side note, they were also super polite and well-mannered).

This post is long enough. I will stop here, happy boys, happy Sarah. Amy is a rock star. Sewing people are the best people.

Love you all.

Hugs and kisses.