Admiring the Finish

I mended my friend Cheryl's little black dress for a special occasion. And I finished it two weeks in advance, not the day of the event, so I was very pleased with myself. I texted Cheryl to say I would be brining the dress back to her that evening. Done and done. 

But wait, there is more.....

When I got to Cheryl's home, neighbors were waiting there to see the dress. There was pizza.  People patted me on the back and offered to get me drinks. The dress was handed around for each person to admire the new zipper I had just finished. Then a guy I didn't even know played Pomp and Circumstance on his phone while a tiny parade returned the dress to a place of honor in Cheryl's closet. I know, I couldn't believe it either. It was like being in a Beatrix Potter story. It was an actual mending party!

So I'm relaying this strange but beautiful circumstance to ask; how do you celebrate your craft?

Are you like me?  The minute I finish a quilt, I start another quilt. 

It has never occurred to me to be like Cheryl's neighborhood and truly recognize the finish. Even after reviewing Visible Mending here on the blog, and believing i had a new found attitude of celebrating stitches, and thereby fearlessly creating more art pieces , wow - it still never dawned on me to just honor a finish. 

Next time... I'll wear my tiara. What will you do?

Bergamot Reveal

Bergamot is here!

My writing club friend, Sylvia, asked me to design a cat quilt.

Sylvia raises those adorable Ragamuffin cats. You can contact Sylvia at KeepsakeKats.com and she will help you prepare your home for a super sweet extra fluffy kitten of your very own.

In the meantime, you can make your own Bergamot cat quilt bed runner! 

Bergamot includes directions for Honey-Bun piecing and for piecing from stash/yardage. Best of all,  he is available in every format:

Booklet

PDF

eBook 

Do me a favor, OK? Whichever format you choose, please let me know how it looks. This is first time I formatted an eBook. And I learned a lot, so I was able to make some fancy upgrades to the PDF style. For the Booklet, I chose A5 size because it will fit in a pattern envelope for LQS.

Here is a hack to save you some yardage when making Bergamot. If you don't mind matchy-matchy, you can create the end panels and the backing from only 2 yards. The backing will have 3 pieces. 

BTW, Bergamot has two background fabrics. Background B is the lower part of quilt, and makes a rug for catto sit on. You know, so he's not floating in a single background. Otherwise, he is simple row-by-row construction. The pattern even has a piecing chart for each row - foolproof:)

Collage Quilt Planning

 

I want to try and quilt this vintage travel poster using 

Sandi's method in @Quiltcabana ebook, Fabric Sketch Collage

 

 

I think it's a good candidate for collage quilting, except for the beach(?) background.

I might dumb that down a lot.  Any advice?

 

And what if we changed the sky to blue?

hmmm...……

 

Anyway, Sandi's book is great, you should try it.

She makes a scary new technique simple and fearless.

I'm inspired :)