The Greater Atlanta Quilt Shop Hop takes place in March each year and Intown Quilters (where I teach and work) is one of the participating shops. Shop Hop is an organized event with a group of quilt shops. People visit each shop during the event, taking a passport along with them and having it stamped at each destination. After completing the passport, they leave it at the final shop and are entered in a drawing for some big prizes. (In years’ past, the grand prize has been a BabyLock sewing machine!) Even if people don’t “hop” to all the shops, they can still enter in a prize drawing at each shop they visit. All the shops have special things like goodie bags and free quilt patterns for the occasion.

This year’s Shop Hop theme is Quilting…It’s Our Passion and IQ’s theme is Modern Meets Traditional. That means lots of samples and items relating to that theme. It’s been lots of fun planning samples, pulling together goodie bag items and figuring out cool displays for Shop Hop.

I even got inspired to design a quilt! Here’s a little sneak peek:

I named it “Dial-a-Quilt” and couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. OK, maybe a wee bit happier: the actually basting and quilting parts are not my strength (it may have been suggested to me that I take the machine quilting class at the shop) but I can live with it.

The quilt uses one of my current favorite fabrics (the vintage telephone print from Melody Miller’s Ruby Star Sparkle line for Kokka), green and blue blenders and the prettiest Essex Linen from Robert Kauffman (medium aqua). It’s based on a traditional log cabin block (one of my faves!), which I thought made it a good fit for our Shop Hop theme. Even cooler? The boss liked it enough to have me make kits of it to sell during Shop Hop!

I’ll post the full quilt once Shop Hop starts and maybe a link to the online kit after it’s over (if there are any kits left). And be sure to say “hi!” if you see me during Shop Hop!

In December, an amazingly talented seamstress friend married one of the nicest guys ever. It was a small affair but the bride was determined to craft as many of the decorations as possible and even made most of the food for her cake-and-punch reception.

And did I mention she designed and sewed the most unbelievably stunning vintage-style wedding dress ever?

She was still working on that dress a few days before the wedding and mentioned that she’d probably just pick up some flowers for her bouquet since it was unlikely she’d have time to craft the posies she’d planned. I asked if I could make one for her and she said, “yes.”

I’ve made a lot of things in my life but this kissing ball is probably one of the loveliest. I used my Clover Kanzashi Flower tools and some dupioni silk from stash, along with a mix of vintage and new buttons. Some of the covered buttons were made with my iTop button maker and others from one of the Prym/Dritz packaged button covers.

All told there are about 50 silk flowers attached to a smooth foam ball form with low-temp hot glue. I cut up small pieces of beaded bridal fabric to fit in some of the spaces between flowers.

I made my way through the first season of Hart of Dixie on Netflix while making the bouquet, my living room floor littered with bits of silk fabric and thread tails. That’s what friends are for.

I’ve been pretty slack in the blogging department for the past year but I’m determined to make it work (in the immortal words of the fabulous Tim Gunn). What better way to kick off than with my little muse and the quick project she requested.

I picked up the ruffled button-down on clearance at the Land’s End store inside Sears. As soon as she saw it, she said it needed a bow tie and vest.

Yeah, there’s no denying that face.

My talented friend Jona has a great pattern for a men’s/boy’s bow tie; surely it would work for Miss L, I thought. Yes and yes! I’m really tempted to whip out a few more of these for my girlie and maybe the men in my life, too. But first there’s that vest…