Hello My Name Is Sophie ... And this is my 1000th Blog Post

Hello, my name is Sophie and this is my 1000th blogpost at Sophie Junction.

For an occasional blogger like me, it feels pretty impressive. Considering I started blogging here in October, 2005, it's probably less impressive, but still shows some sort of perseverance, I suppose, and is worth mentioning and, maybe even, celebrating a little.

Of course, since 2005, I've blogged in other places–some old and new blogs on Blogspot, some group blogs, and on the BlockLotto.com and so I know the real number of posts by me in blogland  could easily be double that number ...

Yesterday, I made the name badge above for guild meetings, it measures 2 3/4 by 3 1/2 inches–close to the size of the stick on labels on which it was based. Although I purposely placed the letters in HELLO askew to make it clear that it was made from fabric and thread, at least one person was surprised when I said something about adding that binding.

Sunday night, I finished stitching down the piped binding on the 6 by 8 inch Sophie Junction stitchery.

It has replaced the old street sign at the top of this blog ... though I have some ideas about tweaking the design a little more.  After 1000 blog posts, the design probably deserves a little attention.

While I haven't given up working on my technique with that faux-piped binding technique, this little piece has REAL piping ... which is still much more in my comfort zone.

You can also get a close look at some of the free-motion quilting here.  My intent was to create quilty texture, though if you look close you can see that I was thinking about the pine covered mountains, low clouds, scruffy grasses and occasional flowers that I can see from my studio.


A giveaway seems to  be in order.  Since something shiny and new is not in my budget these days, I thought I might offer a collection of fabrics from my stash in a color-way of your choosing in a quilted tote with along with a little something made by me for you.

I was thinking of a plain, functional tote like this one, though this will be made for you and so I'll want your input.

I's also like to include a little something, a pin a pincushion,  a sewing kit, a small pillow cover, a mug rug, a little doll-sized quilt, or even a skinkin' name badge of your very own ...  or some other small thing that I've made or that you'd like me to make for you that you'd like to have.

Here are some of those little things I've made for myself and others that might give you some ideas about what you'd like to find in your tote if you won.

To enter, leave a comment telling me what color fabrics you'd like from my stash and what little made-by-me surprise would put a smile on your face and would be useful to you.  I'll pick a winner when I wake up next Monday (5/26) morning.

I considered joining the massive SMS giveaway train last week, but decided that this giveaway is a thank you to those that already follow along with my mis-adventures in quilting and life, not a carrot to attract new followers.  Perhaps I have lasted through those seven and a half years and 1000 blog posts because I do this for fun, not personal or commercial gain ... and I do believe that if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right. (I even have that quote engraved on the back of my iPad.)

Tick Tock - the Deadline Clock is Ticking

Have you entered the giveaway for Elizabeth's beautiful hand-dyed fabrics on the Block Lotto?

You still have time.  The deadline is Saturday morning.

Like the Block Lotto and Win Hand-Dyed Fabrics

I've Been Lucky Lately

I had fun with my own little giveaway during the Quilting Gallery's recent blog hop–I loved reading the comments about what everyone collects.  I also won a couple of the giveaways myself.

I picked up the last package yesterday after standing in the longest Post Office line ever. It was so worth it.

Cynthia, from Quilting is More Fun Than Housework, offered an interesting set of fabrics that I thought would be a great starting point for the Block Lotto sampler quilt I plan to make next year. She also included a copy of Quilty magazine (with her quilt in it!) and some cotton stuffing–perfect from some pincushions I plan to make.

The tiny buttons are from Incomparable Buttons in South Africa–their blog is Button Mad. I think they'd be great added to a basket block (I can't help it, I love basket quilts) or on a summer blouse.

The Japanese Garden pattern, by Emily, The Caffeinated Quilter, was my choice of some of her patterns–you can see them all here.  It's a very clever design, made from 6 inch Winding Ways blocks.  I have some old, never used acrylic templates from John Flynn for an 8 inch block (which he refers to by it's other name, Wheel of Mystery).  I'm thinking that if I make the quilt from the large blocks, instead of a 54-inch square quilt, I'll be making an 72-inch square quilt ... and may add borders for a bed-sized quilt.

I'm thinking that my larger Japanese Garden may be more  of a Jardin Provençal because I keep seeing the last of the giveaways won in that quilt: a stack of fifteen FQs of Sally's Provencial  by Iron Orchid Designs.

Not in the photo is the license for Adobe Creative Cloud that I won from Spoonflower last week.  Yep, I do feel like a lucky girl.

Thank you again to Cynthia, Emily, Sally, Spoonflower and Incomparable buttons.  Some of these blogs were new to me and I have glad to find these interesting, creative, generous artists.

The 2014 Tea Towel Challenge and How I Became a Collector

Welcome to my blog stop on the Quilting Gallery's Giving Thanks - Quilter's Blog Hop Party.

I am thankful for the support of quilting friends and strangers and the way interesting things happen when you share a little idea on the great big internet ... which is how the 2014 Tea Towel Challenge began.


It was this post on the Spoonflower blog and this lovely Tea Towel Calendar design by Julie that got me thinking about how much fun I had using a tea towel as a design element in a quilt earlier this year and how maybe I should challenge myself to do it again.

Then I began to wonder if anyone would like to join me. I sent email to a few quilters and casually mentioned it near the bottom of a blog post last week.  The response was very encouraging ... and then, the great tea towel hunt began.  My email has been filled with messages containing  links to beautiful tea towels, new and vintage and announcements of, "I've found my tea towel" and "My tea towel is here."

Although I had already ordered the fairytale calendar, I found myself wanting more and bidding on eBay auctions ... which is how I became a tea towel collector in spite of myself. All my tea-towel orders arrived, in one fell swoop, yesterday.

And that's how my tea towel collection began.  It includes some of Julie's Fairytale yardage which I will share with the winner of my giveaway for the Blog Hop Party. To enter the drawing, leave me a comment by Saturday night and tell me what you collect–either by intention or ... accident. If you are a No-Reply blogger, make sure that I have a way to contact you if you win. I love this panel as a Tea Towel, as an element in a quilt or maybe as a tote bag. I'll choose a winner on Sunday.

If you're wondering what happens when you make a quilt from a tea towel, here are two wonderful quilts made by two of the challengers from earlier this year.



Read more about Tea Towel Tess (on the left) here:  Tess Waits No More.  Miki's quilt for her pink-loving daughter, Bella, is blogged here: Update on my Tea Towel Quilt.  They started with two very different tea towels and made two very different–both fabulous–quilts.

If you are inspired to join the challenge and make a quilt from a tea towel, I hope you will follow along and share your project.

I have put together some suggested guidelines, a timeline and a few check points ... and a blog badge with a handy link back to my Tea Towel Challenge 2014 tab that contains all the basic information and will track our progress.

Suggested Guidelines

1. Your quilt must include a tea towel–it can be new or vintage.
2. The colors in the tea towel determine the color palette for your quilt. 
3. Try something new. Since this one is defined by you, it can be anything and is an opportunity to add your own personal guidelines to the challenge.

Timeline & Check-ins

End of 2013 - Decide to participate, blog your commitment and join the linky list below.
January - Tea towel and fabric selection
February- In-progress report
March - Finished project show & tell


Are you in? Blog your intention, link back to the Tea Towel Challenge 2014 page (or add the blog badge) and enter your link below.

Remember: to enter the drawing for the Fairytale Calendar tea towel, leave a comment. To join the Tea Towel Challenge next year, ALSO join the linky list.

Is it Luck or Synchronicity?

Lately, I've been lucky and won some wonderful things from blog giveaways.

The latest is the Feathered Stars book and add-a-quarter ruler, from Quiltmaker. When I entered the drawing a few weeks ago, I knew I had committed to, but not yet begun the #365-feathers project. I plan to make my first paper foundation pieced feathered star from that book later today.

But, as for the rest, some happy instances of synchronicity have happened. I was thrilled to win Judy Dales ' class book on designing and sewing curves from Angie's Blog. Until it arrived and I was flipping through it, I had forgotten all about this bird ... which became my project number 8 of the Daily Feather.

I love this bird so much ... but am a little less than happy with my curved piecing.  Next, I plan to hand pieced another–I hope that by slowing down, I'll be able to really see how the pieces need to go together.

Then one day, as I was looking at fabrics with a future feather project in mind, I noticed the color palette I was thinking about was very close to those colors in the beautiful Pat Sloan fabrics in the fabric tassel, won on her blog ... so you can expect to see those beauties turning up as a daily feather in the future, too.

Those itty bitty paper pieces for making a miniature Dresden quilt have NOTHING to do with feathers, but I expect they will provide a necessary break if the feather theme starts to feel stale ... and what better fabrics to use than that pretty tone-on-tone rainbow, provided by Kathy.

I don't know if I'm looking at the world through feather-colored glasses or if the universe is, in it's way, providing the support to keep me on this feathered path.  Either way, lately, I'm feeling like a lucky girl and the feather-themed ideas just keep coming.

I'm joining Esther's WOW list–her new BOM starts Friday! and WIPS Wednesday on Freshly pieced, because sometimes, progress is made, simply by deciding on fabrics or patterns and getting it organized in a way that it suddenly becomes do-able.

56 Shades of Gray ... and more Goodies from the Post office

It's so much more fun to go to the post office when you come home with fabric and other quilty goodness.

I participated in the Shades of Gray fabric charms swap–my first fabric swap in years.

It reminded how, when I first began to quilt, I joined many, MANY fabric swaps in online groups.  It was a great way to build a scrappy stash and I still have a few of the many 4-inch wide-of-fabric (WOF) strips, 10-inch squares, fat eighths and fat quarters swapped so long ago.

I gave up my swap-a-holic ways long ago, but since I didn't have much variety in the gray fabrics in my stash, when I saw the shades-of-gray swap, I saw an opportunity to enrich my collection.

Here's the stack of 56 charm squares that I sent  and the 56 shades of gray that were returned to me–I'm not sure they'll sit in my stash for long ... I keep thinking of things to do with them.

Also in my post box were the patterns below, won in a giveaway on Glen's blog, Quilts and Dogs.

I love Edyta Sitar's patterns and I love these tulips–I'm thinking wall-hanging to be ready to hang next Spring.  The Hula Hoops pattern looks like a great pattern when a large quilt is needed quickly. Thank you Glen.

Lunch with Jane

A couple of weeks ago I won a copy of Jane Sassaman's new book, Patchwork Sassaman Style.

Today, during lunch, I walked to the PO and picked up my mail, including this fabulous book.  Then I walked over to a nearby restaurant for lunch with Jane('s book.) 

Both lunch and the book could be described as VERY TASTY ... and that glass of Pinot Grigio was quite tasty, too :-)

Jane inspires and gives the reader a lot of insight into her design process.  She educates with great "recipes" for 20 quilts with clear instructions.  I also love that she references the traditional blocks that inform the design and layout of her quilts ... I am not a fan of designers who rename well known traditional blocks in their patterns. And she further illuminates her designs by presenting (and explaining) variations on her recipes--one of them features the same Potato Vine fabric as my Prairie Gothic wing chairs.

Thank you, Dragon Threads, for sponsoring this giveaway.

Thank you, Anita Grossman Solomon, for hosting the give-away on your Make It Simpler blog and choosing my name.

Thank you, Jane Sassaman,  for creating another brilliant book for quilters.  I'm thrilled to add it to my resource library.

I've Got Bad News and Good News

First the bad news ...

Despite a sizeable investment for which I was told my entire brake system had been replaced last year ... I found myself without brakes and learned that the brake LINES had not yet been replaced.

A friend gave me a ride home from the brake shop and I found the good news of the day in an email from Robyn: I won the Quilt Le Tour de France Giveaway on her blog, Coffee & Cotton.

At home, I'm still unpacking–I'm almost ready to figure out where all the fabric goes . . . and Grace has found a new obsession: the fireplace.

The weather outside is frightful, but . . .

Inside, look what arrived in my mail box today.

 

These were part of Karen's 500th blog post give-away.  I fell in love with the aqua fabrics she used in her Dutch Treat quilt and am excited to have some of those.  After my recent nightmare experience in marking, I'm curious to try the quilt pounce tool and I know I'll use the small rotary ruler and the scissors lariat.  The McKenna Ryan pattern is gorgeous.

Thank you, Karen.

It's cold enough outside that anything that was wet from all the rain is now frozen.  I have to go out in it tonight, but, until I have to go out in it,  I think I'll spend the day inside, admire the gifts in the give-away package and play with fabric. 

Very Mary and Synchronicty

Very Mary had a giveaway on Friday and I won! Thank you, Mary.



And, as it turns out, some of this sweet floral upcycled, fabric will be just perfect for the lotto blocks we're making for May . . . hint, hint, hint. Isn't Synchronicity a wonderful thing?