The happy campers return

Mother's Day weekend was spent camping with Martina's Girl Scout troop.  It was the first time Martina and I had ever been camping, and it was great fun.  I love the outdoors, but when all's said and done, I like to be safe from bears and other wild animals, have access to running water, flushing toilets and such.  The trip to Live Earth Farm in Watsonville, CA was the perfect way to ease non-campers, such as Martina and myself, into communing with nature.

The previous weekend was the monthly meeting of the Bay Area Modern quilt guild, which I always leave feeling so inspired.  Afterwards, I felt the burning need to buy fabric, start a new project, and organize my stash.

The urge to buy fabric actually came before Saturday's meeting.  An hour before, to be exact.  I carpool with Julie of the Intrepid Thread, and I met her at her shop.  I purposely did not bring money in a paltry attempt to avoid buying fabric.  While we were waiting for the third person in our carpool to arrive, I saw Rhapsodia from Art Gallery Fabrics.  I fell hard. After the meeting, back at the shop, I found myself telling Julie "Paypal me, please."  I left with the beautiful bundle below.

I feel compelled to admit I had no intention of buying Rhapsodia.  I'm a huge Art Gallery Fabrics fan, but I thought I'd wait for the release of Indie for my next major fabric spree.  A SAHM has to carefully consider her purchases.  When I saw Rhapsodia face-to-face though, it was over.  This collection is gorgeous, and the photos online just don't do it justice.  I bought 1/2 yards of my favorite prints from the collection, plus enough yardage of this print to make myself a summer dress.

Last Sunday afternoon, I started cutting fabric.  Not Rhapsodia, which needs to be petted and admired for a while first, but Poetica.  (Remember this post?)  Martina bought a FQ bundle as soon as it was released.  This quilt at the BAM quilt guild meeting, made with Bespoken, was the push I needed to start her quilt.  Poetica has been petted and admired long enough.  Here's a sneak peek at what it will become:

Half of the blocks are done, and the remaining will be done in coordinating colors of Pure Elements.  Fingers crossed that I'll have the quilt top done by next month's guild meeting. 

As for the stash organization, that fell to the wayside.  Sleeping bags, flashlights, mess kits and a tent had to be acquired for the big camping trip.  Maybe this week.  Maybe.

Sewing the day away

It's hard to believe we're heading into the last week or so of the January.  I've got quite a bit of sewing on my plate for various bees and swaps.  Thank goodness for my local modern quilt guild's Sew Day over the weekend.  What quilter can resist the lure of a day of camaraderie and sewing?  Not I!  What a great opportunity to get those projects done (but more on that in a bit). 

One of the projects I brought along was my lot of red and teal wonky plus blocks from this Flickr swap.  Sadly, I couldn't use all the blocks I received from the swap because of the broad interpretation of red and teal, so my mission was to make replacements.   A fellow guild member who participated in the same swap was also making blocks for the same reason.  She and I traded a few fabrics and knocked out some blocks to supplement what we kept.  We donated the others to the guild for a charity quilt.  I've still got four more to make before these beauties can become a quilt top:

My bag was full of other projects I brought along (what was I thinking?), but in six hours of sewing time I only made four blocks.  If you've read my post about Open Sew at the local LQS, you'll see I'm a slow sewer.  Quite a bit of time was spent talking to the other guild members and admiring their work.  So many inspiring projects being made, among them Swoon blocks.  I've admired Swoon for a while but have been put off by the size of the blocks (24.5 inches!!!).  After seeing them at Sew Day and more on Flickr, I'm positively smitten and most probably will join the Swoon-Along.

The rest of my time was spent discussing guild charity business with the other charity co-coordinator.  There's an amazing spirit of generosity and good will in the guild.  Jennifer and I have received so much support for the newly launched charity program in the form of fabric and orphan block donations, ideas, and general enthusiasm.  There's been a high rate of participation in making blocks for our first charity project.  So far, we've got one completed quilt, one in the process of being quilted and bound by one of our guild members, and two more guild members took home blocks on Sew Day to make into quilt tops.  Not too shabby for the first month of the program!