Chautauqua Quilts

Last weekend I went to the Quilting Around Chautauqua quilt show at the Chautauqua Institution in NY. There's this neighborhood of beautiful old homes, many of them are summer homes on the lake. They also do cultural events, I've been there twice before for performances. It was nice to get out of the house, and I definitely got my exercise- 800 quilts were spread out in buildings all over the general area. It might have been nice to have had someone with me, but I had fun and got to explore and see what I wanted. Both the houses and the quilts were inspirational. I love old houses and quilts so it was a great match.

Wouldn't you love to live here?

This little church was unique and really cute:

A tiny public garden that was cute, had some pagodas around:

A beautiful, huge hotel:

I think I found my house:

You know you're in a nice neighborhood when this is the "homely" house in the neighborhood!

And on to the quilts:



A beautiful 1800's fan quilt:

Cute to use log cabin squares as pumpkins:

I'm not always a fan of batiks, but they work well in this:

A cute Christmas log cabin, it'd be cute as a big quilt:

I love the log cabin/stars combo, but I'd do different colors:

What a cute snowman!

I don't always like "mod" quilts but I like this one (Basic Grey does scrapbook paper and fabric):

If you don't want to do a whole big quilt you can do a framed one, it could be cute:

I LOVE LOVE LOVE 30's fabric...here's a cute chicken wallhanging:

and 30's butterflies! The whole thing was like 18"sq.

1930's baskets were sweet in a wallhanging:
The mini quilts were amazing...this whole quilt is 11 and 3/4 inches square...each bear paw was tiny and amazingly exact! Whoever did this was really talented:

It was a fun afternoon, I was definitely the youngest person there! It was funny because the "soundtrack" for the day was listening to women ohh and awww over everything.

There were a lot more neat quilts but those were my faves. I'm trying to get into quilting, been reading books, hoarding fabric and collecting patterns for a few months now. I really have a fun time putting fabrics and patterns together...now I just have to actually do it! I really wish I had more space to do stuff like this!

I {heart} books!

I love love love art books. I love most books. I tend to prefer non-fiction over fiction, I don't know why. Anyhow, I thought I'd share some of my current fave books in my collection, I'll likely share more in the future.


I really have an interest in color theory and how your brain and eyes work. I think it's important to know about these things as an artist. One of my fave books is Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing by Margaret Livingstone. It really goes into (understandable) detail about how your brain and eyes work together and why certain works of art are more interesting than others. Love it. I also love visual illusions, it fits along with that topic. Some of the illusions are pretty trippy, who needs drugs? Haha.

One of my recent vintage purchases was this book, I loved the cover.......and especially the 1940's illustrations inside. I would like to make copies one day to frame, they're so cute. This book was made in the 40's when my grandma would have been learning to sew (she took several classes), so it makes me think of her.

Another recent purchase is the book Sew Darn Cute by Jenny Ryan. I really like this book, it has cute projects that are stylish yet relatively easy to do. I haven't done any of the projects yet, that's on the To Do List. I bought it at JoAnn's, gotta love coupons!

I recently found these books (still unpacking boxes after two years!) and I was so glad because I'd been looking for them. When my mother was a missionary in Colombia in the mid 1970's, she bought these fairy tale books that are written in Spanish. I grew up with them as a kid and I've always loved the illustrations. They're very nostalgic for me and now they live in my room.

Funny Story: When I was little I couldn't figure out for the life of me why I couldn't understand these books, not even when my mom would try to explain that they were in another language! It took me awhile to catch on. Eventually I did take Spanish in high school and now I can read them, though you get the gist of it with the pictures.

I have tons of books, I need more shelves! My bookcase (it only took 27 years to have my own! A dream has come true!!) is full and I have piles on the floor! I drool over IKEA catalogs and I dream of shelves....

Sew Fun

I found out from my JoAnn's coupons that September is National Sewing Month, who knew? I haven't done much sewing the last couple of weeks what with school and all, but I did sew quite a bit over the summer and still have some unfinished projects left over to do. I also have projects not even started! Anyhow, I thought I'd show what I was up to.



I got this pincushion pattern (I love it when patterns are on sale at JoAnn's!) ...note the turtle.

Only when I looked at the turtle, I saw....a ladybug!

I just ommitted the head and legs and changed the colors, I think it turned out pretty sweet:

Pincushions are comprised of little pieces which can be tricky but it's a good way to use your scraps. I couldn't stop there, had to make a groovy mushroom:




I used scraps of vintage fabric and sewed on some buttons for interest.

I love my butterfly quilting pins!

I wasn't thinking of my groovy sewing machine when I made the mushroom but they go together! Yes, I have an inner hippie, lol.

I came across a fab freebie pattern at Made By Rae for this adorable Buttercup Bag. If you buy the pattern, you get a larger version and the rights to sell the bag. One of these days I'll have to purchase the pattern so I can sell them and whatnot. I made several, it's a pretty easy pattern and it only takes a couple of fat quarters to make. I have fun mixing and matching fabric on these!

I made one in brown...

and one in yellow and bright green. When I bought the yellow, it was rolled up and I couldn't tell it was birds! That was a funny surprise!

And another in sunny yellow.

More bags in the works, at this rate I'll have one for every outfit!

National Sewing Month includes hand sewing, right? When I was going thru boxes this summer, I found a YW project I started forever ago when I was in Young Women's, some sort of wall hanging. I was such a procrastinator back then, lol. I had to finish hand sewing the black stitching around each heart, and sew on a button. Since Virtue was added recently to the YW values, I had to find some golden fabric (hard to find a shade not too yellow or too brown) and buy some fusible web and attach it to the left in the middle row. Then I added "YW values" on the other side so it was balanced. I have no idea what was supposed to go in those spaces, if anything. I think I will donate it to the YW room, it did feel really good to get it done!

I went to Salvation Army the other day, I love shopping at places like that. I found some good stuff, like this shower curtain with a large bfly print for only $1.99! I'm debating whether to leave it as a shower curtain or to cut it up for pillows or something. Hmmm.

You have to use your imagination when you go thrift shopping...I bought this burgandy velvet dress for $6. And yes, it's real velvet, not the stretchy stuff! I intend to take the dress apart to use the velvet for a project- you can't buy velvet this cheap at the fabric stores! I'm thinking about making an embossed velvet leaf wreath like what Martha Stewart did a few years ago.


I bought this flat sheet and matching pillowcase, it was such a cute print and I loved how it faded, too. I have a pattern for making a cute pillowcase tote bag, I'm not sure what I'll do with the sheet.

I have become even more obsessed with fabric this past year and I love sewing so you're likely to see more projects in the future! I'm trying out quilting now too. If you have any sugggestions for the fabric shown, I'd love to hear them!