I entered my first Fair! I saw an Instagram post that the Lincoln Modern Quilt Guild posted about quilts being entered into the local County Fair. I had a couple days to decide, and I decided I would be able to finish one in time, and I had three I wanted to submit. I filled out the form, finished hand sewing the binding on the largest one, and dropped them off a week ago. I haven’t entered a quilt show or Fair or anything else before, so I was a little nervous about leaving them behind – they took so long to make and so much went into them – in the way of fabric, and time and trial and error and skill learning, and custom quilting! Judging was to be done the next day before the Fair opened.
Fast forward to Saturday and we went to the Fair, with Demolition Derby tickets for that night. We wanted to arrive a few hours early to look around the Fair at the activities and see some events, and go check on my quilts that I dropped off. We finally made it over to the room where the quilts were displayed and I saw Minecraft right away – with a tag with my name on it! I turned around to see my Gravity quilt, larger than life and bold in color – and I excitedly said “that’s mine!”. I took a photo of Minecraft on display, one with my son in front of Minecraft (it is his quilt…) and I waited for Gravity to be clear.
I walked over to my Gravity quilt and saw the white tag with my name on it again – and under the white tag was a red ribbon – 2nd Place for the Bed Size Quilts Class! I’m not exactly sure how the ribbons work with the Class being Bed Quilts and having 12 subclasses, but I was so surprised – and happy – to see a ribbon attached!
I was talking with the Lincoln Modern Quilt Guild Rep that was there about how excited I was to have a ribbon, and my husband took my photo – I asked if I could hold up the ribbon while he took the photo – she allowed it only because it was my quilt. You are not allowed to touch the quilts! I didn’t touch any but my own. And then I said I had one more entered that I hadn’t found yet. I turned to the next section and I found my third quilt entry – the Small Quilts Class – and I entered it into the Embroidery category. Under the name tag on this quilt was a blue ribbon! I couldn’t believe it – two ribbons and one of them was blue! I received a First Place Blue Ribbon! I was hoping Gravity would get me some positive feedback, as I worked really hard on that one and I thought my piecing was pretty good, and the quilting is beautiful (Thank you Teresa Silva: Quilting Is My Bliss). I was not expecting a blue ribbon for the Embroidery Panel quilt – but I am so happy I received it!
We talked about how they had a National judge come in who gave some really specific feedback (looking forward to and a little scared of that). And we talked about the Lincoln Modern Quilt Guild – my husband basically signed me up on the spot.
For now, I’m just very excited that my first quilt entry was a success. I did not expect to receive 2 ribbons but I am very happy. I am looking forward to having the quilts back home. And the ribbons.
Have you heard about the new Harry Potter game that was released on Friday? It’s called Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. My family downloaded it and we all created character names, but I’m not as far into as they are – I never played the Pokemon game so I’m still trying to figure it all out!
But with the release of this new app, it reminded me that I never shared my Harry Potter Surprise on the blog. If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen this a few months ago, but here I can give a little more detail and some more photos.
If you are familiar with the Harry Potter books, then you know what happens when you turn 11. My son turned 11 in March and it was around the time of the school’s Spring Break, so we took advantage of that and did a whole themed Spring Break vacation, complete with the reveal!
I created the pieces well in advance just in case I ran out of time. Plus I needed to have everything staged – we were headed to Seattle for a couple days before we came back home, to surprise him and then leave again! So these photos are of what was waiting for him when he walked through the door. I recorded video on my phone and my husband took photos – the reveal was so fun. He was so surprised and shocked and excited!
Please look past the snow on these first few photos – it was snowing that day but the light was good and it was my only chance to get some outdoor photos before the reveal!
I found a zip up sweatshirt on Amazon that was black on the outside and yellow on the inside – perfect for my little Hufflepuff! I added the Hogwarts Crest to the left side of the jacket, and I added Bowtruckle to the right, his favorite character from the new Fantastic Beasts movie series. On the back I have the quote “I Solemnly Swear I Am Up to No Good”.
I moved my mannequin out to the dining room table – where he would see it as soon as he walked in. We set out the Hufflepuff t-shirt we found, the Hogwarts Acceptance Letter, and the Owl delivery – I wish I could have gotten an actual owl to deliver but, you know…
This was one of the many faces he made when he realized what he had received, and what was about to happen. One of my favorite faces that day!
And a photo of him standing with the Knight Bus – the first stop before entering the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – and the only time he wore the jacket! To be fair, it was hot, and he got his own House Robe shortly after that so he wore that, when it wasn’t too hot!
In addition to Hedwig, I also created Bowtruckle and Niffler. The jacket was my favorite though – got some oohs and aahs with that one, the short time that he wore it!
I would like to go back and create the Hogwarts Crest on a mini hoop as well as the 4 House Crests – and wrap them in their House color. I think that would be fun. I think the Hogwarts Crest would need to be wrapped in black to match the robes – that would be fun to hang on the wall with our other souvenirs.
I mentioned last week that I recently became the brand new owner of a 10-needle embroidery machine. It is a Brother Entrepreneur model, and it arrived to me brand new, with a 0 total stitch count! That part was very exciting to me as my sewing/embroidery machine I was the second owner. So I was very excited to see that screen with all 0’s and I took a photo because it will never look like that again.
I have been playing around with it for about a week now, doing the typical flat fabric embroidery that I have been doing in the past. I think I have those projects figured out for the most part – there are still some quirks I need to figure out but I think it will get better as I use the machine and get in a rhythm. Right now the hardest part or longest part is threading it. I love that it has 10 needles and will do 10 colors at a time, but threading them can take forever. And I have had a problem with the thread coming out as it starts to stitch so I have to stop and rethread – this is one of those quirks to work through.
I also recently purchased the embroidery design software. I went with the Husqvarna Premiere+ Ultra bundle because they design on a Mac – and I am a Mac! But I also have to use the Windows laptop I share with my son because not all the features are available for Mac, still not sure why. But the goal is to be able to create my own embroidery designs that I have looked for in the past and haven’t found. I wanted to start slow with a quote here, a basic image there… my husband says no skip all that basic stuff and go right to this super custom funky thing I have in my head. We’ll see who wins that battle.
And then this sunshine was the first design I stitched out on the new machine. At 1000 stitches per minute and less than 10 colors required – 13 minutes actually means 13 minutes! I think I need to find an oval hoop for this one.
I have some ideas of what I want to design and create with the software and the new machine, not sure how fast that is going to happen though. Do you have embroidery software or a multi-needle machine? Any tips and tricks you want to share?
Four days ago I became the owner of a brand new 10-needle embroidery machine! I will share more on that later – but the good news is I put it to work right away and have figured some things out. I was able to create some new designs and get those finished and posted to Etsy! It has been almost 2 months since my other machine went in for service. They are waiting for a cable that is on backorder from Brother. I’m in less pain now that I have this new embroidery machine, but I still miss my girl. We are still a couple weeks out from getting that cable, but until then I have my original tiny sewing machine, plus this new beast so I can get some things done!
For this week I created a Rosé flamingo design, for National Rosé Day, as well as a set of Celebration Gnomies, and individual Celebration Gnomies.
The Rosé design was less than 10 colors so it was easy to load and create, no stops! The Gnomies designs were the first designs with over 10 colors that I created on this machine – I thought I was doing so well, but I must have pushed a wrong button!
You load the design, thread the first 10 colors, press play – then after 10 colors you pause, load the next set of colors, and continue. Somehow the set of Gnomies received burgundy beards and highlights (instead of white). Not sure how that happened but I still like the color combination. We are going to keep this one for our home celebrations and call it a super custom color set, limited edition!
You can click the images below for more information on each, and I will be back soon to share more about my new machine!
I think Roy is my favorite Celebration Gnomie (with the cupcake). Do you have a favorite?
I found this llama design at Urban Threads and showed it to my llama-loving son and he HAD to have it. He requested it on a pillow, on his wall, and most importantly on the back of a zip hoodie jacket he can wear to school and everywhere else. So far I have only made it on the one zip hoodie, but it turned out so great!
He loves this design so much, he put in a request to Urban Threads for a companion piece, so we are hoping they will create and release that soon. We are also impatiently waiting on Red Panda designs – hint, hint guys! For now we’ll settle for his second favorite animal.
