mom's birthday

Last weekend I was in Portland, OR with my mom, Donna, and sister, Mary.  Mary has a quilt shop in Minnesota, Quilter's Eden. She is the one that I now blame/thank, for my opening Sew Katie Jean. I also have a middle sister, Judith.  We three are closer now than ever ~ I love my sisters!

Our mom is going to be 80 year's old in January. We are throwing her a party.  I don't think she knows that just yet! sshhh :)  And she needs the perfect gift.

We decided to make her a quilt!  Each one of us will make 3 quilt blocks a month. One block to go to mom's quilt, one for ourselves, and the other goes to the other sister. Judith sews, but doesn't quilt.  She has made one block already, and gets a few lessons from Mary along the way since they both live on the east coast.

We decided to use only fabric by Bonnie and Camille from Moda.  Each collection goes together so perfectly, that we will have a lot more fabrics to choose from.  I want to share with you my quilt blocks that I am making.  And since I am a bit behind in making my one a month I will be posting at least two a month!

So look for my Gram Quilt tutorials.  Each quilt block that I will be using will be based on something different about my mom.  I hope you will be inspired to quilt along with me!

classes

There are classes galore coming up in the shop.  For just one way to follow our class schedule (besides coming into the shop, or being on our email list) is to follow Sew Katie Jean on Facebook.

Saturday, May 11

Convergence Quilt

10:30 - 1:30 pm / $30.

Teacher: Kathy Hilton

Saturday, May 11

Quilting 101

2:30 - 5:00 pm / $25.

Teacher: Lydia Shelton

Saturday, May 25

T-Shirt Quilt

10:00 - 12:00 pm / $25.

Teacher: Cindy Currier

And there is always more to come.  We love to teach any kind of quilting and sewing.  Plus we just love to see you learn something new!

limelight

We love Villa Rosa Designs.  These $2 quilt patterns are the best deal in town!  And we make them quite often.

This one is called Limelight.  It is made using 12 fat quarters. We used some of our favorite new fabrics from Anna Griffin called Chinoiserie.

It is gorgeous, Asian inspired fabric.  And anything Anna Griffin makes in irresistible.

farmer's wife - meet kaffe

Tomorrow (Friday, June 1) is our second meeting for the Farmer's Wife BOM.  It has been such a popular class that we have added another date to our schedule.  I'll give you that later.

I wanted to share with you this little bit of the class that I am excited about.  One of our new students, Jarina, is going to do her quilt in Kaffe Fasset fabrics.  She brought in a bunch of her fabrics today and let me oooh and ahhh over all of them.


I am so in love with these fabrics that I spent too much time (as usual) on Pinterest, looking up Kaffe fabrics and quilts and pinning them to my Kaffe board.  I think you will fall in love with them too!

And here is the quilt that I want to make of my own Kaffe collection.  This class is being held on June 9, called Diamond Jubilee.

And here is the quilt hanging in the shop with my own Kaffe fabrics for sale.  What do you think?  Do you love him now too?

sewing day

I am working on finishing a project that I started last weekend.  It's not that big or complicated.  It's just a table runner.  But life gets in the way of our sewing sometimes.

This is the one that I asked Jenn to make for the shop.  I am making mine using a set of 5" charm squares of this fabric.

Reunion from Sweet Water by Moda.  I love the little banner fabric.  And just adore the green, navy and faded yellows.  I think I have a sister that might like it too.

I used a cream muslin for the side 2" strips, grey for the back, and the binding will be navy.

One of the prints has a subtle chevron pattern.  And that's how decided to use it for the quilting.  Cream thread on top, and grey thread on my bobbin.

The stitching is a little harder to see it on the front of the runner.  But I just love how it turned out.  And I did it!  I'll show it to you again when I get my binding on.  Maybe I'll even show you a picture of it on my table.

love this

Do you love Atkinson Designs?  Terry Atkinson makes these quilt patterns so easy for us to sew up and it can be modern or traditional.  Her patterns are always complete and always easy to follow for even the newest of quilters.


Here is what she says about Urban Cabin:
Whether you live in an apartment in the city or a house in the woods, this log cabin variation will add a dash of color to your home.  Make the basic version using your favorite large prints, or choose the strippy version for smaller prints.

Plus one of our teachers, Melody Lake, is making up one of these quilts for the shop now.  She is using the Little Apples fabric by Aneela Hoey.  Can't wait to see it!  Then a new class will soon be on it's way.

sew katie jean

OK - Here is my big news! I am opening a fabric shop! In Historic Downtown Lincoln. It was the first bank in Lincoln, then the first post office. Built in 1915, now it is to be my fabric shop!


Coming soon - Sew Katie Jean
603 5th Street, Lincoln, CA

Having my own shop has been something that I have been dreaming about for over a year now. And once I started voicing that dream, everything has just come together perfectly. Finding the perfect location was a big part of that dream. The stars have aligned, and I found a wonderful space, in a perfect part of town that I am just in love with
.
I'll be sharing all the developments with you as everything progresses. My blog will be changing a bit along with me, being more directed toward fabrics quilting, and sewing classes. I will always be sewing and thrifting so that will continue to be the same.

Thank you for all your love and support of my business and for coming along with me for this new Sew Katie Jean adventure!

p.s. sorry about the look of this posting, I know it's not my ususal cuteness. But blogger is giving me a bit of a problem, and it is really bugging me :)

finished my wip

I know you have seen this before, but I wanted to show you how these little squares got all sewn up together.  Finished finally!



Sometimes these little things can just sit around waiting to be finished.  It's just a little sewing and quilting.



But once I laid out the fabrics and my girl saw the tiny quilt she decided it would be perfect for her doll.  So I had to get it done right away!



She picked out the backing fabric with the cute cats.  And I did the rest of the sewing.  Now Jules Sparkles will rest nice and toasty, cozy at night.  Thanks to her Aunt Mary.

making progress

I am getting a few little quilts finished.  Picking out the last bits of fabrics, sewing and hand stitching on the binding.



This one is the from the Wonky Log Cabin Quilt class that I taught.  Red is used traditionally for the center square, but I wanted to use this untraditional olive green.  Then I used some reproduction fabric in yellow for the sashing and back of the quilt.



The binding is some yardage that I have had awhile that I love.  I am into the yellow, orange, and blues together, aren't they just so happy!



And here are some blocks that my sister Mary sent me home with during my visit with her this past summer.  All reproduction prints.  Don't you love the soft yellow centers!  It's like a little pat of butter :)  This one is going to be a little quilt for my girl and her favorite dolls.  It will be just the perfect size.  And made with love from her Aunt Mary and Momma!

[caption id="attachment_2306" align="aligncenter" width="175" caption="see what it's all about"][/caption]

frolic

My sister Mary has a great sewing room in her house in Virginia.  And she was my teaching mama while I was visitng her.  We made 3 different quilts together!

This is us, sewing late at night before I flew on home early the next day.

Here's a peek at one of the bigger quilt's we made together.  This was so great for me to sew up as I have always thought of myself as a non-quilter.

It is made just using fabrics from a charm pack.  This one is called Frolic, from Moda.  And I'll tell you, these little 5" squares of fabric are so much cuter when used in a quilt.

It is all still at Mary's house.  Just waiting to be quilted.  She is great at that!  Then it will come to me and I will have a few buttons to sew onto the top.  Then once that is all completed, you will get to see it again! Oooh, the anticipation :)