Happy Black Friday! I hope all my U.S. friends had a great Thanksgiving and that you all are having a great weekend. Over at my place, we’re in full throttle Christmas prep.  As I type, my husband and his buddy are out hanging lights, and I’m planning on starting to decorate trees this afternoon. You can expect to see a lot of Christmas posts on my Instagram feed in the next few weeks.

More about Color Play Friday:

Trina from In An Otter Life and I created Color Play Friday one day after a nice trip to the fabric store together.

 Here are the rules:

1. Each week, Trina or I will select a picture from our joint Pinterest board. These are all pictures that one of us has taken on our adventures.
2. We each create a palette using colors from that picture
3. We then create a bundle of 5-8 fabrics that is inspired by that palette. They don’t have to be an exact match to our palette, and we can throw in contrasting or accent colors, but the bundle should look inspired by the palette.
4. We don’t see anyone else’s palette or bundle before we post on Friday.
5. That’s it! It’s going to be so fun to see what we each come up with.

Trina picked a perfect photo for this week, as we’re starting to get some pretty frosty weather here in our little town.

Here are the fabrics I chose:

Lizzy House, Natural History, Hall of Gems in Green

Dear Stella, Confetti Dots, Confetti Dot in Blue

Jeni Baker, Dreamin’ Vintage, Tonal Melody in Fresh

Pat Sloan, Eat Your Veggies, Dots in Blueberry

Karen Lewis, Blueberry Park, Kite Tails in Titanium

Alison Glass, Sun Prints 2014, x and + in Midnight

A note about scale:

• While I believe scale is a very important part of fabric selection, the fabrics shown in my Color Play images are not always perfectly to scale. I do my best, by you should always double check scale before ordering!

Don’t forget to head over to In an Otter Life to see what Trina came up with and to Shimmy and More to see Steph’s bundle!

You can also head over to my Color Play Friday page to see my palettes and bundles from previous weeks.

Next week’s photo is one of Trina’s. I picked it because I felt like I needed some pink (I always need a little pink!)

Are you enjoying Color Play Friday? We’d love for you to get in on the fun and create your own Color Play post! You can create a bundle of fabric, select yarns or embroidery threads, or create a project inspired by our photo. Be sure to let Trina or I know so we can link up to you. You can get in contact with me via email, or by tagging me on Instagram.  

I hope you can join us next week!

Happy Sewing, ~L

Hi, friends! I’ve been super busy this week with lots of PTA stuff, but I’m so happy to take a little time with you to play with some palettes and fabric!

More about Color Play Friday:

Trina from In An Otter Life and I created Color Play Friday one day after a nice trip to the fabric store together.

 Here are the rules:

1. Each week, Trina or I will select a picture from our joint Pinterest board. These are all pictures that one of us has taken on our adventures.
2. We each create a palette using colors from that picture
3. We then create a bundle of 5-8 fabrics that is inspired by that palette. They don’t have to be an exact match to our palette, and we can throw in contrasting or accent colors, but the bundle should look inspired by the palette.
4. We don’t see anyone else’s palette or bundle before we post on Friday.
5. That’s it! It’s going to be so fun to see what we each come up with.

I chose this photo of Trina’s because lately we’ve been choosing a lot of pictures  with deeper, jeweled tones, and I thought I might want to change it up and play around with some of the pastels in this image.

Once I started picking colors out of this image, I realized they weren’t nearly as pastel as I had thought! But I did still manage to get some softer colors than I’ve had the last few weeks.

When choosing this bundle, I was thinking I wanted it kid themed and a bit dreamy, so the Tiger Lily print from Heater Ross was a perfect match. I promise that pink really is in the picture somewhere! (I think it might be where the light is reflecting off a red gummy bear).

Here are the fabrics I chose this week:

Heather Ross, Tiger Lily, Climbing Trees in Pink

Micheal Miller, Hashmark, Hashdot in Pistachio

Melody Miller, Picnic, Ant March in Citron

Joel Dewberry, True Colors, Herringbone in Yellow

Maureen Cracknell, Wild and Free, Fletching Chant

Amy Butler, Bright Heart, Cosmo Weave Papay

A note about scale:

• While I believe scale is a very important part of fabric selection, the fabrics shown in my Color Play images are not always perfectly to scale. I do my best, by you should always double check scale before ordering!

Don’t forget to head over to In an Otter Life to see what Trina came up with and to Shimmy and More to see Steph’s bundle!

You can also head over to my Color Play Friday page to see my palettes and bundles from previous weeks.

Here is next week’s photo:

Are you enjoying Color Play Friday? We’d love for you to get in on the fun and create your own Color Play post! You can create a bundle of fabric, select yarns or embroidery threads, or create a project inspired by our photo. Be sure to let Trina or I know so we can link up to you. You can get in contact with me via email, or by tagging me on Instagram.  

I hope you can join us next week!

Happy Sewing, ~L

 Last month, my guild hosted Allison Harris from Cluck Cluck Sew for a workshop on her Shimmer Quilt. I knew it would be a great time to get to know some of my guild members a little better and to get to learn from Allison. Not to mention, it’s a gorgeous quilt!  Who would want to make it?!

On the day of the workshop, Allison gave us the option to either work through one block or to cut the whole quilt that day. I think every one of us opted to make the block. It’s a smart group of ladies, and we knew that having the designer guide us through our first block would be a huge help.

The pattern is well written and very easy to follow, but having the person who created it give tips and alert us to mistakes was so great. Plus, Allison is just a super sweet person to hang out with all day!

I opted to make the lap size as a Christmas gift for my dad. The blocks do take some time, but they finish at 14″, so you have to make fewer of them!

I’m in love with the bright colors of this quilt coupled with the neutrality of Kona Coal Grey.

I’ll be basting this and hopefully starting the quilting today.  I’ll keep you updated!!

This week, I’m linking up to:

Happy Sewing!  ~L

Welcome to Color Play Friday, friends!

More about Color Play Friday:

Trina from In An Otter Life and I created Color Play Friday one day after a nice trip to the fabric store together.

 Here are the rules:

1. Each week, Trina or I will select a picture from our joint Pinterest board. These are all pictures that one of us has taken on our adventures.
2. We each create a palette using colors from that picture
3. We then create a bundle of 5-8 fabrics that is inspired by that palette. They don’t have to be an exact match to our palette, and we can throw in contrasting or accent colors, but the bundle should look inspired by the palette.
4. We don’t see anyone else’s palette or bundle before we post on Friday.
5. That’s it! It’s going to be so fun to see what we each come up with.

This weeks photo is from Trina.  I chose it because I love the vivid blues and greens. Although this one does look color edited, we really do get to see those beautiful blue and greens all the time in the Northwest, particularly in the summer!

This photo also happens to be taken right in the area where one of my most embarrassing moments occurred. I shared it on Periscope yesterday. If you missed it, you can see it on my Katch account. 

This weeks bundle is a tribute to the Northwest with whales, starry skies and raindrops, of course!

Here are the fabrics I chose:

Ann Kelle, Remix, Ovals in Navy

Micheal Miller House Designers, Pitter Patter, Starry in Starlight

Lizzy House Natural History, Giants of the Deep in Blue  (I have been waiting weeks to be able to use this fabric!)

Ann Kelle, Remix, Triangles in Royal

Micheal Miller House Designers, Pitter Patter, Drip Dot in Fresh 

Ann Kelle, Remix, Plus Signs in Tangerine

I surprised myself this week because I only chose fabrics from three separate lines. I usually like to mix it up a bit more, and I had a lot of other potential fabrics from other lines, but these were the ones I loved the most and that flowed the best with what I wanted to convey about the Northwest.

A note about scale:

• While I believe scale is a very important part of fabric selection, the fabrics shown in my Color Play images are not always perfectly to scale. I do my best, by you should always double check scale before ordering!

Don’t forget to head over to In an Otter Life to see what Trina came up with and to Shimmy and More to see Steph’s bundle!

You can also head over to my Color Play Friday page to see my palettes and bundles from previous weeks.

Next week’s photo is from me and was taken at a carnival in my hometown.

Are you enjoying Color Play Friday? We’d love for you to get in on the fun and create your own Color Play post! You can create a bundle of fabric, select yarns or embroidery threads, or create a project inspired by our photo. Be sure to let Trina or I know so we can link up to you. You can get in contact with me via email, or by tagging me on Instagram.  

I hope you can join us next week!

Happy Sewing, ~L

If you follow me on Periscope, you may have seen my SUPER LONG broadcast last week on organization in your studio.

I wanted to write up a quick post outlining the main points and link up to the video on Youtube. For those of you who’ve watched the video and didn’t take notes, you can review the content here. For those of you who did take notes: How studious of you! You’ve earned a gold star from me!

Here are the notes:

Everyone has their own working style. If you’re a person who functions well in clutter (I know there’s some of you out there!) and you’re happy with the way your studio looks, then this teaching is NOT for you. This teaching is for those of us who feel like they could work better in a cleaner space… who enter their studio and feel exasperated with themselves for not knowing where things are… who hate that their latest quilt top is on the floor…  who feel stressed about constantly moving things around to work. I find that most people I talk to feel this way.

You may be working in your dining room or in a huge studio. Alone or with little ones underfoot. The way you apply these principles to your own situation will differ, but the principles stay the same.

What am I doing wrong? 

Let’s get down to the main things we do to sabotage our efforts to stay organized.

1) Bringing in too much/ Keeping too much of what you already have.

•  A healthy, useable stash is fine, but consider whether or not you can use it in the next year or so. New fabric is being made constantly. How much are you bringing in, and how much is going out in the form of beautiful, handcrafted things?
•  “If everything has value, then nothing does.” Meaning, if you treat every last scrap or stray block as important as the top you just worked a year on, you need to reevaluate!

2) Not keeping like things together

Fabric goes with fabric, notions go with notions, etc.

3) Not having a place for everything. 

• EVERYTHING should have an assigned place- one that makes sense.
• If you don’t have a place for something, you’re just going to lay it down right on your work table.
• It’s ok to have a ‘deal with later’ space!

4) Keeping items you don’t often need in your work space 

You need designated areas for work space and for storage space

5) Not maintaining

A good system well maintained will SAVE you time (no more digging for lost projects!). It takes a lot of time up front to develop a good system, but maintaining only takes a few seconds.

6) Not being flexible

It’s ok to make changes to your system if it’s not working! You should have a general organizing structure that you stick with, but making tweaks and adapting should be expected.

** Your things (tools, fabric, finished projects, etc) are ASSETS! I’m not asking you to get rid of your assets (unless they’re weighing you down!) But, I want you to treat them in a way that shows you value them.**

Getting organized is not about having a perfect, pretty sewing space (although that’s a bonus!). It’s about improving your work flow and making you feel happier and more confident in your studio. I want you to walk into your studio and feel successful before you even start working!

And if you didn’t get a chance to see it yet, go ahead an click above to watch. Be warned, it’s about 45 minutes long, so you may want to grab something to drink and take a little potty break before clicking play.

Lastly, I did a follow up Periscope for those of you who are in the ‘organizing trenches’ right now. I thought you might need a little encouragement and direction! If you missed it live, you can find it on my Youtube channel, or on here sometime next week.

Here we are again: Color Play Friday! I have been working hard on all my projects this week. So hard, in fact, that I haven’t gotten a chance to update you here on the blog about what I’ve been doing. If you want to stay really up-to-date on what I’m doing, the best way is to follow me on Instagram. 

More about Color Play Friday:

We play with color each week along with Trina from In an Otter Life. 

Here are the rules:

1. Each week, Trina or I will select a picture from our joint Pinterest board. These are all pictures that one of us has taken on our adventures.
2. We each create a palette using colors from that picture
3. We then create a bundle of 5-8 fabrics that is inspired by that palette. They don’t have to be an exact match to our palette, and we can throw in contrasting or accent colors, but the bundle should look inspired by the palette.
4. We don’t see anyone else’s palette or bundle before we post on Friday.
5. That’s it! It’s going to be so fun to see what we each come up with.

Would you like to play along? You’re welcome to join in the fun by using the #colorplayfriday hashtag on Instagram and Twitter. If you want us to link up to your blog, just shoot me or Trina and email. 

This weeks photo is one of Trina’s.  I chose it because I just couldn’t get over those amazing wine tones. The pink light in this photo speaks to me of that peaceful time right after sunset when the day is done. I imagine Trina lingered over this dinner, relaxing and enjoying the gorgeous view.

It was all about the cats this week!

Here are the fabrics I chose:

Lizzy House, Catnap, Kitty Dreams in Cranberry

Amy Ellis, Chic Neutrals, Bangle in Eggplant

Renee Nanneman, Fireworks, Red Circles

Art Gallery Fabrics, Round Elements in Apricot Yogurt

Lizzy House, Catnap, Purrfectly Happy in Cream

Makower UK, Cats, Dotty Stripe in Slate

Don’t forget to head over to In an Otter Life to see what Trina came up with and Shimmy and More to see Steph’s bundle!

Next weeks photo is one of mine.

I took this one a few Christmas Seasons ago. I was taking everything off my trees (yes, plural!) and sticking them in a cardboard box before packing them up for storage. I realized just how pretty they looked all together like that, and had to snap a quick shot of them!

I hope you can join us next week!

Happy Sewing, ~L

Yikes! My week has been flying by, and here we are to Friday already! I have to admit that I completely forgot to choose my palette until late Thursday night when Trina texted me asking what my picture choice was for next week. I was going to go to bed and just do this in the morning, but then the creative juices started flowing and I had to get it done!

If you’re new here, check out my Color Play Friday page to see the rules and the palettes and bundles from previous weeks. And don’t forget to check out Trina’s  and Steph’s pages to see their fabric choices. Getting to see what Trina (and now Steph since she’s joined us!) picked has become my favorite part of Friday morning (or very, very late on Thursday night!)

I took this photo at Mukilteo beach in Washington. My aunt was visiting from Minnesota and our family was taking her to all the touristy places in our area. Mukilteo is a great place to watch the ferries come in and out, climb on driftwood, and watch for seals and (if you’re really lucky) whales. I took this photo a little before sunset, and the sideways light really lit up the jellyfish and made it shine.

Here are the links to this week’s fabrics:

Suite 1500, Bombay, Elephant Damask in Black

Angela Walters, Athena, Aurora Medallions in Bronze

Makower UK, Sophia, Mini Triangles in Teal

Makower UK, Ahoy, Solid in Light Blue

Bari J, Splendor, Knotted Trellis in Gold

Jo Morton Woodlands Blue Feather Stripe

Lizzy House, Mini Pearl Bracelets in White

Art Gallery Fabrics, Prisma Elements in Dusk Zircon

If you’d like to join the party for next week, here is our photo:

You can find all the Color Play Friday photos on Trina and my shared Pinterest Board.