A little bit of this and that! And quilt labels...

This weekend was another productive one! Although, the weather here in Chicagoland was quite scary on Sunday. Luckily we were out of the direct path of the line of tornados that hit the area, even so we had lots of wind and hail and sheets of rain. Many people were not so lucky.... My prayers go out to them.

This past weekend was the Sewing and Quilt Expo in Tinley Park. This year I did not really take any time off to go attend any seminars or classes. A couple reasons for that, I'm on a hobby spending diet (I had to buy a ticket to the Netherlands and that was expensive!), I pursued the class offerings and there was not really anything that I just HAD to attend and I felt that I still had so much my head from seminars that I have already attended this year. You know, I didn't want to push out the knowledge and ideas that I haven't even fully processed yet! 

I did go on Friday for 2 hours to pursue the vendors and the quilt exhibits. I saw a couple of art quilts that took my fancy. I had a small budget of spending money and I spent it all at Laura Murray's booth on Burmese silks. I have been coveting these for several years and thought why not! (Well, except that I have so much damn fabric at home that I have no where to even stuff it!!!) I do plan on making an light jacket from it. A little holiday gift for myself. 

On the sewing front... I did get to spend Sunday sewing :) and no, I still did not finish that darn skirt!!

I worked on some Christmas gifts and I worked a little more on my nieces baby quilt. I added a narrow border and have the quilt sandwich pin basted and ready to be quilted! I'm using a kinky cuddle fabric for the backing, my first time trying this so I also have a small 16x16 sample piece ready to be trial quilted. I do think the quilting will have to be fairly simple because of the kinky backing I will need to use a walking foot. This means no fancy free motion quilting. I'm not traveling next week so I'm hoping to get it all done in the evenings. 

I also worked on a gift for my daughter. She was supposed to have this before her wedding!!! Oops, better late than never :) if you remember back to the spring, I made each of the girls in her bridal party a set of Chic travel accesories from Anita Goodesign embroidery projects CD. These are a set of embroidered bags. One for dirty laundry, one for lingere and a set of shoe bags. Well, her and her husband leave for their honeymoon on Saturday and I wanted her to have them for their trip. So Sunday, I made her a set. I also made myself a dirty laundry bag. I have been wanting one forever! Since I travel every week it would be nice to have something nicer than a plastic grocery bag or just he corner of the suitcase to shove my dirty clothes in! Especially. Dirty socks, panties and exercise clothes!!! 

The black, gray and red set are for Melissa. Very 'chic' indeed!! The bags are slightly modified from the construction instructions. I use a grommet for the opening and I enlarged the shoe bags to fit a pair of shoes each instead of just one shoe per bag. (Unless they are big shoes!! Or ankle booties)  I picked up the printed fabric of the shoes and the lingerie on the laundry line at a quilt shop somewhere in CT on one of my work trips this spring. I actually purchased it for this project so it was nice to finally get it done!

The blue yellow and white bag is mine. It is hard to see (May be better if you click on the picture) but the printed fabric on the top is dresses on dress forms with different city names printed in between, like New York and Paris. Very fun! The ribbon is a woven ribbon that I bought a couple years ago in the garment district in NYC at a trim shop.

I am also trying out some new ideas for a quilt label for the Cats playmat quilt. I have seen people who write or stamp directly on the quilt, so I made a sample using fabric markers and ink stamps and will wash and dryit a couple times this weekend when I'm doing laundry to see how it fairs. If they fail the test I will use MU old standby of embroidering a label and appliquéing it the back. 

I'm interested to hear what others do for quilt labels? Anyone have any experience good or back with using ink?

I'm off to another busy week. Tuesday in NYC, Wednesday in Central PA and Thursday in Philadelphia. I sure am looking forward to NO travel next week!! It will be good to be at home :)