Weekend Sewing in Vermont with Heather Ross & Denyse Schmidt

Before I tell you all about it, I have to get some more sleep because when I got home at 1am this morning, my little girl was up through out the night...it's now just after 10 pm and I have to get some sleep! Suffice it to say...it was AWESOME and a dream come true! Here are a few pics....

Ahh .. Summer Days!

Little Miss G had a lot of fun last weekend at her Grandma's big birthday party. She went around to the potted flowers and plucked the leaves off of the flowers!! I chased her around as she giggled:) I couldn't resist taking this picture of her.
On another note, I am soooo excited about this coming weekend. I spontaneously responded to Heather Ross' message on her blog that there was a spot open on her Sewing Weekend Workshop in Vermont. I talked about it with my husband..we were thinking about doing a road trip but thought we'd do that when she was a bit older so we really didn't have any concrete plans for our vacation time. When I saw that message on the blog, I couldn't resist...and voila I'm headed on a road trip on Friday (9 1/2 hours) to Vermont. Would like to have flown but the flight times were just not working out. The best part is that my two favourite designers are both there...Heather Ross and Denyse Schmidt. How cool is that!!! I'm definitely going to have to ask Denyse about that What a Dish quilt...I just love it!!! Now I just have to figure out what to work on over the weekend.

Help!! Shirring!!!

Okay, sorry for the bad picture but I'm in shirring hell!!! I've been trying to make my little girl a smocked sundress. I cannot get the elastic thread to work for me!! I have tried everything - started off making it like Heather Ross' book suggests which is to hand wind the elastic thread in the bobbin with no tension and set your machine to the longest stitch length. I kept getting a wavy back to the elastic thread. Since then I have tried adjusting the tension down and up...I have hand wound the thread with a bit of tension and even this morning tried winding the thread by my machine...and I still get the same result which is a wavy back to the elastic thread (as you can see in the photo). I am so FRUSTRATED...what was supposed to take less than an hour to make has taken many spools of elastic thread and one stressed out mother. I hate wasting my fabric...I bought Heather Ross Mendocino line just like the one when she was on Martha Stewart a few months ago. It's so soft but in the end the shirred top was NOT shirred (it only slightly shirred once you added the steam from the iron)...AGHHHHH...so if anyone has any suggestions, I would really appreciate it....I forgot to mention I watched some youtube videos, Portobella Pixie, and Pink Chalk Studios tutorial as well. Why do I continue to get a wavy back and no shirring effect???? My machine is an Emerald 183 -Husqvarna.

When you mix this and that...

August is my month of the PTQB. Phew...I finally got all of the packages out to everyone!! It was a bit of an undertaking but I'm definitely looking forward to the results. Deciding on what I wanted to do and the colour scheme took me a little while but once I saw this fabric (binding) recently I knew I had to make it!! I'm a fan of all things Denyse Schmidt so I wanted to maked the Drunk Love pattern. However I didn't want to make it two toned as in her book. When I saw this particular quilt (which if I could figure out how to make it, I soooo would), I just fell in love with the colour scheme. I had wanted to make a quilt of solid coloured fabric and voila - my idea for this month's quilt!! Can't wait to see the results ladies!!