Urban Threads Love - the one where amy can't follow instructions

i'm really bad about blogging machine embroidery projects, mostly because i usually do pretty simple ones. take a towel and embroider a design on it? boring! usually i only bother to blog if it's a design i digitized myself, or if it's part of a larger project. and let's be honest - there are so many projects that i haven't gotten around to blogging, embroidery or not!


so you may not have heard me rave about an embroidery design company that i'm a big fan of, Urban Threads. they just had their 4th anniversary, and i'm pretty proud to say that i've been a big fan for almost that long. they make high quality machine embroidery, hand embroidery and digital stock art designs that cover a huge spectrum, but generally tend to be things that you won't find from most machine embroidery companies. skulls, roller derby, geeky, trendy, steampunk, etc, etc.


a little while ago, UT announced a new contest, using a free design that they're offering on their site. they always have at least one free design, and they have contests all the time, but i especially liked the thought behind this one. people tend to think that their customers are all young people, because they make really funky designs, but their customers actually range in age quite dramatically. they have a huge following among funky grandmas! so this design states "It's not about Age, it's about Attitude", and they've asked people to embroider it, take a picture of themselves holding it, and submit it, along with their age.



i've been thinking about modern quilting a lot lately, and about how awesome my guilds are, so i naturally started thinking about how the design was perfect for modern quilters. i think one thing modern quilters have in common is that they don't always feel welcome in more traditional guilds, and that really boils down to different perspective, or attitudes. i really love how both of my guilds have such a great variety of ages and experience levels!


i decided to take the design and make a totebag out of it. i was originally thinking that it would be a fabulous door prize, but my mom has already claimed the bag - sorry guys!


for one side, i stitched out the design onto grey twill in three shades of grey thread. then i added a slightly wonky log cabin around it, in different grey solids (all kona, fyi).



for the other side, i wanted to make a modern block, so i improv pieced a rectangle.



i pieced both sides until they were 13.5" wide, then joined them together into a long strip about 31" long. i folded that strip in half, sewed up the sides and boxed the corners. the bag ended up being about 13" tall, 9.5" wide and 3" deep.



i decided to add a pocket, because apparently all tote bags need pockets. i had this strip of pieced scraps that i'd trimmed from the outside, so i incorporated it into the pocket as well.



the straps are quite long, because i thought the straps were too short on the last tote that i made. i generally carry totes in addition to my purse, so i prefer it if they hang a bit lower. you can see here the difference in length between the two totes.




i had the bag finished in plenty of time for the contest. i even had my mom take a picture of me with the bag, in plenty of time.



but then i realized that i was supposed to be doing the rocker hand or a thumbs up in picture. so i asked the fabulous Carol to take a picture of me and the bag at the last FVMQG meeting. except that i somehow thought that i was supposed to make a peace sign in the photo.

urgh! and the ridiculous thing is that as she was taking the picture, i was thinking "god, i feel like a tourist. i wish i could just do a thumbs up or something" gah!



now i have this awesome picture that Carol took, but i still didn't have a picture for the contest.



so here's a less exciting picture that i took this afternoon, complete with the dirty railing of my patio. i probably should've washed that......




in other news, the goal for tonight was to get caught up on e-mails, blog comments, etc, but i've just been informed that someone is coming first thing in the morning to tear up my kitchen floor (remember how it flooded back in november? i hate my strata), so i'll be clearing out the kitchen tonight instead.

so that goal has been moved to tomorrow, since i'm assuming i'll be stuck at home supervising anyway. if i owe you a reply, and you haven't gotten one by tomorrow evening, please nag me about it! i'm not ignoring you, i promise, i just get distracted and/or overwhelmed and then it get buried in my inbox.