Ta Da! Another top done

 

These two blocks were done for the Comfort Quilt Bee I am part of.  Making them was an interesting process.  They have quite a few pieces to keep track of and points to match.  I like how they turned out.  It would be interesting to have an entire quilt of these, but given how long each one took me, it will be a while.

I did, however, finish up the shirt quilt which I have officially named Prairie Fusion.

During the entire process, I kept thinking about pioneer women using the scraps of worn out clothes and left over from making new shirts and dresses.  I did a bit of that, but put them together in a more liberated way with the wonky crosses.  Thus the fusion part of the name, which Tom came up with. I also added some plain patchwork squares in two sizes just for variety.  The finished top measures 57" x 54".  Now I can add it to the growing pile of tops I have to get quilted. 

I have gathered fabric for a few backings, but still need more.  I am not that fond of working on pieced backings. I also need to get some thread.  These things are not in the budget right now, but I still have plenty of scraps and fabric on my shelves to keep making tops.  I even have some new fabric I have won in drawings but not used.  I was also recently gifted some beautiful batiks that I want to use.  They would be great for the ribbon star blocks above.  Hmmmm.

The next three weeks will be very busy, but I will try and get some quilting and blogging done.  In the mean time, I hope you all are enjoying your summer.  Joyful quilting, everyone!

Three Bee Blocks

There is nothing like a basic nine patch.  These were made for the Comfort Quilt Bee.  I was trying to grow my blue stash, but I discovered I am still very short on selection.  I need to work on that.

This block is for Stash Bee Hive 1.  I have not used wonky triangles before.  It was harder for me to do than I expected.  Sometimes, I still have trouble letting go of the "rules."  There is also a geometry problem of making sure the triangles are big enough to make sure they cover the corner.  I got lucky for the first few until I figured out how to make it work better for me.  Then, I got to make a wonky star.

I can't believe this is the first one of these I have made.  Fear had stopped me.  Now, I feel very comfortable with the process, and I like the look.  This is for Stash Bee Hive 2.  You would think with a name like Stash Bee, people would be encouraged to use from their stash.  Not so, for me.  This months leader requested "modern" fabrics in bright colors.  I don't usually purchase this genre of fabric, so I had to go in search of.  I found a charm pack of Sassy by Sandy Gervais to purchase.  Now, I have most of it left.  I think I may make a bunch of these stars up using the rest.  First, I have to decide on a background.  The Kona Charcoal is dramatic, but too cool a neutral for me.  I agree with Freddy Moran who says that red is a neutral.  I am going to go more in that direction.

Now that my bee blocks are done, I am going to work on the Improvirobin piece that has arrived, and the International Robin piece.  There are also several other things I want to get started on before the week is over.  It is going to be a smokin' time in the studio this week.

Joyful quilting, everyone.

Playing catch-up

Bet that got your attention!  This block, and the next two, were created by an extremely talented quilter I know, Sharon M.  She is one of the very talented people who are in my International Robin group.  I get to play with Sharon's faces first in the robin.

This is the smallest one, but I love the way she peaks from behind the leaves.  She looks as though she is just about to smile at something she sees.

I think she is the youngest looking.  Not showing in this photograph are the leaves as they extend past the edge of the background so they can lay on the next piece to be put on.  All of these blocks have this quality.  Each face is hand painted by Sharon.  The final name for her quilt will be Gaia, who was the primordial Earth-goddess in the ancient Greek religion.  It was from Gaia that all the other gods were born.  I don't remember reading anything about her in my ancient Greek history classes in public school.  I did some research about her the other night.  I am not sure how I will put these three blocks together yet, but my intention is to stay with the theme established by the name.

This is the piece I am working on for the ImproviRobin I am part of.  I am the second to last person to play with it before it goes back to the person who started it.  I have this much on my display wall.  I cut the blue coral piece to see what I thought, and Tom thinks I should add more in the various colors found in the other fabrics that are used.  I am going to fuse whatever pieces I do add and do some machine applique in buttonhole stitch.  The colors look really washed out in this photo, but I assure you they are much more vivid.  This is a very fun piece.  I raided Willa's stash to find the border fabric I am using.  Thanks, Willa.

Finally, I have been working on other Bee blocks that are due by the end of the month.  I still haven't figured out how to do a decent Bishop's Fan quilting on the doll quilt, but I will keep at it.  I am almost finished with the lilies quilt.  I have one Stash Bee block done and have another one to do.  I did finish the comfort bee blocks today.  They are really calming, so that was fun.

Fortunately, I have two days to play in the studio before my days with Bella start. 

Tomorrow, I have a guest post over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  Hop on over there to see how to make the quilt I made last year for H2H.

I think that is it for today.  Thanks for stopping by.  Joyful quilting, everyone.

Finally, I am back

It took almost a full week, mostly in bed, but I am finally back and feeling well enough to get into the studio.  Thank you so much for all your warm get well wishes.  I am sorry I didn't answer each one personally.

Today, I made some bee blocks, but I am only going to share one of them here.

This is the March block for Hive 2 over at Stash Bee.  I love looking through my batiks for tree fabric.  This one is a deep blue ginkgo leaf pattern over the browns and tans.  When I drew the tree, I wanted to capture the gnarls and some darks and lights to make it more alive.  Then, I found some fern like patterns on another green/gray batik and used that as leaves.  The nest is yet another batik with heavy thread play.

I used a machine buttonhole stitch for the tree and leaves.  The background is Kona Azure.  The block is 12.5" x 12.5".  I have really enjoyed making the two trees I have made for Stash Bee Hives.

I have been trying to keep up with what is going on in the blog world.  One important thing to take note of is the upcoming sign-up for 2012 Hands 2 Help charity quilting event.  Sign-ups begin tomorrow over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  There are two charities to select from, or you can make one for each.  You can even ask for a partner to select a palette for you from Design Seeds if you like a challenge.  I would love to see all of you sign up for this great event.  There are loads of prizes.  I am even a sponsor this year, with a great prize from Intrepid Thread.

Speaking of Intrepid Thread.  If you have not shopped there, you should.  Julie has a new shop up online now, and she has some great sales.  I haven't been able to beat her prices anywhere on her regular priced fabric.  I also love the different lines she carries.  No, she is not a sponsor of mine.  No, she has not bribed me to say this.  In fact, I doubt she will even know I have been talking about her.  Her service is just that great, and so is her shop.

I guess that is all for now.  It is great to be back.  Joyful quilting, everyone.



More play today

Yesterday afternoon, I came to a place where I couldn't do anything right in the studio.  I cut a bunch of fabric for a foundation piece block, and when I started working on the units, most of the fabric was cut too small.  I thought I was measuring so carefully, too.  I also sewed pieces wrong at least three times before I called Uncle and just left the studio.  So, today, with the cold  coming on, I decided to start out playing and making fabric.  There is no wrong way to do that.  I chose some spring colors  in preparation for a Victoria swap.  I will find out my partner and get the pattern on Wednesday.  I know it will be pieced flowers of some kind.  I thought the pinks, purples, and blues were good spring colors.  I hope my partner likes them.

The next thing I did was to prepare parts for this block for another bee I am in.  I made the HSTs a new way to me.  I made all eight with only four sewn lines, and no edges on the bias.  I love short cuts that are useful and don't cause further problems down the line.  Speaking of short cuts, my next project was to get ready to demonstrate another of my favorite ones.

Can you guess?  Tomorrow night, I am demonstrating how to make the no waste flying geese.  I have a tutorial here.  For this, I cut six 12" x 12" pieces of foam board and pieces of heavy flannel.  Tom helped me use spray adhesive to attach the flannel to the foam boards.  Now, I have a bunch of great small design squares I can use to hold the different steps.  Then I got into my stash of deconstructed blue and white shirts and started putting together my flying geese parts, step by step.  This was pretty fun to do, and now I finally have the quilt started I want to do with these shirts.  What could be better than that?

In the mail today, I got another rainbow block and the house blocks from that exchange.  I will put them up and take a photo of them later in the week.  Right now, there is no room on the design wall.

One last thing I want to add is that I am having trouble editing my favorites blog roll and there are a bunch of blogs I have recently found that I want to add because they are such fun and have such wonderful work.  I will keep trying so you can see them, too.

Now, until Friday, joyful quilting everyone.

Making Bee Blocks

Today, I decided to get some of my February Bee blocks made.  This one is for the Comfort Group Quilting Bee.  There are  ten members in this group.  The goal is for each person, when she is queen, to collect two blocks from the other members and make a quilt to give to someone who is really in need.  This bee was started by Angie at Summerfield Quilts.  My turn to be queen is in August.  I enjoyed making these blocks.  They helped me practice matching my points and corners.

This one is for Hive #1 at Stash Bee.  It is my second block for Hive #1.  I am also queen of Hive #2 this month, and people are making me some really beautiful strip pieced blocks in the colors of the rainbow.  There are 18 to 20 people in each hive.  Hive #3 has just started, so if you are interested, head over to Stash Bee and get signed up.  Sunni at Love Affair With My Brother started this bee. 

This block started out fine, then about half-way, I felt like I was getting lost.  I know some people paper-piece this pineapple block, but these instructions did not include paper piecing, so I tried it this way.  It is my first pineapple block, and once I figured out what I was doing, I enjoyed it.  The queens choice of red and black is very dramatic.  Unfortunately, I only had black solid.  Others are making blocks with various mostly black fabrics.  One thing that was reinforced for me today is that I really don't like working with black fabric any more than I like working with white.  My eyes are just not good enough any more to see what I am doing on the black.  Too bad, though, because I do love the dramatic effects.

I signed up for three bees and a round robin this year as part of my skill improvement plan.  These two blocks were great for that.  As an added bonus, I also got to practice my patience skills on the pineapple block.  I worry that my blocks will not be just what the queen is looking for, but for now, I will continue to do my best and hope it is good enough.

Joyful quilting, everyone.

A tree for Sunni, and other things

I decided to join in a couple of interesting online bees this year.  This one is over at Stash Bee, and is hosted by Sunni of Love Affair With my Brother fame.  I was originally in Hive 2, but someone dropped out of Hive 1, so I joined that one.  There are 18 quilters in this hive, and my turn for blocks won't come around until June 2013.  I sure hope all the quilters in that group hang in there for that long.  If they don't, I will learn a lot and have fun making blocks for them as their turns come up.  This is my first online bee of this type.  I have done the other kind where you make a bunch of blocks, send them in, and get the same number back from other people.  In fact, the wonky houses are for that kind of bee.  I like Sunni's block because she just asked for a single tree on a 12.5" square of Kona white.  It was great fun to design a tree to machine applique for this block.

I have also started making little houses.

These little guys are 4" squares finished.  About a year ago, I found myself caving in to the cuteness of a Moda candy bar box of traditional fabric cut in 2.5" x 5" pieces.  There are four collections represented in the candy bar box, with 42 "pieces of candy" in each collection.  I haven't used them until now.  At the same time, I also got some  mini (2.5" x 2.5") charm packs from three different Moda collections.  Also not used.  I guess I was saving them for this little house project.  They are just perfect. There is not enough to build all 120 houses, but I have some Kansas Trouble jelly roll strips left from another project, and I think there is enough there for several houses.  These are paper pieced. and now that I have the fabric sorted out, I think this is going to be great fun.

I said I would show you the latest AAQI quilt once it was finished.

This one is 9.5" x 5.5".  I call it Kasbah Nights because the colors reminded me of exotic places.  I hand quilted it with #8 perle cotton in the same burgundy color as the HSTs.  The binding is a very dark blue.  I will send it off as soon as I get the registration number.

It has not started snowing yet, but I am still hoping it will come our way.  I am ready.

Joyful quilting, everyone.