Starting a week in the studio

Each year, I make a new heart for Tom for Valentine's Day.  This is the newest addition.  The technique is new to me.  I have wanted to try this for a while.  It is layers of fabric that are sewn together then cut through to expose other layers.  I am pleased with this heart, but I don't think I would use this technique again.  Here is a peak at the last three.

My favorite is the one on the bottom right.  That is last year's.  Each of these is small enough to be considered a mug rug.

This is the tea towel challenge so far.  If you want to see some very cool challenge entries, hop over to 15 Minutes Play. My Bella has had quite a bit of input into this one.  It is for her.  

 

I am hoping to get much done this week in the studio  I want to finish the tea towel challenge.  I also need to get my February AAQI quilt done and registered tomorrow.  It is started, but I need to quilt it.  I will work in the Criss Cross string quilt, and some other fun things I haven't thought of yet. 

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.

A finished top and playing with my Kaffes

(Please excuse the crooked photo.  The quilt is straight)

It is amazing what a difference a border can make.  I heard recently that adding a border to a quilt automatically makes it old fashioned looking.  Since I really don't care about that, I ignored the comments, but I am in amazement about what personality changes a quilt can take on with the right border.  When I started this quilt, the mystery quilt for our guild, I decided to use some fat quarters I had on hand.  I really liked the color combination, so didn't mind that the pattern got lost in some areas.  After a while, however, I decided it was just too bland.  As I finished piecing it together today, I thought about a piece of fabric somewhere in my stash that had fall leaves in bright colors.  When I found it, I thought it might be too bright to use.  I decided to try it anyway.  Unfortunately, it is hard to show how bright, fresh, and sparkly it is now with its new border. The new border makes this quilt 49" x 61".  It is now in the pile with the other two quilts I need to quilt for BASICs.  Please read Victoria's post today about the BASICs program.

What in the world?  How could anyone in their right mind purposely cut up some very beautiful Kaffe fabric just to sew it back together again in random patterns?  Good questions.  I love all these fabrics separately, but I really wanted to combine them to make new fabric for my 15 Minute Play BOM quilt project.  I started this project with very different colors before I discovered these.  Now, I am redoing it all to make a really bright and fun quilt to cuddle under this winter.  As I was making all this fabric (so far it is 24" x 32"), I was thinking about what color background fabric I could use.  I have a nice piece of KF shot cotton in persimmon, but that was just too much red.  I then started looking at Kona solids.  I finally narrowed it down to two - Aloe and Jade.  They came today.  The Aloe is beautiful, but not strong enough to stand up to the reds, so  . . . . .

. . . . Jade it is.  Tomorrow, I will start cutting into both to start making the BOM blocks.  I need to have this quilt finished by December 1.  Think I can do it?  I am going to give it my best shot.

I am going to use the Aloe for the Jacobs Ladder Quiltalong.  I am still gathering florals for that, but I have enough to get started now.  That is a longer term project.

It was very nice to be back in my studio today.  I oiled Betty before we started, and she ran like a dream.  I need a new blade for my rotary cutter, so I need to find my JoAnn coupons.  I think I have one blade left in the case.  I will have to check that out tomorrow.

Until then, have a joy filled day, everyone.

I am back

Since summer ended and I started spending three days a week with my wonderful granddaughter, I have had trouble getting into a regular studio routine.  Once I think I have it, other things seem to interfere like work that pays, visiting family, and whatever pops up.  Now, I am trying to establish a regular block of studio time.  Today, I was happily working in my studio, and got quite a bit done.

I am making progress on my small quilt for my Quilters, Books, and Bindings group.  I have added the stems, leaves, and started adding the flowers.  I decided to put a border on it so I could bring a couple of flowers out further.  At this point, it is all hand work waiting.  I will do that in the evenings or while Bella is napping.

I also worked on my Christmas quilt.  I couldn't resist adding the red and white as a border around the Virgin.  I started making several more blocks to help this quilt grow.  I am not sure how big I want it.  I guess I will keep making fabric until I run out of the fabric I am using.

Speaking of making fabric - I made the flowers for the top quilt out of some of my favorite Kaffe fabrics in my stash.  I decided to make some fabric using the left over pieces from the flowers.  I liked it so much, I have decided to make enough to make all the BOMs at the 15 Minute Play site so I will have a sampler quilt done by December 1.  I think I will pick up one of the blues for the background fabric in the blocks.  I am pretty excited about it.  I love the colors in these fabrics and I think they will make a fantastic quilt.  I just have to make lots of fabric.
My new schedule will have me in my studio Friday through Monday most weeks.  Those will be the days I post on the blog, as well.  Next weekend will be another exception, however.  I have my nephew's wedding and out of town family to spend time with.  In the mean time, I plan on posting tomorrow and Monday. 
Have a joy filled Sunday, everyone.