Taking on the Y seam

Here is my second fish.  Only ten more to go for the swap.  I did cut out two more bodies from this strata.  I used some already made fabric for the tail and the bottom fin.  The top fin is from a batik scrap.  The water fabric is consistent with all the swappers.  This fish is 14.5" by 8.5".  These fish are a bunch of fun to make, but they take time, at least for me who is angle challenged, it seems.

I got the top shelf of two done today.  I started on the bottom shelf.  I think it is going to be a challenge to get the widths to match for each section.  Again, it is the angles of the leaning books.  I really like the way they look, though, so I am keeping them.  The little blue and yellow pieces is another story,

The other day, I found a photo I took a couple of years ago of an abandoned lumber yard.  One of the walls of the main building was a mish-mash of boards and windows of different colors and textures.  It was that time of day when the sun was glowing in reflection on the glass, making the building look like there was a fire inside.  I decided it looked like a quilt.  Then, before I could get it sketched out, I misplaced the photo.  So, I started sketching my impressions of the photo, and I think it is better than it would have been if I had the photo.  The only problem is that there are tons of Y, or set-in, seams on the left half of the quilt.  I tried re-drawing it to make them go away, but I didn't like it half as well.  So, I am going to have to learn to make them.  I started to learn a while ago, but gave up.  Thus, the blue and yellow piece.

This is my fourth attempt today, and there is still a pucker in the corner.  At least I am heading in the right direction.  Now that I have an incentive, I will keep at it every day until I am happy with the results.  Hopefully, that won't be a long time. 
Have a wonderful quilty weekend.

The quilted book shelf

I got the first three sections of the bookshelf done today.  I have one more section of the top shelf, then I start on the bottom shelf.  It is fun putting the puzzle together where the books lean.  In the third section, I appliqued a fabric circle of Beatle fabric.  MAD is a Beatle's fan, so it seemed like the right thing to do.   I am loving the fabrics she selected for this project.  I will work more on it tomorrow.

I worked on building some strata for more fish today.  I got some of them sewn together, but it got too warm in the studio, so I decided to finish the rest tomorrow.  I will make several fish bodies using this.  Then, I will try something new.
I will have more to share tomorrow.
Joyful quilting, everyone.

Some ribbons and a fish

No, these are not all the ribbons I won at our quilt show last weekend.  These are, however, the ribbons we will be handing out at our guild meeting to the winners in this year's show.  There were some outstanding quilts featured in the show.  Over the next few days, I will try and share a few of them.  I had fun making all the ribbons.  I folded the points and stitched them together using a stiff pellon button covered with batting and fabric on the top.  I used iron on labels to cover the backs.  Each one gives the year and the type of award it is.

After I got the last pin affixed to the last ribbon, I started playing with fish.  I have joined a swap over at Mary Lou Weidman's Yahoo group and we are all making brightly colored fish.  This fish block is 14" long by 8" tall.  I used a piece of made fabric that doesn't go with any of my other made fabric.  It was just the right size.  Mary Lou teaches a method she calls hootchie mama piecing, and I tried it with this block.  I was amazed at how much stress was reduced using this method.  I have already sketched out an idea of how I want to put the 12 blocks I will receive together.  I will be working on these blocks for a while along with MAD's bookshelf quilt.  They should keep me out of trouble for a while.
Did any of you read the article in the new issue of Quilter's Newsletter about modern quilting?  It sort of gives an overview of the modern quilting movement.  I don't really consider myself a modern quilter, but found it interesting. There is also a cool lesson on whole-cloth "Applique" where you do no cutting.  You use permanent markers.  Intrigued?  I am ready to try it on a small scale.  Not too small, though, as it calls for very tiny stipple quilting as it is. I also downloaded free patterns for four 9 patch quilts from the Quilter's Newsletter site.  Free patterns are a good thing.

Finished H2H quilt

I finished the binding on my H2H quilt and it is in a box and ready to mail to Green Fairy Quilts.  I really enjoyed making this quilt.  I am going to use the pattern on a couple more quilts I am making for family members, at their request.  One will be black, white, and green.  I am not sure of the other one yet.  It will be bold and have oranges in it.  That is as far as I have gotten.  Here is a detail of the quilting.

I received a wonderful 15" x 15" quilt yesterday as part of a solids challenge quilt exchange at 15 Minutes Play.  Isn't it incredible! Thank you Nancy B.

The deer just wandered through my back yard.  They don't eat weeds, you know.  My hostas are gone now.  I have to go protect my fuchsias.
Have a wonderful quilty day.

A new project and two fabric stores

My friend, MAD, asked if we could create a wall hanging for her bedroom while I was visiting her in the San Francisco Bay area.  Of course, I was very excited.  I thought and thought about what to do, and came upon the idea of book shelves.  MAD is a voracious reader, a reviewer of YA literature for VOYA (a journal about YA lit), and the best English teacher I have ever met.  Book shelves seemed like a no brainer.  Fortunately, she liked the idea. (editor's notes:  This idea was inspired by a project by Elizabeth at Don't Call Me Betsy) We found fabric she liked for the spines and a wonderful woodgrain print for the shelves.  I brought a few pieces from my stash for background and a few more books.  Then I set to work sketching, measuring, and cutting.  The photo above is the space I turned into a quilting studio for the morning.  You can see the shelving unit has two shelves with four spaces in each one.

 

I cut all the book fabrics into 2" strips that I could cut to any size I needed to match my sketches.  I put them all on the ironing board so I could pull colors as I needed.  I want to make sure I balance the values and the colors throughout the piece.  I am finding it pretty easy to adapt any space to a studio.

This is the first space laid out.  I haven't put the background in, so you can see the placemat in the background.  I will piece all of this when I get home.  Today, I am going to work on the rest of the spaces.  Then, I will pin all the books together in order for each space, and take photos so I can get them right when I do the final piecing.  I think this is going to be very cool when it is done.
We visited two shops to find the fabric.  One was in Sunnyvale and the other in Santa Cruz.  The shop in Sunnyvale is Eddie's Quilting Bee.  This is a beautiful shop with fabulous fabrics.  The first thing I spotted as we went in was a shelf of Kaffe Fasset I drooled over.  There were wonderful batiks, collections by favorite designers, fantastic Asian designs, $1.00 fat eighths, and the best book collection I have seen in a quilt shop yet.  They also had a good selection of Laurel Burch designs, and novelty prints.  I think I may have to go back to this shop before I go home on Tuesday.
The second shop we visited was Harts Fabric in Santa Cruz.  This was completely different from Eddie's.  Harts has all kinds of fabric, including a huge selection of upholstery and home decor.  There is a wall of quilting cottons in one room that is separated by color.  There are Tula Pinks and several Moda designers, but you have to look for them in the color sections.  I know some people really like this kind of layout.  It makes me crazy.   They have a nice selection of Japanese import fabric that I have not seen in person before.  They also have several Liberty of London fabrics.  These are so beautiful, and have a wonderful light hand, but they are $43 per yard.  Worth it if you have extra money to spend.  I don't.  At least I got to see and touch them. 
Have a wonderful quilty weekend, everyone.

Another AAQI quilt finished and fabric if you want it

This is my July AAQI mini.  It is 8" x 10".  I used the mariner's compass pattern I had from Hokule'a.  I liked the idea of the compass helping to point the way, unless you are lost inside the sea of your own brain with Alzheimer's.  The center is made fabric quilted with small stippling to represent the maze of that brain.  I also used small stippling on the background to show how confusing the world can become to someone with dementia.  This is foundation pieced and uses all batik fabrics.

One of my husband's friends came by with a very large box of fabric that had been collecting in their storage space.  There was a wonderful assortment of interesting fabrics.  One of the coolest thing was this selection of solids.  Each is a half yard to a yard.  This is a fantastic addition to my solids collection.  A month ago, I could only find a few small pieces in my stash.  Now, I am ready to work on my Matisse.
One of the pieces of fabric is this piece of  C. S. Shamash and Sons Inc #5574.  It is 4 yards of fabric depicting Plains Indians chasing buffalo. 

If anyone is looking for this fabric, I would love to send it to you.  I tried to find it online, but had no luck.  I know someone out there has been looking for just this piece of fabric.  If you know anyone who is looking for it, I will be happy to trade.    Just let me know.
I am leaving for San Francisco tomorrow morning.  I don't know how much blogging time I will have, but I will try to post updates.  Until next week, joyful blogging.

Still quilting

I have spent the last few days making sure I had everything ready for my guild's upcoming show.  The show is July 22 - 24 at the downtwon Renton branch of the King County Library, if anyone is interested.  I am entering five pieces.  At this time last week, only two were finished.  I have shown you the finished Tanzanian Tango, Rhumba, and the Iris.  I am also showing a vest I made, but haven't figured out how to photograph it well because it is pretty dark.  On Friday, I quilted Farmer's Market and attached the binding by machine.  I put the last hand stitches in it this morning.  It is pretty bright, but I do love it.

While I was quilting away, my husband came in with a surprise for me - a new shelf for fabric!  Here you can see how my stash has been stored, and the new shelf after the first five minutes of cleaning off one table surface.

It is a bit fuller now, since I cleaned off another table.  I don't think it will hold everything that is in the bins, but I have another shelving unit coming at the end of the month that I hope will hold most of it.  My stash consists mostly of smaller pieces of fabric - fat quarter size to half yard size.  I haven't done much stash building.  Most of the time, I only buy fabrics I need for a specific project.  Every once in a while, however, I do buy small amounts of something just because I love it. 

My last project with a deadline is the H2H quilt.  It is on the frame as of this morning.



You might have noticed in the first photo and in this one that my batting and top are just hanging and not on pick-up rollers.  I started doing this about six months ago, and I am much happier with the results I am getting.  I have much more control of the top while I am quilting using this method.  I know it probably breaks a few rules, but it works very well for me.  This quilt needs to be done and in the mail Tuesday. 

My list of new projects is growing daily.  For one of them, I need to find Kelly green fabric.  For two of them, I have some ideas for color, but have to earn some money to buy it.  These three are gift quilts.  Then there are the three I want to make for us, and more to make for charity.  I have also embarked on a Matisse QAL with Victoria at BumbleBeans.  Such fun!

Project updates

The iris is finished.  I used several different Superior King Tut threads for the quilting and the thread play.  I chose two purple blends to applique and outline the flower petals as well as the thread play.  I have never done thread play before, and just tried it based on what I have seen on the web.  It was sort of fun, but made me a little tense.  I was so happy with the flower, I didn't want to ruin it.  In the end, it comes close to matching the image I had in my head, but I can definitely use more practice.  I used a green blend thread to do all over stippling on the green background.   This piece was great fun for me, for the most part.  I enjoyed going through Tom's photos to find the right flower.  I had fun sketching it out, deciding what parts to leave in and how to simplify the drawing to make a quilt.  I had fun selecting the fabrics, and all the rest.  I decided on a batik that has a light value for the binding.  It is hard to see in the photo, I think it works well.  With this finished, and Rhumba complete, I only have Farmer's Market to complete for the quilt show.  I think I will get that quilted tomorrow.

While I was in a quilting mood, I took the solid challenge off the design wall and quilted it.  Before I did, I drew what I wanted on the paper I was using for size.  Then I quilted the straight lines, followed by the circles.  There was something missing, so I chose three small areas to to small stippling.  I am pretty pleased about this piece, except for the bits of puckering I just couldn't get rid of.  At one point, I thought about starting another piece instead, but stuck with this one because I really liked the way it looked.  I hope my swap partner will overlook the flaws and enjoy it for the overall look.
We are having summer here for a few days.  It is quite beautiful and warm.  We finally felt a need to turn on the fans.  Summer is quite a treat around here, when it arrives.  I am hoping the strawberries in the yard begin to produce some fruit.  The blueberry bushes are full and are beginning to get ripe.  Bella loves to pick the blueberries.  We gave up on the hope for tomatoes this year.  Maybe next year.  I am still hoping for a raised bed garden, but we have to find a space where it will get enough sun besides the front yard.  For now, we do what we can.
Joyful quilting, everyone.

A little play, a little machine applique, and an award

I started my studio time today making a little bit of fabric.  I need quite a bit of it for some upcoming projects, so I thought I would get started.  If I add six to eight inches every day, I will have enough by mid July to do everything I want.

Next, I got started on the applique portion of the iris.  Before I started, however, I wanted to add leaves.  That meant I had to go get some SteamASeam.  Then I realized I didn't have the right dark green for the leaves, and I was out of stabilizer.  Hmmm.  After a quick trip to JoAnns, where the rotary cutter blades are on sale at 50% off, I cut the leaves, steamed it all together, and started the machine applique.  I was working on another project yesterday and used the double blanket stitch.  After I got half way through, I realized I don't like the look of that stitch very much.  Today, I used the single blanket stitch, and I was much happier.  I got about 2/3 of the way done before my eyes started to cross and I had to call it quits.  So far, I am very happy with what has been happening.

Sunni and Melissa over at Love Affair With My Brother gave me this lovely blog award.  I am supposed to tell you seven things about myself.  Here goes.
1.  I am going to be 65 this year and I'm really excited that I can finally get all those senior discounts out there. 
2.  I am a vegetarian. 
3.  My favorite food is bread.  I especially love hardy European breads with crusty outside and chewy inside.
4.  I have just discovered the joy of working with Philip Jacobs fabrics, and want to have them all.
5.  My husband and I are Send Out Cards distributors.  Interested?  Leave me a comment.
6.  I am a retired teacher and school librarian.
7.  I love the process of selecting fabrics, figuring out what to do with what I have chosen, cutting, sewing, quilting, and enjoying quilts. 
I will select more lovely blogs over the next week.
Have a wonderful fourth, everyone.

Design Wall today

This is my design wall today, July 1, 2011.  The Mola in the bottom right was one my mother bought many years ago.  Today, I rescued it from a broken frame.  Lots of WIPs right now.  I need to get at least four of these finished soon.
Have a wonderful 4th, everyone.

Fabric Play

I started the day making a mug rug with scraps from other projects.  I needed something ready to show my sis how I do binding.  Very autumn-like, I think.

Next, I decided to make a mini for AAQI.  This one will finish at 9" x 10" with the binding.  I couldn't resist jumping into this Jacobs fabric.  It is one of the seashell fabrics.  I cut 1.5 inch squares and rearranged them to give a mosaic look.  I then did 1/4" sashing.   I added one larger solid block that picked up the orange in the main fabric.  I have to figure out how to quilt it now.  It reminds me of one of those domed aquariums where you stand in the middle and the fish swim all around you.

I ended my studio time with a little more work on my Kandinsky interpretation.  It is getting there.  There are still spaces to fill in.  I have been enjoying the process for this one.  No pattern or drawing.  Just cutting fabric that is the color I want and adding it to the mix.  I also have to figure out how to quilt this one when it is finished.

Tomorrow is another day to play with fabric.  Joyful quilting, everyone.

Quilt finish, Will's quilt, and new fabric

I finished En Vino Veritas just in time to put up the library display today.  After discussions with Tom and Will (SIL), I selected a dark gray/black batik for the binding.  I quilted the top with light lavender and the back with dark purple.  Here are some details of the quilting.

 

I decided to use a medium size overall stipple, because that is what I know how to do.  One of these days, I really need to set up a practice piece and learn to do something else.





Will started a new quilt for one of her sisters while she was here.  Don't you love the colors?  The sister is a strawberry blond and has a very traditionally styled house.  This is going to be perfect.

While Will was here, we visited quite a few quilt shops.  I did some stash building, as well as picked up some fabrics for a wedding quilt I need to get done before October 1.

I seem to be a sucker for these colors and the floral prints.  They jump off the shelf into my hands if they happen to be in whatever shop I enter.  One of these days, I may have enough to make a quilt.  I also love paisleys.  Go figure.

These are for the wedding quilt.  My sister thinks the greens are not right, so I will have to continue my search for the right green.  It is supposed to be kelly green.  If any of you know a line that has kelly green and white, please let me know.  I haven't found any yet.

Finally, I added to my tiny Jacobs collection. When I went into Island Fabrics and saw all that bright wonderful fabric on the walls, I was hooked.  I will build this stash a little at a time.  I am, however, going to make an AAQI quilt with the center fabric this weekend as my July quilt.




Will left today, so I have lost my quilt shop companion and have no excuses to be out of the studio for a while.  Joyful quilting, everyone.

Book Winner

 I can not figure out how to put that cute little random number generator here, but this is what came up. 
 
True Random Number Generator Min: Max: Result: 8 Powered by RANDOM.ORG

The winner of the Sunbonnet Sue book is Sunnybec.  Congratulations.

Sunnybec said...

Thanks for the giveaway. I am trying to think of any tips I have picked up along the way as I have only been quilting since August last year. I especially like the one from Quilter in the Gap about the needles. I do sort of the same with my rotary cutter blades, I keep one of the plastic containers they come in, write "used" on it, and put all my used cutters in there, much safer than just throwing in the bin.

Thank you for all of you who entered the book giveaway.  I appreciate your interest. 
Joyful quilting, everyone.

Solid fabric art challenge

Over at 15 Minutes Play, some of us are participating in a new challenge swap.  We are to select a work of art and interpret it using solid fabrics and the methods we have been learning at 15 Min.  These mini quilts are to be 15 inches square and are to be done by August 1.  I have gone through three choices of paintings before I decided on this one.  It is Improvisation 7.
My partner likes Kandinsky, and is doing a fantastic quilt for me inspired by Kandinsky circles.  You can see what she has done so far here.  I have been working on what I see as the background.  My next step is to work on the foreground.  I am pulling fabrics and cutting pieces as I think I might need them.  My goal is not to reproduce the painting, but to use it as an inspiration and guide.  Right now, I don't like the black and white area at the top left.  I am going to have to slice it and add something else to make it look the way I want.  The finished portion is laying on a 15" square of paper so I have a sense of where I am going size-wise.  So far, I am really enjoying this process.
Joyful quilting, everyone.