Victoria's Color Challenges on 15 Minutes Play

If you are interested in taking a challenge to work with colors that may be outside your regular color choices, be sure and stop by 15 Minutes Play where Victoria has come up with a fun new color challenge.  Each Wednesday, she will post a new color to play with.  Our first color is

Mauve!

There seems to be quite a bit of difference of opinion about just what color mauve is.  I happen to like the color, but it turns out not to be a favorite of most quilters who are playing along.  Fortunately, my Sister-In-Law had a piece in her stash, and I brought my favorite scraps, so I was ready to play.

The mauve borders are 3" wide, so that should give you some idea about the size of the block I created.  This is the block style I intend to create for each color.  I hope I like the rest of the colors in the challenge, 12 in all, as much as I like this one.  At least I hope I can create something interesting that I can live with.  I am sure Victoria will throw in a brown at some point, and I will just have to cope.  After all, it is a challenge. 



Hokule'a finished at last

I finished quilting and binding Hokule'a in time to hand deliver it to my sister-in-law in Northern Virginia.  This photo was taken indoors, in natural light from the skylights, so it looks a little faded.  This quilt is made primarily from shirts and dresses of mine and Tom's from our time living in Hawaii.

I quilted it with an over all irregular loop pattern to symbolize the tosses and turns life can take you on.  The center mariner's compass star symbolizes the guiding star, Hokule'a in Hawaiian navigation.  The outer log cabins are the symbol for home, with the red center standing for home and hearth.  The friendship stars are for all the wonderful friends and guides who help you along the way.  As I was making this quilt, I was mindful of not creating any closed off areas, leaving paths through each border.  It was a joy to make this quilt, and I am pleased that Willa likes it.

The back is a piece of Hawaiian shirt weight bark cloth that I bought in Hawaii, intending to make Tom a cover for his yoga mat.  The red is from a piece of fabric given to me by a friend.

Later today, I will post about our trip to Annapolis and the Eastern Shore in search of more fabric and good seafood.

Until then, joyful quilting everyone.

Fabric Shopping in Amish Country

I have been enjoying my stay in Northern Virginia.  I arrived late Thursday night.  Friday, I spent the day settling in while Willa and David were at work.  I took some time to cut fabric for the doll quilt for the April swap.  Saturday morning, Willa and I went to a couple of fabric shops where I found some beautiful batiks on sale, and a piece of peacock fabric I fell in love with.  Sunday, we had a brunch with many old friends, and that was great fun.  Monday morning, we set off for Pennsylvania and Amish country to shop for fabric.

We headed around Washington, DC on the beltway, then headed north through Maryland until we reached Pennsylvania.  Our first destination was The Old Country Store in Intercourse, PA.  We stopped here at the visitors center along the interstate.

The Old Country Store is a wonderful place where they have a quilt museum upstairs, a gift shop with locally made handcrafts, quilts, and food, and a fantastic fabric store.  Willa and I found wonderful fabrics at extremely reasonable prices.  I found beautiful Kona solids at less than $7.00 per yard. 

I already have plans for all of them.  I also found some homespuns for the house quilt that I am starting soon, at very low prices.

If you buy 10 fat quarters, they are only $1.99 each.  I found some great batiks and other things.  I should have picked up some more.

The Old Country Store also as an online store here.

After lunch at Stolfus Meats and Deli, we headed back, planning on stopping at a couple of other fabric shops along the way.

I believe this was called Bird In Hand Fabrics and Notions.  This was more of a local shop carrying fabric and notions for making plain clothes, as well as quilting fabric.  I have never seen so many different bolts of black fabric.  The prices here were also very reasonable.  As you can see on the sign, many were on sale for $4 - $5 per yard.  I bought a small piece of fabric and a quilting stencil here.

I didn't get a photo of the last place we stopped, Log Cabin Quilts in Bird In Hand.  Here, I found the black and yellow fabric I needed for this months Stash Bee Hive 1 block. 

Here are some of the odd pieces of fabric I picked up at the different shops that are for various projects.

Some were on sale, some I just fell in love with.  A couple are for bees and other WIPs.

All in all, we had a wonderful and successful day.  We spend way less than we expected, and came home with more fabric than we thought we would.  The drive was beautiful, and we didn't run into any of the bad traffic that I expected in the DC area.

Today, I am going to work on sewing my April doll quilt.  I will leave you with this photo of a farm field in Bird In Hand.  Joyful quilting, everyone.

The Making of an Art Quilter

I wanted to share with you Bella's newest venture into the world of quilting.  I asked her if she wanted to make a fabric collage instead of the usual paper ones she is now making.  Without hesitation, she said yes.  Of course, I had one idea about how we would proceed, and she had another.  We went with hers.

After she went through my stash and picked pieces from all the colors of the rainbow, she started cutting little irregular shapes of each color.  She was very careful to keep the piles separate.  This is her first time cutting fabric with "grown-up" scissors.

After she thought she had enough pieces cut, she started placing them on a piece of batting she had me cut to just the right size.

Art cannot be rushed, so there were a few breaks along the way for snacks and playing with Tom.

We put some wash-away stabilizer over the top of the finished collage and took it carefully to the sewing machine.  Bella is only 3 1/2, so she is very comfortable sitting in my lap and helping me guide the fabric while I work the foot pedal. 

After sewing, we ran some warm water in the sink to wash away the stabilizer.  This is the first time I have used this, and I am pretty amazed.  It just dissolves.  Bella wasn't sure if she liked touching the slimmy water as it was washing away.

She was as amazed as I was, I think.

This is what it looks like so far.  I need to wash it again to get all the residue away from the thread, even though I like the look of the thicker line.  I also need to do a little more stitching in a few places.  I am not sure what Bella will want to do next with this piece, but so far, she is pretty happy with it.  She likes her abstract designs in her drawings and, now, in her quilts.

I have been busy finishing up projects I need to get done before Thursday when I leave for a ten days in Fairfax, Virginia.  I am going to stay with my sister-in-law, who is responsible for getting me back into quilting.  What fun we will have!  Does anyone know what kind of scissors I can take onboard the airplane to do some handwork?

Joyful quilting, everyone.

Quilters Anonymous Quilt Show photos

One of the reasons I really wanted to get well fast last week was to be able to go to the Quilters Anonymous annual show in Monroe, Washington.  Tom and I were able to make it yesterday, and I am so glad we did.  The quilt above was made by Dorothy "Sally" Leboeuf.  It is the inspiration for my Provencal quilt.  Sally is the founder of the Rebels, a quilt group I joined last year.  She was the featured quilter at this show.  Her quilting is astounding, but I don't think I got good photos of her quilting, just her colors.  Here are just two more of her stunning quilts.

There were several quilts by fellow Rebels, but I only got a couple of photos.

This one is by Patty House.  It has been great fun watching the progress on this one at meetings.

This one is by Lisa Jenni.  It doesn't show in this photo, but the inset ovals all have wonderful textures.  This is a small but powerful quilt.

This was Tom's first quilt show, and he was fascinated and very impressed with the variety of quilting patterns and techniques.  Since I am not a great quilter, so it was the first time he has really been exposed to the wonder and variety of what quilting adds to a quilt.  It is really great to have such a supportive husband who is interested enough in what I do to look forward to going to quilt shops, and perhaps another show.

 In my next post, I will share some of the other quilts I really liked from this show.  Until then, 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.



Short Blog Vacation

Hello, all.  I seem to have been caught by the terrible bug that has been running around my family.  I am not even feeling like looking into the studio.  I will be back when I get back into the studio.  Judging by how long the others have been down, it will probably be by the end of the week. 
Joyful quilting, everyone.

Doodles to quilts

Do you ever doodle little quilt designs?  It is something I do sometimes when I am waiting.  I don't do a lot of waiting, so my doodles are small, about 1" x 2" usually. When I get one I think has possibilities, I will work on it more when I am home.  This week, I came up with several I liked, so I decided to try and make one into a mini, either for a small quilt medallion, or for AAQI.  Not sure yet.

As I was developing the drawing, I wanted to create a sense of depth.  I have always been intrigued by ribbons, and the idea of ribbons escaping from a box is something I have wanted to do for a while.  I also knew I wanted to try the flange idea again, to see if I could get it the way I wanted it this time. I did, by the way.

Once I had the drawing done, I had to figure out how to make it with fabric.  Next time, I will take photos along the way, but for this one, I just enjoyed the process.

Steps I took

1.  I drew the design full size on freezer paper.

2.  I traced the different shapes on another piece of freezer paper.  Somewhat redundant, I guess.

3.  Selected fabrics.  I decided on a soft spring like palette for this one.  I think I will make another one with brighter solids.

4.  Put fusible backing on the pieces.

5.  Cut backing, flange fabric, and borders.

6.  Started putting the puzzle together.  Some of the ribbons come out from under the flange, and some go over it.  Some go over the bottom of the loop, and some under the top part.  It was very important to do things in the correct order to maintain the design.  That was the fun part.

7.  Add the outside border.

8.  Iron all the pieces down, making sure everything is fused properly.

9.  Machine buttonhole stitch all the fused pieces.

If I decide to use this for AAQI, the next step will be to quilt it.  It could also be the center for a doll quilt I need to make for a swap.  I will decided tomorrow.

The one thing I am not totally pleased with is the way it doesn't look like the top orange piece is connected to the bottom yellow piece, making a loop.  I will fix that in the next one.

I also did a little studio pick up and made a couple of star crossed blocks for a bee.  All in all, it was a fun day in the studio.  I needed that time just to play.

Until tomorrow, 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.

More play

I decided to quilt the mini I showed you Saturday.  I also wanted to do some thread drawing.  I started with the moth in the center using a Superior King Tut variegated thread I love.  You can see all the colors in the thread in the meandering on the light border here.

I drew these moths with water soluble pen before quilting them.  It was fun to put these little guys in each corner.

Here is the finished piece, binding and all.  I quilted the turquoise border with a deep wave line all around, and the leaf border with another meander.  As you can see, I put petals in the light triangles.  I wish they were a little more uniform, but that will come with more practice.  I now have it hanging with some of my other minis.

All these blocks came from my Stash Bee Hive 2 partners.  I still have one coming that I know of.  I am going to add more yellow, indigo, orange, and violet to make the quilt larger.  It has been so much fun to see all the incredible fabrics people have in their stashes.  This is the first time I have been Queen Bee and I really enjoyed it.  I get to do it again in August with another bee I belong to.  Whoohoo!

I am fighting a cold today, so I am not sure how much quilting I will get done.  I may hunker down with a good book, under a cozy quilt.  We shall see.  Yesterday, I made my plane reservations for a ten day trip to the Washington, DC area for the first week in April.  I haven't been back to visit Willa for a long time, and I am very excited about going, even thought Tom will be here minding the home front.  It will be great fun to explore more things quilty.

Have a fabulous week, and I will be back Friday.

Joyful quilting, everyone.

Another finished top, and some play time

I added the borders to Tom's Primitiva quilt, and now it is ready for quilting.  It is bigger than I usually do, so I hung it over the backdrop in Tom's photo studio to take a picture, since it doesn't fit on the design wall very well.  Here is a close up of the corners and the border fabric.

I love this fabric, but it does two things that make me crazy.  It sheds strings everywhere, and they all stick to the orange.  The other thing is that the orange is the most wrinkle catching fabric I have worked with in a long time.  I iron it and by the time I get it ready to hang up, it is wrinkled again.  Hopefully, this won't matter when I get it all quilted.  I have no idea what I am going to use for a backing for this.  I have looked in my stash, and there is nothing that will work.  I may have to take Tom to the fabric store to select something he likes.  It is a good thing he likes to visit the fabric store.

After I finished that, I decided to work on my Modern 8 March challenge.  The challenge is to take an orphan block, and make something small just for ourselves.  I have a ton of orphan blocks from when I first started quilting and thought I would be a traditionalist.  I looked through them, trying to find one I could cut up and do something wild with.  Then I found the little moth.  The original block only goes out to the gold/orange squares.  I made it because I found this 3" square with the moth in my stash.  I fell in love with it and didn't want to lose it.  Today, I added the turquoise border, the quarter inch "flap", and the leaf border.  My new thing to learn with this piece was to include a three dimensional "flap" portion to the border.  I realized, too late, that to get what I wanted, I needed to miter the flap piece and the leaf piece.  I still like it, but next time, I will remember before it is too late.  I have drawn on some quilting marks and will do that tomorrow.  It will finish up just over 12" square, and I will hang it on my wall of mini quilts. 

The last thing I did was play with some of my improvisational blocks and see how they would look with

the turquoise.  I still have more blocks I want to make before I fully commit to a layout, but I am leaning toward the turquoise for improv sashing.  What do you think?

I have a few bee blocks I need to get done, and a doll quilt to start, and all those tops to quilt.  Where is my resolve?  Until tomorrow, joyful quilting, everyone.

Something new

Does your normal everyday life ever intrude seriously into your quilting time?  That is what happened to me this morning.  I had to spend far too much time dealing with state bureaucracy and a financial institution this morning.  Unfortunately, it was necessary.  Fortunately, it all worked out well.  After I got that taken care of, I got the Primitiva top put together and ready for borders.  The border fabric arrived this afternoon, so I will put it on tomorrow and post another photo.

Then, I had room to put this newly arrived work on the design wall and audition some fabric for my addition.  This is round three of the Improvirobin I am taking part in.  Willa, my wonderful sister in law, did a stunning and incredible piece of transformation on my round one piece.  You can see it here.  It has now traveled on to a new person for round three.  The piece on my design wall was started by Stephanie at Venus de Hilo, and added to by Jackie at Canton Village Quilt Works.  I have some ideas what I want to do, but I will let it gel for a few days before I jump in.  I will post what I do at the end of the month.

Tomorrow, I have a bunch of little projects that need my attention in the studio.  Until then, joyful quilting, everyone.

Primitiva quilt update

All the snowball blocks are now pieced and everything is on the design wall.  It is always amazing to me how the camera will pick up and focus on oranges and yellows to the detriment of all the other colors.  This entire quilt is very vibrant, and while the orange is very bright and exciting, it doesn't dominate this much in real life.  Tom is really happy with how this is coming along.  We had an interesting discussion about adding a border or just binding it as it is.  I was in favor of the latter because I felt a border would put a stop to all the energy flowing out of this quilt.  Then, we started looking at some of the different fabrics, and found one we thought would encourage the movement.  I decided to order it, and will add a border after all.  It is really great to have a husband with a good sense of color and design who is willing to enter into these discussions with me, and understand what I am talking about.  I am already thinking about quilting.  I would like to hand quilt a motif in each of the orange blocks, but I haven't come up with a brilliant idea yet.  There are some really big and bold flowers in some of the prints.  Maybe I will do something like that, and probably do it with the machine. 

After I cut off all the snowball corner triangles, I ended up with 84 half square triangle units to play with.  I am looking forward to making a smaller quilt with these later in the spring.  For now, I am going to put them away.  I need to get my stack of finished tops quilted.  Starting Friday, I am going to start getting some things quilted so I can get them finished.  Having a bunch of tops around is fun, but it will be more fun to have finished quilts.

Tomorrow, I start my weekly three days with Bella.  Until Friday, joyful quilting everyone.

Winner of the Traveling Box

I still haven't figured out how to put the Random Generator thing on my blog, but I did it and the winner was #1, Sarah Craig from Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  I have emailed her to let her know.  Thank you to the rest of you who entered.  Don't give up!  If you keep playing, one of these boxes will come to you one of these days.
Joyful quilting, everyone.