Stash Dash Day Two

We started day two at a much more reasonable hour.  After missing our turn to Poulsbo, and finding a beautiful back road that ran through a valley with big fields, great trees, and lovely old buildings and barns, we finally arrived at our first destination, Heirloom Quilts and Fabrics in Poulsbo, WA.  This is a very nice shop in the old part of town near the waterfront.  I always see fabrics there I love, but it is one of the higher priced shops in the area, so I am careful what I buy,  I did find a pattern there for a wall hanging that I couldn't resist.  It will be a gift, so can't show it here.  You will see it eventually.

Our last stop was Material Girls Quilt Shop in Silverdale.  I have been in this shop a few times before, and I am always so impressed with all the great quilts on the walls.

You can't really tell in this photo, but all the walls have quilts in every size.  They are all so beautiful and well made.  They also have good prices on fat quarters.  Since I needed some for this quilt project for this dash, I took advantage of the buy ten get one free special.

I accidentally put the light one in another photo.

Look at this adorable quilt that was on the wall in the classroom!  If I lived closer, you can bet I would be taking this class.  They didn't have the patterns for sale, unfortunately.

This is one of the fabrics I bought along the way.  It is Misaki by Melissa White for Rowen.  I couldn't resist the colors.  I don't know what I will do with it yet, but I have a half yard piece.

I have a half yard of each of these Marcia Derse pieces to add to my collection now.  So beautiful!

These are the fat quarters that I selected along the way.  Each shop gave one for free to each participant.  Each shop had a different group of fabrics to choose from.  My sister got more blue fabrics than I did, and we are each very happy with these new additions to our stash.

I had a great time going to these shops.  After a great lunch with Kim and her husband today, I gave Kim a short lesson on foundation paper piecing to create the eagles in the quilt.  Her eagle came out really cool.  After an even shorter demonstration on half square triangles, I packed my car and headed for the ferry for my journey back home.  It has been a wonderful couple of days, but it is nice to be back home to Tom, the vegetable garden and the chickens.

Tomorrow, I will work on the new Grandmother's Choice blocks and maybe piece an eagle or two of my own.  Until tomorrow, joyful quilting, everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stash Dash Shop Hop Day 1

Today was the first day of the three day Stash Dash held by eight quilt shops on the Kitsap Peninsula in Western Washington.  Each shop is giving away a fat quarter and block instructions for one part of the quilt pictured above.  My sister, Kim, and I planned on doing this hop some time ago.  In addition to the generous fat quarter offerings, and the great quilt pattern, there are prizes if you go to all shops and your passport is selected.  One of the prizes is a Feather Weight - a dream of mine.  What follows is a photo essay of our first day.

I live a bit southeast of Seattle.  My sister lives on the Kitsap Peninsula.  That meant that I had to get up before the crack of dawn to catch the 6:00AM ferry.  This is what Seattle looks like from the back of a ferry moving away from the city at that time of morning.  At that hour of the day, my eyes were pretty blurry.

My ferry ride was about an hour, so I did get to see dawn breaking before the end of the ride.

After getting my stuff settled at Kim's, we headed west to Port Angeles to the first shop on our list for the day, Sleepy Valley Quilt Company.  This shop is housed in an old house.  The first room you enter is the old kitchen.  One of the first things I noticed was this great table runner.

I looked for a pattern, but couldn't find it.  They are giving a class on how to create this beauty.

We headed back toward the east to Sequim to the Karen's Sequim Sewing Center.  This is in a mall in one of the "rain shadow" towns on the peninsula.  Sequim is also near the Dungeness Spit, a great place to hike.  But, I digress.  I saw another really cute table runner here with wonderful scrappy birds.  My photo didn't turn out, but it was really cute.

Next stop was Port Townsend and Creative Union Fabrics.  This is in a place called Kala Square outside of town.  It is a very cool shop with beautiful fabric.  I bought a small piece there that I will share with you tomorrow.  Don't know what I will do with it, but it is beautiful.  With all these shops, I was really impressed with the variety of fabrics and the really nice staffs.

Our next stop was Quilted Strait in Port Gamble.  I have wanted to go here since I read about it in a quilt magazine a while ago.  It is housed in a refurbished barn and it is really nice.  There is a great variety of fabric, and the shop is bright and colorful.  When I have more time, I will definitely make another visit here.

After Quilted Strait, we decided to walk to the General Store Restaurant for lunch.  As you can see, the leaves are beginning to turn around here.  We are having a very unusually beautiful fall with blue skies and no rain.  Wonderful for us, but stressful for the trees.

After lunch, we headed for Kingston, another small town ferry port.  Here we found the Kingston Quilt Shop.  Isn't that neon sign beautiful?  Inside was the biggest selection of fat quarters to choose from, and a very nice selection of fabrics.  My sister spotted a great project that Bella and I can create for a Halloween decoration.

Bella loves to decorate for all holidays, and this will be something we can create together.  I can't wait until next Bella day.

Our last quilt shop for the day was Esther's Fabrics in Bainbridge Island, yet another ferry town.  At each of the shops we visited today, I hoped to find more Marcia Derse fabric.  I had just about given up, but when we walked into Esther's, I noticed that she carried a wider selection of the more unusual fabric lines than the others.  I began to hope again.  I looked all around, and almost missed it, but there it was!  They were on a shelf in small bolts.  I was delighted.  Once again, I had trouble making up my mind, but I did add three more to my collection.  I will share photos of all my fabric tomorrow.  Now, I know there are two shops in Western Washington that carry Marcia Derse fabrics: Fabric Diva in La Conner and Esther's Fabrics in Bainbridge Island.  I am a happy camper.

Tomorrow, we have two shops to go and we will hit them in the morning.  I am going to do a block piecing lesson with Kim before I head home.  Then, I have a couple of days to play in the studio.

Until tomorrow, I hope you enjoyed tagging along today.  Joyful quilting, everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid-Week catch up

Newest kaleidoscope block

All of them so far - unsewn.

Kansas Sunflower in batiks.

All the batik blocks so far.

Newest AAQI block in progress.  I couched some yarn and shiny ribbon for more movement.

Detail.

Tomorrow and Saturday, I am going on a Kitsap Peninsula Quilt Shop Hop with my sister.  Hopefully, I will be able to post some photos, if I remember to take some this time.

Joyful quilting, everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

Kaleidoscope

There are days when synchronicity amazes me.  I went to my ballet class this morning, in spite of not wanting to go.  It was as hard as I imagined it would be.  There are days I question the wisdom of starting ballet at 65, but then I come home and am treated to this ballet outside my window.  Madame Spider has been working hard to create a new home, in spite of the fact that it will probably have to be rebuilt over and over again because it is using a slender fuchsia flower as one of the anchor points.  As I watched, I was reminded of my newest quilting project - you knew I was going to get there eventually, didn't you?

So, I went into the studio and pulled some strips out of the scrap bin and created another piece to the kaleidoscope.  It is great fun to see how these look once the wedges are cut.

This is how they look together so far.  As I was pulling strips today, I found a Jacob's piece with mostly purple.  I am going to have to move to another bin to make a block with it.  My goal is to have this be very colorful.  That will be a stretch since I seem to stick with favorites all the time.  I am intentionally putting something lighter in each block, so at least I am working on that.  I still haven't figured out what to do with the filler squares, but I may do some 15 Minute Play blocks and see what happens.

I also took some time to cut the batik pieces for the Kansas Sunflower.  I think I am going to like this one much better because of the contrast.  I may have to go back and redo the paisley one.  Oh, joy!  By the time I am done, I will get good at this block.  If that happens, look out world.  Then I will be able to do anything!

The next three days are Bella days.  I may try and squeeze in a kaleidoscope block or two.  Until next time, joyful quilting, everyone.

 

 

 

 

Three more blocks

I made two more of the Grandmother's Choice blocks for the batik set.  The first one is Grandmother's Choice.

The second one is Union Square.  I am not sure how long it will take me to make the next two.  I may get started tomorrow on them.  Given that it took me a week to make the sunflower one last time, who knows what will happen this time.

I also made another set of wedges for my octagon quilt.  I realized that when I looked at the other quilts made in a similar style that the strings were all more or less the same width.  My  scraps don't come that nicely.  I am lucky to find pieces long enough to eke out eight wedges, so I have decided to go with the kaleidoscope look in each block, with each one being very different from the others.  The one thing I will try and do is have one solid, or reads as solid, string in each block.  In the first two, that happens to be the widest piece.  I don't know if that will always be the case.  I am not sure how I am going to put this all together yet, so I am just making wedges at this point.  I would enjoy avoiding y seams if possible, but I will cross that road when I come to it.

For now, joyful quilting everyone.

 

 

Wow! Look what I got in the mail!

I have been part of the Doll Quilter's Monthly swap for several months now.  I have received some very wonderful small quilts as part of this swap.  This one is from Barbara Black at My Joyful Journey. I love the fabrics.  Barbara took colors from the focus fabric to use as background in the star blocks.  The shiny silvery fabric in the nine patches is really beautiful.  It is quilted with variegated thread that matches the colors in the fabrics.  She must have known of my love of dark fabrics.  This one is a great addition to my wall of small quilts.  I am skipping the October swap because I am just not a fan of anything spooky, and that is the theme. 

 This is a very fun and talented group of quilters.  It is not to late to join, if you are interested.  I love the small quilts for so many reasons. They actually get finished, which is a big plus.  I can use fabrics from my stash which is mostly made up of small pieces of fabrics and scraps.  I get to try new and fun patterns and quilting techniques.  I get to add small quilts from quilters all over the country to my collection.  What could be better?

Joyful quilting, everyone.

New blocks

Here is this week's Grandmother's Choice block, New Jersey.  I like the block, but I think I would like it better with the fabrics reversed.

Yep.  I like it better this way.  I decided to start another set of these blocks using my batiks for the darks as well as the lights.  I only have four to catch up on and two of them are relatively easy, so I don't think it will be a problem.  Of course, I have to do that sunflower again, but it will only make me a better piecer, right?

Then, because I didn't have fifteen or more other things needing to be finished, ha ha, I decided to try something new.  I have seen this idea several places.  One I love was done by Nifty and can be seen here - Nifty Quilts, and another I love is here - Quilts and Dogs.  In both of these, the design looks different because of the way the wedges were put together.  I am going to do this with the scraps in my bins as I get time.  This will be a long term project, but a fun one.

Tonight, Tom and I are taking photos at a wedding, but we are doing the photo booth corner without the booth.  I have been busy putting together props for the last couple of weeks.  It should be fun.

Until tomorrow, joyful quilting, everyone.

 

 

The block that took a week . . . .

 . . . . and is still nothing to write home about.

 

As some of you know, I have decided to play along with Barbara Brackman's new Block of the Week program over at Grandmother's Choice.  This week's block is the Kansas Sunflower.  When I looked at it, I decided I would skip this week.  Then I realized that part of why I joined the program was to grow my skills.  After all, it is important to keep growing as a quilter or all my work will look the same.  Some people think this would be a good thing, having a signature look and all, but I am not one of those people.

The first thing I did was select the fabric and cut the pieces.  I have decided to do all the blocks with my wonderful selection of paisleys and light colored batik.  For this one, I decided two fabrics wasn't going to work, so I grabbed another batik.  After I cut everything out, I took the time to draw all the seam lines on each piece.  I learned from doing another block with Y seams that this helped quite a bit.

I pieced all the light points to the dark shapes, then pieced them all together into the star.  I don't know if this is the easiest way to piece this, but it worked okay for me.

Next, I pieced in the center circle.  So far, so good.  When I pressed it, it lay flat as could be.  Drawing in those seam lines really was a good idea, even with the extra time it took.

Today, I finished piecing the outer wedges, then pieced it all into the circle.  This is where things started to go astray.  If I was going to do this again, I would machine applique the star circle onto a background square.  I may take this apart from the background and do that, but I really wanted to piece the whole thing this time.  It is hard to see the difference in the fabrics in this photo, but the star does stand out better in real life.  I honestly don't think I will do another one of these, but who knows.  I am thinking of making another quilt at the same time using my batiks, and I may really want the sunflower.

Here is what I have so far.  I look forward to seeing what Ms. Brackman sends our way tomorrow.  I am hoping for something a bit easier this week.

Once again, I want to send you over to the flickr page to see some of the stunning Kansas Sunflowers others are making.  There are some real beauties.

Joyful quilting, everyone.

 

 

 

 

 



Have you ever . . .?

Have you ever really liked a block so much you wanted to make more but didn't really want a whole quilt from it?  This was one of the Grandmother's Choice blocks that I really liked.  When Victoria called for 12.5" blocks for a friend, I immediately thought of this block.  Then I realized I had the measurements for an 8.5" block.  Ordinarily, that wouldn't be a problem, but this one has those pesky triangular pieces.  After a couple of careful measurements, I was able to enlarge the pattern and create the block in the right size. What fun.

Have you ever put together a piece, quilted it, and then had trouble deciding how to bind it?  I have cropped this photo to show it all squared up, but this piece really has some irregular measurements.  It is the piece I made for the October challenge over at Modern 8 Create last year.  I just finished hand quilting the piece.  Now that I have cropped it into a perfect rectangle, I think I like it much better with the irregular sides.  Now to find fabric to use for binding.  The back is all the red stripped fabric you see on the lower left.  Fabulous find at the thrift store, just like much of the rest of this piece.

It is nice to have a new card reader.  It was a long day of training for Univera, then getting some salmon for visiting family.  I don't think I will have any more studio time until Friday.  I may sneak in there now and then if I can.  Until then, joyful quilting everyone. 

 

technical difficulties

My digital card reader bit the dust, so I will not be posting until I can get a replacement.  Hopefully, that will only be a couple of days.  I know you are all eager to see what I have been working on, right?  In the mean time, for some really cool fabric combination eye candy, hope over the the Grandmother's Choice flickr page. Be sure and go back through the photos. Some of these quilters are going above and beyond in the cutting and combining of quilt fabrics.  Enjoy.
Joyful quilting, everyone.

Playing and cutting

After spending the morning going to my ballet class and picking up Bella at her new pre-school, I had to run around doing some errands.  When I got home, I wasn't sure I was up to going into the studio, but after lunch and a Reginicare, I was ready to play.  This one really only took me 15 minutes.  I put it with the other three and I couldn't resist trying them against a dark background.

This first piece I found was really too small to get the full effect, but I decided it was too dark, and too blue/teal.  I wanted something darker, but not this.  I rooted around for a larger piece of fabric I could live with.

I found this piece of batik I had been hoarding and petting for a long time.  I think I have a little over a yard and a half.  I really like the way it works with these light blocks.  I am going to measure carefully and what I have will determine the size of this project.  Who knew I would enjoy working with lights? 

After playing with the lights, I turned my attention to the Marcia Derse group.  I re-did my math for the third time and finally felt comfortable enough to start cutting.  My finished quilt will have 12 14" blocks like the block I showed yesterday.  The sashing will be 2 1/2" wide and I will have two borders.  As you can see, I am using very light sashing.  It is a pale blue batik and it goes nicely with all the Derse fabrics I have.  Each little pile is for one block.  I discovered that I can make two blocks with each quarter yard of Derse fabric.  Next time, I will buy more.  Does anyone out there know where I can buy more here in the Seattle area? 

Ballet class was much harder today because we used the barre for the first time.  On Wednesdays, we rely on balance, so I am not able to stretch as far. I know I am going to feel this tomorrow. Taking up ballet at 65 is quite an adventure.  I am very glad I am blessed with a good sense of humor.

Until next time, joyful quilting - and dancing - everyone.