Rainbows On A Cloudy Day

Yay!  I have finally finished and am able to post my project that I started back in March of 2017, in a class (the last class!) with Gwen Marston.  You can see where I started this project on this post.  

I actually had this finished for the guild quilt show at the end of September, but this is the first it's been posted anywhere.  It's so difficult to get a decent photo here - it's usually so dark and gloomy.

Rainbows On A Cloudy Day
37" x 45"
Hung sideways at the quilt show

That's why I call this quilt "Rainbows On A Cloudy Day".  It's cloudy here, more often than not.  I've also never seen so many rainbows as here in the Northwest - more than I've ever seen anywhere else I've lived.  No matter how many times I see a rainbow, they are always magical!  

I actually picked out the colors for this before I'd decided what pattern to use.  That was my sister's suggestion, as I had no idea where to start for something for this class.  I was a little intimidated to use only solid fabrics!  

So I decided to break out of my usual color palette and try something a little different.  I picked what seemed to me like kind of tropical colors.  The grey background came about because I was using a grey wall at the workshop to pin up my blocks on, and I really liked how the dark set off those colors.

You can see here that I used a little bit of the raw edge "fluff" on a few of my middle squares.  Just something fun and different to do.  I probably could have used more.  Oh well.

And I like Gwen's idea of letting the colors "bleed" from one area to another.  I think that makes the blocks a little more interesting.  I also randomly changed colors in a number of the rounds in the blocks - again, just something fun and interesting.  

And for the back, I used a piece of fabric that had been given to me.  It was just the right size!

I quilted this in a hurry, to be done in time for the quilt show.  But I think it came out OK in spite of that. Those not-real-straight straight lines do take some time to quilt!  And then I decided, for something a little out of the ordinary, to have the quilting lines turn the corner in the border.  The quilt crinkled up pretty well and I haven't even washed it yet.  

This ended up being a little too big for the space I had in mind, so it doesn't have a home to hang in yet.  I'm still thinking of where to put it so I can enjoy it.

On a personal note, the MRI I had last Wednesday told me that I have a broken ankle!  It's a very difficult-to-see incomplete fracture.  I now am using crutches and have a boot to wear to support the ankle.  I see the Orthopedic doctor next week.  And actually the ankle feels better than it has since the accident.  Some of that is staying off of it, like I'm supposed to, and some it is ?  Maybe healing?  That would be nice!  It will be interesting to hear what the doctor has to say.  I'm not enjoying the crutches, and I'm not really enjoying the forced inactivity either.  I want to go sew!  I keep telling myself to be patient.  Wish me luck with that!  Hee hee!

AHIQ Linkup Plus More!

Last year about this time, Debbie of A Quilter's Table blog hosted a quilt-along, mostly on Instagram, doing the Crosscut Quilt.  I had just gotten the prompt for my local guild's yearly challenge, which was "Get Creative With Black".  There were no rules for this challenge other than a minimum size of 24" x 24".  So, I decided that it would be fun to play along, using black fabrics for the background.  Maybe not the most creative way to use black, but I thought the quilt looked like it would fit the criteria.

I promptly ordered a good selection of what I'm calling "low volume black".  In other words, black with a subtle design on it.  And I thought it might be fun to use some of those fabrics I've hand-dyed and hand-marbled, so I used those for the inserts.  I love they way they look with the black fabrics!

Crosscut beginning

I decided to make my quilt a little bigger than what Debbie was doing with the Quilt-Along and what the Challenge size minimum was, just in case the quilt shrunk up too much with quilting to end up at 24" x 24".  This was my start.  Each black square is cut at 9 1/2 inches and the X's (inserts) are cut at 1 inch.  Then the *magic* happens!  *grin*  And that's the fun part.  You'll have to go look at the tutorial on A Quilter's Table if you want to know how to make your own.   It's an easy introduction to Improv quilting.  And a lot of fun too!

The Value of X
24 " x 30"

I got the top made in pretty short order, and then put it aside because 1. I had a year to finish and 2. I couldn't decide how I wanted to quilt it.  So, along comes June this year (my deadline was early July) and it was still sitting there waiting to get quilted.  Yikes! Time to make a decision!  I hemmed and hawed for a little bit, then finally realized that, since I've always admired the quilts I've seen on blogs, IG & Pinterest that have quilted spirals, I really wanted to do a spiral on this quilt.  I thought the spiral would be a good contrast with the geometricality (yes, that is a word now - I just made it up, maybe) of the piecing.  I was a little intimidated, but went for it anyway.  

I had kind of a rough start, perhaps because I started in such a small circle.  I traced around a spool of thread.  It was hard to see the line with the walking foot because it was such a tight fit with such a small circle.  But once I got a few rounds done, it was much easier.  It was actually kind of fun!  And I love the way it came out!

You can see the quilting really well on the back of the piece.  I used up some older stash fabric on the back, including one my mom gave me years ago.

Can you see the two skulls by the arrows?
Can you find the other skulls in this photo?

When I was quilting, I decided to add a few accent lines of a blue/purple thread.  They don't really show much, but I found out that this particular fabric not only has some dots in metallic but some of those dots are actually little skulls!   What a fun discovery!  I have a small quiltlet I made with the leftovers that still needs to be quilted, so you'll see that later.

I had so much fun with this pattern that I made placemats for myself which you can see here.  And now I want to do this pattern again, maybe on a slightly larger scale.

I'm linking up with Ad Hoc Improv Quilting linkup today.  Go check out all the other bloggers giving Improv a go.  There's some good stuff to see!

my 1st Raspberry Kiss block
4 1/4 inches

The Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild was having a "white elephant" exchange at the meeting last week.  I remembered from last year that these are actually pretty awesome handmade items, so I knew I had to rise to the challenge.  The theme this year was "Make It Modern".

I've been wanting to make some Raspberry Kiss blocks that I saw on Pinterest, so I thought now was as good a time as any.  

I changed my mind about what project these blocks were going into many times during the process.  But then it jelled and became a pouch!

Inside of the pouch

Blogger won't let me place this photo where I want it, so you get to see this first!

the "cool" side

the "warm" side

I love this so much!  But now it lives with Roxanne.  I'm planning on doing something more with the Raspberry Kiss block for myself!

Here is the "white elephant" that I came home from the meeting with....a beautiful pillow made by Leigh Ann.  I love it and it has pride of place on my living room couch.  It looks so summery and it makes me smile.  I love these colors!

Here is my newest addition to my collection of sewing machines.  A 1950 Singer 221 Featherweight! (the same age as I am!)  I received this wonderful gift from my friend Judy.  She taught me how to oil and grease her up and now she's ready for me to play with.  I've been wanting a Featherweight for a while now because I've heard (and seen) what a wonderful straight stitch they make.  I'm so excited to own this!  Now I have to go shopping for some fun (and some not-so-fun-but-necessary) accessories for her.

Happy quilting!

Gwennie-Inspired Liberated Medallion Reveal!

 Today is the day!  The stars have aligned properly and I can finally show you my completed quilt.  Yay!

This was the beginning block - a liberated basket

This wall quilt was the result of my participating in the Gwennie-Inspired Medallion Quilt Along with Lori at Humble Quilts blog.  Since I love all things Gwen Marston, I thought it would be fun to play along.

We were supposed to begin our quilts with a liberated basket.  I had the basket already made - I had made it in a Liberated Basket class with Gwen I took a couple of years ago.  I thought that was perfect.  The fabric that the basket is made from is some vintage fabric from the 1960's or 70's.

The second round was "childhood memories", the third round was log cabins, the fourth round was stars and the final round was "something fishy".

Ta da!
26" wide by 30" high

For the 2nd round, I thought of that childhood game Pick Up Sticks and also stilts.  I always played Pick Up Sticks at my aunt's home, as it was one of the few kids' games she had. (My cousins were grown and gone.)  And my sister and I spent a lot of hours trying to walk on our stilts.  We never did get very good on them!  I'm not sure I ever got to the end of our short walk from the front porch that ended abuptly in the middle of the lawn.  *grin*

Third round was easy - I love liberated log cabins!  Once I had decided on keeping the black polka dot consistently in the center of the log cabins, they just flowed.

For the stars border, I really wanted to continue the black dots fabric from the log cabins.  So I thought that just a limited number of stars in that border would be good.  It was looking very static, so I got the idea to have those stars "dance".   I love the way it turned out!

By this point, the quilt was looking finished to me, so I had a hard time figuring out how to do the "fishy" part of the 5th round.  I considered adding a border of flying geese pretending they were fish.  But in the end I decided that the fishes had to live on the back of this quilt. 

I had to include more dots too!  Of course!  It makes me smile that the dots remind me of the bubbles coming from those colorful fishies' mouths.

I decided to do one of my favorite quilting designs for liberated quilts.  Just not-too-straight straight lines.  I love that it doesn't disrupt the looks of the piecing and just seems to almost disappear.

highlighted to show the quilting

The center of the quilt is quilted this way.  I decided that in the black border, I would outline the stars then do straight lines parallel with the edges.

I'm not sure how well you'll be able to see the quilting here, because I used black thread on the black fabric.

I love my little Liberated Basket quilt!  And, when I showed it to Gwen, I got her "Seal of Approval"!  That really made me happy! 

I need to say a big Thank You to Lori for getting this QAL off and running, and to Katy, Cathy, Cynthia, and Wendy for the additional prompts.  It was so much fun to participate in this QAL and to make this quilt!

You can see the grand reveal of all the participants' quilts on Lori's blog here.  Lots of fun, wonderful quilts to see!  It has been so fun to see how everyone else interpreted the prompts.  

I'm going to be sending this quilt to Lori for a display she is doing at Quiltworks (in Bend, Oregon) for their 'First Friday' and monthly exhibit for May 2017.  If you live nearby, be sure and go visit!  You won't be disappointed!

New linky party:

Sew, Stitch, Snap, Share

Show & Tell

I've never shown you the quilts I finished this year and displayed in my local guild's quilt show.  I've been such a slacker.

I wasn't as productive this year as I'd like to be, but I got 3 quilts done for the quilt show.  None of them are real big, but done is done!

First, I finally finished my 10 year old project!  It feels good to have this one done, and I'm looking forward to displaying this in my house after the holidays.

43.5” w x 54”h

This quilt is called "A Garden of Friends" and was made from blocks exchanged with my friends in California.  You can read more about this quilt here.

A closeup of the quilting, done by Shari Bahr, who also participated in this exchange.  All of the applique is raw-edge and it will fray when it's washed.  That makes even more lovely soft texture on the quilt!  

A detail shot of my liberated border. a la Gwen Marston.  Don't they look like little flags waving in the breeze?  I love those straight lines of quilting!

And a shot of the back, where I used up all the leftover bits from the border.  You can also see the lovely texture the quilting gives the quilt.

27" x 28"

This quilt is entitled "Love Notes From the Cat".  I know I've discussed this quilt on the blog before, but I can't find it to link for you.  I got the fabric from my sister, and it's so funny.  And too true.  I made the blocks improv-style, then had to use that cute cat fabric for the border.  I also used it for the backing.

left side of quilt

right side of quilt

These photos will supersize so if you double click on these photos, you can read the "love notes".

35" x 47"

And, just in time for the Christmas season, a new flannel quilt to snuggle with on the couch!  This was a "cheater" panel I bought a couple of years ago at a local quilt store.  I had planned on quilting this myself and never got to it.  And then it was "hiding" in a bag and got ignored.  So, when I was looking for quilts to finish for the show, I spied this one and decided it was time to get it done.  I added the red border and had Shari quilt this for me.  I briefly considered doing it myself, but I wanted it done for the quilt show and I knew that struggling to quilt this in August was really beyond me.  And Shari did a much better job than I would have!

A detail shot of the border.  Looks like there's a cold wind blowing!

And here's a photo of the backing with those cute ice skates and the wonderful flannel print I used for the binding.  I'm going to enjoy snuggling with this soon, as we've gotten cold weather now and actually had our first snow yesterday!

I fell in love with this fabric.  I had a pair of ice skates just like this when I was a kid in Michigan.  I inherited them from my older cousin Leslie.  I remember when I first got them, they were too big and I had to wear quite a few pairs of socks to get them to fit.  My sister and I went skating on the local lagoon.  Well, I mostly skated and she mostly fell down.  I wore those skates until they were so tight they were killing my toes!  Although, out in the cold while skating, my feet were numb anyway.  hee hee!   I was never really good at skating, but I had a lot of fun.

Well, I didn't get better from my icky cold last week, so I took myself to the Dr.  I was actually having an asthma-type thing going on as well as just being sick.  So I had a nebulizer treatment (a new experience for me), got some new inhalers and an antibiotic (for a sinus infection) and that helped.  I've been laying low ever since, and was starting to feel better.  I over-did yesterday, and didn't feel so good last night.  So, back to taking care of myself a little longer, I guess.  I need this to be gone before Christmas!

I did manage to do a little sewing for Block Lotto though!  It felt good to sew some.  Hopefully some more soon.  I have some Christmas secret sewing to do too!

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Spring 2015 Edition

I'm late to the party but I couldn't miss the Blogger's Quilt Festival!   Thanks to Amy for hosting this again, and to all the wonderful sponsors.

I've shown this quilt on my blog before, so apologies to my regular readers.

Ochre : : Strata is my entry this time around, and it is in the Original Design category.

Ocher : : Strata
31 x 32.5 inches approx.

This quilt came about because I had some Cherrywood Fabric scraps leftover.  When I was going to Pacific International Quilt Festival a few years ago, every year I had to visit their booth and I bought some of their scrap bags.  These colors are not my favorites but, come on, they're Cherrywoods!   I couldn't let them languish.  These fabrics are so fabulous that they are a joy to work with.  I have no affiliation with Cherrywood Fabrics, I just love their products!

Anyway, the scraps were all about 5 x 7 inches, so I didn't have a lot to work with.  I just cut strips and started sewing them together in stripes (strata).  I made a bunch of strata, and then lost my mojo.  So these got put away for awhile until one day I saw on a pin on Pinterest (that now I can't find again) and got inspired to pull these out and do something similar.

the diagonal stripes on the right hand side are the painted fabrics

In addition to the Cherrywood Fabrics I also included some hand-painted fabrics from Barb's Elegant Designs for a little sparkle.  They're shiny and metallic but are subtle in the photos, so I'm not sure you can see them too well.

I had fun just improvisationally sewing everything together.

Nothing went together perfectly and I had to do a little tweaking to get it to work.  When I was all done, the quilt ended up being pretty wonky and doesn't hang perfectly straight.  But it's supposed to be "artsy", and I love it anyway.

The details in the border came about because I ran out of the brown fabrics I was using and couldn't find another brown that was even close to that shade.  So, I had to make it "stretch" and I think it came out even better because of that.

Shari Bahr quilted this for me on the long-arm.  I think it was the first time she'd done the straight-line quilting, and she did a great job.  

Be sure to check out all the other entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.   Grab your favorite beverage and enjoy all the quilt-y eye candy to be seen there!

3-13-13 - The Artsy-Fartsy Edition

I've been having fun playing the last couple of days, and I thought you might want to see my "art-fartsy" stuff.

Nevada Leaves
9 in. wide X by 18.25 in. tall

First, I finally finished my little leaf wall quilt!  You can see how this little quilt started on this post.  It actually came out a little bigger than I was aiming for, but it still fits in the space it's intended for, so it's all good.  I took this photo without flash, as it seemed to better show the dimensionality of the leaves (made from used and dyed dryer sheets) than with the flash.  The colors are pretty true-to-life on my screen.

Yesterday my friend Candy came over to help me play with some of the goodies that I bought at Sew Expo this year and last.  My favorite booth at Sew Expo seems to be Embellishment Village.  I think they have the best toys!  Candy watches me buy stuff there and I'm sure she wonders what the heck I'm doing with it.  Frankly, I hadn't really done much with it yet and it was time to remedy that!

So, we had fun playing with foiling and Paintstick rubbing. Here's the results of our play:

This is Candy's first attempt at foiling and we both learned some things!  The top right taught us to not apply the iron to a previously foiled area.  It removes the foiling!  The bottom right area showed us what happens when you put the foil stuff wrong-side down to the adhesive.  The upper left area came out pretty good.  There isn't complete coverage if you use Wonder Under, which I actually kind of like.  The little speckles are done with 007 Bonding Agent, which is a fusible that is granular, kind of like salt.  I LOVE what this does!

This is my first attempt at the fusible.  I also used Wonder Under.  Free-hand cut hearts, so they're wonky.  And more sparkly sprinkles!  You can see I was so anxious to get started that I didn't iron my fabric.  We used all hand-dyed fabric from my stash.

Here's a second shot of my piece.  (more wrinkles)  This foiling is so hard to photograph!

Here is a piece I did this morning.  I wanted to try the swirly print foil and use Heat 'n Bond.  I have 5 packages of Ultra Hold and 5 packages of Lite, but no "regular".  So this is the Ultra Hold.  I was afraid the Lite wouldn't stick well enough.  And more sprinkles!  I think I could put these sparkly sprinkles on everything and still love it!

Here's a closeup of the big spiral.  You can see the swirly print of the foil in this shot.

After the foiling, we tried doing some rubbings with oil paint sticks.

The fabric on the left has iridescent silver, the one on the right has opaque rose.  I used some texture plates intended for Fimo clay for these.  The pink one didn't work too well because that particular plate had multiple layers of texture, but the paint stick only got the highest layer.  But I think this will work well for a background piece.

Both of these have the iridescent gold paint stick.  I rubbed over rubber stamps on these pieces.  The design on the left kind of smeared because I rubbed the paint stick a little too vigorously.

The left fabric has iridescent gold, the right is Candy's and has opaque green and rose paint sticks.  We used some rubbing plates and rubber stamps for these.

Gold paint stick.  This is Fantasy Kanji, a rubber stamp I purchased at Embellishment Village (and this photo is actually sideways). Fantasy in this case means that it doesn't actually say anything, it just looks like Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese writing) I think this one came out the best, and I have a plan for this one.

I used the video Surface Design Sampler Platter with Lyric Kinard as my source of information and inspiration..  It's available here as a digital download.  I recommend it!

p.s.  Happy "Pi Day" tomorrow! (3.14)

Two Finishes!

Lib Logs (and Prosper)
31.5 inches square

Ta Da!  Here is my liberated log cabin quilt - all finished!  I had this done in time to take to my class with Gwen Marston a few weeks ago, which was my goal.  I wanted to show Gwen my finished project from the class I took with her on Liberated Log Cabins last year.  

You can read more about this quilt here and here.

I've just been calling this "Lib Logs", but that's not a very catchy, creative title.  I need to come up with something better before I do the label for this!  Anyone have any suggestions?? 

Edited to add:  Thanks for all the suggestions for the name!  I've decided to go with something I came up with at dinner the other night:  "Lib Logs (and Prosper)".  It's silly and it makes me smile!

I did all-over "organic straight line" quilting . . . which means there's not really any straight lines. *grin*  And I'm really happy with how it worked out.  The quilting seems to unify the whole design.  The whole quilt top is rather flattened from the quilting, which I think lets the design of the piecing show up well.  When Gwen saw this, she asked me "Do you want me to show you how to keep your quilting lines straight?"  She had a great big twinkle in her eye when she said that!  Love it!

I quilted around the big dots in the aqua.  It just seemed like emphasizing those dots was the right thing to do!

Here's a detail shot.  I like how the green border fabric that is in the log cabins makes that part of the block seem to be transparent . . . like there's an empty place in the log cabin and you can see the border fabric "showing through" there.  

One of the triangle borders.  Can you see that subtle triangle?

One of the pieced insert borders.  And more "transparency".

This was a fun class to take and a fun quilt to make.  It's my new favorite!

Indigo & Cheddar
21 inches wide x 19 inches high

I also finished Indigo & Cheddar, from the Small Quilt class with Gwen this year. (see previous post)  I machine quilted this with the "fake hand-quilting" stitch on my machine.

Here's a detail shot.  It doesn't really look like hand-quilting, but it's different from plain machine stitching. 

I went outside my comfort zone with the binding.  Gwen suggested I use this red fabric.  I was dubious, as it wouldn't have been my choice at all.  But I decided to trust Gwen and I love the way it looks!  I also tried the binding method I saw at The Quilting Edge blog.  I didn't do a perfect job, but I think with some practice it will go better.  It was slick and I can see me doing more of this!  It's certainly faster than doing it by hand, and easier on the hands as well.

Kathy over at Inspired by Antique Quilts has been inspired by this little quilt to make one of her own!  Isn't that fun?  Go check out what she's doing.  I can't wait to see what she'll come up with.  I know it will be wonderful.