AHIQ and Random Stuff

It's time for the monthly Ad Hoc Improv Quilt challenge link-up and I'll be linking up with Kaja at Sew Slowly.  I missed last month as I was in Las Vegas, and I don't have a lot to show this time, but I will share what I do have.

I was inspired, around Valentine's Day, to make some wonky hearts!  A "squirrel" project.  You know what  I mean.... an-out-of-the-blue, wild-hair hankering to make some little hearts.  I decided to go with bright solids with text and low-volume prints.  I do so love that combo!  Well, I'm a little rusty at making wonky hearts and the first two hearts didn't quite make the cut, but I kept going and the hearts  have improved.  I'm starting with 5 inch squares of the solid color and when I'm done, I'll cut all the hearts down to a common size.  I think.  I have no plan for these, I'm just playing and having fun!  I used Lazy Gal Tonya's tutorial for the wonky hearts.  You can see it here.

The other improv project was also hearts!  I made some blocks for the Block Lotto drawing in January.  Improv "slabs" were the basis for the hearts. The pattern is here. They're not the most improv-looking, to me.  If I were to make more, I think I'd get a little crazier.  *grin*  Sadly, I didn't win the Lotto, but I had fun making the heart blocks.

and even more hearts!

DS and I were going to bake Valentine's Day cookies, but as we were preheating the oven, we heard some strange noises coming from it.  The electric element was on fire!  It was like arc welding going on in there!  Yikes!!  I turned off the oven, but the fire was kept going.  So, not knowing what else to do, I called 911.  The nice firemen came and unplugged the oven/stove and told me not to use it!  Fortunately the cookie dough was still in the fridge, so we didn't lose it. Not having the stove top or the oven made making meals a little challenging until the repairman got there.  We went out to dinner a couple of times and BBQ'ed and microwaved.

In the end, we got a new element installed in the oven and we finally got our cookies baked about 10 days late.  Better late than never... and they were still yummy!

These Japanese X and Plus blocks were the January Block of the Month for the Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild.  We used this tutorial at Christine's Color Connection blog.  They were easy and they came out the right size with no problems!  You can see the finished quilt here.  (That committee is some fast sewists!)

Boy blocks

And these string blocks were the February BOM.  For these blocks we used the Scrappy Strings tutorial from Cluck Cluck Sew.  We adapted the pattern by using a few more strips than called for to end up with 10 inch blocks.

Girl blocks

Most of our Blocks of the Month go to the charity quilt committee to be made into quilts to give away.  This month the call was for blocks for kids' quilts in particular.  I think these came out so cute!

My other quilt guild makes quilts for a local hospital's babies.  Most of them are small to be used for preemies and also early demise - the  little ones that don't make it.  This is one I made from hand-me-down scraps.  I've gotten it quilted and found a fabric for the binding....now I just have to do it!   Hopefully by the guild meeting on Friday.

Remember this one?  I started this in January 2015 and it was meant to be a long term project.  You can see the beginnings here.  I've had the blocks done for a while (see them here) and I'm finally starting to sew them together.  Two rows done!  Moving right along....    I want to have this finished for the quilt show in September, so I can't stall too long on this.  But I have a 3 day workshop coming up the middle of this month and that has me kind of distracted. 

Another scrap project.....some badly needed new hot pads.  I even used scrap/leftover bindings.

And, my giggle for the week, a Star Wars Tie-Fighter Tie!  I love it!

Tomorrow I'm going to Sew Expo with some friends.  That will be fun!  I haven't gone for a few years.  It's so massive that it's sometimes hard to find what I want, but I have fun looking. It's not as big as Pacific International Quilt Festival that I used to go to in California, but still big enough to do some damage.  $$$!  Let the shopping begin!

Shine On

"Shine" is quilted, bound and DONE!  This was my first quilt for the Liberated Amish Get Together hosted by Lazy-Gal Tonya.  If you haven't yet seen this blog and the wonderful quilts that were made, be sure to go take a look.

The "rules" for the Get Together were to take an Amish quilt from this website as your inspiration and make it Liberated.  And you had to include some Unruly Letters.  This one was kind of my "warm-up" because this little crib quilt just called to me. 
 

I can't belive it's taken me a year to get this done.  I just couldn't decide how I wanted to quilt this.  I finally took my inspiration from antique Amish quilts (should be a no-brainer, right?) and machine-quilted triple diagonal lines.  Free-hand, of course.  I was liberated enough to use my sewing machine, or it would be a realllllly loooong time before this got finished . . . hee hee!

I didn't measure anything, and I didn't stress about it.  It only took me a few hours to get this done, once I got going. 

I really like this quilt.  I think it finally came together just right.

Whoo hoo!! "Word Play Quilts"!!!

At long last, the Book Event I've been waiting for all year is here!  Monday, December 6th, 2010 is the day that Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci will be released by Martingale Publishing.  I've been reading Tonya's blog since 2005 when she lived in Egypt.  I found Tonya through Bonnie Hunter's blog.  The two of them were my first introduction to bloggers and quilt blogs.  It opened up a whole new world to me, and it was so exciting!

These two word blocks are ones I made for Tonya, when she asked bloggers for "happy 4-letter words", and she put them all together into her quilt "Cake", which is on the cover of her book.  (Look at the lower right-hand corner and then the 4th row up from the botton, 2nd block from the right.)

This is the block I made when Tonya asked for words in different type styles for a Halloween quilt.  It was one of my first serious attempts at making the letters.  I was assigned "round" type style.  I don't know how well I did at the roundness.  I certainly stressed over this word.  It came out way bigger than I thought it would.  You can see Tonya's finished quilt here.

Tonya has been a huge inspiration to me.  Long ago, when I first found Tonya's tutorials on making her UnRuly letters, I attempted making some letters.  I made the entire alphabet but a poor choice of fabrics made them pretty much unuseable, due to the very low contrast between the letter and the background.  But those letters and what Tonya was doing with them intrigued me.  

Life got in the way for awhile . . . we moved from California to Washington, and my quilt studio was in boxes for most of the first year here.  But when I got it up and running, I decided that I was going to play with the letters.  

I joined Tonya's "House Home and Pantry Quilt Together" and you can see the blog here.  This is the start of my Witch's Pantry, and sad to say, this is all the further I am at the moment. 

Tonya asked all of her students for name blocks, so I made this one for her.  I used indigo fabrics, of course! The "S" was an inspiration that came to me in a dream one night, and I was thrilled that it worked!

This year, Tonya had the "Liberated Amish Quilt Challenge" - see that blog here.  "Shine" was my "warm-up" piece.  This little quilt just asked to be made first.

This is my finished (flimsy stage) quilt top for the Lib Am Challenge.  I learned so much about free-piecing from this quilt.  I got the wonkiest when I put down the rotary cutter and picked up the scissors.

Here's a closeup of the word in the border.  I used all scraps from the quilt top to make this.

This year my guild had a color challenge, using paint chips.  I had written down the idea for this quilt about 5 years ago, and decided that it was the right time to make this quilt.  I'd just finished the Lib Am quilt top and felt ready to tackle this project.  I learned a lot on this one too, and the most important lesson was that the more you make the letters, the easier they become to do!

This is the start of my next "wordy" quilt.  It's been on the back burner for most of this year, and I think I'll work on it again after the holidays.

Tonya and her wonky UnRuly way of making quilts (as well as Gwen Marston and the Gee's Bend quilts)  has changed the way I make quilts now.  I highly recommend that you give it a try too, if you haven't yet.  It's a lot of fun.  I don't think I'll ever worry very much about being "a little off" again.  Tonya's tutorials guide you step-by-step.  If I can do it, so can anyone!

And, if you go to Tonya's blog  http://www.lazygalquilting.blogspot.com/, you can click on the widget in her sidebar to buy her book from Amazon.  If you do it that way, Tonya will earn a little bit of $$.  I've already ordered my book there and am anxiously awaiting its arrival.

In celebration of Tonya's book release today, the entire Liberated Quilters web ring, which was inspired in part by Tonya, is showing off their creations that Tonya and her UnRuly letters have inspired. The widget to get there is on my sidebar. Take a few minutes and look at all the wonderful quilts. Maybe you'll get inspired to try some letters too.