Between the weather and my desire to get things done, I've been a little AWOL from blogging. Apologies!
I feel the need tonight to brag a little about the sheer quantity of small quilts I have put together over the last few days. Thursday night the power went out for about an hour and a half. After it came back on, I was suddenly inspired to get out the Featherweight. I figured that if the power went out while it was on, nothing bad could happen -- unlike the disaster that might ensue if either of my computerized sewing machines were on at the time...
I pulled out some UFOs and started working. They are small, the largest is about 50 by 62, the rest are crib size/kid size...
These blocks were started several years ago when we had a flooded basement. We were on a round-the-clock schedule of keeping watch over shop-vacs. During the middle of the night I pulled the fabric out and started drawing lines on the backs in order to stitch them. I've pulled them out every so often, but never got it done. I was surprised to find that the blocks were actually sewn into rows, and all that was left was sewing rows together and adding borders.
Quilt #1
Next up is some rail fence blocks I started putting together with the intention that it would be used as a quilted sample. The blocks were together, I had to sew rows together and add borders:
Quilt #2
In November/December 2005 I made a quilt called StarStruck for Christmas (pictured on my website in my gallery). (I used the instructions and color scheme as designed by Bonnie at Quiltville). While making the body of the quilt, I got a little overzealous with the cutting and sewing of green and white strips.
The following 2 quilts are made from those leftovers. The pinwheel blocks were assembled and needed to be sewn into rows (and I have about 15 of them leftover...), the rows of 4 four patches were assembled, I just had to add the light colored strips in between.
Quilt #3
Quilt #4
(The dark triangles are actually purple...)
And last, but certainly not least, I put this little quilt together in it's entirety on Saturday.
Quilt #5
(Click to see SpiderFrog up close. He is totally cute.)
FIVE quilt tops put together. Since Thursday night at about 7:30 PM. Backs and bindings prepped as well.
But get this -- there's more!
Four of those quilts are now quilted.
Seriously. I quilted 4 of the above quilts today! I can't show them to you quilted, yet, because they are all samples for the new quilting design book I'm working on. I'm probably going to pay tomorrow for so much quilting (I think maybe I have a chiropractor's appointment soon...). In fact, I'm yawning and having a little bit of trouble focusing on writing this post, so I'd better wrap up.
I'm dreadfully behind on updating my 365 photo albums (again). I'm not sure the art project one is going to see much action this month. I have a lot of drawing still to do, and most of my energy is going to be directed at the book, I suspect. We'll see...
Thank you to everyone that submitted ideas for naming my quilt. I wrote them all down on a list and started reading them over and over -- to myself, to my boys, to my husband. The boys didn't help much because they kept coming up with their own additions. Joe was really attached to "Pink Panther." My husband suggested "Pinkalicious" and "Pinkasaurus Rex." I may have to make a gob of pink quilts so I can use all of these pink quilt name ideas.
But, to the task at hand: I have decided to name my quilt Peppermint Ice Cream
Thanks go to Patti for the suggestion. I am going to make you a little quilt to say thank you.
It will probably look something like this. Or not. I haven't decided (VBG).
Today is my Grandma's 85th birthday. (I think it's 85 -- Mom?). Her favorite color is pink, so I made this small piece for her out of some leftovers. It's about 5 inches square. The fringe on the bottom has some of those cute square buttons.
p.s. The cord my husband brought home from work did work with my new battery charger! Yippee!! My camera is back in action!
Is too much Pink???
I've been in a very pink mood this week apparently.
Here it is: the quilt I bought the fabric for last Wednesday. It is now quilted, and waiting a binding decision. Dark pink? Green?
And a name -- any suggestions? How about this: I'll send a small quiltlet (made with scraps from the quilt) to the person that helps me name this quilt. Leave your ideas in the comments or send me an e-mail.
All photos are clickable -- so you can view the full-size photo. The batting is Quilters Dream Poly (white), and the thread is a pink ARC Poly. I love having 288 colors of ARC poly to choose from -- I'm bound to have just the right thing....
In honor of all of this pinkness, today's small art piece says it all:
I hope this little bit of Spring-like pinkness brightens your day -- hopefully Mr. Ground Hog will be in a Spring-like mood tomorrow, too.
Yesterday I showed you a picture of the fabric I bought last week. Vicki says that I've violated quilting rules by not allowing the fabric to properly age in my stash before using it. She's probably right -- but -- I just had to make this quilt. I had to. Honest. I would be a raving lunatic if I hadn't gotten this one out of my system. I just had to know what it was going to look like in fabric. Picturing it in my head or playing with in Electric Quilt was just not enough.
The amazing thing is that what you see above is all that is left of the fabric I used for the top. The white fabric was in my stash. I used a few strips of light pinks from my stash as well. The dark pink stripe was the largest cut of fabric I had purchased -- all that's left are some scraps and the one strip (about 3 inches wide) that you see on the lower left of the picture, the other dark pinks were fat 8ths and I didn't use very much of those. I went in to the fabric store with a plan of sorts, but didn't have exact amounts -- and when I got to the cutting table, instead of asking for a yard of each (like I might have in the past), I made myself stick to 1/3 yard cuts of the light pinks.
The top is all put together. I think it measures somewhere around 63 by 63. I'm not going to show it to you the whole thing, yet, though. I will let you see one of the blocks. My inspiration was a quilt designed by Judy Laquidara called Gratitude.
Did you notice that it is a Churn Dash variation? Have I mentioned that Churn Dash is one of my very favorite blocks?
Even though I'm becoming more interested in exploring new techniques and focusing on quilts as art, I still want to continue making traditional quilts. I've never been very good at strictly following patterns -- I always find myself wanting to put my own twist on them. As I experiment more, I'm sure this will continue to happen with the traditional quilts I make. I do still want to make quilts that can be used and cuddled with. Quilts that have no more meaning than being something that keeps a person warm and gave me something to do.
I thought that we were going to be watching the first half of Fellowship of the Ring tonight, but the boys changed their mind and decided to watch The Lost World (Jurassic Park 2). I wasn't particularly interested in that, so I went back to the sewing room, and finished my top. I also got the binding cut, sewn and pressed. I also know that the binding is much longer than it needs to be, so I won't have a nasty surprise when I am ready to bind it. It's nothing spectacular, mostly it's just about the beautiful fabric and wanting to make a quilt using a certain block. The green and white checked border might still be overkill, but it's done. It needs to be quilted before I pass judgment about whether or not I am really happy with it. I hope to get the quilting done soon.
I meant to post yesterday, but I got busy sewing, and ran out of time before we had to leave for our afternoon and evening activities. By the time we got home I was just too danged tired to sit here and write anything.
I've had another good, productive day of sewing today, and am pleased to report that the churn dash quilt I posted about a few weeks ago is almost all put together. I'm still working on borders, and will post a picture as soon as those are done.
In that same post (about the churn dash) I posted a picture of my longarm round robin quilt. We have all now sent our quilts to the next person in line -- I got Jan's yesterday. Sometimes I tend to procrastinate, but I've decided that I would work on these just as soon as they arrive. I worked on my section of border on Jan's lovely quilt, and it is now done! I wish I could quilt the whole thing -- it is a great quilt. I can't post pictures of it yet, though. We want the quilt's owner to be surprised when the quilt is all finished and returns home.
I cheated a little bit and made 2 of my daily art projects today. (I skipped yesterday, see above, re: running out of time). As the month has progressed, I've tried to challenge myself to make more of them out of fabric, as opposed to using the paper business cards and drawing on them. For the "T" card I chose to Test a new Technique. Dianne had posted about making plastic wrap fabric a few weeks ago. I had some blue colored plastic wrap and played with that a little bit today. I'm not sure I'll do it again, but it was sort of fun. The fabric I used was all about the same color, and maybe it would look cooler if I used more colors. One thing I'm finding is that I'm becoming more comfortable with using the satin stitch, in part to finish the edges, but also here as a design element.
I also had fun making a little umbrella -- which you can see in the 365 Art photo album (link is in the right hand column).
We got some more snow here in Iowa over night and through the morning, so the boys got to go out to the farm and snowboard. They came home with sopping wet gloves and hats and stuff, so they must have had a good time! It's almost time for our popcorn and movie night, so I'd better go get prepared.
Even though I've spent a lot of time on the computer in the last week, I've actually accomplished quite a bit. I kind of find myself thinking "I need to blog about something interesting, so I'd better go DO something interesting" LOL.
First up is my finished quilt for my Longarm Round Robin. The top is finished!! Before Friday I need to get a back, load it up on the longarm and do the stitch in the ditch around the borders and between each row, start a small journal to send with it, make a label for everyone to sign, and then mail it. There are 4 other quilters in my group -- we are each making a top, and each of us will quilt part of all 5 quilts. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all turns out!
I was thinking about this year's Machine Quilters Showcase, and what I might enter into the show. One of the categories is called "Bread and Butter" -- the quilts entered are supposed to be quilted like you actually quilt for customers (as opposed to spending 50 hours on fancy show quilting). This year, entries can be variations on Turning Twenty quilts, Boston Commons, or Churn Dash quilts. Churn Dash is my favorite block. I started working on something awhile back with this category in mind, but I've decided to go "over the top" as far as the quilting goes, so I need to come up with something else. I remembered this WIP and pulled it out over the weekend to evaluate where I'm at with the piecing. It was actually a kit that I decided not to use the pattern for -- just use the fabric and do my own thing. And then I miscut some of the fabric and had to go on to Plan B. Or would that be Plan C. Actually, I think I'm on about Plan E or F with this project. This is what is put together, and I finished the cutting for the blocks and the sashing. I still have a lot of that checkerboard to piece. It's cute, but what was I thinking???
I also got a bunch done on some other things, but I can't post pictures, so you'll have to wait until an undetermined future date on those....