Creme Francaise

I designed and made this quilt in early 2007. It has lots of overlapping shapes. It wasn't hard to draw, but not so easy to piece! I ended up appliqueing a few of the corners down instead of redesigning it or cutting the pieces differently.

When I first drew the quilt, I imagined making it with lots of bright colors. Perhaps some of my hand dyed fabrics. By the time it rose to the top of my priority list, I envisioned something more neutral. I hadn't made a quilt before this one using so many neutrals, but I found I really enjoyed their subtlety and calming effect.

The fleur-de-lis has long been a favorite shape. I studied French for many years and did a lot of reading about French royalty in my teenage years. It seemed to fit this quilt.

Creme Francaise is approximately 37" x 32".

Detroit Urban Craft Fair

I am a regular listener to Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood's Craftsanity podcast (http://www.craftsanity.com/). Sometime ago Jennifer went to an alternative/indie craft show in Chicago and I thought it sounded great. While I really love the idea of craft fairs, many of them around here have way too high a percentage of country style items to suit my taste. (Note: I don't mean to insult anyone's work by any means - I am merely saying it isn't for me).

So when I heard about the Detroit Urban Craft Fair, I knew I had to go and give it a try! The event is sponsored by Handmade Detroit and featured nearly 60 crafters/artisans (http://handmadedetroit.com/).

My daughter and her friend went with me (both 16) and we all agreed that we would have bought one of the great screen printed tote bags by the door if we didn't already own 50 each. I bought this wonderful little bird pendant from WeiOpenSecret. My daughter got this cute top with screen printed trees on the pockets. The same vendor (Garbella) also had a terrific bird print that we loved. Both of these vendors also sell on Etsy as do many of the vendors at the fair.

A friend of mine said they had a fair in Ypsilanti this spring. Ypsi is much closer to me - I'll have to keep my eyes open and go next year. I hope you have a chance to visit an art or craft fair near you this holiday season.

Color Options

This sudoku quilt is one of the first quilts I designed about two and a half years ago! Of course, I can't claim to be the first one to think of the idea of a sudoku quilt, but the design is my own.

I made it very soon after in these summery colors. I remember I was listening to a book on tape where the main character spent an extended period of time in the Caribbean! I couldn't call it anything else but Summer Sudoku!

Earlier this year, I was in love with the black, white and yellow color scheme and had seen some fabrics that I was dying to purchase. I held out until I went to a quilt show in Shipshewana in June and one of the vendors had lots of fat quarters in this color scheme displayed together. Some were from the same fabric line and some weren't but they all went together beautifully. I couldn't resist any longer and bought a half dozen or so.

After I got home I was trying to figure out what to do with them and decided to make another version of my Sudoku quilt. I always like the idea of making my quilts in more than one color version, but I often don't get around to it. I'm glad I did in this case. This quilt is called Sudoku Streetlight. I have to thank my older daughter for help with the name - all I could think of was bumblebees and taxis!

(Sorry about the way the photos appear in this post. In the preview, the photos are side by side; then when I publish it they stack like this -very annoying.)

An Evergreen Bias

It is getting toward that time of year! The holidays are coming!

I designed this fun little wall hanging to accomplish several things. I wanted a modern, season-themed wall hanging that was "winter" as well as "Christmas" and I wanted to use bias in a different way.


I love applique with bias, but wanted to do something new with it. This little tree uses a graduated bias technique that I developed to make the tree go from smaller at the top to wider at the bottom. It can be done by hand or machine, but the pattern is written for machine applique. The pattern is called "An Evergreen Bias".


These are so much fun to make, I have done several. Unfortunately, this is the only one I have a picture of. I hope you have fun making things to celebrate the seasons in your home.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday was my birthday. I spent most of the day at my paying job and we had a wonderful dinner at my Mom's - roast lamb, roast potatoes, peas and custard pie for dessert. YUM!

One of our local quilt shops, Viking Sewing Center, gives a discount on your birthday. They give you 30% off on fabric cuts half a yard or larger. Out of the seven years I have been quilting, I think I have only made it there one other year. Some years I forgot - some years I didn't have time. This year I made it!


Since I am such a good planner and have all the fabric for the next 56 quilts I have planned (well, maybe only the next five), I wasn't sure how to focus my buying. I prefer not to just buy stuff I like as that can get out of control very quickly!


As I looked around the store, I zeroed in on the selection of black and white prints. I have joined an online bee that will start in January and have been thinking that, for my block, I might choose to use black and white prints with accents of color.


So here is what I bought (left to right):

• White geometric print from Timeless Treasures
• White on black and black on white linked dots from essentials by Studio E fabrics
• Black swirls on white and white lines on black from Mixmasters Scribbles by Patick Lose for Robert Kaufman.

The last print is the first Timeless Treasures again.

A very satisfying birthday present indeed!

Our Handwork group

As I mentioned before, I belong to three different quilting/creative groups. Our handworking group gets together every other week. Our next meeting is tomorrow and I always look forward to seeing everyone! A lot of handquilting takes place as well as some hand applique and, lately, a lot of knitting.

These photos are from our retreat last spring. On the top left are Judy and Sue, the top right has Sharon, Margie and Marilyn, on the bottom photo is Renee.

We go to a great place in Chesaning, MI called Creative Passions (http://www.creativepassionsllc.com/). It is a former church with lots of space and is about 90 minutes away from most of our homes. I think this is the perfect distance. It is far enough away that you can't run home for little interuptions, but close enough that you don't spend precious retreat time driving.

The retreat begins at noon on Monday and goes thru 3pm on Thursday. We all bring whatever projects we want to work on - there isn't a retreat project or a theme. I think we all have nearly as much fun trying to decide what projects to bring as we do being there!

We are looking at dates now for next spring's retreat and I can't wait!! Four days of quilting with wonderful friends -what could be better than that.

Choppy Seas

Sometimes I agonize over what to call my quilts. Sometimes nothing seems right. Not this time. "Choppy Seas" jumped into my head as soon as I looked at the finished quilt.

This is the first quilt I designed with EQ5. It is a little crazy looking, but it was fun to put together. It is hard to see in this photo, but the major print is from the Proud line by Keri Beyer and consists of circles made up of different sized dots. I love this kind of fabric! The rest is scraps. I can think of lots of different color combinations I'd like to try with this pattern. The pattern itself is called Triangle Maze.

I am planning to offer this as a free pattern here on the blog. It isn't quite ready yet and I haven't done this before so I hope you'll be patient with me while I work out the technology!

Block Party

I am not usually the kind of quilter who joins any quilting project around. In fact, I rarely participate in these kinds of things. Mostly, it is because I have so many ideas in my own head that I want to explore, I can't figure out how to devote any time or energy to ideas from a group.

However, I think it would be good for me to stretch a little and work on something from someone else's head! And because I love the quilts coming out of the heads of the people over at http://www.blockpartyquilting.com/, I have decided to join their block party. Now, this is not a huge time commitment - they are planning to put a new block up on a quarterly basis. Participants make a version of the block and can then add it to the Flickr group.

There will also be some virtual quilting bees associated with this project. I am leaning toward joining one of those too! The adventurous and fun side of me thinks this sounds terrific: the practical side of me says I must be crazy to add anything else to my already very long project list. I'll let you know which side wins!

For now, this picture is from my last group project. A group of four or five of us decided to do a round robin. We each contributed a six inch block and the next person added borders. The idea was to keep on going from there. But, when we saw what the first border had added to our little blocks, many of us thought the quilts were ready for our own finishing. I am afraid I haven't finished mine yet, but I have some ideas. (Maybe I should also join Jacquie's UFO finishing project over at http://www.tallgrassprairiestudio.blogspot.com/). My contribution to this block is the small brown square with the leaf/vine applique. My friend Kathy added the rest. I totally love the fabric she used and what she did with it.