Pattern sale ends soon!

The pattern sale ends at the end of the day February 1.  Thanks!

Trying something new

Cherri House is doing a quilt along that starts Feb 1 and I am going to participate.  I haven't done a quilt along before so this will be new to me.  While a quilt along is not exactly outside my comfort zone :) I have a tendency to think I am too busy to do these things.  This is actually quite true, but sometimes you just have to jump in anyway.

Of course, Cherri's designs are some of my favorites anywhere!  She has designed her quilt along using Kona cotton solids in four different colorways:  grey, orange, pink and brown.  I would have been happy to do grey, orange or pink or pick my own fabrics but I have most of the fabrics for the grey colorway and acceptable substitutes for the ones I am missing so I am going with grey.  I know, you are just shocked, aren't you?!

Check out the quilt along link - it isn't too late for you to jump in too!

Pattern Sale!

My Handwork group has scheduled our annual retreat for mid-April and we are already planning what projects to take.  I think planning ahead to one of our favorite events of the year helps us get through a Michigan winter.  To give us all a little lift while we shiver, I am having a pattern sale in my Etsy shop.  Use coupon code "ThinkSpring11" and you will get 20% off your pattern purchase(s).

Much better

I am much happier with this version.  The birds are not fighting with the background now. 

I have started the applique but I ran out of red thread.  So annoying!!  I really thought I had an extra spool of the right color, but, unfortunately, no.  I usually try to buy an extra spool or two when I know I'll be using a certain color, but they don't always have it available.  It is going to be a bad week to get thread too, as JoAnn had it on sale last week, so they are probably out of a lot of colors.

I have been looking forward to the meeting of the Brighton Modern Quilters tonight.  I hope the weather doesn't get any worse.  It takes me about 35 minutes on the freeway to get there so if the weather is really bad, I may not go.  Keep your fingers crossed!

Variation on a theme

I have a spot in my kitchen that I like to hang seasonal wall quilts.  This time of year is always a struggle.  It is too late for Christmas, but too early for Spring.  January makes me think of lots of blues, but that makes me cold and wouldn't really look good in my kitchen.

So I decided to make a wall hanging variation of my Traffic Pattern design.  I have had this idea sketched out for a long time as a short, wide wall quilt.  But the spot in my kitchen is tall and narrow.  Easy solution - turn it sideways.

So here it is as a work in progress.  I'm not loving it.  The birds are too small - especially in real life where the background looks busier than in this photo.  I also need to work on rearranging the blocks with the birds in them.  The flow isn't quite right yet.

When I was a newer quilter, I would have been so upset that I "wasted" so much fabric.  I'm a little more relaxed about it these days and consider it part of my design process.  Nobody can expect to get every design right the first time!

What do you put on your walls after the holidays?  Do you have winter wall quilts or do you jump straight to Spring?  Stay warm!

PS  I try to reply to those of you who make comments here.  However, if you have not entered your email address in your Blogger profile, I get a "no reply" address and have no way to reach you.  If you like it that way, of course that is fine, but I didn't realize how it worked when I first started using Blogger and was glad when another blogger pointed it out.

Queensland Flood Appeal

I am sure many of you are aware of the devastating floods in Queensland, Australia.  While I do what I can to help out whenever there is tragedy anywhere in the world, this one feels closer to home for me.  Although I am an American and have lived in Michigan most of my life, both my parents were born and raised in Australia.  We still have some family there.  Thankfully, none of them were affected by the floods.

Toni from Make It Perfect has organized the Queensland Flood Appeal Auctions.  Clicking on the button above will take you to a LONG list of sites that are auctioning items and donating the proceeds to the Flood Appeal.  There are lots of quilt auctions, but many other categories as well from other kinds of sewing to art and photography.  I hope some of you are in a position to take advantage of all the amazing work Toni has done to set this all up.  Thank you.

Trying to decide...

which color group to go with.  This picture is not very color accurate - the blues are a little less intense and the yellows are a little more intense.  The grey is the same in both options.  Do all my quilts have to include grey?  Apparently, lately, they do!  It is my current color obsession.  I do have some projects in the queue that are other colors, but they won't rise to the top of the pile for a little while.

Speaking of piles, Julie from Jaybird Quilts wrote a post on organization the other day.  I love the idea of "all flat surfaces should be clear" and "a place for everything and everything in its place."  But I always have more things than places!  Plus, I'm a person who likes to have my work in progress where I can see it - out of sight is out of mind.  I vastly prefer to work in a nice, neat space, but it usually doesn't work out that way.  Currently, my books, magazines and papers are threatening to take over my sewing space.  I guess I need more filing space and to get rid of some of them - yikes!

I'll have to take the time to straighten things out soon because it is getting unworkable.  I used to work full time in an office and would just have to stop to clean and reorganize from time to time.  Coworkers would inevitably notice my cleaning and stop by to say something along the lines of "Gee, I guess you don't have much work to do today."  The reality was that I had too much work to do to waste time looking for things in piles - so, time to clean, organize and clear!

So which colors do you prefer?  Left side (coal, cadet, curry) or right side (coal, delft, mustard)?

Recycling

I made these new potholders this morning.  I recycled a small bag I made several years ago when I was thinking about doing craft shows.  I have always loved the fabric and needed to replace our Christmas potholders.  My pattern calls for the "front" of the potholder to be a small quilt so this was perfect as the bag was already quilted and it saved me a step. 

This pattern is really amazing in that you don't need to stitch around the potholder and leave an opening for turning and then try to turn all those bulky layers through the opening before you stitch it closed.  The turning area is built into the pockets so once all the pieces are layered, you just sew all the way around the edges.

At some point, I'd like to put a link to a PDF download in the sidebar, but it is not working for me today.  I think I used up all my computer related brain power today working on the blog layout and new header :)  So for now, I'll just include the instructions here.  (The instructions include a hanging loop which I left off mine).

Easy Turn Potholders
Fabric Requirements:

three 8 ½” squares of fabric.
Fabric A will be the side of the potholder used to touch the pot.
Fabric B will be the outside/pocket on the other side.
Fabric C will be the lining of the pocket – only a small amount will show.
one 1 3/4” x 5” piece of fabric for hanging loop
one 8 ½” square of lining fabric (won’t show)
two 8 ½” squares of regular batting
one 8 ½” square of InsulBright

Construction:

1. Layer Fabric A, one square of regular batting and one square of lining fabric together and quilt with diagonal lines or as desired.
2. Press hanging loop in half along long edges, wrong sides together.
3. Fold each raw edge, wrong sides together, toward pressed line. Press.
4. Fold in half along long edges, press.
5. Topstitch along each long edge.

6. Fold loop in half and baste to one corner of Fabric A quilted piece facing center of potholder.

7. Fold under one raw edge of Fabric B ½” twice to enclose raw edge.
8. Topstitch close to edge.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 for Fabric C.
10. Layer as follows, aligning raw edges, with (a) on the bottom:

• a. regular batting
• b. InsulBright with silver side up
• c. quilted A right side up with loop at top left
• d. B right side down with finished edge near top of A
• e. C right side down with finished edge near bottom of A

11. Stitch a ¼” seam around all edges.
12. Trim corners.
13. Putting your hand inside the Fabric C “pocket”, turn entire potholder right side out.
14. Putting your hand inside the Fabric B pocket, turn again.
15. Topstitch 1/8” from edge through all layers.

 

Oops...

I meant to do a post this morning before I head off to work, but here's what I was doing instead.  They said we were supposed to get 1"-2".  I'd guess it was closer to 4".  Back soon!

Mid Mod Bee block

Amanda requested a large chevron block for her month in the Mid Mod Bee.  The final block is 20" square.  Other than my usual fear that I would make a mistake and not have enough fabric, this block was fun to put together.  (Amanda sent plenty of fabric - it is just me being a worrier). 

Part of my uneasiness with improv blocks stems from the fact that I am usually making them for someone else and have a limited amount of fabric.  If I were making the blocks for myself and had my entire stash to use, it would calm my nerves.  BUT, the nerves are also part of the fun of the challenge.  It feels good when you finish, it comes out pretty much like you thought and you did not run out of fabric.  I do like being pushed a bit outside my comfort zone.  I think, for me, that is one of the best parts of being involved in a bee.

All these big chevrons are going to make a fun quilt!  You can see other contributions at the Mid Mod blog or on our Flickr group.

HST block for Sherri

I know I'm not the only one who runs a "little" behind on bee blocks, but I still feel guilty about it.  This is Sherri's block from the Bee's Knees VQB (Flickr  blog) from November.  Sherri wanted a BIG block - it is 24".  All the HST blocks finish at 6".  I enjoy doing half square triangle blocks.  While I'm not someone who is scared of bias, I prefer the method of drawing a line from corner to corner on the square and then sewing on either side and cutting in half.  As long as you press carefully, bias isn't an issue this way.

Sherri sent us fabric from Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley.  I have only seen this fabric online, not in person and I must admit, was not excited about it.  Seeing it in person, however, I really love some of the prints.

Now that I think about it - I think this experience would apply to many fabric lines.  When I see the whole line displayed together it usually turns me off.  Too much color and pattern all at once for me.  Yet, there are usually individual prints within a line that I really love.  I guess that's why I don't have trouble passing up all the jelly rolls and layer cakes and other precuts at my LQS :)

I look forward to seeing what Sherri does with all her big blocks.  There are some interesting setting possibilities!

Are the holidays over?

I know most of you (and me) are ready to leave the holidays behind us and move on to 2011.  As usual, I'm a little behind.  I finished the third pillow in my holiday pillow series and have to let you see it before I put this project aside and move on.

For the quilting on this one, I sort of echoed the trees in the top part of the pillow.  I drew a few basic echoing (is this a word?) lines and then filled in quilting about every half inch from the original lines.  Below the trees, on the ground, I did horizontal lines about every half inch.   This pillow is more densely quilted than the other two, but I like the variety.  You can see the quilting better in the bottom photo.

I used the same fabric for all the trees in this pillow - I actually cut them out as two individual shapes.  In order to give the individual trees a little more definition, I used a silver rayon thread to applique them and continued the satin stitching between the trees.  I don't often use rayon thread, but this came out quite nicely.  The only disadvantage was in trying to bury the threads on the back.  I use a self-threading needle to bury my ends, which works well with a cotton thread, but the rayon thread broke going into the needle more often than not.

Here is a last shot of the three pillows together and I promise I am on to other things :)

2010 Retrospective

1. Confetti Maze, 2. BirdSong, 3. Table Runner, 4. Blueberry Lime Fizz, 5. Traffic Pattern, 6. Prairie, 7. LinesFall, 8. Holly Street, 9. Hot Pad for 13 x 9 pan, 10. Gather Pillow, 11. Ephemeral Elegance, 12. Glow

It is so much fun to look back over a year and see what has been accomplished!  I'm proud of the quilts I made this year as I continue to refine my personal style.  The houses showing in pictures #3 and #8 are actually both table runners.  If you click on the links you can see the full runners.

After I made this mosaic, I realized I had not included a very important quilt.  I made another version of Traffic Pattern (called Migration) with a black and white background and red birds.  This quilt was so important to me this year because I used it as the backdrop in the booth I had at my guild's quilt show in July.  It drew many people into my booth.  The only problem is that I have never managed to get a good picture of it.  I meant to try again, but getting it all set up takes time and I just never got to it.  So I'll include the picture of the quilt in my booth here and add this picture taking task to my To Do List for 2011.