Blogger's Quilt Festival

My entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival this time is "Spell It Out".  I made this quilt late last winter as a commission and then developed it into a pattern.

I think my favorite thing about it is its versatility.  I love the summery blues and greens with white in this quilt, but, lately, I've been thinking of making one for the holidays that says "merry, merry".  One of my amazing pattern testers, Darlene, made one in her favorite team's colors with their team name written on the side.  Of course, I can always see one in my daughter's favorite colors with her name on it.

The techniques in this quilt are some of my favorites too.  I don't think I'll ever get tired of the endless possibilities of half square triangles.  And words and applique, yep, love those too :)

I've been too busy so far this weekend to spend any time looking at all the other quilts entered for BQF, but I'm planning on a little time tonight to check out some of the them.  If you haven't already, click on over and enjoy!

Giveaway Winner

The Pink Castle Fabrics purple and gold bundle winner is Safiya!  Congratulations Safiya, I have sent you an email.  Thanks to everyone who entered.

Introducing Rebel Flock...

Because my geese are flying north in the Fall!

This was such a fun quilt to put together! You know how I love HSTs. The quilt measures just under 46" x 58" and is made with 5 yellow fat quarters, 3 purple fat quarters and 2 yards of Kona Coal. How simple is that.

I got the perfect yellow and purple fabrics from my friend Brenda of Pink Castle Fabrics. Brenda has a great stock of the best modern and basic fabrics and there was no way I could resist this group. Even better, Brenda is sponsoring a giveaway of the same bundle of purples and yellows that I used. All you have to do to enter is click over to Pink Castle Fabrics and leave a comment telling me which bundle or fabric from Pink Castle Fabrics you like best. I'll draw a winner at the end of the day (US EDT) on Friday, October 28.

If you can't wait that long or you aren't the lucky winner, Pink Castle Fabrics will be featuring an Esch House Quilts blog bundle in the shop.

For a limited time, you can also get the pattern for free under my "Free Projects" tab above.

I'm going to enter Rebel Flock in Rachel at Stitched in Color's October Celebrate Color contest.  It is so much fun to look at the other entries and be inspired.  Last month I entered something purple and yellow too!  The contest continues in November - I think I'd better come up with a different color palette for next month!

PS  Be sure I can reach you in case you win!

Not my usual quilting

I'm almost finished with this newest purple and gold quilt.  I got a lot of the quilting done on my retreat.  But I decided these "flying geese" needed a little contrasting quilting.  I don't use contrasting thread for quilting very often.  Usually, I prefer the quilting to give texture only.

In this case, however, the purple triangles needed some more quilting and I thought bringing a bit of the yellow from the rest of the quilt into the grey and purple area would tie the different areas of the quilt together nicely.

I should be ready to post a picture of the whole quilt in the next day or two.  There will be something a little different about that post, so check back to see what it is!

Working on #3!

My Seven Sisters and I are having a wonderful time on our retreat!  The weather is awful, but we don't care - more time inside to sew :)

The first project I brought with me was a small quilt to quilt.  I finished what I had planned, but now have an idea to add some detail to one of the areas.  I'll have to wait until I get home to add that because I didn't bring the thread with me.  I don't want to waste sewing time driving to the store.

Project #2 is a quilt top for an eventual pattern and I completed that yesterday.  Project #3 is this diamond quilt.  The blocks are done and I hope to get the top finished before lunch today.  I have never made a quilt with diamonds before so I wanted to give this one a try.  The pattern is by Nellie J Designs and was in the March/April 2011 issue of McCall's Quilting.  Working with the diamonds was really easy.  Just using the 60 degree line on my regular 6" x 24" ruler.  I am not a gadget girl, so if a pattern needs a special ruler, I'm not likely to do it.

I have to leave our retreat right after lunch time today as my sister and her family are coming to stay with us.  They are attending a wedding on her husband's side of the family and will be here through the weekend.  It will be so nice to have a chance to catch up!

I hope your week as been as wonderful as mine :)

Retreat projectssss

So, how many projects do you take with you when you go on retreat?  I'm taking four.  I know this is crazy.  I will arrive at the retreat around dinner time today and will leave after lunch on Thursday.  That gives me just under three good solid days of quilting.  I am nothing if not optimistic and prepared!

It is true that two of the four projects are already in progress.  As you can see from the picture here, I will be quilting my latest yellow and purple quilt.  The next two projects I'm taking are completely new starts.  The fourth project is a bunch of HSTs that need to develop into a quilt top.  To be honest, I really just threw them in to be sure I'd have enough.  Because, you know, it is highly likely that I'll finish quilting one quilt and put together two more and not have anything left to do!

Well, regardless of what I do or don't get done, I know I'll have a great time working on these projects and hanging out with my Seven Sisters.  I hope you have a great week ahead!

Seven Sisters

My Handwork group began meeting in early 2007.  The membership changed some over the first year or two, but has been stable at the seven of us since then.  We meet every other Tuesday for 3 hours.  This lovely group of women has been such a joy!

Earlier this year, we decided to make a worker's quilt for the Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild of which we are all members.  Each member who has volunteered with the Guild during the year has their name entered into a hat and the person picked wins the worker's quilt.  So we decided our group needed a better name than "Handwork group."  One of the ladies suggested "Seven Sisters."  Perfect!  The name of a quilt block and a reflection of how close we have all grown.

Recently, my Sisters bestowed a special favor on me and I wanted to make some equally special thank you cards.  I was not sure exactly what the Seven Sisters block looked like, so I googled it and designed this image for my cards.  I just love the image of the six stars surrounding the center star!  It was a lot of fun to create this virtual block.  I hope, one of these days, to actually sew some Seven Sisters blocks.

In the meantime, lucky me and my six Sisters are heading off next week for a quilting retreat.  I have so many projects I'd like to work on, I haven't been able to make up my mind which ones to take yet :)  Whatever I end up taking, I know I'll have a wonderful time sewing with my amazing Sisters.

Remember this?

This is what I'll be doing at Handwork today - burying the threads on the back of Curried Plums.  Since I was on a deadline for the Project Modern competition, I didn't finish burying all the threads before I took the photos needed to enter.  Time to go back and finish this detail.  I may get the hanging sleeve sewn on too - I pinned it for the picture.

Just noticed this is my 200th post!  Yay!

Purple and gold?

Again?  Yep, sometimes I just can't get a color scheme out of my system.  Maybe the third time's the charm :)

What are you working on this week?

A long time coming

I can't believe this quilt top is actually finished!  It has been my long-term, no deadline or need to hurry project for over four years!  It is hand appliqued using bias strips and only two fabrics from April Cornell's Sunshine line.  Mostly, I have worked on it during our biweekly Handwork group meetings.  I took at least one extended break during that time to hand applique and hand quilt my original Raindrops quilt.  But, as the other members of our Handwork group have hand quilted their way through many quilts, I have returned to this one project nearly every meeting.

The design was inspired by a ceiling in Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. We visited there in February 2007 while staying with my Dad and his wife.  In an effort to lighten my purse for a long day of sightseeing, I had left my sketchbook at Dad's house.  The Biltmore House does not allow photography.  So I stood there, staring at this ceiling, figuring out the pattern and how I could remember it.

As soon as I got back to my sketchbook, I made some very rough sketches to help me remember.  Once we returned home, I finalized the design.  If I recall properly, I purchased the fabrics while in South Haven, MI on our summer vacation that year and then purchased a little more of each fabric when some other quilty friends and I stopped at a quilt shop in Ohio on our way to or from Quilt National that same year.

I love the way the petal shapes in the block create the secondary circle pattern.  I knew I needed to make enough blocks for that design to really show up.  There are sixteen blocks in the quilt, but I cut out and appliqued them in large blocks of four.  The inside of the quilt is about 48" square and the borders are 2".

I have to be honest and say I have no idea when I'll get around to quilting this quilt or what I'll do with it when I'm finished.  But, it feels very good to be finally finished with the top.

What on earth am I going to do at our next Handwork group?!

I had some plans....

to stitch these blocks together this morning.  I have been working on this quilt for nearly four years!  Last week, at my Handwork group, I put the final stitches in the applique.  We meet from 10-1 every other Tuesday.  As 1:00 approached, my lovely friends started talking about where to go to lunch and packing things up.  I had about three more inches to applique, so I told them I was not moving until I was done!  Of course, they were excited for me to finish too.  I had brought the other three blocks with me and we laid them out to admire.  Their ideas about how to finish off the top were very helpful as usual.

My plan was to stitch the blocks together this morning so I could show all of you.  Unfortunately, I spent nearly an hour on the phone sorting out problems with my new cell phone.  This is the third call on this phone :(  Some days technology just makes you want to throw it out the window!!!

I took this picture with one hand while on the phone with the other.  By the time I loaded the picture into my computer, I realized I could put the phone on speaker and use two hands!  I never remember that I can do that.  Anyway, I have an answer to the problem - we'll see if it works.  Now, off to the day job.  Hopefully, I'll get to some sewing this evening.