Quilts for Sale!

My quilt closet is overflowing, so I've added some quilts for sale to my Etsy shop!

New Shoots (left) is one of my favorites!  A version of my Bold pattern, I love the serene and hopeful combination of the blue and greens.  The lavish quilting adds so much detail and texture to this quilt.

I also added two versions of Triangle Maze (Choppy Seas and Blueberry Lime Fizz), two table runners (Holly Street and Elegant Celebration) and my Off the Deep End version of Spell It Out.

As always, I am also happy to take commissions for custom versions of any of my quilts.

More sizes!

A New View was one of the first quilts I designed myself and one of my first patterns.  I had so much fun collecting all the beautiful browns and turquoises for the original quilt.  It is a full/queen size (80" x 84") and the pattern originally only included instructions for that size.

Now, I have gone back and added information for a baby size (36" x 48") and a throw size (60" x 63").

When I bought a fat quarter bundle of Daisy Janie Shades of Grey last summer, I didn't know what I wanted to do with them - I just knew I had loved the line since I first saw it and I needed to have it!  You know what I mean.

As I worked on the idea for a baby sized version of A New View, I realized these fabrics were perfect!  I added some seafoamy/aqua colors and a soft baby quilt was born.  A couple of my (non-quilting) family members thought that it was kind of strange to make a grey baby quilt, but it is such a pretty, soft grey, I love it!

The new, multi-sized version of A New View is available now in my Etsy shop in both paper and PDF versions and at PatternSpot.com in PDF format.

Tidying

As I was tidying up my sewing space yesterday, I came across a large, rumpled pile of solid fabrics.  A few weeks ago, Pink Chalk Fabrics had a sale on grab bags of solids.  For a good price, they sent random pieces of solid fabric.  Who could resist?  I didn't :)

I always pre-wash my fabric.  When I buy larger pieces, I don't usually iron them after pre-washing as the first thing I have to do before I cut them is iron anyway.  But with these smaller pieces (most are nearly fat quarter or quarter yard pieces, some smaller) I had one big rumpled mess so I ironed them before I put them away.

Don't they look better now?

Sewing, sewing...

You may be wondering if I fell off a cliff or something since I haven't posted anything since last Friday.  Truth is, I have been working on a bunch of things that I can't  share (mostly magazine submissions).  Four projects to be exact, so I've been very busy, just no blog content.

I finished the last of these projects this morning, so I decided to make a kind of collage that reveals small bits of each one.  A few HSTs, a bit of bias and a lot of great fabric.

What next?  My UFO pile is unusually large.  I definitely need to finish up some works in progress.  I'll have to clean up the sewing room, take inventory of what is half done and make a plan!  I must admit that I am very good at making plans, but not the best at following them - I always think I'll be able to finish things faster than I actually can.  But, it is a good place to start!

Have you ever made a plan for tackling your UFO/WIP pile?  Did it help?

11-11-11

I just had to write a short post on 11-11-11!  As we have moved through the first decade of this century, I realize these fun dates have been happening every year.  However, as 11-11 is also my birthday, this one is a little special to me!  Of course, I'm not turning 11, but I am turning an age with a one in it :)

This picture of me and my older daughter was taken last weekend in Chicago by my younger daughter.  We were looking in the window of a real estate office in Hyde Park.  My guess is that this was when Michelle thought she saw a gorgeous six room condo listed for $35,000.  No, Michelle, that is for the garage :)

Amish Quilts

Sewing has been slow over the past few days.  My younger daughter and I went to the University of Chicago this weekend to visit my older daughter.  It was a beautiful day on Saturday and we had a great day!

The Flint Institute of Arts is about an hour or so away from where I live.  They have had an exhibition on Amish quilts there since early September.  The exhibit closes on Nov 13.  I have been trying to get there to see it and, on October 28, I finally succeeded!

Amish quilts have had such a huge influence on my quilting.  Their use of color and simple shapes is extraordinary.  I was lucky enough to see Amish quilts from the collection of Faith and Stephen Brown at the University of Michigan Museum of Art in 2000 (two years before I even started quilting).

As expected, photography of the quilts in Flint was not allowed.  So I bought the book about the exhibit.  It includes the quilts from the exhibit and a few extras.

To help me remember, I made some notes about some of the things I thought were interesting about the quilts.

The color schemes:  there were a lot of black quilts that I really liked.  Several were black and charcoal grey (faded black?) with antique rose or lavender.  Now antique rose and lavender are not my usual colors, but I was impressed with how great they looked in these quilts.  There was also a black and coppery brown combination that was very effective.  Another quilt was mostly black with blues, some of which were very dark so that the difference between the black and blue was very subtle.

Another quilt looked at first glance as if all the same fabrics were used in the same places, but when you looked a little more closely, there was some wonderful and subtle variation in shade among the background fabrics.  It made a lovely quilt interesting as well.

As for the quilting itself, many of the quilts included three double lines of quilting inside each quilt block regardless of the piecing lines of the block itself.  Many of these blocks had been set on point.

There was one quilt of all Counterpane blocks with two nine-patches mixed in.  It made me wonder if the quiltmaker was teaching her daughter to quilt as she was making the Counterpane quilt.

For those of you who worry about your points - while there were many perfect points, there were also many that were cut off.  The quilts were just as stunning :)

Have you ever had the chance to see Amish quilts?  Do they speak to you?

Another quilt for quilters

A while ago, I wrote that my Seven Sisters group was making a quilt for volunteers at the guild we belong to.  I mentioned that I had done the same thing with the hand dying group I belong to (Colorful Scrunchers), but didn't have picture.  One of the Scrunchers, Kathy, promptly sent me this photo.

I'm so glad to have the photo.  Thanks, Kathy!  This was such a fun quilt to work on.  Ginia designed the basic idea - which is nine patches all made from hand dyed fabric.  The small black squares are the centers of the nine patches.  We had a great time blending the colorful parts into the final result.

I was new to the group at the time, so none of the  fabric was dyed by me, but the rest of the group all contributed some of their fabrics.  I'm not sure what year this was, probably about 2006.

This is such a wonderful and creative group of women.  We aren't able to get together very often, but when we do the eye candy is spectacular!

Late to the party...

I take so much joy in selecting just the right fabrics for my quilts, that I have not been interested in pre-cuts.

However, as I was blog hopping around one day I landed at Rachel's blog (p.s. i quilt) as she announced her Build A Quilt Workshop.  An online class using pre-cuts, hmmm.  Two things new to me.  So I quickly signed up.

Rachel is using a private Flickr group for the class and posting instructions as we go along.  I am having so much fun! While I'll never give up my usual method of quilt making, this is almost like a sewing vacation. The fabrics are chosen, the instructions are there to follow and all I am doing is having fun putting it all together. I'm guessing you might see a few more pre-cuts working their way into my quilts in the future.

How about you?  Have you worked with pre-cuts?  Do you like them?