2.1.13

By the time you are reading this, I expect I have had a very humbling experience in a beginner quilt class. I am posting these pictures of a quilt I made for my father and his little dog a couple of years ago in case I need to remind myself that I really DO know how to quilt no matter how hard I found it to do a full day beginner lesson.

I remember I bought a couple of charm packs--five inch square pieces of fabric that sample an entire line of fabric. I bought them when charm packs were an affordable choice. I think I paid under $5 for each pack. I used a sett like one my grandmother and great-aunt used on a baby quilt for my brother ( Streak O'Sunshine, I think it is called). I followed a diagonal line up for the color groups. I really liked the fabric I found for the backing. 

This is the first quilt that I used Big Stitch for the quilting. I remember spreading it out on the dinning room table and quilting in diagonal lines to emphasize the color arrangement. It was fun to do and came together really quickly. Now it is a nap quilt for my father and a different little dog.

1.30.13

My January SMALL QUILT CHALLENGE 2013 is complete! I FINALLY attached the binding. I spent almost a month trying to decide if I would put the binding on by machine or by hand. 

Usually I would attach one part by machine, then hand finish the other side but this time, the entire quilt was done by hand and I didn't want to impurify my project. Here it is. It is 19" square. I have found that a quilt which is smaller than a fat quarter yields a TON of scraps for future quilts.

I posted it in my Yahoo group called SmallQuiltTalk .  The group is moderated by Kathleen Tracy, whom I have mentioned before. She is the author of many books I have been studying over the past couple of months. One of my small quilts in the works comes from her Hexagon Flowers Doll Quilt.

1.27.13

We did NOT get the ice storm we were promised but we did have a few drippy, cold hours.

 I can't say I am disappointed but I might have liked to see a few snowflakes.

 Anyway, it was good weather for hand-sewing. I decided to attach my binding to my January Small Quilts Challenge by hand since all other aspects were hand done. Besides, the sewing machine is nicely stored under my desk and I didn't want to bother setting it up. Time enough later for good light and color choosing for the next project.

1.10.12

My Crazy Teacher for Crazy Quilting is Dot Vaughn. She always brings a car loaded with boxes of fabric for her students to dig through. She loves glitzy, gold, and gorgeous. Her boxes are full of damasks, silky prints, and cut up evening dresses and curtains. 

 

 One time I said to her, "This is beautiful. Don't you want to save some for yourself?"

"Oh, honey. This ain't even my good stuff. You should see my stash."

I still have my two block sample awaiting more stitching but sometimes there is a quilt in my head that just has to come out. I have a couple of projects on my work space but when I get a chance, I will photograph my current Crazy. Until then, have a look at some of Dot's work.

Here is a pretty good shot of much of Dot's award winning Crazy. I would like to show you the label but it gives too much personal information for me to put it here. She made it for her daughter and it is lovely.

This close-up shows a neat little pyramid stitch with red crowns. Dot uses a lot of black in her work, also. The back is black and she does a lot of tacking from the front to the back as well as tying. She is careful to "hide" the tacks and ties in the black areas of her quilt.

The black fabric in this photo had butterflies on it, but Dot added a few here and there. I like the lacy one with the purple embellishment. I think it was a motif she re-embroidered.

11.9.11

My favorite BLOTTO block was the butterflies.  The background fabric was a deep turquoise which appears batik-like in the photograph but it is not. I found little bits of the print that looked like mirror images and cut butterfly wings to appliqué. I prepared the pieces and did lots of research on Sashiko patterns and found an interesting cloud treatment in a Sylvia Pippen book. I drafted it out unscientifically (I eyeballed it), embroidered, and then scattered the butterflies on to flit happily.

All in all, I enjoyed the experience but I hope I do not win the blocks. I don't have anything in my house that goes with those colors and my house is not Asian in style. I submitted them without my name on them and a couple of meetings later, someone tracked me down and made me put my name on them. Oh, well, I will worry about that tomorrow.

11.8.11

What I learned in Sashiko class I also applied to BLOTTO block raffle. The guild offered a free day of Sashiko lessons with Beverly Gibson and Scottie Blumke who are VERY good at Sashiko. That decided me. I would have to buy more BLOTTO solids. I chose a sky blue and copied some of the branching maple section of the print fabric, enlarged it unscientifically (I eyeballed it) and prepared to do the Sashiko embroidery.

When I finished, the branches didn't look right, so I couched tan floss outlines with brown quadrupled sewing thread. Then I wove my own fabric for the stems with the sewing thread. That is not cheating, right? Technically it is embroidery or surface embellishment, not a new fabric. See the close-up? I chose to weave unevenly, sort of higgledy-piggledy to give the branch more of a bark quality.

11.7.11

On my last visit as a guest and my first visit as a member at the Misty Mountain Quilt Guild, I was curious about the BLOTTO block raffle. For blotto, they have a print fabric and several coordinating solids. No other fabric may be used. A participant buys fat quarters at $2 each and returns a 12.5 inch (unfinished) block and receives her $2 back and gets her name put in the drawing to win everyone's blocks.

Here is the first one I made. It is a fan with black background and pieces of the print fabric. I enjoyed this since I was able to use some of the skills I am learning in the Appliqué classes I take with Connie Tackett.

Quilt of the Season

The Fall Leaves table runner did not sell and neither did this which is pleasantly hanging at the foot of the stairs as mon édredon de la saison (my quilt of the season).
It is 20 inches square and has a combination of big stitch in various thread types as well as more traditional hand quilting. The stitching around the individual squares I did in a wool yarn which required a little needle grip puller for each and every stitch!

The top left square has a hand appliqued capped acorn with a quilted oak leaf in the background. I wanted the acorn to be central but I did not want the viewer to forget that falling leaves are part of the acorn to tree cycle. I used green thread for the leaf image to further make spring kind of a ghostly past.


The bottom left is a hand appliqued pumpkin with big stitch within the pumpkin and more traditional stitching around it. I used some of my favorite orange plaid and some twig printed fabric for the pieced stem.


The bottom right shows outline hand quilting around two hand appliqued oak leaves. I am sure the outline quilting is too faint in this picture for you to see it. I saw the shapes for the leaves and the acorns in a magazine and knew I had to buy the magazine. I will search out the issue and let you know which one it was.
The top right block has a sort of three dimensional angle from a Debbie Mumm quilt pattern (circa 1985?) I had that showed angels on a Christmas quilt. I used one of them and made a more dimensional angel with changes to the gown to give it an overalls-jumper effect. I made a blouse and arms, neck and head to put the blouse on. The straps on the overall were very fiddly but I got them to work. Here is a secret, her little legs are only attached to the quilt and her dress! She has no body but her feet hang free.

Her wings are not attached to the background and also hang free. They have decorative stitching so tiny you probably can not see it from the photo. I used dark brown thread and picked up two threads from the fabric and then went under two threads and so on. There is outline hand quilting around her wings and the rest of her but I am sure you can not see it.

I have tons of "hair" for dolls and found this lovely reddish mohair for her. She carries a wire twist of beautiful fall oak leaves.