Liberated Medallions with Gwen

At long last, here is my post on my 3 day class with Gwen.  I had so much fun!  I can't believe it's taken me so long to get this post done, but here it is.

Warning: this post is photo-heavy!

The class was offered by the wonderful quilt shop "Quilted Strait" over in Port Gamble.  They have a wonderful facility, and are very attentive to the students' needs and make every attempt to keep us happily sewing.  If you ever get the chance to take a class there, I urge you to do it!

I'm not going to spend a lot of time "talking" about the class, I'll just show you my photos.  Right to the good stuff, OK?

I love the texture Gwen's hand-quilting adds to this piece.

These are some of Gwen's quilts that she brought to show.  Somehow I didn't get photos of her medallion quilts - doh!  

Another one with Gwen's beautiful hand-quilting.

One of my favorite parts of Gwen's classes is when the students have Show & Tell:

A whole cloth medallion (limited piecing),
made as a test before the class.

A "Ferris Wheel" quilt.
Pattern by Karen Griska of the Selvage Blog.

This is the back for the previous quilt top.

the back of the previous quilt

The next few photos are of Nifty Quilts' quilts.  You can see more at her blog.

The is the back of the previous quilt.

The back of the previous quilt.

Not really Show & Tell, I just loved this bag!

And now, here are my photos of the students' work, taken on the last day of the class.  Unfortunately, by the time I was taking photos, some of the students had already left and I didn't get photos of their work.  Trust me, it was awesome!

this one was being done by two sisters

Nifty actually got her top finished!

And here is the quilt that I was working on:

This is what I brought to get started with.  This has been languishing in the quilt studio for a few years, because I was undecided as to how I wanted to proceed with it. 

This is where I was at the end of the class.  Sadly, I haven't done any more yet.  Well, I took away the pink/yellow fabric because it seemed too overwhelming when I got it home.  It's up on the design wall, and I'm thinking.....

A New Year's Post

Well, 2015 has gone down the tubes and now it's the start of a shiny, brand-new year!  I hope everyone had very happy holidays.  And I hope 2016 will be a good year for all of us, with all the quilty goodness one could hope for.

I'd like to take a moment here to say "thank you" to all my readers who stick with me, through the dry spells when I don't post.  December was one of those times.  I just had so many things going on that blogging just kind of fell off my radar.  But I was sewing and having fun times.  

My granddaughters did another year of ballet, with the December recital being, as usual, selected pieces from the Nutcracker.  It's fun to see them in the different roles and watch how they've progressed from year to year.

We had a very fun Christmas over at DS #1's house with the granddaughters.  We must have been good this year, because I think Santa was kind to every one of us.  Another aspect of Christmas I enjoy is seeing how the girls' Christmas lists have changed over the years.  Our oldest DGD has now become a teenager, and it's so fun to see how she's growing up.  I think the best part of Christmas Day was playing games with the whole family after dinner.  That was so much fun!

The big, fun sewing project I was doing in December was making a Secret Santa gift for another member in the Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild, that I joined this last year.  Her choice of style matched up with mine very well, so it was easy to make something for her.  The guild gave everyone a list of possible hand-made gifts to choose from.  We were to pick 5 things from the list.  That actually made it a lot easier.  So, one of the items my recipient chose was an insulated lunch bag,  And she likes text fabrics and brights with white. That sounded easy-peasy to me! 

I took an idea from Quilting Modern by Jacquie Gering and Katie Pedersen, one of my fave books.  I was doing the improv piecing of the sew & flip triangles.  Very fun and easy.  This was test block #1.  It was so soothing to be doing improv again, just sitting and sewing bits together and then seeing how they worked together.  I want to do more of that! 

test block #2

test block #3

It was interesting to see that, even though I thought I was being totally random in my placement of the triangles, they all came out at similar angles.  I don't know if that's good or not, just interesting.

And this is the design I went with.  It was more fun and less expected than the layouts in the test blocks, which pleased me.  The pattern for the lunch bag I was using was this one from All People Quilt.  It was a pretty good pattern and easy to do.  The only thing I would change the next time I make this bag would be to make the bag bigger.

Once I had the front and back put together, I did simple straight line quilting, and I used Thermolam, the insulated batting that one would use for pot holders.  I thought that would insulate the bag pretty well.  I also used a layer of cotton batting, which in retrospect was too much.  Just the Thermolam would be enough, I think.  Of course, making the bag big enough to account for all the batting would help too.  The pattern didn't call for any batting, so that's one reason why it seemed to be on the smaller side.

Here is the completed bag, with the top open.

And closed.

Here is the back of the bag.  My recipient's first name starts with G, so I thought it would be fun to personalize it for her.  I used Tonya's book Word Play Quilts, of course!

Here's a closeup of the text fabric I used in the center of the G.  If you  click on the picture, you can read what it says.  

The inside of the bag.  I used some plastic canvas in the bottom to help the bag hold it's shape. 

And I made a mug rug to go with, using the leftover scraps of the piecing.  I wish I had done the join of the binding a little better than that!  Sheesh!  That's kind of embarrassing.

Here is the entire gift.  G. said her fave designer is Amy Butler, so I found this little jelly roll to include.  

We had a fun Christmas meeting with the Tacoma MQG, and my recipient loved her gift!  Next time I'll share the wonderful gift that I received.

Actual Sewing Has Occured!

But first, some photos from our trip to the Olympic Peninsula last week.

This is Ruby Beach, which is right on the Pacific Ocean.  A very Pacific Northwest-looking beach.  Note the logs all over the beach.  That's pretty common on the beaches up here. Those things are at least the size of telephone poles. 

This is another shot of Ruby Beach.  It's beautiful, but it was cold that day!  It snowed the previous night, although there was none on the ground in this area.  I'd never been to the beach in the winter before. 

This is Kalaloch Beach, right by the lodge that we stayed in.  A very flat beach, with lots of continuous waves.  There are lots of rocks out there in the water, so I don't think it's ever much of a swimming beach. 

What was really amazing to us was that there was NO cell phone service in this area!  We were shocked . . . we never expected that.  30 minutes north or south of Kalaloch had service.  I actually had to use a pay phone, for the first time in a lot of years, to get in touch with my sister whom we were meeting.  And I think it's, I don't know what word fits here, sad maybe, that we've come to expect to be able to use a cell phone, no matter how remote we are.  It wasn't that many years ago we didn't have cell phones and thought nothing of being out of touch.  Times change, I guess.  Or am I just showing my age? *grin*

We were about 30 minutes or so south of Forks, Washington which is the setting for the Twilight series of books and movies.  If you go to Forks, you can get the "Twilight Tour".

I finally got a start on the Civil War blocks.  I got my new Prussian Blue fabric (see previous post) washed and ready just in time to use it!  And now I'm behind again.  I don't know how long I can keep this up!  But I'm really enjoying the history and the photos on Barbara Brackman's Civil War blog.  If you haven't seen it yet, hop on over and check it out.  There's also a Flickr page where you can see what everyone else's blocks look like.

Here is the project I started using Tonya's new book, as I mentioned in my previous post.  I got all the letters done, following the instructions.  (they were all good, Ton!)  The A didn't come out quite as I had envisioned it, but I used it anyway.  I ended up trimming down the S and the E. . .  they were just too fat.  (Oh, if only losing weight were that easy!)  For a change, I picked out the border fabric first, then based the letter fabrics on that.  DGD's room is painted green and her favorite color is blue, so that was a factor too.  (DGD is 8, and I didn't want to get too wonky.  They are not a "wonky" family.)

My first thought was not to use spacers between the letters, but then I decided things looked better (easier to read) with the spacers.  For me, the hardest part is always putting the letters together.  It seems so complicated at first.  And I'm never sure how much to make them "dance" up and down.  But I just started sewing two together here and two together there, and before you know it, it's not so bad.  I did have to keep adding more background to the top of the letters.  Too much is better than not enough!

Then I decided that the wall hanging needed a heart on it.  This was my first attempt.  But I didn't like it - too pointy at the top.

So, I gathered up my courage and trimmed, just like Tonya says.  I figured, what the heck, I had nothing to lose!

Much better now.  Not perfect, but that wasn't my aim anyway.

Now, where to put the little wonky heart?  I think this corner is already too busy, don't you?

All finished.  Well, first finish, I guess.  I've found something for the back, and I have to go dig in the box of batting scraps for a piece the right size.  I have one week to get it quilted and bound.  This finished at 16 inches tall by 31 inches wide.

The other night when I couldn't sleep, I was pondering quilt designs, as I often do when I can't sleep.  I remembered these little plaid kitties that I appliqued a few years ago.  At the time, I thought they were cute, but had no idea of what I wanted to with them.  Now I have an idea!  I'm going to add the names of all my cats I've owned to these guys. 

OK, this is Step One.  I've sewn plaid fabric around all the cats.  The blocks are now in the 11 to 12 inch range.  I don't know if they'll stay this size or get cut down some.  It'll come to me.  I'm trusting the universe to tell me what the quilt wants.

I'm not sure how to do this quilt, but I thought I'd just start sewing and see what happens. I'll make parts and pieces and see how they all fit together. Sue at The Magpie's Nest has inspired me to attempt this.  She's been doing a lot of this lately, and it's been fun to watch her process.  I'm having some difficulty in not planning this out. . . . it's hard to let go of that. But if I wait for inspiration (without active particpation on my part), the kitties will continue to languish in a box. I do know I want to continue using the plaids, and I want this to be a useful size, because Lord knows I have wallhangings up the kazoo and very limited wall space. So, that's the parameters I'm starting with. It'll be fun to see where this goes.

And I just can't sew without my Studio Cat helping me. . . because he won't let me!  Shade's very possesive of his responsibilities in the quilt studio and he won't let Dunkel in to participate, either.   So, I guess that makes everything I do a collaborative effort.  I do the sewing and Shade contributes cat hair and purrs.  Hee hee!