Last Quilty Project for the Year

 It's the end of the year, and I've got one last blog post for 2018.

I hope everyone had a happy Christmas and have been enjoying the holidays.  On the 20th we watched our granddaughters dance in their ballet school's Nutcracker selections.  They both dance on-point now and they each had their first solos!  A very exciting time for them!

We had a great time Christmas Eve at our oldest son's home with his family, and then a quiet day on Christmas, just the 3 of us at home.  It will be a quiet New Year's for us too.  We're going to watch the Dr. Who special and play board games.  I'm looking forward to it.

Fortunately, we had some honest-to-God bright sunlight this morning for the first time in days, so I could get some photos I've been wanting to take for a while now.  It's been so very dark and rainy here, and just terrible lighting for photos.  So this was a wonderful opportunity!  Plus, sunny makes us happy here!

 My last bit of quilting this year was a gift for the Tacoma MQG Christmas gift exchange.  It was secret sewing, so I couldn't share with you until now.  I made a tablerunner in my recipient's favorite colors.  She requested tropical blues and greens. (some of my favorite colors!)

This is based on a couple of quilts in Alexandra Ledgerwood's book Improvising Tradition.   I had to use mostly batiks to get the right tones of tropical blues and greens.  Fortunately, I have a small bin of batik scraps, which came in very handy!  I just sat down and started doing some improv log cabin-y blocks, which is my favorite kind of creativity!

When I liked what I had with the blocks, then I had to figure out the right proportions for a tablerunner.  It wasn't too hard, and I'd like to do another one of these.  I made notes so I could repeat this!

The quilting design was courtesy of my DS.  He drew a sketch and then was kind enough to draw it on the quilt sandwich with a hera marker, making the quilting very easy.  

Leigh Ann seemed very happy with this!  

side 1

This was gifted to me, and made by LaDonna.  A great tote bag!  I love that off-set pocket!

side 2

inside view

I love all the pockets on the inside!  Those are always handy. I think all tote bags should have multiple pockets - LaDonna must have read my mind! And the fabrics she chose are so fun!  Kitties and then goldfish swimming in bowls for the pockets.

I don't talk a lot about myself on here, but I will say that I'm glad to see 2018 end.  It has been a tough year.  Dear Son was sick for a lot of it, Dear Hubby was traveling for a lot of it and I got to take up the slack.  Which didn't leave much time for quilting.  :(  Then I broke 3 toes in July and found out I have osteoporosis.  DH retired the end of August, which he really needed.  All that world traveling was taking a toll.

Fortunately, he's around now that I need him, because in October I injured my foot.  The doctor thought it was a sprained ankle.  I rested it and used a cane to walk with and then in November I started physical therapy for it.  But by December, it was much worse!  So I quit P.T. and went back to the doctor.  

I've been staying off of it as much as possible and using a cane to hobble around.  Wednesday the 2nd I'm going to have an MRI to find out what is going on and how bad it is.  I'm kind of dreading finding out - I don't want to have surgery!  So, I'm hoping for good news in January!  Cross your fingers or say a little prayer for me, please!

Goodbye 2018!  Hello 2019!

Since I made my tablerunner with a bin of scraps, I think it qualifies, so I'm linking up with Oh Scrap! over at Quilting Is More Fun Than Houseworrk.

And Happy quilting!

Happy Summer!

Summer has finally come to Western Washington - with a vengeance!  It has been blazing hot here for days, and it's expected to be like this all week.  Today is very nice, the high was only 85* and mostly cloudy, which was nice after yesterday being 92* and blazing sun.  It's supposed to heat up all week culminating in 96* on Thursday.  Yikes!  We don't have A/C, so we suffer when it gets that hot.  And we usually only get about 4 or 5 days of truly hot, so this is really unusual for us.  Plus we're having a drought as well, so everything is brown and crispy.  Not my favorite weather!

So, thanks to the heat, I haven't been getting much sewing done,  My sewing room is upstairs and on the east side of the house, which means it heats up early and then stays too warm.  A week ago, my guild had a workshop on Bargello, so I did some sewing there.  And then Friday I sewed at a friend's house, where I finished my Bargello pieces that I had started.

second piece

I'd never tried Bargello before, so I wanted to give it a shot.  The concept isn't hard if you're used to strip piecing, but it can be confusing and achieving a nice curve isn't as easy as I thought.

first piece

You can see that my first try is kind of awkward compared to the second one.  I used all batiks for this project, because I thought they would work well for this.  I like the variations in colors in the batiks - I think that makes it more interesting.  These two pieces are each about 18 inches square. I'm going to be turning these pieces into a tote bag - at least that's my plan at the moment!

"Jungle Cat"

Our local art gallery, where my DH sells some of his pottery, is having an Artist Trading Card sale again this year, to raise funds.  So DH made some pottery ATCs as well as some paper ones.  I, of course, made some fabric ones.  Which only makes sense, since I not really good at drawing or painting, like some of the other artists.  But my ATCs seem to be popular.  The last time I checked, they all had bids on them!

"Time Cat"

These little pieces finish at 2.5 x 3.5 inches.  Not a big investment in time or supplies.  But lots of fun to make.  I fused the Laurel Burch cats onto the background fabrics, and then added the fun buttons and beads.

"Untitled"

This last one was made with my smallest hand-dyed and Cherrywood fabric scraps, which were left over from this quilt.  It has kind of an Amish vibe to me, but I had to add those beads just for fun and to make it a little more "artsy".

A week or so ago DH and I got new cellphones.  Our 4 year old phones were dinosaurs, and were starting to die.  So we got a new plan (I can text now!) and nifty Galaxy 6 phones.  These phones have the best camera on them!  I've been having lots of fun taking pix.  The photo above is a barn about 1/2 mile from my house.  I love this barn, and I think I got an interesting photo of it.

This photo was taken directly across the road from the barn. facing east.  You can't tell from this photo too well, but that is Mt. Rainier in the center (where it looks like clouds).

Same photo, just super zoomed in.  That is the mountain, with the clouds hiding the top half of it.  With this warm, clear weather, we're getting some awesome views of the mountain.  Finding a good place to stop the car to get a photo is the hard part!

Dear Son made some "Midsummer" cookies this week, and we finally got them frosted and decorated today.  Sorry this photo is a little fuzzy.

fireworks, flowers, ice cream cones, cats (and a nudist in the upper right corner)!

a tree and a tent, airplane, music note and more fireworks & flowers

the last four cookies

The hardest part is not gobbling them all down immediately.  We love these cookies, and decided they're not just for Christmas.  *grin*

Dunkel says "Happy quilting"!

A Finish!

String Thing 2
50 x 66 inches

 This quilt is finally finished - Yay!  I made these string blocks waaayyy back in the spring of 2009, during my retreat that was "The Great Spring String Fling".  My friend Katie and I made sooo many string blocks during that retreat.  We were trying to finish off those strings that I've toted around for 20 years or so.  I still have enough blocks like these to do another quilt, after making  I-don't-know-how-many quilts with strings.  I've got a bunch and Kate has a bunch too.

This photo doesn't do the quilt justice.  This quilt is pretty "loud", as my Mom used to say.  The strings aren't that bright, which is what led me to make this so loud.  I'm getting pretty tired of some of these strings and wanted to jazz them up some.  So, I went with this wild batik, a la Freddy Moran.  Trouble is, this batik will knock your eye out!   When I was showing my friend, she asked me if I was on drugs when I made this quilt!  Hee hee!  I still haven't decided quite how I feel about this quilt.  It may be one only a mother could love.  But it is filled with all sorts of memory fabrics.  So I'll enjoy looking at it.

As usual, Shari did a super job of quilting this.  I asked her for something that "went" with the batik and then something that didn't clash with the strings.  So she did this wonderful leafy vine on the strings....

...and then did this great swirly bit over the batik!  I love it!

(click for the closeup)

Here is the backing and the binding.  The backing was something from the stash that I had enough of.  And for the binding - well, I went through a lot of different colors trying to figure out what looked the best before I settled on this black & white plaid.  It gives an over-all impression of kind-of-grey, that I think works pretty well.

The other week The Kid and I went to W*lmart for some things.  I always check the fabric dept. - just in case.  Well, this time was a good one!  I found these 2 black & white dots that are good quality.  Check out the year on the selvage!

Then, doing some wandering around, I found these cool stickers that are for laptops.  I had the idea that maybe I could cut them apart and jazz up my machine with them.  They're removable stickers, so no long-term commitment, right?.

front with stickers and "jewels"

Well, here's my machine, all jazzed up.  I had fun doing this, and so far I'm enjoying looking at this too.  It gives me a flashback to my hippie youth.  (Ooops, just gave away my age!)

the end piece

The sticker doesn't fit perfectly, due to the curve in the machine, but it's close enough for government work, right?

the back of the machine

 Hope you have fun this week!

Putzing Along

I'm still here, just putzing along. I've been too busy to have much time in the quilt studio. Last week was full of social things, which were fun, and errands, which weren't as much fun.  But I finally made it to the sewing machine and got a few things accomplished.

This is a mug rug that I made for my sister.  I thought she might like it personalized with her initial.  I had trouble getting the letter as small as I wanted, and finally settled on this one, which was actually the first one I did.   

I started piecing together some batik strips for the back of the mug rug, but when I got them done, I decided that they were way too cute to just go on the back. Then I talked myself out of making a 2nd mug rug. So I sliced and diced, sewed on a little border and came up with this.

But I was thinking this was way too static a design.  Cute enough but not really what I wanted.

It needed more "wonk".  So I started piecing some little 4-patches together.  No rotary cutter, just scissors.  So, here's where I'm at now.  I'm still not sure this is quite what I wanted, but I think I'm stopping now.  It could be wonkier, but I'm done.  What's funny is there's wonky where I wasn't trying for wonky.  I've never needed to intentionally add a "humility block", it just comes naturally!  *grin*

I'm on the quilt show committee this year, and our Fearless Leader has decided we all need to make potholders to sell.  We had a workshop last Friday on potholders.  I had pieced together the selvage one before then, and also had the flowered one together, but not quilted.  Well, I forgot my new walking foot (oops), so when I quilted these, they got a little skewed.  So I had to trim the flowered one down some, to make it square again.  Then I was trying the binding method that one guild member was teaching, and I didn't have enough binding.  So I trimmed that potholder down some more!  Then I applied the binding to the wrong side.  That means the pretty stuff on the binding is on the wrong side of the potholder.  Oh well, it will still work, it's just not "purty".  Like DH says, we can set this one on fire and no one will care!

I've gotten the name banner for DGD#2 at the flimsy stage and need to get it ready to quilt it.  I'm kind of stockpiling little projects that need to be quilted and will make a day or two of it and get them all quilted at once.  And I'm still working up to making kitty names.  I'm not *stalling* exactly, as I needed to get some other things done first, but it's starting to feel a bit like stalling now.

We've had maybe 2 or 3 inches of snow today.  But it's all been snow flurries, with some great, huge snow flakes.  It'll stick for a little bit, then melt away.  Then an hour later, it will do it again.  So, there's been no accumulation.  It's just teasing us.  I was hoping for an "official" snow day.  But then, I could actually declare just about any day a "snow day".  I know all you folks in the East are laughing at me - but I'll take snow over all the rain and gloom we've been having.  At least the sun shines once in a while!

It's snowing again!  Time to go sew!  

Retail Therapy

Spring is trying to happen around here, but Winter isn't letting go easily. This rhododendron at my sister's house is just beautiful, but the weather is still cold and blustery and rainy.

I've been doing a little retail therapy lately. Not too much at one time and not too often, but enough to keep me happy, I guess.


These fabrics were purchased at various times over the last 2 months. The fabric on the right I found on sale at one of the quilt shows I attended. I got the last on the bolt . . . around 2 yards. I'll probably use it as an inspiration fabric. The batik on the left I found on sale the other day, and it'll be the back for my first Liberated Amish quilt "Shine". And there'll be plenty leftover for other uses! The blue batik is for the back of my second Liberated Amish quilt, which isn't quite ready for a back yet. The others were "just because".

Here is a pack of indigo batik fat quarters that I found the other day. Eight fat quarters for $15. I thought that was a pretty good deal, since most batik seems to be about $10 a yard.

Here's the pack opened. I like these! These will be fun to work with.

Now all the fabric is washed and in the quilt studio, waiting to play!

This past weekend we took off again. We went down to see my sister, and to see the Oregon Potters Association's big show in Portland. My sister has been trying to get us to see this show for a few years, and things worked out that we could make it this year. It was everything she had promised us, and more! We had a blast and saw so much wonderful pottery. Very inspiring!

We managed to get out of there without buying any pottery. Frankly, it was overwhelming and I couldn't make up my mind, so I guess that meant there was nothing that HAD to come home with me. This piece came home with my sister. This is a small tray made by Ellen Currans. She impressed it with wallpaper to get that design.

However, that doesn't mean I came home empty-handed! This pottery show isn't the only show at the Oregon Convention Center. There was also the Glass makers, with gorgeous hand-made glass. There was the art metal workers, with awesome jewelry. There was also a bead show, the woodworker's show (we were too late to see that one), and then there was the weaver's guild. Yummm! There was plenty of beautiful fiber to be found there. And some of that made it's way home with me.

First, I found a little ball of yarn that I had to have. I'm not sure why, since I don't knit or crochet or anything. But I couldn't pass it up for 50 cents! And I fell in love with these rainbow coasters. They feel so good and are so bright and cheery. A good deal at 2 for $6, I think. One for the quilt studio and one for the office, maybe.

And then I found the gallon ziplock stuffed with remnants of hand-woven fabrics for $10. Oh, I had to have them! I'll never weave and I love hand-woven fabrics. The pieces are big enough for a little something, like a small coin purse or an accent on an art quilt. The pieces on the right don't really have those white areas. . . that's actual sunlight on them! (It's so strange around here to have direct light on what I'm photographing!) These feel so good to the touch. Right now I'm just enjoying looking at and touching them.

I've made more progress with my Liberated Amish quilt. I have 9 of 12 blocks constructed, so soon I can start putting it together. I'm hoping I can get to most of that this week, but we'll see.

First I have to clean house, as I'm hostessing the Mother's Day barbeque. All the girls are going to a Mother/Daughter tea, while DH and DS go fishing at the U-Fish place. Then we're having "Steak and Lake" (as oppposed to Surf and Turf) for our barbeque! I'm hoping we'll have nice weather to barbeque in.

I've been staying up waaaay too late the last few nights. My sister and I talked into the wee hours, and since I got home, I've been engrossed in a book. I read for 6 hours last night! I'm reading The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series by Greg Keyes, which is high fantasy. I had a hard time getting into it, but now I'm totally mesmerized! I finished the first book, The Briar King, and am halfway through the second book (of four), The Charnel Prince. If you like high fantasy, I think you'll like this. And thanks for the recommendation, Tonya!

If you'll excuse me now, I have some reading to do.

Time Flies

Wow, it seems like forever since I posted last, and I have too many things to show and tell about!

Last week I wandered into an antique shop with nothing in particular in mind. Way back in a corner, I found this antique quilt! It was marked $30 and I had a long discussion with myself as to whether or not this needed to come home with me. In the end, I settled for a couple of pictures! Cheaper and easier. I just couldn't justify the purchase with all that fabric sitting at home. I (theoretically) can make my own "antique" indigo quilt.

It looks to me like an Irish Chain or variation thereof, and done in a scrappy manner. There were a few squares that have disintegrated into almost nothing, and those look like they weren't indigo fabric. (You can just see one in the upper right in the photo below.) The quilting is done in straight lines, which I think is kind of unusual in an antique.

WARNING!! SPOILER ALERT!! To my sister: if you are reading this, STOP NOW!! DO NOT SCROLL DOWN!!

Ok, the rest of you are good to continue. *grin*

I checked a book out of the library recently, and it really excited me. I thought these projects looked like a lot of fun.

As I was reading this book, the author mentioned seeing a well-known quilter on a TV show, demonstrating her little fabric books. She mentioned no names. But it dawned on me that she must have been talking about Gwen Marston. And I remembered I had Gwen's book about this! So I had to go find it.

Here it is!

Then, I had the brilliant thought "It's almost my sister's birthday. Hmm, could I somehow combine these two ideas?!"

So, the secret project idea was born and is now in process! I've just gotten started, and I can't wait to get back at it. (I had to take a couple of days off for other things, darn it!) I think this is gonna be fun, and I think/hope my sister will like this. She's also a quilter, so it figures that she would. We usually like the same things. *fingers crossed*

I bought some batiks the other day. The one on the left (purple) is going to be the quilt studio curtains and sewing machine cover, the green one was just because I fell in love with it.

I went to the Alliance for American Quilts web site with the Gwen Marston interview and looked around. You can search the interviews based on the interviewee, and there's more people on there than I've heard of! I found the interview with Roberta Horton, who's been as big an influence on my quilting as Gwen Marston. You can read it here. It's interesting to me that, essentially, both women are telling quilters "Make your OWN quilt". I hadn't realized that that was the true common thread until I read both interviews. Don't copy someone else's quilt, make one that reflects you and your life. Both of these quilters are basing this advice on their studies of antique quilts. And the quilt that Ms. Horton brought to the interview, "Frau Horton Frau Horton", was free-pieced figures! I've seen photos of the quilt, (you can see it here - scroll down about 1/2 way down the page) and hadn't realized that it was free-pieced. How cool! Another link between her and Gwen Marston. I love finding these common threads to the things that have influenced me.

A little side note here. My daughter plays classical Spanish guitar. She lives in another state now, and I really miss listening to her play. She sent me this link to You Tube. You can hear Andante Largo's beautiful classical guitar playing. The song my daughter plays that I miss is called "Jeux Interdits or Romance". I think it's beautiful, and I hope you enjoy it too!