AHIQ Linkup Plus More!

Last year about this time, Debbie of A Quilter's Table blog hosted a quilt-along, mostly on Instagram, doing the Crosscut Quilt.  I had just gotten the prompt for my local guild's yearly challenge, which was "Get Creative With Black".  There were no rules for this challenge other than a minimum size of 24" x 24".  So, I decided that it would be fun to play along, using black fabrics for the background.  Maybe not the most creative way to use black, but I thought the quilt looked like it would fit the criteria.

I promptly ordered a good selection of what I'm calling "low volume black".  In other words, black with a subtle design on it.  And I thought it might be fun to use some of those fabrics I've hand-dyed and hand-marbled, so I used those for the inserts.  I love they way they look with the black fabrics!

Crosscut beginning

I decided to make my quilt a little bigger than what Debbie was doing with the Quilt-Along and what the Challenge size minimum was, just in case the quilt shrunk up too much with quilting to end up at 24" x 24".  This was my start.  Each black square is cut at 9 1/2 inches and the X's (inserts) are cut at 1 inch.  Then the *magic* happens!  *grin*  And that's the fun part.  You'll have to go look at the tutorial on A Quilter's Table if you want to know how to make your own.   It's an easy introduction to Improv quilting.  And a lot of fun too!

The Value of X
24 " x 30"

I got the top made in pretty short order, and then put it aside because 1. I had a year to finish and 2. I couldn't decide how I wanted to quilt it.  So, along comes June this year (my deadline was early July) and it was still sitting there waiting to get quilted.  Yikes! Time to make a decision!  I hemmed and hawed for a little bit, then finally realized that, since I've always admired the quilts I've seen on blogs, IG & Pinterest that have quilted spirals, I really wanted to do a spiral on this quilt.  I thought the spiral would be a good contrast with the geometricality (yes, that is a word now - I just made it up, maybe) of the piecing.  I was a little intimidated, but went for it anyway.  

I had kind of a rough start, perhaps because I started in such a small circle.  I traced around a spool of thread.  It was hard to see the line with the walking foot because it was such a tight fit with such a small circle.  But once I got a few rounds done, it was much easier.  It was actually kind of fun!  And I love the way it came out!

You can see the quilting really well on the back of the piece.  I used up some older stash fabric on the back, including one my mom gave me years ago.

Can you see the two skulls by the arrows?
Can you find the other skulls in this photo?

When I was quilting, I decided to add a few accent lines of a blue/purple thread.  They don't really show much, but I found out that this particular fabric not only has some dots in metallic but some of those dots are actually little skulls!   What a fun discovery!  I have a small quiltlet I made with the leftovers that still needs to be quilted, so you'll see that later.

I had so much fun with this pattern that I made placemats for myself which you can see here.  And now I want to do this pattern again, maybe on a slightly larger scale.

I'm linking up with Ad Hoc Improv Quilting linkup today.  Go check out all the other bloggers giving Improv a go.  There's some good stuff to see!

my 1st Raspberry Kiss block
4 1/4 inches

The Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild was having a "white elephant" exchange at the meeting last week.  I remembered from last year that these are actually pretty awesome handmade items, so I knew I had to rise to the challenge.  The theme this year was "Make It Modern".

I've been wanting to make some Raspberry Kiss blocks that I saw on Pinterest, so I thought now was as good a time as any.  

I changed my mind about what project these blocks were going into many times during the process.  But then it jelled and became a pouch!

Inside of the pouch

Blogger won't let me place this photo where I want it, so you get to see this first!

the "cool" side

the "warm" side

I love this so much!  But now it lives with Roxanne.  I'm planning on doing something more with the Raspberry Kiss block for myself!

Here is the "white elephant" that I came home from the meeting with....a beautiful pillow made by Leigh Ann.  I love it and it has pride of place on my living room couch.  It looks so summery and it makes me smile.  I love these colors!

Here is my newest addition to my collection of sewing machines.  A 1950 Singer 221 Featherweight! (the same age as I am!)  I received this wonderful gift from my friend Judy.  She taught me how to oil and grease her up and now she's ready for me to play with.  I've been wanting a Featherweight for a while now because I've heard (and seen) what a wonderful straight stitch they make.  I'm so excited to own this!  Now I have to go shopping for some fun (and some not-so-fun-but-necessary) accessories for her.

Happy quilting!

Bird is the Word*

"Bird" is the word I drew for the Animal Challenge by the Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild.  

"Bird is The Word"
19.5" w X 18" h

The word brings to mind so many possibilities....owls, penguins, emus, cardinals, eagles and so on.  But I knew immediately that I wanted to make my bird with Lynn's tutorial.  Lynn blogs at Patchery Menagerie, and her tutorial is available on her Etsy site.  I've long admired Lynn's way with improv and especially her fabric choices.  So I bought both the bird tutorial and the tutorial on making your fabric work for you.  Both are immensely helpful! And a very reasonable price for all the information she gives you.

The quilt had to be no smaller than 12 x 12 inches and no larger than 24 x 24 inches.  I think that's a great size for a challenge quilt.  It only took me 3 tries to get a bird - the first two times I cut the fabric wrong for the wing.  The rest of the bird was pretty easy.  

check out the little ladybug button!

 But he looked a little lonely by himself.  I didn't want a very big quilt, so I didn't really want to make more birds.  Then I got the idea to do the birdhouse.  After that it just came together easily.  I kept the quilting simple too, as I was running out of time to get the quilt done before the meeting.  I'm very pleased with how my little challenge came out!

* Bird is The Word was a crazy song from 1963 by The Trashmen.  You can watch the video here, which is so bad, it makes the song even crazier!

I'm supposed to be sewing a particular quilt top together, but I wasn't quite feeling it.  So I found something else to work on.  I found this one, hiding in a pile of other projects.  I started these blocks a few years ago.  2011 to be exact.  Ok, I guess that's 6 years ago, slightly more than a few.  Wow, a little longer than I realized! You can see previous posts about this here and here.  When I pulled this out, I only needed a few more blocks.  So I made another 12!  It is set 6 blocks across by 8 blocks down, and it now 60 inches by 80 inches, with only 2 blocks left over.  I've decided what I want to do for the border and am auditioning sizes right now.  I used my brightest plaids for this quilt and it's pretty intense in person.  I love it!  And another long-time WIP almost finished!  Yay!

I had to stop working on this one to do some secret sewing.  I need to get my other guild's challenge quilt quilted.  It's all pin basted and ready to finish this weekend.

Another plaid project!  My local guild had a sew-in day where we were taught this simple quilt pattern to be used as a charity quilt.  It uses 9 fat quarters.  Except my woven plaid fat quarters weren't 18 inches across.  I pre-wash all my fabric and the FQ's had shrunken up to 17 inches across, so I ended up cutting into yardage.  It was a pretty simple pattern to do, and everyone's quilts looked so different with the different fabrics!  Now I need to trim that bottom edge, baste it and get it quilted.  It's bigger than I like to do myself, but I think simple quilting will be OK.

Here is my sample block for the Tacoma MQG's Block of the Month for July.  It's a fun, easy block and I want to make some more before the meeting.  The tutorial by Cluck Cluck Sew for this one is here, if you want to make it too.  The original quilt looks a lot different from this block!

My DS recently made a wedding gift for some friends, and I thought you'd enjoy seeing it too.  He made a woodburned clock for them, using a celtic Tree of Life design.  I think he did an beautiful job!

For Father's Day, we went with the family to Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma for the day and it was a lot of fun.  The zoo had an amazing display of artwork called Washed Ashore on the zoo grounds, and I think you might enjoy it too.  It's very creative work.  Be sure to click on each photo to see it bigger.  They are incredible!

The explanation of these art works goes like this: 

About Washed Ashore - All of the plastic on these sculptures was collected from beaches by volunteers.  Each sculpture is designed and directed by a lead artist and then created through a collaboration of the artist, Washed Ashore team members and volunteers.

An ocean wave

The other side of the wave has a sea turtle!

The marine debris in this sculpture includes shot gun shells, disposable lighters,

 bottle caps, flip flops, toy shovels, soda bottles and a boogie board. 

It was fun to look at each sculpture and try to find what items were used.  There were even more sculptures, and all were just as good as these are.  I love seeing how others are creative!

That's it for now....Happy quilting, have a great weekend and Happy Independence Day to my American readers!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts' Finish It Up Friday.

A Catch Up and AHIQ - December 2016 edition

Merry Christmas to all my blog friends!  I hope you have a Happy New Year too!

Wow, what a busy month December has been.  Not a surprise at all, is it?  I am surprised that I'm managing one last blog post this year....Yay me!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year.  A little different, in that we did all our socializing on Christmas Eve which means we got to spend Christmas Day at home for the first time a in few years.  That was nice - very relaxed!  No schedule, no visitors, no stress.  I actually slept in until 12:30 in the afternoon!  It was the latest in the day that we've ever had Christmas.  We just had sandwiches for dinner.  And then we watched the Dr. Who Christmas Special.  A very lazy Christmas and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I haven't done any sewing this month, other than some little snack bags for the granddaughters.  *sigh*  I really need to clean the quilt studio before I can do much more.  But, I do have some sewing to share.

After my last post, I thought I would share my Bullseye quilt to show what the raw-edge applique looks like after a few washings.

This quilt is about 15 years old now.  It's been washed lots of times.  This is the pattern called Bullseye based on the pattern in the book "Quilts From Aunt Amy" by Country Threads (Mary Tendall Etherington and Connie Tesene).  I didn't have the book or the pattern with me when I made this at a quilt retreat.  I didn't even have any circle templates.  I just cut the center out of a paper plate and made it up from there!  All of the fabrics I used have dots or circles of some kind on them, even the background fabrics.  

Here is a detail shot of two of the blocks.  You can see that the raw edges have softened and frayed some, but not as much as you might think.  Every once in a while, if it seems as if there are some big clumps of threads, I'll trim those down with some scissors.  But mostly the fraying doesn't bother me - I really like it!

Now that I think about it, I guess this quilt also qualifies as an improv quilt!  It is my favorite way to make a quilt.

Even my candy told me to do improv!

all four placemats

In September when I went to retreat in California, I took along this project.  I wanted to make some placemats, I needed something to demo bindings at the quilt show, and Katie wanted me to teach her something new,  So, I taught her how to do Debbie at A Quilter's Table's Cross-Cut quilt!  We had a lot of fun doing this process together.  I still want to do even more of this technique!

a truer representation of the fabric colors

I used royal blue and lime-y greens because I love those colors together.  

Katie's flimsie placemats

Katie decided to use brights with black, her fave combo.  She also cut her insert strips wider, about 1 1/2 inches, I think.  I cut mine at 1 inch.  

my inspiration page

The Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild had a color challenge this fall. due at the October meeting.  They had us choose a magazine page instead of a paint chip.  It was folded up and in an envelope, so we couldn't peek!  This page above was my choice, which I was happy about.

We had not-very-big size parameters and just had to do something that was related to the page, whether it was shapes or colors or any emotions the page evoked.

19" W x 17" H

Here is my challenge quilt.  Those books in the cases really spoke to me.  I'm not entirely pleased with this quilt - but I don't hate it either and it's DONE!.

the back of my inspiration page

the back of my quilt

I had to do the IKEA numbers fabric on the back!

If you want to see some of the other TMQG challenge quilt, click here.

For my birthday, my husband gave me a book I really, really wanted - Artful Improv by Cindy Grisdela.  I love her work - it really inspires me!

    

So, following her Building Blocks of Improv Design in the book, here is my first attempt at the Angled Stripes exercise.  I just picked the blues and greens that I liked, then added the hot pink for a zinger.

So, then I tried playing with various fabrics for the border.

the center is 10" W x 15" H

And you can see here that I tweaked my design some to be more interesting.

sorry for the terrible photo - it's so dark here

I think this is my final border choice.  I like the way the darker border color plays with the interior, making it more important.  Now I'm trying to decide on the final sizes for the sides.  I think they'll end up being 4 different sizes, just to make it more interesting.

Now I want to play with more of Cindy's exercises, particularly the curves!  I plan on doing more improv this coming year - it really is fun to do.  

I'm linking up with the Ad Hoc Improv Quilting.  Click here to see others' improv!

Less Stalling, More Doing

Yes, I've actually managed to complete something!  One done, one to top status.

"Lemonade"
21 in. by 25 1/4 in.

I finally got my challenge quilt done, and in time for the reveal picnic too!   Makes me wonder why I stall so much when I have to scramble to be done in time.  Read more about this project here and here.

The Potter came up with the name for this, and I love it!  You know the saying . . . "when life hands you lemons . . ."  Perfect fit, isn't it?  I'm really happy with this - it finished up much better than I thought it would in the beginning.  I don't even see the Ugly Fabric (lemons) anymore!

I dipped into my scrap bin for all the fabrics for this quilt.  I went way back in time for some of these fabrics.  I guess I now know why I'm saving all those old fabrics.  "Old" being a relative term - most of these are from the 90's, so technically not that old.  They are slowly getting used up.  Good thing too, because I'm getting tired of some of these fabrics.  And some I still love and enjoy.  But I'm not really into that antique-y look anymore.  I crave bright happy colors and fabrics now.

Of course, I only have to look at the back of this quilt to see the lemons.  I had to include them in all their ugly glory, just so I can remember which ones they are.  The scraps of the lemons went in the trash.  Nobody wanted them!  And the other fabric?  I used up a half yard of some unloved fabric in my stash plus a little extra of another.  You can see the quilting I did better on the back too.  I used white thread in the light parts of the log cabins and a dark blue thread in the dark parts.  I wanted to emphasize the zigzag design of the log cabin blocks.

I ended up making 99 half square triangles because I had no idea how many I needed for the borders.  The first ones I made weren't even close to being enough.  So I cut and sewed and cut and sewed until I had over 10 feet of half square triangles!  Yikes!  It was a staggering amount, to my mind, especially for such a small little quiltlet.

Dunkel wanted you to be able to judge the size of the quilt quickly.  Also, it didn't have enough cat hair on it.  Maybe not the most flattering shot of him?

I did manage to get a shot of his "better side".  He hates the camera.

"Leftover Lemons"
14 3/4 inches square

Remember the wrong size blocks I had?  (See my previous post)  Well, I came up with something to do with them.  And I couldn't just toss the rest of those HST's!  So I got creative for the borders, because I absolutely was not going to make even one more HST.  I really like this too.  Now to get it quilted and bound, which may be awhile.

both "lemon" quilts together

I almost like the border on the smaller one better than the border on the larger one.  And it would have been less work too.  I need to remember this!

Today I'm making and attaching labels to a few quilts that will go to the county fair tomorrow.  My labels aren't fancy or elaborate in any way.  I subscribe to the theory "finished is better than perfect".  If I waited until things were perfect, they'd never get done.  You'll notice that does not rule out doing it at the last possible moment.  *ahem*

Avoidance Technique Projects?

I was lucky enough to snag a copy of Andrea Balosky's book "Transitions: Unlocking the Creative Quilter Within" (the link will take you to Amazon) at the Puyallup Valley Quilters guild's annual book sale for only $2!  Score!  (if you get the chance to read this book, do so!  wonderful insights into the artistic process!) So, this morning I was reading the part where she discusses the Creative Process and . . . *gasp* I recognized myself.  She was talking about when you are faced with doing something to your project that you'd really rather not do so you go into "avoidance mode" and do something else, like cleaning the studio or something.  Anything but what you'd rather not do.  I know you know what I'm talking about . . . I think we all do it sometimes.  You can call it stalling as well.

Well, I have to admit - mostly to myself - that I was stalling.  I need to do more to my Cherrywood project (see it here)  and I don't want to.  I've decided that I need to add more of the little inserts, which involves undoing parts of the top.  So, major avoidance is occurring.  I know I'm just being stubborn and I'll eventually get it done.  But it's truly amazing what else I can get done when I'm in avoidance mode!

17 1/4 in x 21 3/4 in without borders

Avoidance Project #1 - my Ugly Fabric Challenge quilt is nearing completion!  And about time, too, as it's due on July 11th!  I finally made up my mind what to do with the hideous fabrics I received.  I flailed around for awhile, and then I remembered Bonnie Hunter's saying "if the fabric is still ugly, you haven't cut it small enough".  Bingo!  What's the best way to use it?  Little pieces.  What's the best way to disguise it?  Put it with similar fabrics.  Thus, the log cabin.  So far, without the borders, the top is at 17 1/4 in. by 21 3/4 in.  Those center squares are 1 1/4 inches finished.  The border triangles will also be that size.  Pretty darn little, and kind of pain to make those HST's!  

arrows point out the Ugly Fabrics

This is a close up of the Ugly Fabrics and how I used them.  The middle fabric isn't too bad, so I used it as is.  The other two I've used the wrong side up.  Makes them play better with everything else.

At one point, after I had taken a break (the next day, I believe), I needed to cut more of the center blocks.  Well, apparently I didn't  measure correctly.  But I didn't discover my error until I was trying to assemble the blocks.  These blocks have a center square that measures 1 1/2 inch cut instead of 1 3/4 in.  That 1/4 inch is hard to see, but so important to the finished size of the block!  So, I have 10 extra blocks the wrong size.  *sigh*  We'll see what becomes of these blocks later, when I decide.

So, now I'm stalling about cutting more of the little HST's for the border.  Fortunately, I didn't fold and put away the fabrics yet.  So, that's what I'll be doing very soon.  That approaching due date is starting to motivate me!  So, even more Avoidance is going on around here!  (It's getting pretty bad, huh?)

Modern Disappearing 9 Patch
50 3/4 in x 64 in at this point

In the meantime, here are my other Avoidance Technique projects.  A.T.P. #2 is now assembled and ready for borders.  Fabric has been purchased for said borders and binding.  I need to get this done P.D.Q. so it can get to the quilter and back in time for the quilt show in October.

17 in x 24 1/4 in

A. T. P. #3: another preemie quilt.  I got it quilted at a guild workshop on Friday, now I need to find binding and do that.  No rush on this one.

detail shot

I don't have any baby fabrics, but I thought these worked OK for a little girl.

44 in x 58 1/2 in

A.T.P. #4: the String X quilt got borders!  I went to see the Keeper of the Guild Fabric the other day and found something that works.  It's not what I initially had in mind, but I like it.  Nicely bright and cheery.  This will go to a local facility for seriously ill and frail children.

The yellow fabric has little tiny bees all over it.  

So, I guess I've stalled long enough now!  But, didn't I get a lot accomplished??  Not finished, but accomplished.  Two different things - in my world anyway. *grin*  I amaze myself sometimes.  hee hee!  I really need to finish the challenge quilt because of the looming due date.  So, that is first on my agenda.  Then I think I'll move on to the Mod D9P so it can go to the quilter.  Then maybe I can actually pick up the seam ripper and work on my Cherrywood project so it can be done in time for the quilt show too.  Wish me luck!  Or maybe you should come over and give me a kick in the butt!

So, inquiring minds want to know:  what do you do when you're experiencing the Avoidance Technique?   Do you recognize it when you're doing it?  How do you move past it?