Secret Project Reveal!

Finally! I finished the Secret Project for my sister AND she's received it, so now I can reveal it to the world. Well, maybe not the whole world. But you never know with the internet.

You can see my previous posts about the Secret Project here and here.

I used Gwen Marston's book on fabric books as my instructions. I think the little book came out pretty well. This book was supposed to be finished for my sister's birthday (in August). Didn't make it. Then, she was stopping by for the night a few weeks ago. I tried again to finish it. Didn't make it. I did manage to cut my finger real well with the scissors though! (Man, I couldn't believe I did that. I was aiming for the thread, but got my finger instead. Right on the tip of my index finger. Ouch!)

So, finally I said "enough is enough!" and sat down and finished the project. I was held up by not having spray starch when I needed it, and then just procastinated. I'm good at procrastination. I was hoping having a blog would help me just get past that. I'm trying, but I'm still procrastinating. Old habits. . . .

So, anyway, the picture up above is the front of the book. It was a hard call as to which page to use. I thought this one was eye-catching.


The next two pages. The page on the right is a direct copy of the one in Gwen's book. I was trying to get into the "zone" on how to do this. And I love that page!
Next. Sorry that dark red page just won't show up well. I tried stronger light AND photo editing, but it's just being shy!
Next, with another dark red page being difficult. (The piecing on the right-hand page just doesn't show up well. I had to cut it down too much.)
And finally the back of the book.


My sister was very pleased and surprised with the book. And I'm happy that she's happy!


It didn't come out as "perfect" as I wanted it to, but I learned a lot. The next one (if there are any more) will be easier. Next time I would do less piecing OR make the pages a little bigger. I had a hard time getting the block centered in the space when cutting down to the size Gwen suggested. Some of them look more off-center than I'm happy with for this rather formal-looking block. I think the next one I attempt I'll go more for the "wonky"!


On other fronts, I think I've decided what I want to do for the Quilt Together with Lazy Gal Tonya. I've tried some free-pieced letters and one jar. I'm not too happy with some of my letters, but I like the jar. Sorry, no pictures this time, but I'll have some for the next time.


My hands are starting to feel better. I've been taking it easy with them. (The house is looking like it too, unfortunately. But DH washed the large pile of dirty dishes today - Yay!) And I'm behind in commenting on blogs. I read blogs last night while I soaked my hand in Epsom salts, which really helped a lot. But I can't type with one (left) hand! So, I'm visiting, but lurking.


Oh, and I finished the other little fabric book, the one that was the 1st attempt. I'll show you that one in my next post.


And hey! A whole post without another fall quilt. But there's more coming. . . .

Can You Stand Another....

fall/Halloween quilt?? It seems I never run out!
I purchased these hand-silkscreened blocks from a vendor at Pacific International Quilt Festival some years ago. I thought they were such cute folk art. (I actually bought lots more pieces, but haven't used most of them yet!) I put them with some pumpkin fabric that I really like. It's just big enough to fit a skinny piece of wall, which I just happen to have!
A closeup so you can really appreciate the detail in these little blocks.

I haven't been doing too much this week. I over-did on some hand work (quilting and applique) last weekend and am now suffering with a tendonitis flareup in my hands. Aside from the discomfort, it's just a pain to not be able to do much. I can type a little, and do the rotary cutter and sewing machine, but not iron or cut with scissors. So, I've sorted some fabrics and generally made a mess in the quilt studio. I did finally find an embroidery hoop! I have somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen hoops, and couldn't find a single one. But I finally found one in another project! Yay! Now, when my hands feel better, I can finish the block that I needed the hoop for.

I started quilting another Halloween wallhanging. (The "Boo!" quilt, Pam!) I've gotten the center done, but now I'm kind of stuck on what to do on the border, especially since my hands aren't really cooperating. The border is solid black, so any quilting will really show up well. So, both the quilt and my hands are resting whilst I cogitate on it. I may end up not doing free-motion and just doing simple lines with the walking foot. That should be easier on my hands. But boring, probably.

Our weather has turned quite fall-like this week. We've been cold at night - last night our low was 32 degrees! And the high isn't much above the 50 degree mark. Seems like we turned cold pretty quickly this fall. We're starting to get some good color on the trees, but have another week or more before it peaks. But just beautiful sunny weather yesterday and today. Yay for sun! And, just so you know, I really didn't expect to ever hear myself say that. I got over-done on sunshine in California. No problem with that here in Washington!

Just to show you that I'm not totally obsessing with fall quilts, here's one that doesn't even come close to fall.


This was a color challenge in which we blindly drew paint chips out of a paper bag to determine the colors we had to work with. I drew two colors pretty close to each other. At first it was hard to find the colors I needed, but after going to a couple of quilt shows (and the multiple vendors at each one), I was OK on fabrics. (Shopping for quilting somehow has never been a hardship, except maybe on the checkbook!)
I can't remember if I paper-pieced this one or not. It was a hard one to do as far as figuring out what I needed to do on each block, for color placement. I got easily confused on this one! I had a lot of false starts on these blocks. I also wasn't thrilled with the white background, but it seemed to work the best with these colors.
So, I added the buttons to the corners to kind of jazz it up a little. That was fun to do, figuring out all the different ways you could sew on a button!

I had a hard time deciding how to quilt this one. I ended up doing minimal quilting on it. It's just a little wallhanging, about the size of a placemat, so that's not a big deal. But I was quite pleased with how the border quilting worked. The first time I had tried that, and it came out better than I thought it would. Can't complain about that, can I?

I had so much fun with this challenge that I actually made 2 quilts! And my DD made one too. I think it was only her 2nd or 3rd quilt. Someday I'll show you my other quilt, and maybe DD will let me show hers too.

The Frost Is On The Pumpkin...

Guess what? I love fall, and Halloween! Maybe because my birthday is this time of year, maybe because I like cool weather, maybe - who knows?? I love a crisp fall day, with the leaves falling and the smell of smoke. Something about it just really speaks to me and makes me happy. Every year I seem compelled to make yet another fall/Halloween wallhanging. Maybe someday I'll even make a full-size quilt! Because this time of year makes me want to cuddle up into a cozy quilt with my kitties and a good book. I've seen a lot of great fall/Halloween quilts around blogland this fall. They're very inspiring. Now, if I only had more time!

I made the quilt with the yellow kitty 2 or 3 years ago. The cat looks like my daughter's cat Hamlet, except I think Hamlet is perhaps more pumpkin-shaped than this. (sorry, sweetie!)
I started this quilt with the dark kitty not long after Hamlet's, but never quite got it finished. This one is Shade, because we didn't have Dunkel then. When I was going through my (many) bins of projects, I found this again. It only needed the eyes and whiskers added. I finally got it done! Yay! Another finish! But, after I took this picture, I changed the eyes to brighter green buttons. I forgot to take another picture. Oops! But just try to imagine how it looks, OK?

This is a little stenciled quilt that I bought one year at a quilt show. I think it's a great little quilt, and I love the little buttons. I have to be careful where I put it, because the kitties want to chew on the stick.
I found this link to a quilt show on someone's blog a bit ago. Unfortunately, I can't remember where. It's a quilt show put on by The Country Loft quilt shop in La Mesa, California. Actually you can see the shows from a number of years. (Just scroll down on the menu on the left to see "Quilt Show".) Very fun!

Crazy Aunt Purl had a very thoughtful post today about consumerism, credit cards, and "stuff". I really enjoyed her take on it, and mostly agree with her. Here's another essay on "stuff" by Paul Graham. Having just moved in recent memory, I can understand this "stuff" stuff. I have too much stuff. It can become a burden and a hindrance. I haven't even unpacked all of my stuff because I'm enjoying the minimalism. Don't get me wrong - I still have lots of stuff out. I just don't have it ALL out. We have sorted and culled many times since we moved into this house, and I still have more to do, in almost every room, not to mention the garage! We have more than we really need. I think we quilters often buy more fabric than we really need, just because it calls to us. We need to stock up for when we can't afford more fabric, or to have a choice of fabrics for our art, or whatever our rationalization is. I know I have. And not just fabric, but books, tools, patterns, toys - really, just about anything used for quilting. I don't have any answers. I've really tried hard to not buy fabric just to have it, but it's a hard habit to break. Sadly, it's my addiction. Well, besides chocolate. But, I'm out of room for any more quilt-y stuff. Like the bumper sticker says, "You can't have it all - where will you put it?"

I'm trying Tonya's suggestions on my photos this time and sized them to 800 pixels. I've used 3% of my space for photos in 9 months. One thing I've learned is that there's a bug in Blogger. If you load your photos in the center position, and then move them, they are no longer clickable to a bigger size. I don't know why. If you load them on the left or right, you can move them and then still click on them, but your text gets goofy going around the photos. So, hopefully this will work.

One last link for you. I found pictures of "liberated" churn dash quilts on Flickr. Very fun to see!

Another Fall Quilt

This is my Scarecrow quilt, that I always hang by the front door for fall. This was a pattern from a Piecemaker's calendar many years ago.

I used a fusible for the applique, but I didn't "window" it, so the poor scarecrow looks pretty stiff! And I think I'd add more quilting now, as it's kind of poufy. (I may still do that, depending on how much it bothers me!)
I felt that the plain borders, in spite of the busy fabric, were just too - well, plain. So I added some flying geese. Appropriate for fall, I guess! However, these geese seem to be confused - hahaha!

When I was shooting pictures today, Dunkel couldn't get onto the Scarecrow quilt for his usual hijinks, as it was on the wall when I photographed it. So, he got on the half-wall on the stairs. He usually gets on the tippy-top part (which you can't quite see in this photo), and that gives me the heebie-jeebies! I'm always afraid he'll fall, which is about 12 feet down. He knows it "pushes my button" - naughty cat! As you can see, he's pretty comfortable with the whole thing. He does the same thing up top too. He even tries to snag my arm when I walk past him. I try to not even look at him! In case you can't tell, yes, I'm afraid of heights.

I've finally finished the Secret Project for my sister. (Yay! Another finish!) I'm waaayyy late for her birthday (in August), so it will be an "I Love You" gift. I can't show you how it came out until she receives it, just in case she reads my blog. Soon, I promise!

We've had just wonderful warm weather the last few days. The high was in the low 80's and we even got to wear shorts! But, alas, the usual rain and chilly weather will be returning in a few days. *sigh* It was nice while it lasted. My allergies have been miserable, but I still enjoyed the warmth. Still haven't gotten the pansies planted. My bad.

I've only got 2 links to share this time:

If, like me, you're fascinated with the Disappearing 9-Patch, you need to visit Dionne who has lots of links on her blog. I love seeing how many different ways one pattern can look!

One of my favorite quilters is Mary Lou Weidman. Check out her blog. She's really "into" fall!

And, one last thing for September. I think this little video of a sneaky cat is so funny. I hope you enjoy it too! (Watch the kitty carefully.)

See you in October!

Happy Fall, Y'all!

We have definitely turned the corner into autumn. The leaves are starting to turn and fall, and there's a quality to the air that wasn't there two weeks ago. Can't deny it. I can't believe that I'm saying this, but there wasn't quite enough summer! I usually am more than ready for fall, but not this year.

This little quilt isn't technically a fall quilt, but I always display it at this time of year, because the colors say "fall" to me. I saw a quilt with this pattern in a magazine many, many years ago, and I liked it so much I decided to draft it out for myself, since the magazine had no information on the name of the pattern or anything. It turns out that this was a Country Threads pattern, and they're one of my all-time favorite quilt designers.

The colors don't seem to be true in these photos. In person, all those fabrics really are shades of orange! I decided to put a little bunny on to help convey that these are carrots. My kids kept calling them "rocket ships". (If you turn it upside down, it does kind of look like that.)

I call this little quilt "Bentley Bunny's Carrot Patch". We got to "bunny-sit" one night for a bunny named Bentley that belonged to a friend of my daughter, just so that I could meet the bunny. I had never been up close and personal with a rabbit. It was a lot of fun, even though it scared the cats. Bentley wanted to play with the cats, because that's what he did at home. The cats had no idea what this animal was! They didn't run and hide, but they weren't exactly friendly either!

I've had a chance to get some sewing in lately, and I've gotten 3 quilt backs constructed and now have 3 quilts ready to send to the quilter! Yay!! I love finishes! Now on to the rest of the projects on my list.

I've got some links to share. I've been roaming around blog-land and finding all kinds of little tidbits.

Check out Lazy Gal Tonya's Priority Hope Challenge. She wants us to make a very small quilt featuring the word HOPE or the image of a bird for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, specifically the Priority Quilt auction. Deadline for this challenge is 20 November 2008.

Here's a game that my DD told me about. It's a free game on Shockwave called Magic Pen. It's a lot of fun and it makes you think! It's not another shoot-em-up - it's physics and logic. It gets pretty challenging after the first few levels. DH and I spent about 2 hours playing with it the first time we tried it! It's a lot of fun!

In case you haven't seen this, here's a tutorial on the Disappearing Nine-Patch that Helen on Quilts & ATCs blog is sharing. This is a fun little project to try on a small quilt. There's been lots of them around the blogosphere.

And when you've tried that, here's further adventures on the Disappearing Nine Patch from Ingrid at happy2bstitchin blog. She's got some intriguing ideas of what more can be done.

Laurraine at Patchwork Pottery has a tutorial on fabric labels. A very useful trick!

Pink Penguin has a tutorial on a wonderful little fabric basket. Also lots and lots of these being made. Ayumill has links to many of these baskets, so you can see what everyone is doing with this great tutorial. I'm gonna be making one of these someday!

Here's a tutorial on using those luscious Bali fabric Pops from Rachel of 2nd Ave Studio. Love this quilt!

I guess that's about enough for one posting! Well, how about one more for the road? I don't know how many of you will be interested in this, as it's not quilt related, but here's a source for free piano sheet music. You can find music for any level of playing ability, from barely-know-how-to-read-music up to level 4, which is pretty advanced. Best of all, you can also hear a midi of the song. The music is in "pdf" form and easy to read and to print. I've gotten lots of good music from this site. A great free resource!

Avast!

Hear ye! Hear ye!

I thought everyone would want to know about this:

Friday, September 19th is the Official Talk Like A Pirate Day! However, due to it bein' on a Friday and all, you can actually extend this to the entire weekend.

To find out more about this unsung holiday, click here.

Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

More Vintage Fun

As promised, here are the other projects that I did with the 1930's scraps I was lucky enough to acquire. (see previous post)

This first one, Tumblers, is the smallest one. It was paper-pieced with the tiniest scraps. I wanted to use as much of these fabrics as I could, and there were some fabrics that all I had were tiny scraps. Some of the tumblers had to be pieced to have a big enough piece of fabric to use and they're 1.25 inches at the large end of the tumbler and .75 inches at the small end! The whole tumbler is 1 3/8 inches long, and the entire quilt is 15.25 inches by 18 inches. Not the smallest one I've ever done, but pretty small!

A close-up so you can see some of the fabrics.
Can you see where some of these are pieced?

And here's the last project with the 30's fabrics. The yellow border fabric on this is the feedsack found at the bottom of the grocery bag. Some of these little squares had to be pieced also. The smallest squares measure 1 inch finished and the 4-patch is 2 inches. This whole quilt is 21.5 inches square.

Some closeup so you can see more of the fabrics.
You can see how many plaids and graphic designs were in these fabrics. That was surprising to me based on the reproductions. I had no idea there were so many plaids available then!
I hope you've enjoyed seeing these little treasures!

The quilt tops from the previous post are having their backs made now. I tried to shop my stash, but it just wasn't working. So, 40% coupons from JoAnn's to the rescue! I've kind of lost my momentum at the moment, so it's not going as fast as I would like.

I found a copy of "Liberated Quiltmaking" at the library and so have been re-reading it. I just wasn't seeing some of the things in the quilts that Gwen was talking about, until I realized that many of the quilt pictures were printed upside down! Oh yeah, NOW I see it!

We've got a bird feeder outside the kitchen window. I try to keep it filled with sunflower seeds. We've had so many little Mountain Chickadees visiting us! And there's been another little bird that's about the same size as the chickadee that comes. It's so small and so fast, it's hard to get a good look at it. We haven't been able to identify it. Finally, I found it on What Bird web site last night. It's a Red-Breasted Nuthatch! If you click on the link, you can see what it looks like, because I can't get a good picture of it. Be sure and listen to their call too. I've been hearing this call all summer and it's been bugging me that I didn't know/remember what it was. And, just so you know, a group of nuthatches is called a "jar" and a group of chickadees is known as a "banditry" and a "dissimulation" of chickadees! (I learn something new everyday!) The kitties seem to think that all these birdies are a show just for them.

Speaking of TV, we finally got to watch "The Sarah Connor Chronicles." We think it's very well done! Even has good continuity with the movies. We've watched 2 weeks worth of "Fringe" as well. It was well-done too. Very X-Files like. We were really surprised to see John Nobel on there! He played Denethor on "Return of the King", in case you don't recognize his name. However, I don't think we're gonna make Fringe "must-see" TV for us. We've gotten burned out on "Lost" and I can see this is more of the same un-ending mystery. Oh well. "Heroes" starts next Monday - Yay!

The Bee's Knees

All done! Yay! I got the borders finished on this uneven 9-Patch from the last post. I was inspired by Gwen Marston's chunky applique from "Collaborative Quilting". I thought that the dotty wavy "vine" really makes this a fun, happy quilt.

The applique was pretty easy to do, and I don't do much applique! And I think the dots add just the touch of whimsy that I was looking for! I had a hard time not putting too much on - I kept telling myself to leave room for the quilting.

This block has real, old fabric in it. I think it's from the 1920's. I love those frantic mice. They're very angular and spiky. And I have a closeup of two of the dots that use real 30's fabrics. The first one was from an old apron, and the second one is/was a feedsack. Most of this quilt is reproduction fabrics, with just a few old fabrics thrown in.

As I was finishing this quilt, I remembered that I have another 1930's quilt that needs to be finished. So I pulled it out and looked at it. I had been stuck on whether or not it needed a border. I decided to put a small border on it. This quilt has all old fabrics, aside from the solid blue (that one is new). I decided, because these are old fabrics and kind of fragile, that a border would help protect them better than having them right on the edge of the quilt.

This quilt has kind of a story with it. When I worked on the charity quilts committee of my quilt guild in California, we got lots of donations of fabrics. One of these donations was a paper grocery bag mostly full of old fabrics. No one on the committee wanted to deal with them - they were going to throw them away! So, I volunteered to take them. I was stunned when I got home and started going through the bag. I realized these were someone's scrap bag with real fabrics from the 30's and 40's! On the very bottom of the bag was a feedsack that hadn't seen the light of day in many, many years! It was in pristine condition! (see the second dot up above - that's the feedsack). Also in the bag were fabrics from the 1950's and 60's. (I haven't dealt with them yet other than to wash them- they're patiently waiting their turn.)

I gently hand-washed everything because it was kinda smelly, put them on towels on the floor to dry, and they came out great. The scraps and towels totally covered the living room and family room floors, and I think DH thought I had lost my mind! *grin* I've made two little quilts with the smallest pieces of the 30's fabrics (which I will show you another time), and then I used the largest pieces for this one. I still had to do some piecing to have enough for these squares, which finish at 2 inches. (6 inch finished blocks)

My inspiration for this quilt came from this book by Mary Mashuta. This one is chock-ful of pictures of old quilts.

This is the picture that inspired me.

Here's a closeup of one corner. Following are some of the blocks. Can you see where I had to piece some of these squares?

What really amazed me about this collection of fabrics was how many plaid fabrics there were! I guess this lady really liked plaid, which is great because I do too! You hardly ever see a plaid or a graphic fabric in the 30's reproductions, and they complement the little flower prints so well that you'd think at least some would be included. Also, this lady had a lot of orange-y fabrics. That's not my favorite color, but yet these all work together so well. This is a great pattern for getting everything to "play nice".

I think some of these fabrics are from the 1940's as well, because they have more intense color to them, and larger prints. But I'm just guessing on this.

Aren't those cool fabrics?? I really haven't been too "into" the 30's reproductions. I'm not a pastel person, and I'm not quite old enough to have them be contemporary to me. But I love history, and I love seeing the real thing!

We've been having bees in the kitchen for a week or more now. DH keeps killing them, and more keep showing up. I don't want to know why. There may be a nest in the skylight in the kitchen. Ewww! At least they're not aggressive. I can ignore them if they leave me alone. If this keeps up much longer, I may have to call an exterminator. Ugh.

Well, it was a good thing I posted about the nanny geese when I did. A day or two after I posted, a whole big blizzard of Canada geese came flying into the lake in the morning, honking and carrying on. They flew out that evening. I think "our" geese left with them. We haven't seen them since. So, their job was done, I guess. They must be going south for the winter.

Sara over at Sara's Scraps has posted about her experience at Gwen Marston's Beaver Island Quilt Retreat. She's got lots of pictures of Gwen's quilts from Gwen's new book Ideas and Inspirations, Abstract Quilts in Solids.

I found an interview with Joss Whedon, Eliza Dushku and Tahmah Penikett about the new show "Dollhouse". There's also a trailer available to watch. "Dollhouse" premieres in January 2009 on Fox TV. I'm looking forward to it. There doesn't seem to be much good on this fall. I had to tape "Sarah Connor Chronicles" to watch later, because DH isn't available to watch it right now. I also taped "Fringe" tonight. Anybody else seen it? What do you think of it? I'm dubious. I don't want to get involved in another "Lost"-type show, and it's by the same creator. We're not real big on the TV anyway. Much rather sew (or do pottery, for some of us) or read!

Speaking of that, time to head for the quilt studio!