10 Years!

Today is my 10 year blogiversary!  Yay!

Count 'em - there's 10 candles on my blog cake!

I can't believe that I've had this blog for 10 years!  That's a lot of blogging.  It has been one of the most fun things I've done.  I'm always thinking of what to put on the blog, and I take way more photos than I ever use.  *grin*  I've met so many wonderful people (even a few in Real Life!) and made a lot of friends.  And I've learned so much from my readers and other bloggers that I read.  Blogging literally changed my life - for the better!

Thank you all for being my readers!  Your comments make my day!  I love to read your thoughts on what I'm blogging about.

I know it's been too long (again) since I blogged.  December got away from me due to the holidays.  Then, the first week in January, poor old Shade, my cat, got Obstipation (Obstructive Constipation).  He got to spend the first week of the year at the vet's - I had to drop him off in the morning and then pick him up in the evening. The vet wasn't sure he was going to make it, and all the vet techs were rooting for him.  They fell in love with him because he's a big cuddle bug and he kept purring while they were working on him.   Poor kitty, that was pretty tough on him since he's almost 15 now.  But he came through it and is thriving now.  He's got prescription foods, and I have to make sure he gets enough liquids and hopefully this won't happen again.  *fingers crossed*

Then on Wednesday that same week we found out our son would be having surgery on Thursday.  Son got through the surgery fine, but that evening we had to take him to the ER.  (We left home at 11 pm and were there in the hospital until 4 am.  I'm not as young as I used to be, and it took me quite awhile to recover from that all-nighter!)  Son was in a lot of pain.  The ER folks were wonderful and he got lots of different tests.  They decided he needed to be admitted and he was there until Saturday.  Son is having a long, difficult recovery and still has 2 more weeks before he can pick up more than 10 pounds.  He's sleeping a lot.  I hope he gets better soon.

Two weeks ago we took a trip to New Orleans, something for DH's work.  He had to work, but I got to have fun.  Some of the wives get together and do stuff. We took a tour of 2 of the sugar cane plantations along the Mississippi River.

One of the Live Oak trees at the Oak Alley Plantation.

I was really impressed with the immense Live Oak trees - note the person on the left of the photo, to give you a sense of how big these trees are!

Laura Plantation, a Creole home.

The tours included lots of history, which always fascinates me.  I learned quite a bit!

DH and I managed to find time to go on a carriage ride around the French Quarter, which actually is the original city of New Orleans.  Here's "our" mule that pulled the carriage (with 7 people in it, no less!).

Lil Liza Jane

She's all decked out for Mardi Gras, which actually lasts 2 weeks in New Orleans!

Here's her sweet face.  And check out her glittery hooves!  She was a sweetie - she really liked getting her pets and scritches!

I joined two Instagram sew-alongs in January.  The first one is the #wonkystar2018 swap run by @bylancer.  I was in a group of 14 swappers, so I got to make 13 star blocks. Here are my first 4.  My favorite one is in the upper right.

Here's a better picture of it.  I found a leftover star I had made for my Liberated Medallion quilt.  It was 3 inches across and worked perfectly in a 9 inch block. 

And all the rest of them!  You can see that some of them were pretty calm and then a couple of them went wild and crazy!  This was probably the most fun swap I've ever done.   @bylancer is probably going to do another swap sometime this spring, and I'm ready to do more!

Now I'm going to do a Wonky demo at the Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild this month, so I have to get busy and make some more examples of Wonky stuff.  It'll be fun!

The other swap I've committed to is the 6" churn dash block in the Modern Group of swappers with Barb of Fun With Barb blog..  #fwb2018blockswap, if you're on Instagram - check it out.  You can also see Barb's tutorial on how she makes the little blocks.  I haven't started my blocks yet, but I'll be ready in the morning.  I hope they won't take me too long - I have to be done and have them ready to mail by the end of the month.

That's all for now!  Happy quilting!

Gwennie-Inspired Medallion QAL - Star Border Reveal!

 I was so excited about this month's assignment of stars in this next border!  But it hasn't been an easy-breezy task, for some reason.  As much as I love liberated stars, I really struggled with these borders this month.  And I barely finished in time.  And now I'm posting a day late, but better late than never!

For lack of a better name, I've named my two quilts Wide Basket and Tall Basket, at least until I can think up better names!  (I'm open to suggestions)

Wide Basket 30 1/2 " x 30 1/2 "

I decided to work on the Wide Basket top first, as this quilt seems to be harder for me to design and work on.  Possibly because of the limited number of fabrics and colors?  Using solids?  Who knows?

I didn't have a clear idea of where I wanted to go for this border, which makes progress hard to achieve.   And it was like pulling teeth Every. Single. Step. of the way.  But I dug in my heels and made it work, gosh darn it.  I'm not entirely happy with it, but I can't tell you why.  This quilt is the epitome of Gwen's liberated adage "If it's too short, add to it and if it's too long, chop some off."  I had to do some of both this month.

I made stars, to get started.  These finish at 4 1/2 inches.

I made some more stars.  I played with placement.  Nothing clicked for me.  Then I decided that I didn't want stars all the way around the quilt.  I want this quilt to get taller, not wider.  (I did achieve square, so that's a step in the right direction.)  So I tried coming up with other ideas of what to do. Meanwhile, we were having a heat wave and it was too hot to be upstairs in the quilt studio.  So I only sewed in the evening when it started cooling off.  

More rickrack sounded good.  I like that.  Then, after I made one star of each fabric, there were still big gaps around the border.  So I started looking through Gwen's books.  Aha!  How about some strings?  Sounds good to me!  So I made strings.

For some unknown reason, I cut those strings too short.  Now what?  Add to them, of course.  And that is why my strings have an inner border of the gold.  To make them fit.  And it works.

These two stars look like they're holding hands while they dance!

If you look closely at this photo, you can see that I had to add to the strings to get them to fit the length of the border.  I was concentrating so much on design that I had no brain left for math to get things to fit together properly.  So, I totally faked it.

This green star is one of my favorites.  I accidentally grabbed the wrong green for that one star point, and now it is even more liberated!  It makes me smile.  ;)

So now I have to really put on my thinking cap and come up with something to fit the prompt for September: "something fishy".  That sounds challenging.  I have a glimmer of an idea though, so hopefully this month's border might go easier.

Wendy at the Constant Quilter has given us the 5th and final prompt for the QAL and here are her thoughts:

Being from Maine, my theme choice for the final border is
“Something Fishy”

As with those who have gone before me (Lori, Cynthia, Cathy and Katy), you can interpret this as loosely as you like. Here are a few examples:

Clamshells

Scallops

Fish fabric or appliques

Sea birds (they eat fish!)

Marine mammals (they eat fish too!)

Lighthouses (they see fish)

Boats (they catch fish)

Ovals and triangles (i.e. fish shaped)

So, Wendy's kind of left it wide open.  Possibilities!

Next up for some stars was the Tall Basket quilt.

This was my start.  I wanted to use the black polka dot fabric that I have in the center of each little log cabin for this "starry" border for some cohesion and to calm down that busy quilt a little.  I made very scrappy stars, because I love scrappy best.

Again, I didn't want stars completely surrounding the quilt top.  These little stars finish at 3 inches and take about 1/2 hour for each one.  They're fun to make, but they're not fast. 

Tall Basket 27" wide x 30" high

I love the way this came out!  I made the stars "dance" in the border, just to liven things up.  It's such a wild quilt top that ordinary just won't do.

side border detail

top border detail

Now to come up with "something fishy" for this top too!  Again, I have a little "seed" of an idea.  Hopefully it'll work out!

Be sure to go visit Lori's blog Humble Quilts to see the link-up for all the participants in the QAL.  There are some wonderfully fun and liberated medallion quilts being made!

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.....