The Lazy Blogger Strikes Again . . .

There is a little bit of all kinds of things in this blog post. I have no rhyme or reason to this today.  This is to disguise the fact that little actual sewing/quilting has occurred in this vicinity lately.  In my defense, I was dutifully visiting as many blogs as possible for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  We won't talk about all the hours I've wasted on Facebook or Pinterest, OK? 

Isn't this a fun scrappy Double Irish Chain?  I don't think I've ever seen a scrappy one like this!  Donna brought this to share at our little sewing get-together a few weeks ago.  This is a quilt that her grandmother made for her and is the reason she's a quilter today.  

It's hard to tell in the photos, but the background of this is a very pale pink.  The scraps are pieces of family clothing, etc.  I love the lime-y green!  And I like that the pink is not so strong that it competes with the other fabrics.  Not sure how much this has faded over the years, though.

There are some fun fabrics in this quilt!

Here is Dunkel "helping" me with a project that I had laid out.  He always wants to get under the fabric but just ends up wadding it up.  More on this one later.

Here is the word I made for Carol of Giraffe Dreams blog, who is making a quilt of verbs to celebrate her 60th birthday.   It took me about 3 tries to get going on this, as I'm out of practice.  I'm still not completely happy with the C or the R, both of which could be a little bigger, but all in all, I like it.  I used a batik for the hot pink, because it was bright and has dots!

Here is Dunkel, again, helping you get an idea of how big this turned out.  He's such a helpful kitty!

Here is the lovely flower I found in my yard last week.  I hate having these in my lawn, but they are really pretty.  So far, this is about all the flowers I've managed this spring.  It's raining too much to get out and do much yard work.  I don't know if that is good or bad, but it sure makes it easier to be in the quilt studio without guilt!

When I was taking out the trash tonight, I found we had some visitors in our driveway.  They were enjoying the big puddle near when this shot was taken. (I thought you'd probably enjoy seeing their cute little ducky faces rather than their tail feathers!)  I have no idea why they've wandered away from their usual hangout at the lake.  I think they were looking for a hand-out.  They waddled over pretty fast when I "quacked" at them!  LOL

And here they are leaving after our photo shoot - heading away from the lake! And because I was taking pictures of the ducks instead of putting out the garbage cans, I missed my window of opportunity, so to speak, and got drenched when it started raining right after this!  Some days ya just gotta laugh!

Hometown U.S.A.

Whoo hoo!  The Blogger's Quilt Festival is on again.  There are so many new blogs to visit and gorgeous quilts to view.  I hope you'll take some time to visit them.  And a huge Thank You to Amy for putting on this fun on-line quilt show!

I would LOVE to read your comments, but due to wanting to visit as many entrants as possible this week, I won't be answering comments.  However,  I will gladly visit your blog and leave a comment for you!  Thank you for understanding.

This is my second entry in the Festival.  You can see my other entry here.  Strangely enough, both of my entries are log cabins and challenge quilts!  This quilt is entered in the "Wallhanging" category.

Hometown U.S.A.
18 inches by 25 inches

This quilt was made for a Log Cabin challenge in my guild in California.  We had a specific size requirement to meet.  This pattern was in a Country Threads quilt book, and if I reduced the dimensions of the project in the book by half, it would be the exact correct size.

These logs finish at 1 inch.  I did not paper piece this.  Really, it was easy enough that I didn't need too.  I picked out my blue fabrics and the off-white fabrics, cut them into 1 1/2 inch strips and put each set into a paper bag.  As I pieced, I simply pulled a blue strip from it's bag or an off-white from it's bag and sewed it on.  My only "rule" was that I couldn't put the same fabric touching itself anywhere in the quilt.  I believe I managed that, but I really haven't looked that closely since I made this! *grin*

It's all pieced except for the chimneys and windows on the houses, which are fused on. Oh, and the star on the flag is fused, as well.

When I quilted this, I made sure that I stitched through all the fused elements just to make sure that they would stay put.

I even carried the patriotic theme onto the back!  This quilt hangs in my guest room, which I decorated in a red, white & blue patriotic theme.  

Surprisingly, even though the log cabin block is one of my all-time favorites, I have yet to make a log cabin quilt that is big enough to snuggle with!  

I would be honored if you would vote for my Hometown U.S.A. quilt in the "Wallhanging" category.  Thank you!

Minimalism

It's time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival again.  I think it's so fun to visit new and familiar blogs, meet new people and see great quilts!  Thank you, Amy, for hosting this once again.  Grab your favorite beverage and settle in for some super "quilt time" as you visit all the entrants.  And don't forget to vote for your favorite quilt!

I would love to read your comments (I LOVE comments!), but owing to wanting to visit as many entrants as possible, I won't be answering comments this time.  But I will gladly visit your blog and leave a comment for you!  I hope you understand.

I'm going to share a quilt that has been done for a couple of years, so I apologize to my regular readers for any boring repetitiveness.  Please bear with me.  I've entered this quilt in the Two Color Quilt category.  You can see my other entry in the Quilt Festival by going here.

Touch of Black: A Study in Minimalism
30 inches by 38 inches

This wallhanging is an original design, inspired by the works of Yoshiko Jenzenji.  I had seen photos of quilts by Yoshiko on various sites on the internet and was quite intrigued by what she was doing.  (This link takes you to her site, which is in Japanese.  However, there are quite a few images of her work, which don't need translation.)  I decided to challenge myself to see if I could get the same effect.

detail 1

I didn't know at the time that I first saw her work that Yoshiko had come out with her own line of fabrics.   I decided to just use some of my graphic black & white fabrics that I had been stockpiling.  (AKA "The Stash")  So, lots of white fabric with a few fussy-cut black & white pieces.

detail 2

This quilt was also going to be my challenge quilt for my guild that year, and we were suppose to do log cabins, which were perfect for this  self-challenge.  You can read more about my process here.  My log cabins aren't perfect and I didn't win anything in the challenge competition, but this is still one of my favorite quilts.  I still love the not-so-straight-line quilting that I did on this quilt.  It doesn't distract your eye from the black graphic elements.  This quilt just makes me happy when I look at it, which is a success in my book!

detail 3

As a matter of fact, I'm thinking of making another one!  Maybe the next one will be in black with white accents.  Hmmmm.....  I still have lots of black & white strips cut.

I would be honored if you would vote for my quilt for your favorite in the Two Color Quilt category.  Thank you!

Not Quite Done?

Well, I don't have much to say for my long absence, except that April was a very busy month!  I can't believe it's been a month since I posted!

I did manage to squeeze in a little sewing.  Firstly, I got my Low Volume quilt top assembled.  And I love it! I started this way back here and here in November last year.  (Oh, it only took me 6 months! Yay!)

I have one small problem though.  I really think it needs a border.  I'd planned to do this quilt without a border, but I think the machine quilting could distort my piecing on the edge of the quilt, so a border will help alleviate that.  I think.  If you have any thoughts on this, please share them with me.

The big problem is . . . I don't feel like cutting any more fabric for this.  I was really hoping this was DONE, and I'm disappointed that the quilt is telling me it wants a border.  Now I'm planning on doing more of the low volume fabrics for a chunky, scrappy border, and the idea of getting all the fabric out again and cutting it just makes me come to a screeching halt.  Ugh.  Absolutely no motivation.

Well, I don't think the "cutting elves" are going to come to my rescue so, if I want this truly finished, I'll have to bite the bullet, clean off the cutting table and start pulling my fabrics and cutting.  *sigh*

I think my quilting mojo has left the building!  I wonder . . . if I clean the quilt studio, do you think I might find it in there?  I'd rather sew than clean, but I guess it's time to just do it.

I can't believe I did this whole top without having to buy any fabric!  I guess that's why I have a stash.  *Grin!*  Many of these fabrics are old friends from the scrap bin.  And the scrap bin is still full, somehow.  Must have "fluffed" it!  hee hee!

I even put some of my hand-dyed fabrics in here, scattered about the top.  See that piece in the lower-left corner that is pink-ish next to the "blah" fabric?  That is one of the hand-dyes. You should see the back of that piece - it's bright, not pastel!  The white-on-white fabric toned down the color and it works as a pastel.

This is my lone bird I did for the Block Lotto in April.  I got a bunch of fabrics ready to make more birdies, but never got it done. Unfortunately, I forgot to post this photo over at the Lotto, so I wasn't in the drawing at all.  After all that trash-talking I did to Joe Tulips about how I was gonna win, too!  She managed to make a whole flock of birds for herself, as well as for the Block Lotto.  Maybe I'll do better this month.

my camellia, about 2 weeks ago

The last weekend of April I went down to the California Bay Area to visit my friends and attend their quilt retreat.  I hadn't been there in 4 years, and it was so great to go!  We had a blast!  I'll try to do another post that shows all the great quilts that everyone had.  I even got something done and another top almost done.

Here's a fun "test" to see how Left-brained/Right-brained and creative you are.  I got 43% Left-brained and 57% Right-brained!  Have fun with it!  Wishing you a creative week!

Random Bits

Time has gotten away from me, and it's been too long since I posted anything.  I've been so busy, but I did manage to squeeze in some sewing.  Now that the darn taxes are done, and I can manage to deal with the heaps of paperwork in the office, hopefully more sewing and blogging will happen around here!

Here are a couple of string blocks that I made for the Half Log Cabin Challenge over at the String Thing Along blog.  They were fun to make because I got to use some of my bright strings.  Jeanne will be putting them into a quilt for a domestic violence shelter in Southern California.

Here are my March blocks for the Country Threads On-Line Sampler Quilt.  I'm all caught up now, and looking forward to doing the April blocks.  Sorry about the wonky photo - I seem to be completely unable to put the blocks up on the design wall in a straight line!

Here are the blocks for my Low Volume quilt.  There are 80 blocks here!  I'm hoping I can get these put together into a top next week.  I'm excited to see these done.

I finally got started on my color challenge quilt for this year!  Yay!  My color is orange, which has to be the dominant color of the quilt, and we have to add an accent of the color that is opposite on the color wheel, which in this case is true blue. And we're supposed to use either white or black as the neutral.  I hope these are all close enough to a true orange to work.  They look a little closer in Real Life.  The blocks will finish at 4 inches, so not a big quilt.  There are no size requirements other than "at least 9 x 12 inches".  I like the way these look!  They remind me of how 50/50 ice cream (vanilla ice cream with orange sherbet) taste in my mouth.  Just that juicy burst of orange!

Here are my rejects.  I got the center square wrong in the upper right block, the upper left and bottom blocks are too reddish, and something about that center block just disturbs me.  Somehow it reminds me of a spider!  Eww!

I got new glasses the other day and can finally see the TV from my chair.  And even better, I got new computer glasses and can see the computer screen without squinting or sitting too close.  What a difference!  

Happy Spring!

And Happy Easter!

3-13-13 - The Artsy-Fartsy Edition

I've been having fun playing the last couple of days, and I thought you might want to see my "art-fartsy" stuff.

Nevada Leaves
9 in. wide X by 18.25 in. tall

First, I finally finished my little leaf wall quilt!  You can see how this little quilt started on this post.  It actually came out a little bigger than I was aiming for, but it still fits in the space it's intended for, so it's all good.  I took this photo without flash, as it seemed to better show the dimensionality of the leaves (made from used and dyed dryer sheets) than with the flash.  The colors are pretty true-to-life on my screen.

Yesterday my friend Candy came over to help me play with some of the goodies that I bought at Sew Expo this year and last.  My favorite booth at Sew Expo seems to be Embellishment Village.  I think they have the best toys!  Candy watches me buy stuff there and I'm sure she wonders what the heck I'm doing with it.  Frankly, I hadn't really done much with it yet and it was time to remedy that!

So, we had fun playing with foiling and Paintstick rubbing. Here's the results of our play:

This is Candy's first attempt at foiling and we both learned some things!  The top right taught us to not apply the iron to a previously foiled area.  It removes the foiling!  The bottom right area showed us what happens when you put the foil stuff wrong-side down to the adhesive.  The upper left area came out pretty good.  There isn't complete coverage if you use Wonder Under, which I actually kind of like.  The little speckles are done with 007 Bonding Agent, which is a fusible that is granular, kind of like salt.  I LOVE what this does!

This is my first attempt at the fusible.  I also used Wonder Under.  Free-hand cut hearts, so they're wonky.  And more sparkly sprinkles!  You can see I was so anxious to get started that I didn't iron my fabric.  We used all hand-dyed fabric from my stash.

Here's a second shot of my piece.  (more wrinkles)  This foiling is so hard to photograph!

Here is a piece I did this morning.  I wanted to try the swirly print foil and use Heat 'n Bond.  I have 5 packages of Ultra Hold and 5 packages of Lite, but no "regular".  So this is the Ultra Hold.  I was afraid the Lite wouldn't stick well enough.  And more sprinkles!  I think I could put these sparkly sprinkles on everything and still love it!

Here's a closeup of the big spiral.  You can see the swirly print of the foil in this shot.

After the foiling, we tried doing some rubbings with oil paint sticks.

The fabric on the left has iridescent silver, the one on the right has opaque rose.  I used some texture plates intended for Fimo clay for these.  The pink one didn't work too well because that particular plate had multiple layers of texture, but the paint stick only got the highest layer.  But I think this will work well for a background piece.

Both of these have the iridescent gold paint stick.  I rubbed over rubber stamps on these pieces.  The design on the left kind of smeared because I rubbed the paint stick a little too vigorously.

The left fabric has iridescent gold, the right is Candy's and has opaque green and rose paint sticks.  We used some rubbing plates and rubber stamps for these.

Gold paint stick.  This is Fantasy Kanji, a rubber stamp I purchased at Embellishment Village (and this photo is actually sideways). Fantasy in this case means that it doesn't actually say anything, it just looks like Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese writing) I think this one came out the best, and I have a plan for this one.

I used the video Surface Design Sampler Platter with Lyric Kinard as my source of information and inspiration..  It's available here as a digital download.  I recommend it!

p.s.  Happy "Pi Day" tomorrow! (3.14)

This And That

I've been working on a little of this and a little of that for the last week or so.  My Quilter's ADD was running rampant for a while there, and I couldn't focus on anything.  So I did just a little clean-up in the studio (found the top of my desk!!) and it seemed to help tame that ADD beast.  There's still a lot of clean-up/straightening up to be done, but after that exhausting experience I just wanted to sew.  And now the cat doesn't have to surf across the desk to sit by me.  We're both happier!

My third Woven Treasure Bag/Cell Phone carrier has been finished and gifted, so I can show it to you now.  This is sized to fit the smaller flip phones, not a smart phone or i-phone. These are not my usual colors to work with, but I enjoyed working with some different colors.  I knew C. would like them.  So this bag is now hers.  I'm working on supposedly making bag #4 for me.  Haven't actually touched it in weeks.  But it is "in process".

I found out about the Country Threads On-Line Sampler Quilt quilt along from Cathy over at Big Lake Quilter blog and decided that I wanted to do it.  I've always loved all the C.T. patterns and books, but haven't really made many of their patterns.  So this is the year!  I'm off to a late start, but still have plenty of time to catch up.  Lots of piecing and no applique - right up my alley!

Here are my blocks for January.  The blocks are 12 inches and 6 inches. I've decided to go with a "circa 1900" vibe/color scheme for this sampler.  You can see some circa 1900 quilts here, here, here and here.  I'm thinking lots of blues (both indigo and medium blue), reds, claret, some black and olive green and the occasional cheddar and chrome yellow, with shirtings and lots of plaids and stripes.  A little brighter and more colorful than the Civil War look.  

And here are my February blocks.  This was the suggested look for this big block, and I'm not too sure I like it yet.  I'll wait and see before I make up my mind, but this may get changed to the more traditional configuration, like the small block.

I'm starting my March blocks now, and I hope to have them done before the month is over.

The local art gallery is going to be doing a yarn bombing in their neighborhood and is asking for help.  When I was looking for something in the studio the other day, I ran across some yarn and my crochet hooks.  So, I'm attempting to remember how to crochet!  I used to do it a lot, but then had to give it up because of arthritis in my hands.  

My brain is feeling rusty again!  You can see that this is not a perfect example of how to crochet! I can't quite remember what to do at the edges (and it shows!) and I think I was not really doing a double crochet stitch there for a few rows.  But whatever - it doesn't have to fit anyone and it's not for close scrutiny!  I don't think the tree, or whatever it gets put on, is going to care much about my technique!  And I'm also sure I won't be doing much crochet in the future.  It still doesn't feel very good and I can only do one row at a time before I start feeling it.  But it's fun to play with yarn again.

Have you tried something different lately?