Bella's quilt progress

I have all the blocks for Bella's quilt pieced together.  I think I need to move some of them around before I sew all the blocks together.  I don't think I am going to quilt it with the minkee.  I will use some very ugly fabric I found to quilt the top, then sew the minkee on pillow case style and tie it in a few strategic places.  I am doing this for a couple of reasons.  I don't want to interfere with the total softness of the minkee with all over quilting, and I have heard that quilting with minkee is a bear.  I think it will work very well the way I am going to do it.

Here is today's Jacob's Ladder block.

I also pulled some fabric for a project I am doing over at Modern 8 Create.



So far, I am really liking the color combinations.

Right now, I am going to go put my feet up and relax for a while.

Joyful quilting, everyone.

Studio Time

I made a couple of new blocks for the Jacob's Ladder.  I seem to be channeling some Victorian persona who loved these chintz like florals.  Each time I make a block, I am reminded of oak furniture, antimacassars, chintz covered couches, and tchotchkes.  I think I would love to have a parlor like that, with lovely quilts everywhere.  I also think I would have to be a better housekeeper to pull that off.  Oh well.  A woman can dream.

Yes, it really is this pale.  I have been working with so many bright colors, this one looks pretty strange on my design board.  These are four little blocks for my guild.  They are for a presentation quilt.  It is hard to believe I used to prefer these pastel colors.

On a completely different note, I received 12 blocks in the mail from an exchange I am in on Mary Lou Weidman's yahoo group.  Here they are in no particular order.

Aren't they fun?  They will have to wait for a little while before I have time to figure out how I want to put them together.  We all purchased the same background fabric and used bright fabrics to make our fish.  They were each supposed to be at least 14" long with no height restrictions.  Whacky and wonky is good in this group.  We are currently doing a Christmas ornament block exchange.  These blocks will be much simpler in construction.

I spent the rest of the day quilting on the BASICs quilt and cutting purple and pink polka dot fabric for Bella's quilt.  Tomorrow, I will finish up one BASICs quilt and load up another one.  I will also start sewing Bella's quilt, as well as working on my BOM blocks and another JL block.

Until then,

Joyful quilting, everyone.

Oh Goodie! New fabric!

Isn't she absolutely adorable?  I fussy cut 15 little fairies from a piece I had of Timeless Treasures for Bella's quilt.  I thought I had enough polka dots to go with to make a nine patch quilt for her big girl bed, but I didn't so I had to go to the LQS this morning.  She has another beautiful one that her Grandma Edwards made, but I just had to make something with these little fairies.  These are all the goodies I have to make this quilt now, including a bright pink Minke backing.

Pinks and purples.  Purples and pinks.  Polka dots galore.  This is going to be fun.

I also had a wonderful time shopping in my friend's incredible stash for the rest of the florals I need for the Jacob's Ladder Quiltalong.  I am pretty excited about finding  such a wonderful group of these old fashioned style florals for this project.  

I have no idea how big this quilt will be when I sew all these into blocks.  I suspect it will be the biggest quilt I have made.  I just have to make sure it doesn't get too big for Priscilla.  She doesn't like anything over 80 inches wide.  She can be so picky.  (For those of you who are new to the blog, Priscilla is my Juki and frame.)  Anyway, tomorrow, I will make another two blocks for the JL.

Until then, have a great evening, everyone.

Joyful quilting.

Studio time

I added two more blocks to the JL QAL.  this time, I used a really nice pink floral.  There are several shades of pink in it.  These will probably not end up near each other in the final quilt.  I just put them together on the design wall so I could see the pattern.  I liked it so much, I decided to make a small one for this months AAQI quilt.

This will finish out as a 9" square with the binding.  I am going to quilt it with red thread with diagonal lines.  I have wanted to make a red and white quilt all year, so here it is.

I also made two more blocks for the BOM sampler.  I am amazed at how different the jade fabric looks in both photos.  It is really about half way between both.

 The other big thing I did today was to load a quilt for BASICs on the frame.  This top and back were pieced by Irene Armok.  You can see her work at her blog.  She does many wonderful things.

This one is going to get an all over stipple.  I really like this quilt.  Someone is going to be very lucky to get it.

Tomorrow, I will be with Bella, so not much studio time I think.  I think I will do a bit of quilting on the BASICs quilt before I pick her up at pre-school.

Have a joy filled day.

Something different - Northwest Trek in photos

Today, Tom and I went on a special photo safari at Northwest Trek in Eatonville, WA.  What follows are some of the photos I took while we road in an open sided tram through the free-roaming area of the park.  The tour lasted nearly three hours.  It was chilly, misty, and even raining at times, but it was quite wonderful to be sharing this tram with 12 other serious photographers with giant lenses.  I developed lens envy for the monster in the seat in front of me.  Here is my meager offering.

Looking down at the first meadow from the ridge.

The current leader of the elk herd.  Several others had been vying for the title, but are now hanging out on the fringes.

Rutting is serious business.

Maybe next year, I will be king.

We also saw the bison herd.  The baby was born in September.  The nearest big boy is the proud papa and head of this herd.

Baby bison.

It is rutting time for the deer as well.  There are black tail, shown here, and white tail in the park.

This guy was begging for me to take his photo.

I guess the highlight for me was seeing two female moose.  I haven't seen one in person before, so this was very cool.  There is one male in the park, but he stays in hiding most of the time. 

We had a very wonderful time on the safari.  After the tram ride, we walked around to see the grizzlies and the gray wolves.  They are in natural habitats with very low electric fences, it seemed to me.  If you are ever up this way, Northwest trek is worth the visit.

Now, back to the studio.



Starting new quilt tops

Today, I decided to cut into the made Kaffe fabric and start working on the 15 Minute BOM quilt.  I love the intensity of the jade with the made fabric.  The only thing I don't like about the whole process is working with the Kaffe fabrics.  Shocking, I know, but it is true. 

When I purchased my first 1/2 yard of Kaffe fabric, I was so excited.  It was so bright and so soft.  It was the stuff quilty dreams are made of.  Then, I bought more pieces as I found them on sale.  Slowly, the pile grew.  Then came the day to start cutting and sewing.  That also became the day of my frustration in sewing.  This beautiful fabric has absolutely no body.  If I just look at it too long, it distorts and takes on a totally new shape.  This would only be a good thing if it was growing, but it is not.    Use spray starch, you say?  That would probably work, but I have far too many allergies to airborne things to try that indoors.  My only solution is to just take my time and summon all my sewing patience.  Fortunately for me, I just love the way this collection of fabrics looks, so I will continue using it, even if I do get frustrated.

All of the blocks I am building for this sampler quilt are from tutorials over at 15 Minutes Play.  If you are interested in creating your own, using made fabric, head on over there and look in the right column for the BOM tutorials.  I am not going to use all the blocks in my sampler.  I have selected nine I want to use.  I will use the star at the top in the four corners, plus eight others.  I am going to have to make much more fabric, but I have enough right now for three or four more.







The other project I started today was the Jacob's Ladder Quiltalong.  I have joined The Adventures of the Empress of the Universe in this quiltalong.  She has set up a Flickr page so you can see what others are doing.  I am using this pattern from Quiltville's Quips and Snips (Bonnie Hunter) for my JL.  Here is what I have so far.

I am using floras of the old fashioned sort along with the Kona Aloe.  I am going to make two squares of each floral I can find.  I think I can get two squares out of one fat quarter.  I had this print in a 1/4 cut.  Most of the others I have are largish scraps I am hoping will yield enough.  I am still collecting, but I wanted to get this one started.  In the end, this will be a very scrappy looking quilt.  My florals are all over the place colorwise.  This will be a longer term project than the BOM sampler quilt.
Tomorrow morning, Tom and I are going on a photo safari, so I hope to be able to post some cool animal photos tomorrow afternoon. 
Joyful quilting, everyone.

A finished top and playing with my Kaffes

(Please excuse the crooked photo.  The quilt is straight)

It is amazing what a difference a border can make.  I heard recently that adding a border to a quilt automatically makes it old fashioned looking.  Since I really don't care about that, I ignored the comments, but I am in amazement about what personality changes a quilt can take on with the right border.  When I started this quilt, the mystery quilt for our guild, I decided to use some fat quarters I had on hand.  I really liked the color combination, so didn't mind that the pattern got lost in some areas.  After a while, however, I decided it was just too bland.  As I finished piecing it together today, I thought about a piece of fabric somewhere in my stash that had fall leaves in bright colors.  When I found it, I thought it might be too bright to use.  I decided to try it anyway.  Unfortunately, it is hard to show how bright, fresh, and sparkly it is now with its new border. The new border makes this quilt 49" x 61".  It is now in the pile with the other two quilts I need to quilt for BASICs.  Please read Victoria's post today about the BASICs program.

What in the world?  How could anyone in their right mind purposely cut up some very beautiful Kaffe fabric just to sew it back together again in random patterns?  Good questions.  I love all these fabrics separately, but I really wanted to combine them to make new fabric for my 15 Minute Play BOM quilt project.  I started this project with very different colors before I discovered these.  Now, I am redoing it all to make a really bright and fun quilt to cuddle under this winter.  As I was making all this fabric (so far it is 24" x 32"), I was thinking about what color background fabric I could use.  I have a nice piece of KF shot cotton in persimmon, but that was just too much red.  I then started looking at Kona solids.  I finally narrowed it down to two - Aloe and Jade.  They came today.  The Aloe is beautiful, but not strong enough to stand up to the reds, so  . . . . .

. . . . Jade it is.  Tomorrow, I will start cutting into both to start making the BOM blocks.  I need to have this quilt finished by December 1.  Think I can do it?  I am going to give it my best shot.

I am going to use the Aloe for the Jacobs Ladder Quiltalong.  I am still gathering florals for that, but I have enough to get started now.  That is a longer term project.

It was very nice to be back in my studio today.  I oiled Betty before we started, and she ran like a dream.  I need a new blade for my rotary cutter, so I need to find my JoAnn coupons.  I think I have one blade left in the case.  I will have to check that out tomorrow.

Until then, have a joy filled day, everyone.

A visit from Carol the Great

This weekend was the wedding of my sister's son, Zach.  For the occasion, my aunt on my mother's side came up from California with her husband.  Bella was quite enchanted with her very own Carol the Great.  We took the occasion of the wedding, we took a photo of the descendants of Elizabeth Davenport, nee Reese.  From the left are my sister, my daughter, Bella in front, me, and Carol the Great.  It has been delightful to visit with our last remaining female relative on that side of the family. 
I have had very little time in the studio, and don't expect to for the next several days.  Then, I will be back to a more normal studio time.  Thanks for hanging in there with me.

A mystery solved

I have been working on this mystery quilt like a good little quilter, doing each step as it was given to us.  Today, I started putting it all together.  I started out using a bunch of fat quarters in fall colors.  I tried to sort the fabrics into lights and darks, but found that I had to kind of wiggle a bit with the "light."  I do love the colors.  I still have some sewing to do, then a border to add.  I am going to donate this one to BASICs.  To find out more about this, head over here.  This current drive is the brainchild of Victoria Findlay Wolfe and Pat Sloan.  If you have any undesignated quilts, this is a great place to consider donating one.

I also made fabric blocks for the Christmas quilt.  If I can make a few every time I am in the studio, I will grow this quilt before I know it.   Right now, I need to go work on hand stitching binding down on the wedding present quilt.  Black to black with black thread.  Remind me not to do this again.  It is much too hard on my old tired eyes. 
Did you see the new button on the right side?  The first block for the Blogger's BOM is up and ready to make.  Just click on the button to head over to Canton Village Quiltworks to find out all about the project and find the link for the first block.
Joyful quilting, everyone.

I am back

Since summer ended and I started spending three days a week with my wonderful granddaughter, I have had trouble getting into a regular studio routine.  Once I think I have it, other things seem to interfere like work that pays, visiting family, and whatever pops up.  Now, I am trying to establish a regular block of studio time.  Today, I was happily working in my studio, and got quite a bit done.

I am making progress on my small quilt for my Quilters, Books, and Bindings group.  I have added the stems, leaves, and started adding the flowers.  I decided to put a border on it so I could bring a couple of flowers out further.  At this point, it is all hand work waiting.  I will do that in the evenings or while Bella is napping.

I also worked on my Christmas quilt.  I couldn't resist adding the red and white as a border around the Virgin.  I started making several more blocks to help this quilt grow.  I am not sure how big I want it.  I guess I will keep making fabric until I run out of the fabric I am using.

Speaking of making fabric - I made the flowers for the top quilt out of some of my favorite Kaffe fabrics in my stash.  I decided to make some fabric using the left over pieces from the flowers.  I liked it so much, I have decided to make enough to make all the BOMs at the 15 Minute Play site so I will have a sampler quilt done by December 1.  I think I will pick up one of the blues for the background fabric in the blocks.  I am pretty excited about it.  I love the colors in these fabrics and I think they will make a fantastic quilt.  I just have to make lots of fabric.
My new schedule will have me in my studio Friday through Monday most weeks.  Those will be the days I post on the blog, as well.  Next weekend will be another exception, however.  I have my nephew's wedding and out of town family to spend time with.  In the mean time, I plan on posting tomorrow and Monday. 
Have a joy filled Sunday, everyone.

Making more fabric

The first thing I worked on this morning was my challenge from Modern 8 Create.  I had to build another block like the second one I did.  As I was putting together the quadrants, I had a brainstorm about adding the inner border pieces as I went.  When I had all the quadrants together, I started playing with them and found at least four ways to put the block together.  Instead of choosing just one of them, I am going to make them all using different shades of the blues, purples, and greens.  I can even see more ways to change these blocks.  When they are all done, they will make an interesting quilt.

The second project was to finish Tom's birthday present.  I will post it here on Wednesday, after he opens it.  I sure hope he likes it.

After that, I started making fabric for the background for a small quilt.  Over at Quilters, Books, and Bindings, we all just finished The Lover's Knot by Clare O'Donohue.  Each of us is creating our own quilt that interprets the book, or some aspect of the story, in our own way.  My quilt will have flowers growing out of the red area.  Cathy did a wonderful AAQI quilt representing a place in the story.  This group is new, but I think it will grow as we read and post more.



As I started looking at the red, green, and gold made fabric blocks for my Christmas quilt, I had an idea about putting the Virgin of Guadalupe in the center.  I think I really like it.  I will leave it there as I continue to build fabric blocks.  I think she will add quite a bit to the quilt.

All in all, it has been a good day in the studio.  I have another studio day tomorrow.  Who knows what will happen then.  In the mean time, joyful quilting, everyone.



Modern Quilting and Me

I have been thinking about writing this post for a long time.  Ever since I read the first "dumbing down of quilting" post on someones blog.  Since I have only returned to quilting in the last couple of years, I discovered a whole new world out there.  Moda fabrics, rotary cutting tools, healing cutting mats, and very easy HSTs.  It seemed to me that all the new possibilities were fantastic.  Then came all this discussion about modern quilting.

When I first started back, I was certain I would be a very traditional quilter.  I just didn't know another way.  I liked all the old stars and flying geese, and Baltimore appliques.  I still like them.  I love the traditional look of designers like Kansas Troubles.  Then I discovered Sandy Gervais and made my first quilt after 30 years.  Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of it, and it just moved to France.  Shortly after that, I discovered Victoria at 15 Minutes Play, and a new world opened up to me.

I could make fabric out of scraps and just watch it grow with no preset plan.  I love playing with fabric this way.  Giving myself permission to play was just what I needed.  From then on, I wasn't afraid to tackle anything.  I even decided to try a little art quilting.

I have designed and created what I think is defined as a modern quilt.  I only say this because other people have told me it is modern.

Right now, I am working on an art piece, a couple of traditional pieces, a couple of samplers, a block from the Rose of Sharon book (well, I have taken some elements from a couple of different blocks to create a new one), a couple of modern quilts, some challenges, a 15 Minute quilt, and another intuition quilt, just to name a few things.  So, what kind of quilter does this make me?  Oddly enough, I think it makes me a modern quilter.
I guess I see modern quilting as having choices to do it all if we want to.  If you want to make several quick and easy quilts to donate to charity or give as gifts, I think that is just a valid as wanting to take several months or years to make one quilt to enter into one of the big shows.  It is all part of the connection with quilters throughout time who have taken what they had to create warmth, beauty, and sometimes camaraderie.  I like being part of that continuum.  If you want to read more writings by quilters on what their definition of modern quilting is, drop by the NYC Mod blog and scroll through the articles written to accompany pieces for their travelling show about modern quilting.
Joyful quilting, everyone.

A Beautiful Day at Mt. Rainier in photos

Mt. Rainier from Sunrise on the NE side of the mountain

Alpine meadows were full of wildflowers.

The White River originates at the base of Emmons Glacier.

Have a joy filled day.

A star for a hero, and building more fabric

Yesterday, I got a small package from Victoria that included small small pieces of camouflage fabric.  She invited 24 of us to use camo scraps to build a 12.5" square that she will include in a Quilt of Valor.  This is my block.  I love the idea stars for hero quilts, so I designed this star so I could use as much of the camo I got as possible.  That is how I started my day today.

Then, I decided to tackle a new challenge Victoria put up on 15 minutes Play.  The goal is to find an inspiration shirt with colors I don't use that often.  Then find scraps in those colors and build 6.5" squares of made fabric. I picked this thrift shop shirt that I just love.  It was well loved and has a very soft feel, but it is still strong.  I started pulling reds and greens, and decided to make a Christmas quilt without actually using any Christmas fabric.  I am going to try and use the inspiration fabric in every block.  Here are my first six blocks. 97 more to go. This is going to take me a while.

Before I left the studio, I pulled the fabrics I am using for a quilt for our son and daughter-in-law.  Aren't these yummy?

I printed out a couple of copies of my Bella's Star quilt pattern and started coloring in the blocks.  It got very confusing, so I cut the little pieces up and had Hugh, Cyrielle, and Tom put them the way they thought the quilt would look best.  Amazingly enough, they were all very different, and different from all the ones I did.  I took photos of each of their designs and will post them later. 
Hugh and Cyrielle are staying with us for a few days before the move to France, Cyrielle's home.  Tomorrow, we are going to drive up to Sunrise on Mt. Rainier.  It is always beautiful up there.  Hopefully, the predicted fog will lift by the time we get there.  That means I won't be in the studio for a few days.  Maybe, I will post some photos of our trek.
Have a joyfilled day, everyone.