I hope everyone is enjoying their spring. There seems to be so much happening these days. Weddings, graduations, trying to get the yard cleaned up, and the garden growing. I have been doing some organizing myself. Remember earlier this year when I was trying to get rid of the dressers I was storing my fabric in? My friend Barbara took them, and they look wonderful in her mountain house. I am so glad she was able to use them. She was also kind enough to share some goodies with me, that have proven to be very useful. I already had some of these metal structures that another friend gave me. I tried to get more at Home Depot, but could not find them. Well, Barbara had some that she actually wanted to get rid of Perfect! Look how well organized and visible that fabric is now.
There is even room to grow! (AKA-buy more fabric) Take a look at the other end of the room. Oops! I should have put my sewing machine back up before I took the photo, so it looks like a real sewing room. Thanks to Barbara for the lovely blinds too. They work great in there.
Next, I tackled the other upstairs room. That room has not been this neat since I moved to this house, over 4 years ago.
Look at all of those (mostly) clear surfaces! I should have taken "before pictures", so you could see how far these rooms have come, but I would have been embarrassed to show them to you.
I have also been watching a lot of YouTube videos about how to do different technological things. Notice I have what is called an "Etsy Mini" on the right hand side of the blog now. You can click on it and go directly to my Etsy shop. I always had a link to my Etsy shop on the blog, but it was so tiny, I am sure I was the only one who knew it was there. It looks like I have a couple of duplicates in the mini, but I don't. I often have 2 listings with the same quilt photo, but one is the actual quilt, and the other is the pattern for that quilt. Next up-to figure out how to actually USE that Face Book page I have had for the last couple of years. Anything can happen. Honestly, I am so, so pokey when it comes to this technological stuff. I also mean to add a Pintrest Button to the blog since I am on Pintrest now.
Why yes, I HAVE done some actual sewing. I have been working on this quilt order:
So far, all of the star bodies are made, and the color combinations are approved. Now, I am working on putting the background together. It is all arranged on the design wall, and I am transferring it to the kitchen on a piece of insulation board covered in flannel. I sew in the kitchen during the summer, because it stays cooler with less air conditioning on the bottom floor of the house, where the kitchen is.
Note: even though pins are not necessary to keep the pieces in the design wall, I do use pins to keep the pieces in place while maneuvering the insulation board around furniture. It only takes one split second at the wrong angle, for all of those pieces to fall off. It's a physics thing, I guess.
I am really feeling some deja vu while making this quilt. Not only have I made this quilt before, But I was blogging when I made the first quilt. It fact it was my VERY FIRST blog post. If you are curious about that, and want to see more about how I put the blocks together, check out HERE
So, that's what I've been up to. Hope your spring is proving to be productive. Thanks for stopping by!
This quilt was inspired by doing a jelly roll race at a retreat. I got to thinking that it would be more fun if there was a narrow strip, added to the 2 1/2" strip. I actually made that quilt. Then, I decided to try to work my way out from the center in a giant spiral. My friend's husband saw it and suggested naming it: A Maze Zing. Like nearly all of my quilts, it was also quilted by my good friend, Regina Carter of Jackson GA. It was her husband that suggested the name. I made this quilt in a few evenings, which is really unusual for me.
When I was writing the pattern, I remade the quilt, to check out a few construction ideas. Of course, I had to use totally different colors this time. I couldn't enter this version in the Festival, because it is not bound yet. Notice that the first quilt is bold colors, so I joined my strips bluntly, but with the second, more blended version, I joined the strips on an angle. I have already taught this as a class once, and it was really nice to be able to show the students 2 very different colorways.
Here is the first of the series with the straight thick and thin strips. It was a graduation gift for a friend's daughter. This quilt was machine quilted by me. I am working on doing that with smaller pieces, and I thought that staying within the strips would give me some guidance.
There are many more beautiful creations at The Blogger's Quilt Festival. You won't want to miss it! Thanks for stopping by!
Here is my entry for the Large category at The Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side.
This quilt has quite a history. It was inspired by a vintage quilt that I saw in a book somewhere. I wish I could find it, but I think it was a friend's book. I think the original quilt was pieced from solid velvets. Can you imagine? I simplified, and rearranged a good bit to get something that I would actually want to piece. I held on to the design for some time before I got around to starting on it. I collected solid color fabrics in the mean time in preparation...I really love making quilts from solids. I thing all solid quilts have a strong, graphic quality, that you can not achieve any other way.
When I did finally get to work on it, I submitted a photo of it to McCall's quilting to see if maybe they would want to publish it. Wonder of wonders-they did! It appeared as a mystery quilt in 2009. I didn't come up with a name for it until I got it back from McCall's. I named it Shenanigans.
I had a great time making this quilt. Recently a friend of mine bought it, and gave it to her son for a wedding gift, so this has been a successful quilt for me!
This quilt was quilted by my good friend, Regina Carter of Jackson, GA.
There are lots of beautiful quilts to see over at The Blogger's Quilt Festival
at Amy's Creative Side. Many thanks to Amy Ellis for giving us this gathering place, and the opportunity to see each others work.
Thanks for stopping by!
I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day.
A couple of weeks ago I went on a wonderful retreat with friends I usually only see once a year. We went to our usual spot, Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center in Mansfield Georgia. It is so great to see friends you have not seen in a longtime, and meet new ones.
There was lots of fabulous quilty inspiration all around me. Here is some of what my fellow quilters were working on.
This is a Christmas tree skirt.
How is that for some fabulous work. It is so nice to see such variety! We even had a mother/daughter team with us where the daughter was 7 yrs old. I was all excited to show you her project, but now I can't find the photo of it. I am so disappointed.
This is what I worked on for much of the time there. The center is all together, I still have to work out the corners, and I have a couple of borders planned. I can't put it on the design wall just now because my Anastasia quilt is in the way.
I also spent a good bit of time cutting Dresden Plate blades. So far they are just in a plastic box though. I should have some plates sewn together fairly soon.
This week, I worked the layout for this quilt order.
So far, I have all of the star centers made. I long time friend of mine is patiently waiting for this one. I have sent her a sample of each color combination to make sure that she likes all of them. I also gave her a couple of suggestions for things we could do with the background. So far that quilt looks like this:
For some reason, I couldn't seem to fit the whole thing in one photo.
I am getting ready to meet with The Nimble Thimbles guild in South Carolina for a trunk show this week. I have been making copies of patterns, and sewing a few handwoven wool, chicken pincushions.
I have also finally gotten my whole garden planted.
So, that is what I have been up to lately. Thanks for stopping by!
I have been thinking a lot about scraps lately. I have always considered my self to be a scrap quilter. In the beginning, I used that term to indicate that my quilts had many different fabrics in them. Mostly, I wanted to put in as many as I could possibly fit. I have always felt that it gave the viewer a more interesting quilt to look at. It made the quilt more versatile in terms of where you could use it. I had the idea that it was also more economical since I could use some fabric from my stash instead of buying it all for each quilt-though sometimes I bought four times as much as it would take to make a quilt as I obsessively collected different prints for a perspective project.
As time went on, I had more and more actual scraps to work with. And let me tell you, it is true what they say. If you proclaim yourself to be a scrap quilter, you will get lots of free fabric from people who do not want to deal with their scraps, and who will give you theirs because "I know you will use it".
After much trial and error, I feel like I have finally found a system for sorting, storing, and using my scraps that is working pretty well for me. I used to try to sort by color, or at least types of prints, such as neutrals, batiks, traditional prints. I gave all that up because it was the more types of fabrics I was collecting, the more complex this system got. Now I only sort by size. I start with this large basket.
There it is, living underneath my cutting table. As an aside, before I saw everyone buying risers to raise the height of their cutting table, I nailed a piece of plywood to a couple of pieces of 2 by 4, and set that on top of this re-purposed desk. It is not very fancy carpentry, but I like the resulting nook underneath for setting rulers out of the way. That drawer is also handy for holding rulers, extra blades, cutters, etc.
Back to the original subject. As you may have already guessed, as I cut my pieces, I throw the useable scraps in that basket under the desk. For me, it has to measure at least an inch to be considered a useable scrap. Everyone has their limits. If I am not going to end up with at least as much showing on the surface of the quilt, as is going to wind up on the back of the quilt in seam allowance, I'm not interested in keeping it.
Next, I have one of those reusable grocery bags that lives in my car. It contains a Ziploc bag for each of the following categories:
*Small bits- 2 1/2" or less
*Medium bits- over 2 1/2" to 6"
*Large pieces- anything that is too big for medium bits, but smaller than a fat quarter
*Small triangles-roughly the same size as small bits
*Large triangles-the rest
*Small sewn together-small pieces that are already sewn together, either because they are small, leftover units, or because they are leftover from strip piecing
*Large sewn together-This is usually from a strip set that I didn't entirely cut up. These previously sewn together units are very useful for improvisational piecing. I find they do so much to help me make my potholders interesting.
And then we have the strips. I have a separate bin for each of the following:
*Smaller than an 1 1/2"
*1 1/2"-I have a separate bin for these because I have made several quilts just from 1 1/2" strips. I do separate these into color families.
*1 3/4"- 2"
*2 1/4"-2 1/2"
*Larger than 2/12"
I load the grocery bag with scraps from the basket, these Ziploc bags, and a small measuring device, and leave all of this in the car at all times. There are certain places that I go, that I find it convenient to pull out this bag, and using the measuring tool, sort some of the scraps into the proper Ziploc. One such place is when I work my volunteer shifts at the town library. After I have swept, dusted, and put away books, I bring out my fabric bag. Another place is at free concerts in the park. When I go to a friends house to sew, if I get frustrated with the project I am working on, or maybe even go as far as I can on it, I pull out this bag.You get the idea. As the bag empties, I refill it from the basket, which is always getting filled as I cut out various projects. As the Ziploc bags fill, I dump them into bins of that respective category.
When I am getting ready to start a project, I go to the bin that holds the size of pieces that I need, and pull out pieces that are the colors that I want. I finished putting this system together a couple of summers ago. Since then I have gotten fabrics from these bins for several projects that are in process, but here are 2 quilts near completion, that came all, or mostly from these scrap bins.
This quilt top came ENTIRELY out of my strip bins. It is not completely finished, I am still in the process of sewing down the binding. This photo was taken before it was quilted. Wow-a free quilt top made just from what I had laying around the house!
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of going to a quilting retreat. I got the center of this quilt put together there. I just have to figure out what to do with the corners. I think I know what the borders will be. I bought the focus fabric, and the stripe, but everything else came from the scrap bin.
It is such a feeling of getting something for nothing to make quilts from what I have on hand. And, for those who like going scrappy, it really broadens your fabric choices!
I have many lovely photos that I took while at the retreat, I want to share with you, but I will save that for the next post.
Thanks for stopping by!
I cannot believe that in the last post showing the work from the class that I taught in Arkansas, I forgot to show you a photo of the sample quilt! It is called Southern Winter.
I finished another project this winter, but life has been so busy lately, I never got around to posting that either. I finally got Kimberly's graduation quilt quilted. I actually quilted this one myself.
I hope your memory is doing a better job than mine has been lately! Thanks for stopping by!
Spring has sprung in Georgia! (intermittently) We are still having some occasional cold weather. Last weekend was pretty nippy. It got don't in the 20s one night. Can you hear that? It is the sound of my more northern cousins and friends laughing hysterically at my whining about temperatures in the 20s, but I maintain that it is all a matter of what you are accustomed to, and equipped for-and, it was almost April after all. Today I played a tennis match. It was very overcast, and it wouldn't have been nearly so cold if it had not been so windy.The rest of my team looked more like they were watching a football game, wrapped in blankets as they were sitting on the bleachers. Anyway, we barely won the first set, then got rained out, so we will have to finish Tuesday evening.
Despite all that, it is warming up around here for the most part, and this means that the community garden is getting started, and our little town volunteer library has also opened up. We close for the winter, since we have no heat. I am the one who schedules the volunteers. We only open on Saturdays, but it is nice for our towns residents to have a place to come and borrow books close by. As for the garden, it is just a bit early to plant summer veggies, but I signed up 3 new gardeners in the last week. It will soon be time to plant those tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers, etc.
The point of all that is to tell you what I have been doing, along with weaving a rug, and working on a quilt related project that I can't share yet, that has been keeping my from posting. So, this post is way later than I would have liked, but I still wanted to share the photos from the class I taught in Arkansas last month. I always love to see the color combinations, and interpretations of others!
Such a fun group of women. I really had a great time with them.
So that is what I have been up to lately. Thanks for stopping by!
