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?

One Done!

Scrappy Trips charity quilt, approx. 42 inches square

The Scrappy Trips quilt I was struggling with is finally to flimsy stage.  Yay!  This was harder than it should have been, but I finally got there.  The back is also done, and as soon as I get the binding made, it'll be ready to hand off at the guild meeting this week for someone else to do the quilting (because this is too big for me to do myself).  

I'm starting a little wall hanging (around 16 inches long) to fit a certain spot in my kitchen/dining area.  I've had the same little quilt up there for years, and it's time for something new.  I collected some Aspen leaves when we were in Nevada a few years ago; I brought them home and scanned them into the computer.  I printed out the scan and used it for my pattern for this.  I fused a hand-dye look fabric down for my "base".

I'll be adding these on top of those fused leaves.  These are hand-dyed dryer sheets that I cut out with the same Aspen leaf pattern.  I've got two layers here, just because it made a much more interesting color than one layer.  I had to fuse on the base in the previous photo because these dryer sheets don't really have enough "oomph" on their own to show up well.  I'll be stitching these down by stitching the veins on them - leaving the edges loose.  I've never done this before, so it's all a big experiment!

I seem to be flitting around the quilt studio, doing a little of this and a little of that.  I can't concentrate on any one thing.  I have 5 more blocks to do for my Low Volume quilt and it'll be ready to put together.  I've started making blocks for the Country Threads Block of the Month Quilt Along.  I got January's blocks done  today - only 2 months behind now!  Plus I'm mentally playing with ideas for my color challenge quilt, trying to decide what I want to do with it.  Quilter's ADD strikes again!  Bear with me, I'll have more to show soon.  At least I hope so!

My Brain Is Rusty

I'm finally feeling much better (antibiotics = good), and have been able to get some sewing done!  Yay!  However, I'm apparently out of practice.  My brain couldn't quite remember what to do. *grin*

Finished blocks, ready to sew together

I decided to "warm up" by working on some more of the Scrappy Trip blocks that I had started sometime last year.  My guild is making lap-sized quilts for nursing homes, and with the addition of a border, this will be the right size - 42 inches square.  I'm using all scraps (except for the black) to make these blocks, from my drawer of already-cut 2.5 inch strips.  I had 6 blocks already finished and only needed 3 more to make the lap-sized quilt.  Easy, right?

Umm, it didn't go quite the way I wanted.  I didn't actually look at the blocks that were already done, so the first block I made I put the black strip in the wrong place.  But the worst of it was that I had the wrong foot on my sewing machine and the seam allowances ended up the wrong size - more like 3/8 inch than 1/4 inch!

OK, figured out the foot thing, adjusted and then made 2 more blocks.  Oops.  More boo-boos.  I didn't realize that the already-done blocks all had a black strip running through the middle.  Totally left out the black.  I wondered why I was short a strip when I was sewing the blocks together!  It wasn't until I decided to lay out all the blocks that I realized my mistake.  I just had to laugh!

Oops!

So, here they are, in all their glory.  The top left block is correct.  The top right and bottom left are pretty blocks, but they don't have the black strip in them.  The bottom right is the one with the wrong seam allowance and the black strip in the wrong place.  The pretty blocks that don't work will be put aside to go into another quilt someday, and the wrong-sized one may go on the back of this charity quilt, just to use it up. 

I lined the small block up with a block of the correct size, and you can really see how it gets worse and worse as you "read" it from left to right.  Yikes!  A perfect example of what a too-big seam allowance will do to your block.

A close-up shot, where you can see the different-sized seam allowance.  (top block vs. bottom block)  I'm sharing this as an educational opportunity.  I know I learned something from this!

So, now all I have to do is sew the blocks together and then find something for the border, and this little lap quilt will be ready for quilting.  I'm thinking green for the border (all the blocks have green in them) and then a black binding.  Hopefully that will go more smoothly.  *fingers crossed*

Saturday I did a "sewing" project with my granddaughters.  We went to Jo-Ann's and bought fleece, and they made started no-sew fleece blankets for themselves.  We did the "2 layers tied together around the edges" method. We didn't actually get them finished, but we got a good start on them, and they can finish them at home.  I didn't get a single photo!  (bad blogger!)  Interestingly, at the store, they didn't hesitate about what fabric they wanted.  They took a look at what was available, and made their decision right away!  They each had to get some extra fabric as they want to make blankets for their stuffed toys.  We didn't have time to work on that and I can't wait to see what they come up with!

We seem to always have good weather in February up here in the Northwest, sunny and maybe even as warm as 50+ degrees.  Lately, it's been pretty darn chilly even though it's sunny.  When we get rain, we get fresh snow on the mountains.  But winter always comes back in March - sometimes we even get measurable snow!  But we're having a little tease of Spring out on the back deck!  My crocus are up and starting to bloom.  In the upper right corner you can see that my tulips and daffodils are starting to come up too.  What a welcome sight!