Playing with Thread

Quilt Artist, Laura Gilmartin, was the guest lecturer at our guild program in February. She gave a half-day workshop afterwards about thread painting. So many members were interested in learning this technique that she gave another workshop on Friday. I was really struggling in the class and wasn't real happy with my project. I finished it at home and I'll call it another 'finished' quilt, but it's not the best one I've made. Of course, it was a learning experience and I did learn some new techniques, but found working in black not much fun. The main lesson was to use the zig zag stitch with feed dogs down to free motion the areas of the quilt that need to be filled. I learned that a long time ago, but haven't used it much in my art quilts. It's nice to get reacquainted with old techniques--adding Angelina fibers, using yarn and netting, and lastly, swavorski crystals. I had most of these supplies so I didn't have to go out and buy all new supplies for this workshop. Since I'm trying not to buy new 'stuff', it was nice to be able to work with items I had on the shelf! Here is "Moonlight".

It's a New Year!

It's been a busy time for me. I've been assisting a friend to clean out her stash of fabrics. This friend made clothes for American Girl dolls and sold them at Craft Shows. She was experiencing poor health and said it was time to find a new home for all of her supplies. I took three loads to my guild and put it on the 'free' table. They found new homes quickly. Some will be used to create NICU quilts and others will be made into charity juvenile quilts.

Many of the fabrics were sparkly and made of "other than cotton" and I thought the local Children's Theater could use it make costumes. They were more than happy to receive the carload of fabric I took to them. Their next production is "Alice" and there were many pieces that were the exact color the costume maker wants to use. She was more than grateful for this wonderful donation. She has connections to other theater groups and will pass along what she doesn't use.

I took a few of the fabrics and made this "Split 4-patch" juvenile quilt.

Someone else in the guild will quilt it. Thanks so much, Karen. You don't know how many people are putting your stash to good use!

A Productive Two Weeks

I have a pile of UFOs to complete, but when my quilt guild was looking for someone to quilt some Charity Quilt tops, what could I say? Someone else sewed the top and I just needed to quilt and bind these two juvenile quilts. I hope some small child will love these quilts!

I attended a guild workshop where we were shown how to make new quilts from old scraps. As you can see from the piece on the right, I had no problem sewing scraps together. It was a little more troubling to turn them into something I would love if turned into a quilt. So I made some small bags from the scraps. I'll use them to place some small Christmas gifts. I have more made fabrics and will sew them large enough to make some journal book covers.

 

 

I made and sewed the binding on my white-on-white quilt. I hope to finish (applying a sleeve and label) today. It will be a challenge to photograph it, but will give it a try after I'm done. It requires washing out the blue marking lines and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the design will show up after the lines are gone. Here is a 'before' picture.



Altiere Is Finally Finished

Although I posted pictures of the quilt when I finished the top last Spring, I didn't get around to quilting it until mid-September. It sat again until I could get brave enough to attempt the scalloped edges and binding. I don't know what I was afraid of. With encouragement from my Playgroup members, I finally cut the bias strips and made the binding. The gentle curves made for easy machine sewing the binding and hand-sewing it to the back. Now it is finally done, just in time to begin Bonnie Hunters new Mystery Challenge. It was very hard to photograph as it is a large quilt, not meant to be hung on a wall, but impossible to photograph when laying on a bed!

When I started this quilt, I wasn't real fond of the colors, but I'm quite pleased with the results. There is a lot going on in this quilt. And I love quilts that have more than one dimension. Thanks, Bonnie, for a great challenge!

Baby Jack's Quilt

I took my grandson to baseball hitting lessons during the summer. Since it was a 45 mile drive one way, I didn't just drop him off. I had to stay and wait until he was finished with his lesson. His hitting coach often brought his daughter Izzy with him to the training facility. She is about 2 years old and is the most adorable little girl. She kept me pretty entertained as I waited for my grandson's lesson to be completed. She had me running from one end of the gym to the other. Then I taught her Red Light/Green Light or what became STOP/GO since she didn't comprehend yet what to do with the traffic signal information. She made the time go by pretty fast. Izzy was getting ready to welcome a new baby brother in September and he arrived on September 25. So I bought her a book to read to him called "Brown Bear, What Do You See?" and I made a quilt for her brother.

Now I hope she doesn't mix up her Brown Bear with Jack's Blue Bear!

Patchwork Village

Here is the final result for my guild's 2016 Challenge. The blocks are from the Patchwork Village book. I decided to make a quilt I can use during those chilly late Fall, early Spring high school baseball games. So this quilt is made longer to wrap around me, and has wool batting to keep me warmer. I quilted the name of each block on each one. You might see such names as Transit Center, Donut Shop, Half-a-Plex, etc somewhere in each square. The top was completed in the Spring, but thanks to a guild deadline, I finally quilted it over the weekend, just in time for show-and-tell next week.

In the meantime, I have a number of projects in the works. I'm doing a few of the Row-by-Row rows for a wall hanging, started and just finished a baby quilt for my grand-son's hitting coach, and playing with new ideas from on-line classes. I look forward to spending the winter months back in the studio and hope to show more here in the upcoming months.

Not Much Time for Quilting

It is baseball season in my house. I'm either taking the ball player to practice, games, lessons, or showcases. When I'm not doing this, I'm watching my favorite MLB Team, the Washington Nationals.  I'm not complaining, it has been exciting, but it has left little time for working in the studio.

In addition to four birthdays in June, there were high school ball games and banquet, and trips to showcase baseball skills at Virginia Tech, Radford U, Liberty U, Old Dominion U and William and Mary. And those are just the trips I went on. The ballplayer and his dad went to U of No. Carolina and spent a week in Marietta, Georgia. The summer ball season will finish this weekend.

While the guys were in Georgia, I managed to put together "Rainforest Birds". It was a different kind of quilt for me as it was someone else's pattern (Keri Duke) and inspired by Charley Harper painting.

This quilt appealed to me because of the three dimensional birds and flowers. The hand-dyed fabrics are from Cherrywood Fabrics and the background is Kona Cotton. This may be the only quilt that is made this summer, but that is okay because I really needed a break from sewing.