Blue Stars

Another quick share:





I creatively refer to this as the "blue stars" quilt. I made this quilt (or coverlet I guess - it has no batting, for summer use) during a transition in my life and this was my therapy! I approached each block as an individual unit with my only theme being "blue." I had some kind of vision for this, but I can't really put it into words except for "blue". In this case that included greens and purples, but I don't know - it just worked for me! I used a lot of my favorite fabrics and some pieces that have a lot of special meaning for me. I kind of see it as a piece of home I could take with me anywhere. I love the result, I just got impatient and put it together before I really had as many blocks as I would have liked, so it's a bit of weird size. But once again, it works for me.

Vacation - Not Mine, My Computer's...

Well, the laptop that I normally blog from is on a week long vacation and in the meantime I will be blogging from a desktop that is much beloved, but in computer terms downright antique. So I have not yet been able to convince the desktop to load pictures off my camera which means no new pictures to post for a week :(. However I will try to entertain myself by posting some older quilty pictures - such is the advantage of having a new-ish blog!

But before I get to that, thank you all for your comments about the layout of my strippy stripey blocks (It's officially referred to as "Random Stripes" now...) It is being sewn together right now, and I took your advised and tried to make it balanced - not quite symetrical, but not soooo crazy, either. Can't show you for a week though!

Speaking of crazy, this...



...is my first quilt! In all its crazzzzy insanity!

It's actually upside down in this picture, but only I would know that; obviously the people helping me take pictures didn't, ha ha. When I backpacked around asia and the pacific after graduating high school, I collected fabric, at my mothers request. I think I did succeed in purchasing fabric on every stop of the trip, with I think two exceptions. So when I got back and was bored and missing the adventure of travel, my mom suggested that I make a crazy quilt with them. The "travel" fabrics are the center of each crazy block, the sashing was picked up in Thailand, but most of the rest of the patches are from mom's scrap bag. Each block was embelished while sitting at Denny's in the middle of the night, where I typically hung out every night after getting off work on the second shift (I worked with all my best friends at the time). If you click on it it should take you to flickr where you can see a larger and a huge view, to get a closer look at the fabrics and embelishments.

This is the third quilting project that Mom started me on in my life - but this is the one that "took".

Also can't spell check in blogger on this computer...¡discuplame!

Flamingos and Such

Here is my flamingo quilt that I finished - more than a month or two ago - and for some reason didn't take a picture of till last night. I have a lot of my recent finished items that I don't have really good pictures of and I keep thinking I will take them outside on a sunny day with some helpful people and get some really decent pics. So I think I was waiting for that day, but I decided I at least needed some kind of picture of this in the mean time.



Before you compliment me, those flamingos are NOT appliqued - it's a fabric panel I bought years ago. One day when I was just overflowing with creativity (which in my case rarely happens) I really wanted to start something new and work on it all day, and I decided to take the flamingos as my inspiration - this was the result. So all the fabric I had on hand and I did get it all pieced in a day. That is NOTHING like my usual way of working, but I love the result.

Just because I love to share them, here are my recent "Stars Around the World" blocks - www.friendshipquilters.com if you'd like to get in on the fun. (Not my favorite site because almost all of the activities are actually not quilt related. Still haven't figured that one out...?)

From Karin in CO:


Going to Mary Lou in TN:


Last but not least...I was about ready to declare this layout the "winner" for the Random Stripes quilt - this was last night.



I would have sewn them up last night but somehow laying the blocks out on the floor so I could audition the border COMPLETELY exhausted me. So I did not sew them up, and now I'm undecided again. Hilarious. I'm going back to the doctor on Friday - this tiredness thing has got to go.

Quilt Camp 2007

Ahh so I'm just back from Quilt Camp '07. Quilt Camp is really just me, my mom, and my aunt (all quilters) spending a weekend at my aunts house. One of us teaches a workshop one day (or two) and the other day is devoted to shopping. It's a pretty fun weekend, even if I'm feeling a bit young for it at the moment. (25 is a really weird age, btw. Although I won't actually be 25 till Wednesday.) But regardless of being 25, I wouldn't miss quilt camp for anything :)

This years workshop was paper piecing New York Beauty blocks. I pieced my bit for my mom's quilt as I can't start a new project right now (no new projects for me!!) but it's something I could see myself doing someday - it was way easier and way funner than I expected. (Note the beautiful quilt behind mom).





Shopping was great too - except of course that I wasn't supposed to buy any fabric - and I bought a ton! Seriously! Not to mention the fact that Aunt M. gave me a HUGE haul of scraps and orphan blocks - and some yardage, too. Oh yeah, AND she gave me one of her older sewing machines since mine has pretty much bitten the dust. Long story short, Aunt M. rocks.



We also spent quite a bit of time planning out a quilt we are making for my aunt (a different aunt - my mom's brother's wife). We have appliqued hand blocks for every member of her extended family. Now we planned the layout and Aunt M. (mom's sister) will have it assembled by the family reunion in July.





And I would be remiss if I didn't post this picture of Casey the pup relaxing on One of Aunt M.'s quilts - a store sample that she made. For a local shop. Gorgeous quilt, cute dog ;)

Random Stripes

Are these blocks ugly?? Don't answer that.

I'm not sure what the correct name for these blocks would be - I've just been calling it strip quilt. I started it as a mindless sewing project - just pull scraps out of the bin and sew them down, no thinking, and at times no pressing, no trimming, etc. There was really not planning to it at all, in terms of color placement, or anything like that. For the other half of the square I just pulled from my stash things that I thought were ugly or just didn't care about - not sure how the medium prints got in with the lights. That does NOTHING for the quilt. At some point I guess I decided they were hideous and decided to only do as many more as I had foundations cut for - I think there were originally going to be a lot more.

Now that I see them all laid out together, I actually don't mind them that much. I actually kind of like them. I can see how they would have benefited from just a modicum of planning - but I don't think I'm going to resew anything, since that was not the idea behind this quilt. I'm almost tempted to make more - almost. But I'm not sure. Maybe I will just restart the project with slightly more thought to it and do another quilt this way. These are 9" blocks, so if I don't make anymore the quilt will be minimum 36"x36" and with sashing and/or borders would probably be in the 50" range - pretty good for someone's adorable free spirited child (no one in particular, just theoretically...)

Here are some possible layouts for the existing blocks - no where near ALL the possibilities, of course. I have some other layouts that I've already decided I don't like, and others I haven't tried...









The same thing with sashing, represented here by the "design wall" aka the floor!


Again excuse the fact that the pictures all show up off center - haven't quite figured that out yet.

Stars

That's my latest receive (blue on blue from Annette) and send (night sky to Karin) in the Stars Around the World swap. I feel rather egotistical, but I LOVE the block I made for Karin. I wanted to keep it! But obviously that's silly because I can just make one for myself since I still have lots of fabric. Those planets just kill me. Too cute.

I Love Jesus Swap

I am participating in my first swap on Craftster. At many times throughout this experience I have found myself thinking...why did I think I wanted to do this? I enjoy craftster, even if I'm not the devotee that some people are. My main thought behind doing this swap was that I think theoretically that I would like to organize my own swaps (quilt block swap, craftster style!) and in order to do that I have to participate in two swaps first. So I figured I might as well jump in. So I am in the I Love Jesus swap (yea Jesus!) and I finished my stuff today (send-outs are Tuesday). My second swap will definitely be more along the lines of "fill a matchbox" or something equally painless - 5 items was a lot! And I copped out and purchased two of my items!! But now that's it's all done I'm realy excited about it. I think it's a quality package that I would not be afraid to send to Mary Magdalen herself. Anyway, since I don't have a link to this blog posted on craftster, I will go ahead a post pictures here.

Group shot:


Throw pillow w/ close up:



(I think the dimensionality of the pillow really solves the problems that this had as a flat block.)

"The Creative Call" book - I wanna keep this!


Charm bracelet:


Patch (this was a no-brainer):


And a few shots of the treasure box... The idea behind the treasure box is to fill a box with bible verses that are uplifting/encouraging/helpful, so that you can pull one out on a rainy day.






On another topic - to any other people out there who use the blogger/flickr combination: any idea how I can post "medium" size photos w/o the edges being cut off??? Maybe many of you just thought all my pictures are super off center and I always cut off the edge of my subject, but not so! I never used to have this problem on the old blogger...?

Steam Basting Adventure

Ha ha I wanted to get a funny picture of me steam basting the hugantic enormungous Trip Around the World quilt. Okay, I'm being melodramatic, it is "only" 90" x 97"...obviously many women have made much larger quilts. But it sure took a long time to baste. And I didn't get a very good funny picture, but you get the idea. I dragged the basting table up from the basement so I could watch a movie while I did it and it took me all of Strictly Ballroom to get it done. Goodness I love that movie. Anyway, here's a picture of the main part of the quilt before I had the ginormous border:



I do like this quilt quite a lot. It hopefully will be a wedding quilt for a friend who is getting married in September. However, as has been pointed out to me already, hand quilting a 90x97 quilt is not the best summer time project. I may just have to crank up the air conditioning and quilt in daisy dukes. Ha ha.

Monedas Chinas

There's that beautiful blue heaven! This is what I'm working on now. The top and bottom borders aren't actually sewn on in this picture but hopefully they will be tonight. It's been sitting around with the middle finished and the borders cut but not sewn on for like a year. OK, less than a year, but at least 9 months. So now I'm just trying to take it from the works in progress pile to the finished tops pile.

Hmmm. It seems like I always get these project about yea close to being finished tops and then I put them away to marinate for like years. Which is why I currently have this massive wad of unfinished quilts and so few finished quilts to show for all my hours of sewing. Which of course is why I'm on the "no starting new projects" diet.

But I'm not sure how I think my sewing life will change if/when I somehow get all these projects done (like in seven years). Will I just work on a few projects at a time, beginning to end? Or will I just accumulate another huge pile of works in progress and return to never getting anything done?

It does all seem like a mountain of stuff sometimes. There's that cosmic guilt kicking in. Anyway, these blue Chinese Coins are cute, huh?

Throw Pillow

Here's a block that's going to be a cushion/throw pillow. It's a busy a little beaver, isn't it?? I really should have done the outer squares all purple instead of purple & blue mixed. But I don't think I dislike it enough to unsew it. But then there are so few things that I really dislike enough to unsew... I was trying to showcase some of the faith themed fabrics that I've been collecting for awhile. Blue blue...why is everything so blue??



I decided not to put the outer border on this:



I didn't like the border when I auditioned it, the size was better without it, and anyway I like it as is. And plus now it's can move to the "finished top" pile.

So what's next...? More blue coming soon!

Tired!

Geez I'm tired. So tired. Like the kind of tired you go see the doctor for. But the doctor is stumped so far, so I'm still just tired. Bleh. I seriously feel like I could sleep all day and I don't want to do ANYTHING else. Like I don't want to sew or craft and half the time when it's bed time I don't even want to brush my teeth or anything - just get me to bed!

So any and all sewing/quilting/crafty project is slowed to a near halt.

But I did manage to sew the binding onto the batik cats quilt, which I finished quilting a while ago and sewed the binding on awhile ago but didn't get around to hand sewing it down on the back until this past week. But it is done and being soaked to remove marks as we speak. Here's a not-very-good picture:



It's about 48" x 58". And has no home. Here's a close up of the quilting. It's just diagonal lines that change direction here and there.



It was done with pearl cotton - why does that seem like SUCH a better way to hand quilt?? I don't know, but it does.

Here's the latest batch of Stars Around the World blocks. First the block I received from Gill in Cyprus and second the one that I've got going out to Annette in Utah: