Collaborations

Here it is! I did go with the yellow, which was perhaps a slightly more popular option. It really took me forever to decide, though, even with everyone's advice. I'm happy with it. I am thinking about making another, and possibly a larger older child version. In the meantime this one will be getting in the mail to Debra.



(If you are fascinated there are a million pictures of this on flickr. Let's just say that I am fascinated, probably too much so.)

Also, I have received nine of the eleven blocks I will get from the lap quilt swap on craftster. I need to make one for myself for a total of twelve. Here's what I've got so far:



I think they have a lot of potential! I have a million ideas for possible settings, so it will take some thought and some trial and error to decide how to put them together. Of course I can't really make any decisions about that until I have them all in hand. If you would be interested in participating in a future round of this swap, I suggest you join craftster ASAP, because there is a requirement that you must have been a member for thirty days (and post a certain number of times) before you can participate in a swap. Not sure when the next round will start, but if you join now I think you will probably be in time.

Life got very busy the last two weeks, or at least very busy compared to what it had been immediately before. My interview went smoothly. I haven't heard back about it, but I also at this point feel like the job would not be a very good fit. I also took another trip to Chicago just to visit and hang out with friends, and continued and finished up my two weeks of subbing for the ESL teacher. This weekend my Grandma and Aunt will be in town, and next week I start an eight day sub job in the bilingual k/1st room. Today, at least, I can stay in my PJs for a while.

To Border or Not To Border

This is the baby quilt top I'm working on for Debra's project to make quilts for pregnant teens. My original idea for this quilt ended up not looking very good, so I took the pieces I already had cut out and brainstormed a way to make them work together. After trying many things this is what I came up with. I do think that it seems finished as is. However it is 36" square, so maybe a little small for a baby quilt. I'm not completely opposed to a border, either. A four inch border would make it 44" square. The border could be one of these:





What do you think?? Border or no border? One of these borders or a different one? (I've auditioned some other border choices, but these were my two favorites so far.) I also thought about adding something on the top and bottom to make it longer but not wider, however I can't really visualize it.

Thanks to everyone who played along in my game of "What is this quilt?" It gave me a lot of food for thought. I was interested to find out that so many people thought the second one would make a good baby quilt, so I begin to see it that way again. On the other hand, I also like the idea of maybe adding more borders to make it into a larger piece. I guess I will continue to sit with it for a while.

I'm in the middle of two week sub job, and also have a job interview in Chicago on Tuesday, so I'm keeping a little busy at the moment.

Happy Heart Quilt

Now I return you to the previous appliqued heart quilt, recently quilted and bound. I didn't specifically plan this to be a Valentine's quilt, but when I started hand quilting it in December I realized that I would probably finish it around this time. Now I realize that it probably is a Valentine's quilt - maybe that should have been obvious? Valentine's Day is perhaps a controversial holiday at times, but personally I love it. Maybe to me it is more of a celebration of the heart motif and the colors red and pink, all of which I love. If you doubt that statement, this quilt should be proof enough. I definitely love these things year round, but I'm perfectly satisfied to have a chance to celebrate them now and then.

This quilt will always remind me of my semester in Mexico when much of this handwork was done. My host mother really loved the project; I wish she could see it now.





I will probably not be able to get nice natural light pictures of this until Saturday, and I didn't want to wait that long to share it. These will have to do for now.

Want to Play?

Anyone want to play "what is this quilt"?

I admit that I am one of those people that thinks a quilt should "be" something - a lap quilt, a wall hanging, a throw, a table cover...doesn't matter what it is but it needs to be something. That being said, I don't always make quilts with that in mind. Some quilts I make just to make, because it is something I want to try. And sometimes that leaves me asking...what is this quilt?

Are you ready to play? Okay, here we go...

What is this quilt?



It is 52" square. When I made this I was thinking baby quilt. Since then I have sort of moved away from the idea that any quilt that is baby quilt sized can be considered a baby quilt. I think there are probably some mothers with certain sensibilities who would like this as a baby quilt, but I'm not sure if I know those mothers. It just seems a little too sophisticated, maybe...? On the other hand, it's a little to small to be a good throw. It might work as a wall hanging/decor piece for someone, but again I don't think it's anyone I know.  All the white makes me think it wouldn't look good on white walls, but in that case what color walls would it look good on?  I actually really like this quilt, but I have no idea what to do with it.

Next up:

What is this quilt?



I've blogged this quilt top before in the early days of Quilty the Libster. It is about 40 odd inches square. At the time I thought it too would be a baby quilt, I guess because of the size, but similar to the previous quilt it no longer seems very "baby" to me. I cannot really envision the mother or the baby that I would give this too. In fact, this is a very quirky quilt, and although I do like it personally I also feel like...maybe it's a little funny looking? Maybe it's one of those quilts that only its maker can love. Anyway, I am thinking about finishing it, but part of me doesn't want to finish it until I have a better sense of what it's going to "be".

So what do you think? Do quilts have to "be" something? Can they just be? Any idea what these quilts are?

(This kind of reminds me of when one of my friends was graduating with a BA in English and her mom said everyone in their small town was asking her what N. was going to "be" when she graduated? Such as a teacher, doctor, lawyer etc. Her mom said that she will "be" educated...isn't that the point of going to school?)

Conversation Hearts

Remember what I was saying about my love for appliqued heart quilts? Well here is the second one I have made, although it is only a top at this point. I put the border on it last night, after much deliberation about what it should be. I had planned to make a lot more of these hearts for a throw sized quilt, but I decided it would be much cuter as a baby quilt. I think I was right. I quite like it this size. It's about 35"x40".





I'm definitely not going to finish this right away. I think because of all the hand work it will have to wait for an extra special baby. I have been calling this project "Conversation Hearts" due to...the hearts being made out of conversational prints. I know, I know...how do I come up with these things??

A Flash From the Quilting Past

I wrote this picture dense post for Rejoice Always in January of '07, and even though I completely finished it at the time I just saved it as a draft and never published it. I'm not sure why. I think it's time it saw the light of day...

January 14, 2007

I spent Monday putting together a small challenge quilt to be auctioned off for Relay for Life. The challenge was to make a quilt featuring the color pink no more than 100'' all the way around. I discovered why people like to make small quilts...I had no idea I could put a top together in a day. I thought it would be fun to do step-by-step documentation of the process. Looking back over the pics it seems like I took a picture every two seconds at first and then towards the middle and end kept forgetting to take them, so there are some gaps in the documentation.

I started by sorting through my scrap box for any and all usable scraps. Comments on this step in the process: 1) Yes, I need a better system for my scraps, but that's a project for another day off. 2) My scraps look so red and blue...which I guess is why I didn't find too too many usable scraps for this particular project.



OK, here are my usable scraps pressed and ready to go. Now I look at them and start sewing them together pretty randomly based on which ones look similar in size and look nice next to each other. I trim liberally.







By the time I completed this unit below, I had pretty much exhausted my scraps and it seemed like a good place to stop. I broke for a cup of tea.



I had pulled every pink, spring green, and grey fabric in my stash and after my tea break I went through them and made my final choices for what fabrics I would use for the rest of the quilt top, pictured here:



Then, in the longest most tedious step of the process I pressed each piece of fabric and cut one strip from it, at a random widths. Most were straight although I cut a few intentionally off grain.



Then I added strips to my scrappy unit:



Then, using the scraps from the strips I just added to the scrappy unit (are you with me here?) I did this part to add in:



The finished top:



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Edited to add this picture of the final quilt, hand quilted with baptist fans:

Art Video

I realize that it would be smart to tackle the scraps a little bit at a time. That was, in fact, my plan. But now that I am so immersed in it, I find I have a single minded determination, and an unwillingness to do anything else. At all. (Except blog, apparently.) I have a cramp in my left hand, a blister on my right hand, and a pain in my back, but I feel I cannot rest until every last scrap is cut to size and sorted into its appropriate pile. And since I didn't get called to sub Thursday, Friday, or today, I have been a scrap cutting machine (possibly at the expense of some other things I probably *should* be doing, but why get into that???) I think I may have a problem.

Anyway, I'm taking a short break to share with you this video that I saw on this blog.



I've been thinking a lot lately about art and what it means to be an artist. And I really like this video. So yeah.

Scraps

The great scrap organizing project of '09 continues.

A pile of 1.5" squares:


I have no ambitions to make a king size "postage stamp" quilt in which no two squares are alike. Nothing like that. But there seem to be a lot of people on craftster tackling these, so I thought I would package up some squares and small scraps to give away, and figured I might as well cut one set for me to play with...

Drunkard's Path pieces:


This is to be my experiment in curved piecing. I decided to start small; a girl baby quilt from scraps.

This morning or today I should finish up the scrap overflow box. Ahem. Yes, that means I haven't actually touched the so-full-it-barely-closes scrap box yet.

A Bright Moment

If you are snowed in, iced in, freezing, sub-freezing, or even just cloudy, here is a little dose of bright for you.



This top has been waiting for borders for a long time, but I wasn't sure what fabric to use or how to do them. Since this is a charm pack I wanted to use some fabric from that line, but I can't remember the name of the line and couldn't find any of the fabrics anywhere I looked. (And I was afraid to look too hard, because once I start looking at fabric I will start buying fabric. This has been proven.) I found this Laurel Burch print with the right colors, and it works for me. With squares laid out in a square, a square quilt seemed fitting. Pretty simple.



About 60" square. I have a suspicion of who might have it on their couch someday, but time will tell.

Bleh - I usually don't name quilts, but then it is harder to talk about them. Anyone else have that problem?

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In other news, Dionne tagged me to share six interesting/quirky things about myself. Why is this so much harder than it seems like it would be??

1. I don't own a computer and haven't for five or six years. I have relied on computer labs, libraries, and generous friends and relatives. Plus at the shelter we had a couple of community computers. It seems a bit weird that I've never owned a computer in the whole time I've been blogging (nearly four years).

2. I like almost all animals, including pigeons, squirrels, mice, and other frequently maligned species.

3. I have travelled to five of the seven continents since high school, and hope to hit the other two (South America and Antarctica) before I die. I took 2.5 years off between high school and college and spent that time working full time and spending the $$ traveling (even though I sometimes told people I was saving for college).

4. I worked in restaurants as a cook for years during high school and college. I strongly considered going to culinary school and I still really miss being in the restaurant environment.

5. I think tree houses are really really cool, especially the ones that adult people actually live in (or stay in occasionally).

6. Many of you know this, but I just spent a year as a full time volunteer at a homeless shelter on the U.S./Mexico border.

Here in central IL we fall into the sub-freezing category.  School was cancelled yesterday and today due to the extreme cold and wind chills.  It's been a slow week for me.

Three More

I have finished my last three blocks to send out for the craftster block swap:

Bachelor's Puzzle


Basket


Butterflies


I have six packets to pack up and put in the mail, then I can sit back and wait for my blocks to roll in. I technically still have one more block to make, for my own quilt, but I'm going to wait until I see more of the blocks I will be receiving so that I can makes something that "fits" or "balances" or whatever is needed.

I haven't done any embroidery for a long while, and doing the butterflies for that last block reminded me how much I enjoy it. Plus, it is so cute! It makes me want to start an embroidery centered project...we'll see what becomes of that :)

My mind is really whirring with ideas right now and I'm really not sure what I want to work on.