Showing posts with label quilting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quilting. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Open Book Quilt Block for Virtual Quilting Bee


I joined a virtual quilting bee of sorts started by Tracey of Itching2Bstitching.  We are working from the book, Modern Blocks:  99 Quilt Blocks from Your Favorite Designers by Susanne Woods.  (You may be able to get it from your library.  Click on the photo of the book at the bottom of the post to take a look at it on Amazon.)  

I've never done one of these before, so I'll share how this kind of bee works for others who don't know about them.  Each month one person is the queen bee.  She chooses a block from the book for all of us to do.  The "queen" can send the fabric she wants us to use or suggest colors and such she likes.  The pic above is the block chosen by Kelleigh for February.  It's called "open book." 

In Modern Blocks, the center binding area of the book is actually the same color as the background fabric.  It almost appears that the book is floating.  Kelleigh chose to have that area in a light fabric different from the background so that each person could sign the block in that space.  I chose to embroider the name 'cuz my handwriting is not the best.

Scary thing for me to do sewing for someone else!  Fortunately, these are an understanding and accepting lot who are not expecting perfection.  One block down, eleven more months to go!  I can't wait for my turn to be on the receiving end in October.



Wednesday, February 15, 2012

February's Blocks from Craftsy's BOM class

As you may recall, I am doing the "block of the  month" lessons from Craftsy in both browns/blues and orange/blues.  Here are the browns/blues  for February:

The first one is a Balkan Puzzle also know by numbers of other names as is true of many quilt blocks.  I LOVE this one.  The second is a Chunky Chevron.  By itself,  I'm not so fond of it.  I'll bet it's cool when these are put together as a whole quilt, though.

Here are the orange/blues:

One of the reasons I'm not too fond of the Chunky Chevron blocks may be that I don't like my choice for the predominant pieces--that blue/yellow fabric--in this one.  It's a beautiful fabric when not cut into pieces and repieced (Repieced comes out with a red line under it.  I, however, am using it because I think it should be a word in quilting!)  This fabric would require some incredible fussy cutting to make it work well.  I'm hoping that it will blend in well once the whole quilt is together.

Here are all the January and February browns/blues together,


and the orange/blues

All in all, I am quite happy.  Of course, I've been cutting these down to make them uniform rather than redoing them.  If I absolutely HAVE to, I'll redo one to make it fit. For the most part, I'm not that fussy with quilting.  As I have said before, I go with the , "if it can't be seen by a man riding by on horseback, it's okay" rule.  I quilt for fun and to have something on the bed rather than for show.  That may be because were I quilting for show, I'd still be on my first quilt;-O

Friday, February 3, 2012

The January Blocks are Finished!

I started them in February--not a good idea.  Fortunately Craftsy keeps the old lessons up.  These are FREE block of the month lessons.  I've been meaning to get back to quilting.  These lessons are just the kick in the butt encouragement I needed.  I wanted to work with these fabrics:

but these fabrics actually match something in my house:

Do not judge me on color choices.  I'm not color blind, I'm color confused.  If you have read my post on the ugliest quilt ever, you would understand that this is a step in the right direction.  Even with several books on choosing colors, I struggle with this.  I decided to do both colors. Who says I'm indecisive?

There are two blocks for each month.  January's block are "the asterisk" and "the wonky block."  This slashing of previous pieced fabric is new for me. I like it! Here are my yellow/orange:
The one on the right is cut to size.  The other looks a bit off because the
edges have only been tucked under.  Okay, so they are a bit off, too.
I go by the "if it can't be seen by a man riding by on horseback" rule.

These fabrics are much prettier close up:

(Maybe I should start buying fabric view from a distance.  I'm a sucker for juvenile, colorful fabric.)  

Here are the brown/blue blocks:
Excuse the edges.  These are obviously not cut down to size yet.

My goal for this month is to get the February block done IN February.  I'm pretty sure you can still join in the fun.  Check on Craftsy.  It's streaming across the bottom where they show all the videos.  It's the free one--that should be easy for all you professional shoppers to find.  Catching up with four block shouldn't be difficult.  

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Need Help with Old Quilt Top Dilemma

A neighbor was moving and gave me this quilt top she had put together long, long ago.
She got all the way to pinning and basting the top, batting, and backing together before rolling it up and leaving it sitting for years.  It had stains and a nasty musty smell.  It HAD to be washed.  I finally took it apart for washing. 

I just have no idea what to do with it now.  There are problems galore.  While it is comparatively well sewn, it's a first-time quilt with some of those flaws.  The colors are not what I would ever have chosen.  I find the pastel circles next to the primary colored ones jarring.  I got almost all of the stains out, but the base fabric was tea-dyed.  Now it has some lighter spots where the dye came out with the stains. 

My neighbor said to feel free to take it apart and use pieces.  However, each corner has those yellow-centered leave pieces.  And, here's the worst part:  every single stitch of this entire top was done by hand as in no machine was used for so much as piecing the blocks together.  Each of those leaves and yellow circles is hand sewn. All the blocks are hand sewn together.  It feels wrong to take them apart. So much work went into this thing!

So help me out here!  What do you think I should do?  Should I bite the bullet and put this together as is?  That will leave me with a quilt I admire in some ways but don't actually like.  I could continue with the traditional theme and put it together on my quilt frame.  Or should I take it apart and use some of the squares for different things?  I'll lose pretty much all of the corner applique with this choice because of the mix of pastel and brights. 

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Putting Away the Special Quilts

Today I am repairing a quilt I made for my son, Kiefer, when he was about four years old.


He's now 19, and it is way past time to put the kiddy quilt in storage.  It is in surprisingly good shape--just needs a few seams repaired.  I made it from his baby/toddler clothes and left-over fabric from window curtains I made for his room at the time.  The curtain fabric is covered with cats--which he loved.  Some of the squares have pockets from pants and shirts.



Some have the applique designs from clothing.



The solid color squares have all kinds of button representing things that he loved.


There are  sport buttons, cat buttons, car buttons, even a Lego piece button. 

I'm hanging on to it just in case Kiefer decides to have some little ones of his own. Or, maybe I'll just keep it.  Looking over the quilt, I have wonderful memories of him wearing all those tiny shirts, overalls, and jackets.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Is there a contest for the ugliest quilt ever??

I said I would post the good, bad, and ugly.  This quilt top comes under the ugly.  It's a bit of a long story to understand how this bit of ugly was born.  First, I bought some green chairs that I love.  Others look at them politely with a pained expression or just out-and-out ask what in hell I was thinking buying putrid green chairs.  I love these chairs.  They are extremely comfortable.  I'm sitting in one right now.  It turned out that they did not exactly go with the two shades of green wall paint, though.  Okay, here they are.  Don't try to adjust your screen.  This really is the color.

In an attempt to pull the room together, I started looking for quilt fabric with the colors of the chair and walls.  Each individual fabric was really nice.  Together, they are truly horrific.  I kept thinking that when it was all together, it would look good.  So, here it is:


Please excuse the faux fur bench.  It was an attempt at that touch of whimsy all the designers talk about.  Off topic--back to the ugly.  I honestly thought the browns in the bench, quilt, bed skirt and pillows would somehow pull together. 

This picture shows the greens in the quilt and the chairs.

See, the greens do at least match the chair.  Unfortunately this picture is deceptive.  When you are in the room, the quilt looks overwhelmingly brown with  garish flashes of blue and white from that one fabric.

I'm supposed to start the actual quilting.  The thoughts of spending that much time looking at it are scary.  Please, someone give me permission to put this in the closet until my eyesight fails.