With a little help from my friends?

Well, courtesy of Hurricane Sandy, I had two extra days to get some things done at home. Unfortunately Oliver, Declan's new playmate, has a different idea of what 'helpful' means than I do.

As you can see in the last picture, I was able to complete 28 pillow cases for my mom's church bazaar. Hopefully they arrived in today's mail (since the bazaar is tomorrow. He's a cutie (very good thing) and he hugs which is lovely!

Table runner using printed panel

Hi everyone.  This is a "Stonehenge" printed panel that I found on sale at Undercover Quilts at Pike Place Market last Friday.  I used a batting scrap and machine quilted it over a couple of evenings.  I think it came out pretty well, so I bought another panel.  I am going to give the first one to my sister for her vacation house in Idaho.



Kaffe Fassett class at Island Quilter, Vashon

How do I rotate this?  top is on the left!

Here is KF talking about my quilt!

Here is what the room looked like with everyone working away.

Here is one I liked at lot.

BQ3 pattern using crumbs

Here are my blocks (not yet sewn together) using my crumbs.  You will see several Hawaiian prints, pink, and navy.  The stripe fabric and the orange-y print in the sashing are both Kaffe Fassett fabrics.  I am really enjoying the spontaneity of the crumbs.  My friend Beth decided to make a crumb quilt too, but each block is one color.  She keeps all her scraps color-coded, so she pulled out one box at a time to make each block.

I signed up for Kaffe Fassett class in Vashon

 I signed up for this class "Sunlight in the Forest" at Island Quilter on Vashon Island in October.  I am excited to see him "in action" and how he thinks about color and contrast.  I might make a trip ahead of the class to get a few "focus" fabrics to start building upon.  This example uses the very large red floral that is fussy cut.  The largest squares are 12" finished. 

Ready, Set, GO!

At Quarterly Quilters earlier this month, we talked about the October project which will be the 1600. Apparently this is a fad sweeping through quilt guilds around the country, and would be right up Kim F's alley since it requires 'punching it.' Most guilds do this as a race (which will be the way QQ does it in October). I did a modified version just to see how it worked and ended up with this quilt that's a lap size.

The basic idea starts with a jelly roll and ends with a twin top. You sew the jelly roll strips together in a VERY long strip and is race-ready. The race is to see who can sew the strip into the top the fastest; it would help immensely to have a pit crew to help manage that long strip through the initial 2-3 seams since the top is formed by sewing the opposite end of that strip together along the long side until you meet in the middle; clip the strip; line up the ends, and repeat until the top fits either your desired length or width (depending on which way you want your strips to run.) I modified the plan for a smaller size and because I had a bunch of strips that aren't WOF, and added the white squares to give it some continuity (and lighten it up).

Rosie's Calico Cupboard in San Diego

Last week, Li and I attended a conference in San Diego.  I took a little time to check out "The Trolley" their regional light rail system, by getting an all day pass, and traveling to this quilt fabric shop that Yuki had recommended to me many years ago.  Their website said they would pick up at the transit station, if they were not too busy.   The woman who picked me up told me that her husband was in Seattle for our annual Seafair, as he was on a Navy ship. 

It is a VERY large store and has EXCELLENT prices.  OMG.  New Kona Bay tonal leaves for $8.50 a yard.    I think the going price in Seattle is about $11/yd.  Once the bolt is priced, they don't change the price to the same price as the new bolts.  I found some older bolts that were only $6.50/yd. 

Most of the store is organized by color, with separate sections for batiks, Asian, 1930s, children, floral and Kaffe Fassett.   If you are ever in San Diego, I highly recommend it, especially because of the transit accessibility. :-)

My recent mood has been  "fear of becoming a hoarder," so I didn't do much buying, but sure had fun looking!

2012 CFC phase II

Since Elaine finished her half-blocks for the edges, and most of the sashing units, she was able to finish assembling the center during S&B at Kim H. It's looking great!

The second image is a mock-up of the inner border and the pieced 9-patch borders that Jackie's working on. Oops, just realized both images are turned 90° but I think it actually makes the border picture easier to understand so I'm not going to fix either.

Progression

So, the other day I learned that the ladies in Iowa were ready for my next quilt. Excitement! Except that when I got home, I discovered I didn't have a quilt ready to send them (I really need to figure out a way to piece quilts while I knit, or vice versa!) - how is that possible? Where's the quilt? What to do? The only obvious response was to speedily piece a top, right? Right? Of course, we are talking me so that top which is inspired by Kaffe Fassett. Finished size 88" x 66"

That one led to this one because of all the left-over 3 1/2" square pieces (plus 10 pieces to fill in the gaps) which is 51" x 39" with the borders.

Here's a close-up of the incredibly scary bunnies in the border print. (Can I give this to a kid? or will that be grounds for a damages suit when the kid grows up?) Kim H thinks they're cute?!?

But, naturally all the left-over bits weren't square so I ended up with a bunch of 3 1/2" x 2" pieces which weren't quite enough to make a top by themselves but Ann had given me the left-overs from the scrappy wedding quilt she made her daughter. (Remember cutting those way back when). Whew! No need to cut more. The end result was this which is 39" x 30" and won't have borders.

Oh, by the way...

So Mom and Dad came up for Mia's 11th birthday party in May.  On Saturday morning Dad showed me the bed he'd made for Mia's American Girl doll Mia.  About an hour later Mom mentioned that the bed looked awfully bare and couldn't you (meaning me) do something about that - a little quilt would be nice.  So with a little technical assistance from Kim F., we ended up with the following ensemble.

First, the bed as designed by Mia and made by Granpa

Complete with initial on the headboard

I went with a bedroll assembly of mattress pad and lace-edged top sheet with a little pillow to match

Here's the quilt (aren't I clever for collecting all those 2" cut squares so that I could pull this together zippedy-quick? JITD - I finished at 3 pm about the time we needed to leave for the party!)

Last but not least, here's Mia taking a rest from the excitement of the family party.

First the bed

the first image

We've started....

this year's CFC quilt.

Leftover Chinese Coins

what to do with leftover "coins"

Some of you will remember my pink and green "Chinese Coins".  I believe I finished it last year, with the help of Jenny to select border fabrics, and Alyssa to do the binding.  It was given to my brother-in-law's niece Megan.  I had a few strips of "coins" left over, so this is where I am now.  I will use the same fabric (large scale pink floral) for the borders that was used in the first quilt. 

Lowell Mills -- new quilting book

I just bought "Quilt Sampler" magazine (Spring/Summer 2012) with the pink and chocolate 9-patch quilt on the cover.  On page11 is an advertisement for Marcus Fabrics, but mentions a new book  "Away from Home:  Quilts inspired by the Story of the Lowell Mill Girls"  by Nancy Rink.  Marcus Fabrics will have a fabric line called "The Mill Girls 1830-1850"  I hope the book has stories about some of these women, not just quilt designs!  Now, I need to go to Amazon to see if the book is available yet. 

Our latest member Sabrina

Sabrina is working hard cutting strips the right way. She is under Yuki's tutelage.

Snowflake ready to roll out in the backpack

Celebrating April birthdays to Jenny and Li 

on Saturday, April 7, 2012 S&B. 

Delicious Chocolate Birthday Cake made by Lori. Thank you!!!
The moment of birthday wishes...

Clara's yummy Carmelized Ginger Pear Upside Down Cake!

Ready to eat!!!
Thank you everyone for such a wonderful birthday!!!   We had such great weather too!

Jackie's wild animal quilt

I love this quilt that Jackie has made!  It has a lot of different prints with African animals, like elephant, rhinos, lions.  It includes some partially made "wonky" log cabins that I had started years ago and gave to Jackie.  I love the "lightening bolt" and the fabrics with the tiger stripes.  I especially like the stripes with the grey circles.  I think it is so dynamic because of the angles.

Declan being very helpful

I should have included this picture of Declan helping his granma bind a quilt in the last post but didn't remember it until today. He's being a very helpful boy making sure neither granma or the quilt get away!

Four-footed helpers

Another set of pictures I've been meaning to post for a while of furry helpers (some more helpful than others!):

Declan making sure my Garden View shawl doesn't get away before I can block it.

Simba keeping Kim's scraps in line.

Snowflake and Simba making sure there are no monsters in Clara's machine cover - they hide, you know.

April 2012 QQ session

Just a few pictures from the Quarterly Quilters session that was held April 21st. I was the 'instructor' which basically means that I came up with a pattern that was 'do-able' in a day. As seems to happen too often for me, I overachieved and actually came up with two that are variations on a theme - the only difference is in the sashing.

These next two quilts were among those being donated this session. I'm sure you'll figure out why I thought they were fun! I might have to use some of my cat prints to make a one-patch similar to this.

Don't you just love the colors in this one?

Maui 2012

Maui Swap Meet, March 2012.  I love the yellow, pink, orange colors, and all the different textures of the proteas.

Here is me in my philodendron t-shirt, amidst the philodendrons at the Wailea Marriott. Oh! Am I supposed to talk about quilting on this blog?  I had a fabulous time at the Maui Quilt Guild meeting in Kahului, first Tues of the month.  I met several "snowbirds" from the Pacific Northwest who live on Maui 3 to 4 months a year.  I worked on 2 different quilt tops and also made the center for a charity quilt for the Maui Guild (lap quilts for the nursing home).   

January chocolate taste test

Just found these images from January's S&B session where we taste tested all these chocolates plus a couple more Scharffen Berger bars that I had stashed in my kitchen. Very yummy S&B session but the end results were that we all had different preferences in chocolate!


Overall we did agree that a nummy time was had by all! I'm sure we accomplished other things as well but the chocolate consumption rather overrode everything else.

Moss Rose Class at Smithsonian

The Kims, Lori and I are taking a small wallhanging class with Jeanne Benson (www.jeannebenson.com) at the Smithsonian. I almost forgot to take pictures but here's a couple from the first session last Sunday.




A preview of Kim F's elegant shadowed hibiscus - can't wait to see it completed.

Fabric Scrap Mummy

Elaine, Li, and Bee (Li's little sister) played with fabric scraps this past December. Bee eventually turned into a Fabric Scrap Mummy.