pays to play

Time to bury the threads...I got around today to bind this Sunny D quilt!
now to bury a ton of threads for all the quilting... my least favorite part of the job...
But. This was an experiment that has had a happy ending... I played with a few different things here, more curves, and bits like the waverunners. added some silks,
playing with depth in color, not just in quilting... and really just trying to push a little further out of my box...


Continued to do so by playing with scraps... making a block with NO straight lines anywhere... except for the trimming of the size of the block...

Play.
Gotta love it...
Wish you could all come over and we could just play...

Speaking of playing....Carolyn
sent me 9 fabulous houses! Thank you Carolyn!


And I have started to play a little with the squares you all have sent me... I have to tell you what a god send it is to have the pre-cut 10.5" squares....

If I can get a whole lot more houses I'd like to lay them out like so...
If I do this, I think right now I have about 16 quilts.
But If I break it down even more and out one house block per quilt.. well then that's 72 quilts...

I'd like something in between...

More houses pleazzzeeeee!!!

I'm cutting down a lot of the fabrics you all sent to 10.5" it takes a lot of time..
so please feel free to send me more 10.5" blocks...

And remember the Amy Butler fabric...(click here). ;-)

Perhaps I can find more prizes, if more folks can send me houses! ;-)

House block Pattern click here

clean up time

Awhile ago, I made a quilt for my granddaughter,
(I am a step grandma, grandma all the same in our family... )
And it was covered in CATS... She LOVES cats... well, I made it in reds, (no surprise) ...
I asked her what her new favorite colors were, she said,

PINK, FUSCHIA AND PURPLE PLEASE!!!

So this round robin quilt, Shelly and I have been working on, is going to go to her...
How could it not??

I had to do a fun scrappy border, mainly because
I do not have many PINK, FUSCHIA AND PURPLE prints,
And the anyhow, the colors of J Bari's prints, are just so darn cute it was the only choice!
And the Hot pink Jennifer Paganelli prints too...
Seriously some of my favorite prints, even if they are PINK!

I begged Anne to make me a Empire state building block... Thank you ANNE!
I owe ya one! I just love it... Got some ideas rolling around in my head for that block... we'll see.
Isn't it darling? sitting up there on the design wall, top right...


I got straight to quilting the Manhattan sunrise?
Sunny D?
Vitamin D delight?
quilt last night...
So far, ehhhh, it's going OK, but I really need to build on it...
we'll see where it leads me...

always an adventure...
Sunny D, hmmm, might just be the name for that quilt.......


I had to order some of this other Paula Prass blue fabric... It's so lovely...
I love how it looks with the blocks too, that I still am playing with...


Thanks Cherie! I love the houses!

HOUSE BLOCK GATHER

nearly...

I'm trying to get a few projects done and out of here....
And silly me, started cleaning out my closet!!

Wow, you should see the mess... Why did I do that this week?
You know how it is, it builds up and then when your swamped with work you
start something else??


Oh well, by Friday I hope to have it clean, (and my studio!)
and have a few finishes as well...
I have three projects right now that need to be done
or should have been done Monday... Here's two of them...

I think the colors are more accurate in the top photo on the floor... weird light today...

I've been playing with my curve pieces... and i think I must be Vitamin D short, which may or may not have inspired the color scheme,, pink orange ad yellow...

well, you know the saying, fake it to you make it?
It may not be real sunshine, but the colors are making me smile anyway,
to get through the last few weeks of winter...

I'm pinning it out now and want to get right on the quilting...ASAP...
Name name, what to name it....??




Tonight I also hope to finish the hand sewing and bury threads on the rocking chair quilt,
aka: feels like grandma's house quilt...
I am sooooo happy with the way this one turned out...


ok, gotta keep boogie-ing...
toodles!

lessons for all

While B is hanging out in my studio making her homework project for Prairie days...

I threw a few strips on the wall to play...

Her project was more fun to watch growing....

Her theme was Pioneers, I shown her examples of folk art, and quilts made in the 1800's, and she decided a quilt was a good way to make her project...

So, hmm, how does one make this project easy enough for her to manage on her own?

WONDER UNDER, charm squares and yarn... to the rescue!

She cut out her shapes, and with wonder under, ironed everything into place...
very little sewing... except for back ground, and binding...

Half way through the project she realized it was supposed to be in 3D... so we had a lesson from a pack of pre-cut charm squares and how to draw a cube..., a few seams, easy peasey,
a 3D house now appears...

She has already completed one quilt on her own, and has started her second,
(click here & here)
so that was not a problem... She sewn the squares together making the house like a cube to stick off the face of the quilt... (enough to make kathy york proud! have you seen this?)

When she made her first quilt, she loved machine quilting it... But this time I taught her how to tie a quilt. She got creative on the thread choices to make some plants growing in the field

And constructed home furnishings for inside the house...

She enjoyed sewing on the binding, of all things... she thought folding the corners was like origami... I can't tell you how confusing I thought bindings were the first few times I did them, but she had no problem...
It's funny, the things I find the hardest in sewing,
like machine quilting and bindings are not difficult for kids to learn.
Sewing a straight line... keeping the fabric smooth while sewing, is much harder...

But I have to say,
She did a pretty darn good job!

Also, thank you to my mother, she called while B was pushing the needle through the fabric to make the ties... she couldn't get the needle through, and mother said, give her a pliers to pull it through... and so I did... and it worked!

I Probably would not have thought of that.

Thanks Ma!


Now just to get B to finish the circus quilt...
And,
Does anyone know any good books on weaving?
She LOVES to weave... and I need to find more info for her, she wants to do bigger projects...

And thank you to Nicole and Janet for these
very sweet houses! I just love how these are all turning out!

Wanna help too?
Block gather, click here>

Blocks will be gathered til April 30th...
so keep them coming...

thanks!