Florida River Art Quilt 2

I spent most of today working on the River Art Quilt for the local show again.  I'm thinking I'm about halfway now.  At Vicki's suggestion I have added two birds and a nest.  Can you find them?  I wasn't sure about where to put the nest so DD came in and nestled it in for me and I think that works just fine right where she put it.  She also wasn't thrilled where I thought she'd suggested the branches on the Cypress Tree (the big thing in the center) should go, so I fixed one to her liking and explained why the other one wouldn't work (a balance issue)  and after adding more and more detail decided it needed another branch.  I have a fair idea how to quilt the greenery - leaves, needles, and so forth, and the tree trunks will clearly have bark.  Likely I will run with the batiks and let them tell me how to quilt the rocks.  The water should flow so that shouldn't be a problem.  But what about those little plants and so forth?  Do you think I should just go with the print?

River Quilt Scene in Pieces

I find I'm torn for quilting it as well.  Do I free-motion quilt it on the little Elna (and brave those pins), or do I go for the more reliable control and mount a backing and batting on the quilt frame and then just float this little piece on top?  Perhaps I should plan a quick baby quilt and quilt that while I have this on the frame.  They would have the same backing that way, but could also create an unwelcome distraction with each advance of the frame - this would likely only need two possibly three advances.

So far the raw edge is only the palm tree in the upper right (which is true raw without web underneath but I think it's good for a Palm to fray a bit - more realistic that way), the cardinal and the blue bird, oh and the nest when I fuse that on.  Truly the more I see it where DD put it the more I like it.  I'm also thinking about hiding a panther face in the shadows.  I have a cat face that is about the right size, but it's black with wonderfully glowing yellow eyes...  A face in the shadows would be shadowed though right?

This little wonder is getting heavy too.  The muslin runs throughout the bottom as I mentioned, then the forest green fusions in the background of the top third, and all those little pieces. Along the top especially towards the left you can see where I'm allowing the sunshine to peak through the trees.  What do you think that?  It seemed natural that in looking across a river you would see the sunlight like that.

And hey what do you think about binding?  I was thinking scrappy binding so it would flow around the quilt in blues, tans, blues to greens and back?  But that I'm not sure.  Since the quilt is supposed to be connecting many other art quilts.  What do you think others will do with their binding?

First Guild Meeting

Beginning of River Quilt

Well after 4 years and about three months of quilting, I went to my first Quilt Guild meeting.  I'm still on the fence about joining, but they are having a challenge and all participants quilts will hang in the River of Threads at the local Art Gallery, and do you have any idea how floored I would be to have a quilt hung in a gallery?  Not just any quilt but my quilt?

Requirements are a mini quilt - no bigger than a fat quarter to depict a scene from a Florida river.  The river must flow left to right, and be between 2" and 5" at the entrance and exit of the quilt.  So guess what I'm working on.  Yep.  You guessed it, the aforementioned art quilt.   I have several hours in so far and there are clearly many more to go but I believe it is a good start.

This has a solid muslin first layer with the details all turned edge and pinned in place.  I am planning to quilt this rather densely allowing the movement of the quilting to add depth.  Any thoughts?

Christmas Quilt-a-long June's Caught Up

CQAL Mystery Quilt Center Sewn

I just finished sewing the center of the Christmas Quilt-a-long Quilt.  Selecting a layout was tricky, I took pictures of about four different layouts (so if you're cruising the CQAL posts to find alternative layouts comment that you'd like to see my extras and I'll email them to you).

This was the one Sue showed as an option, and I just decided to go with it.  I'm sure the final quilt will be beautiful.  I believe next month we'll be working on the border.  Sounds like time to buy batting to me!

DD is our model today.  The cat's couldn't be bothered - Tiny said she did plenty of modeling when I had it spread out while the camera was put away.  The t-shirt she is wearing I added the rhinestones to last night.  She had two shirts that were plain and needed a little something.  But I guess you can't really see the butterfly in that picture, oh well at least you can see her pretty smile.

Christmas Quilt-a-long June Catch-up

Christmas Quilt-a-long
Mystery Quilt Layout Option

Would you believe I have so many things that I need/want to sew that I made a list?  I sure did.  I was tired of keeping track of priorities in my head.  As I'm about halfway through with the list I made on Saturday, that's pretty good.  Though I've thought of at least two more things to add to the list.  Oh well so we sew right?

Today's catch up is for the Christmas Quilt-a-long Mystery Quilt, the directions for this month show how to finish the block and then to sew all blocks together as desired.  Yep, got to love Sue for that.  It's getting late at least for me and I have been envisioning a design within a design for this quilt, so I thought I would try out my favorite layout of the ones Sue showed on Saturday.  Here it is in my blocks.  They clearly aren't sewn together.  I figure this way I can first see them through the lens of the camera and then tomorrow look at them all spread out on the sewing table and see how I like it.  As for me right now I'd like nothing more than to go curl up in bed with a book, which I'll be doing here in about 15 minutes.

Opps, I had a block turned wrong for this layout, can you spot it?

June New WIP Finished

DD with Quilted Travel Bag

Ever since I saw this pattern earlier this year I have wanted to make it, and now I have.  What is it you ask?  A quilted travel tote.  It is a large weekender or going to Quilt class bag.  Sizing in at 21" wide x 13" tall x 7" deep.  This is a double pinwheel pattern.  Though personally I found it's size annoying.  Finished blocks are 7" which seems like an odd number, not to mention smaller and more fussy than I'd like.  If I made another of these travel bags again I will likely want to use a bigger block.  Though I do like the effect when looking at the pictures.

DD with Quilted Travel Bag

The bag is fully lined and for added stability I sewed the lining in the ditch down each corner seam anchoring it to the quilted outer layer rather than just thrusting it in there.  As you can see from the help of my model DD, the back is a little different the front, and if you're wondering yes that is a zipper.  No internal pockets on this one as my pattern only mentioned that I should add them as I wanted instead of giving any real directions.  In fact the directions were rather crummy showing the handles in the completed bag being completely different than the ones the directions tell you how to make and more than once I had to sit and think about how in the world to make what they were talking about happen.

Still nice to scratch this one off my "wanted to do list".

What have you been up to?

It's summer vacation so that means very little in the peace and quiet market and much more in the way of fitting in the fun and enjoying being together.

I have so many things to do at my sewing machine, that I made a list so far I've finished and been able to cross off about 7 hours worth of alterations for my my sewing list I've crossed off the large grocery sack full of alterations neighbor, and through mentioning that to a friend more items might be coming my way.  When the neighbor picked up and paid for her items she dropped off another piece so that's nice and I've been working on my quilted tote bag.  That's coming along just fine and you'll be seeing it soon as it is my New WIP for June.

As for Tiny she is currently modeling my steal of a deal cabinet.  A jewelry armoire that is as tall as Jessica with five drawers inside and a space at the bottom big enough to hold my grandmother's jewelry box.  The armoire was a craigslist deal I picked up for $40, so I'm really happy about that.

Also noteworthy is that the two ladies that I knew were in the hospital last week are both out and doing better.

Just a little bit ago I had a reply on an Ebay best offer I'd submitted.  I'm sorry but coming down a mere 24 cents from your original buy now price is an insult to me and my time.  If you wanted to sell it for 24 cents less you should have just done so.  As a customer and as a human being I just walk away from something like that, as it is clearly not a deal.

In sharp contrast DD is very happy lately, as in over the top happy.  She is counting the days to Summer Camp, and is currently enrolled in swimming classes which she is enjoying.  She doesn't know that after swimming classes are over and she's had a bit of a break from everything her daddy is going to take her to the roller rink for one of their evening skating classes.  This is the very same rink were I myself learned to skate.  I believe I attended to classes twice as they have a rolling drop in and drop out as you pick up the skills and don't need the class any more.  After those two lessons I could do anything I wanted to on skates.

Christmas Quilt a long June 2012

Can't believe I forgot our CQAL day.  DH is on vacation this week, and a dear friend is in the hospital, as well as my neighbor's daughter, so I think I'm excused from my scatter brain.  Maybe?

Sorry I will certainly visit everyone and work on my blocks later this week.  Take care everyone.

Not the Christmas Mystery Block

I just want to preface this is not the Christmas Mystery Quilt Block, as Sue had us make way to many HST's and not enough 4 patches, but while playing her figure it out game, I stumbled upon this layout and thought, oh I like it!  So I was done playing after that.  Believe it or not I don't really like playing with quilt blocks while they are in pieces, as I worry about fraying so I lay them out pick the best order and call it done.  This likely has come from doing block swaps in the past when the fabric was well sometimes cheap.  So anyway, what do you think, isn't it pretty?  I'm certain Sues's way will be pretty too, whatever way it is.

Back to your regularly scheduled blog

I had so much fun yesterday, it was a bit bittersweet tiding up after the party.  I heard that one guest even forgot their drink me bottle, and was nearly eaten by their pet cat.  The good news is everyone is safe and sound now.

I am in a bit of a pickle about the quilting for my Lone Star.  I have some ideas about how I'd like it quilted but...  Of course there's always a but.  I was thinking I'd need to send it out to someone with a bigger throat.  Yet I wonder.

What if I quilted the quilt top to bottom and did what I could in the space allotted, and then came back and instead of turning the quilt 90 degrees, instead staggered it a bit for something more like 15 or 20 degrees, quilt through some more and turn another 15 or 20 degrees my leaders are big and fat so I could pin side up near the take up and the other towards the bottom?  That would give me the width of the frame to work some of the bigger/longer designs in.  And  it's true I'd have to be careful not to sew the extra leaders to the quilt, and yes I will likely have more starts and stops but...

Any thoughts for this rule breaking quilter?  For the record this is all Sue and Dana's fault, making me think maybe I too can quilt it myself...  Must still have a little bit of Alice in me.

Lone Star 1st Border On

Oh my goodness.  I never imagined that I could celebrate with all of you today, and sew on my first border.  Everyone mentioned that I should be dancing over having the star sewn, but trust me this border - I'm proud and there's no doubt about it!  Hehehehe!

What is next for this large charmer?  A visit to the LQS to select the background color for the scrolls, I do believe.  Or is that indubitably?

As for our Party, we were visited by the White Rabbit, Two Mad Hatters as Promised, the Dormouse, a Dodo Bird, some friends from the blogland, and of course myself your hostess Alice.

Did you have a mad time visiting today?  Don't forget to grab a drink so you can go home.  Your family would never recognize you at this size.

More Tea?

After squaring up the Lone Star Quilt, I started thinking about the leftover diamonds that make up my first border.  I drew that in and thought, hey no problem, and will be a good use for the leftover strips.

I didn't count on a couple of things.  One to make the border go around and around at each intersection - there are 16 on this star, the diamonds change their slant from one direction to the other.  Hence half of my leftovers, about 60 +/- pieces have had to be seam ripped apart and then sewn back together to slant the other way.  That's taken a while because the one bargello I made was strip pieced and the directions clearly said to lower the stitches per inch to make it easier to unpick the tubes as needed - well that just made a radial mess as what goes for a standard seam allowance for someone else seemed to make mine fall apart - at least in those beginning days.  So this time I knew better.  Let me count...  My stitches in the Lone star are about 15 per inch, so that's a lot of nit picky ripping.  At least that's all done.

Now I just need to cut a few extra diamonds - 22 I believe, and then I'll be piecing them back together.  This really does make me feel like I fell down the rabbit hole.  With all those extra strips and ripped apart diamonds why do I need to cut more you ask?  Well it occured to me that this quilt is so neat patterned and orderly, that I really wanted to keep that patterned look rather than just scrappy here and there as I would be concerned it would ruin the over all effect.

Don't recall what I'm talking about?  Just look up at the sketch.  I'm talking about that small border that goes around all the humps and bumps just after the star and background pieces.  This is no a border I've seen anywhere else, and trust me last night when I was trying to figure out how to make everything work I went looking for other people to try a border like this, and didn't have any luck.  Talk about a plunge in the dark.  That's okay though, I'm sure I have it worked out now.

Now if you'll excuse me I think it's lunch time.  Wont you join me in the dining room?  You will need to grab one of these or you will be simply to small to reach the door knob! 

Our pictures this afternoon can all be traced back to their creators, the real workers on this fine day here.

Welcome to Our Mad Hatter Tea Party

Now, now, you mustn't lurk in door ways!  

Oh wait Wrong Movie!

March Hare: (in an encouraging tone) Have some wine.

Alice: (looking down the table) I don't see any wine...

March Hare: There isn't any. And you're too young.

Alice: Then it wasn't very kind of you to offer it!

March Hare: It wasn't very kind of YOU to sit down without an invitation! This is a PRIVATE soirée...

Alice: Well, I know it wasn't polite to barge in when I know I wasn't invited. But the table was laid out for a great many people.

  Now I've gotten it, shall we get on with our party?

Who needs caught up?  Here we go.

Remember when I was like this?

Then I came up with the beautiful scrolling border for the Lone Star it felt like I'd discovered a whole new world.

And when I finished the last glow block and felt more like this!

Now Drum Roll Please - Oh wait, we forgot to pass out the TEA!!!!

I have cups for everyone!  Grab yours before the Cat gets it!

One for you.

Here's another!

No grabbing, I'm getting to you! 

Now see you weren't patient and the cat got yours.

Do you have one yet?

Nope?  Guess we'll have to share.  (leaning back in over sized lime green chair and crossing legs)  Now the way I see it is this, if you've made it this far it's either because you adore me, or you want to see the Lone Star center all put together.  Or I suppose you're a huge Alice in Wonderland fan and Google dumped you here on accident as that does happen.  No matter we must get on with our party.

Remember now this is just my star, I haven't purchased the fabric for the scrolling border yet, so we might have to have another party...  Ta Da!

Now leave a comment, and by all means, whatever you do, don't tell the governness you were here!

All products made and produced by the exclusively by and for the Walt Disney Company and can be purchased on their website.  And in case you were wondering they had nothing to do with this post.