January 30, 2012

Dragonflies and Penguins???

So after a very difficult day of emptying one of mom's craft boxes, Ryan and I decided to trek out to the Davis Arboretum for some quilt photos.  He loves to humor me by taking pictures of quilts in natural settings, so we took Jackson, my bag of quilts and walked over half of the area searching for the perfect quilt perching spots.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring clothespins and beanbags with me...items that would be extremely helpful for a quilt photoshoot, but oh well.  We persevered.  And, in spite of the crappy light today, we managed to get some good shots...even one of a loon on a pier that was kind of cool.

I spent yesterday in heaven....inhaling lovely citrus smells wafting from my jam pot and sewing away at Estelle.  I was able to bind the last of the quilts taken to Cornerstone to quilt over Christmas...Dragonflies.  I will definitely have a difficult time giving this one up as it has all the right colors and my fav bug in the animal kingdom all over it.  It is such a soothing quilt and the colors came together so nicely.  Its from a pattern called "Slash a Stash" that I got from Back Porch Fabrics in Pacific Grove.  I actually pieced this together a couple of years ago, but just recently pulled it out to finish it after being heavily distracted by other projects.  But when I pulled it out, I instantly fell in love with the fabrics all over again.  I really wanted to have it done this month in time for Chinese New Year.  Well without further ado, here is my Dragonflies:


What this picture doesn't show well, is the beautiful quilting pattern of dragonflies in green thread.  It is stunning against the predominately black background.  As I mentioned...this one will be particularly hard to part with, not only for the design and colors, but I picked out the fabrics and assembled the top along side mom.  However, I feel that keeping every quilt because it has some link to my mom is not realistic, nor is it healthy for me, so I will find this a good home....someone who will love and appreciate it.  The good news is that I still have scraps of fabric from this quilt, so I get to use these fabrics in a scrappy quilt again soon.

Around the same time as the Dragonflies were being created, I was working on a series of Penguin quilts.  I stumbled on a pattern called "Calling all Penguins" by Diana McClun and Laura Nownes at Thimblecreek Quilt Shop in Concord that I knew would be perfect for my house.  My husband love aquariums, and especially penguins.  We have travelled all over the world, and everywhere we go (with the exception of Egypt) we have managed to find an aquarium to tour...and he always insists on seeing the penguins.  Someday, I would like to get to Antarctica to see the Great Emperor Penguins there, but I digress.  Anyways, I saw this pattern and made a penguin top. After I pieced it together, I was so happy with it I made two more!  And, I took a quick quilting seminar on how to use a walking foot and do a little free motion quilting with a darning foot around the same time, so I sandwiched all three quilts and proceeded to quilt them all, stitch-in-the-ditch.  Now, I know that you aren't much of a quilter if you just stitch-in-the-ditch, and furthermore, it weakens the seams, but who cares.  I did it all myself and they actually turned out pretty well, though I know what all the blogs are talking about the beauty in the quilting process.  Stitch-in-the-ditch really doesn't capture the beauty, but it surely gets the job done.  And with this particular pattern, I didn't quite have the skills then to do detailed quilting on my own.  However, in hindsight, I probably could have done other interesting patterns in each penguin or some free motion swirls to add interest.  Oh well...maybe next time.  I managed to bind two of those quilts last night as well.  One is going to my husband, naturally, and one to my dad.


My favorite part of this quilt is that the beaks flap!!!

Well, back to sorting through mom's unfinished projects.  I fully intend on finishing them, but it will take time and a little courage.  Thanks for reading....

Happy Crafting!

January 29, 2012

Wrapping up January with a date with my seam ripper

I know I have been quiet lately...I actually haven't been crafting so much.  I have been working on cleaning out the guest room closet in preparation for our new shelving that we are installing to organize all my fabric.  I am thrilled!  I lost much of craft room storage to our new wine closet.  Although I was completely supportive of altering the storage closet for a wine cellar, which we desperately needed, I didn't quite think through where I was going to relocate all that I kept inside the closet.  Hmmm.  Sounds like me...Not thinking everything through!  So, for the past couple of years, I have been continuously piling fabric, batting, and all my other craft goodies inside the tiny craft room, which doesn't allow me to work in there...much less walk inside (its kind of a hop, shuffle, duck, and balance on one foot to obtain anything in there).  So, needless to say, this project closet-clean-out is much anticipated and needed for me to get my craft life under control.  Plus, this hasn't really curtailed my fabric purchasing habit, so even though I have no room to store it, I keep accumulating.  This is not making Ryan happy...so it is necessary to get this mass chaos under control.  So, in an effort to help, I spent the past couple of weeks at Ikea and Bed, Bath, and Beyond to find other stylish, storage solutions for my stash of crafty crap.  I found a really cool storage unit at Ikea that was quite affordable that looks absolutely fantastic in the bedroom.  I even adorned it with baskets and green boxes to punch it up a little more.  I am planning on using it for pending quilts, scraps, batting storage (which really takes up a lot of room, surprisingly)...and I am feeling quite "Martha Stewart"-like by labeling each container in cute font and awesome little, metal label holders affixed with ribbon.  Maybe if I make it look cute, I will use it, eh??????

So, to finish out the quilts that I had quilted at Cornerstone Quilt Shoppe before Christmas, I saved my Dragonflies to time it with Chinese New Year.  This one I will have the hardest time parting with because I love dragonflies, and I totally dig the colors in this quilt...vibrant greens, purples, blues, and black.  My kind of colors.  But, I foresee this as a problem with many of my quilts as I love most of my fabric and I love the simplicity of the modern patterns that I have been trying as of late.  So, I will just take some pictures and send this one on its merry little way.  Now...who will get it?  I don't know that just yet.  I think someone special should get it...mostly because I love it so much.

I have several quilts still pending....I have featured some of the quilt tops that need to be quilted.....YIKES!  I have a few penguin quilts that just need to be finished, but the rest need quilting.  I am up to the task, but a little nervous about quilting myself.  They're small-ish type quilts, so I should have no trouble at all manipulating the fabric through "Estelle" (the sewing machine), but I am nervous.  So as I fret about free quilting my own work, I am busy ripping out seams from scraps that were cut off some of my recent quilts.  And, I am taking apart a quilt back I originally made for the Dragonfly quilt, but I ended up not using it because I didn't care for the center fabric that I used....so I am ripping it out.  I will use the fabric elsewhere, but until I get up the gumption to quilt on my own, this is a great distraction and use of my time while I sit watching stupid TV on Bravo.  I admit, however, that I am distracted by all the quilts I want to make, and these cute little lined bags that I want to make for Valentines Day, but I must FOCUS!!!!!

I managed to kidnap Ryan when he was home last weekend for a quick trip to the Arboretum for some pics of the Puzzle and Butterfly quilts.  The ones I posted earlier sucked, but I was so excited that they were done, I took pics quickly with no consideration for light, location, or even focus...so I decided to do these quilts justice, I took them out to the Davis Arboretum for some pictures in natural light.  I am not too sure Ryan thought this was a natural act by any means, but he humored me nonetheless, and trekked out there in between running errands so that I could get my shots.



Thanks for your help, honey!  They turned out great!  Happy Chinese New Year everyone!  Lets make this year of the Dragon a great one!!!

Happy Crafting....

January 10, 2012

Another one...DONE!

So this quilt I finished today was a pattern by Liz Schwartz called "Quilter's Puzzle."  It was fun and easy to put together. And, it used a lot of fabric.  I will need to make another one of these for sure....good way to use up some of mom's fabric.  I had a rough time with the back, but in the end it came out just fine.  I am thrilled with the quilting job that the ladies at Cornerstone Quilt Shoppe did, as they mimic puzzle pieces.

A Quilter's Puzzle (top)

Check out the beautiful quilting job by Cornerstone


Quilt back
I am excited that this will be the first quilt I am donating to Project Linus.  There is a gal in Davis that collects blankets for PL and helps distribute them locally to kids in need.  I think this particular quilt is perfect for donation because it could be for a girl or boy of any age.  Too often I see the quilts up for donation and many of them are geared towards infants or toddlers.  I really wanted to focus on making quilts for the older kids because I think that they are too often forgotten.  So, I am excited about this unisex design that could work for any age.  I definitely will make another one of these.

I have one more quilt ready to bind.  I will hopefully finish that up this week amidst jam making and experimenting with new dinner recipes.  Gotta figure out what I want to plant in the garden next as we are currently harvesting our little crop of cauliflower, broccoli, beets, and onions.  Any suggestions?

Happy Crafting everyone!

January 9, 2012

First quilts of 2012...DONE!

Well, although I didn't actually do the "quilting" of these quilts, I am pretty stoked to feature my first quilts of the year.  I was not quite confident to quilt on my own just yet, and this particular quilt is going to someone really special, so I wanted to be sure it was done right, so I placed my trust in the wonderful ladies at Cornerstone Quilt Shoppe to use their long arms to quilt my creation.  In fact, they took care of three of my quilts during the Christmas rush, so I am quite thankful that they rushed to complete this one, because I wanted it to be ready in time for my new niece to be born.  My sister-in-law, Marianne, didn't know that when I originally posted the quilt top on Facebook, I was really looking for her approval of the quilt design I chose to make her pending daughter.  She ended up loving it (thank goodness) and I am thrilled to announce that she will be the recipient of this lovingly made quilt.  I am hoping that my niece, Caroline, will come home from the hospital in it.  Well, without further ado.....Caroline's butterflies:



Check out the beautiful quilting job done by the ladies at Cornerstone.  Its so cute and whimsical.



Totally digging my new labels for my quilts!


As is my usual style, I did piece multiples of this quilt top, so I will be attempting a quilting job on my own soon.  In fact, I trooped out to Sacramento this morning to buy a foot for my machine for the occasion.  So I will have a few quilts to donate soon.  Many many thanks for the binding tutorial from Jeni at In Color Order.  If you have ever struggled with doing binding, it is a great method and I really enjoyed the process much more than doing binding in the past.  Easier and faster!

I am looking forward to showing you the rest of the quilts, but I have yet to do the binding.  Maybe later today.....Happy Crafting!

January 2, 2012

Happy New Years....with a quilt!

So, in spite of a cold and sick kitty, I plugged away at my sewing machine, Estelle, all day to attempt to finish piecing my latest creation.  I am working on a pattern by Faith at Fresh Lemons Modern Quilts called Lemon Squares Quilt.  I like this pattern because it pieces together quickly and I am able to feature some of my larger prints in my stash.  And, even though I loved the color combinations that Faith used in her version, I was glad I could put my spin on the quilt and use some of my favorite colors instead.  I was really excited to use some of the fabrics from Rebekah Merkle's collection called "England Swings."  They are fun bright yellows, blues and greens...all the colors I love.



     
Currently, I am working on piecing the back.  I decided to utilize some scraps and make a freeform checkerboard in the middle of the back mixed in with white.  On the top and bottom, I plan on using some green fabrics that are not featured in the checkerboard.  It dawned on me that this may be the quilt that I use to learn to quilt myself.  It is a small lap quilt side and could easily be managed in my machine for an "at home" quilting job.




While I was sewing yesterday, I was being distracted and entertained by my chickens, Berta, Bernice and Phyllis.  They were enjoying the sun and poking around the backyard yesterday.  They really enjoy that we haven't finished the deck yet and use the support beams for perching.



They're hilarious to watch and keep me happy while I sew.  Happy crafting and happy new year everyone!!!!