Some inspiration

 I have been busy with things around the house and not had much time to devote to a dedicated quilting project of late. I am in the process of doing a bit of designing for a challenge so I am doing tons of research on the internet for photos for the parts of the composition. Of course being a challenge I cannot reveal what I am up to but I am having fun trying to put the composition together and make it work for a fiber art piece.

I have also been busy with an online free crazy quilt class.............yep crazy all right. Like I needed another project. Some of my friends had signed up and I checked it out and when I realized that I really had all the supplies already I figured why not, it is after all free and there is always something to learn. We post when we have completed small tasks and the instructor then e-mails the next step. This is Task #6 in progress which is embellishing most but not all of the seams. I especially love the row of hyacinths. I chose greens the base and then the embelishmets are in deeper colors of greens, blues, purples and pinks. I am having lots of fun with this little project and have learned quite a few new things.

Last Saturday I drove to Santa Fe for a meeting and on the way home went the back way thru Gallesteo, New Mexico. In the center of the village there is this bank of mail boxes. I have driven past these for years and since I had my camera I stopped to take some photos. I have always loved quilts that have long rows for mailboxes and I have always thought of that when I drive by these. It will be fun to play with these photos and come up with a pleasing composition using some of the boxes in the photos.

 

On A Dark And Dreary Day

 What to do on a dark and dreary day? The new year is already almost two weeks old and I have been busy. Wish I could say I have been having nothing but fun and working on my 2015 Bucket List. Yep this year I have ditched the resolutions as well as the goals. This year it is a bucket list. In any case whatever you call it, it is a list of things and events that I want to do or participate in.

For quilting and sewing the bucket list is pretty simple:
Work on UFOs
Reduce stash
Work on altered couture (old clothes to new items......this should be fun)

So far I am off to a good running start. Yesterday I decided to try this little "Thread Catcher". I guess you can put anything in there that suits your fancy. I put buttons in mine. I found it on Pintrest and there is a link with a tutorial to this blog: HERE These go together really fast and there are a million color combinations that you could make them out of. What a fun little project to sew up on a dreary day.

Another project that I am just starting this year is another Scrappy Trip Around The World. The instructions for this quilt are on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville site: HERE I love Bonnie's site and this is the second Scrappy Trip I am making. This one is in my favorite color combination; purple and green. It will go on the bed in the RV we bought last November and will be queen sized. This project will use 384 strips that measure 2 1/2 by 16 inches. I calculated that this project used up around TEN yards of fabric. How is that for a good start on my quilters bucket list to use stash? I have been cutting these strips for over a week and am so happy to have them all cut so that now I can just sew them together without having to stop to cut more.

Today's view off the balcony. You cannot even see the mountain today, and there has been snow on and off since yesterday morning. Just enough snow to cover the ground. It is the desert so the moisture is much needed.

Happy New Year

 I have been traveling for the past two weeks. I even took my little featherweight sewing machine but did not manage to have the time to do any sewing.  I did manage to crochet a hat for my daughters violin teacher. I will post a photo of that in another post.

Our first stop was Tombstone Arizona, a town with quite the history. We were there Christmas day and there were not many people. They did have a few things going on like stagecoach rides and mine tours.

 Here is a photo of me as I was all donned with my hard hat to explore the Good Enough Silver Mine which sits right underneath the town. It was a fun tour. The next photo was taken inside the mine of the colors of some of the rocks, and no that is not turquoise. I do love the colors and see a quilt based on that photo.

Next was Romona California to visit relatives for the holidays. While we were there we went to the San Diego Wildlife Park. These two ducks are not exotic but I really thought they make a nice composition. And below are some African animals we saw on the tram ride.

My favorite places we visited was Organ Pipe National Monument in Southern Arizona. We only spent the night there. They have a wonderful campground and the scenery is some of the very best Snoran Desert habitat I have seen. The sunset was just awesome and the weather was pretty nice.

 

 After Organ Pipe we headed east to Kartchner Caverns. There are no photos allowed in the caverns but it was really pretty. We took a hike around the park the next day.

 Comming home the snowstorm that had been chasing us all the way from California finally caught up with us. We spent our last night on the road at Caballo Lake State Park in New Mexico. It is a really pretty place and I would love to go back when it is not so cold.

The trip was great and we really enjoyed our toy hauler that we got each other for Christmas. It is a used rig but the price was awesome and it is in great shape.

When we arrived home there was lots of snow. We turned the heat back up in the house and discovered a broken pipe that began to leak. I guess Mr Enchanting will be getting a new office remodel in 2015 as the carpet and wallboard took quite the hit from all the water that started leaking when the pipe in the wall thawed out. Not a good thing to come home to but I will take it in stride and look at it as a kick in the behind to start working on painting and working on the house with the study being first on the list.

UFOs To Finish In 2015

If you are like me you likely have UFO's. I did make lots of progress in 2014. I was on a mission to finish up some UFO blocks. I did finish some tops but did not finish them. They will be on the bucket list to finish in 2015 in no particular order.

Top Left: blue and green quilt that I decided I had to drop everything and make. I really love the colors so need to get this quilted so I can display it nextSpring.

Top Middle: a hand pieced compass that was done several years back. It was designed by Becky and some of us handpiecers on About.com quilting forum made one. I have pulled it out and it is the center of my nesting robin. I do plan to get going on this challenge in earnest after the first of the year.

Top Right: Bears in the cabin was a pile of blocks from some block swaps. I found the pile of blocks last Spring and sewed them into the top and added a double border. It just needs quilting.

Middle Left: Dear Jane swap by Lou on about.com again I pulled out the blocks last Spring and made these into a finsihed top. It just needs quilting. I also made some mug rugs out of some of the blocks and still have enough for another top.........not sure when I will do something with them.

Middle Center: Strings in the Cabin another swap on about.com by Lou. I love this one and I need to figure out a border and quilt this one, hopefully by July and display it.

Middle Right: Swap by Pat of Stars in Fossil Fern and Kona Black on about.com. I started putting the blocks together at The Arizona Retreat About.com last Feburary and finished it last summer. Now I just need to quilt it. This will look fantastic on my bed.

Bottom Left: my Christmas table runner. I did not decorate this year anyway so not a big deal that I did not finish it. I found the 4 blocks last Summer and set them in a row and added a border, just needs quilting. Next Christmas for sure!!!

Bottom Center: a group of block exchanged at the Arizona Retreat years ago. I just set them together...........I think I will pick them apart and add sashing and then put them in a lap quilt top for the trailer.

Bottom Right: This one is finished and only needs a hanging sleeve. I will do the reveal after the first of the year.

This is the beginning of my bucket list for 2015. My goal will be one or more finishes each month. I do have a nice stack of tops that were finished several years ago still just waiting for quilting...........I am hoping that 2015 will be the year of "quilting" for me as I can just do quilting and not run out of tops any time soon.

Winter Solstice

Tomorrow is Winter Solstice and the shortest day of the year. As 2014 is slowly drawing to a close I like to think back and list all the things I have done in the past year. I like to make it a written exercise. Then I pull out the list of things I wanted to do from last year and compare. I have never had the lists match. There are things that never got done, or only got started. I am always happy to see things that were not on the list that are really good accomplishments.

I will soon be sitting down and coming up with list of things I have done. There are so many things that were not on the list for 2014 that I can put on there. I did have a productive quilting and sewing year and am hoping that 2015 is going to be even better. I have so many plans of things I want to do that I want to share on my blog.

So what have you done in 2014 and what are you planning for 2015?

If I Learned Something It Is Not A Waste Of Time

I look at lots of blogs because I just love to see all the eyecandy. One thing that catches my eye over and over is the great photo colleges that I see. How the heck do they do that? Well I was on a mission today so I spent way too much time researching and trying to get it to work. Here are a few of the colleges I made:

Though the process was slow and painful at times I think in the end I have discovered how to make really cool images to post on future blog posts. The top college is my year in travel and the bottom one, what else but quilts I have made this year. If you have ever wondered how to do these just try to google key words, like in my case "how to make a photo college iphoto" Then it is trial and error by following the directions.

Hopefully you will figure out how it works on your set up and will have another way to make your blog posts beautiful.

I Have Clearned My Defensible Space

Nicole's quilt has stalled. I finished the top a couple of months ago and then had to spend time clearing my forest for the insurance company for fire danger. This is the very reason I am making this quilt in that Nicole lost her home, workshop and possessions in a fire. Fire danger is very real here as well. Now that I am finished with my clearing I can can get back to my quilting. I really want to thank all of you who sent blocks to make this quilt possible. I am really happy how all the blocks tie together with the chocolate color sashing and the blue cornerstone blocks. I used cream for the setting triangles and corner blocks. All of the fabrics I used in this quilt came from my stash. There is still quite a bit of work to do before this is done but hopefully I can get it done in time for her to have it for her bed in the near future.............it drapes nicely over my queen sized bed.

Chain Saw Mama and Rewards

Where the heck have I disappeared to? Well I have been mega busy and there was a wonderful reward at the end. The insurance company told us we needed a defensible space for our house in case of forest fire. Well we do live in the high desert environment of the Southwest and frankly our house could go up in flames if there were a big fire. So for the last two months I have been busy clearing that defensible space. One hundred feet out from the house in all directions and the crowns of the trees needed to be 100 feet apart. Let me tell you that is a lot of trees. Mr Enchanting bought me a small chain saw that I could handle and I cut down and apart all the smaller stuff. He tackled the big stuff. I have been at this for what seems like forever! No quilting, very little housework, not much of anything. Yes there was a deadline and we made it. So Mr Enchanting's cousin invited us to cruise with them. We have never done a cruise as we are of the hiking and backpacking and camping kind of folks. Let me tell you though I will definitely cruise again.

We took the Carnival Dream out of New Orleans for seven nights and it was AWESOME! They had to cancel the visit to Belize due to rough seas............yes we were rocking and rolling! We did go to Isla Roatan off the coast of Honduras. It was a rough day but after one false start we ended up on the other side of the island and did some awesome snorkeling right off the photo below. I saw more beautiful fish than you can imagine.

The other port of call was Cozumel. Everything was perfect that day, beautiful weather, great snorkeling, great food and sightseeing. Just look at the amazing water in the photo below and yes it really is that color and clear as a bell. Watching a shark swim underneath you 30 feet below was a new one for me but I managed to remain calm.

There were about 5 or 6 mega huge cruise ships in Cozumel that day and lots of people sightseeing.

Our motto on this cruise: "It's five o'clock somewhere"................cheers!

Every night we would come back to our cabin and our bed would be turned down and there was always a new folded towel animal. Those were so cool. I went to a towel folding class on the ship with a ton of kids and a few other large kids like myself. One morning the crew filled up every longer by the pool will animals of every description.

Sunset from the hottub on the Serenity deck (21 and older only)...............Yep I will go cruising again for sure.

Now that my forest has been tamed back  I will just be burning firewood in the fireplace I can get back to what matters.................quilting!

Enchanting Quilts: Blue and Green Top Finished

Enchanting Quilts: Blue and Green Top Finished 

Suze your idea is awesome. I never thought of using that as a background but that would be brilliant. A large sunflower would be beautiful.

Blue and Green Top Finished

My Blue and Green top is finally finished. I am not going to add a border to this one as it is already quite large and I am going to use it as wall art. I really dug into my blue, green, and bluegreens to put this together and I love the way it came out. To me it says Spring! I already have a good idea how I want to quilt this so when I get it loaded on the longarm it will hopefully just flow.

I figured out the background for my compass that is the center of my nesting robin project. This is a handye fabric I did quite some years ago. I really need to pull out my dyeing supplies and do more of this as I really love the way they blend with both solids and commercial fabrics. They also look great with just other handyes. I think the best way to do this is reverse applique. I will needleturn the blue fabric to the circle. With all the seams I think this will work best.

I have pulled an assortment of fabrics that I like. I will try to repeat the colors that are already there and add a few more to round it out into the rainbow of colors. I am also adding grey and black prints. I will repeat the black but sparingly as I do not have a lot of solid left and the point of this nesting robin exercise it to finish up a UFO and also to use stash. The squiggly striped fabric in the top right might be a narrow border to pull all the colors together. I have lots of rounds to work with this group of fabrics and am sure as I get going on this I will be adding more fabrics to the mix. My goal right now is to make this a nice sized wall quilt, most likely a square but as I work I might change my mind on what to do. Leave me a comment with your thoughts.

Around the World Blog Hop

I have been tagged by my good friend Misha Her Blog is Here to participate in the AROUND THE WORLD BLOG HOP. Humm sounds like fun, I have seen lots of these posts on my daily hopping around blogville.

1. WHAT AM I WORKING ON? Well I guess you can say I am multitasking. I usually have several things on the top of the plate. Right now I am actively working on a blue and green quilt that just needs these 12 rows sewn together. I have a good idea of how I want to quilt this. I will post again on this one when the top is all sewn together as I just love the colors of the blues and the greens. The afternoon sun was not the best for photography and the wind was really blowing so I did not get the best photo........when I do the reveal of the top I promise better colors and eye candy!

I am also finishing up my Mountain Majesty quilt. I found the pattern on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville site HERE. You can see that I went with blue and orange for mine instead of random scrappy. I really enjoyed putting this together as it went really fast and I love the color way for the blue and orange. The hardest part was figuring out the quilting. I just need to finish the binding and then I will do a full reveal of this quilt. Hopefully that will not take too long.

Another thing I just started was a Nesting Robin and I showed the center in my last post. Here it is again. This is a really old block that has been ageing in my UFO pile for some time so hopefully I will breathe some new life into it as the center of a really fun quilt.

 

Here is another top waiting for quilting that I hope to work on in the near future.

 

 

2. HOW DOES MY WORK DIFFER FROM OTHERS OF ITS GENRE? Well for starters I often do now work with patterns. In the past I have made many pictorial quilts and used drawings and photographs as inspiration. Even when I do use patterns I always do my own things and only use the patterns as a guide. I like to play with ideas and actually enjoy making everything form traditional patterns to cutting edge original designs that I think up on my own. I do not follow rules. If I want to try something I will see how others have done it and then just do it my way. One other thing is that for me it is really the quilting that I enjoy the most. I do enjoy putting a top together but it is at the quilting stage that I really finish the design. I sometimes make things just for the quilting part that will come after the piecing. I have a longarm quilting business and love to quilt for others (if you have interest please let me know).

3. WHY DO I CREATE WHAT I DO? I have always enjoyed making things. As a small child I began drawing, knitting, needlework and sewing at a very young age. I like to create visual art. Growing up in the 60's my sisters and I sewed most of our own clothes and we saved our scraps always with the thought of someday making a quilt. Being first generation American there were not any quilters in my family. My relatives in Germany and Sweden did beautiful crewlwork and embroidery. One day I was in line at the grocery store (around 1984) and picked up a quilt magazine.............I decided the time had come to make a quilt. I ran into a lady in a fabric store who said she was teaching the ladies at her church to quilt but I could come even though I was not a member. She taught me how to handpiece and handquilt both which I still do. For me quilting is a way to create art on a large scale. I really enjoy working with fiber, colors, shapes and textures. The following quilt is an example of how the quilt really came together for me when I added the quilting. this is just a small part of the finished quilt.

4. HOW DOES MY CREATIVE PROCESS WORK? I find inspiration everywhere. Sometimes it is one moment in time when I see something and get an idea. The idea will grow until I have to give it an outlet...........make it into a quilt. Sometimes it is a pictorial quilt. I often work from many, many drawings, photographs and then my own ideas, sometimes I jsut work from a single photograph. Other times it is more about shape and color. I know it is time to make a quilt when the idea will not go away and I think about it all the time. I have many ideas and many have been made into quilts. Once I begin working on a piece I let it take over. Sometimes my initial vision is quite different from the finished piece. I find that when I follow my muse the pieces just seem to flow. Other times they reach a dead end and sit.........at a later time these pieces can be picked up again and reworked or completed. I also love to think when I am out in the woods. Today I went to see the fall colors on the mountain. I could see the colors from my house and knew that if I waited very long they would be gone. I love to photograph nature. Here is a view of the yellow aspen................inspiration for today.

Tagging people for this Around The World Blog Hop was a challenge for me. Two people had just been tagged and were doing their posts last week and today. A few more had things going on that was keeping them from their blogs so the timing was not good for them. I did tag Mary Jane at Mary Jane's Meanderings HERE. Mary Jane lives in the Southeast and is very active on the About.com Quilting Forum as am I. She enjoys block swaps, round robins, quilting comfort quilts and making Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilts. Her cats are her devoted quilt inspectors. Look for Mary Jane's post on her site next week.

Nesting Robin aka How To Work On A UFO

I have been on a mission this year to finish up UFOs. I had a great idea of a nesting robin which is like a round robin but the project stays at home and you do all the work yourself in rounds. The first month October is to identify a center for the nesting robin which needs to be an orphan block. I had this in mind but did not have a clue where it was. I was digging thru some stored bins and found a ton of UFOs including this block. This was made years ago with a group on a quilting forum. One of the ladies drafted this block and made it a PDF file and some of us hand pieced it. I do remember it did not take too long and the hardest part was the orange circle which is about 1/2 or less inches wide. Well it floated around the sewing room for awhile and finally got boxed up and stored. I figure it is time to do something with it so it will be the center of my nesting robin. The first thing I am going to do (as I do not want to work in the round) is to applique it to a square. I do not want black to be the main color here so I will be auditioning other colors to applique this to and I want to work from my stash as well, which is part of the challenge. I have until November 1st to get this part done so hopefully I will find the perfect color to go with what is already there. At this point I will add a few more colors to the palate but they need to be added in the next round or two to make it all work together.

Stay tuned tomorrow when I will post my official Blog Hop post. I got tagged by my friend Misha.