Some More Crazy Quilting

Well this is not quilting at all. Crazy quilts are really a anything goes embelishment and needle craft piece. This is a portion of round three of the round robin I am in. This is Lou's block and the needlework is actually really simple. There are only a few stitches involved, stem stitch, chain stitch, fly stitch and french knots and sewing on a few buttons. I just love the way this little spray of stems looks. I am going to add a few flowers and then leave the rest to do for the round four person to have some fun with. I will be showing more photos of this block as I work on it. Now I better get back to that quilt waiting on the frame............I am doing a Popcorn panto today on a lovely pieced tulip quilt.

Round Two Finished On Crazy Round Robin

I have finally finished round two on the Crazy Go Round round robin. In this round we received a block that had all the seams embelished with a simple seam treatment and we were to add to the seams to make them more complex. I now have the round three block sitting here waiting for me to begin. I will post some photos of it later.

Oregon Shores At Road To California!

Here is Oregon Shores at The Road To California Quilt Show 2009. We got an honorable mention as I was told by my friend Suze. She took the photo for me. Lucky lady she not only went to the show but also took some classes as well. I am pretty happy to have gotten another ribbon on this quilt. I wish I could have gone to the show to see all the great quilts but I guess I will have to go another year. They always have the most wonderful quilts entered in that show.

Traditional Sampler

I am working on a commission quilt. The request was for a sampler and the use of traditional colors and fabrics. Getting the coordinating fabrics in the requested colors in the right fabric sure was a hunt but in the end I found 5 fabrics at about 3 different stores and had looked at about 7 stores total. Here are 6 of the 10 finished blocks. They were pretty complex but it is always fun to see how things look in different colorways. The photo is just a quick in progress shot that shows the blocks on the fabirc I will use for sashing, with the green cornerstones, the border and green binding.

My Scrap Quilt Is Pieced And That Fabric Is Not Right

Have you ever pieced a scrappy block, or been in a block swap and found that the fabric used did not have the look you wanted? The two photos are the same, well almost the same. This is a log cabin quilt I am beginning to quilt and there are a few fabrics here and there that are a bit too light in the dark side of the log cabin block. Well no problem I have a new trick. If you look closely you will see that two of the fabrics on the dark side of the log cabin block are just a bit darker and look much better. There is a very dark piece to the right of the red square and the fabric next to it and the one below the red square are just too light. How did I do it? Simple I have an assortment of Sharpie Markers and Pigma pens in various colors and I simply lightly darkened those pieces. The difference is subtle but it does make a big difference. I have been busy stitching in the ditch around all the light areas so have pretty much been all over the quilt and found quite a few pieces here and there that were just way to light. Some even lighter than my example here and I simply played with the markers and changed them. In some fabrics I played with the print to only change say some really light leaves and make the darker green, or on a plaid I only darkened one color in the plaid. Wow what a difference this can make.

So the next time you find that the fabric in your scrap quilt simply is too light you can fix it without having to rip that piece out and replace it.

Looking Forward To 2009

I am back form my holiday. We had a wonderful time in Southern California and even made it to the beach one day. This is where I was playing with trying to catch a good photo of a seagull in flight. I think the one above might even make a neat quilt. On the way home we stopped at the Grand Canyon which is one of my favorite places. We decided to stay the night and went out early the next morning to see the sunrise.................it was glorious.

With each new year I like to reflect o the past year and then look forward to the new year and set some goals. For 2009 I have some specific goals for my quilting and art. First of all I really want to offer my blog readers more and am going to try to add regular tutorials. I do love teaching and sharing and look forward to seeing some photos in the future of things made by others that were inspired by tutorials.

Another goal is organization. My sewing studio is worse than bad. It was dubbed by my family as the messiest room in the house (I is really a total disaster). Yesterday I finally go in there and spent a few hours beginning to clean and organize. I actually made a big dent in the mess but it is not a one day fix. I will be continuing to clean and then organize. The goal is to have my entire workspace both the upstairs studio and the longarm studio organized by March 1. There is allot of work to do be done to achieve this. I will share some after photos and maybe a few in progress ones.

This year I really need to get a handle on my UFOs (for you non crafters this is a term used to describe "unfinished objests"). I am going to cateloge all of them and try my best to finish as many as is possible. The good news is that I have alot of finished top only needing quilting and binding.

I also want to start a few show quilts for this year and play with some new techniques. This will be really fun and I am very excited about some things I have planned.

What are some of your goals?

Feathers Done!

Click on the photos to enlarge.

Well the custom with the feathers is finally done and already delivered! This one was a real challenge. Well all the custom quilts are a real challenge. Kathi wanted feathers. The piecing really dictated the space those feathers had to fill and the entire space was to be filled. The biggest problem was figuring out how to make the feathers fill the space, look nice and not leave empty space and make it all flow effortlessly. After some drawing on paper I finally was able to figure out each of the spaces. Since I am a huge fan of feathers this challenge was fun and I am pretty thrilled with the final result. Since I was working on a deadline I was not able to get a full on photo of the entire quilt and hope that Kathi will send me one as it was pretty darned spectacular.

I delivered two quilts yesterday and sent off my entry to Road to California so now I am taking a vacation from all customer quilts till January..................that means I get to play with my own stuff. Oh my where do I even begin. I have a pile of UFOs that is pretty scary. Actually I do know what I am going to work on. Last year I posted some photos of my log cabin swap on About.com Quilting and I set the blocks into a big star. Then I added a border with a vine, flowers, some bunnies, a little log cabin and a bear. It took me a year to finish the needle turn applique by hand. That was competed this February and the top has been languishing since then. I pulled it out yesterday and have some backing fabric selected. My goal for today (believe me I have to clean the house as well and do other things) is to seam the backing and load the quilt on the longarm. I have not shown photos of much of this top but will give a few more teaser photos of some of the quilting in the coming weeks.

Feather Meander As Fill

Click on the photo to enlarge.

I guess quilters have some unusual terms. The word fill is really a verb meaning: To make full; to supply with as much as can be held or contained; to put or pour into, till no more can be received; to occupy the whole capacity of. That is all fine and nice for the rest of the world but to a quilter the term fill is a noun.

Fill: the quilting stitches that are used to densely fill in area or space in a quilt to enhance other elements of that quilt.

In other words it is basically a term that describes a bunch of stitches. The photo above is a new to me kind of "fill". It has been appearing allot lately on webshots and blogs. Basically this is the "feather meander" by Suzanne Early. It seems quilters are using this as a way to fill up spaces in a quilt but making this design smaller. When I saw the above customer quilt I knew that background space was just screaming for the little feather meander and my customer agreed. I do know that I will be using it alto more in the future as it is just a beautiful delicate fill technique to add to the repertoire.

Tribute to Thomas, The Best Cat There Ever Was.

The photo is Thomas and his best friend Sadie the hound dog. Thomas passed away last Friday and I am pretty torn up about it.

We got Thomas five years ago the day after Thanksgiving. We went down to Pet Smart to get a cat. There were lots of cats there that day as they were all brought in from their foster homes. My husband was looking at a really nice fluffy adult cat. May daughters were checking out the adorable kittens. Well I saw this half grown gangley grey tabby and we locked eyes. He and I just knew it was meant to be. I asked if I could hold him and he just nuzzled up. It was love for sure. Well I then told hubby to hold him and said this was the one. He said that he wanted the adult cat but took the gangley kitty I handed him. Ok he said we could have him. Then I walked over the kids and told them to hold this one. Well we took him home that day. One of the kids suggested Tom as a name. Nope I decided Tom did not fit..............he was defiantly a Thomas and so that is what we called him.

Thomas met our two dogs that decided to do what they had done to our last cat, bark and the kitty ran, it was their favorite game. Well so there they went and barked at Thomas. Well Thomas did not run. Not only did he not run but waked right over and looked the huge golden retriever right in the eye. The big dog did not know what to do about that! Thomas settled into the family really well. He would lie in wait for the retriever Casey and jump out at him, or pounce on him form the back of the sofa. They were soon best friends. The other dog Max just kept his distance and was afraid of Thomas.

Thomas would greet people at the door and loved to be picked up. If there was a lap he found it. we all loved him. At night he found a bed and frequently burrowed under the covers and curled up as a little bed warmer. He was my fabric inspector and would keep an eye on my sewing, quilting and other crafts. He loved knitting and wanted to help with the yarn. He also tried his hand at sewing and wanted to bat at the presser foot............that was the day I had to put him in the bathroom with the door closed.

Casey disappeared one day and never came back. Thomas was pretty sad to lose his dog friend. Last year my daughter got Sadie and she and Thomas bonded. You can see in the photo how they used to curl up together. When they weren't sleeping Thomas was attacking her.

Thomas got very sick a few days before he died. The vet said his red count went critical low. His last day I spent feeding him high nutrient cat food with a syringe and giving him water as well. He was so weak. Well the poor guy died at five that afternoon with all four of us there with him.

We will get another cat but it will never replace what Thomas was to us. I think he was a cat bigger than life. Always at the center of everything around here and not afraid of anything. He was the boss and ruled the house.

Today Is Feather Day

Things are hopping in the studio the past couple of weeks. The holiday rush is in full swing here. Today I am quilting feathers on Kathi's beautiful quilt. This is the first motif and there are quite a few to go. What do you think?

Having Fun With Feathers

I have been having fun with feathers lately. I got inspired with all the photos everyone has been showing on Machine Quilters Resource of their version of Feather Meander the brainchild of Suzanne Early. Here is my take on them. This is just the back of the quilt but the back really shows the feathers. Right now I am working on a custom quilt with the feather meander as the background fill...............boy is that a great fill. I think it is my new favorite. When I get that one done there will be photos to share.

On another note. Can you belive that it is almost Thanksgiving!!! I always try to figure out what I am most thankful for. I think for me it is my family and friends. I am also thankful for my health, my home and being able to do what I love which is being a fiber artist. Some days I really have to pinch myself that I am actually starting to live my dream which is quilting for a living.

What are you thankful for?

Round Robin Next Round

I received the second round of the crazy quilt blocks and just love her colors. I have begun work and hope to work on this piece daily just a little at a time. In this round we were instructed to embelish the seam treatments further. We are to do flat work and not add beads, buttons or silk ribbon embroidery.............well we can do a little if we feel we really need to. I have so far added some flowers along one side of the purple block and a very simple treatment in green on the other side. These were done yesterday. Today I have already done a couple more things but have not taken photos of them.