Star Pool is Done

I've finished this quilt.

The binding fabric is a black and white stripe. The stripe isn't a straight stripe, however. It has a rick-rack look to it. Here's a view of the back. Do you like my staging?

 

Okay, it's sort of hard to really see the back when it's draped on a chair, so here's a full back view.

 

Did you know that in three days (March 1) the Twelve by Twelve group will reveal their blue/white/black quilts? I can't wait to see what everyone has made with this color scheme.

Over on the Three Creative Studios Quilt Blog there is a reveal this week of puzzle themed quilts. Please go check them out.

Happy weekend!

New Studio Additions

This photo shows some new things I've added to my studio lately.

Starting at the very top of the photo is a new wooden ruler rack. The rulers in the rack I already had and while this isn't all of them, they are so organized now. Before they would all lean together and it was a pain to sort through them to find the one I wanted. Now they stand up all straight and important and it's easy to quickly grab the one I want. I don't know why I waited so long for one of these.

I did get a new ruler too.  If you look closely, all the items are sitting on top of my new 20" square.  Some of you may recall the blog post a while back on my wonderment of having one this size.  Well thanks to so many of you who shared how much you use your large square, I decided to get one.  I haven't had much of a chance to use it yet, but I really feel I will find it very helpful.

I got myself a mini iron.  Some of the projects I create, such as the collage quilts I make, I have found if I want to tack/fuse down a small piece of fabric, a smaller iron might work better.  I haven't used this yet, but look forward to it.

And last but not least, a Goddess Sheet.  This is a protective sheet when ironing with fusibles and other sticky things.  It protects your iron and ironing surface.  I love how easy it is to clean stray fusible residue from it and that it doesn't curl when heated.  I have used parchment paper for this task and still will when I need to, but the parchment paper always wanted to curl up on me and what a pain that was.  The other day I used it to heat set a piece of fabric with a resist product on it.  Some of the resist left a residue on the Goddess Sheet.  When the sheet was completely cool, I simply took a scrap fabric and rubbed it down and the residue cleaned right off.  I love this product.  You will find it at www.mistyfuse.com, and perhaps your local quilt shop.  Ask for it if they aren't carrying Mistyfuse products.

Thanks to all of you who offered some advice on the batik fabric I am looking for.  While I'm not desperate enough to put out an all-points bulletin for it (I just thought I'd ask if anyone had seen it), I did get some great information on looking for fabric that is suddenly hard to find.  I thought I'd share that information here:

1.  www.quiltshops.com - this site links to a whole bunch of online quilt shops.  You can type in your search criteria, whatever that may be, and start looking through all the results.  A great tool, that I did know about and do use sometimes.

2.  www.missingfabrics.com - this site lets you post an ad where you can describe the fabric you are looking for and you can send a photo along so that viewers can see what the fabric looks like.  This site is especially helpful for those of you who have already started your project and you suddenly run out of a certain fabric and can't find it where you last bought it.

I imagine there are other web sites that are similar to these that help find fabrics.  One thing that I think the online quilt shops should do is to be more universal as to the information they list for each fabric they sell.  They should include the manufacturer, the pattern name, the pattern number, the colorway the manufacturer gives it, etc.  While some shops do this, sadly some do not.

On to other stuff!  I've had some questions about my method of washing and drying quilts before I add the binding.  You've asked why I do this.  Well the answer is simple!  I don't know.  I simply just started doing this when I wanted to bring up the quilted textures in the quilt after it was quilted.  I usually only do this when I use wool batting.  I really have no intelligent sounding reason as to why I do this.

Another question many of you have had is why I block the quilts.  Some of you hadn't heard of it.  I think for most quilts that will be used, such as a baby quilt or lap quilt, blocking is not necessary since these types of quilts will be washed periodically.  But for quilts that I make for hanging on the wall, such as art quilts, I block them so they hang flat and the corners are squared and the edges are straight.  When I block a quilt I dampen it with a spritzer bottle of water, then lay it out on a surface I can pin into, and with my rulers and tape measures, I pin it so it is straight and square.  This sometimes means I need to stretch the quilt an 1/8" or 1/4" to get it to behave in certain areas. Let the quilt dry.  Depending on the surface you are pinned to, you may even use a steam iron to help the quilt relax into the desired shape.

Thanks for all your comments, suggestions, and questions.  I love hearing from you.

Wanted

Have you seen this fabric?  Is it lurking in your local quilt shop?  Do you have an unusually large cutting of this in your stash?

I recently got this fat eighth of fabric in a bundle of fabric I purchased from an online source.  I have fallen deeply in love with it and actually have a stack of coordinating fabrics started for a future quilt.  This fits in perfectly.  I contacted the online source to see if they had more, but sadly, it was not to be.  I also searched other online sites in hopes of finding it. (insert pout here)

So I'm asking you for your help.  If you know a quilt shop that has a bolt of this lurking on its shelves, I'd love to hear from you.  If you have some in your stash and would part with it, I'd love to hear from you.  I will purchase it, trade for it, or work up some kind of deal.

The fabric in question is a batik by Timeless Treasures and I don't know the name of the pattern or colorway.  The colors in it are beige-ish leaves surrounded by golden oranges and olive greens.

Star Pool

I've completed the quilting on this quilt. This quilt is around a baby/crib size. Here it is just after pulling it out from the dryer, before binding is added.

When I started looking closely at it I found that some of the dye had migrated in the washer. Most of the blue/green fabrics I used in this are from my beginning fabric dyeing days. So my guess is I didn't rinse them well enough. But the funny thing is that only one of the white fabrics really took on a blue-ish hue. The other whites stayed white. Weird. In the photo above, the white (now blue) fabric that changed is on the far left, middle.

Here is a floor level view. You can see that the stars have some dimension. I didn't quilt them so that they would pop.

I have the binding all made and sewn to the front of the quilt. I'm hoping to work on the hand stitching part over the next few days. I'll share a photo of the binding fabric I used and a view of the back when it's all done.

Creative Cue: Morning

The Creative Cue for last week was morning. I'm just a little bit behind. Here is my drawing for morning. I love doughnuts, don't you? Do they look like doughnuts?

Under the Needle

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I would share the project I started quilting. I'm not doing anything fancy here. In fact, if you look closely, or perhaps don't, you will see that my free motion quilting is not show quality....far far from it. Little wobbles here and there from when I stop and readjust the quilt. Try as I might to keep the fabric straight under the needle after an adjustment, I still get off course from the movements.

Thank you so much to all of you who commented on the knee lift. It definitely sounds like I'm not alone in my avoidance of using it. I really want to give it another try, and I'm hoping this time around to try it with more conviction and perseverance.

Thangles and Knee Lifts

Can you say P R O C R A S T I N A T I O N? yES! i SAID procrastination! That's what I'm doing lately. I've been putting off finishing the work on two quilts. One is my communication-themed Fiberactions group quilt, which is due Mar. 15. And the other is the bluebird quilt I shared a while back or longer (I have no idea how far back I shared it as I'm too lazy to go look), which by the way really has no deadline, but sort of does just for the fact that it really should get done.

I know I'm not the only person who procrastinates. I have differing reasons for procrastinating too. Mostly, though, the main reason I do so is because the art work in limbo is not going well, not proceeding according to the vision in my head, or I'm unsure of where I should go next. So that's why those two quilts are in the avoidance heap.

I know I'll get back to them at some point, and I keep telling myself that it won't help to get stressed about it. The deadline for the Fiberactions quilt will help me get going on that one.

So what have I been doing in the meantime? Well I had a lazy day (a.k.a. low-motivation day), I had an update-the-business-end-of-things day for tax purposes, and now I'm starting quilting on a quilt I shared here even longer ago, that's been sitting in the UFO pile. I'll share a photo of that, maybe tomorrow.

Another thing I've been doing in the meantime is thinking about the knee-lift feature of my sewing machine. I never use it! I have tried it in the past. I found it to be in my way, cumbersome, and then I'd find myself just lifting the presser foot how I normally would, with my hand on the lever. I also found it hard to coordinate the use of the knee-lift and the use of my foot on the gas pedal. Too much responsibility for one leg!

I've been wondering to myself lately, how long would it/does it take to actually become accustomed to using the knee-lift. And is it possible to convert. So I'm asking you, do you use your sewing machine knee-lift? Why or why not? If so, did you always use it or how long did it take you to get comfortable with it? Thanks for any input/advice/etc. you have to offer.

Oh and I couldn't just have a blog post without a photo. Here's my latest find/purchase. Thangles! I know these have been around for a long while, but I've never bought any. The Block of the Month program I'm doing through Three Creative Studios, has a lot of these units in the blocks. So I'm trying a pack out to see if I think I should just continue to print my own paper templates or if this is the only way to half-square triangle.

Bubble Wrap in the Garden

Woo hoo! I finished this quilt. Just put the final stitches in the binding last evening. I still need to block it however. It measures approximately 45" square.

 

Here's the back. I like how the extra blocks dress it up and almost give it a reversible look. I took the photo without a flash so you could see the quilted texture better.

  

I quilted it in an overall circular design. I love how this looks. After the quilting was completed, I tossed the quilt into the washer and dryer to bring up the texture.

  

Every time I look at it, it reminds me of bubble wrap. Here I just had to see if it would pop.

 

The fabric is part of a line called Garden Song by Nancy Halvorson. Since the completed quilting looks like bubble wrap, I dubbed the quilt Bubble Wrap in the Garden. It sounds sort of like the name for a song, doesn't it? Come on, hum a few bars with me!

New Blocks on the Block

Today was the release of not one, but two new blocks for the Block of the Month program at Three Creative Studios. Block 6 is the next block in the original 9-block line up. Here are my two versions of Block 6.

 

Vicki Welsh created a bonus block and she so kindly shared how she constructed Bonus Block 1A. This block is similar to Block 1, but with a slight design change. Here are my two versions of Bonus Block 1A.

Also new over at Three Creative Studios is a great little case/holder for a Droid or iPhone, created by Vicki. You'll find the instructions on the free projects page here.

And if that's not enough stuff for you to create, how about a metallic painted fabric tutorial. The next Technique of the Month at Three Creative Studios is just that. A great tutorial by Vicki.

Tote Tuesday

If you’ve been watching Tote Tuesday, then you’re already familiar with the awesome totes that have already been auctioned off.  Today, February 16, there’s a Three Creative Studios themed tote up for auction!

 

This tote is packed with good stuff from 3CS: 

• Creative Ways with Books and Journals book donated by Sue Bleiweiss 
• Gift Certificate for any one online class donated by Sue Bleiweiss 
• Creative Paper Quilts book donated by me
• Artist Trading Card (ATC) donated by me
• Three packages of gorgeous hand-dyed fabric by Vicki Welsh

And it also includes a silk velvet journal from Sue B:

But that’s not all that’s in the tote!  There’s also:

• Black-and-white Schlep Bag made by the tote’s coordinator Peggy Schroder 
• Free Motion Fun with Vines & Leaves DVD donated by Patsy Thompson 
• Fiber bookmark donated by Susan Slesinger 
• Six spools Aurifil thread donated by Donna Morales-Oemig 
• Two three-packs of thread donated by Donna Morales-Oemig

Also up for separate bidding is a mixed-media painting I made.

10" x 10"  gallery wrapped canvas.  Textured with molding paste, layers of paint and stamped and stenciled designs for added interest.

Another friend of mine, Gerrie Congdon, has a small art quilt up for individual bidding. 

All the information on Tote Tuesday, previews of all the totes that are up for auction and how to participate are on Virginia’s website here.

Pieced Top

I almost forgot to do my sketch this week for Creative Cue. The cue word is "tie". Here is the drawing I did last night.

Last evening I was able to finish up with piecing this quilt top.

Here is a close up. These pictures aren't that great since I was taking them after dark.

I have a few leftover blocks and plan to piece those into the quilt backing. I have seen others do this and have done it once myself. I have great hopes to get the back pieced and the quilt sandwiched over the weekend. Dare I hope to start quilting?

Valentine's Weekend

It's that pink and red time of year again. To celebrate Valentine's Day I made a small quilt.

What do you enjoy most about Valentine's Day?

A few of you have asked me about the red rotary cutter that appeared in a recent photo. It's an ergonomic cutter that I purchased here.

I've only been using it for less than a year and while it took a little getting used to at first, I find that I really like it. Sometimes when I use my previous rotary cutter (which I save for cutting through paper), I find it awkward to go back to holding that style of cutter.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Quilt Progress

Yesterday I made some progress on the pink/green quilt. I got all the square in a square blocks done.

And then I was able to start on the cream sashing in between each block.

And then I came to a screeching halt. I ran out of cream fabric. So guess what I did today? I went to the quilt shop and got some more. I also picked out a fabric for the binding that is from the same line of fabric. I also picked up some more batting. Oh and then I saw they had gotten some new batiks in and two of them really caught my eye......is this the same way it goes for you at the quilt shop?

On the Cutting Table

Last evening I suddenly was restless and felt like making something that was simple and more traditional than I usually work. So I pulled out some of those new fabrics that I bought recently (mentioned here), and started cutting and stitching. I made eight of these pink/green blocks and at this point plan to make 25 for a 5 x 5 setting with cream fabrics as a sashing.

Wanna Win Something?

This is the next Block of the Month prize package. What's that you ask? How do you win it? Well let me tell you! Make block #5 from the Three Creative Studios Block of the Month and share a photo of your block #5 in the Three Creative Studios forums. The deadline to get your photo uploaded in the forums is midnight, Feb. 15. (next Monday). A winner will be drawn from all those who share their block. Perhaps it could be you? If you haven't participated in the Block of the Month, you can still play along. You don't have to start from the beginning. Join in at any time. The more, the merrier.

That's Odd!

This week's Creative Cue word is "odd". After thinking about what to draw for a few days, I came up with the following.

Some time ago I got a great sketchbook from my good friend Sue. She makes fabulous books! So I finally decided to get busy and use this great book.

So here are the first four pages in the book. I've been creating fairly quick sketches which I then go over in pen and gray markers.

Wishing you a fabulous weekend.

Not Welcome Here

For a few days now, I've been getting many comments left on my blog that are spam. Essentially the commenter leaves a nice and pretty comment that relates to the blog post, but then they provide a link to a site that I do not endorse or visit or want anything to do with.

 

I've declared my blog a "no spam zone". Unfortunately I've had to change the settings in my blog comment setup. I will now be moderating the comments, unfortunately. It's too bad that we bloggers have to adjust to the spammers. They make Internet usage miserable. So I just wanted to let you all know if you leave me a comment and it doesn't show up right away, this is why.

In other, more exciting news...I recently learned that two quilts I submitted to AQS-Lancaster quilt show have been accepted. I was thrilled beyond words. If you visit here, you can see all the wonderful artists who will be sharing a quilt or quilts in this show. And for general information on this show, click here. The Lancaster show dates are March 24-27, 2010.

And I just had to end this post with a photo of something more interesting than a "no spam" sign. I'm preparing to create Block 6 for the Block of the Month through Three Creative Studios.

 

Have a happy, "no spam" kind of day!

I'm a Sucker

I had to stop by the local quilt shop today to drop off some books. I couldn't remember the last time I had been in there and so I strolled around to see what was new. BIG MISTAKE! I fell in love with the following:

This is a new fabric line called Garden Song by Nancy Halvorsen. And this isn't all of the fabrics in the line. I picked out my favorites. There is also a light blue colorway, but I chose not to get those. I'll probably regret that later. I need more fabric like I need more holes in my head!!! Silly me, what was I thinking? Oh wait, I wasn't thinking...I was sucked in by all the lovely fabric. Note: the two cream colored fabrics way to the right in the bottom row are from a different fabric line.

Now I need to come up with a great quilt project for these. If you have any suggestions, do tell!

Time for Tea

Here's a small quilt I just finished today. I started it late last week and worked on it whenever I got the chance. It measures 12" x 12" and I've named it Time for Tea. I'm considering donating this one to the SAQA One Foot Square Auction, but not positive yet. I may make a couple more quilts this size and then make my decision on which one to donate.

If you are unfamiliar with SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates), you will find them here on the web. Anyone can become a member, you don't even have to make art quilts...you could just be an art quilt lover/admirer/collector. Here is where you can read more about the One Foot Square Auction.