Feeling Groovy

Well I've been working like a mad woman on my UFOs. And I'm actually getting some of them completed. Oh how good that feels.

In the last two blog posts I shared a couple of quilts I'm working on. One of those will be a king size quilt for my bed and I finished the piecing of that quilt top this morning. JOY!!! Now I need to purchase some backing fabric and piece that together and then I can hand it off to my long arm quilter. More JOY!

And the dotty quilt is completely pieced together. I need to get a picture of that one yet. Next step for that quilt is to sandwich it and start quilting.

And here are a couple of other projects I've finished. First up is a quilt I had partially finished from a class I taught at my LQS. In the class we used Jacquard Dye-Na-Flow and painted two pieces of fabric. One was to create a gradation, which you can see in the outer borders in the quilt below. And the other painting technique we did was to put rubber bands all over the fabric to create some color patterning (which is my center panels in the quilt below). And finally in the class we created free form quilts that are fused and free motion quilted.

And here is the next project I started and completed today. A composition notebook cover. The Technique of the Month over at 3 Creative Studios right now is free-motion couching taught to us by Leslie Vaskey McNeil. So I thought, since I have this free motion couching foot for my sewing machine, I would give this a try. I had played with this technique briefly when I purchased the presser foot but hadn't gone back to it.

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Pieces and Parts

Here is some of what I've been working on the past few days.

I'm going to make this quilt.

No, I didn't make the quilt above...my friend Martha did and I just love it! She is teaching the class at my LQS (Sewing Machines Plus) and I wanted to make the quilt, so I took the class. We met for the first class last Saturday and I got many of the curved arcs paper pieced and then I've worked more on the remaining elements this week.

I'm now ready for the next class, this coming Saturday. We will start piecing the curved blocks together. I have a spot all picked out in my foyer where I want to hang this quilt. I hope it fits.

I bought a fabric kit to make this quilt. I've never bought a kit before this and the only reason I did this time is because all the fabrics in this quilt are dots/circles/rounds/etc. I know that I didn't want to start purchasing a bunch of fabrics for my stash just to make this quilt....so I decided to buy a kit. I think my quilt will have a darker border than the one shown above, but I'm totally fine with that. If you are wondering, the quilt pattern for this quilt is called Completely Dotty by Piece O'Cake Designs.

A Bit of This and That

There hasn't been very much exciting things happening in the studio over the past week. I have decided to try and get a quilt top finished and I'm finding it quite challenging since it's more traditional than I usually work and I tend to get bored quickly with it. But I'm sticking to my guns and I'm determined to finish the piecing over the next few days or weeks. I started this quilt about a year ago. I'm tired of it taking up space in my studio and I worry that I might use the fabric designated for it in another project. Oh, and it sure would be nice to see it on my bed!

So over the last few days, when I can sneak into my sewing room, I've been piecing lots of these:

And then I'm making lots of these:

The pattern I'm making is named Tarantella and it's by www.pieintheskyquilts.com. I'm really bad about following directions, though, and for the wider strip that is in the pattern, I used 2.5" strips from a jelly roll instead of the 2 3/4" strip called for in the pattern. I can be a rebel sometimes!!!! :)

Also over the past few days we have been dealing with a sick kitty:

My Zoey got sick last weekend and we needed to take her to a weekend emergency vet. After some x-rays, it turns out she has a condition that happens in some animals, in which some of her vertebrae are fusing together. We now understand why, over the past year, we have noticed her moving differently and not jumping as easily (we thought it was because she carries a bit of excess weight). Anyway, she evidently must have moved wrong or something and aggravated/injured the area and was in a lot of pain. She's now mending and healing and getting better and we've had to be creative and do things around the house so that she isn't trying to do things that she shouldn't.

In other news...
Over at 3 Creative Studios, we have a new guest artist. Leslie Vaskey McNeil is sharing her technique of free-motion couching. Watch for information from Leslie through the month (June 16 - July 15)

I have provided a new tutorial over at 3CS this month as well. I share with you how I create my thread sketches.

And be sure to visit Vicki's etsy shop for a special sale she is having on her hand dyed fabrics. It's Vicki's anniversary sale and it lasts through June 20. Hurry!!! Read more here.

Many Cases

I haven't been in the studio too much lately.  This is mostly because it is that time of year when it's (supposed to be) nicer outside and I spend more time on the riding lawn mower, gardening, and just enjoying the great outdoors in general.

I have gotten to sew some over the last two or three weeks.  I was mainly working on the above. They are pillowcases.  30 pillowcases to be exact!  They are folded up, in case it's a little hard to tell exactly what they are.  I had pulled the fabrics from my stash a couple of months ago to make these and then the fabric piles just sat there as I seemed to deem other projects more important.

So I decided to tackle the pillowcase project and get them done and outta there.  These are for donation to local community programs.  It not only feels good to donate these, but it feels good to get those fabric piles out of my way and also to get rid of some of the fabrics from my stash that I just didn't seem to use.  Makes me wonder why I bought them in the first place.

A Slow Process

This is a painting that I've been working on over the course of maybe about two weeks.    It's a mixed-media project which includes papers, paint, pencils, and crayons on a 10" square gallery wrapped canvas.

I still have a few finishing touches to add to it.  It appears somewhat glossy in the photo.  I haven't applied a varnish to it yet, so I'm thinking it must be from the spray fixative I applied to it.

This kitty cat has not whispered anything to me yet as far as what he/she wants for a name.  

Earlier this week I was wearing my wool socks, but that's all changed now to wearing no socks at all.  Oh my, drastic changes...can they be good?

Kitty Cat Pouch

I found some more hand painted fabric scraps that had been around for a couple of years or so, and thought about how I could create them into something.  There was just enough there to make a zipper pouch.  I looked through my stash of zippers and found one in the right colors and size.

I added the hand painted cat after I had the outer fabric quilted, but before constructing the pouch.

I'm not happy with how the bottom of the pouch turned out.  I had a heavy fabric stitched there (more scraps) and it doesn't want to play nice.  It wants to buckle in the middle where the seam is and not sit flat.  Oh well...lesson learned.

Spice

Spice of Life Girls - 12" x 12"

Today is the reveal of the color play quilts with a spice theme, over on the Twelve by Twelve blog.

Check them out as they make their appearances and see how each of twelve quilt artists interpreted this theme.

You can read more about my quilt over at the Twelve by Twelve blog.