Craftivity@QuiltCon 2016

Cotton + Steel is my favorite fabric manufacturer, and they also happened to have had the coolest craftivities at their booth.  They had fat quarters and yardage of all of their cool fabrics for visitors to sew a) a headscarf; b) a lanyard for hanging a name tag; c) a pincushion; or d) a charity block.  AND a tattooist who used a pen that surgeons use to ink their patients.  I was torn between nautical and the arrow--and you can see what I chose because I thought later I might add a red heart.  This would be a fun activity to host with teens at my high school library.

From Photo to Quilt@QuiltCon 2016

Highlight is the color of the year from Kona Cottons, and pictured are Kona's color of the year sewn into projects by other modern quilters.

I did an exercise recommended by a lot of modern quilters, where you find a photograph or picture with colors you love to develop a palette for a quilt. You then find from their line of fabrics of their line swatches that you think match the colors you love in the pic. I chose the daffodils photo and do quite love the colors of fabrics I found, but I know to be mindful of the proportions found in the pic too. Yellow, and in this case, Highlight can overwhelm and I would make sure not to jolt too much and to keep the yellow at a minimum if I do make a quilt from these colors. 

Work in Progress: Single Irish Chain Lap Quilt

Sew Geek! the color palette to my next sewing project: a single Irish chain lap quilt that's a wedding present, and so I was looking for the flesh and blush tones of the bridesmaid dresses to coordinate as solid patches with linen because I learned the bride likes rustic textures like burlap. I may omit the print fabric because simple is always better and subtraction is my modus operandi, but my plan is to refine my hand appliqué skills and sew them into hexagons to embellish plain tea towels

Work in Progress: Blocks for the Backing of my Valentine Quilt

Drunkard's Path Block, but I probably won't use it for the back of my Valentine's quilt as it's not as pleasing when set on point.

 Medium-view and close-up of a hand appliqué block which I decided to embroider with the saying, "Love is all" in French.

A close-up view of the block I decided to embroider into a quilt label.  I am calling this quilt "Would you like to cuddle with me this evening" in French on a play of the phrase of "voulez-vous coucher aver moi?" because some might consider it a raunchy phrase and I wanted to make it PG-13.

Close-up view of my quilt label.

And lastly, a Drunkard's Path block to contrast my French saying blocks.

Thread Bag

Work in Progress: Valentine Quilt

This pink, purple, and coral hued quilt top is done!  I have two odd blocks that don't fit the top because one block, a Churn Dash is orange and the other block is a purple and orange Arkansas Crossroads.  I forgot to include the pink background fabric into those two blocks; however I plan to choose another block to sew from my block tool guide and then incorporate those three blocks into the backing or not and make three totally new blocks that incorporate the skill of hand appliqué which I didn't try for the front of this quilt.  I bought 3 yards of a purple fabric that's a possibility, or that purple might become the binding if I choose the backing fabric to be more Kona pink fabric.  Another design decision is whether to learn how to free motion quilt for which I bought another foot for my machine or farm it out to the studio to long arm quilt with a computerized design of hearts OR find a long arm quilter to consult with and give input on the design of the stitching.  This quilt ain't perfect.  Up close I can see crooked or loose seams, but those don't matter to me because I made it and quilting will cover those flaws just like glazing covers my mistakes in ceramics and results in a beauty of its own called wabi wabi.  I rather love the imperfect prettiness of my color and block choices.

Work in Progress: Blocks for Tula Pink's Butterfly Quilt