Happy Scraps Revealed

I'm finally getting around to posting the photos of my finished quilt.  I really meant to do this sooner, but you know how life can get in the way.  I was so busy last week that I didn't know if I was coming or going!  

Happy Scraps
60.5" x 79.5"

So, finally, here is my crumb quilt "Happy Scraps" for it's official photo.

And here is the back of the quilt.  I think I over-estimated how much backing I needed because most of the third strip of the log cabin on each side has been trimmed off.  But better than too small!  I'm still not real enamored of this backing.  I love the panel I used in the middle but I wish I had used dark fabric all the way around it.  Oh well - Finished is better than Perfect!

Here is a block that shows off the quilting in the sashing that Shari, my long-arm quilter, did.  She used a multi-colored thread, which I love.

Of course Corvettes and rubber duckies go together!  *grin*

And here is the border quilting and the binding.  The border fabric has every color except blue.  There's a lot of the light blue/turquoise in the quilt, so that's the color I picked for the binding.  I usually prefer a dark binding on my quilts, but this just seemed right for this quilt.

So, now I'm picking out fabrics and packing my gear for my class with Gwen Marston on Small Quilts this Saturday.  I'm so excited about this class I can hardly stand it!  Nifty Quilts and Buffy of Rebels blog are going to be there too!  Whoo hoo!  I'll see you next week with a report on the class..

This, That and The Other

I had three quilt guild meetings last week!  We have both a day group and a night group in one guild, and I ended up going to both meetings.  The night group was Monday night, and that's when we received the pattern and instructions for the blocks we need to make for our raffle quilt for this year.  The pattern was this scrappy 8 inch star, and the directions were for earth tones.  If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you know I almost never do earth tones!  I had to look for some examples in some quilt books to help me out a little.  You'll notice I actually do own plenty of the earth tones. 

We need to make at least 2 blocks each, so I wanted to get these done for the day meeting on Friday.  It took hours to cut all these pieces!  I was trying to not have both blocks exactly the same.  I used scraps, as much as I could.  I mean, that's why I have them, right? I'm happy with the blocks - I think they came out pretty good for someone that really doesn't do earth tones.

For Mother's Day, Dear D-I-L treated all three of us (her, me and her Mom) to pedicures.  That was a treat - my very first pedicure!  It won't be my last. LOL  My toes are the purple with the polka dots.  They make me smile every time I see them.

I finally got my liberated log cabins quilt top pin-basted and I've started the quilting.  I'm maybe 1/4 of the way done with the dense quilting.  But now I'm stalled because I've run out of thread.  Rats!  Off to the quilt store in the morning for more thread.

You can see better how far I got on the quilting in this picture.  Well, except for Hamlet sitting on the quilt!  When I stopped for dinner and lack of thread, I brought the quilt downstairs so everyone could admire what I have so far. Hamlet decided to jump the gun and do some premature quilt inspection!  I want to have this done by the weekend.  So, you know what I'll be doing this week!  Wish me luck.

A Flimsy, Finally

Here's some early May Day flowers for you!

My granddaughters came over on Saturday, and A~ wanted to make paper flowers.  I kept making them after she left!  They were fun.  I used this tutorial.  They call them carnations, but I think mine look more like ranunculus. They were fun to make!  A~ and I made more and different flowers than this, but I forgot to get a picture of them.  She wanted some flowers for the pottery vase that DH made for her - how sweet!  

I have to put these up where Dunkel can't get to them, because he gets them and carries them around the house at night.  When I woke up yesterday there was one lying in the upstairs hallway.  At least it wasn't in bed with me!  (Have I ever mentioned what a crazy cat Dunkel is??  He often brings his toys and puts them in bed with us at night.)

The pipe cleaners were still out on the counter when The Kid got home and made a disturbing discovery with his package of Twizzlers.  Weird, huh?  Is all that food coloring even good for you?  I'm guessing Not.

OK, enough silliness - back to quilting now!  Here is my Liberated Log Cabins from the other day.   I finally got it all sewn together and the first border on it.  

I had started the Liberated Equilateral Sawtooth border in the class with Gwen Marston last year.  Gwen had demonstrated it for us.  I was a little worried because I couldn't quite remember how to do it.  So you can imagine how relieved I was to find that the instructions are also in her Liberated Quiltmaking II book! (page 67)  It was easier than I remembered it.  I had so much fun I made 2 borders!

The 2nd border I managed to get even wonkier.  I got brave enough to play around with it, and I'm really happy with how it worked.  I like it so much I may have to make a whole quilt like this someday!.

I thought maybe all triangles in the borders might be overpowering for the log cabins, and I wanted to mix things up some, so then I made the pieced insert borders.  Those were fun too.  Finally I tied it all together with more of the plaid that is in the centers of the log cabins.  And look, there's even points on some of those triangles!  So, it's now a liberated not-really-but-kind-of-medallion!  

And this is all that's left of the plaid fabric.  Enough to do a little something on the back of the quilt, hopefully.  Which I will try to do sometime this week.  I want to get this basted and ready to quilt soon.

My crumb blocks quilt is back from the long-armer, and I'm currently getting the binding done.  I'm almost 1/2 way around the quilt, so pictures to come soon!  Which is a good thing, because the next quilt is already in the mail and on it's way here.  Whoo hoo!  I LOVE getting quilts back from the quilter!

Spring Is Really Here!

Spring has taken it's time getting to Western Washington, but I think we can safely assume now that it's really here.  Everything is blooming *ah-choo!*, the swallows and bugs are here, the frogs are croaking and the birds and ducks are courting and nest building. Oh, and the lawn needed mowing!  We won't talk about all the weeds busily growing everywhere, OK?

Here is my camellia.  I wasn't sure it would bloom this year, because of our big ice storm in January.  It didn't bloom in 2011 because of an early, hard freeze and snow storm the previous November.  But here it is!  I'm so glad to know that it survived.

And here are some sweet little violets.  They are all over the yard, and I just love them.  I keep threatening to put them in pots so that I can enjoy them up close, but I never seem to get to it.

Here are my blocks for the Block Lotto this month.  The pattern is called Hot Crossed 9-Patch.  I only got 2 made, and I'm hoping it's enough to win.  One can hope, right?  I really like this block.  If I don't win some of these, I may have to put this on my Bucket List of quilts to do.  I certainly have the plaid stash to do it, and then some!

The Kid got sick with a nasty virus about 3 weeks ago.  Then I got it a week later.  And, of course, DH got sick a week after me.  It's not the flu, according to the doctor, just a virus.  It has really kicked our butts. We even had to cancel having the family over for Easter.  :(  

 I'm finally feeling better, but I'm not totally up to speed yet.  And I'm still coughing some, although I have managed to get off the cough meds and inhalers finally.  DH is still fighting it.  The house has pretty much gone to rack and ruin in the meantime.  Ugh.  I hate having to do all that housework when I start feeling better.  Not that I ever like doing housework, you understand.  *grin* 

The only thing good about this is that I did manage to get some sewing done!  DH HATES the vaporizer.  I really needed it.  So, my solution was to basically lock myself in the quilt studio with the steam monster and sew.  And I made progress!

I started with 4 blocks and various bits and parts from the Liberated Log Cabin class I had with Gwen Marston last year.  This is what I had after 2 or 3 days of free-piecing the blocks.

BTW, this piece is really hard to get a decent picture of.  The green and turquoise fabrics are pretty bright and that hot pink is really bright!  The darkest fabric isn't really black, it's purple and it's not as dark as it looks here.  Maybe when it's all put together I can get a photo with true colors outside in better light.

And this was the next day, starting to put the blocks together and add the border pieces.  I'm working on more borders now, and will have more photos soon.  I'm happy with how this is coming together.  And it's been so fun to work on that I didn't mind being sick so much.  I've spent just about every evening for the last week in the quilt studio working on this.    

Of course, my quilting kitty, Shade, had to be in the studio with me.  You can see he's holding down those pesky fabric strips for me.  Actually, this is him NOT looking at the camera.  He doesn't like getting his photo taken too much.  I got quite a few photos just like this.

Got him!  Look at that long-suffering look on his face - hee hee!  Don't worry - he got lots of kisses and pets for being a good boy and letting me get a shot of him.  He's so happy when we're in the studio together. 

Happy Easter!

Happy Passover and Happy Spring Holiday!  Whatever you celebrate, I hope you have a good one.

Here's a little "cheater" cloth quilt I made a few years ago.  I just took a cute Debbie Mumm print that I only had a small scrap of and added some borders to it.  Quick, easy and fun and I do love me some bunnies!

It's been a while since my last post and I have very little to show for it.  I've hardly been in the quilt studio in the last two weeks.  I did get some Block Lotto blocks started, but they're not ready to show yet.

Here are some "liberated" Disappearing 4-Patches that I made for a friend's birthday gift last month.  The theme was pastels, so I decided to use some of the fabrics that she and I dyed/painted together for her gift.  The green in the blocks above was originally some hand-marbled fabric that I made, but I wasn't happy with it.  Too much white and not enough of the marbled greens, so I over-dyed it with green last year.  I think it's much improved now.  The blue is an over-dyed white-on-white fabric.

These 2 blocks were my first try and they're my favorites!  And they were a dumb mistake design opportunity.  I started with the pink/orange and blue/green fabrics and made a 4-patch.  (To see how to do this wonky 4-patch technique, go see the tutorial on the  Love Laugh Quilt blog here.  Thanks, Beth!)  Just as I was doing the wonky cutting, it dawned on me that I needed 2 4-patches that are alike to make this block wonky.  So, there I was with one wonky block that was not going to fit back together.  The problem was, I didn't have enough of those 2 fabrics to cut more patches from.  So, I had to improvise.  I found the purple and yellow fabrics and thought all the fabrics played nicely together, so I made another 4-patch.  I took the first block (remember, it was already sliced and diced) and layered it on top of the still-complete 2nd 4-patch and veeerrrry caaarefully cut along the "lines".  Then I shuffled and sewed it back together.  Ta Da!  It worked!

I am so pleased with how these blocks came out.  Those wonderful pastel colors remind me of Easter eggs and jelly beans!.  Now, I think I have to make a whole quilt of these with my large stack of hand-dyed fabrics that have been waiting for just the right project!  Oh goodie, another project to start!  

Happy quilting!

Festival of Scrappiness

It's finally time for the Festival of Scrappiness hosted by Rachel over at Stitched in Color.  On January 2nd this year, Rachel started the Scrap Attack and issued the challenge to all who were interested to make scrap quilts and projects.  Now it's time for everyone to show off their creations, and there's even prizes! 

Happy Scraps
63 x 82 inches

Here is my entry in the the festival.  "Happy Scraps" is all crumb blocks, which I learned about from Bonnie Hunter over at Quiltville.  I made the very first blocks about 5 or 6 years ago.  We were in the middle of selling the house and moving and I had to put all my sewing projects away to show the house.  I kept out a small bin of scraps and my machine while everything else went into storage for the duration.  When we actually sold the house and drove out of town, heading for the Pacific Northwest, this also came along in the car with me.  I've worked on these blocks off and on ever since, and yesterday this got put into a box and sent to my long-arm quilter for her to work her magic on it.  Yay!  


This actually ended up much bigger than I had originally envisioned.  You can see my "quilt holder" up above is struggling to hold it all up!  I was thinking just a lap quilt, but now it's big enough to snuggle into, or even to use on the bed.  I'm still a little unsure of how all this large-ness actually occurred.  
  

I got somewhat of a wild hair and decided to piece the back.  I started with this panel that I love and then decided to make it a log cabin block.  The world's largest log cabin block?  Probably not, but it sure felt like it!  I was trying to use up some fabrics that have been in the stash for too many years awhile.  Now that it's done, I'm not so sure I like it.  I'm hoping that the quilting will help.

Here are some random blocks, letting you see some of the fun fabrics I used.

I've made lots of other crumb blocks since I started, and even finished a few charity quilts with them.  But these are some of my favorite blocks, with fabrics that have meaning to me.  Lots of baby quilts, pillowcases and scraps of other quilts that I've made are in these.

I also used some random orphans and rejected bits.  That just adds to the fun!  Anything really does go in these crumb blocks.

Recently my quilt guild hosted a "crumb workshop" for the members.  Many of the members had never heard of crumb blocks and wanted to know how to make them.  They were fascinated by my quilt top.  It was a lot of fun.  We made enough blocks for about 9 charity lap quilts, and still have so many blocks in process that we'll be having another workshop to finish them.  Everyone that came had fun, and I think many of them are "hooked" now.

If you haven't tried crumb blocks yet, I suggest that you give it a try.  It's fun, and I call it therapy sewing.  There are no mistakes and it's stress free.  Plus, you get rid of some of the scraps and end up with something useful using something that might otherwise have been tossed out.

And now, please go visit the Festival of Scrappiness and see what all the other quilters have been up to.  There are some wonderful quilts to be seen!  And thanks for the kick in the pants to get this finished, Rachel!

A Finish and An Award

At long last, my Liberated Amish Challenge quilt is totally done!

You can read more about this challenge by scrolling waaaay down to the list of labels on the left-side of my blog and clicking on the tag "Liberated Amish Challenge".  There's a few posts - apparently I've been pretty wordy about this project!

"Snuggle"
53 inches by 65 inches

It took me some months to get around to getting the binding done.  I couldn't find any of the fabrics I used on the front, so ended up using the batik backing fabric I trimmed off the quilt.

Here is the back, with the pieced label I did.  I will be adding another label with more information on it.

A close up of the piecing, with the free-pieced Unruly letters from Lazy Gal Tonya.

Here's a photo of my free-pieced word on the front, all quilted.

And here's a shot of the quilting on one of the blocks.  This photo has the truest colors.

And a photo of the quilting that Shari did in the alternate blocks.  She knows I love Celtic knotwork.  I left this picture high contrast so the quilting would show up well.

I'm so happy that this quilt is finished and ready for use!  

The talented Kelly over at Pinkadot Quilts has nominated me for the Liebster Blog Award.  Thank you so much, Kelly!  I'm honored.  Go check out her blog.  She is making a small quilt every week for her personal journal quilt, and she's making some beauties!

The Liebster Blog Award rules:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award.

2. Link back to their blog.

3. Copy and paste the Liebster award to your profile.

4. Pick 5 blogs that you feel deserve to be in the spotlight (they must have @200 followers or under).

5. Blog about it and leave a comment for your nominations to let them know that you have chosen their blog.

Here are my blog nominations for Liebster Awards:

1.  Joe Tulips at Joe Tulips Quilts blog.  She has made the BEST zombie quilt ever, she makes funny, fabulous cards (both paper and fabric), she geocaches, and she makes great quilts too!  She always has something fun to see on her blog.  Oh, and she's pretty obsessed with the Scrappy Trips pattern, and it's my fault.

2.  Michelle at Nostalgic Cafe.  Michelle is a funny lady - she'll make you smile.  Right now she's having some snake-y issues.  She also has some intriguing recipes on her blog.  Oh yeah, she makes bright, happy, fun quilts too!

3.  Kate at Kate Kwiltz blog.  Kate is another ADD quilter like I am, but you wouldn't know it.  She's in the process of making 5 baby quilts and 2 wedding quilts that are due this spring.  She's making great progress.  She makes great modern quilts with a real grounding in tradition.  

4.  Maureen at Pursuit of Quilts.  Maureen does more traditional quilts with great style.  Right now she has two posts up that are full of eye candy from two big quilt shows that she has visited.

5. Sharon at Grass Roots Quilting.  Sharon is making the Beyond The Cherry Tree quilt and is making great progress as well as other quilting projects.  She does long-arm quilting with the most wonderful feathers.  She is a funny, generous quilter.  I took the Gwen Marston class last year with her, and it was great fun.  I'm happy to call her "friend".

Go take a look at their blogs.  I think you'll enjoy them as much as I do.

One last thing:  Michelle at Nostalgic Cafe blogged today about the new Dark Shadows movie starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton.  I deeply loved D.S. when it was on TV.  I think my sister and I watched every episode!  I went to IMDb (Internet Movie Database) here and watched the trailer for this movie.  It looks like it will be hilarious and great fun.  I mean, how could you go wrong with Johnny Depp??  I can't wait until May 11th when the movie is released!

Happy quilting!