adventures of a quilting diva

Last month I very nearly ripped all my hand quilting out of this quilt to start over with machine quilting. I’m glad I didn’t though, because now I know exactly how I’m going to finish the hand quilting in the solid yellow bars. =(^_^)=

Out of the vaults of Area 51 comes my We all scream for ice cream quilt, last spotted in August 2007. I did machine stitch-in-the-ditch around all parts of the individual blocks, and now I’ve started the hand quilting in the yellow strips. I couldn’t decide what to quilt, so I’m quilting right next to the 1/4″ seam allowance. I figure that by the time I’ve outlined the three columns of blocks, I’ll know what designs to quilt … or that’s my plan anyways.
Any suggestions? =(^_^)=

Here’s my flower basket blocks just finished tonight, all appliquéd, stitched together, pressed and ready for borders. This is my May 2008 block of the month block (you can still download the free pattern at Citrus Belt Quilters Block of the Month page)

I’m thinking a couple of borders, maybe a thin one and a wide one, the wide one possibly appliquéd.

Here’s some fabric I bought last weekend. My DH said he thought I should go fabric shopping, so of course how could I say no? Here’s the result:

I’ve already found a use for the dark red on the far right. It’s going in the border of my basket sampler. I came up with this border last night after watching the drag queen challenge on Project Runway.

Was it hearing Tim Gunn repeatedly tell the designers they needed to go over the top that made me lay the border out like that or just that I rarely buy enough of any single fabric to make a border without piecing it? Either way I still love it even in the morning light and will piece it together as soon as I wash that new red fabric. What do you think?

If you scroll down my blog you’ll find 3 new gadgets in the left column. They’re not the typical thing you’d expect on a quilting blog. I put them there because they’re useful to me, although I hope that some of you will find them interesting as well.

You might know that I make jewelry. It’s nice to know when the market’s down. That makes purchasing supplies much less painful if you know the right time to buy. Imagine if the price of fabric and thread fluctuated up and down on a daily basis!

The sudoku is for fun and inspiration. If you’ve never tried it, don’t let the numbers scare you away. It’s not so much about math as it is about logic and discovering the solution. Working on a design problem is the same thing, at least for me.

happy quilting! ^_^

hello everyone!

No, I haven’t disappeared completely from the face of the blogosphere. I’ve just been busy on my book, and that project is a real diva! As far as creative in-progress projects go for me, there can be only one diva on the stage at a time. She won’t share the spotlight (aka my time and attention in the studio) with anything else like say the 3 tenors do, and that includes my blog! I have been working on random small stuff the past month and a half though, so I’m going to get my digital camera out and share them with you here in the next several weeks, and get out there and visit you at your blogs as well, find out what you’ve been up to.

The first thing I have to show you is the final block that’s going into my basket sampler. I made this one only 2 days ago and will probably assemble the center panel this weekend. If you’ve been following along, I used this block in a wall hanging in February (see it here).

I can’t wait to share my book with you! I’ve had a fantastic time playing with my beads and making all the different samples and projects, so it hasn’t been all that bad abandoning my quilting and blogging for awhile. It feels strange, sitting at my sewing machine again and here on the Blogger dashboard as well. It is good to be back though. I’m finally going to participate in the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge next week, which I have not done since February 2007. Wow! Has it really been that long?

happy summer quilting! ^_^

Still working on the basket blocks. The blue hanging basket is the block for July. The other baskets are past months’ blocks that I’m catching up on for the sampler quilt which will make its debut in just a few weeks. The instructions for the hanging basket should be up on the Citrus Belt Quilters website later this week if you’re participating in the basket block of the month.
These are from an autumn block exchange at CBQ, we made 5 of the same block, turned them in at the June meeting and got a set back with 4 other blocks plus your own. Mine is the scrappy basket on the right that’s not finished yet. That one got pieced together wrong and since I only had just enough time to get to the meeting I didn’t take any photos of any of the correct blocks for you before turning them in. I’ll have to get out the good old seam ripper and try again. In the meanwhile I think you can use your imagination as to what the block is supposed to look like. It’s nice that there’s plenty of time to put them together into a neat little wall hanging before fall is upon us.
The other 4 blocks by from CBQ members Betty Cullen, Getta Hannah, Candy Mitchell and Judi Steenson. Next post I’ll show you the picture quilt my daughter Annika and I made at the CBQ June workshop and give some highlights from the guild meetings. Also coming soon: Virtual Quilt Tour of the Redlands Quilt Festival.

happy quilting! ^_^

I managed to quilt a few days this month, some more appliqué around the fused edges of my May basket blocks.

Then I made up the June basket block for the sampler. I like this block a lot for piecing and am looking forward to doing a whole quilt out of it.

And finally, here’s the result of my Machine Reverse Appliqué workshop with Nadine Kirk. I sketched out a simple 5 piece butterfly to try the techniques out on, rather than the 20+ pieces per panel in the beautiful, but too much for me original (Botanical Tulips). I not only finished the appliqué in the workshop, but also did all the sashiko-style quilting by the next morning. Next comes beading and/or hot fix crystals and an embellished binding.
If you ever get the chance to take a class from Nadine Kirk, I along with the rest of my guild members who attended wholeheartedly recommend it. This is a versatile technique you will definitely see me use again. Her trunk show at our guild meeting the next day was very inspiring as well. If you’re going to Long Beach this summer be sure to look for her quilt in the Surf’s Up exhibit.

happy quilting! ^_^
I’d love to see what you quilted in May! Just leave me a link in the comments for this post.

This month I got about a week’s worth of quilting in and here are the results:

Nine fusible appliqué basket blocks for May. They’re cut out and ironed down, but not all stitched yet.

Here’s a closeup of one of the blocks. Check on the CBQ website this weekend to download the pattern if you’d like to make them.

Quilt Every Day participants who would like to share what you worked on in April, please tell me about it and share a link in the comments section of this post.

Anyone is welcome to join in! All you need to do is set aside 10 minutes each day to work on a quilt project of your choice (or knitting or scrapbooking or whatever you have that needs getting done). It could be a UFO you’ve been meaning to get around to or something completely new. If you miss a day or two, that’s OK (I missed most days this month, but still got quite a lot done). The point is that although 10 minutes may not seem like much on its own, when you add them all up at the end of the month your accomplishments will be amazing! Just check in on my blog at the end/beginning of each month and share a link to what you worked on in the comment section of the Quilt Every Day blog post for that month.

happy quilting! ^_^

Wow!
Check out what these quilters did with just 10 minutes a day:
Dorothy in Vermont
Scrappy Cat in Oklahoma
Vicky in Washington
Anita
Cynthia: Slice of Summer and Civil War blocks
Beth in Kentucky
Deborah
It’s not too late, you can still email me your links and I’ll share your pages of what you quilted in 10 minutes a day!

My Quilt Every Day results
This what I did for Quilt Every Day during March: For the first part of the month I stitched together 3-inch rail fence blocks into pairs, 10 minutes a day. You can see the stack here.
Then I remembered an upcoming deadline and switched to my April BOM for Citrus Belt Quilters, Tulip vase . This is the block that will go in the sampler quilt. It’s a no-triangle pieced basket block with fusible appliqué flowers on top. You can find the block instructions on the CBQ Block of the Month webpage.
Here is the middle panel for the Quilt of the Month. You won’t find the instructions for this one yet because I haven’t sewn on the borders. Actually I did quite a bit more than 10 minutes a day to get all these baskets done the last part of March.
Confession time
I must admit that I have not done even one stitch since April began. That habit I made so easily is now so easily gone. All is not lost though. I have a lot of writing to do these days, patterns and other stuff that I have been working on every day instead. BOM time is coming up as well so I’ll need to sew the May block before you know it.

I wasn’t going to continue offering the challenge month after month, but I felt so productive that I have since changed my mind. I hope you will keep going with your 10 minutes a day and will stop by my blog with your link at the beginning of each month to share what you’ve accomplished. I promise I will start up my 10 minutes a day again (not today, but soon!) I’ll set up a special post for Quilt Every Day the first of each month and you can put the link to your post in the comments section. That will probably be the most simple way to manage it. Can’t wait to see what you do for April!

happy quilting!

In January I took the Bella Bella workshop from Norah McMeeking. It was fun and I learned a lot of good tips about paper foundation piecing. My paper piecing skills have really improved the past few months and I can make good blocks without stitching down too-small pieces or wasting exorbitant amounts of fabric.

Here is my latest basket pattern, Easy Peasy Paper Pieced Baskets. You can find it at the Citrus Belt Quilters’ Block of the Month page. (If any of you make a quilt from one of my basket patterns, email me a photo so I can post it here on my blog.)

Anyways, back to Bella Bella, and some much larger paper pieced quilts designed from Italian Mosaic floors.
I liked this Bella Bella quilt because of the black and white.
Here is the same pattern four different ways. One of the most interesting things about taking the workshop was seeing all the different fabrics that people put together. Perhaps I spent a little too much time checking out what other students were doing because here is my Bella Bella quilt.
And I found out after I got home that I’m not even done with the cutting yet. I need to choose one more color for the rainbow stack to make 12 different fabrics. Maybe next month I’ll work on my Bella Bella for 10 minutes every day.

happy quilting!