Category Archives: work in progress

wip wednesday: hand quilting

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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? =(^_^)=

wip wednesday: polka dots!

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DD and I are working on a quilt for her bed. She’s designing it out of big polka dots fused from our stashes and lucky for me, she’s able to do all the cutting herself. My job is the ironing.

We’ll see who will end up doing the sewing. Maybe she’ll piece the background and I’ll appliqué the circles.

Either way we have quite a lot more polka dots to make. =(^_^)=

adventures of a quilting diva

wip wednesday: african folklore embroidery

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I’m still stitching away on my African Folklore Embroidery piece. It’s coming along slowly but surely. I really like doing hand work. I should bring it along with me in my purse so I can work on it here and there. You may not be able to see it, but I’ve done some itty-bitty beading on the mama’s necklace. I’ll need to find somewhat larger beads for the eyes.

hot off the ironing board

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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.

adventures of a quilting diva

new fabric and new features!

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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! ^_^

long time no blog

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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! ^_^

it was there all along

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Here is the completed top for the January basket quilt, A Tisket, A Tasket, A Rick Rack Basket. Look for the free instruction sheet on the Citrus Belt Quilters Block of the Month page. The block instructions are already posted, and the quilt top instructions should be up in a week or 10 days.

Purchasing fabric for the borders of this quilt was one of the main items on my (very short) Road 2 Ca shopping list. Out of all the wonderful vendors there, I could not find a single fabric that would work. Turns out I had the perfect one, a navy blue Kona cotton, in my stash all along. It’s my favorite fabric shop, and it’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Although they haven’t received any new stock since IQF Houston, they got a nice shipment from Road this weekend. (No, I’m not planning on opening an online fabric store. You can’t shop in my stash.)

Tomorrow I’m taking the Bella Bella workshop from Norah McMeeking. We’re doing the St. Mark’s Wallhanging. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have some fabric shopping to do. ;-)

happy quilting!

adventures of a quilting diva

if it seems wrong …

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Tonight while piecing my January basket quilt top I pinned two rows together. They looked rather strange, but I figured it was because the blocks were on point and I don’t usually set the blocks that way, so I kept on sewing. This is how they turned out:
Needless to say I had a session with my seam ripper. Here is how the rows should have looked:
The moral of the story is: if it seems wrong, it probably is.

happy quilting!

adventures of a quilting diva

rick rack baskets

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Here’s the beginning of my latest basket quilt. These are 6-inch blocks and use rick rack for the basket handles. They’re quick, easy, and oh-so-fun to make! I will have the free pattern on the Citrus Belt Quilters website in early January. If you can’t wait until January to make a basket quilt, I have four other basket quilt patterns (including pieced, appliqué, and crazy-patch paper-pieced lap quilts and table toppers) on the Block of the Month page. One of these just might be perfect for a last-minute quilted gift.

In case I don’t post again until after the holidays, have a very merry Christmas and a quilty new year.

adventures of a quilting diva

undercover wip

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I’ve been a busy bee this week, but can’t show you anything yet!

Still hand quilting on my March 12x12x12 Challenge. The reveal is next week.

I’m going to be a columnist at Cotton Spice quilting magazine and have been working on a fast, fun project for the June issue! Cotton Spice is a fun new quilting magazine. Subscribe or check out a sample issue online.

I’ve also been checking into available website addresses for when I eventually make the plunge with a real website of my very own (soon, likely this year). Last month I did a massive brainstorming session and thought up a name I liked (the easy part), that was still available (the hard part). I never imagined that someone else in Great Britain would come up with the exact same name and snatch it up a few weeks later! They haven’t made the actual website yet, so I’m curious to see what it will be about. I was disappointed for about half a day, until I came up with a new name that in many ways I like even better!

happy quilting!

adventures of a quilting diva