A Little Art Quilt

I had been experimenting around with little scrap triangles that were emerging from doing my Bestie QAL using the 'Swoon' pattern.  
When I make little quilts, it is nice if I can combine them with another purpose.   The Quilting Arts magazine has another challenge going on right now called 'Text Me'.  

I made this little quilt using my hand dyed fabric, ric rac and the left over triangles.

I did recut the triangles to make them fit a little better into each section.   I could see a larger quilt with perhaps some different ways to fill the shapes created by the ric rac.

I do adore working with ric rac!   The colours and different sizes and all the wonderful ways you can add it to your quilts.

Bestie Block #2 Done

Whew... #2 Swoon block is done on my Bestie QAL.  Have I mentioned before that each block is a whopping 24" big?  You can see our photos at our Flickr site.  It is not too late to join!  You don't have to do the same pattern as us, just work away at a QAL with us!

A while ago I participated in a 'Quilting Arts' challenge and totally forgot that it was also a swap.   Look what came in the mail today for me.

Isn't it beautiful?  The writing is all about artists. How clever was she to embrace the 'art' part of 'heart' in yarn?  I felt a lot better about not getting published after I saw this one, as this is a real winner and it didn't get picked either.  Different tastes and different ideas.   Well, they did an excellent job sending the perfect one to me.  I love it!

A Potential Solution for Scraps

The smartest people check out my blog!  Do you know how I know this?   They leave the most brilliant comments to all my dilemmas.   The other day I asked what I was going to do with all the triangle scraps from my Bestie QAL and got several great ideas.

The one that made a light bulb go off in my head was from Michelle G:

 Michelle G said...

The book Sunday Morning Quilts has some really good tiny scrap buster ideas. Amanda Jean who co-authored the book also has this tutorial on Sew Mama Sew. It's in kids section it is called the ticker tape mini quilt. see this link. 

After checking it out, and seeing that they had sewn little scraps onto a background... it got me thinking how I could embellish that a bit further=)   Here is what I came up with so far:

What do you think?  I put it on a dark hand dyed grey background and thinking maybe a light pink or brown would be better.

Marti left a comment asking how we sort our scraps.. by colour or size etc.. so if you have a great tip, please let us know.

I have my Bestie Block #2 all cut out and partly sewn.  Notice the dots.  I think any fabric designer that puts dots in their fabric line is simply awesome!

Are you doing the Bestie QAL as well?  If so, how far along are you?  And if not, come on, join the fun.    You can leave a pic of your work in progress on our Flickr group.

Scrap Day

I spent a good chunk of my evening cutting fabric.  While it is productive, it isn't necessarily fun.   I decided to take some of my scraps and create something useful.

Here I took some 1" strips of fabric, torn, because I love that look!  And wrapped them around some old cording I had laying around.  With some stitching to secure, I ended up with a cute little coaster to brighten up the winter days in my studio!

 Below are some scraps I have from my Bestie QAL, all from just the first block.   They are tiny triangles as you can see.   By the time I am done, I am going to have quite a few of them.   What do you do with your scraps... or better yet, please tell me what can I do with mine?

I am off to link up with Leah Day.

Calling All Besties...

I need help!  Big time.  If you have emailed and said you were going to join in the Bestie QAL with me, you need to do so right now!  Don't wait, don't eat, don't sleep... run to your cutting table and start cutting... anything.  Why the panic in my typed words?

Today I followed a pattern for the first time in 5 years.  Yes, I am an art quilter which really means we can't follow a pattern, so we have to have a name for ourselves other than, 'rule breaker'.  Art quilter sounds catchy, doesn't it?   I do on occasion use a pattern, but it is for a tutorial that I have written, therefore it incorporates all of my mistakes=)

Today I accomplished the first block of my Bestie QAL and it almost did me in!   There was a cutting guide, 3 different fabrics, and points!  Yes points... and to clarify, you never see a point on any of my art quilts.   I need you to join me in this QAL, to motivate me, inspire me and keep me from slashing my points.

Here are some progress shots:

Not to brag, but look at these points!  Notice I am only showing you one small section of the block?

This is my first block completed.  

I have 8 more to go.   This block is 24"!  This is the biggest quilt block I have ever made.   It is the size of most of my art quilts.   And my besties want 8 more?   If you don't join me, I may only end up with this one and it may be easier to have another baby and say it is a baby quilt, rather than do 8 more blocks!   Do you see the seriousness of this?   

Are You Ready for Our Bestie QAL?

My fabric finally arrived and we are getting started on our first ever, probably first ever in the whole entire quilting world, Bestie QAL!

I know some of you have been waiting for us to get things underway.   The rules are  simple.   You  and your Bestie each make a quilt.  Candice, Jana and I are all using the fabric from the line 'Flea Market Fancy' by Denyse Schmidt and the pattern 'Swoon' by Camille Roskelley.   You can see both here.

You can work at your own pace, use your scraps, or your favourite collection, and pick your own pattern or use the same as us. We  have a Flickr page set up so you can post your progress as well.  If your Bestie doesn't quilt, you can be my blog Bestie and do it with me=)

Here is a picture of the collection of fabric, I had to pick 18 fat quarters out of 21.  

The agreement with Candice and Jana is we all do the same centre block and then pick our own colours for the rest.   I am just waiting for Candice to pick the fabric for the centre.  Really hope she doesn't go  with the directional print, as I am challenged that way trying to get everything to go the right way!

In the meantime I have matched mine up in pairs.

What do you think of my matching?   Leave a comment telling me if you have started yet.

To make it really fun, what do you think the nicknames are that I call Candice and Jana?

My Quilt Went in the Garbage Can!

Tell me you have had one of those days where things do not go right?  Like not one thing!   I had that day today.   It started off, well it started off bad.   So I decide to work on a quilt that I am giving to an organization I strongly believe in.  

Instead of just doing swirls for the quilting, I thought it would be lovely to write some words that are predominant in their workplace.   That would be the first poorly thought out plan I had=)   While the words were lovely on one side of the quilt, I neglected to realize that to do them on the far side of the quilt, I would have to jam the whole quilt under the machine to quilt the words on the other side.   Normally if you are just stippling, you turn the quilt upside down.   Unfortunately I haven't mastered writing words upside down!   Here are a few shots of some of the words.

After getting all the words on the quilt, I was pretty much home free, or so I thought.   All I had left was to free motion some waves in the ocean.  Now I do have a Janome Horizon that I love.   And I should mention that I had fused the ocean on to the quilt.   I don't know what happened or what time warp I had entered, but my machine would not sew through the fusing successfully.  (This is the part where my quilt visited the garbage.)  It skipped or jammed, or broke the thread.  I changed 3 needles, 3 bobbins and 2 spools of thread and finally I limped my way through the job.   If anyone out there has any advice for stitching through fusing on my machine, please leave a comment.  I can't believe that a machine that good, couldn't do the job.  I just don't know what I was doing wrong.

When I finished, I put the quilt away for the day and will tackle the binding tomorrow!

Map It Out Challenge

Here is my finished art quilt for the 'Quilting Arts' challenge.

Here is the write up that goes along with it:  

I took an old out of circulation map and copied it onto fabric, then cut it up and stitched it back together a few times.  Added some colourful 'roads of life' to map my journey through life and quilted it with lines marking the roads I didn’t take.

I have linked up at Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting blog.

A New Map

Quilting Arts has a new challenge called 'Map It Out'.  I thought it would be fun to enter and I already had a background to use.  

A while ago I had printed out map pages onto fabric and had some leftover pages that I decided to cut and sew and recut and stitch back up again.   After that was done, I added some bright 'streets' to my project.  

I wasn't quite sure what to do about binding.  I had considered turning it back, but then decided on a bright orange that was already in the quilt.   

My friend got me the coolest binding clips for Christmas and they were great to use.  I highly recommend them.  They went on fast and were easy to work with.   I wonder if it is rude to ask her for a bunch more for my birthday=)

I will show a picture of the finished quilt on my next post.

After all that work, I took a break and went back to making a couple dozen more 3D flowers!

Chips Off The Old Block and Fun Stuff

Over the holidays I had my two little munchkins with me and at one point they were really watching me work on some 3D embellishments.   I offered to them to each make a little art quilt of their own with the theme of 'Your Favourite Food'.

This is where I start to grin, knowing that they are just like their mother.   Without any prompting from me, they didn't just use fabric, but foam and paper and markers.

I just had to show you this piece of fabric I received from Japan!  Yep, a member of my family went to Japan and brought this back for me!  I do love my family=)  What would you do with this, it is a 16" square?

I linked up my WIP over here today.

Are you familiar with Pantone?  They are the trendsetters for colours each year.   People wait religiously to their colour choices.   For 2013 they have chosen Emerald.  I went to my favourite colour site TinEye Labs and plugged in Emerald.    If you have never gone to this site, you simply must.  It is a few easy steps and you have the colour palette of your every whim!

Now with a little pink thrown in, pink does look good everywhere!

What do you think?   Will you use Emerald this year in your quilts?

Introducing the Bestie QAL

Imagine my delight when I got an email asking if I wanted to join in a Bestie Quilt Along with two of the sweetest gals around?  These fabulous quilters and I have been friends for a few years now and have only met each other once!  But we had the best time when we were together that it solidified our friendship forever.  Candice, who has a heart of gold, and Jana who has the best sense of humour ever, invited me along.  Candice is the genius behind this adventure and describes it this way, 'Way back when, I had a brilliant idea of having identical Bestie quilts, you know so that you can snuggle "with your Bestie" wherever you are!'  

I didn't mention to them that I have never done a QAL, let alone a Bestie QAL, so I am a tad bit nervous.  How embarrassing would that be to screw up!   In order to keep me straight and narrow, I want to invite you guys along, my blog besties!

 The details are quite simple.  Select fabric and a quilt pattern with your Bestie, and make identical quilts!  For this QAL, Jana, Candice, and I will be using Flea Market Fancy, and the Swoon Quilt Pattern.  Feel free to use the fabric and pattern that we're using, or come up with your own combination- the choice is totally up to you!  

Image taken here

By Camille Roskelley

The best part, is that there isn't a rigid QAL schedule that you need to keep up with, just sew at your pace and know that others are rooting for you to finish.  I'd love to hear if you're interested in joining; simply leave a comment below and I'll work on setting up a Flickr Group, so that we can share progress photos.

Grab Your BFF

 Bestie Quilt Along!!!

 

Details to follow tomorrow :)

Book Review

I have been asked to provide a book review for Jennifer Chiaverini's newest book, 'Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker' to be released January 15, 2013.    This is Ms. Chiaverini's first departure from the Elm Creek Quilt series and she brings back Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley.

From Ms. Chiaverini's website:
Elizabeth Keckley made her professional reputation in Washington, D. C., making expertly fashioned dresses for the city’s elite, among them Mrs. Jefferson Davis and Mrs. Robert E. Lee. In March 1861, Mrs. Lincoln chose her from among numerous applicants to be her personal “modiste,” responsible for creating the First Lady’s beautiful gowns and dressing her for important occasions. In this role, Elizabeth Keckley was quickly drawn into the intimate life of the Lincoln family, a clear-eyed but compassionate witness to events within the private quarters of the White House.

This book is vastly different from the more light hearted books I have read by Jennifer Chiaverini.   Her thorough research into the time period is reflected abundantly throughout the novel.   She captures the essence of her main character Ms. Keckley perfectly.   

In a question and answer with Ms. Jennifer Chiaverini:

Your New York Times bestselling Elm Creek Quilts series has frequently drawn on history to great acclaim, and your passion for the American people, their struggles and triumphs, shines through. What is it about the antebellum and Civil War eras, especially, that intrigues you as a writer?

The antebellum and Civil War eras were a tumultuous and transformative time for our nation, showing the best and worst of humanity in stark contrast. Looking back, we discover great moral failings alongside true heroism in the struggle for justice, equality, and freedom. My personal heroes are people who face adversity with moral courage and dignity, whose hunger for justice and compassion for others lead them to stand up for what is right even at great risk to themselves. My favorite characters to write about either possess similar qualities, or are given the opportunity to summon up these qualities and do what is right but fall short. What slavery, the Underground Railroad, secession, and the Civil War say about our country—that we are capable of both great moral failings and tremendous goodness—resonates strongly even today, perhaps especially today, and as a creative person, I am drawn to explore and try to understand that conflict. 

I found the novel compelling enough to keep coming back to and am frankly thrilled that Ms. Chiaverini can write with such a different hand compared to her other novels.   

This is a book I would certainly recommend to quilters and to those that like a good novel.