Owls

July 10, 2013July 15, 2013 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

Our Four-in-Art theme this round is Owls, under the year-long theme of Nature. When Betty chose it, I went blank. Then she wrote about it, I did a search on Flickr, and ideas starting percolating. Slowly.

This chick has owl rings and owl socks, but is not the same person that owns the collection up above. I found out my daughter liked owls, as does my niece, one of my husband’s colleagues and Suz, of Patchworknplay. I had no idea there were so many owl enthusiasts in my life.

This card was from my granddaughter when I had my surgery. More owls:

But how to move an owl idea into a quilt? What aspect to focus on? I looked up the meanings of owls, the folklore and those were all over the map, fragmented. Sometimes they are good, other times they portent evil or bad things, sometimes they bring luck, in other cultures they spell disaster. Just about anything can be pinned on an owl.

The only “experience” I’ve had with an owl was when we were traveling in Canada around the Sunshine Circle (Vancouver and above). We were standing waiting for the ferry to take us across one night. The sun was fading into pinks and golds and it was pretty quiet up there near Comox that evening. I was focused on the water and thinking about where we had to get to before we could stop traveling, when all of a sudden I heard a whoosh–a rush of air. I spun around and an owl was just moving away, its wings unfurled and climbing toward the sky. It was eerie, out of nowhere. No wonder these birds get pinned with all sorts of intents and purposes.

This was my computer desktop yesterday, with all sort of bits and pieces of my owl scattered over the screen. Whenever I approach these art quilt deadlines, I feel like a child being dragged kicking and screaming toward home. Deadline, I moan to no one in particular. I’d better get crackin’ because I know my Four-in-Art-mates will have theirs ready.

But one thing leads to another and to another and pretty soon I hear my husband arrive home and I’ve been working and veering through a creative journey for hours, absorbed in my task. And then I can’t wait to get back to where I’m headed–which of course, I have no real idea of where it will end. For now, I know only the next step, and that’s where I’ll go.

(from *here*)

We’ve decided to open our group up to four more quilters to participate in our art quilt adventure. You do not need to be an artist (hey–I’m not), but only want to stretch your creative wings. We have four art quilt deadlines a year: February, May, August and November. So far, the quilts are experimental in size: 12″ square. You’ll need to have a blog or a Flickr site, and a sense of adventure. We welcome beginners, but most of us have some years of experience either in handcrafting or sewing. I think we went this direction just because we wanted to try something new.

Leave a comment if you are interested, along with a comment as to why you might think taking a jump into this kind of creating is where you want to tread. Make sure I have a link to either your blog or your Flickr site, so I can get a feel for what type of quilter you are.

Quilts

Wanna Swap?

July 5, 2013June 25, 2017 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

My little quilt group, The Good Heart Quilters, is having our annual retreat, and has decided to do Debbie’s Polaroid Block Swap. But we wouldn’t mind if a few of you wanted to play. I think we can handle about ten more swappers–but you have to move fast! Our retreat is the third week of July, so you’ll need to mail your intended swap blocks off by the 13th of July in order for them to arrive. Because it’s such a tight turnaround, I’m going to have to limit this to domestic quilters only–no international swapping. Leave a comment if you are interested. I’ll draw from commenters to fill out our swap.

I’m not going to reinvent the wheel, so I’ve included a lot of Debbie’s modified guidelines; above is a drawing about how to construct them, or if you like tutorials, follow the instructions set out by Capitola Quilter HERE. We’ll be making JUST the basic polaroid block – 2 1/2″ square feature print with white borders.

Important: DO NOT trim the white borders before mailing as it will help the small blocks weather the mailing to wherever they need to go. When you receive your bunch back, you can trim your swap blocks then set them any way you want to. (See some examples throughout this post.) When you see the words on Capitola Quilter’s tutorial that say: “EDIT: If you are reading this post as part of the Perfect Picture Polaroid Swap or Say Cheese Swap- please STOP HERE as they are mailed with the white UNTRIMMED,” you can stop there.

Notice in the photo at the top, the top and bottom edges extend over the sides–this is how they are supposed to look. So, in the instructions (image with the summer surfer above), don’t do Step Five.

Blocks do not all have to be the same. In fact, depending on how many swappers we have, we’d hope everyone would get a set back with no duplicates. So a variety is good! Sometimes some interesting artsy fabric will work for a swap, rather than just relying on all novelties. Please use a white-white for your block borders, such as KONA White (available at JoAnn’s).

Blocks all trimmed up (I did the trimming)

Let’s swap blocks in groups of 5 – 5, 10, 15 with a limit of 40. Do NOT send me 40 of the same block. Please send no more than two of the same design–we need a variety of blocks for a successful swap. You will receive back a random assortment of blocks – the same number as you send in. I will email you once you sign up, and then when you are ready to mail, email me and I’ll send you my address. When you send them in, put them in a plastic baggie with your name, email address and blog address, so I can keep track of who you are. Include a SASE envelope with your blocks for return mailing. No SASE? I will think you are donating them to my little quilt group, so please be mindful of everyone’s time and send it with your blocks.

The swap begins NOW, with all blocks postmarked and mailed to me by July 13, 2013, or July 15th if you are on the West Coast. (No later!)

Snapshot Quilt And here is my quilt, Snapshot!

Snapshot Closeup 2 I’ve also pulled some photos from Debbie’s Flickr site with ideas for using your Polaroid Blocks. Enjoy them here, or head over to her Flickr site to see some more.

Warning: Making these is addicting!

NOTE: When I do trim these up, the top and two side borders are 1/2″ wide after trimming, and the bottom border is 1″ after trimming.

This Polaroid Swap is finished.****

Quilts

Amish With A Twist Progress

July 5, 2013April 27, 2014 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

I’ve been working on the Amish With A Twist, Series Two, and I’m happy to say I am all caught up now. Above is Flying Geese.

Bowtie was next.

Rolling Stone, and I while I should re-do a join here and there, I’m not. I looked at the big quilt again (I’m always looking at that picture) and I really believe a seam that is a quarter-inch off won’t be noticed. It’s like a metaphysical thing: I know it’s a 1/4-inch off, so therefore I am peace with my block, peace with the piecing, and at one with the world. Whatever. I’m not unpicking it.

I had to make five of these Mosaic Stars, but that was nothing like the first batch where I made twelve blocks with umpteen little pieces in it.

Tips for the blocks? True up the inner pieces. That almost sounds a bit metaphysical as well, but I’m referring to trimming off those stray bits of the inner units before you build the bigger block, if you want to be happy. I didn’t do that with Rolling Stone (but lets not go there again).

We just finished the jacaranda blooming season, and I thought I’d show you this photo my husband took on one of his bike rides, the tree in full bloom. I love these trees.

We have had my son and his family here over the July 4th holiday, when we got together with some friends and ate some barbeque, saw some fireworks, and hung out as much as possible. It is wild–their family of four girls (ages 2 through 10) likes nothing better than a party–but they seemed to be surviving the boring old grandparents.

(Info on quilt found *here.*)

Hope you had a great Fourth as well.

Quilts

WIP–Bee Blocks (post revised)

June 26, 2013June 26, 2013 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

UPDATE: I’ve revised this post, because this morning I realized that TODAY is Wednesday, not yesterday (when I’d originally written it: we’re a little foggy on life over here), so today I am linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙

I joined a new bee (newby! newby!). I am honored to be included in the Always Bee Learning bee, and the first block’s fabrics have arrived to be sewn (they have different rules than the Mid-Century Modern bee). But Linda’s blocks for the MCM bee still hadn’t been made, and I like to honor my deadlines.

So I gimped down to the sewing room, pulled out a drawer and put a pillow on it for the left foot, got out my portable iron and pad and put it on the table on the right. I figured it was good to be sewing as long as I wasn’t putting any weight on the foot, right? (I’m really hoping that MY idea of “partial weight-bearing” agrees with the doctor’s).

But had to stand for a few minutes on my right leg while I cut the strips, then I sat and sewed. And twisted to iron, but finished up one block before dinner.

After dinner I finished the other one (normally we only do one, but everyone else was doing two and I didn’t want to be a slacker); I packaged it to mail tomorrow, hopefully making it to Florida by July 1st. That small block in the front? We do signature blocks with our Mid-Century Modern (MCM) bee.

This is what Linda is doing with them: using them to border another set of blocks from another bee. She says she’s stuck about what to do in the corner–maybe a rounded version of the stack?–so if you have any ideas, head over to her blog and leave her a comment. It’s always interesting to see our bee blocks being used. Another quilter in this bee finished up her quilt (scroll down to the Mid-Century Modern quilt in neutral fabrics); I hope when it’s my turn I can be as successful.

As I lay in bed yesterday, I did make a button for that new bee:

At least I can be somewhat productive when I lay around here.

What else am I working on? Well, another July 1st deadline is for this month’s Schnibbles quilt. My husband brought up a camp chair (small chair we use when we go camping) and I could slide it in the cubby hole of my sewing desk, and yes, I did get some of that top quilted last night. While I can only quilt for a short while, it feels good to be productive and to see a quilt take shape.

hanging Kaleidoscope Quilt

Thanks, all, for your nice comments about Kaleidoscope (in previous post). My husband hung it up in the hallway this morning. It brings a smile to my face as I slowly make my way up the stairs. Here it is again: