My snow-covered Orangeman (or Snowman, made of oranges) has his arms thrown up in amazement/horror. While Rachel and Carol show snow days on their IG feeds, we are already burning up out here. My newly planted zucchini and spaghetti squash plants are wilting, and it’s only April.
The origin of this mini quilt (tutorial is here) started when I first moved here, and commuted an hour to the Orange County Quilt Guild. We had a block swap, and the theme was snowman, and since I was a newbie, I think I got all the rejects. Except this one…which was my own (I made one for myself). One snowman block was a zig-zagged stitched pair of stacked circles, with two hot-glue-gunned twigs for the arms, and dots of makeup for the coal and eyes. Yes, I threw that one away. But in looking for another project in my Orphan Blocks Box, I found this one, and turned it into a Mini-on-a-Frame quilt.
I bordered it with those fabulous swirls, quilted it and trimmed it up).
I backed it, and slipped it on its stand. Now I’m up to four of these mini-quilts-on-a-frame. Given the success of this one, I may turn other orphan blocks into bits of art to be displayed!
PS: Swirl fabric is by Valori Wells, “Marks,” design #16354–by Robert Kaufman. A young mother in church yesterday asked me if I bought fabric for a single project, or if I bought it when I feel like it. This purchase was obviously the latter.
Eiko Okano’s exhibition of quilts is up at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum. (Someday I want to go there.) I first saw Okano’s quilts long ago and at that time wanted to buzz into her studio and be a fly on the wall as she created. Unlike our quick-study Instagram world, where quilts are being produced at the rate of 300 a second — or so it seems — I imagine her process would take a bit longer.
I love the wild, dancing rick-rack scribbles in the border of this quilt, and those buttons!
I want to hang this one in my kitchen. These photographs are all taken from the IGSC website, where more of her quilts are shown.
Ballard Street cartoon
In charging up my creative batteries, which often we speak of as “mojo,” I found this series of ten videos from 99U, which are about the creative process.
I intrigued by the concept that this one gives us, that — believe it or not — springboarding off of things that others have done, is a time-honored path to creativity. Notice I said “springboarding.” No one likes to have their work cloned, unless maybe you are making a pattern or something that is designed to be cloned.
I watched this in process with the release of Sherri McConnell’s quilt, “Flower Garden,” in a magazine this week. It’s the old hexie flower you have come to know and love, but Sherri gives it a modern twist, a new spin, and now I want to gather up hexies and start making my own. She started this several years ago, once again giving me hope for my own long time lines for some quilts.
And, as usual, after a spurt of creativity, I take time to clear off my workspace, find the floor again (stacks of fabrics often migrate there when I am looking for a “certain piece”) and plan out time in my calendar.
A change is as good as a rest, my mother says, so this past week we took a break from calendars and sewing machines and usual activities when we drove up to Manzanar (about a four-hour’s distance), to visit this National Historic Place. The memorial is evocative, terribly sad, and enraging, all at once.
The Mt. Whitney mountain range is stunningly beautiful, and we took some time that night to enjoy the sunset and rising moon.
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On the way home, we stopped at Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch, a Mojave Desert attraction, all built by Elmer, a man who gets up in the morning, fires up his welding torch and gets to work. Unless, of course, he doesn’t want to.
I have a re-cap post on the Mad for Solids 2018 coming, but I wanted to thank you all for the efforts you made to put my quilt design and curated stack of solids in the Winner’s Circle. I enjoyed getting to know new quilters and their creative worlds, not only those who also had stacks, but you quilters, with your IG and FB and blogging sites. Keep up the good work of interacting and supporting and cheering each other on. I love this quilty world!
Well, this was supposed to be a real quilt, not just a mock-up in my quilt software. But when I got to the geese, I ran out of fabric. All of this, as you know, was inspired by the contest held by Paintbrush Studios. They sent us a bundle of half-yards, and maybe if I’d chosen a simpler quilt — like squares, or something — I would have had enough. But oh yeah, go for the glory.
HOWEVER…because of all your fine voting, I find myself in the Championship Round (little happy noise), and I promised you borders on a quilt. If you feel like voting for the last time, here’s the info:
Thank you to all who are participating in the Mad for Solids 2018 game, and thank you very much for your votes. I’m happy to announce that I’ve made it into the Final Four of this quilty March Madness. The penultimate vote in this process is today at 6 p.m. CDT, and if you wish to vote for my bundle, or vote for the bundle of your choice, please head here to cast your votes:
The Championship Game (love these terms) will begin Sunday night 6 p.m. CDT, and according to the Paintbrush Studio website:
We’re now down to just four color palettes, and the voting won’t get any easier! We’ve also raised the stakes! Everyone who votes in the Championship Game (starts Sunday at 6 pm CDT) will have a chance to win a fat quarter bundle of the winning palette. But even if you don’t win, you can still play with these colorful combinations!
After we announce the Champion on Monday, we’ll be selling fat quarter bundles of the four Painter’s Palette Solids color palettes that made it to the Final Four. Any of these Final Four palettes can be yours! Watch for more details Monday.
I was happy to see that, as I really love a lot of the bundles that quilters have put together. I promised another border, and it will come soon, but the fabric (I ordered more from Pineapple Fabrics) is on its way.
As fun as all this is, it’s time to go back to our regularly scheduled show, now in progress.
And that regular show I’m working on is sewing my way through my series of Frivols tins. I finished up what I started about a month ago, when sewing on Frivols #3, with fabrics from Betsy Chutchian’s line titled “Eliza’s Indigo.”
What I did in between the last filled-up tin photo and the above quilt picture.
I ditch-stiched in-between the squares, then quilted circles around the inner squares. Really imaginative, but hey–I always remember that quote I printed at the top of all my syllabi when I taught college English to incoming freshman: The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good. And in this case, The Done.
The back is a tea towel from Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee that my son brought back to me from his trip to London. The title is Betsy’s Quilt, borrowing not only from the name of the designer, but also from a childhood nickname of mine, and since I’m also named Elizabeth, I thought it was fitting. I came in from photographing it and set in on the kitchen table, which is next to our family room. Sometimes small quilts can hang around like this, adding a nice touch to the same old same old.
This is the third Frivols I’ve finished, so that means I’m one-fourth of the way through my year-long quest to Make the Frivols. So I don’t completely bore you with my attempt to clear out those tins of their fabrics and finish them up, I’m combining Finish #3 with Start #4.
Tin #4 is a collection by Brenda Riddle, titled Windermere, and there on the end you see the definition of Frivol: a quilt packed into a fanciful limited edition tin. Although you can still buy them on Amazon. Maybe I should stop sewing these up and just re-sell them? I suppose I could, but I follow Mary Poppins advice: “A job once begun is a job half done.” I’m pressing forward.
Yeah, it only took me three tins to realize that I should look at the bottom of the tin for relevant info, such as additional fabrics and how big the quilt will be. I’m using Paintbrush Studio Solids in white from Pineapple Fabrics for my background. I think I should buy bought a bolt of this stuff. It’s really so great to sew with.
The tins always have these things:
roll of 7″ squares
make-it card, with instructions
cardboard “frame” for the stuff inside
an extra…and this tin’s extra was two skeins of embroidery floss that accent the quilt’s colors. Maybe I should take the hint and plan on some hand-stitching? That is to be determined, as this quilt is bigger than the others, measuring about 50″ square when finished.
All pieces cut. Now to start sewing. Thank you all!
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 