This was the second of two designs I made using Uppercase Fabrics and designs from artist Kevin Umaña, who now lives in New York City. I first wrote about him when we started our collaboration, and he was a delight to work with and has great punchy graphic designs that translate well to quilts.
I had this pinned up and awaiting quilting for the longest time. You all know that my shoulder has been giving me trouble (wah wah wah) and last week when I went for a 3-month check-up, the doctor said don’t do anything that hurts. Well…sleep hurts. Getting dressed hurts. Sitting quietly can hurt. And then I thought if I can’t do anything that hurts, I may as well suspend myself in green Jello or something. Or, since everything hurts, I’m going to quilt. That night, I finished off Kevin’s great design.
Of course, sitting quietly, sewing on the label hurt my shoulder. (eye roll) So I apply a lot of this:
Brenda thinks I should get a real ice pack, but this seems to work okay. I’m on my second one. And yes, I’m still going through doctor hoops, hoping one day to do stuff without hurting too much. But I will keep quilting, because if I can’t quilt, what can I do? (No need to supply answers).
I’m just happy to have finished up Kevin’s quilt. I’m mailing off to him as a thank you for sharing his designs.
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚ My blogging software puts ads here so I can use their site for free. I do not know about, nor choose, the content, nor do I receive any money from these ads. ˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚
This quilt finally finished, I took it out for a photography session with the help of my husband.
I started sewing the first block in June of 2014, and finished the top a year later. The quilting was finished at the end of September, but it wasn’t until now that I could get time to take it up to our university’s Botanic Gardens to get some photographs.
My husband’s favorite block. As some of you know, many of these blocks were inspired by art in a church in Slovenia, as well as designs from our travels. Most of the patterns and accompanying tutorials are free on this blog, found *here* as well in a tab labeled Shine: The Circles Quilt.
This shows the quilting. I was trying out double batting (polyester with wool), and found it was a challenge to move the heavy quilt around on the machine. It took me nearly 4 months to quilt this thing, as I was hobbled with a shoulder injury. But I was able to finish it!
As I quilted, I thought a lot about my brother-in-law Tom, who passed away a little over a month ago. He maintained a beautiful small garden in his backyard, and so in one of the corners I quilted in a flower in his memory (shown below). Many offered advice and help while I was quilting: thank you, everyone.
detail of quilting from the back
This closes a chapter in my life. Lovely to see you here, Shine!
First up is finally completing my little house quilt, which I titled Celebration. I thought it was a 4th of July house quilt, but now I think it may be sort of Christmasy (or not), so I went vague on the title. It’s made from my Home Sweet Home Mini Quilt pattern, and works up quickly. I need to make a Halloween mini houses quilt. Soon.
And since I’m still jet lagging, this is the label, so I can call it done. I love that fabric on the back.
Sometimes I get discouraged about the pile of stuff around my sewing room, and realize one reason why I don’t get a lot completed (which is why I pushed forward to get that little house quilt done) is because this has been a year of traveling. Other trips not on here are Kansas City, San Diego, Sweden (which was in conjunction with Copenhagen), and Switzerland. It’s been fun, but now I’m ready to stay home for a while.
I snapped this photo of my daughter and my mother together (my mother’s namesake) while we were in Utah, another one of our trips.
I finished up my final four Chuck Nohara blocks. I really like this one, and plan to use this design again.
I finished up Cindy’s blocks for our Spelling Bee group. Our group worked together for a year, swapping blocks with each other as we made words based on the alphabet on my Quilt Abecedary Blog. She asked for dark fabrics on low-volume backgrounds for her words.
Since her blog name is Live A Colorful Life, I couldn’t resist this black fabric with little bits of colorful triangles floating around in them.
I also finished Nancy’s blocks for her request on Mid-Century Modern Bee for November. It was a slash and fill approach to making trees, one on light blue and one on green. I hope she likes them. She’ll trim them up to her preferred slant, so they are bigger than she requested (she wants them at 6 1/2″ by 12 1/2″ finished). After four years of working together, our fearless leader decided it’s time to go, so I have only one more block to complete.
I see a lot of bees collapsing and going away, as people seem to have moved on to doing QALs or 100 Block Assemblies. I am still part of one bee (Gridsters) which, as a mark of faith in the bee concept, begins next year anew. I enjoy getting to know the women I trade blocks with over time, and will continue to follow them even though the bee is ending.
Finally, a note about yesterday’s election: In 2004-2005, I lived in Washington DC for a year, while my husband took his sabbatical at the State Department. I was able to attend the Inauguration Ceremonies of President George Bush’s second term. I did not vote for the man, but attended this display of our nation’s ability to keep our system of democracy rolling forward.
That cold January day was an emotional day, full of patriotism and pride in our country. When I was in DC a couple of weeks ago, they had already started building the massive platform which will hold the band, the dignitaries, the guests, and the future leaders of our country. I applaud our country’s ability to focus on what’s important, and hope that I can some time soon feel more enthusiastic about our recently elected officials, in both the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
I still believe in our democracy, and am glad to have participated in expressing this belief by casting my ballot Tuesday morning.
Final note: usually when I can’t decide how to typify my posting, I call it a This ‘N That post, and just throw stuff up. The downside? The title is so vague, if I scroll through later, I can’t tell what I’m talking about. (I also have the same problem when I visit my friends’ blogs, looking for something.) Thankfully, the search box on this blog is run by my software, so you can find just about anything by typing it in the box.
This is a further discussion of the quilt I recently made for the quarterly challenge in our Four-in-Art group. I let this theme of “I’ve Got the Blues” simmer in my mind, thinking about all the blue connections, from mental health to water to ice to music and then just decided I wanted to explore that hue–just wanted to play with the shifting and changing of blues.
I went to Nicole Dacksiewicz’ site, Modern Handcraft, to catch her tutorial for how to make this. I’d seen the original quilt at QuiltCon and always always wanted to play with this. She even shows you how to baste your hexies, so you can’t get it wrong.
I used a 1″ hexagon, which yields a 2 1/4″ measurement across (we measure one flat side of the hexagon to get the name). I searched for a free printing pattern, and found these tips for cutting out hexagons. I used Geta’s hexagon sheet (had to give up my email to do it) and she was right. Cutting out all those hexies did go quickly! (Sorry for the pink nighttime photo.)
Then I started playing by pinning them up on my design wall so I could get perspective.
I moved it to my work table and kept playing.
When I was happy with it, I glued them down, following Nicole’s hints, and later went and purchased her pattern, as I like to donate to the talented designers who share their ideas with me. One major tip from me is not to do it on your cutting mat, or you’ll have little bits of glue that don’t really scrub off, but doesn’t impact the use of the mat. Maybe lay it down on some wax paper? Guess how I know this.
When the glue was dry, I layered the top up in a quilt sandwich, put a few pins here and there and drew in quilting lines with my Hera marker. Another major tip I’ll pass along — and why I want to re-do this — is I put the hexies too close together. I only discovered this when I started stitching. She suggests 1/4″ apart and mine are about 1/8″ apart. Not all the hexies are perfect (because I am Not.A.Machine, she says, in her best robot voice), and by putting them so close together, and “outlining” them with stitching, it really plays up their imperfections. I did, however, have fun stitching the straight lines, over and over, catching the corners and stitching in between all the hexagons.
I loved playing with the theme of the blues, and love my new quilt. I made this one larger than the ones I’ve done in the past, and it measures about 21″ wide and almost 20″ high.
Sunset in Kansas City, September 2016
Our next overall yearly theme is Light, and Catherine, of Knotted Cotton came up with our first quarterly challenge of Shimmer. I already have an idea (I’m not telling) and am excited for this new year.
Happy Quilting!
[Note: The cute clothespins are from a shop in Copenhagen, called Notre Dame. Link to the clothespins is *here.* I wanted to carry home buckets of these, but alas, I travel with a small suitcase these days and could only bring a few.]
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚ My blogging software puts ads here so I can use their site for free. I do not know about, nor choose, the content, nor do I receive any money from these ads. ˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 