Take Me Back to Italy!

April 26, 2013April 25, 2013 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

I have this thing for Italy. So when I saw Va Bene!, a line of fabrics depicting scenes and buildings and landmarks from Italy, it had to come home with me. Many of our trips are detailed on my travel blog, Traveled Mind, which I’ve maintained for several trips, and it serves as a journal of sorts. It’s always fun to go and read it to remember the perfect bruschetta pomodora in the courtyard just beyond the steps of Santo Spirito in Florence (and is why I put the snippet of fabric showing this on the quilt label).

The facade of the church Santo Spirito, Florence

Brushetta Pomodora (pronounced with a hard sound: brus-ketta)

Recipe is found *here.*

So with this memory floating in my mind, I fell in love with the tomato fabric and the sights fabric and the background fabric with the Venetian gondolas and knew that I wanted to make this for Another Year of Schnibbles that Sherri and Sinta are hosting.

This was my first attempt. I ending up snipping off the piano key borders — even though they are in the original pattern — because everything seemed “mushed” together. I think a quilt should have strong focal point, or perhaps several places where the eye can travel to, and with the borders and this fabric, it just wasn’t working.

I also quilted the nine-patches in the ditch, and then did a heavy stippling on the triangles to smash them flat into the background, hoping the nine-patch design would pop up a bit. I think it also helped with that no place for the eye to rest thing I was talking about.

Windows of Santa Croce

I’d purchased this tea towel on a very hot day when we were touring Lake Como, and tucked it away in the suitcase. You can’t always find fabric in distant places, but there’s always a tea towel or two, showing the sights.

Florence Duomo exterior

Tuscan countryside

My husband is a great traveler, very adventurous, and loves to rent a car and just drive around, trying new places to eat, finding the out of the way place, avoiding the tourist traps, although he will put up with a few if the sights are top notch. So Italy fits us well. Enough people speak English, the food is amazing, and the scenery is picturesque.

So what else could I name this quilt but Take Me Back to Italy?

This is Quilt #112 on my 200 Quilts list.

It’s also my second finish for the second quarter of Leanne’s Finish-A-Long,

. . . and my first Schnibbles in Another Year of Schnibbles.

That’s a pretty big pedigree for such a small quilt, but this one can handle it.

It’s Italian.

Quilts · WIP

WIP–Not the last person to post–Wednesday

April 23, 2013 Elizabeth E.18 Comments

The last few weeks I’ve been the last person to post on Lee’s WIP Wednesday over at her blog Freshly Pieced.

Or at least in the last five. There’s a whole bunch of us that bring up the rear–we’re kind of like in our own special club. We have our own T-shirt, motto and mascot. (I’m just kidding about the last part.) But I’m determined to be near the front of the bunch this week, so I’m posting this in hopes that I’ll be in the middle of the pack. Like how I’m mixing metaphors–Bunch (of bananas)? Pack (of wolves, or Cub Scouts)? That’s what happens when an English teacher gets tired.

I’ve been working on Sherri and Sinta’s Year of Schnibbles quilt. It’s an interesting size–bigger than my art quilts, smaller than my usual quilts. I love the Italy fabric by Dear Stella–there is still some in the Fat Quarter Shop last time I looked.

And the tea towel I picked up on Lake Como is perfect for the back. At first I thought I’d bought it in Milan, but it was so hot that day, all we did was hang out on the roof of the cathedral in the shade–I don’t remember buying anything. But I did hit the few shops that my husband would stop at when we were in Bellagio on Lake Como (and no, we didn’t see George Clooney). Anyone else has a husband who will just keep on walking when you stop to invest a few dollars in the local economy? Hmmm. Thought so.

So that’s what I’m working on. I finished up the art quilt (check back in a couple of weeks for the Big Reveal), and you saw that I completed Christmas Treat (last post). When I know I have papers coming in (like I do in two days), I kind of wind down the sewing so I won’t be fretting while correcting mixed metaphors and cleaning up typos. I don’t want to be wishing I was sewing, although that’s next to impossible, really.

Linking up to Lee’s WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Quilts

And the Razzy Award Goes To. . .

April 19, 2013 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

First, congratulations to Beth Baird, on winning the Practical Bag Pattern with this comment:

“I would totally love this kind of a bag. Our grocery stores no longer give us plastic bags, so this would be perfect for replacing those. And when we travel, it would fold up in the bottom of the suitcase or carry-on to bring home fabric from a shopping spree!”

I’ll get that in the mail to you today!

Thought I’d show you some of the ancient projects that didn’t make the cut into the Finish-A-Long group.

This was a quilt done during our Millenium Year–you know 2000, when all the computers were going to quit and the world was going to end. I have some a snippet of fabric that says “2000” on it. I pulled out all my old projects and had my husband help me evaluate them. He kind of shook his head and said, “Yeah, I’m not quite sure if this is worth your time to finish.” Agreed, but this doesn’t get the Razzy Award.

Old Christmas Quilt

This gets the Razzy Award. Note the outdated colors of burgundy and forest green, the precious pre-printed Currier and Ives-type panels combined with Santa Claus motif fabric. I never even listed it on my 100 Quilts list (the other one is). I mean, at the time, I thought it was “all that” as one of my friends says when referring to someone who convinced they are God’s Gift to Mankind, but we all know that all things pass away, even a passion for burgundy and forest green.

I am working today on a more updated color scheme, trying to figure out the quilting for my Christmas Lollypop Tree Wallhanging. I seem to get at stuck spots too often on new projects, as if making a decision has to be practically perfect in every way (thank you, Mary Poppins). It doesn’t, I keep telling myself. One of the quotes I have on my syllabus is “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Sometimes I think it should go: “The perfect is the enemy of the done.”

And I’m listening non-stop to the news about the Boston Marathon bombers, probably just like the rest of you. I’m glad at times like this to have the cloth under my fingers, keeping my hands busy while I still think about the sad events of this past week. Take care of yourselves!

My daughter’s hand. Thanks, Barbara.

Quilts

Hat Trick, version #1

April 12, 2013 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

Okay, this is version one. I wanted to use my Dear Stella Va Bene Italian fabrics and you can see the problem in the “mushy” effect it has. The reds pop out and you do see the blues, but the separate nine-patches get lost in the jumble.

I noticed that the original pattern also has a bit of a mushed-together look, but it looks a lot better than mine.

Hate the border on my quilt. Some of it is my fault as the outer 2″ squares were supposed to be 2 by 2 1/2″ but I was listening to This American Life, and just started using the leftover squares from the quilt without paying attention.

This is where quilts become UFOs. When you charge ahead and something doesn’t work out quite right, then enthusiasm for finishing it is lost. Yep, yep. I know it all too well. Guess this little quilt will be added to the FAL list for this next quarter (which reminds me: I need to compile my list).