Quilts

The Universe Delivers

May 21, 2014May 21, 2014 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

So I was pretty bummed about not being able to make up this into a larger quilt, or not being able to use it (see last post for explanation), but then VOILA! that old principle of the Universe Takes Away and the Universe Delivers came into play.

Strolling through my Instagram feed I glimpsed this and made a screenshot, then headed to Sharon McConnell’s website: ColorGirl’s Fabrics & Flowers. There she not only has more instructions, but also a link to a free pattern on Craftsy. Very sweet.

Now that I’m through with my semester, looks like a new project to add to my Summer To Do List.

from *here*

What’s On Yours?

(I’ve got a few things to get done. . .)

Linking up with Lee of Freshly Pieced

WIP

WIP Wednesday (Selvage Blocks)

March 12, 2014March 12, 2014 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

Okay, these 20″ blocks are addicting. Someone on IG commented on my selvage stash, but the whole thing could fit into a gallon ziploc bag. There are all those selvages on my stash, however. . .

Other Works in Progress, this Wednesday morning:

Rainbow Petals–the more I type that name, the more I realize it needs to be changed

Lollypop Tree Quilting. It’s such a big project, I keep waiting for the decks to be cleared to start on it. That’s always a bad idea if you are trying to get something done, but a good way to procrastinate.

Cross-X Quilt Blocks. That’s February’s installment on our Friendship Swap to the left.

Cutting out the quilt with the Mirror Ball Dots fabric. Let’s just make that THINKING up the quilt with the Mirror Ball Dots fabric. (No photo)
That’s enough for now.

Linking up to Lee’s Freshly Pieced blog and her WIP Wednesday.

WIP, RP, BB Can’t You See?

March 5, 2014November 25, 2014 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

That’s Works in Progress, Rainbow Petals, Bee Blocks, can’t you see? I just liked the rhythm of it all, especially after the previous post, with Emily Dickinson, a reclusive but prolific American poet, writing about her sewing. And yes, that video was of my granddaughter, taking her first stitches.

So the Work in Progress is my Rainbow Petals quilt. This is a rainy-day-late-at-night photo, and we all know how those turn out, but if this looks familiar, that’s because it is. (Check your iPhone.) I first thought of this last summer, when — in bed recuperating from foot surgery — I watched the Apple Keynote talk about their new iOS7, and this logo kept flashing on the screen. I took a screen shot of it and tucked it away. I went to the Long Beach Quilt Show (final year) and bought sixteen different half yards in the Kona colors I thought would match, holding up my screen shot to double check the colors. My friend Leisa and I arranged them at dinner that night, numbering the labels so I wouldn’t mix them up. I’ve since seen another quilter try her hand at this. I had thought to piece it, but now I think I’ll appliqué it by hand.

I’m still thinking over those dark middle petals. While they “read” as black, they are actually forest green.

I also finished a first set of churn dash blocks for my Mid-Century Modern Quilt Bee and sent them off. I kept thinking about them, unhappy with how they had turned out.

So I made another set. I am one of those quilters who have ironed seams so long to the side, that I’m not very happy with my results when I have to iron seams open. If the block is too small, and the seams are pressed to the side, I just take a bigger seam and press again. But if the seams are pressed open, then it’s unpick, resew, re-press. As I mentioned on our Mid-Century Bee blog, I’m just Open-Quilt-Seam-Challenged.

Cindy, also from the Mid-Century Modern Bee, wanted a spiderweb block, with a low-volume (muted) text center and solid strips for the web. A great idea!

For March in my Always Bee Learning Bee, Marci wanted two Modern Maples blocks.

And yep. I did it. I joined the Modern Quilt Guild as an Individual Member because my closest guild was MILES away, across the great wide scorching plains of Los Angeles Traffic — or Orange County Traffic — and I wasn’t able to attend their meetings. Maybe in summertime?

Linking up with Lee of Freshly Pieced.

200 Quilts

Tiny Envelopes Quilt

February 26, 2014 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

Tiny Envelopes
Quilt #129 on the 200 Quilts List

I was happy and pleased to hang this one out on my back-fence studio, and be able to see the shading of the Kona Snow and the Kona White in the background. I smiled.

This quilt had its origins in another, my most recent Four-in-Art, and instead of discarding the small envelopes, I let the fabrics and little squares and colors and strips guide me to another quilt, an interesting journey.

Usually, with me, it’s always a block in my head, or a pattern done up in my quilt software, or a photo of a quilt I’ve seen and want to make, but this one? It formed itself.

I quilted wavy lines, an occasional circle to designate a postmark, and loops in the borders.

The backing is one of my favorites, with pictures of a samara, those little maple seeds you split apart in summer and affix to things — like your nose — little seeds destined to fly away, like a letter to a friend.

The quilt sleeve and binding, a batik fabric, shown close up.

It’s not so big, really, but it was the size it needed to be.

I put two stickers on my Goals Chart–two things finished!

I’m listening to Someone, by Alice McDermott and find that I’ve worked for hours, swept away as I am in this tale. I’m more than halfway through, and need to take up another project so I can finish the novel. Recommended by my mother, but really recommended by my sister Susan, who told my mother about it.

Believe it or not, California is supposed to get some rain. So far right now we have about 1″ of rainfall, when normally it is 10.” We’ve contacted a garden designer to rip out our lawn in front and put in some xeriscaping–plants that are more native to our area and require little water.

But this weekend? It’s supposed to pour, and I know it will knock all the blossoms off my lovely blooming wisteria, the heady fragrance a spring’s welcome when I walk outside to photograph quilts.

This is the view from the top of the trellis–a thick carpet of lavender and purple.

I hope that lovely blossoms are in your future, and that you receive some tiny — or large — envelopes in the mail, tiny, but with grand messages. Which reminds me that I need to get going on my Bee Blocks and my Cross-X blocks, and get those envelopes out in the mail!

Linking up with Lee, of Freshly Pieced on her WIP Wednesday.

Quilts

WIP: Those Pesky Envelope Blocks

February 5, 2014 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

These blocks are like the growly little animal down the block that tries to grab your pant leg as you walk by, as if to say that they own the sidewalk and you’d better not forget it. This is how I left the blocks after finishing up On Line, my Four-in-Art Quilt. But they wouldn’t leave me alone. I’d wake up at night, thinking I should Do Something with them, maybe because of that Yankee thriftiness we all seem to have instilled in us. How many of you have bags of blocks that didn’t quite measure up, but haven’t given away or pitched into the trash? Yep. Just as I thought.

So one early morning, I turned them all this way.

I got rid of the ones I’d played around with the bleach because 1) they weren’t that interesting with their color discharged, and 2) they smelled like bleach. (Ick.)

I do have ideas for them, and hope to work on them after I get the grading done on the Poetry Test that I gave yesterday. I want to work on these blocks so they’ll stop growling at me as I walk by the sewing room.

Linking up with Freshly Pieced Fabric’s Works In Progress Wednesday.

Four-in-Art · Quilts

WIP on a Thursday

January 23, 2014 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

I love that Lee, of Freshly Pieced Fabrics, forgot to put up Works In Progress Wednesday until today, for that’s about the speed I’m moving at this week and it makes me feel better that there’s someone else on the planet who is marching to a different drummer.

But today’s WIP is all about the upcoming Four-in-Art reveal of our art quilts, on Saturday, February 1st (just listen to me hyperventilate!).

This is as far as I’ve gotten–making wee envelope blocks for an idea that is cooking, even percolating, but going no where fast. Grading, prepping for class and of course, a trip to the Road to California Quilt Show (with Deborah of Simply Miss Luella and Cindy of Live A Colorful Life and my quilt group, The Good Heart Quilters) for the next two days are Mighty Interrupters. The overarching theme for this year’s Four-in-Art is Urban, and last quarter’s reveal was “Maps.” This time it is “Structure.”

I’d thought about recreating a structure on a structure, like this small birdhouse on an existing wall of a house.

Or doing something with these amazing buildings in downtown Pittsburgh; one picture was taken in the late afternoon (the top one) and the other was taken in the morning.

Picturesque Burano also captured my heart, but I decided that given the parameters of our group’s art (it has to be 12″ square), I’d rather save this for another day when I have a bigger canvas. And more skills. (Throw “more time” in there too.)

I love the structure of these freeways, but it reminded me too much of a map, which was last quarter’s reveal. So what am I cooking with, with baby envelopes tacked up on my pin wall?

See you in a week, and we’ll both find out.