Current Sewings

Last weekend, I satisfied my itch to try a whole cloth machine quilted piece. It is a 14" pillow/quillow. The lighting in my house has made taking a good picture really hard. It is a softly patterned peachy fabric. I wanted to try my hand at feathers, both the wreath variety and the ones done in corners. All I marked were the hearts and the spines for the corner feathers.

You can probably see more by double clicking. I think it turned out pretty well, although my "Mc Margareting" needs practice still.

The backing is a striped and coordinating fabric. I actually have a 2nd one of these started too, but have fallen short of doung the finishing. My momly Halloween duties must be satisfied first (ie., 2nd son needs costume made this weekend, before my Long Arm arrives at the end of this coming week...It is shipping TODAY!!!)

In preparation for having my LA, I have been on a frenzy of making tops. Here's yet another one, made from the 9-patches of the 3x3 swap I did this summer. It may be a charity quilt, or I may try to sell it depending on how the quilting comes out. It's pretty fun so far I think, despite my indifference about some of the blocks I received. That really needs qualifying - individually, I don't love all of my blocks, but together, they seem to have a different liveliness.

Have a greet weekend.

BTW...Have you checked out this? Wondering about quilt labels?...perhaps this is your solution

Colorful Block Swaps

Here are about 70 blocks I now have from a 9-patch swap hosted here. These are all 6.5" square blocks, or sort of. I have been kind of pokey about doing/starting anything with them. What you don't see, is the other pile of these blocks that are anywhere between 6" square and somewhere under 6.25" square. There are 18 mis-sized blocks out of a swap where only 48 were sent!!! And this is AFTER I took many of them apart and tried to fix them too. Apparently they were cut incorrectly and are unsalvageable. I will however try to connect them and use them on a quilt backing. Oh, and a great thank you to Vanessa, who sent me her 32 blocks (with about 10-12 bad ones of course - which do factor into that 18 erroneous blocks) after the first two of three rounds of this swap. She, too, got tired of the complete lack of quality controls and sent me the blocks last month. I hate that the hostess said she'd send back undersized blocks and in the end, did absolutely nothing. It goes against everything that I believe in, sadly. It bothers me to send blocks back to people, but it bothers me more to send along blocks that are most evidently unacceptable.

Here's another set of blocks. These are from my Colorblocks swap. OK, the swap made only 40 blocks (a few people did 60) - I. personally, made a ton (ok, about 100) of blocks! They are fun, colorful and very nearly all 6-1/2" square. Who would have thought that they could mostly all be sent the correct size??? ...snicker of sarcasm. I have not really decided what I am doing with any of these blocks, but they will likely all become donation quilts when I procure more batting.

It's 11th hour now, but if you are interested in joing a monthly block swap, check this one out on flickr. I will post August blocks I received there later this week.

Swap Pieces - Good and Not so Good

Swaps are a fun, and often interesting way to see and work in a style (or fabrics) that you might not otherwise chose on your own. Generally speaking, I enjoy them. Generally, anyhow.

Here are some pics of a row robin quilt in the works for Diane. I did the aqua row. I wanted to show how it will look with the other rows. There's 2 rows remaining on this quilt. Despite kind of cruddy lighting, the blues and greens are radiant and very saturated. She chose a simple theme: Monochromatic-Big & Little. So every row is constructed of a big and a small block of the same pattern.
another peek...

I showed closeups of a few blocks last week, but here are the others. My goal was to select/design unique blocks that had not yet been done, to choose something with some curves and more intricate piecing, and to frame out the lovely Asian flowers & butterflies in that darker teak material.

I hope Diane likes the row :-)

Now, that's a swap I "Like" (and I say that, because I haven't seen too much of what's being done on my personal quilt, but in general I like the works I have been sent to work on). Here's one that I wish I hadn't wasted my time on. Any person can make a 9-patch, or so I thought. I figured this swap would be a simple way to get a nice assortment of 9-patches without having to cut all of those individual pieces myself. I'll rethink this logic next time. Turns out there are way too many people out there that don't understand a 1/4" seam allowance, or trimming to 6.5" for a 6" finished block, or even that a 6" finished block ought to be 6.5" raw!

Here's my 1st set of 16 blocks received. They're OK in terms of color. Maybe I'm not nuts for the neon one, but that's OK for a donation quilt. Problem is that one block is only 6" square, and 3 more are under 6-1/4" !! Do I toss them? Do I pick them apart? I chose to complain to the host, which may have been my downfall.

So yesterday, my second set of 16 arrived. The hostess assured me she was measuring blocks and not accepting undersized blocks. Then 2 days before the mailing date she admitted to not checking ANY of them. My set arrived with FIVE that did not measure 6-1/4"! That is 30% of what was sent. Un-freakin' believable. I am quite certain that I got the butt of the selection because many of these are really unattractive in person. To piss me off further, I sent her my last set of 16 yesterday! If these had come first, I'd probably have sent 5 of them back! What luck.

I know that there are always varying degrees of ability and taste, but a hostess has to have better quality controls. I spend a fair bit of time on my block swap checking block sizes. I understand that there are always ones that slip through the crack, but her crack is a wide open door that says "Whatever!"

Happy May Day

And a happy one it is. I learned this morning that I was selected for an award from my department. It comes with a very nice $2500 check too! Cha-ching (the fabric bells are going off!). It was a complete surprise considering I only teach classes part-time. Now I have to get myself a respectable thing or two to wear before next Friday, as there is a banquet to attend.

The rest of my materials for the Bento Box quilt arrived this morning. I discovered earlier this week that I likely did not have enough Kaffe prints to do the entire quilt, especially if I expand it from a twin to a queen. So a nice shopping trip was an order. I also needed a few Kona solids, but really wanted to order all of this from one place. I opted to try the Moda Bella solids instead, hoping they'd look and feel close to the Konas. And they do - they are a nice weight, and sew beautifully. I just lOVE the Kaffe Fassett Millifiore (on the right) - I tried to get a couple more colors, but it's sold out in many shops.
Here are the first nine of these 16" Bento Box squares. I have made them larger than the typically seen 12" block. I like the look with the added row of color. Individually, each block is wildly colored, busy, and borderline scarry. In person, however, this is looking so nice - reminds me of looking at a grove of trees, with the clear blue sky showing through the greens and browns. It's boyish and loud, without being garrish.

I still hope to somehow incorporate this feature fabric - the one that all of the others were chosen with which to coordinate. Perhaps a binding. Maybe somehow on the border. Or just on the back. Don't know yet.

I have been remiss this week in a major way. Last week I signed on to Lisa's Pay it Forward. I failed to post this sooner, but the first three people that comment, and agree to also send three people a handmade gift in the next year, will also receive one from me. Long winded and convoluted sentence, but you get the idea!

I also signed up with a easy little swap that Anina of Twiddletails is hosting. We are swappign 6" 9-patch blocks. I love the look of a little old-fashioned 9- patch quilt. We should get either 32 or 48 mostly different blocks from the swap. Worst case, they are quick and easy to make and it's a sweet donation quilt.