Happy Easter / Birthday

Saturday afternoon we died a few eggs. Yea, I know, that is supposed to be "dyed", bit if felt more like the other. With my 3 kids in those moods of theirs (ages 2.5, almost 5 and just 7), they made it like having a tooth worked on. One just wanted to go out and ride his bike. "Mine's dark enough, I'm done", he'd repeat. He should have just had a few brown eggs and he'd have been content. Middle man just wanted to slosh the colors around and make a mess, as usual. My daughter was the only one truly interested. Once again this year I say, "maybe next year will be more fun!!" The eggs are now hidden and awaiting the awaking (and hopefully not vomiting) children. My oldest surprised us at 11pm last night puking his guts up in bed. JOY!

I have held off showing this since it is a birthday present for someone who I think snoops this blog. The birthday is next week, while she's away in France. So, pending the puking offspring of mine, I will deliver it later today. With my son born on Good Friday, and her bday very close to Easter, it's somewhat fitting. It's hard to give up; I really like it!

Last month, I received some great squares from Amy in a spring fat quarter swap. Many were Easter-ish. I never showed a picture on my blog because I stitched half of them into this within days of receiving. Hopefully she can forgive this! Then I added small accents of the Fairy Frosts that Emma sent me to make my Easter egg shimmer.

It was so easy - just a bunch of half-square triangles. I drafted a template of an egg, cut to shape and quilted it. The binding is fantastic bias-cut material and sewed on like a dream.

I did a springy leaf meander in the solid zig-zags, and a tight meander everywhere else. Here's a peek at the back, where more of the quilting is obvious.

Hope you have a happy Easter with your family!

Spring has Arrived

It was a very lucky mail day. Not one international package, but two!! My Spring Fling round robin square arrived from Laila, and my Four Seasons Spring quilt. I was riddled with excitement, as I tore into the packages.

The awesome Janice has sent this gorgeous quilt to my humble abode, all the way from New Zealand. It is beyond what words can describe (probably beyond what my ability as a photographer can capture too!). Take a look...

(pardon the bright sun & shadow lines from my back deck. Inside the house is not a good place for taking pictures that show color true)

The free-motion quilting around the border is incredible as is the rest of it. It's raw-edge appliqued, which is something I have never undertaken. Like myself, she apparently has an enormous stash of green fabrics! It's so marvelous, really beautiful.

"Spring Blossoms" has made it's way Home

I was overwhelmed with sadness as I mailed my Spring quilt last week. I think it was mostly just the anxiety over spending 60+ hours making something that I was about to entrust to the Postal service to transport 3000 miles. But oddly, in the swaps I have done this last 9 months, there HAVE been items lost. I really did not want this to be one of them because there would not be a replacement quilt of similar content! This was a very fun project to make. I knew I was making it for a very deserving person, and a very good quilter. Now that Tami has received the quilt, I can show a few additional pictures and reveal a little more about it's making.
Here's the finished quilt, about 17"x21" I think. I started by making 36 of the little hand appliqued tea-leaf squares. Initially I planned on making another quilt very similar to this one that I made for myself this spring. As the sign-ups for this swap continued, and I realized I wanted Tami for my partner. I decided too that I wanted to convey a paler shade of spring than the deep tones of the tea-leaf flowers. Additionally, I decided that I needed to go a little more unique and original for her. She's got a very creative mind, and deserved my best at an original design. Her experience with her last swap was not stellar, and I think she nearly did not sign up for this one because of that. I hoped to rejuvinate her trust in the unknown.

When I began the quilt, it just had the larger center tree. Thanks to my crappy old iron, which left a small scortch mark on the very soft, and pale lavendar background, I had to concoct something to cover it up. With the finished quilt, you cannot even tell what had happenned. I have even nearly forgotten it myself! But I remember the day I saw the orange mark and I nearly cried! The tree still had no leaves, but I knew it was a lot of work to replace it, and I had no more of the lavendar fabric I used.

The entire quilt is hand appliqued (needle-turn) except for piecing the 16 tea-leaf squares together and sewing on the binding. I still cannot always sew my curves without something "wompus" happening (my own word for unruley streaching!), so I just do them by hand. Almost all of the leaves are of separate greens from my stash, with my favorive being the little dragonfly leaf. Just a little whimsey!

I know I showed this as my initial inspiration some weeks ago. It's a kind of gaudy little metal tree I have, but I love the swirls. So I embroidered them onto the tree. I added a few embroidered flowers too - it is spring afterall, somewhere! Here in Maine the snow is just disappearing. Flowers are at least a month away still. Where the little nest sits was a joint of two pieces of fabric that I had to cover up. I thought the robin's eggs and nest was such a springy cover for my blunder!
Hyacinths are one of my favorite flowers so I wanted to add some of them. I'm not sure if California really grows many of the bulbs, but then. I went to grad school in CA, but I wasn't really looking at the flowers much at that point in my life (too busy trying to eye a husband!)!!

Although I am practicing my free-motion quilting more lately, I consider myself to be a hand-quilter. This quilt is completely hand quilted, in lavendar and green threads. I just live quilting the background fabric - it is the softest cotton and the needle just slides through as it is stitched. In the end, I love that the clouds are in shades of purples, and that the quilting resembles rays of sunlight. To me, it is quinticential spring.
So my finishing touch was adding a row of te tea-leaf flowers at the bottom of the quilt. I hated to make all of them and not use any. They are all from the many greens and purples of my stash. The funny thing here is that I actually comtacted Tami to inquire how she made the yo-yo centers that she used on her Spring Fling center block - I wanted them for the centers of these flowers! She gave great instructions, which I later posted here on my blog. It only took me 5 tries to get 3 of them that were close to the same size.

I am anxiously awaiting (and being a perfect swapper and not looking at her blog) my spring quilt. I know where it is coming from obviously, but do not know what magic she is putting into it.

Spring Quilt has flown to a warmer climate

My spring quilt should be reaching it's new home tomorrow. I'm very sad to see it go. I've never done a quilt almost all by hand like this one. I just hope (and I think I know my partner's taste well enough to be confident here) she likes it. Here's one last glimpse at spring... (more pics after it is received)


The making of this quilt is shown here and here and here.

I have rejoined the quilt block swap. Here's my April "nautical & scrappy" block. Hopefully my partner is not snooping this out! Those are supposed to be like the triangular flags on sail boats.

My Yo-yo's & Sneak Peek

So here are my yo-yo's. It took me 5 attempts to get three of them that are approximately the same size. They are not perfect, but I hope the recipient of this is not a yo-yo perfectioniste! They do complete the tea-leaf flowers nicely.

This may be the last sneak peek I post of my spring quilt until it is received by it's new owner. The mere thought of packaging this up for the mailman makes me sad. I absolutely love it, and know I will probably never make one just like it for myself. It is 95% done by hand. I only used my machine to sew the 16 tea-leaf blocks together and to stitch on the binding. The leaves are and tree and top portion of the quilt are all hand appliqued. The quilting is all done by hand in shades of lavendar and green. I hope my partner loves it. Except for a label and a few small details, it is completed. I can't say the same for the other 3 projects I started last week!

More Spring 4-Seasons Sneak-Peeks

Did I mention that the quilt has just a little embroidery?...

That picture is a touch washed out by the flash. But what says "spring" better than a few hyacinths and a nest of robin's eggs?

Oh, and you got a sneak-peek at the cute swirls embroidered on the tree's branches...oops!

Spring is nowhere in Sight outside

Yea...It's Saturday & I don't have to juggle working, mommy, 3 kids AND snowblowing 10" of snow. I don't care if he is sick; this is MAN's work! ...and the neighborhood had plenty of working men yesterday.

Despite how it looked outside, in between an unusually heavy working period with my 2 classes (Statics & Dynamics- do I hear an "Ew..."?), I have been making headway on my 4-Seasons Quilt Swap mini quilt. It's actually further along than this; I'm building the suspense.

I love how it is turning out. It will definitely be the hardest of the 3 I have done to give away. It is 100% done by hand, needle-turn applique. So far I have put about 30 hours into it. I ordered some lavendar and pale green quilt thread because I think I'll be close to ready to hand quilt next week. I sure wish there was somewhere around here that sold colored hand quilting thread in more than 3 colors. So who's this for, you wonder??? You'll have to wait and see. As head swap Mama, I am omnipotent. I can select the fates of all quilters.... (do you smell the witch's brew cooking...he he). Naw...I chose a partner for myself that is a creative, talented and spirited quilter. That describes too many of you, I know. She is whimsical, yet still somewhat traditional. She is mindful of small details. She puts good thought into her sewing, and wanted a partner that would do the same. I know...it still sounds like most of you. If you want more, you'll have to wait a while...

So is the burning question in your minds, "Where's she gonna use those tea leaf blocks?"... wait and see (grin).

4-Seasons Spring Quilt

You have seen the Spring quilt I made for myself in the many scrappy shades of green, lavendar and purple that I have (tea leaves). I prepared a bunch more of those tea leave flowers, in preparation for the 4-Seasons Spring swap quilt, but after doing so I am contemplating a different approach. I have selected a partner that is crafty, and whimsical. She is a talented quilter and very creative. (I know, I know...that describes most all of my readers!) So here's a sneak preview to what I am making.

I LOVE green. All shades of green, but especially the more lime shades which are perfect for spring. I also have an equal amount of purple & lavendar shades that will also be incorporated.
There will be some of these tea leaf flowers, but the quilt will most definitely NOT have these as it's focus, as my SPRING quilt does. It will be far more whimsical and imaginative...less traditional, but still very lovely (I can say that because it is quite far along in it's construction; I'm just not going to show a picture of it just yet...let the suspense build).
So what exactly is my inspiration for this mini-quilt???
I was given this metal Hallmark tree years ago. It's basically kind of ugly, and was intended to have these little mini-frames hung onto it - with family pictures in them. It's the "family tree". Despite it's ugly factor, I kinda like it, and it sits atop my bedroom dresser. My bedroon, incidentally, has about 20 black & white and sepia-tone old family photographs, dating back to the late 1800's. It fit's my decor. I saw it one day a week ago, and knew it was my quilt's inspiration. It has Spring written all over it. It has the whimsical swirls and nice shape. Now...if only I can appropriatly utilize this concept for a quilt!

This is MY spring

Another little quilt to adorn my hallway walls is complete (once the painting is finished...therein lies the problem!). The painting is at most 40-50% completed, and my motivation is waning.

This was my 2nd attempt at machine quilting. It's not the best, but it's not bad thus far. I love the colors. They are truly me. Spring definitely needs that bright chartreuse. My thoughts are still pondering about the "ball-like" flowers. They are a bit folksy for my taste (ie., not my favorite), but I did them like that to mimic the flowers in the outer border (zoom in for a better view).

For those of you lurking around...my 4Seasons spring quilt is NOT this particular one. It may be quite similar, but a touch smaller, as this is 22-23".

Our spring is still looking to be light years away though, as we got another 6" of snow last night. This is an amazingly snowy winter. I don't think we have seen the ground since early December. It might be a mid-April spring :-(

MY Spring Mini

The tea-leaf quiltlet is coming along. I practiced my machine quilting on a Project Linus quilt this week, which incidently did not turn out too great. It had this ultra-thick poly batting, which I personally hate to work with. If it had not been free, and that I have 5 yards of it, I'd have used something else. Anywho, what I did on this spring quilt looks considerably better. The practice did help. It's a more manageable size for my machine and the batting is a thin cotton. I think it is not perfect, but decent. It's done with a lime green thread, but I hung the quilt in a window, so it looks overly pearlescent in the pictures.

My appliqued border is not completed, but you can get the idea.


closer up view...
and for effect, a view in a window from the back side...

Now if only spring could actually come. Here's what my front yard looks like still (snow up to my nearly 6 year old's shoulders)

Another View

This is under natural light, perhaps showing the colors better ( & the snow!)

Pictures of Progress

My first completed knitting project. Actually I have knitted all my life, here and there. I remember starting a couple of sweaters, but this was the first I remember actually finishing. And it fits her too! It's made with Bernat Cottontots yarn, size 2/3US needles. I plan to type up the pattern soon. I bought 3-3.5oz balls, and have 3oz left (measured with our kitchen scale!).

Here's the 12"x12" assembly of the tea blocks I showed a few days ago, upsidedown & sideways. The color is off a little, as it transgresses upwards to a nice light apple/kiwi color. I haven't decided if I will do one similar to this for the swap, but it is possible, and will certainly utilize many of these same fabrics. Many are leftover from this quilt I made last year, and have once again started hand quilting (again). What can I say, I love purples & greens, and especially when they are together.

I am looking for a tip on fabric markers. Does anybody have any experience? I want to make something that has children (6 year olds) using them so they need to be easy to use & robust. Looking for a tip on where to buy them and what kind. thanks