Where does the time go?

It’s Bonfire Night tomorrow… at least back in the UK it is. We don’t celebrate such things here, perhaps we should… but we just finished the Halloween candy so maybe it’s not really necessary?

I made, as in pieced, quilted and bound, two quilts in the last week. Not big quilts but finished items never the less…

I bought Kaffe Fassett’s Quilt Romance as soon as it came in to the store and knew I needed to make Brandon Mably’s Two Up Two Down Quilt… It was a great opportunity to use some of my Westminster Fabric prints I have been saving over the past few years. I limited myself to just buying the sashing and binding fabrics. We didn’t have the cloud fabric that is shown in the book for the sashing so I chose something in a similar color palette. Now the houses are in a forest instead of up in the sky.

Once again I’m missing an assistant for a full quilt viewing but you can get the idea. I used a wool batt and quilted an all over grid design to help hold the fused windows and doors. I think it gives a nice “shabby chic” effect. My apologies to Brandon if that doesn’t appeal!!

Less shabby and more glamorous is the flowing LINES table runner designed by Elizabeth Rosenberg for Eleanor Levie’s Skinny Quilts and Table Runners II book. I bought some more silk dupioni and made this one yesterday.

and closer up…

I used YLI silk threads for the quilting. Gotta love that curved piecing!

 

It seems like I have been neglecting my sewing machine recently. We did go on a trip down south…

New Orleans was fun!!

 

…and I have taught a few classes, including FabricOrigami Stars. We had a full class of fun loving ladies that day! They all worked hard and went home with lots of finished stars…

 

No doubt it will soon be time to be thinking of classes for the next quarter… At least I’ve got a few ideas ready to go.

Finishing things

Last week was a time of finishing things… I had two quilts pin basted at the beginning of the week and now I have two finished quilts, bound and everything!!

First we have a Japanese Jigsaw quilt started after the Long Beach IQA July 2008. I bought the pattern, template and fabrics from Tracy Brookshier and soon got the top made, but as we all know it’s not a quilt until its quilted. Well now it’s a quilt,

I used Quilters Dream 100% Cotton Select batting so it should wear well if it happens to go somewhere it will need washing.

I made the next top several years ago from the book Super Simple Triangles from Possibilities which is now out of print. We called it Chocolate Covered Cherries at Pieceful Heart but that was not the name in the book.

I used a piece of super soft  Valorie Wells designed flannel which I bought in Las Vegas on the way through this summer. I have discovered in the past that putting flannel on the back of a quilt can make it very heavy so I used a wool batting in this one. I have already washed it (on the cold water regular cycle), and dried it in the drier (on delicates). It held up well, so hopefully it has a happy life ahead of it.

If one bag is good then two bags have got to be better. I made my second Maple Island Grommet Bag. I had the pink fabrics in my stash and used the fuschia grommets I got from Tammy Tadd’s.

I have a white, yellow, green (gender neutral) top awaiting my attentions next…

It stopped raining yesterday long enough to go for a walk in the woods at the Arboretum. There weren’t a lot of people where we were but we did connect with the wildlife. We saw a small snake… Steve was scared it would bite but we took some photos without incident.

It was a skinny little thing, about 10″ long. It looks a lot bigger in the picture!

Bag with grommets

Amongst my purchases at Tammy Tadd’s last week was the Wallet and Grommet Bag pattern from Maple Island Quilts. I’ve been waiting for the right time to try it out and today the stars were aligned…

I bought a couple of pieces of the latest Paula Nadelstern for Benartex fabrics at PHF on Saturday and some big grommets so I had everything I needed. It was a quick fun project and before long I had my bag…

The grommets were easy to apply and went over the two layers of fabric and fusible fleece no problem. I have my fabrics ready for a second one. It’ll be pink – what else?

It’s a Wrap

There was a full house on Saturday at PHF for the It’s a Wrap class. We used Susan Breier’s book to guide us as we wrapped, coiled and built our pots.

People wrapped in different ways. Some stood up,

others wrapped sitting down.

Some people made small pots,

others had bigger plans.

But whatever way people worked, their pots grew,

and grew…

and after 5 hours of concentrated effort there was a whole collection of pots ready to go home.

Some needed a little bit more work to finish them off but once again a good time was had by all!

Over the hills and far away

After a fun filled two weeks my parents left for home last Wednesday so who wants to stay in and wash sheets? Well not me, so I joined the Material Girls Bee for a field trip to Tammy Tadd’s in Sycamore. Loraine drove us all and before we’d even had time to ask “are we there yet?” there we were!

There was a welcome notice awaiting us in the front window so we knew we were in the right place.

So in we went…

We needed a team photo.

The team colors were rather fetching (my favorite). We had all read the e-mail….

There was lots to see and some difficult decisions to make but everyone played well and got back in the van happy. Then we payed a quick visit to the friendly folks at Paper Pieces before heading into town for refreshment at Nat’s on Maple.

it was a fun day out and the sheets were quite happy to wait until I got back…

Fun and Games at Riverwalk Quilters Guild

We had a fun time “meeting the board” last Tuesday at RWQG. Seventeen board members took part sharing some personal details and lots of quilts. We had 26 door prizes so everyone stayed awake…

Here is a summary of the personal details as revealed in the program,

The average board member (is there such a thing?) has been a member of the guild for 7½ years and is serving their 4^th year on the board (It must be fun!). Board members have 54 children and 58 grandchildren, with several more on the way. They have 18 cats, 10 dogs, 12 birds, 2 bunnies, lots of fish and a horse between them. One board member owns 11 sewing machines. The ladies own a total of 63 machines at present. Bernina was named most often as the favorite brand, followed by Janome and Viking. Brother and Pfaff were also mentioned.

Pieceful Heart Fabrics was the clear favorite amongst local independent quilt stores. Stitches and Stuffing, Thimbles, Tammy Tadd and QuiltFabric.com were also named. The board members owned up to having 5000 yards of fabric in their stashes but several ignored the question and several just lied… It’s probably at least double that amount. The AQS show in Paducah tied with the IQA show at Rosemont as favorite quilt show.

An equal number of board members create in a studio or a sewing room. One designated her space a “sweatshop”. Others sew in the dining room, living room, basement or even outside on the deck.  Local teacher Connie Pomering was mentioned most often as favorite instructor, followed by Sharon Schamber. Also mentioned were Tricia Spitzmueller, Jane Sassaman, Caryl Bryer Fallert, Mary Ellen Hopkins, Karen MacTavish and Marti Mitchell.

The only real problem was a time management issue. I discovered you cannot possibly interview that number of Naperville quilters in 1 hour. Even with some gentle pressure to keep the stories short and sweet the program took around an hour and three quarters. That meant there was no time for show and tell. It’s the Small Quilt Auction next month so we will be waiting until November to see what people have been creating recently…

Artist(s) at work

A fearless group of young quilters and their adults were to be found hard at work in the class room at Pieceful Heart Fabrics on Sunday afternoon making door signs. From “Queen Jane” to “Keep Out” they were all totally adorable as you can see…

There was a great deal of color theory conversation in the room as the backgrounds were assembled, followed by some fabulous quilting and a final flourish of creative couching. The time passed very quickly but everyone went home finished. No homework for this class!

Tomorrow at Riverwalk Quilters we are having a “Meet the Board” presentation. I have been hard at work getting what I think will be an entertaining evening organized. As part of the fun we will having a Power Point show of board members studios. I cleared mine up especially…

It would be a different story if I pointed the camera in the opposite direction but I will be working on it soon.

It’s Labor Day today so we needed a trip out and where better to go than Morton Arboretum ? The sun was shining and there were photo opportunities whichever way you looked.

Back to work tomorrow?

Improvising

I decided to finish one of my Vikki Pignatelli Improvisational blocks this afternoon instead of clearing up or doing something useful… It didn’t take too long so here it is all quilted and everything…

I’m not really sure what way up it should go. It looks like a pig if I put it the other way up. I did think it would go portrait style but that looked weird. It’s just a fancy place mat at the moment! Whatever…

August is nearly over.

It’s hard to believe that it will be September next Tuesday. Pieceful Heart sent out its “Fall into Winter” class schedule this week…

That means I have been busy on samples once again. After finishing the snowman I took a step back through the seasons to work on Autumn Leaves Art Quilt a piece from Patsy Thompson Designs.

It came out well. Four fused leaves and lots of fancy machine quilting.

Then I moved on to Sunflowers from Cleo Designs, a pattern I picked up in Columbus.

It took two attempts to make a meadow lark I liked but I got there in the end. I used a wool batt to get a nice texture for the background area.

After all that fusing it was time for some piecing. This is Happily Ever Laughter from the new X-Blocks book.

I’ve lost my tame quilt holder so now I have to display them over the back of the sofa… including this new Reversible Quilt I finally finished…

Rounding out the class offerings are two for Quilter and Child. First a Poster Quilt from Patrick Lose,

and then two place mats covered with Therm-O-Web Vinyl,

I think I’ve found project that will go home ready for use with the place mats. I was a little suspicious of the fusible vinyl but it was easy to use and looked good!

Now it’s time to play. I’m working on a project inspired by our trip out west. Hopefully there will be pictures soon.

Let it Snow?

I’ve started making samples for the next quarter at Pieceful Heart…

The first one is a snowman of course. After all it is August and the temperatures are in the 80s…

It’s a Crabapple Hill design called Crazy Quilt Snowman. The pattern shows the panel made into a pillow but I made mine into a small wall quilt. I’m going to use it as a beginning embroidery class because it uses six basic embroidery stitches. I like the Moda fabric I used in the middle. There’s a subtle snowflake design which is a lot more interesting than using plain white or cream.

 

I’m a bit behind with the samples because we had Vikki Pignatelli at Riverwalk Quilters Guild last week. She brought some gorgeous quilts with her.

She uses an improvisational technique, working from the front to make her works of art. I took the workshop on Wednesday and had a wonderful time. I made two blocks which await finishing…

Here is Vikki signing my book.

Fun times!

 

Talking of fun times, I am very excited… Sheila and I have sent our checks in to reserve our spots on a 5 day Stewart Gill “Creativity for You” workshop in January. It’ll be a week of playing with all the Stewart Gill products. I see an opportunity to make a big mess… or be fantastically creative?

 

Meanwhile, there are those samples to make. Back to fused sunflowers…