Vintage Fabric Winner

I went to see Mr. Random Number Generator this morning to select a winner for this vintage fabric. He chose

Judy Ferguson

I hope you enjoy them!

Scrapbox City Update

Not trying to bore you with partially finished projects, but I have something I’m going to try with this one. I’ve been following Melody Johnson’s blog Fibermania and she’s been working a lot with a quilt as you go finishing technique. It looks good; not like an afterthought. Integrated into the design. She credits Marianne at The Quilting Edge and her great tutorials. All I know is that I want to finish this project with this method.

Advantages: quilting smaller sections at a time. Easier with a domestic machine. You can also add sections to change the size of the piece or the look of the piece at any time, even after you think it might be done!

So–my sections are assembled and ready to be quilted. I made a rookie mistake in the beginning and started squaring things up as I put rows together. Duh! I need extra fabric all around for the quilting and then trim and square up AFTER the quilting is done.

I want to show you the origin of this project. You might think you need to have everything all figured out and planned and drawn to scale and a real pattern before you start. NOT SO! Here’s my plan—

And I don’t usually start with this much! I just had a bunch of scraps, some white fabric (and I never use white), and the idea to make wonky nine patch blocks in different sizes. The rest is all just arrange as desired and fill in the gaps! Fun, challenging, nothing is precise and you can’t make a mistake. My kind of quilting!

Not sure when I’ll actually get back to it. My next several days are tied up with the quilt guild workshop weekend. Maybe Monday. I’ll let you know how the quilt as you go assembly process works…probably with pictures and hopefully NOT with cursing and gnashing of teeth!!!

Oh, this crazy life!

Sometimes life is boring. Same day after same stuff after same thing. And then we go into a phase where life is just crazy. Occasionally it’s a bad crazy and often it’s a good, busy fun crazy. I had both of those in the past week and today I am embracing the boring!

A little beading, a little piecing, a little gardening, maybe a little napping…just nice, peaceful boredom.

Watching the grass grow and the trees leaf out…

Of course, that means nothing to tell you about, so how about a little giveaway?

I always have fabric that needs to find a new home and today I am giving away a vintage set of the same fabric in different colorways. I’m not sure if I have ALL the colors in this set, but I have most of them.

Various sized pieces that I have not used up because I never found the “perfect” idea for them. I think there’s a yard of the green and 1/2 yard of the blue (which has stains along the fold), but only a little square of the brown. I think they would work well in a more traditional pattern and since I don’t use those anymore, this fabric should go to a new home.

Would you like it to be yours? I sure would! Leave a comment and I’ll pick a winner this week…when I’m done with nice, peaceful boredom!

Yes, spring indeed!

Are you tired of looking at everyone’s fabulous spring flowers? Well, then, just skip on ahead because I couldn’t help myself today! Sunny, warm, glorious spring! Finally! Maybe just a few more exclamation points to show how happy I am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trees in bloom…

Love these little white beauties

A pile of freshly cut tree

Bleeding heart–so graceful

And my own baby redbud!!!

Always color…

My color decisions today involve beads. I’ve been slowly working on this piece, little bits at a time when I have a bit of time! It’s only about 16 x 20, but I’ve not been working on it very steadily.

I have my big rectangular dark beads on. I have my dark curvy lines. And then I have the pinky/orange/floral parts that I originally fell in love with. They’ve been totally ignored and now it’s decision time.

The flowers are subtle, but there, if you know what I mean.

These are the most clearly seen, quite pink, with just a touch of the orange on the right side.

These are almost completely pink with no orange nearby.

More very pink, no orange.

And a big swath of orange with no flowers.

I want to emphasize the flowers, pull in the orange flavor, but not overwhelm the subtlety of the flowers.

I started with the very lightest flower and used a gray/white bead.

Haven’t gotten too far, but I pulled these beads. I think I can achieve what I want with these…just don’t know how heavily I will cover the flowers with beads. I think a light touch is called for.

May not get this done for a while since it’s the “work-on-when-I-have-tiny-bits-of-time-piece” but I’ll post a picture of the completed beading. Then I have plans to add some hand stitching before the whole thing is done. Yep, little bits of time, but eventually it will get done!

I’m going to link this to Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday. I love to check out what everyone else is doing–you might, too!

Love this project!

Went to open studio at USArtquest this week and learned a new process to use with mica. Several of us made mica beads and rather than use them in a necklace, Sue decided to showcase them on a textile piece. I got to do the quilting and finishing and I just love the look of this project.

Don’t know if this is supposed to be super secret, but you can have a good sneak peek at another project full of fun!

Here are a couple details and here’s MY secret–it doesn’t matter what you do to these tiles, they all come out absolutely gorgeous!!!

I love wonky blocks!

My scrap project is now officially going to take forever and a day. And I don’t care! To make it match the picture in my head, I just cannot bring myself to square everything up and have it all neat and even. What that means in terms of construction is that there is no stacking and cutting of layers, no chain piecing, no shortcuts. But it’s all so much more unique when you customize every part of your work that it is just plain worth it!

Have you added wonkiness into your quilt life? I made a lot of crazy nine patch blocks and now I’m going to add some inserts into some of them. Just in case you haven’t tried inserts, here’s how I do it.

I’m using fairly wide strips for my inserts, because I don’t want to drive myself totally bonkers!

This block already had one insert and I’m going to add the striped one, also. The strip is one inch wide, so the finished insert is 1/2″ wide.

Simply slice your block where you want your insert to be.

I try to avoid seam intersections, but if you hit one, it’s not a very big deal. Sewing the left side first is what I usually do, lining up the edges, just as if it were a regular block. When you add the second side, you have choices.

Line up the edges again, as shown by the fat arrow, and sew. Don’t fret about lining up the other insert that’s already there or the block pieces. This is wonky and doesn’t need to match. Your second choice, shown by the skinny arrow, is to put the left edge of your presser foot closer to that first sewn seam. That makes your insert skinnier and by following the first seam line, your insert is straight, too. Or you can start with a skinnier insert piece…I don’t do that very often, but if you want to see great, skinny insert work, check out Kathy Loomis’ work at artwithaneedle.com She is awesome!

So, back to my fat inserts…I press the seams towards the insert.

That fills up the insert with fabric and you don’t end up with a big sinkhole in your block. See–nice and full and fluffy and the orange strip even accidentally matched!

Notice that I have not squared up the edges of the block. I save that part until I am actually joining my blocks. That way I can put off the final size decision a bit longer. Procrastination works well for me when I’m doing wonky stuff!

So this is what I’ll be doing for the forseeable future. I’ll try not to bore you with updates about doing the same thing over and over–I’ll save the next post about this piece until it’s done. I just want to encourage you to find something you can cut into without a heart attack and do something wonky, too. Quilting is supposed to be fun and this is lots of fun for me!

I’m happy to have something to share on Nina-Marie’s blog this week. Check out all the cool blog link-ups.