A Big Reveal

Hi Everyone,

For some time now I have been wanting to share the final results of my "watery" quilt.  I sent it off to the lovely, talented Mary at Quilt Hollow for her wonderful quilting.  She did an all-over, edge to edge pattern of seashells and starfish. 

If you remember, I began this quilt to use my collection of turquoise batiks that I began acquiring while living in Hawaii.  The pattern is Bali Breeze from Scrap-Basket Sensations by Kim Brackett.  I reversed it by having the lights as the stars and the turquoises as the background.  To me, it looks more "oceany" that way.  It began life the size in the pattern, lap size, but once my parents saw it, they decided it would look great in their guest room.  They have a twin bed there, but they wanted it to hang to the floor like a bedspread, so it "grew" to be nearly king-sized.

 

It is finally bound and washed and crinkled.  This is going to be a difficult quilt to give away, but on the other hand, we can't keep them all!  Plus, there are so many more to make!

Have a great day,
JoAnne

What I Worked On

Hi Everyone,

Hmmm, excuse the improper grammar in my title.  I was an English major way back at University, so I know that the correct version should read:  The Projects on Which I Worked, but that sounds a bit formal.  Anyway, you probably didn't come here for a grammar lesson, so let's get to the quilting!

I did not take my whole Dresden quilt to the retreat for a few reasons.  The first is that my concentration is not what it should be in a group, and the second is that I'm enjoying this project so much that I want to keep it to myself.  Saying that, I did take some of the blades to work on if I got a chance.  Sewing the top, clipping, turning, and pressing can get a bit boring, so I thought that would work, and I did do a bit of it on the last day.  For the majority of the time,  I wanted to take projects that were easy and sort of mundane. 

I know I said that I packed about 46 projects to take, and of course that was quite the exaggeration, but I did take a number of things so I wouldn't run out of anything to do.  Has anyone ever run out of projects at a retreat?  I think we all way over-prepare! 

The major quilt that I worked on I last blogged about in March.  Here is the post if you are interested in reading about it.  Here is a picture of how I left it:

 

It is fairly small here and I was unsure if I would border it or even what would happen to it.  I made it to use the lovely turquoise/ocean-y batiks I began collecting in Hawaii.  The pattern is sort of reversed.  In the original, the background is cream with colored stars, but I wanted the look of ocean and sand, so I made the background the "ocean" and the stars as the "sand." 

 

I showed this to my parents at some point and they fell in love with it and thought it would be perfect for the twin bed in their extra bedroom.  They wanted it to be like a bedspread, hanging all the way down to the floor--not as a comforter with a bedskirt.  It was much too small to cover any bed, so I needed to make it larger.  This is a pattern from one of Kim Brackett's Scrap-Basket books, in fact it is even in her brand new "compilation" book that is just coming out called "Scrap Quilting, Strip By Strip."  If you are interested, you can read about it here.  Her patterns use 2.5" strips, so it was easy to precut all the strips and then subcut them to the size I needed for the pattern, so I went with a bit of a "kit" enabling me to get right to the sewing.

 

My plan was to double it by making roughly another one and sewing them the "long" side together to make a new rectangle.  However, the pattern uses two blocks, one for the inside of the quilt and one for the edges, so I couldn't just make another and sew them together.  I had to rip one of the outer strips off and insert new strips that only had the outer blocks on the edges that I needed.  I ended up with this.  The outer blocks "stop" the star pattern by having more blue in them. 

 

I tried it on one of the twin beds at the retreat, and it is plenty long enough now, but needs to be a bit wider, so I'll make more blocks and rip it apart vertically and insert a couple rows to give it the extra width I need.  I have a small stack of extra blocks, but I used up all the fabric strips that I took along, so I had to stop here.  I did take it out on a couple of field trips to quilt shops (I think we went out almost every day) and found a perfect border fabric for it.  When I get it finished, I will share it AND I'll try to take a better photo.  Remember it poured most of yesterday, so I had to settle for distorted floor shots.

After I finished with that, I was in the mood for something smaller!  I had brought along some of my kits from the Temecula Quilt Co.  I get one each month for a year and they make a small quilt.  They are fun to make because they contain everything you need (except backing.)  I got two of them pieced.

They are small--about 10" x 12" or a bit larger.  I wasn't happy with the setting of the brown churn dash--the blocks were supposed to be arranged on point, but I preferred it this way.

I thought I would have gotten more done, but when you factor in the field trips, meals, visiting, helping others, sleeping, etc. the time really flies!

Anyway, speaking of my Dresden quilt, I've been dying to show you progress all week, but these other posts needed sharing too, so come back tomorrow for a peek at it! 

Have a great day!
JoAnne

Finished One, Began Another

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday morning I sewed the last few rows together on my watery quilt, so it is done now, according to the pattern.  I think I like it as is, without a border, but I'm going to mull it over for awhile to make sure.

I'm still loving all the movement in the quilt.

I finished in time to go out to lunch.  I was meeting a group of other Army wives for lunch at a cute restaurant on the grounds of the Yorktown Battlefield.  It is located inside a historic building.  We had lots a fun conversation and food was yummy.  Best of all, they mixed up my order, which made it late, so they compensated by giving me my entire meal for free!  I'm here to say that there really can be such a thing as a free lunch!

I should have taken some pictures.  Yorktown was so lovely yesterday.  It was a bit chilly, but the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the river was sparkling below and the tall, white monument was brilliant against it all.


When I got home, I spent a few minutes deciding on my next project and then I got started.  This is a quilt that I had no plans to make until this week.  Once I got involved in making Schnibbles, I started acquiring charm packs.  I seem to have "quite a few now," and some are from the same designer, but different lines.  However, the lines go together nicely, so  I've been looking around for a pattern that makes a larger quilt out of multiple charm packs.  I know that Carrie's pattern, Hubble, fits the bill, but I already made that and I would prefer to try another pattern.  I was a bit stumped until earlier this week when The Moda Bakeshop showcased a new project called the Honey Honey Layer Cake Quilt which can also be made using charm packs! 

I spent yesterday sorting through 4 charm packs and beginning to trim and prep so this morning I go right up and start sewing.  Hopefully I will have to progress to report next time!

I hope everyone has a great weekend.  As for today, "Beware the Ides of March!"

JoAnne

Project Peek

Hi Everyone,

I'm back with the promised peek at the design wall.  I got all the blocks arranged and am in the process of sewing them together.  I can't believe how quickly this project is progressing!

First though, I woke up to a big disappointment.  Ever since we lived in Alaska for 4 years, we've become big Iditarod fans.  The Iditarod is the the annual 1049 mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome.  It starts the first Saturday in March and it takes around 9 days for the winner to cross under the burled arch in Nome (the finish line.)  For the past day or two, the frontrunners included Mitch Seavey (an Alaskan musher whose father helped start the race, who won the year of our first Iditarod when we lived in Alaska, and the father of last year's winner, Dallas), Aliy Zirkle (a cool female musher who has always been a favorite of mine), and Jeff King (a four-time winner one of which was also when we lived in Alaska.)  Well, no woman has won the Iditarod since 1990 when Susan Butcher won her fourth.  The first woman to win was Libby Riddles and she just did so once, so a woman has only won 5 times.  Aily was only 13 minutes behind Mitch when they left White Mountain--the checkpoint with the last 8 hour mandatory rest.  When I went to bed, it looked like Mitch was going to be first to Safety, the last checkpoint before Nome.  I was still hoping that Aliy would pass him, but when I woke up, it was to the news that Mitch had won (by 23-24 minutes).  I am so disappointed--actually much more so than I thought I would be.  I guess I will have to cheer myself up with some quilting!

Without further delay, here is the photo of my design wall.

 Can you see that there are cream/tan stars being formed in the pools of blues?  I choose all the turquoise/blue that I could find that seemed to be ocean colors.  Inititally my plan was to have the blue stars on the cream background, but then I thought that if the background was all blue, it would look more like water.

All the fabrics are batiks and not my normal palette, but it is fun to take a break from the usual.  I think it is a bit like going on vacation--to the beach maybe!  I wasn't a batik person at all until I got to Hawaii.  All the colors of the ocean there really influenced me to collect these fabrics.

Hopefully I will get them all together today.  The pattern is Bali Stars from a Kim Brackett book, Scrap-Basket Sensations.  Have you seen that her new one is out?!  I've got my copy ordered.

Have a great day!
JoAnne

Monday

Hi Everyone,

What an experience this weekend was.  We lived in Hawaii for three years, and Hawaii doesn't change to daylight savings time.  Gaining that hour last fall was easy, not so much this weekend!  Truthfully, we haven't adjusted yet.  Our clocks are reset, but not our internal ones.  My husband has the day off today.  We aren't sure just why, but we aren't complaining!  He came down with my cold on Friday night, so the challenge has been to keep him "resting" and not doing too much.  This is actually more difficult than you may realize, because my husband is the very opposite of lazy. 

I have been filling you in for a couple weeks now about the Midatlantic Quilt Fest, but maybe you are wondering what I have been doing in the quilt room lately.  Do you ever have a spell where you start something, get part way into it and then you just lose interest?  I've had a few of those projects lately.  Is it the end of winter blahs?  I hope so.  That would make it not my problem, ha ha. 

I am really excited about my next project, though.  I spent the past few days cutting it and drawing the diagonal lines.  I know that I could use my Easy Angle, but in this case, I want the pieces to be absolutely accurate.  Hopefully I will get some stitching done and be able to share with you soon.  This is one of the projects that I have on my list for the year, and I've been collecting fabric for it for a few years, now!

Another tedious project that I accomplished was to work on the backing for the king-sized quilt.  I ordered extra wide backing, but it is 108" wide, and I need backing to be 118" wide.  Do I add a stip on the side?  Or should I put it "inside" the wide backing fabric.  What fabric do I have that would work?  Why can't this be easier?  Ugh.  I finally got it done and now the problem is finding a box large enough to mail to the quilter.  It is always something.

On a better note, the trees are starting to flower here and daffodils are blooming so Spring should be here!

I hope you all have a great day!
JoAnne