Cold Tuesday

Weather-wise that is. On Sunday, this was the view outside the sewing area. 

 

Monday, the frigid temps arrived and will be here until Friday when we should get back up near 30.  In the meantime, we are staying hunkered down - hopefully.  (Oh Please, Oh Please, Oh Please). 

See, we have a bit of a situation here - sick dog.  Hobbes is under the weather and under his quilt.

And I'm hoping we don't need to make the trek up to the vet unless necessary.  Normally, Hobbes is an Artic Beagle but below zero temps and with the wind kicking up to 30 mph gusts, it is just too dang cold & hard on his old bones.  Waiting for a call back from Dr. Chris (wonderful vet!) to see how we want to handle this right now.  If we don't have to go out, we will just be focused on supportive care.

Down in the sewing area yesterday, I boxed up the Celtic Solstice chevron blocks and started cutting. Remember those narrow black strips?  They have some company on the cutting table.

Cherrywood Fabrics - Lagoon colorway

 

Which led to this

Ziggy: It's okay Mom, I'm guarding the blocks from prying eyes

 Ziggy had to be convinced that it was okay to share these blocks

 

Me: Really Ziggy, it's okay to share - these are not a secret

 So here are the first 8 blocks

and here's the color pencil sketch of the small Irish Chain quilt they will become.

You'll have to wait to see the rest until I get back downstairs. Hopefully, I'll be able to get true color on the pictures of the finished top.  Hope you all are keeping warm if it's cold where you are.

Light the Fuse!!

While I've done some fused quilts over the years, I've never been entirely happy with the results.  So imagine how happy I was to discover Melody Johnson's blog Fibermania. As one of the founding member of the Chicago School of Fusing, her blog is packed with information on making successful fused quilts, as well as knitting, gardening, cooking and life in Tennessee.  Check it out - it's AMAZING!!

And how does that affect me - since I have a few pieced quilts incubating in the design stage, I am going to play with some small fused art quilts.  Starting at the very beginning and following Melody's process step by step - not deviating, not thinking I know better (cause I DON'T) and not trying to reinvent the wheel.  It starts with hand dyed fabric. Hmmm, I have Cherrywood FQs and oh yeah, I almost forgot about the 6" squares of HD fabric that I bought back in September at the Northwest Suburban Quilters Guild show.  For the life of me, I can't remember the gal I bought these from but as soon as it comes to me, I'll share. I'll start with these.

 

 

Great bright colors that will go well with the Cherrywoods I have in mind - Blue Lagoon group.

 

 

Fusible on back

 To begin, all the squares are fused to regular Wonder Under 805.  I got mine at Wal-Mart, 3 yards @ $1.66/yd. = $4.98.  I'll do some of the Blue Lagoon fabrics later today. This will be an exercise in letting go of control and playing with color, so stay tuned.

Also on today's agenda is the baking of SCONES!! I'm getting ready for another Road Trip...

 

Fall - the Sequel

FALL has moved indoors.

 

Love the colors in the gourds, most of them picked by DH. He has a really good eye for color - very helpful to a quilter wife!  Not pictured is the inside carving pumpkin which will be carved into an as of yet unknown design for Halloween.

 

The car has officially been cleared of the Fall decorating material & I have recovered my beloved Atlas from the DH's car! 

 

 

It is back where it belongs - in it's zipper bag, hanging on the back of the passenger seat in the Flying Toaster (Honda Element). So I am ready for my next Road Trip!!
 Yes - that's the designated truck quilt. 

 

It's called "Flying Over Hawaii", a pineapple variation done in Cherrywood Fabrics, paper foundation pieced and machine quilted.

 Living in the north part of Illinois, one learns to be prepared for Winter travel and why not do it with a little quilt style.

 

Still feeling like a limp dishrag, Still working on the Summer Stripes layout...

 

 



The Tale of Two Greens and Everything & the Kitchen Sink, er, Table.

This is currently on the wall.  This will one of my entries for the NY Mod Quilt Guild DWR Contest.  I am using Cherrywood Hand Dyed Fabric - the Renaissance colorway with a pop of green on a honey background. So far the arcs are only basted on - they will be hand appliqued.

 

 

 

Did you notice the two different greens?  I tried out 3 greens and decided on the lightest one. Made 6 large square junctions and cut 6 of the 11 small junction rectangles.  And they just didn't look right, so I left them there and looked at them and ignored them and looked at them and still couldn't decide. I replaced the center square with the mid shade and looked at it some more. Then I had my DH look at them to see which he liked better - he was unusually noncommittal - WHAT?!!  I need help here, Man! 

 

But late Thursday night as I headed downstairs without turning on a light, there was enough light from upstairs to remove the color so I could see the value.  And the light green lost - it just total washed out into the background.  So today I am cutting out the new medium green junction pieces.  We are visiting with friends tonight so I might just get some actual sewing on the arcs done.

 

You might ask why I didn't start the new green pieces yesterday - because I went to a Quilt Show!!  The Northwest Suburban Quilters Guild held their biennial show yesterday & today.  What a nice show!  They had over 300 quilts hanging, with 6 different categories for competition.  In addition to the 26 vendors, the Guild had old magazines, books, patterns and of course, fabric for sale. 

 

And then we finally have a kitchen that is 95% done!! 

 

DH finished the flooring, we moved the appliances back into their places, and installed the new kitchen table set.  All that's left is the shelves and outlets & outlet covers. WOOHOOO!!!  And that's Zappa in the bottom picture, along with the cats favorite toy - brown paper bags.



Something Old, Something New...

After a decade of use with hard water, at least two house moves and apparently one too many dives off the ironing board, my little, old generic iron died.   As in - ain't going to heat up for you no more - EVER.
Drat.  It had to be replaced. And it was - with this. 

I neat, new Black & Decker steam model - not very fancy but man, does it heat & steam to beat the band.  Ask me how I know?  Because I just about steamed my fingerprints off working on the newest project.

I'm taking the old Double Wedding Ring pattern and making it new.  The NYC Mod Quilt Guild is having a DWR Challenge, with 3 categories (small, traditional & modern), open to all quilters worldwide and the deadline is Dec. 1st.

I'm cutting and pressing the pieces using a cardboard (cereal box) and graph paper template - a rather old method but tried and true!  Thank Goodness for 'Best Press'!  I think my color choices are rather new & different. Here's a sneak peek.  I'm using Cherrywood hand dyed fabric in the Renaissance colorway.  The cornerstones will introduce a pop of another color so stay tuned.

More progress on basting the arcs has been made since I shot this but I've had to squeeze it in between working on the flooring.

It's vinyl, easy to work with and almost done. This is just the upstairs hallway and you can just see Drake (Chinese Shar Pei) photo-bombing on the right side.

New Week - new fabrics, new inspirations and a quilt show visit

Monday, Monday...

Was able to attend the Wisconsin Quilt Expo in Madison on Saturday.

 

 

Nice Show - did not take any workshops, but saw all the quilt exhibits and shopped the vendors, of course.  The Alliant Energy Center is an easily accessible facility and the show is large & well run.  I always come away from shows of any size so inspired.

 

First on my list was a visit the Cherrywood Fabrics booth for an addition to my hand dye stash.  It's so hard not to just want one of everything but the checkbook would have died on the spot, so after reviewing what I current own, I settled on a yard of onyx (nice black!) and the 'Blue Lagoon' colorway.

 

 

I'm thinking this group would just glow when paired with the Onyx.  That's going to be down the road as there are several projects in various stages of planning and graphing at the moment. Not to mention the blasted Summer Stripes blocks that are giving me fits.  The last layout on the design wall is okay but not large enough and has a few 'holes' in the color wash effect.  I think I have a solution for this but I won't get to work on it until the weekend at the earliest.

 

And then I found a new temptation.

 

 

Yes - it's SILK. Silk Dupioni to be exact. 

 

I am dipping my toe in the 'using silk to make a quilt' water.  It will be a relatively small wall hanging - thinking like 18" square range.  And to make it eligible for Pieceful Gatherings (LQS) quilt show next year, I am planning on having it long-armed there.  I've talked to Vonnie (one of their experienced Gammill Girls) and though she hasn't quilted silk before, she is excited at the prospect.  I bought her a FQ to experiment on.  This will be quite the joint adventure. 

 

The fabric run is the silk dupioni jewel tones colorway of fat eighths from Country Keepsakes (Rome, PA) and I added the fuchsia, new teal & violet FQ, as well as black.  Now I just need to think about quilt design to show the silk off to its best.

 

Work on the kitchen and hallway floor is planned for today & tomorrow so probably won't get to the sewing machine but I have some pattern drafting to do. And there is a Road Trip planned for later this week - stay tuned!!



 



 

 

 



In between projects...

Well, here I am - in between projects and so I decided it was a fine time to start a blog. We'll see.

It has been a rather hectic 2 week stretch. The deadline for the AQS Modern Quilt Challenge was yesterday, August 2nd, I think by 5 p.m. Central Time.  I made it with about 4 hours to spare.

Nothing like seeing the challenge notice, hemming and hawing about it, finding perfect fabric at the IQF at Rosemont in late June, thinking about it, doodling around with the colored pencils and graph paper, thinking some more about it, finalizing the design, and then realizing I had 2 weeks to piece and quilt it. Oh and it turned out that my final design required more background fabric than I had and of course, it's hand dyed fabric and  just to prove I can be stubborn, I refused to resize the quilt smaller to make it work. AAACCKKK!!!

But with some luck (Thanks to Cherrywood Fabrics for some excellent customer service and fast shipping) and a very understanding husband, Quietude was completed and entered.  I'm please with it but of course there are a few things I would do differently - usually are - but overall it's okay.  The new background fabric is a few shades darker but the placement worked with the design. This is technically my first attempt at a 'Modern Quilt'.  For my next attempt I will be buying at least three yards of the neutral fabric...maybe four yards.