Sunday, December 25, 2016

Update On The Accordion Quilt

This is the quilt for second grandson and wife. They were married sooner than intended because of family illness and their quilt was not done in time-I am still working on it.
The foot surgery set me back over a month then guests, Thanksgiving, guests, birthdays, and Christmas fun got in the mix and the quilt is still a WIP [Work In Progress!]
They asked for "blue", no other colors, and so that's what I went for although in hindsight I wish I had mixed in something else because I have scrambled to find a lot of dark, medium and light blues for variety. So below is what is on the design wall but I have additional blues as it has progressed.
 My iPhone 5s camera leaves a little to be desired when it comes to true color production, I understand the iPhone 6 and 7 have much better cameras but I like my compact iPhone 5!
Having done some math I think I need around 200+ blocks for a Cal.King bed and I made another twenty last evening bringing my total to 181 so I am nearly there.
We had a quiet Christmas Day, went to church then some of the family came by for homemade chicken noodle soup [it was very good especially for chilly, rainy weather and there is plenty left to enjoy]monkey bread etc and we were all alone again by 2pm, so I had time to clean up then sew for a bit.
The little Aussie lap quilt has been awaiting binding completion so I took care of that before I returned to piecing the blue quilt.
 The binding is pieced as you can see, I am very fond of pieced bindings and backings and it's a great way to use up scraps from the quilt.
With pieced backings sometimes I think the back is just as cute as the front of the quilts!

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Merry Christmas And Happy Hanukkah

Blessings in this Holy season

"Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to kindle the Chanukah light."

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Garden Party and a Meet-Up

Here is Angela's Garden Party quilt made on a Bonnie Hunter Caribbean Cruise in 2015. It turned out really beautiful and I believe she is keeping this one!
 Folk Art flowers E-E in the body of the quilt and a little custom  flower and leaf in the sashing and border.
The thread is a bright green, the label is missing so the manufacturer is unknown it's one of those my friend Gale gave me that didn't work on her Prodigy. Batting is Quilter's Dream.
A nice group from our Fiber Artist Meet-Up came together today at my house [Matthew was here and counted nine of us!]
 I had a large recipe of lentil soup with rosemary/parmesan bread and a pumpkin dump-it cake and Susan contributed a lovely salad so we ate well!
Most of us kept busy making design boards for our blocks, one member was cross-stitching and one working on the 35th.Ave. mystery quilt- I took a couple of pics but they did not turn out well enough to show!
These design boards make setting up blocks and keeping them in place very convenient and they stack up compactly for storage or transport.
 Celeste showed us how from a tut she found by Lori at  "A Bee In Her Bonnet" blog.  Lori's are much prettier than mine, she uses fabric strips from her own fabric lines whereas my bindings are all just random left overs sewn together.
We used 1/4" thick foam-board available inexpensively at many craft, Dollar Stores and places like Wal-Mart. Scrap batting or flannel is used to cover the foam-board and scrap binding or 2.5" fabric strips to cover the edges- I think all quilters save their left over bits of binding and this is a great way to use them. I always use 2.25" double fold binding for a tight finish and that's what I had, it worked just fine. You could make whatever size design boards you want, I divided my 20x30" foam-board in two and in half again for 10x15" pieces- I might have to make a few a bit larger to accommodate 12" blocks. Different stores have the foam-board in different sizes I need to find some 15x30" or 24x30"
The design board tut can be found here and the Youtube tut here.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Kathy's Allietare

Here is another version of Bonnie Hunter's Allietare, Kathy's color choices are striking.
The Panto I chose has a swirly design, not flowery but looks to me like tumbleweeds blowing across the prairie. I like the movement it gives the quilt especially nice with these very scrappy quilts.
 The thread is Essentials Pro Turkey Red and the batting Quilter's Dream Pink, a lovely, soft draping 80%cotton/20%poly.
And yes I have been AWOL for a few weeks, life got in the way of quilting partly on account of my foot surgery but also out of town family visiting for our oldest son's 50th. birthday bash, an 80's costume party. Everything from Rock'nRoll icons to Ghost Busters,Top Gun, and of course ladies in Madonna-like costume and some like myself sporting the big shoulder pads and leg warmers!
The man himself and his BF "Top Gun" who flew out from Australia just for the event.
 Cousins from Boston and his brother and wife, it was quite a night!
 As I said, the big shoulder pads, big hair and eye popping pink, you just can't see the leg warmers!
Adjustment to the disco ball!
Official bartender!
There were a lot more people and photos, this is all I took, too busy having fun!
A night to remember with a hot local DJ doing the music.