Chemistry Couture

October

It is Nichole's month for the Snip Sew Send quilting bee.  She sent out some gorgeous purple shot cotton (a purple cloth with threads of fuschia and dark indigo running through it, so much prettier than it looks on the computer), and asked us to donate some of our own fabrics to complete the blocks.  She is making a "field of flowers" quilt and we were asked to make a 16.5"x16.5' block using the purple cotton with 1-3 flowers from out own stash scattered around.  You can see her inspiration quilt on the SSS website.

I decided to use some of my precious Liberty fabric for the flowers.  For one thing, they were the prettiest flowers I had, for another I just wanted to use the Liberty.  It feels good to use it, especially if I am using it for someone else.  This quilt is going in her bedroom, and Liberty is some sexy bedroom fabric!!!  So I hope she likes it. 

For your enjoyment, I have taken some upclose pictures of the bits of Liberty.  One of them is not actually a flower, it's a dragonfly.  But there are dragonflies in gardens . . . right?

So Far So Great!

September was my month for Snip.Sew.Send, and I've recieved almost all of my blocks.  I'm still waiting on two, but I thought it would be fun to show you what I've got so far. 

I really like the way they all look together.  It was so exciting to open the mail box and see one of my envelopes inside.  I tried not to look at the Blogspot site too much because I wanted to be suprised, but I couldn't always help myself.  These women really outdid themselves.  One person admitted that the number and amount of fabrics I sent out was overwhelming, and I knew it would be.  But I wanted it to look scrappy and I wanted to make sure everyone had enough to work with!  And they all did a fantastic job.  It definitely looks nice and srappy.

To tone it down a little bit I am going to border each block in a solid color and then use a dark navy sashing to really bring it down a notch.  I like all of the bright colors, especially the reds, but I don't want it to get too out of control. 

I asked everyone to send back any scraps they didn't use and now I have quite a pile of leftovers.  I'm going to make a few blocks of my own, I think, so I can make a large nap-time quilt.  Any scraps I have left over from that are going to be used in a baby quilt.  What do you think?  Is it cheating if I make extra blocks?

Woah There

This is a very bright baby quilt.  Is it too bright?  Little ones love bright colors, so it's good from that perspective at least!

The Second Block

This is the other block I made for Zonnah's month.  I took the picture on the kitchen floor at Randy's while he was setting up lights to take pictures of the blue and green quilt and the necklaces I made.  He's so sweet to do some professional photos of my stuff.  I say it a lot, but I'm a lucky girl!  I hope L. likes the two blocks I made.  This second one took a long time to finish because of all the hand work I had to do on the applique.  The circles were completely free style (can't you tell), but I like the wonky imperfect look.  I'm looking foreward to having the month off of the quilting bee, though. 

For a Baby Boy?

The blue and green baby quilt is finally finished and for sale in my Etsy shop (along with those patchwork bags I made a while back).  I love this quilt.  I think it's just BEAUTIFUL.  And I really hope someone else will think so, too.  The purple quilt has been sold, by the way.  Did you notice?  Yay!

It's My Month!!!

September.  It's my month for the quilting bee.  I've changed my mind a million times over the past few months . . . what to do, what to do.  I picked out the fabrics a while back.  Most of them came from The Quilt Store on Anderson Mill, here in Austin, and a lot of them are batiks, which I've never really used before.  I like the mix of red and blue and turquoise and green, I just didn't know what to request.  I finally decided on something, though!  I am asking my fellow Quilters to make me any kind of block they want, there are only two rules.  Number one, try to use each kind of fabric I send (I'm sending each person, like, eight different swatches . . . hey, I LOVE scrappy patchwork).  This might be tricky, because while I love jumbled up randomness, I know some people like things to be more simple and ordered, and too much fabric might go against some people's artistic sentiments.  Anyway.  Number two, please put at least one star somewhere on the 10.5X10.5" block.  They can be pieced, appliqued, embroidered, five-pointed, six-pointed, 25-pointed.  Whatever they want!  I think it will be awesome.  I can't wait to see all the different blocks!

Bento for Two

I made the blocks a long time ago and finally got around to making the quilt tops.  I was going to make one big quilt, but the size of it intimidated me!  So I cut it down to two naptime quilts.  Something perfect for cuddling up on the couch or throwing on top of the bed on a particularly chilly winter night.

Here is quilt number one:

 

Here is quilt number two:

One will be for me and one for someone special.  As with all of my quilts they will be hand quilted, so it may be a while before I can show you the final product.  Bento quilts are everywhere right now.  Here is one.  And here.  And here.  I was worried that I was using too many prints, and that the final products would be way too busy, but I think the color combination works well to give them enough contrast so that they look scrappy but not too overwhelming.  What do you think?

Dresden Quilt

A while back I bought some vintage dresden plates from an antique store.  I've been mulling over what to dow ith them all summer and the other night I just decided to go for it and put a quilt together (unfortunately it was rather late in the evening and I didn't get to bed until well well well after my bed time.  Sometimes I get a little excited about quilts.  I can't help it).  I wanted a darker background so the bright colors in the plates would stand out, but I wanted it to still have a patchy look, so I decided to checkerboard a navy blue and a garnet cotton and center the plates in each square.  I also put a yellow circle in the center of each plate, which I believe is traditional for dresden plates. 

I only had ten plates and ended up with twelve squares to fill, so I had to make two more plates to match the others.  I tried to use vintage looking fabrics in the same colors and styles as the originals, and, if I do say so, I think I did an excellent job.  Can you figure out which two I made?  Randy guessed . . . wrong.  Maybe my wonderful readers have a keener eye for fabric than he does :)  Having said that I must once again gush about how wonderful my boyfriend is.  No only did he successfully defend his Ph.D. this week (he is now Dr. Randy), but he also took me out for gelato and a chocolate martini this evening.  Nice.

So, back to the quilt.  I'm going to hand applique the plates and circles down before I sew the blocks together.  I took a day to work on one and it took HOURS to sew down.  Lots and lots of tiny little stitches . . . one down, eleven to go!

August

Zonnah sent out her fabrics for month of the quilting bee: a pretty vintage looking floral, yellow, orange, and red.  This quilt will be for her sister, and the theme is circles and curves.  Circles I can do!  And since she sent so much fabric I'm actually making two blocks.  If she doesn't want to use the second one in the quilt she can make a pillow out of it or something. 

Here is block number one!  My artistic interpretation of it is "paving stones across the garden path."  But really I'm just doing what I do best: color gradiation.  I cut out the yellow, orange, and red circles free hand, and used the pin turning method to hand applique them ontohihihihihihihihihihihis.  Ok, that last bit was Randy asserting his presence.  He says Hi, and he doesn't want me to delete it.  Yay!  So, I used the pin turning method to hand applique the circles onto the floral block (7.5x7.5").  The second block will be similar, but I'm gonna give my fingers a rest before I start on it.  As always, for more check out the Snip.Sew.Send website!  Next month is my month!!!!

Marathon Sewing

I'm not working this week, so I've had LOTS of time to catch up on some projects.  Namely, quilt tops.  I must have put in about 30 hours at the machine in the past three days and some more hand quilting time when I just couldn't sit up at my sewing table any more.  I've finished up some baby quilt tops, some papa quilt tops, and have made some progress on a couple other quilts that I started ages ago and just keep putting off.  When I have all of my works in progress done (by the end of this week I hope), I'll stack them up and take a picture.  I'm guessing it'll be about two feet tall.  Weee!

The most important quilt top I finished up this week is a commissioned piece for a friend and her little girl, "Momo."  All she really wanted was pink, but I took some artistic liberty and added a bit of green.  All pink was a LITTLE overwhelming.  Hopefully Amanda (and Momo) will like it!  Miss Penguin really liked it and wouldn't move out of the way for the picture.  My apologies.

So up next on my To Do list:  Finish up some bags, finish up some dresses, and start some hand quilting.  I LOVE having time off of work.  I just need to make sure I leave the house every once in a while and bask in the sunlight.