Thursday stuff

design sponge, one of my favorite blogs to scroll through for eye candy... go check out this post.
Ann wood makes these little horses out of cardboard.. you can download the patterns. I saw it and thought!
ah ha!
B's birthday is Friday, and the horse nut that she is, perfect! so, I may not have started a new quilt today, (!!! for real!)

BUT, I had to make one of these horses. except you know what I did?

I used fusible webbing, laid it to the paper then the fabric, and ironed the fabric to the paper... then cut the pieces out.
I'm going to make a few more, (maybe not a 100 like she did) decorate them up, and maybe arrange them in a picture frame or maybe make them into a modern mobile.... depends on the time...
so cute!
*****

Thanks to Siobhan, we're doing a little swap to get my embroidery done and I can do some letters for her. yeah! I'm so excited to have that project on its way to being finished!
Out of all the bags of projects laying around here, that one was pretty special.

Thank you to Inger for offering also, your comment was a "no reply" so i couldn't reach you!

It's amazing what a little spring cleaning will dig up in a messy quilters studio!

Speaking of amazing, Mal of turning*turning, did a paper collage up above, to go along with the quilts we did inspired by the Matisse painting!
how cool is that? I love how it went together. Great eye. the bridge in the window. Very clever blog. go check it out.

See the other quilts from the old post here.

new things

I'm trying a few new things myself around here... APPLIQUE... It's never been my thing, but I found this old piece of fabric in my stash, sort of a shiny damask, with this great flower, filigree repeat, that I wanted to try something new... I figure it will be a good project to work on over the summer...

I also tried some serious piecing... it makes my brain hurt... I may finish this one, and never do another... I just don't feel my creative stride working on things like this.

Although I LOVE the way they look when someone else does them! I envy people who can do this kind of work... I'd love to say I made one.
But not sure I have it in me...

Oh, and the fabric is donated, very generously, from
Stacy @ Pixiedust fabrics, I will be making some donation quilts from it,
stay tuned, I may have a call to help.... ;-)

Shelly and I have done a little swap. She asked me to send her a little piece to quilt, and in return she sent me something to quilt... If you haven't seen what I sent her, and she returned to me, go see the pictures at her blog, you can click her images and see better the quilting... Her machine quilting is pretty amazing!

And for now, i am hand quilting her little piece, but I am not giving any sneak peaks, it may take me a bit to finish it...

***********************************************************

Here's a follow up to those who made the three minute challenge quilts with me...
I just LOVE LOVE LOVE how they turned out.

I am very Impressed by all your quilting styles. And think it's pretty cool to see them all together to see what bits touched us all.

I get it's not everyone taste in quilting, It's an exercise. And I applaud those of you who gave it a whirl!

below left to right is: Dagmar, Shelly
below that is: Dionne and Shiobhan
below that, Mine & the inspiration picture

challenge quilts

I'm trying a few new things myself around here... APPLIQUE... It's never been my thing, but I found this old piece of fabric in my stash, sort of a shiny damask, with this great flower, filigree repeat, that I wanted to try something new... I figure it will be a good project to work on over the summer...

I also tried some serious piecing... it makes my brain hurt... I may finish this one, and never do another... I just don't feel my creative stride working on things like this.

Although I LOVE the way they look when someone else does them! I envy people who can do this kind of work... I'd love to say I made one.
But not sure I have it in me...

Oh, and the fabric is donated, very generously, from
Stacy @ Pixiedust fabrics, I will be making some donation quilts from it,
stay tuned, I may have a call to help.... ;-)

Shelly and I have done a little swap. She asked me to send her a little piece to quilt, and in return she sent me something to quilt... If you haven't seen what I sent her, and she returned to me, go see the pictures at her blog, you can click her images and see better the quilting... Her machine quilting is pretty amazing!

And for now, i am hand quilting her little piece, but I am not giving any sneak peaks, it may take me a bit to finish it...

***********************************************************

Here's a follow up to those who made the three minute challenge quilts with me...
I just LOVE LOVE LOVE how they turned out.

I am very I pressed by all your quilting styles. And think it's pretty cool to see them all together to see what bits touched us all.

I get it's not everyone taste in quilting, It's an exercise. And I applaud those of you who gave it a whirl!

below left to right is: Dagmar, Shelly
below that is: Dionne and Shiobhan
below that, Mine & the inspiration picture

Sunday in the park

Washed and wrinkly. It's so nice out today it's crazy. 90! We're off to Central park even though I should be planting flowers in all my empty pots on the balcony!

This one is coming with us to Central park today...

A good way to gt broken in! A picnic!

My Family has decided they like this quilt the best of them all.
Gotta love the family support!

Crazy 8's anyone?

friday finishes

In the machine quilting, I kept it very loose with random flowers and leaves to keep in the theme of a variety of patterns and layers... I also added a few appliques blocks, and a few vintage 9 patches, to help draw the eye downward across the quilt...

I used one of the blues in the quilt for the binding, and am finishing that hand stitching today. To start and finish a quilt this quickly, makes it feel like a complete thought for me. Dagmar @ quiltmoose did this beauty!

Dionne at Sew many quilts, is giving it a try!
I like the size, and the very swirly fabrics. The angles gives it nice movement also.

Keep sending links if you give it a try. I can't wait to see them all together!

I did finally get around to finishing the small amount of machine quilting I had left on the grad quilt... it washed up so nice, I'm having a hard time sticking it in the box to ship it off without a good snuggle first!


And Don't forget the Nothing But kisses, 9 patch quilt
(posts of the story click here)
is up for auction right now!

Thursday stuff

After you have laid out you fabrics, you will be free piecing them all together.
DO NOT BE PRECISE.
Keep your scrap bins near you, because as you randomly cut and paste(sew) things together, you may find that the design will change slightly, or you need to add a few bits here and there.

As I did mine, I tried to find the blocks of fabric that could be sewn into a block, than another set of fabrics to make another block, and sew them all together as you create blocks.

Sometimes they are random shaped, some time they go together easily, sometimes, you just take you scissors and cut it so it fits.

It's most important not to be perfect, and to continue to not think so hard about this project... Just follow what the fabric leaves you with.

Once I had the top pieced together, I decided right away that it would need a red frame. I laid the piece up on the wall, to give me an idea, and the second to last picture above, is what that looked like.

I really like it just as it was. But I wanted it to be a bit more framed, and I wanted it to actually fit on a bed the way I envisioned it, so i went vertical, and using what I had, could only get a 6 inch all around on the red.

Overall. I am very pleased with the project. It was fun, challenging, and as I step back to look at it, I'm pleasantly surprised at how pleasing it is... To make this top it took me from layout to finished top, three hours. I have a quilt that reminds me of Matisse, fragments of Gee's bend, a little crazy, and something I would have never been able to sit down, draw and plan out...

Now to pick out a backing! I selected four different prints.
I thought maybe pulling the blues, but my guy was the red/green brocade print as it had some of the same filagree patterns as in the painting,



Siobhan at scraps and thread tales did some playing yesterday.
I can't wait to see what elements are coming through in the different tops.
I love the orange with the blues...

Other things are happening around here, a little bit of everything except cleaning my studio!

3 minute challenge

The three minute challenge!

This is the inspiration Painting that I want us to look at and design a piece around.

It's titled Interior with Aubergines

Only Rules: NO PATTERNS, or templates & turn off your brain.

Gather your fabrics & Decide how big you want to work...

The main idea of this project is to randomly select fabrics, that give you a sense of what's in the painting and then moving quickly, either by looking at the painting, more than the wall... or just by memory of the painting & looking at the painting.

start pulling fabrics, and laying them out.
The above photos of myself, took about 3 Minutes.

Notice things like:
Repetitive patterns such as:
Layers
Lattice/ ladder
patterns
Blues/colors,
flower patterns, etc.



Here are three ways to help keep the project moving quickly.

1.Make an abstract idea.
or

2.NO PLAN at all
or.
3. Let the scraps work their magic.


ONE:

I've made basic a sketch of the painting to find common shapes.
this could be a layout I follow, or just a way to give myself a different way of seeing what in the painting...


Like this example:

I didn't follow it exactly, I cut out random pieces of fabric approximately the size I wanted to cover and sewn them together. No pattern cutting, no templates, very much a free pieced project. If you like it great, if you don't cut it off and add something else!


TWO:
Often, I'll just take my fabrics, cut pieces, and lay them out on the design wall and see what feels good. This is the way I usually like to work.
(see the above 12 photo sequence.)
If you have a design wall great, It's great to just lay out random fabrics and get a feel for what will work well together...

That is how this quilt went together below.
No drawing, not much thought, and hey, it's my favorite quilt!
Obviously I was thinking about Gee's bend quilts. When you think about they made the utility quilts, how they would sew together what ever they had, like a pants, leg, a pocket, a shirt sleeve, and get a very random, color clock sort of quilts; That's the goal here.


THREE:
SCRAP BIN. Gather all the scraps of the color palette you'd like to use, Lay them out, and sew them together...



This black and white quilt grew from that box of black and white scraps. I new I wanted to make a black and white quilt,
that was the only thoughts I had.
So I sorted out all my white and black scraps, and one day sat down, and just pulled pieces out of the box and started sewing them together.

Final Design.

Please feel free to try the three minute challenge over and over, or take longer than three minutes, until you have something you are happy with.

If you feel like playing along, please let me know and I will link back to you if you show me your progress.

I would like to, then, at the end, show all the tops with the painting and see what fabulous things have been born.