Lost week

Had a relapse of the miserable cold that I had three weeks ago.  Yuk!  On top of that The Big Guy got it, too.  So not only was I sick as a dog, so was he.  The last week has disappeared in a haze of cold medicine, dirty tissues, coughing up lungs, hot tea and all the other accroutrements of a virus.  In the meantime, I was/am also dealing with an infected eye - can  you say "poooor baaby!".

I have managed to read four books and start two new quilts (don't mention that in front of my pile of WIPs!).  As I mentioned last time I was really inspired by  the silk quilts on exhibit at the EBHQ show.  So I am cutting silk for a "Patch-it" wall hanging.  The hard part of that is the directions are on my stolen computer so I am relying on my memory - uh oh.  Am going to see if I can find them online while I am here at my daughters\'s and have internet access.

The other quilt is for my friend's granddaughter.  I made one several years ago for her older brother and the one I just finished is for her younger brother.  So she is next in line.  Her name is Kestrel.  I found a fabric panel with hawks on it.  The closest to a Kestrel is a Peregrine falcon so that is what she gets.  It is pretty scrappy.  I am using mermaids, monkeys, chickens, kittens, maybe puppies if I have any of that left, maybe food from my two food quilts.  I want to have lots of stuff a four-year-old will like and recognize.  The beginnings of it are up on my design wall and I have started piecing it.  The back will either be Disney Princess fabric or tea party (as in china cups and teapots, not the politics).  Haven't decided yet.

I'm also trying to draw more.  Our town is having an art show and sale and I want to enter it.  I have been doing a couple of sketches in the sketchbook the grandson gave me for Christmas and driving over here today I had an idea.  So will work on that and hopefully finish it in time to enter it.

Our town had a big trash pickup today.  Yesterday afternoon we went through a big pile of stuff on the patio and tossed out a lot of it.  We also found my cast iron griddles!  I have been fussing about them since we moved.  When I couldn't find them I thought I had left them in the trailer.  But no, they were in with stuff on the patio.  Now I can make more than one pancake at a time!  The patio looks so much better.

It is raining again.  So glad, we really need it.

That is it for the week.  My camera is on the blink, poor old thing so still no pictures.  Soon I hope.

Color obsession and movies

I've been receiving the Illustration Friday notices since May.  The above drawing is only the fifth one I've completed and I thought I would share it here because I really need to blog about something!  The word for that day was Obsession and the quote, from Claude Monet, is "Color is my day-long obsession, joy, and torment."

The color in this piece follows no theory.  I just drew away with the pens I have.  Often when I draw spontaneously I use every color I own.  For a first draft that is fine.  It would be a good exercise for me to re-do this using some color sense.  Use all the same shapes but with organised color choices.  Stay tuned! That actually sounds exciting.


I was in So Cal for three weeks, staying with my nephew and visiting my mother.  I drove 2500 miles in those three weeks - you're welcome, BP!



Made it home last Monday night and spent a good part of Tuesday asleep!  That must have been what I needed because by Wednesday I was myself again.

The bad news is somehow my washing machine died while I was gone! How can something that was not used, break?  It is a fancy, front loading Whirlpool that I just love.  It is one of my favorite possessions!  How sick is that? LOL The control button - one of many on the thing - says 'control locked'.  So, Monday, I have to call a washer repair guy.  I guess worse things could happen!

Last night the Big Guy and I went out to dinner and a movie.  We ate at a new (for us) place called Rooster Juice.  BG had prepared to order with no slat fajitas and I had a fajita salad bowl in a corn tortilla bowl!  First time I have ever seen a corn bowl.  They are usually flour, which I cannot eat.  So that is on our list of places to go back to.

The movie we saw was that last Harry Potter one.  I really enjoyed it.  BG found it confusing.  It has been a long time since part one and BG didn't read the books so I can see how it would be confusing.  I wondered if they filmed the sequence with Dumbledore at the very beginning?  Or did they use some movie magic to recreate him?

My favorite thing to do is watch movies and this past week was a bonus.  We also went on Wednesday, during the day because we were so hot and the theater has AC.  We saw "Cowboys and Aliens".  It was quite entertaining, too.  Well worth the $3 ticket!

Well, my poor old truck needs some attention so I am taking it for an oil change.  Will try the new mechanic first but if he can't see me today, then SpeeDee will get my business.

Food quilts

As you may remember I am working on food quilts for both the grands.  The above is the first iteration of the first quilt.  When I saw it up on my design wall (the hallway with me standing in the middle bedroom to get far enough back!) I realized it should be titled 'indigestion'!  I took the first border off and searched through my stash for another fabric.

I found this cool fabric that I used on MY VERY FIRST QUILT!!!! It has strips of apples alternating with strips of apple seeds.  I only have a yard of it.

I really like the way it looks surrounding the food blocks.  But I am unable to cut the fabric!  I'm afraid that I will mess it up and not have enough fabric !(  Am totally blocked!  So I made a date with my girlfriend, Domino Sharon, who is also at a standstill on a project (a cute raincape that she could really use right now) and we are going to sew together and hopefully get these projects going!

In the meantime I am thinking about starting the second grands food quilt.  Artquiltmaker sent me an e-mail with Marcus' pattern 'patch-it'.  As it happens I had seen that pattern on another website and liked it.  So was going to use that for the second quilt.  Artquiltmaker suggested I do a test first.  That is so totally unlike me!  I usually just jump in and commit to whatever I decide and outcome be darned!  Well when I replied to AQ with that she gave me a big LOL!  So I decided to do a test.  What could it hurt?

The pattern requires a template ($20).  I am in a 'use what I have' mode and will not buy any quilting stuff (today).  So I studied the picture of the template and read the description and made my own out of matboard (remember the days when we made our own cardboard templates?  Neither do I!  But I had heard about doing that.

I have a mat cutter that I use to cut mats when I frame pictures and that worked great!  Nice straight edges with one cut.  The template is about 3 1/4 " square.  And it worked perfectly.  I didn't even slice it up when I was cutting! 

The pattern I had seen a week or so ago ( which I can't find on the internet again :(  ) suggested putting a black border around the colored squares so I did.

I could tell as I put this together that it wouldn't work for this quilt.  The food fabric isn't showcased so what is the point of using it?  The black border, however, does work with this pattern.

This did go together fairly  quickly, I finished it in about two hours.  Too bad I messed up the upper right corner.  But I'n not taking it out!  This is going in my bag of orphan blocks, along with the template!

The other reason (besides not showcasing the fabric) is that it wastes a lot of fabric.  The finished block is about half the size of the original from which the template-cut pieces were taken. 

The good thing is that this is an easy pattern that looks hard.  The negatives are that it wastes fabric and isn't a good choice for (my favorite) novelty fabrics.

Works in progress!

I've been whining about all my works in progress (WIPS) since last summer when artquiltmaker artqultmaker.com/blog helped me pack them up when I moved last summer.  She pretty much ordered me to photograph them and blog about them in order to prod me into working on them.  So I have and here they are!

The first one, The Food Quilt, has actually morphed into two quilts.  One was way too big and a (the) grandchild expressed a desire for a food quilt so now the nephew and grandchild will both get a food quilt.

The next is a picture of all the paper pieced parts for a double wedding ring quilt.  I was going great guns on it but had to put it aside while waiting for Tap plastics to cut templates for the rest of the quilt.  Also, changed my mind about who would be the recipient.

Sampler Quilt

Doggy Love

The next two are completed tops I did but never got quilted.  I had forgotten about Doggy Love!  The sampler was made in a great class taught by Susan Bradford at College of Marin in 2003 (?).  We drafted the patterns and did most of the squares by hand.

Natalie's Quilt Top

My friend Natalie purchased this quilt top at the last Marin Needle Arts Show in Marin and asked me to quilt it.  I think I better get busy as I've had it eight years!

Magic Top

This is a quilt top that mysteriously appeared in my stash.  With a couple of borders this will be a whole top and ready to quilt.  I love the funky 60s fabric!  My friends Sharon and Becky and I are talking about getting a Flynn Quilt System together.  This will be a good quilt for the first one quilted on it.

Hugh's quilt

 This is an old quilt which belongs to our friend Hugh.  I have been repairing it and am almost done.  Then I will quilt it and return it to Hugh.  I've had this one about four years.  I really need to get busy!

Doggy Dreams

This is a wall hanging which I designed two or three years ago.  All the pieces are cut, just waiting for me to attach them!  It is based on a drawing and was supposed to be the first in a series.  May still be!

Love Catcher

This is a panel I did in a fabric painting class with Susan Shie.  I was going to be a purse but I have changed my mind.  I did it with SB daughter in mind.  I'm sure she wouldn't mind getting another quilt!

Mystery Kitty

This is one of three kitties who rest outside my studio.  This guy is bigger than Roxy and not frightened off when I open the shades.  I call him Big Red.

Retro

I started Retro in a class with Marion Nathan-Roberts at the Marin Needle Arts Guild.  I  love this small beginning and really want to finish it. I hand dyed the solid fabrics before I knew anything about dyeing.  I used Rit dyes, mason jars and hung the wet fabric in the trees outside the trailer we used to live in.  Perhaps it should be higher on my list?

Christmas Tree

Don't remember this and don't much like it.  The scrap heap is it's destination, perhaps?  Anybody want it?

Laurel Birch flannel back for some lucky quilt!

I love this fabric and have made it into a king size back for some lucky quilt!  It will have to be a quilt I keep because I like it so much.

Garden Quilt

This is fabric I collected to make a quilt for a friend.  I've only had it a year!  Still want to get a solid or small tone on tone to go with it.  Should be an easy quilt to make as I am going to fussy cut the center fabric and use the resulting blocks for most of the top.

Kim's collection

This is fabric My daughter gave me after unsuccessfully trying to start a quilt.  I made her some cloth napkins out of it (there is A LOT) for Christmas.  Eventually it will be a quilt.  I think. I hope.

Princess Quilt

Here is another collection of fabric for a princess quilt.  I already made one but, as usual, purchased too much fabric!  So any little princessy girls out there want a quilt?

 

These last pieces are leftovers from classes I have taken.  They are either bound for the scrap heap or for a scrap quilt.  For now they are at the bottom of the WIP bin.

So There you have it.  All my Works in Progress!  What do you think?

fabric fabric fabric

I did in fact go to Beverly's on my day off today. I purchased about sixteen pieces of fabric in quarter yard cuts! That should give me a leg up on the food quilt. Am going to cut at least four patches from each piece and possibly more, depending on how well I can fussy cut some of them.

For instance, I picked some really nice black with limes, lemons and oranges on it and I can probably get six from that one. The black has white polka dots too.

Two of the pieces are half yards because they are panel prints with several different images. That will be fun to fussy cut.

I also purchased a new cutting mat which is purple! Probably could have talked myself out of it if I weren't so tired. But the mat I brought with me is one of those 6x7 inch ones. Couldn't face cutting all that fabric on such a small mat. And anyway, its purple!



There were pink ones, too but how many mats does one quilter need? I wonder if there are purple ergonomic rotary cutters? Then I would have a coordinated set!

Quilting again, kind of.

Am still at my Mom's helping her recover from THE FALL as you can tell from the spacious kitchen behind me. Last week I succumbed to a bout of retail therapy and one of the things that I purchased was a copy of "The Quilter Magazine" May 2010. The article in it that attracted me is called "Floral Waves" because it uses curved piecing. I took a class in curved piecing from Jeanette Meyer at EBHQ last year but have never used what I learned. This article isn't as specific as Ms. Meyer's wonderful class but it does refresh my memory. I haven't got much in the way of supplies here at Mom's but women quilted long before all our wonderful goodies were invented (rulers, mats, rotary cutters, sewing machines - yes, I left all four of them home!, etc., etc.) so I got out a pencil, small cup and my shears and hand sewed this in about 20 minutes.

With a little border added it will fit on the food quilt I have started cutting out at home. If I had planned better it would be the right sized patch. Oh well. It did what I hoped, got me started quilting. The urge has been growing over the three and a half weeks I have been in SoCal. Mom has a ton of fabric - gee, is that hereditary - and I have separated it into cotton and other junky stuff - oh sorry I mean polyester!

Oh! A little tidbit of very exciting news! I got a message on my facebook page (look for Peggy Carroll on FB if you are interested) from Mark Lipinski! He wished me a Happy Mother's Day and told me I had done a good job with my daughter, Artquiltmaker. He complemented her work. I am thrilled!

Baby Quilt

I managed to finish the baby quilt for the shower I am going to on Saturday! Stayed home all day Wednesday and worked on it from 7:30 in the morning until 8 o'clock at night. I barely stopped to eat! Wednesday was the very last chance I had to work on it and as usual a hard deadline put me in overdrive. My procrastination gene worked once again.




I'm very happy with the way it turned out. This is the fourth raggedy quilt I've made and the best I think. I bound this one and it makes it look so much better. I also did bias binding, a first for me! The bias binding was much easier than I thought it would be. The most fun part of this quilt was quilting the individual squares. putting it together was a drag. I always vow, when I've finished a raggedy quilt, that I will never make another one but After enough time passes (about two years) I have forgotten that vow and plunge in. I told my daughters I never want to make another so hopefully they will remind me if I forget!

The Double Wedding Ring in process

I laid out some of the arcs for the double wedding ring quilt I'm making just to show you how yummy they are! The only rule I had when I was putting them together was that the fist patch needed to be green. I had lots of greens so that was pretty easy. I thought I would add the patches in dark - light -dark - light but that pretty much went by the wayside as I progressed and scraps became more scarce!

I' really pleased with the job I did on them. So far, while trimming the paper off the pieces I have only found three that need to be fixed. One isn't finished - still need one more patch, and the other two have a patch each which are too small. The offending patches are the same fabric and I know what I was doing. My friend brought me some fabric last year from Australia and I was being conservative in its use. It turned out that I was penny-wise and pound foolish because now I have to cut two more pieces so I am ending up using twice as much! Use something else, you say? No, I want that fabric in the quilt. Hopefully I have learned a lesson! that makes it a good day, right?!!:)

Drawing with my sewing machine

I mentioned the other day that I am making a quilt for my cousin's granddaughter who should be born soon. Yesterday I received the baby shower invitation and it has the new baby's name on it -Sequoia Grace. Quite an elegant name for a tiny baby! Grace was my cousin's name so I am pleased the parents decided to make that the babe's middle name.

the quilt I am making is a 'raggedy' quilt. I am quilting each patch as I go. When I starated it I was very inspired and started out making hearts to show the love behind the quilt.



Then I got a little more creative and made some stars. Those were pretty easy sooooo...




I tried a flower. It is a little wonky but can still be identified as a flower!




My next one is the man in the moon. Am not as happy with this one but I am pretty critical of my work so am leaving it in in the hopes that others will be a little more lenient with me!





I started a spiral but it turned into a snail!




Then Roxy, my dog, barked and she landed on a square, too!

I did a bicycle, some x's, a cat, a duck and some others but I'm on dial-up so it takes too long to upload.

Anyway, I am having fun with this project and it is moving along quickly. I am pretty sure I will have it done by the shower, a week from Saturday.

Double wedding ring in progress

Well, I'm quilting again! A few days of sunshine got me off my duff and working on this double wedding ring I started about a year and a half ago. I took the pattern off the internet - a free pattern provided by McCalls Quilting. I was laying it out here to see if I had enough foundation pieced arcs to do a full sized quilt.




It turns out that I needed seven more arcs to equal the 98 needed for the full quilt. In the next day and a half I made those seven and completed all the rest of the patches on the other arcs. I wasn't too impressed with the way they looked until I started trimming the paper down to the actual patch. Now they look like something I can be proud of . I used mostly scraps (some pieces were cut off new fat quarters because I thoughtlessly gave away my bin of scraps in a cleaning frenzy! Amazing how disparate pieces and colors come together to make a pleasing piece.

The second quilt I'm working on is a joyful one. My late, favorite girl cousin's daughter called last month and told me that she and her husband are pregnant! So, out the window went my resolve not to start any new quilts until all my UFOs are finished! I only have until the end of this month so it will be a quickie and it is almost half done. No pictures because I don't want Christina and Dan to see it!