Oranges and Lemons

I'm finally using some of the fabric I batiked and dyed!

I started dying several fabrics in the same colours to create a bunch of fabrics that go together.  I just made strips and put them together for this top.  I call this one Oranges and Lemons. 

I thought the background might have been a bad choice, so I made the back with white...

and I added in a steely blue.  Each rectangular block is improvised with strips, blocks or boxes.  This turned out different from the hard boiled eggs quilt as on that one I used only a fat quarter of the featured print.  This one has lots of all the batiks and just a little of the blue and gold.  I think this will be a quilt that both sides will be liked.

Big Wheel

I'm still coming up with a name for this one.

I bought a big 10degree wedge that I really wanted to try out.  At the VMQG meeting at Trout Lake, I won a 1/2 meter of Cynthia's newly designed fabric. The wedge is about 20 inches long, so I cut the fabric in half at the centre fold, then cut out all the wedges I could.  I then cut out white wedges and sewed them all together, alternating the fabric and the white.

I needed 2 more coloured wedges, so I went through my solids looking for scraps and I pieced together two more wedges - can you figure out which?

 It took a while to decide on the colour for the background.  I went with Kona Curry, the colour that sets off anything and everything.  It's such a fantastic colour!  I chose a dark blue as the binding as it matches the blue in the featured fabric.  Since I had to go to Spool of Thread to get the blue, I bought a strip of the featured fabric so I could do something on the back. 

The big circle and the rectangles on the back are purposely off centered.  It's artistic, really!

This is the "grown-up" quilt for a 14 year old boy, William.  His mom threw away his baby quilt after the dogs ruined it.  William was upset when he found out, so my dad asked me to make him a replacement quilt that William could keep through his adult life.

I just need to show this off at the guild meeting and get some photos off to Cynthia, the fabric designer.

Trunk Show Part 2 - More Traditional Quilts

Here's more of my trunk show.  I'm still in my traditional phase here in the mid 90s.

 In 1993 I quilt my job at the Royal Bank and cut up my dress shirts to make this quilt top. The yellow zig zag isn't working for me, so I'll take that off when I finish it - if I ever do.

All of 94 I traveled through Africa from Cairo to Capetown using local transportation. This quilt is my diary of the trip.

In each town I visited, I would go to the tailor shops and ask for scraps of fabric. Once I had a few blocks done, I could just show them what I wanted the fabric for. Most of the fabric I got for free. I embroidered the name of the country, the town, and the name of the fabric, or the type of outfit that would be made from the fabric.

I have enough blocks made for two more quilts.

Quilts for my nieces

I don't think I've shown these two quilts yet.  They are quilts I made for my nieces several years ago.

For the pink quilt, I stacked 4 pink rectangles  on top of 4 white rectangles, then cut them randomly with wavy cuts - 7 cuts in all.  Then I sewed them together alternating the pink and white matching curves, and using one of each pattern in the block.  I then squared it up so each block was the same height, not worrying about the width.  I think each block was 10 inches high by 15 inches wide.


Libbie's Quilt Finished!, a photo by Quilt Circle on Flickr.

Here's a link to a tutorial I put on Flickr stepping you through the process with lots of pictures.

I played with appliqueing circles for the back using the fat quarters of the pink that didn't go as well with the ones I used on the front.  I embroidered the label on one of the circles on the back.

Libbie's Quilt back, a photo by Quilt Circle on Flickr.

My other niece requested blue and black.

I found this on flicker as a black and hot pink quilt, and adapted it for a bundle of black fat quarters I bought.  I worked out a size and layout where I could get 2 blocks from each fat quarter.  I bought 3 blue fabrics to use for the alternating blocks.

Katie's Quilt, front, a photo by Quilt Circle on Flickr.

Katie's Quilt, back, a photo by Quilt Circle on Flickr.

For the back of this quilt, I made an interlocking block type of back that turned out interesting.  I think I was sewing on the bindings of both of the quilts on the day before Christmas.


Both girls like their grown-up quilts.  Here they are with the first quilts I made for them ages ago.

Girlfriends Quilt update

I finished the Girlfriends quilt and it's now ready for the silent auction at our upcoming band concert.

 I used the same red for the binding that was used in three of the picture mats.

 And I found some great plaid flannel for the back.  Perfect for these outdoorsy girls.  The birdwatching girl is actually wearing a plaid bikini!

 The stippling is a big curvy stipple and the frames are just quilted with straight lines 1/4 in in from the edges.

I took it into rehearsal on Thursday and the band members love it, so I think it'll be a hit and will hopefully get some high bids.

Girlfriends Quilt

I'm putting a quilt together for a silent auction for my upcoming band Christmas concert. It's on December 11, so there's not too many practices left and not too many days to get the quilt done.

DSC_0605, a photo by sonjaartisania on Flickr.

Last year I made a beef-cake pin-up Christmas tree skirt for the auction, so this year it's pin-up girls.

I bought some pin-up girls camping material a while ago that I thought was very funny. Unfortunately there are only 4 girls and they repeat quite often. I fussy cut out four of them and framed them in a beige fabric that matched the base colour of the girl fabric.

Then I put a red or green frame around that to set it off. Next I put a wide strip around the entire block to get it up to about 16 x 16 inch block.

 

Ice skating with no pants

Birdwatching in a bikini

Next I put a "boy scout" style frame around each girl like I did on the back of my Wonky Nine Patch Lattice quilt.

This was going to be another tree skirt, but after making 4 blocks, I saw that it needed to become an entire quilt.  I made two more blocks using combinations of the girls so they didn't look identical to the others.

I laid out the blocks and moved them around so that they didn't line up and were scattered around.  Then I filled in the empty spaces strip by strip and got the quilt all together.  I pretty much ran out of fabric so had to "Frankenpiece" the last empty space.

I made a run to the fabric store and got some more background fabric to give the quilt a little more length on the top and bottom.  I found the perfect back for the quilt - a great flannel plaid that matches the bird-watching girl's bikini.  It's perfect for the goofy out-doorsy feel of this quilt.

Now it's time to sandwich it, quilt it and bind it and it'll be ready to show off at the November VMQG meeting.

Alannah and Aaron's Wedding Quilt

Alannah and Aaron's Wedding Quilt

On a quick local vacation at the end of summer, I found some a great bird fabric in Mount Vernon.  Then I got some coordinating fabric in Annacortes and lots of great coordinating fabrics in Coopville.

I fussy cut the birds, framed them in some muddied down solids, then improv pieced log cabin-ish strips around to get the blocks up to 12.5 inch squares.

The blocks were looking a little heavy, so I made more with less of the coordinating fabrics and more of the background.


I played around with the layout.  I didn't want the blocks to line up, so I sashed them on two sides.  The top or bottom got 3 inches of sashing, and the left or right got 4 inches of sashing.  The sashing was pieced with bits of the coordinating fabric to keep it from looking too empty.

I'm so happy with the way it ended up.

 

The back started with the strips of left over solids, then I scattered the left-over blocks, then I sewed together strips of the coordinating fabric and worked them between the solids.  The blocks weren't showing up so I framed them in what little solids I had left.

Here's some details.

I'm off to Hamilton for the wedding next weekend.  Alannah and Aaron should get years of use out of this quilt from "Uncle" Paul.

I also made a quilt for the bride's mother who fosters baby boys till their adoption.

 The back is Ikea fabric with a little applique for colour.

Small projects

Portrait challenge

The August challenge at the VMQG was to do a portrait.

I had started a face quilt years ago, so I pulled it out and added a back that has my hair style and it became my portrait.

 

Neither side really looks like me, so I really just used the challenge to finish a UFO.  Just have to bind it and it's done.

Circles - Beach Balls

I decided to tackle circles and first made a beach ball block that's now a beach quilt that's ready for quilting.

I pieced the triangles together to get stripey octagons and hexagons, then used my compass cutter thingy to cut them into circles.  I didn't use the centre of the block as the centre of the circle so that's why I think they look like balls.

I made the back look like a towel I had when I was in elementary school.  Yes, the wrinkles are built in.

Circles in Circles

Then I tried circles in circles.  I had seen several quilts so here's my inspirations:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/latifahsaafir/5772048865
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peppermintpinwheels/5789125060
http://www.funquilts.com/gallery/patterns/patterns.html  (the Roundabout quilt)

Here's what I came up with.

 Hmmmm.  Same background colour, but off two different bolts.  Make sure you have enough on hand before starting a quilt!

 The back used the other half of the big blue circle.  Below is a close up of the random sort of straight line quilting I did on the yellow background.  I still have to do something in the blue circles then bind it all in orange.

Here's my tips for circles:
Cut the hole with a 1/2 inch smaller radius than the radius of the circle.  Set your seam guide (that thing that screws into the flat table of your sewing machine exactly 1/4 inch back from your needle and be consistent with your 1/4 inch seam.  Use your squirt bottle or lots of steam when you iron the seams and you should get it nice and flat.  I iron the seams open for an really flat look, so I do clip the seams every 1 1/4 inch.

Bottled Rainbows

I organized a "Bottled Rainbows" challenge for the VMQG, so of course, I had to make a couple to show the technique.  Then I made a couple more.  Then more.

Bottled Rainbows blocks for June VMQG Challenge, a photo by myredbike on Flickr.

Here's my batch of blocks.  These are so fun to do and are great to get you playing with colours and focusing on the over-all shade of a piece of fabric rather than focusing on the pattern.
Here's it put together and being shown off at the VMQG meeting.

Paul's Bottled Rainbows quilt, a photo by myredbike on Flickr.

And here's the back.  I just used blocks of colour from the front to make a cool Mondrian style back.

Mondrian-inspired back of Paul's Bottled Rainbows quilt, a photo by myredbike on Flickr.

Thanks, myredbike for taking pictures of me with the weirdest mouth action.  What's up with that?