Do overs

Hi everybody!  We have 99 followers ... who will be the 100th?  Will it be you?? or you perhaps???  Hop in, there's room!

Sometimes we can do things over and they turn out all right, better than ever. 

But some things ... you don't exactly get a second chance  :O*(

I woke bright and early this morning around 4:30 and decided to do some sewing, so I hopped out of bed and as I was going into my sewing room I bumped my left knee smack into the edge of the door.  At that point I wished I could have done the previous 5 minutes over because I could not bend my knee without pain ... it was okay straight out, I could walk but if I bent it beyond a certain point oh man the pain was excrutiating!  I had to sit with my leg sticking straight out.

That was almost 3 hours ago and now PRAISE GOD I can sit with the knee bent.  When I stretch the leg out I can hear (and feel) a small pop but the pain is nothing like it was.


My other do-over is a piece I sewed a few months(!?) ago when I was doing a solids swap.  Remember this one?

If you've been reading my blog awhile, you know I tossed this one aside and made another one... you'll see the finished block in my photo slide show on the right (hint: it's between the grey one and the kitty cat, and it looks nothing  like the one above!).  I never liked it just as it was, so I took the middle and bottom seams loose and started playing around with different fabrics. 

My first impression of this was "ho-hum!"  In any case I've got some work to do... all I can see right now is yellow!

I plan to stay with solids rather than introducing patterned fabric at this point, I don't think it would look too great.  The little pieced strip in the middle?  I found it in my "parts department," so I threw it in although there's some marbled fabric in it.  I think it sort of qualifies, don't you? 

Also, I'll stay with a limited color palette -  maybe I'll throw in a deeper blue, some off white, a dark-dark green.  At this point I'm thinking it will be an attractive wall hanging that's not too large, but I've been known to change my mind.

Sew forth and sew on til later - send up prayers for my knee!

My solid swap challenge

I received my beautiful solid quilt yesterday from my 15 Minutes Play swap partner, BeeBee...

Isn't it gorgeous?  For inspiration, she used the painting Starry Night, by Vincent Van Gogh.

I'm glad I had a chance to do this solids challenge, it stretched my horizons in a whole new way.  Soon as I finish the Kandinsky I'm doing with Yetunde I'll look for another project for solids; I love the process.

I haven't been doing much sewing or blog-hopping lately, my attention has been focused in other directions.  But I have pieced some scraps to cut up for quilt blocks (it's called "made fabric"). 

On this one I started with the little leftover triangular section, added the B&W and pink pieces...

then I just kept adding pieces around it in a clockwise fashion...

there's no rhyme or reason for how its done; you can go clockwise, counter-clockwise, left-side right-side, it doesn't matter.  Just keep adding pieces to make it bigger.

On this one I show how I added to an uneven edge: I took a straight piece and laid it on so that I had a straight sewing line...

Then I trimmed off the hang-overs and pressed...

Now I have a straight edge to attach more scraps to! 

You can use odd shaped pieces of scraps, strips, what-have-you.  You can also take two or more big pieces and sew them together to make ever bigger pieces.  The object is to use up your scraps to make large sheets of fabric. 

It's a really good recycling option, with the bonus of not having to think too hard about what you're doing.  When you want to get your hands into some fabric but don't want to do anything specific, you can easily make fabric sheets!

Stay tuned for some blocks I pieced using my "made" fabric!

Challenge done

This is my solid fabrics challenge quilt...

all done except for the binding and sleeve!

It looks way different from the version I started with...

See what can happen when you climb out of that box!??

I've already started planning my second masterpiece; this time I'm exchanging with my friend Yetunde

We're both working on the same piece - it's called Gravitation, by Kandinsky.  Yeowww, this will be a REAL challenge for me!  Box, get outta my way!

Sew forth and sew on til later...

My solids challenge

I'm moving right along with my solids challenge quilt, I think I've got it licked! 

You're looking at the piece I posted a couple days ago with another piece attached to the bottom edge - that's a keeper.  I wanted to bring out the black zigzags on the red background, so I made red-and-black wavy fabric pieces to attach; I think it adds a little something to the design.  

Next I'll join the blue piece with the red and black piece, add them to the right-hand side and do some minor trimming. 

I'm thinking I'll add that red strip across the top... blue strip at the bottom?  That blue on the right sort of sticks out, how shall I corral it into the overall design?  and what shall I do with the left side? Decisions, decisions...

Sew forth and sew on til later

Back on track

Three things to be happy about:
(1) This
(2) That
(3) The other

Hi all, I'm back on track in two areas - I finally got a monitor I can live with, yaaaay!  It's a 23", which is the first size I chose, but it's also a Gateway, which is the brand that came with my PC in the first place.  I'm happy enough.

Second area, I got back on track with my Solids Challenge ... it occurred to me that I'm not trying to recreate the painting - I'm being inspired by it!  After that epiphany [notice the big word!], I could move just a little bit out of the box I had put myself into. 

For a reminder, here's the Matisse I'm using for inspiration:

Here's my first attempt:

It looks nothing like the painting, right? This little piece is what you see through the doorway... the middle part.  I'm using the colors and generally picking up some of the shapes.  And also notice that, for my pieced version, I rotated it counter-clockwise!  That black strip next to the two yellows is a wee bit wider than I meant, but what the heck, it's art!  I'm an artiste while I'm doing this one, so I get to take artistic license.

At this point the first area is about 8" wide; to meet the challenge, the finished piece will be 15". I'll add more blues, reds, maybe some orange and more black in there someplace.  Some white and/or off-white too.

I thought about changing to a Kandinsky because his work has so much movement, but I think I'll hang with Matisse and challenge myself to work with this one - doing it my style! 

So forth and sew on til later

Art quilt using solids

Three things to be happy about:
(1) first day of summer
(2) perfect beach weather
(3) vibrant oil paintings

Happy Summer, everybody!  And thanks, Sue, for the suggestions on my Motown wannabe... I think it just might be after all!

I've been thinking about how to approach my solids segmented quilt swap, over on the 15 Minutes site, then I thought I'd just dive right in and see what I could do... I have more fabric after all.  The finished quilt is to be 15 x 15 and we're swapping with a partner.  Here's the Matisse I'm using for my inspiration:

I always forget to document the process!  I had gotten into it when I remembered to take this picture:

Here's the final quilt:

That green on the right is actually a dark green, not aqua. 

To me it looks sort of blah... any suggestions???  Do the colors need to be bumped up a notch??  Or do I just quilt it and call it done??