Crazy mini for Bloggers Quilt Festival

Crazy mini, 12 by 12 inches

machine pieced and quilted

I dug into the solid scraps to put together this crazy-pieced mini.

It was part of a challenge over at 15 minutes play.

I'm entering it into the miniature category at Bloggers Quilt Festival.

The crazy piecing section measures about 4 by 6 inches

and features about 50 little bits.

Click on the photo to see how small they actually are.

I used a heavy black thread to quilt this section.

I includes some tiny half square triangles

made from the trimming bits of binding,

and machine quilted feathers in the large space.

Here's the back, using a Kaffe stripe.

I bound it with green and a bit of yellow.

I like the juxtaposition between the crazy centre and the calmness of the feathers,

the grey and the bright green

and the idea of using the tiniest bits for a little quilt.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Friday finish and a sneak preview!

 

Transitions

50 by 60 inches

machine pieced and machine quilted

with blocks from

15 Minutes Play Quilt Bee members

 

I'd like to share a quilt that I began two years ago.

From Oct. 2010 to Sept. 2011, I was part of Victoria's 15 minute play bee.

Each month a player set a challenge in made fabric and we sent her blocks.

I had the last month and asked for 6 by 12 (or longer) blocks

moving from orange to blue in a made fabric fashion.

You can see the guidelines here.

They sat on my wall for a long time.

In the meantime, I worked on my freemotion skills.

I finally set them together without any sashing,

and machine quilted it.

 

I named it "Transitions" because of the transition from orange to blue in the blocks,

and because I intended this to be a quilt to give away.

I find I often give quilts to people at a transitional time in their lives.

 

 

The new owner of the quilt

recently painted her bedroom lime green, with splashes of yellow, and

decorated it with blue furniture.

So it seems Transitions has found exactly the right home,

two years after I chose the colours!

Here's another shot on my lawn, with Victoria's book open
to two of the other quilts made by bee members.

 

Thanks to my fellow bee members for their contributions:
Victoria, Margaret, LeeAnn, Glenda, Sujata, Shelly,
Charlotte, Mary, Helen, Beth, and Lynn.

 

 

Here's the back, with the lime green print that I had originally intended as sashing,

with wonky log cabin blocks inset.

I also had another finish this week,

but it's waiting for the big reveal.

The intended owner is still gestating,

but any day now!

 

I'm linking up with Amanda and Sarah and Pippa.

 

Design wall Monday in Winnipeg

I've got a bunch of blocks on the wall that will soon leave my home.

This message made with letters and a little freemotion embroidery

is going to Cuba as part of a prayer flag project.

These 12.5 inch string blocks are headed to California

where Jeanne is making donation quilts with contributions

from String Thing Along folks.

And these made fabric blocks may be part of my tea towel challenge

over at 15 Minutes Play.

But for now, they're all hanging out together on my wall.

I'm linking to Judy's Design Wall Mondays.

I'm in 15 minutes play!

I finally got my hands on Victoria Findlay Wolfe's new book,

15 Minutes of Play.

and I'm in it and into it.

Here's my Crazy Dresden quilt I made for a swap, right in the centre of this page.

It's machine pieced and quilted, and handbeaded,

made using light scraps and a sunny yellow dresden.

This book is full of lots of ideas to use up your scraps and free up your creativity.

It's working -- I got out some Kaffe prints and tried out Victoria's Lemoyne Star

and managed the Y seams -- although it does take practice.

Here's two blocks using Kaffe for the star.

and some string pieced triangle trees, also inspired by the book.

I was pleased to see four of the group quilts from our 15 minutes play bee

included in the book.

Mine is still a flimsy, but not for long.

Thanks Victoria, for a great book

and for inviting me to be a small part of it.

Monday Design Steps

I'm swamped with writing deadlines, so my sewing is limited to small things.

I'm showing off two blocks of crazy piecing here.

Bright scraps, and bits of linen, some with embroidery.

the cotton square is just for fun,

the one at the right in linen is destined to become

a quilt for Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative.

Working title: Unfinished stitches.

I'm linking up with Judy's Design Wall Mondays.

Photo finish?

Yesterday I sewed scraps on my sewing table into wonky log cabin blocks,

using blue squares and following a loose blue/pink colour scheme.

It's the beginning of something, and the blocks sewn together

measure 18 by 21 inches.

Maybe a baby quilt?

So I auditioned some fabrics, using this pink/red dot as the first try.

Not bad, but not quite there.

Then a pink text print, which doesn't add anything to the centre,

but it's one of the few pink pieces of yardage I have in my stash.

How about the blue toile?

Maybe a bit better, but still washed out, especially compared

to the saturated colours in the Kaffe scraps in the blocks.

Lime green does the trick, but this is supposed to be the backing fabric

for my orange to blue colourwash string quilt.

See how pretty the green (grass) looks with it?

I've sewn it together and it measures about 48 by 60.

So what if the log cabin centre is bordered with green

to make the back of the colourwash quilt?

Nothing like a some natural light and a digital camera

to figure out a design problem.

I'm linking up the the Needle and Thread Network.

Scrappy blooms

As the weather turns here in Winnipeg

(we went from a high of 31 degrees Celsius on Wednesday to cool, windy, and rainy yesterday)

 I've been growing some flowers in my sewing room

Here are some buds, started in the centre with tiny scrap triangles

and built on each side with narrow strips of 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide

Here is the full-blown blossom, started in the middle with a small half square triangle,

and built half log cabin block style

some scrappy leaves.

the two at the left were each cut in half and a stem inserted

The buds and the flower.

I've been playing with these on a b/w background.

Stay tuned.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian readers.

Show and tell and more

My guild met at my house the other night, and we had a lovely show and tell.

First up is Karen with her flying geese quilt, which has been in progress for three retreats.

it has lovely colours and a few surprises.

She hand quilted it, and I hope you can see the details of the stitches here.

Here's Audrey with a tshirt quilt she made for her DIL's sister, from her stash of athletic shirts.

Two interesting facts about this quilt: Audrey did not interface the tshirt squares

 (I did on my tshirt quilts, and it's a tedious job)

and the sashing fabric glows in the dark.

Audrey  only realized that when she turned out the lights in her sewing room one evening

and the quilt glowed back at her.

Anne K made a fun baby quilt from wild and bright scraps.

I like how she offset the blocks with filler strips here and there.

And in other news, I'm getting more and more blocks from my 15 minutes play bee.

Yesterday I was different -- the envelope from one member arrived safely,

but totally empty. No blocks, no note, just a couple of threads on the adhesive on the envelope flap.

Disappointing for both the sender and the recipient.

Bags, blocks and more blocks

I had a little sewing frenzy here last week, and finished a set of bags from

Guatemalan fabric for a fundraiser. The one at the left is a tote with 8 pockets (2 inside)

with a matching market bag.

Here they are again, modeled by my DS1. All of them sold.

Here he is again, with a shoulder/messenger style bag, made from a handwoven table runner.

With the flap opened. This was intended for the same fundraiser.

I also whipped up some Basics BOM for Victoria and her quilt drive.

I find it's too pricey to mail a whole quilt, but I can manage a few blocks.

These are the colourwash strips I'm getting from the 15 minutes play bee.

September is my month to get the blocks. These are about half of them.

This week I received one last B in the mail for my Big Bee Birthday quilt, this one from Nancy Near Philadelphia. T'hanks so much.

And one more shot of tea cozies and hot pads. I made one set from the calendar towel, and the other from the Kaffe strips I cut for another set of blocks. If you look closely at the colour wash quilt, you'll see some in there. I've been hoarding those Kaffe prints, but once I have scraps, I play and play and play with them. Really, I should just cut up my yardage into little bits instead of storing it in my cupboard.

And if that isn't enough, I should show you a picture of my newly organized sewing space, but I've already messed it up. I did move three bags of scraps and strings out it to pass on to my quilt group tonight, as well as a pile of mile-a-minute blocks.

a little summer sewing

it's stinkin' hot here, but I have managed a little something in the sewing room for a challenge to replicate artwork in solids over at 15 minutes play

This one is inspired by Paul Klee's painting called Heroic Roses.

and this one is inspired by Henri Matisse and his cutout art.