WIP

Last day to signup for the discount on the Trip to Ireland during the Int'l Quilt Festival of Ireland in June 2012 - is Sept. 1 !! TOMORROW!!! While at the Pacific West Quilt show I left 10 fliers on the desk with lots of other handouts that people could pick up. Throughout the day I saw the pile going down and before I left I saw that they were ALL gone. I hope this means there was lots of interest and people are signing up! I hope some of you are going!! I'd love to hear from you if you've signed up.

I missed posting my linkup for WIP last week, so here it is if you're curious.

And now for this week's...

Progress

• Lonestar wall hanging - want to do borders on two sides and embroidery work - Enjoyed the Pacific West Quilt Show on Sunday in Tacoma, WA, but didn't get anything done on this--thought I left the threads at home and found them when I got home in a different bag that I had with me! DOH! Had ample time to work on it since my father-in-law ended up in the hospital when we picked him up from the airport on Monday afternoon, but I was a little distracted. We ended up not coming home until Tuesday evening. He's still in the hospital, but on the mend...we're hoping he'll be discharged later today. He's generally very healthy for his age, so this was very strange, some sort of intestinal acute infection that seems to have resolved itself.
• I did however have several discussions about my McCall's Challenge #1 --1892 Rondure and the 'beam' quilting. Including conversations with the 'Quilter's Rule' booth and award winning quilter JoAnna at the Boersma's booth. I didn't realize at the time who she was, but while doing some reading at the hospital Monday and Tuesday discovered the article in 'On Track' about her! Wow! Here is what I think I'm going to do with curved cross-hatching, wdyt?:

• On my quilting machine, Jinny's BOM ...you'll have to wait until next WIP to see it finished (hopefully!!)

• EQ7 2011 BOM- on track

Awaiting Attention:

Oddie's Wild Nature - ...most likely 2012 if I'm lucky enough to stay in the McCalls Contest--please vote! Thanks so much!!
One-fabric re-pieced table cloth - target October  --am wondering if this is ready to quilt. Need to get it out and look at it.

Completed Tops awaiting Quilting
McCall's Challenge #2 (Pulsed Illumination) - target September
2006 Basket BOM - target August--not going to happen.
Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target December

Statistics

Completed: 7

• Starlight-Flutterbright - designed for Highland Quilts, Athena, OR
• View from the old cellar - SOLD
• Supernova - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
• Psychedelic America - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
• WWU baby - star theme - given to Becky St. Clair's daughter
• WWU baby - spring theme - given to Donny Veverka's daughter
• My First Journey - commission for Teacher Tammy's twin granddaughters

In Progress: 10

More WIP @ Freshly Pieced.

My 13 y.o. student - Jordan

A former colleague lives on Roses Road and I used to frequently stay with her family when traveling through their area for my work. Her daughter, Jordan - 8 years old in 2006, came along to a quilt shop with me and I instructed her to find fat quarters that coordinated with some roses fabric that I had found and thought would make a lovely quilt for her. She had already shown promise artistically at her young age, so I thought this would be fun to see how she does with this task.

The years went by and I had not made the quilt. Spring 2011 I wrote to her mother asking if Jordan might be interested at this stage of life in taking a week with me to make a quilt using those very fabrics that she had selected years ago. I wondered if I could teach a 13 y.o.! ?? Long-story short...the reality was this week!

Here are the fabrics...



and Jordan starting to figure out what she wants to use.



I chose a four-patch posie so she could have a bit of fun putting the kaleidoscopic blocks together. With the variety of fat quarters we had a bit of scrappiness too, so she got to select various prints and put them together in a pleasing way. By far these parts of the decisioning process were her most fun. Kaye England's 'English Tiles' quilt seemed like a great way to use the four-patch posie and give me some space to quilt as well. (Jordan's mum's family is of British origin so this seemed especially appropriate.)

I was impressed with Jordan's spatial recognition and ability to quickly learn both visually and audibly. Although when the TV was on, it was a bit of a distraction, she still made good progress and she completed the quilt in 4.5 days.

Here is the progression... Making four-patch posies with 4 identical cuts of fabric.

Deciding on how to place each set of 4 squares, stitching them together, then where to place them in the quilt.

Adding strips of green on two sides.

Then add the corner stones to strips of green and then add those strips to the opposite side of the blocks.

Cut the yellow setting triangles and decide placement. Sew diagonal strip sets of one yellow triangle, block and yellow triangle on the opposite side. This was the trickiest part (it turns out). I should have instructed her on placement of both ends of the triangle. I just had her make sure the right angles were aligned, but with the bias edge of the setting triangles we ended up losing a lot of vertical in the quilt. Then sew the diagonal sets together to make a strip set as seen in the left pic above. We trimmed up the extra overhang so it looks fine as a finished product. On her own she occassionally chose to use the back side of the fabric rather than the 'right' side of the fabric to get a more pleasing affect of color. We do that sometimes, but that was her own idea. After adding the strips of the original roses fabric, it just needed a top and a bottom border.

We chose to use a yellow/pink fat back batik.

I encouraged her to give the quilting a try by doodling some ideas, then I doodled what I thought would look nice and she decided she wanted me to quilt it. She stole the camera and captured me working on the quilt. I had a lot of fun filling the space.

Jordan selected some of the pinkish and redish fabrics to make a scrappy binding and did a completely by machine binding of the quilt.

Here is the finished product! So proud of her!


She has named it 'Beaucoup de Roses' -- Many Roses in French.

Mom Lucy, Jordan and friend Michael

Thanks for spending the week in my neck of the woods! I hope this inspires you to make more.

WIP

I can finally show you my McCalls Challenge #2...if you didn't stop by earlier in the week.
Voting is daily through Sept. 8 --yes, that means you can vote every day for your favorite quilt!! I'm in Alaska the last week of this challenge on a cruise with my extended family, so I'll need your support as I don't know if we'll have internet access or not. Click on the link in the box to the right with the image of the quilt.

Also in progress is technically a customer quilt, but I'm really having fun with not quilting too much (i.e. keeping it simple....but still stunning!) Here is a sneak peek...

This week I've had a 13 y.o. at my home working on her 1st quilt. So proud of her! We'll be quilting it today. She doesn't want anyone to see in-progress until it is finished. 

Progress

EQ7 2011 BOM- See Monday's Design Wall for an update.

Lonestar wall hanging - want to do borders on two sides and embroidery work - plan to get some done this weekend while in Seattle/Tacoma for the Pacific West Quilt Show.

ON HOLD

Oddie's Wild Nature - target July...most likely August if at all now.
One-fabric re-pieced table cloth - target October (p.s. picked up a very thin batting at AQS Knoxville to try with this) --am wondering if this is ready to quilt. Need to get it out and look at it.

Completed Tops awaiting Quilting
2010 Jinny Beyer BOM - Jinny's Garden
McCall's Challenge #2 (Pulsed Illumination)

McCall's Challenge #1 --1892 Rondure -- partially done. See photos from last week's blog post.

2006 Basket BOM - target August

Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target December

Statistics

Completed: 7

• Starlight-Flutterbright - @ Pacific West Quilt Show, Tacoma Wa - Special Member's "STAR" Exhibit, designed for Highland Quilts, Athena, OR--will be on display there after the show.
• View from the old cellar  - SOLD
• Supernova - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
• Psychedelic America - on display @ Patit Creek Cellars, Walla Walla, WA
• WWU baby - star theme - given to Becky St. Clair's daughter
• WWU baby - spring theme  - given to Donny Veverka's daughter
• My First Journey - commission for Teacher Tammy's twin granddaughters

In Progress: 10

More WIP @ Freshly Pieced.

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday - Aug 22

I can finally show you my McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #2. Be sure to read my last post that chronicles my design journey and explains "Pulsed Illumination". The voting link is to your right! Just click on the image and it will take you to the voting page for my quilt. Click on the button 'click to vote'. You can also scroll through all quilts (15) from that page as well. There is a section at the bottom to leave comments. They must review the comments and then post them once a week or something as they don't show up immediately. Thanks for your comments and daily votes through September 8, 2011.

Here is my version of EQ's BOM - August Amusement. Just the name of it made me think of amusement parks...and with my color scheme, maybe adding a border print to create a kaleidoscopic concept. I strip pieced the center sides, used square-in-a-square technique for the corners and fussy cut the corner and center blocks and center setting triangles. The center setting triangles use a Jinny Beyer border print fabric.

If you're following my Jinny's Garden BOM--I blogged about it last week, so click on older posts to see the details from WIP Wed.

And I hope you're all considering joining me on a trip to Ireland in June 2012. There are incentives if you sign up by September 1. A non-quilters program has been added, so you can take along other friends who may not have your same enthusiasm for quilting, but would love to travel to Ireland with you.

The other exciting event in my life is having a former colleague and friend's daughter (Jordan) with me for the week to learn how to quilt. We're doing a four-patch posie, using Kaye England's 'English Tiles' pattern. When Jordan was 8 y.o. I was at their home in California and took her with me to a local quilt shop that was having a big sale of fat quarters. I had found a fabric with roses on it (they live on Roses Road). I suggested that she pick out fat quarters that would coordinate with the fabric. I figured that I would make her a quilt at some point. Well, it has been 5 years and this spring I suggested to her mother that if she was interested, Jordan could come for a week and make it herself! Fortunately, she was keen to give it a try and so here we are. She doesn't want to show even her mother her step by step progress, but I'll blog when we're done with the progress and results. She is very gifted with spatial perception and is doing great for a 13 y.o.!! Some adults would be put to shame frankly. Yesterday she got the borders and strips cut and pieced together, all of the four-patch posies cut and put together and is working on framing the blocks as I type. I'm so proud!

More Design Walls over at Patchwork Times and BOM's AWAY at Whatahoot!

McCall's Challenge #2 - Pulsed Illumination

Round 2 of the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 Competition had the following requirements:

Use 8 of these 10 MODA fabrics:

 

Hard to see, but it is white with
a tinge of green occassionally.

Whatever you use, must be at least 50% of the quilt. You can add as many other fabrics as you like, as long as it is less than 50% of the quilt. The quilt must be at least 24" x 24" or equivalent (does not have to be square). 

Coming up with an aesthetically pleasing set of colors out of this group was my biggest challenge. I ended up NOT using the green and yellow.

Initially I decided a 20" block would allow me to still add the border and stay within my 50% requirement. 20x20 = 400... x 2 = 800...square root of ....is ~28", so that would mean a 4" border on a 20" block if the border was from different fabric). Depending upon how much more fabric I can use outside of that blocksize, I can then increase the quilt's total size.

I went looking through my EQ7 block library and came across a couple of different ones that seemed to be interesting and might lend themselves to multiple colors.

Here is the evolution of my designing in EQ7...the first block I worked on was the 'faceted star'. I partitioned two key elements of the block and put fabrics in an order that would create dimension behind the blades and dimension at the center.

 Some of the fabrics are 'grunge' by basic grey and so I went to one of their old lines that I thought might coordinate nicely --'blush'. I went to my LQS - Stash - and looked at some of the blush fabrics and discovered that the blue is really more aqua, so this idea was NOT going to work even though in EQ it seemed like it would work.

 Oh...let's try to re-orient this block and make it 3d!  Nooooooooooooooooo.

 What about some strip piecing to try to use more of the fabric at similar levels of usage.

 Not liking it.

How about some art deco?

too busy (above) ....next series figuring out the order of color for the center...

 

Try some border treatments that might utilize the green and yellow...?

The 'faceted star' block is what I ultimately decided to use. I printed templates for all pieces (one of the 8 sections was sufficient), pieced the 8 sections together minding the intersection points carefully by marking dots (learned from Jinny Beyer!). This was a huge clue to keeping the pieces coming together correctly. Once I got the top put together, I needed to add the applique dots. I used the 'Rose of Sharon' Accuquilt Go! Cutter die. This really didn't give me the size of dots that I needed. Just using the brown dot (I had to use the brown ones for sure as I needed the 8th fabric!) didn't seem right.The aperture blades used in the setting triangles to make the block 'off-point' were the last elements that I incorporated.

  I ended up hand cutting 4 of the 5 sizes based on using my old stencils from drafting class to draw the appropriate sizes!

The final version (below).. "Pulsed Illumination" --think like you're taking a strobascopic (with a strobe light) photo of a fan or motor that is turning and the pulses of the strobe light illuminate the blades as it goes around. The block looks like it is tumbling based on the 'off-point' setting and the aperture blades just add a bit more interest, allows the center block to be bigger and still stays within the ~20" of a fat quarter's outside dimensions.  I had the Jinny Beyer border print, 'Millenium', in my stash and it had so many different colors it seemed to go well with what I was going to use.

Pulsed Illumination, 37"x37"

 Thanks for your support through round 1 and now in round 2, I'll continue to appreciate your daily vote through September 8, 2011. Vote now!

WIP - Aug 17

Just hours before the McCall's Quilt Design Star Challenge #2 reveal and voting begins. I hope you'll come back and check my blog starting August 18 for a direct link and a viewing of my entry. Voting will be DAILY through September 9. I'd really like to make it through to Challenge #3 (the final one). Thank you for your support! Feel free to encourage your friends to check out the quilts and vote for their favorite!

Fliers for the trip to Ireland June 2012 have been distributed to area retailers, quilt guilds, and will be available at the Walla Walla Valley Quilt Festival Sept. 16-18. There is a 3% discount if you signup by September 1 !!

PROGRESS
So...what's in progress today? I'm excited to have the top finished for my Jinny Beyer 2010 BOM - Jinny's Garden. Wondering what I'll call my own version since I changed a few things. Thanks to my dh for rigging up this hanging rod, the early morning has NO sun, the late afternoon has lots of sun. With pinks it always seems better to photograph them NOT in direct sunlight.

So...here it is, freshly taken this morning. Even a few cosmos are blooming to go along with it. It still needs ironing and then to quilt it, but I'm excited to have completed the top. The top of the quilt purposely doesn't have a black outer border --1) the bed size doesn't need it--I'm thinking of using it for our bed; 2) didn't have enough of the black background fabric. This finished is ~ 90"x ~ 100". When I purchased the fabric at Jinny's studio in Virginia May 2010 I wasn't sure exactly how big I wanted the quilt and didn't sit there to figure it out. The original pattern doesn't have the correct finished dimensions on it, so that threw me off too. I ended up using the binding fabric for the setting triangles in the center which is black with some pink leaf outlines. The sashing light fabric is pale green and in this photo almost looks neon!

ON HOLD

EQ7 2011 BOM- on track

Lonestar wall hanging - want to do borders on two sides and embroidery work.
Oddie's Wild Nature - target July...most likely August if at all now.
One-fabric re-pieced table cloth - target October (p.s. picked up a very thin batting at AQS Knoxville to try with this)

Completed Tops awaiting Quilting
2010 Jinny Beyer BOM - Jinny's Garden

McCall's Challenge #2 (Pulsed Illumination)

McCall's Challenge #1 --1892 Rondure -- partially done. See photos from last week's  blog post.

2006 Basket BOM - target August
Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target December

Statistics

Completed: 7

• Starlight-Flutterbright
• View from the old cellar
• Supernova
• Psychedelic america
• Wwu baby-star theme
• Wwu baby - spring theme
• My First Journey

In Progress: 10

More WIP @ Freshly Pieced.

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday - Aug 15

Just a couple more days and we can reveal Challenge #2 in the McCall's Quilt Design Star Contest. Please come back Thursday the 18th (maybe even late on the 17th) for a link that will take you right to the voting.

And don't forget --Ireland!! Join me on a trip in June 2012 to the International Quilt Festival of Ireland.

Made progress on my Jinny's Garden --Jinny Beyer's 2010 BOM. The center assembly is complete. I just need to add borders.

WIP !!

Huge news...I hope you'll read my blog post about going to Ireland next June for the International Quilt Festival of Ireland. Want to go with me? You can!! Check it out!

Progress
McCalls Design Star Challenge #2 - can't show you anything until the voting starts, it is basically done....deciding on one last element. I'll post a link starting on August 17 where you can vote! Thanks for your support through round 2!

Completed
Starlight-Flutterbright crystals finished. Here is detail of the center. I've sent it off to the Pacific West show in Tacoma, WA where it will be part of the Member Special Exhibit - "Stars"

ON HOLD
EQ7 2011 BOM- on track
Jinny Beyer 2010 BOM - sashings and cornerstones completed. Assembly started.
Lonestar wall hanging - want to do borders on two sides and embroidery work.
Oddie's Wild Nature - target July...most likely August if at all now.
One-fabric re-pieced table cloth - target October (p.s. picked up a very thin batting at AQS Knoxville to try with this)

Completed Tops awaiting Quilting
1892 Rondure -- partially done. See photos from Monday's blog post.
2006 Basket BOM - target August
Tulip wall hanging --this is a redo of the quilting - target November
Colorwash Heart Duvet Cover -- this is to salvage an old duvet - target December

StatisticsCompleted: 7

• Starlight-Flutterbright
• View from the old cellar
• Supernova
• Psychedelic america
• Wwu baby-star theme
• Wwu baby - spring theme
• My First Journey

In Progress: 10

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday - August 8

Time just keeps ticking...whether we make progress on things or not.

My big news is the opportunity to escort a group to the International Quilt Festival of Ireland. See my most recent blog post on the opportunity. Please consider joining me!

My JB-Jinny's Garden is still on the wall where it was two weeks ago, but I have made some progress on quilting the 1892 Rondure.

1892 Rondure - am I done quilting??

1892 Rondure - Backside

General quilting rules are that you should have consistent density of stitching throughout the quilt, but I'm not sure I want to do any more. Additional thoughts have included doing some 'motif' quilting in the borders and center elements that use the border print, but those 'beams' just keep going 'Leave Me Alone'. They are popping on their own almost as if it was trapunto'd but I didn't....so...what do you think?

Today I'm working on my Challenge #2 for the McCalls Quilt Design Star Contest...but nothing to reveal until everyone sees it on August 17 and the voting begins!

Ireland 2012

Ever wanted to visit Ireland? Why not with a quilting twist?  http://www.iqfoi.com/tours/marleneoddie.html

I'd love to escort you and at least 19 of your friends on this wonderful journey. Join me!

SewManyPlaces.com is organizing this tour in conjunction with the International Quilt Festival of Ireland 2012.

I've always wanted to go to this country, and how exciting to do it as part of a quilting journey. But it is not all about quilting, the itinerary is planned to include Galway, Cliffs of Moher, Kylemore Abbey & Gardens, Bunratty Castle, Killarney, Adare, Killorglin, Blarney, Glendalough and Avoca.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.....let's start planning now!