Another Nature Block

Got another block completed last month in my Oddie's Wild Nature effort. This one is called Lone Pine or Ponderosa Pine in June Jaeger's pattern Nature's Sample. I added a few other tree elements because of how my fabric colorings were working. I needed to help some of the contrasts to work a bit better.

Fun to see this quilt coming together. Still have a pine cones and needles branch to complete and two large scenes. Then to figure out any 'gaps' in the layout to create smaller elements to fill in.

Right now I'm focusing on getting client quilts done before leaving the country for a few weeks. I'm fortunate to be able to have my mom coming to staff the studio while I'm gone. Fabrics and notions will still be for sale! A great time to stop by and figure out your next project or gathering supplies for fall classes. I hope to get back to doing some personal projects when I get back.

It's almost summer! Have a good one!

Wild Nature Update

Several years ago I started doing a variety of fused applique blocks. I had taken a class from June Jaeger and designed my own quilt using some of her blocks, McKenna Ryan's and now I wanted to add a Toni Whitney design!

I decided it would take teaching a class to get me going again. So, today was the first of a two session class. Beautiful Toni Whitney designs are being created. I do have more patterns in the studio for several of her designs. Stop by to select your favorite!

I did this Backdoor Bear. The photo seems washed out, but the colors are quite vibrant.The inside image is only 8"x10" so I actually got it done today! It was quite exciting to see it come together so easily. Lots of small pieces, but her construction techniques make it simple enough. Now I can add it to my pile of blocks that at some point I'll have enough to make a quilt, "Oddie's Wild Nature."

Maybe some day I'll figure out how to make one of these from my own photo. There has to be a way in Photoshop that one can easily do this, no? If you've seen a tutorial online, please share the link!

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

Got a little distracted with some personal business yesterday, but decided to just stick with the Alaska Shop Hop 2007 quilt progress...and do another block before getting back to client work.

This one is the Chena Spruce.


Spent Thursday and Friday last week at Spring Quilt Market in Portland, OR. Posted several photos on my Facebook page. Hope you'll check them out....including the finished logo on the outside wall of the studio!

Have a great week.

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

Another Alaska Shop Hop 2007 block ...maybe, just maybe ....this will get done this year.

And I have to show you the progress on the studio...here is my dear husband painting the logo onto the side of the building.

It is becoming a reality!

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

Nice to have something off the quilting table! This was a long-term project last year that is almost finished. The quilting...yes, it is done!

The poster printed on fabric is available from spoonflower.com

I'm also progressing on this 'puzzle'! That is what it feels like when placing these squares. Have you made a QR code quilt?

 

The underlayment is now finished in the new studio and we're progressing on the BAMBOO FLOORING!! So excited...it is looking fantastic.

 

 Enjoy the other Design Walls and BOM's Away Monday progress reports!

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

A day to play! well kind of....wanting to get a few quilty things done and needing my husband at this stage of the renovation (level floor joists) for anything we're doing...during the day I get to work on some personal goals.

I find meeting fellow quilters generally very easy and a receptive process. However, I'm moving to a new community (Grand Coulee, WA) and I'd love to make new friends. This coincides with a new book being released. I hope you'll consider purchasing it on Tues. Feb. 5 (and if you're reading this subsequent to that date, just buy it now!). Author Shasta Nelson, writes how we must intentionally find those friends in "Friendships Don't Just Happen". I happen to know the author and am excited to help her promote the book. I encourage you to purchase this, maybe buy a couple and share one with a friend, or get your fellow quilters to buy it and then discuss it at the end of the month.

I'm going to!


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So, on my design wall is an almost finished postcard....one for a special friend for Valentine's Day. I've used two different fabrics on the front. A fussy cut rose w/leaf and the 'Love' background fabric printed from designs used by the PostOffice years ago. The Pellon 'stiff, double faced' product works great. I used steam-a-seam lite (2) to affix the rose, then iron it and the background fabric onto the postcard all at the same time (no muslin on the back though). Then stitch it down. Special stitches from my sewing machine were used to do the leaf and squigly. Now add muslin on the back (iron it on) and stitch the outer edges. Choosing thread in my bobbin to match the muslin and top thread to work with the fabrics used on top. Personalize the muslin to make it look like a real postcard. I still need to use my .01 or .05 micron pen to finish writing on the postcard. The .08 that I have used so far is too fat to write super small. Up the center I'll put my 'Designed by...." information and then will write on the card to the recipient, along with their address, etc. Add a stamp and it will go in the mail.

And progress on my BOM's is another Alaska Block! This one is called "Spinning Star" and was issued in Eagle River, AK at Dina's Cozy Cabin Quilts.


Come back tomorrow to see my 2nd finish of the year.

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

Spending most of my time focusing on the new studio renovations....but found some time on New Year's Eve ....right around midnight to almost finish this block. Finalized it up this weekend!

This is North Star Rising from the Great Alaska 2007 Shop Hop. This block was issued at Sylvia's Quilt Depot in Wasilla, AK. I'm not sure I followed the instructions correctly on how the light blue was trimmed, but it is close.

This is block #10 on this particular project.

This will be added to these:

Still have a couple of trees and stars to do before looking at how to assemble it. Two settings were provided with the shop hop instructions, so we'll see.

{Sew} Modern/Design Wall/BOM's Away Monday

A couple of finishes for {Sew} Modern Monday's index.

This is a version of McCall's 2012 Mystery quilt. I used the Terrain, by Kate Spain for MODA, line of fabric.

The quilting is inspired by the motifs in the dark blue and hot pink fabric and was done as a continuous line free motion quilting. I was able to do approximately 2 rows at a time. This makes it easy to use the piecing seam lines as registration lines for the quilt design.

Razzle Dazzle ....check out the backside!

The backside is leftover pieces from this top and another one that I used the same line of fabric. I'll put my label or write in the white square in the lower right. The entire back was quite improvisationally pieced!

Another version of the same quilt --I'm naming Spring Fling.

And its backside too! Was happy with the matching of the motifs on the left side so that it looks like a continuous piece.

My Design Wall and BOM progress:

Click on the links to the right for other indexes in the {Sew} Modern Monday finishes, Design Walls at Patchwork Times and BOM's Away Monday Progress at WhataHootQuilts.

{Sew} Modern / Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

My finish is a scrappy random strip HST. This was a swap with my small Fearless Design group and two of the members gave me all of their blocks as well. I started making shapes on the design wall and then tried to connect them. I'm calling this "STEP on Life's Journey". Our local STEP women's shelter will be receiving this one. I had some fabric of antique postcards that I used in the binding. The fabric's name was "Life's Journey", so that helped me finalize on the name of this quilt. The backing is mostly a 'meadow' with a bit of a horizon with clouds in the sky and the right is the trunk of a tree --ok, use your imagination a little bit ;-) I quilted this with a squiggly cross-hatch. The grid pattern of the piecing made it very easy to follow freehand and made it very fast. I even did this without my stitch regulator which made it even faster! I used YLI thread, 'parchment' color and wool batting scraps pieced together.

 

My Design Wall is my latest Fall Wallhanging. There is an EQ tutorial with some fun tips as part of SewCalGal's Fall EQ BlogHop that wrapped last week. My giveaway is open through Monday, Oct. 8, 2012 at 9p PST.








My BOM's Away progress includes getting the rivets added to the border of my Skill Builder Sampler. It is now ready to quilt!

More {Sew} Modern Monday finishes at CanoeRidgeCreations

More Design Walls at Patchwork Times

More BOM's Away progress at WhataHoot

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

After surviving the first week in a new job, my hubby is back at Grand Coulee this week with a few critical essentials so he can survive in a rented duplex while we figure out more permanent accomodations. Just imagine an entirely full Expedition with the mattress and box springs tied to the top. I was too emotional to think of taking a photo. Exciting times ahead. Right now, I'm just trying to keep in mind that every bit of change is a new opportunity!

He did text me a photo of the room he setup. I almost cried. I am the luckiest girl to have found so late in my life such a wonderful untaken man!

Design Wall -- 2 more blocks arrived. I've been waiting 2 weeks for the last few to come from Georgia (United States), but alas they are still not here. Hmmmmm. I'm excited about my border ideas and hope the Walla Walla Children's Home Society will be able to utilize this to its greater good when it is finished.


BOM's Away Update
Here is #8 on the Out of the Darkness quilt (by Pam Bono).
Spring Bouquet.







I did finish cutting out #9.









Be sure to stop by on Thursday during this week's Fall Themed EQ Blog Hop. I'll be posting another EQ7 Tutorial and will have a giveaway.

Last Thursday and Friday I went on the North Central Washington Quilt Shop Hop...10 shops in two days! Whooo!! I posted on Facebook the fronts of the stores and made a brief comment about each. It is still happening through Sat. Each shop issued the directions for a 'row' of a 'row quilt'. Some made their individual row into a table topper, others repeated the same row into a quilt, and others combined rows they felt worked together. One even added applique and said...it was a work in progress still. All sorts of options for sure. I think it could be made into a nice row by row scene. I must admit I was doing a bit of research in the region of where my husband is now working. Once the hop is over, I'll post photos of the row patterns and what the shops did with them. I am missing three shops of photos, so will try to get some visuals on those in the mean time.

This Wed. starts my own local Shop Hop the Blues and runs through Sunday. My small group will carpool on this one on Wed. and Thurs. to get around and see what is the latest and collect whatever they have come up with for us. We will do a 1 car 'long-haul' day and a 2 car short-haul day to make it workable and stay in our own homes overnight as well as accomodate some schedules that can't get away on the long-haul. Should be a good time!

Two quilt shops within these regions are in the process of closing. Sad in so many ways, but I wish the owners the best in their new endeavors. The Quilt Crossing in Odessa and Village Quiltworks in Richland. For the bargain shopper....worth checking them out, and I've just learned that Highland Quilts in Athena is having a big 5th Birthday sale. With unique sales each week in addition to the sales for the whole month. Details on their Facebook page.

More Design Wall Viewings and BOM's Away Progress Updates.

Next Chapter in our lives

Haven't posted for a couple of weeks because there has been a lot of activity on the home front.

My husband accepted a position with the Bureau of Reclamation as a Mechanical Engineer at Grand Coulee Dam. As exciting as this is, it means a move for my business at some point.

We've been researching residential and commercial opportunities in the area, met some wonderful people through various new connections, but nothing I can announce yet.

Last Friday went to the Wenatchee Quilt Show and met the featured quilter, Jill Therriiault. I look forward to getting better acquainted and joining her small group of long-armers that meet occassionally to compare notes and inspire each other.

Sept. 27 the North Central Washington Quilt Shop Hop starts, so I'll have a go at getting around to the 10+ shops and meeting the area shop owners and do some research about the long-armers in the area. It will be helpful to find out what are their specialties, types of machines, price structure, queue length, etc.

I have done several baby quilts, pieced by Barbara B. in our joint effort to put some together for charity. My personal challenge has been to stitch them with my stitch regulator OFF. I'm fairly pleased with the result and believe it is a good way for me to improve my skills of consistent movement even when I have the regulator on.

This one in particular was a new design in my repertoire. Shown here is the back so you can better see the quilting design.

I'm looking forward to participating in the Modern Tools Blog Hop in October. Stay tuned for that as well as a guest blog post on the EQ blog.

On my Design Wall--still waiting for the remaining JUQ-CHS-WW quilt blocks coming in via the mail. But hung on my wall is a growing collection of my BOM blocks.

BOM's Away progress--I'll be happy to add pieced block #8 in Pam Bono's Out of the Darkness to the above photo, hope to get it stitched up this week! I did get block #9 mostly cut out.

More Design Walls ....more BOM's Away Progress

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

This year I have been working on Sewn by Leila's Skill Builder Sampler.

I chose to get involved when I saw that her 'button' for her blog about this Quilt -a- Long was based on 'Rosie the Riveter'.

Finding the original poster became a quest of which I have now done and was able to get it printed. Two attempts of my own with BubbleJet2000 and Rinse with freezer paper, cotton sateen, and a large format inkjet printer and now a Spoonflower print that I have used.







I've now got the center bits pieced and assembled and still need to add the borders. Sorry it is not hanging, but circumstances today do not allow that. It is going to be a BIG quilt! :-)






The other big news of the week was winning 'Best Technical' chosen by the Judges at the EESchenck Trends Quilt Contest with '1892 Rondure'. This was originally created as part of Challenge #1 in the McCalls Quilt Design Star 2011 contest. More information about this quilt can be read here.

 

I also won a door prize that included all the fabric hanging as the backwall in the RJR Booth!

Whoo Hoo!!

 

 

I picked up lots of thread for long-arm machine quilting and several fat back bolts (108" wide), so now will have available to clients an easy solution to creating your quilt backs.

Red - Henry Glass Baroque;   Black - Blank Quilting Madison and a white quilting quality muslin.

 

 

More Design Wall's at Patchwork Times
and BOM's Away Monday Updates at WhataHoot

Design Wall / BOM's Away

On my design wall is the final set of Skill Builder Sampler blocks, all put together. I now have 4 major sections of a total of 36 blocks assembled and just waiting on completion of my center so I can do the final assembly and then add the border.

Thanks to a Sew-In organized by our local quilt guild, I made some progress on my Pam Bono Out of the Darkness quilt blocks. I got ONE done! :-) ha!!
#7 - Bluebells

Now ready for #8


More Design Walls @ Judy's
More BOM's Away Progress @ Lyn's

BOM's Away Monday

Progress on my Skill Builder Sampler includes #31 and 32 blogged about last Wednesday.

But now #33 and 34.

 A mini-loan star. Very pleased with my results on this one. I've got one a little larger than this I've been working on for a couple of years (or have it sitting because I just didn't like the results on my Y seams). This one lays pretty flat and I haven't even ironed it yet. I was careful to finger press --I find using my finger nail and the seam between my nail and finger to work really well--the seams as I went along.

Surveyor's Compass. Paper Pieced. I drafted this myself in EQ7 and thought the yellow bits were circular. On closer examination, they could have been straight. So four sections are sewn trying to get a curve (not much) and the other four I sewed straight across. Not really possible to paper piece a curve without cutting the fabric on a curve so it will lay right.I also intentionally oriented the furthest back spike to angle away from the center for the background (red) fabric connection. This helped me to find a way to start with the largest background piece, then the two smallest spike sections, then the smaller background piece; then the yellow, then the middle spike half section, then the largest/foreground spike half section.

 

Using a background with small hearts that are printed so orderly give an optical illusion to the background that I would rather not have, but it is what it is. On to the last 2!

More at WhataHoot Quilts!

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

Two more borders on this quilt top from blocks given to me for being our local quilt guild's co-chair in 2009 and mostly fabrics from fat quarters given to me when I got married from the same group from the same year. I added a bit of fabric from my own stash to fill as needed. Still planning on one more border.

Too big even for my design wall now, so had to try to hang it in the living room on a curtain rod, so a little wobbly, but you get the idea. Currently at 78"x78".

My new working title for it: Working with What You've Got

I've also got 6 more Skill Builder Sampler blocks done! Yippee!!

The first three are to build improvisational skills.

 

The next three are to build skills working with odd shapes and templates.

Check out other Design Walls and BOM's Away Progress.

Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

Had hoped to show you my Olympics themed quilt, completed, but I had a big interruption that I didn't appreciate today. Some things in life we need to let roll off our back, but I have a hard time doing that unless I have a solution of how to handle the situation. Anyway... come back later this week to see a full write up of the quilt that I hope to have finished!

On my Design wall is an extension of what I had last week, I found the other roman stripe sets and so have added a bit more. I have seen a few half square triangle settings that are very 'organized' and look nice, but wondering if this random creativity might be more fun to have as an original ;-) Since I will likely donate it to our local women & children shelter, I'm thinking it could provide a great background for telling many stories, or driving cars between the lines, etc.

I got my 8th block from the 2007 Alaska Shop Hop done as progress on my BOM. This is the Moose's Tree from Calico Whale in Valdez, AK. The dark fabric in the middle of the tree I added from my own stash. It was intended to match the patterned batik at the bottom, but I'm not sure if I just cut the pieces wrong from the fabric provided (i.e. the orientation of cutting), or if there really wasn't sufficient fabric. Anyway, I like this dark brown with pine needle like shapes that are lighter as a replacement.

Thanks to anyone who voted for my '1892 Rondure' quilt in the Quilting Gallery's Themed Contest this past weekend "Modern Geometrics". If you've not seen this quilt before, it is from my McCall's 2011 Design Star Challenge #1. I placed second in this weekend's contest and will receive a $10 gift certificate to Contemporary Cloth. Thank you!!!!

More Design Walls @ PatchworkTimes
More BOM's Away Progress @ WhataHootQuilts

WIP / BOM's Away

Found a few more linkups today....and just wanted to share about my Olympic Rings so ...here you go.

Progress

Out of the Darkness Block #6 - Pansy Block. Grateful to Ginny Hildreth and the Discount Vac & Sew in Kennewick that let me be productive while my car was in for a needed service. When you live an hour away from the dealer, it is nice to have a place to hangout for the day and still be productive.









Finished the top for my Olympic Rings, so it is now ready to quilt (along with the rest on the list)! I wrote about this design on Monday along with some research about my Grandfather's own Olympic connection. Once it is finished I'll write more since I've now received information recorded by my cousin's husband who interviewed my grandfather as part of a class project years ago. I have also written a tutorial on how to draw the blocks in EQ7 and a few additional tips to make it. Gets me excited about the upcoming Olympic Games. Maybe I can get it quilted and finished in time for this year's big event.


Ready to Quilt

• McCall's Mystery - Spring Time
• McCall's Mystery - Hot Jazz (still need to make the backing)
• Rose of Sharon Bird Block Wallhanging
• Irena Bluhm - colored pencil class project
• WWVQG 2006 Basket BOM

No Progress

• Skill Builder Sampler
• Honeymoon Storm at Sea  
• Oddie’s Wild Nature (O.W.N.)
• Snowflake BOM win/Blizzard quilt
• Alaska 2007 Shop Hop (up to date through July)

2012 WIP Stats:
Completed: 11
In Progress: 12

More WIP linkups at Freshly Pieced.
BOM's Away at Lyn's at What a Hoot --ok...I'm cheating by combining these posts, eh?
Someday Crafts
Rae Gun Ramblings
Show & Tell at BCD & SNAP!
Sew Much Ado - We Did It Wednesday