Design Wall / BOM's Away Monday

Exciting weekend....from Trends (an industry event in Portland) to the Walla Walla Valley Quilt Festival, my parents here, my husband leaving for a week long visit to Houston for his work...just so much going on!

As I explained in earlier posts ...SuperNova-Blackhole was at Trends. I was able to take my mom to this event and help her get materials necessary for craft sales to help their local private school and items that they make for their 'Bags of Love' charity. Need a warm-tater bag to cook your potatoes in the microwave?--check in with my mom and support a good cause!

I personally re-stocked on wool, warm & white and Legacy 80/20 batting. I'm ready for the winter quilting season! Also picked up some fabrics from Jackie Robinson/Maywood Studio's 'Roses' line, more lumiere sateen, Jinny Beyer black eyelash, and some beautiful wine country prints. I have some ideas in the works already!

@ WWVQF I put in my Hail MBA! T-shirt quilt, Will You Accept This Rose?, and Starlight-Flutterbright. I thought I'd get my Jinny's Garden done but that didn't happen in time for the festival's cut-off.
I didn't previously post a picture of Starlight-Flutterbright with the crystals...so here it is. Hard to see them, but in person, there are just enough to give it some sparkle.

My mom's however was in the show and got a 2nd Place People's Choice ribbon in the large quilt category! WHOO HOOO!!

Here she is with the quilt. To the right is a sneak peak at one of my new patterns - 'Hugs and Kisses' she made this version while testing the pattern and has called it the thread colored used in the quilting 'Indian Summer'. When she brought it up to get her 'freebie' quilting on it for testing the pattern, we had time for me to quilt it and her to bind it before the deadline for the show, so why not enter it. It was supposed to be for sale, but somehow it didn't get posted with the quilt during the show...it will now be for sale in Arizona, all proceeds benefit their local school.

Here is some detail of the quilting.

Other customer's who put their quilts in that I had the pleasure to quilt, included:

Jessica Murf's Bug Music --although I didn't get credit for it. See CQ71 in my FB Customer Quilt's v2 photo album.
Kristin McVane's voiles - CQ64

Lois Hellie's Grandma's Love Garden--lots of custom work on this one, I even got to help her design it. CQ103 -->

Crysta Evanenko's version of my Zoe pattern. CQ107




















Julia Perry's Purple Argyle quilt.  CQ24                                   Elaine Shaw's Wisteria Garden CQ51

Always fun to see them finished!

Last week I finished the INMQ Challenge and sent it up to Anita Pederson to bring to the meeting last Saturday. I'm trusting that worked out! Since the opportunity to turn them in is still OPEN...I'll not post a photo of the finished piece until the deadline.

So..what's on my design wall? My McCall's FINAL Challenge...so can't reveal that, but I'm also back to quilting 1892 Rondure --my McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 Challenge #1. It was accepted, on its partial quilting, into MQX in Portland next month. so I HAVE to get it finished ;-) Here's the concept...now to work out the details so it hangs together. I'm hoping the tricks I learned at Tacoma's show will help!

 backside!

Elaine's Wisteria Garden and my McCalls Challenge #2 was also accepted into MQX....exciting!!

Don't forget --deadline extended for discount if paid in full for the Ireland Trip! through Nov. 1.

More Design Walls @ Judy's and BOM's Away @ WhataHoot

Design Wall & BOM's Away Monday

After a week long Alaska Cruise on NCL with my husband's family (first extended time together in years) and my parents (their 49th wedding anniversary celebrated on Friday), it is time to get back to work. Serious work--I made it through to the FINAL round of the McCall's Quilt Design Star 2011 contest!!! Thank you to all of you who were voting! I'm now trying to get inspired with the challenge--"the quilt must be inspired by the lyrics to any well-recognized song".

Next weekend is our local quilt festival. I needed an extra day of quilting due to some unforseen medical issues with a family member which kept me in Seattle unexpectedly, so this 2010 Jinny Beyer BOM - Jinny's Garden will not be in the show since I couldn't get it done before leaving on the vacation and quilts were due while we were gone. Hope to get it done today!

In the show will be my mom's Jinny's Garden and several other customer quilts that I've quilted.
My personal quilts will be:

• Starlight-Flutterbright with the newly applied crystals (was also shown without crystals @ Trends Spring 2011 winning Judges' Choice and at the 2011 Crazy Horse Quilter's Show in Pendleton, OR; shown with crystals in the APWQ Member's Special 'Star' Exhibit 2011) More details about the quilt can be see in these posts.
• Hail MBA! A t-shirt quilt made from a collection from my parent's old shirts from where they used to work (and I grew up!) set with a beach scene in the sashings. The school literally included beach front property.
• "Will You Accept This Rose" --the quilt that was made when I won Viewer's Choice in the Jackie Robinson 2010 Roses Block Design Contest. It was on a year long Maywood Studio trunk show, so this is the first local show I've been able to put it in since it was returned to me. I don't have much blogged about it since it was done in 2010 (prior to my blogging), but here are a few other related posts. AND lots on Facebook.

Next on the list...

• My INMQ challenge for the Spokane show --needs to be delivered to someone who will take it to the meeting next Saturday...so this is what is on my design wall. What do you think this will become? Lots to do!!

• customer quilts that were hand delivered by my mom from Arizona and will need to go back to AZ by next Monday.
• McCalls Challenge rounds #1 and #2 were juried into the MQX show coming up in Portland in October need to be quilted and finished.

Next weekend is Trends at EESchenk in Portland. I sent my 'Supernova-Black Hole' quilt to their show. They have people's choice, judges' choice and 'best use of color' categories. I didn't even realize this last category until it was in the mail. Not sure if I'll get there to see what was entered or not. Just fun to have places to show off quilts that I am proud of and enjoyed creating. My journey in the quilt-a-long that produced this quilt is written up here.

Don't forget about coming along to Ireland June 2012!

I'd better get on with my list! Check out more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times and BOM's Away links at WhataHootQuilts.

Supernova-Blackhole -- backside

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

WIP Wednesday - July 27

Excited to show some progress this week on my WIP list items!

New
McCalls Design Star Challenge #2 - can't show you anything until the voting starts, but I have done a lot of work on the design and am close to finalizing.

Progress
EQ7 2011 BOM- on track (See Monday's blog)
Jinny Beyer 2010 BOM - sashings and cornerstones completed. Assembly started.
Lonestar wall hanging - Found some great 12 wt thread to use in doing some embroidery in the setting triangles maybe. - target August


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)
Completed Tops awaiting Quilting
1892 Rondure -- on the machine today, intend to submit for jury into MQX-West
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

Embellishing
Starlight-Flutterbright (crystals have started to be applied)

These will accent the 'on point' square that is a secondary design in this quilt.

All of the butterfly eyes have black crystals.

All of the pansies have 3 crystals right in the center. Pink in the pink pansies and orange in the orange pansies. Once I get all of the crystals on the outer parts, then I'll look at the big star in the center and figure out where to put crystals to balance it with the rest of the quilt.

Statistics
New: 1
Completed: 5
In Progress: 11

This is a client quilt. I painted the center panel after quilting it. wdyt? Submitting it by Monday for jury into MQX-West --hope it gets in! A detail of the painting is on Monday's blog post.

Designs on my Wall - April 4, 2011

Supernova is in pieces on my cutting board.

Psychedelic America made some progress... I'll be working on this big time today.

Taught a class for my Starlight-Flutterbright pattern yesterday at Highland Quilts in Athena, OR. This is what the design wall looked like at the end of the first stage. Everyone was able to complete 1/4 of the center medallion (this is just 1 corner) but I didn't get photos of them.

One person finished the center medallion.
Looking forward to seeing the alternative colorways completed.

Judy's index of Design Walls on Monday will continue to inspire!

WIP - my 1st post on this linkup

Work in Progress Wednesday it's called over at freshly pieced, a cute modern blog that I've noticed over the last week or so and have decided to work on the Supernova Quilt Along. I've got so many things going on I really shouldn't add this one in to the list, but it just called to me!

As a long-arm quilter for my business (started Nov. 2009) I've always got quilts on my machine, today no exception. But, in this WIP I'll focus on my own initiatives rather than customer quilt tops that I quilt. I've also got a running list of things I'm working on, daily tasks, etc. to keep everything going. I've had an accountability partner (an old friend from grade school days) that I privately email once a week with my weekly accomplishments--this has been valuable. Making it public in this fashion will be an abbreviated list, but also has some 'truly in progress' stuff that I tend to easily forget about as I focus on my business activities most importantly.

So...being my 1st Wednesday post --I also do a Design Wall Monday post--here is what is I. P. !

New Projects

Supernova - participating in the quilt along -- using 'origins' basic grey. Here are my groupings. Top row and 1st pile of 2nd row I'll do two blocks each. The 'blacks' I'm thinking one block--the center one. The far right lower pile--pale yellow the outside border contrast and the whites as the background fabrics.

Psychedelic America -- this is Marti Michell's 2010 BOM 'American Beauty' program that our guild used last year for their monthly Block Lotto. I didn't participate, but I won a huge fat quarter stack in 2009 of psychedelic batiks that I wasn't sure what to do with them. When I realized there was enough fabric to make the 'American Beauty' quilt, I decided to challenge myself with the adaptation to the psychedelics (my word for them). The original was made with a line from Maywood Studio called 'wild roses'...mine will be WILD! :-) The challenge is to have it completed by April 12 --our next guild meeting. AHHH...I got a year late start ;-)

Active Ongoing Projects

a. EQ 2011 BOM - at least I'm keeping up to date on this one! I love designing with EQ (now on version 7) and they have a challenge to physically create a block that they publish each month and then personally create a setting of them at the end of hte year which will be judged for a prize of some sort. I'm making them as 6" blocks --they could be made at any size. I've chosen batiks and will stick with purples/greens/white/black colors.

b. Starlight-Flutterbright is a finished quilt, but perhaps not Finished ;-) I won Judges' Choice at Spring 2011 Trends (EESchenck's industry mini-market event) with this quilt, but would like to add crystals to it. I'm going to be teaching this pattern as a class this Sunday, so will dream about the crystals if I have a spare moment while the class is working on their own versions. Crystals on the front, crystals on the back. The back is black and you don't see any of the star elements because of the way I quilted it. Crystals might be able to add in the star. I'm very excited about how the secondary design of the on-point block emerged in the background almost in 3d--especially when it was hung at the show because there was opportunity to view it from a distance. This quilt was the result of a local shop asking me to design something with the panel fabric of the large butterfly and pansy blocks. It is also available in a blue/purple colorway.


Ongoing Projects on hold --I'll only post photos in the future if there is progress made, but this is so you have an idea.

a. Jinny Beyer BOM 2010 - doing this with my mother and hope to display both at a show in September. But probably won't get back to this until May.



b. Oddie's Wild Nature 2010- a personal stylization of June Jaeger's 'From the Wild' and 'Nature's Sampler' and one or two or more? McKenna Ryan blocks thrown in. (no picture today)

c. LoneStar wall hanging - 2009 WWVQG Annual Class (need to add borders and re-consider my Y-seams--the biggest reason for this stall)

d. One-fabric cut up and re-pieced table cloth - 2009 (need to finalize the borders) Not happy with this result, but wanted it to just fit the TOP of the table and not have any overhang, so this is what I ended up with. I had a limited amount of fabric to work with and decided this was the best I could make of it. There you go. Been trying to decide on the type of batting. I've heard to use a piece of flannel if you want to make a table cloth and not have a lot of bulk.

e. Vineyard wall hanging (need to sit and focus and figure out what is left before adding borders and quilting it) I really love this one, but when the challenge date passed, I got distracted with other things. It is meant to be a window that you are looking out of and see the vineyard landscape. Spring Release is coming up in May and I have an opportunity to display and sell items in a winery, so just might take the opportunity to wrap this one up and get it into the showing.

f. Writing several patterns ...stay tuned--as an engineer this is the part I actually like! I have several that have been made, just need to be written and several designed, but not made or written.

Completed Tops awaiting quilting:

a. Basket BOM from WWVQG 2006...just finished the piecing last month, want to do some fun quilting on this one. As I'm writing this post, I'm wondering what I've got here that is 'modern'. My influences around me are NOT modern, so I am wanting to push that envelope in my deveopment, so I'm here. For this one, I made the sashings the same as the background so that the baskets float. There is a daisy fabric used as the corner stones which also appear to float. I imagine this is a field of grass with an occassional daisy growing up and a whole set of baskets there to photograph. I'd like to believe that is more modern ;-) There is lots of good blank space on the sides which provides nice quilting space.

b. Tulip wall hanging (take out the quilting and re-do on the long-arm) 2009 quilt festival challenge entry domestically machined with really bad tension!

c. A duvet cover that I made in 2001 that I'd love to quilt, now that I have a long-arm. (no photo today)

This week's stats:
New Projects: 2
Completed Projects: 1--see my "Journey's" quilt blog post here
Currently in Progress: 12 -- good thing we're not counting all the fabric piles that represent projects sitting in cubbies that haven't been started ;-)

Design Wall Monday

First I must say...I'm just excited to share news from Trends 2011 (EESchenck's mini-market in Portland, OR)....my Starlight-Flutterbright received the Judges' Choice award in their quilt contest. See my blog post from earlier this morning for a photo and my complete Trends report.

Last week I did get my version adapted from Alicia Cribb's twisted turning twenty top completed and plan on getting it quilted today. The client has already seen this and is very excited. A bit of creativity here to get this picture taken by myself this morning. It is a very big quilt and is going to barely fit on my 10' quilting table. It is hanging sideways vs. how it will be used on a bed. There are borders on 3 sides...they opted for no border at the 'top' (shown here down the left side). Thank goodness or I would have to go to someone elses long-arm machine because it definitely wouldn't have fit on my table.

I'm finishing up this morning on my quilting table--doubles as my design wall ;-) ....a customer quilt which is really stunning. They used the blended border technique made popular by Pamela Mostek and put a french braid design in the center of the quilt. Very attractive, don't you think?

Got lots to do...so that's it for today. Check out other design walls indexed at Judy's Patchwork Times Blog.

Trends Weekend - Spring 2011



On a Quilted Breeze - Oregon Coastal Quilters



This was my second Trends event at EESchenck. The first one, last Fall, Elaine Shaw of Highland Quilts and I did a one day run...over and back (4+ hour drive each direction). This time she was not able to join me --she was in India (actually in route home) on a one month medical assessment mission trip. None the less, I pressed on and took the opportunity to go to the Portland Quilter's Guild show on Thursday afternoon and was able to speak with Jack Boersma extensively about my Gammill machine. It was very informative and will hopefully be productive with some ideas he shared with me on tweaking my machine for better performance. I also tested my un-regulated stitching and gained a lot of confidence that I can turn off the regulator and quit overrunning it so that I can keep my speed up and still have consistent stitching. There were several beautiful quilts at this show, including Oregon Coastal Quilter's raffle quilt. Just have to share it with you. If you click through to this link, you'll see that it has been accepted into the Houston International Quilt Festival.

Justa Pasta was my dinner choice--my husband's favorite restaurant. Felt a wee bit guilty for eating there without him, but enjoyed a wonderful salad special and wild mushroom lasagne w/goat cheese.

Starlight-Flutterbright by Marlene Oddie


Friday was spent at EESchenck's Spring Trends event (a mini-industry market) shopping the sales, checking things off my list, and meeting lots of industry shop owners, and even a couple of buyers. I entered Starlight-Flutterbright, the quilt I designed on request of Highland Quilts, in the Trends Quilt Contest. Surprisingly, there were only five entrants, but I was happy with the odds of winning something. It was fun to see it hanging in the big aisle and see the secondary pattern from afar. I saw several people photographing it and when they put it all together that I was the maker, it made for some fun conversations. The quilt you can see in the background is from another shop that was unknown to me in Walla Walla. Turns out they exist to fund a charity project similar to Bags of Love, they are on Rose St called Grandma's Sewing Room. In the afternoon there were several ~30 min. classes offered. Marci Baker's -Not Your Grandmother's Log Cabin was sold out when I had tried to register for it earlier in the month, but sat in on Simplicty's woven coaster demonstration. We got to each make one after trying out their rotary cutter as well.  When leaving on Friday this was in front of me leaving Swan Island...I couldn't resist capturing a photo (my last name is Oddie!)

Saturday was a restful day with the Congleton's, my gracious hosts for the weekend.



Elizabeth Hartman and Marlene Oddie



 Sunday, I was up early with the time change and made it back to EESchenck for the book signings. The first was "The Practical Guide to Patchwork" by Elizabeth Hartman. I found out from her that after blogging about quilting for some time, she was approached by the publisher to write this book. Nice to have the younger generation and a more modern approach represented in such a lovely book! The second signing was "Stack the Deck Revisited" by Karla Alexander, who flew in on a delayed flight from Montana from a retreat. It became quickly apparent that others had received numbers earlier (due to the delay) and were getting in the queue based on their number....I jumped in line as quick as I could when I saw them assembling, and got one of the last 2 or 3 books on the stack....so was very grateful.

I was able to have a good chat with Marci Baker, even received a sample block and was given pointers on teaching the diamond and triangle log-cabin blocks. Later in the day, I encouraged her to work with AccuQuilt to develop a die set that would cut those pieces! Hopefully they can create a great product.



Jason Yenter

Several other fabric manufacturers were there, including Jason Yenter from InTheBeginning. The new Camelot line is beautiful--even some William Morris in there!

Also got to talk with Bryan at Fabric Freedom who had taken notice of my Starlight-Flutterbright quilt, which uses their fabrics, when they (he and his son) entered the building. Fun to make their acquaintance.



Lumiere Sateen - yummy!!

 The newest fabric style that I was attracted to was the Lumiere Sateen. Here is an example of it worked up in a small whole cloth wall hanging. Just one piece of fabric, quilted as a vase with flowers and borders. I purchased several colors and look forward to designing something and perhaps kitting it for resale. Stay tuned! I also picked up a variety of hot crystals to try embellishing Starlight-Flutterbright--even from the back. I guess it is still a work in progress. Also a light colored fat-back batik that would work well with anyone's Starlight-Flutterbright quilts.

Door prizes are handed out every hour on Sunday......with a big finale at 4pm with $1000 EESchenck credit....so, many stick around (since you have to be present to win) to see if they are the lucky one. Well, I wasn't the big winner or any door prize for that matter, but prior to the final announcement, they announced the quilt contest winners...and I won "Judges' Choice" for Starlight-Flutterbright! VERY COOL! I think the design lends itself to putting anything in those panel blocks.

Well, that's my Trends Spring 2011 Report. Happy Quilting.

Starlight-Flutterbright

It is done! Finally. This was a quilt designed on request by a local quilt shop. I actually really enjoyed the challenge. The Flutterbright fabric line from Freedom Fabric was the focus, we included other blending fabrics that coordinated well that Highland Quilts had in their shop. Several techniques are employed, including paper piecing (4 corners of the center medallion), strip piecing for individual blocks so as not to use up too much fabric and yet quickly piece them, panel pieces, and using long lengths of fabrics to efficient use and piece this quilt together. The pattern has cutting layouts to help you utilize the fabric effectively. Highland Quilts will be offering this as a class, if you're interested, please contact them to sign-up.

Here are front and back images.

Almost seems like crystals would be a nice embellishment in the right spots to help it be even brighter, but for now, this is how it will head to the March Trends event at EESchenk in Portland.