Seattle and back

I've been away from blogging -  12 days in Seattle and then recovery time back home catching up on all the little things that were left hanging.  So here is a quick run down of some highlights of the trip:

SEATTLE!

Our son's graduation: Master of Architecture, UWashington.

Wedding quilt reveal to my nephew and niece.  I felt like a sleazy trader because I gave it to them and took it back.  It came home with me to be quilted, etc.  But they were good about it and very excited. They even slept under it one night.

"Hurricane" by Carol Taylor

The Quilt and Textile Museum in La Conner had an exhibit by Carol Taylor, which was beautiful and very inspiring. There was another art quilt exhibit 














Meeting LeeAnn of NiftyQuilts for lunch. The waiter had to "wait" for our order.  We were so busy talking quilts that we didn't look at the menu for a long while.  LeeAnn took me to her office and showed me a few of her quilts she had hanging there.  Beautiful!  Darn... I forgot my camera that day.

Meeting Sharon K. of Indigo Threads.  I spent the morning with her at the Bellevue Art  Museum looking at the exhibit of African-American Quilts - Bold Expressions -  that had just opened.  The quilts were so intriguing and bold in color, style, fabric. We were commenting so much that the docents  came over and asked us questions about quilting, as they didn't really know much about the craft.    In many ways the quilts resembled some of the Gee's Bend quilts, but they came from all over the South... including Indiana!  Sharon and I and my husband had lunch together and then went to the Quilt shop in Bellevue before making our way back to our son's house.  Pictures not allowed at the museum, but Sharon posted about the visit and included some pictures from the exhibit catalogue.

Visited the Quilting Loft in Ballard and found some 108" gray with dark gray polka dotted fabric that will back the wedding quilt. Score!  I wasn't looking forward to having to piece the backing for this one.... way too big.

 We did a bit of sight seeing, too, but I won't bore you with all that.

and BACK!

Since I've been home it seems as though I've been living in the sewing room.  Lots of boring stuff... like piecing batting for the wedding quilt, cutting the binding strips, etc.

I have had a chance to play, too.   I saw a posting by Kathy Loomis on andthenwesetitonfire. She provided a tutorial on piecing really thin strips of fabric into background fabric.   I had to try.  I don't know where I am going with this, but I like it.












Now I am packing - I'll be away from the computer for a long while.  Going to Maine to our island off the coast near Milbridge.  No electricity - no computer - no sewing machine.  I will be hand quilting, as I have lots of projects waiting for that, so I will be busy but just a bit out of touch.  See you all in September!

Happy 4th and Happy Summer and may you take many stitches too.

Roses for Rosita - the wedding quilt reveal

Hooray!  I finished the wedding quilt last night. It took a bit of figuring as I needed to fill in gaps to make everything fit together.  The various gray fabrics are the gap fillers.  I had to sew a couple of Y seams, otherwise it was pretty much straight stitching.  I am amazed at how well it came together, given the variation in sizes of the blocks.

Here's the story:
My nephew, Luis Miguel,  born and raised in Madrid (Spain) now works in Seattle. There, in 2008, he met Rosa, a Mexican lass, just before she returned to Mexico as her visa expired.  She was unable to return to the USA - something to do with the immigration laws.  They barely knew each other, but LM persisted and managed to visit Rosa wherever and whenever he could. They were engaged in 2010. In August, 2011, they obtained a fiancee visa allowing Rosa to return to the USA.  The stipulation was that they had to be married within a certain time frame, something like three months. They wasted no time.  Three weeks after Rosa arrived, they were married at our family cottage on Douglas Lake (northern Michigan).

I had promised them a quilt when they announced their engagement (Barcelona - there is a diamond in that block). I had asked for direction in terms of the type of quilt they would like to have and colors.  Soon after their wedding they told me that they wanted something that tells their story. To help me they sent me photos of the refrigerator magnets that they had collected as well as some photos they had taken. I used photos from the net and my imagination as well.

This quilt commemorates their courtship and the places they visited over the 2-1/2 years until their wedding.   The roses were given for every Valentines day and, of course, the wedding.

Here it is:

Roses for Rosita

Roses for Rosita  (96 inches  x 100 inches)


The color is a bit washed out - sorry.  I took the photo in full shade, but the sun still set a glare on things.  Next project for me is to learn to take good quilt photos!

5, 4, 3, 2, 1!

Ah, the count down for the blocks for the wedding quilt I've been working on and posting all winter/spring.  I almost made my self imposed deadline .  I'm currently working on putting the top together.  I raided a friend's stash - thank  you, Ann R. - for some good neutral fabrics to fill the gaps that result from having blocks of many different sizes.  I hope to have it all done in a few days and will show the completed top and  tell its story as soon as I'm done.


For now, here are the last five blocks!

Edited to add a very special thanks to Teresa of Fabric Therapy who helped me by making the sketch of the bride and groom and then helped me put all the applique pieces together so that I could stitch them all as a unit.  She has a wonderful applique tutorial on her blog.  I raided her stash, too. You gotta love those quilting friends who are so giving of their time, talents, and materials!  Couldn't do it without them.

A little coloring helps a lot

As many of you know, I've been playing with the triangle galore block for ages. Sometimes I find that what appears distinctive up close can get lost from the distance,  even something "big" like a 4.5 inch triangle. The problem is that the values of adjacent fabric are too similar and swallow the one that is supposed to stand out.  This time I didn't scrutinize the color combo from a distance, or even squint at it. Consequently, I fell into that trap.

Normally, I would resort to the seam ripper and remove the weak triangle and insert one of a stronger color.  But. sometimes I'm lazy.  I certainly didn't want to deal with the "right way" this time.  The lost triangle was one of the two first to be sewn in the sequence, which meant the whole block would have to be torn apart.

Crayons to the rescue!  Years ago, I took part in an informal lesson where we colored quilt blocks with good ol' Crayola crayons.  (Not the washable kind) .  The crayon color can be set with heat and it works especially well with light fabrics.  So I dug out my box of crayons, found a color I liked and colored.  I placed a piece of sand paper under the triangle to stabilize it and also to help the crayon rub more strongly.

Then I placed paper towel over the triangles and pressed it with a hot iron.  The wax is absorbed by the towel and the color is left on the fabric.

Ahh.  Much better,  This is not my favorite block in the series, but it will work.

P is for...

Progress # 1

The wedding quilt top is coming along.  I've made three more "blocks" since my last post.  Five more to go and I should be able to start cobbling this baby together.  As I begin to see the end of the project, I have to remind myself that no matter what... it will take time.  The last laps seem to take the longest;  I've never run track, but I imagine that it sometimes feels that way.

(Teotihuacan- Pyramid of the Sun)

mosaics - note the diamond

Progress #2


The triangles galore quilt now numbers 21 bocks.  I'm shooting for 35! I'm gonna run out of room on the design wall.

Parts


Quilt "parts" are one of the ideas that Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran have advocated in their books, Collaborative Quilting and Freddy and Gwen Collaborate Again.  They found that making basic pieces such as HST's or nine patches, or piano keys, or spikes, in advance of their meetings made the designing process a lot more efficient. Each of them put together a stash of parts using their scraps and with no set quilt pattern in mind.

I've been making parts, too. I have no set plans for them, but I know I'll use them somehow, someday.    I always sew together HST's of the cut off triangles from the corners of flying geese or snowballs (even if they are tiny).  I sew together elongated triangles left over from the Triangle Galore project which will make skinny spikes or divided rectangles. I sew these pieces together in the Leader and Ender style of Bonnie Hunter... I have a stash of pieces by my sewing machine.  As I start a series of sewing, I will begin the process with one set of the parts and then when I come to the end of the project, I'll sew another together.  These leaders and enders take the place of the bit of scrap that is often used at the start of a seam so that fabric and thread don't make an annoying birds nest or jam into the "hole" in the machine.  (Sometimes I forget which project I am really working on and end up sewing several parts in a row before I remember they are supposed to be the leader and ender.  LOL)   Here's just a wee handful of my parts.  Those HST's measure 1.75 inches square.

Play


The Bloggers BOM for this month was designed by Amy of Mrs. Schmenkman Quilts.
These are my four blocks.

The New'Bee made-fabric bee over on 15minutes play.com... Beebee asked for this star of made fabric and a bright solid around it.  The solid fabric is really a lot brighter than it appears here.  My made fabric was made from tiny scraps, so there is lots of variety.

Parcel


Look what arrived in the mail all of 40 minutes ago!  Gwen's newest book!  Published by AQS.

It is FABULOUS.  No matter what your quilting style is -  modern, traditional, scrappy, applique, wonky, liberated, amish solids- there is something of interest in this book.   It holds lots of fun and inspiration and how-to hints!  Gwen shares the spotlight with a number of BIQR students.   I highly recommend this book.  I'm looking forward to taking a really good look at all the quilts.  I'm going to Gwen's retreat in October and Liberated Medallions is the focus.  So excited!

Bits and Pieces: on-going projects

I've been working on several on-going projects.   I like the fact that I can work on one project for a bit and then switch to another project.  There is no pressure to complete something right away.  I may feel overwhelmed when I finally get all the pieces finished and want to get them sewn together.  Hopefully that won't happen.

My most important project is the wedding quilt, with a self-imposed deadline of June ( to complete the top).  I will tell you the entire story when I finally finish all the blocks and get them sewn together. Below are the blocks I've made so far.  The blocks are free pieced. I work from photographs.  I make a pencil sketch for guidelines and notes. Then work in sections, referring to my sketch for the order in which things need to be pieced to make that part of the block.  The tricky part for me is to remember that the fine details I might see in a photo need not be included.   Some  of these blocks have fused accents and others have applique.  The lettering is all free-pieced.  I used Tonya Ricucci's Word Play Quilts as a guide for making them.

7 down... 8 more to go... Think I'll make the deadline?



I am doing the Bloggers BOM. I am making 4 of each of the blocks. I am playing with different  colored fabrics while attempting to keep the background fabrics similar. I've found this project to be a challenge, because what looks like a contrast between fabrics close up often isn't when one gets it sewn together and steps away. I've kept all the blocks anyway.  Selecting fabrics is a constant learning process.  Here are the last few months of BOM's. Sorry - photo colors are very washed out.

I am in the New'Bee Swap through www.15minutesplay.com.  This is the block for Janet.  She requested we make fabric of contrasting colors from our scraps.   I chose red and aqua green, which are complimentary colors in Joen Wolfrom's 3 in 1 color tool.  I started by pulling out all of my "red" scraps and "bluish" scraps and then weeding out the shades that weren't really red or aqua.  That was a challenge. I was happy to have something to compare colors against.  I just discovered a three part posting about choosing color and fabrics by Laura Nownes.  Check it out.  I've linked to a list of all her posts, so you need to scroll down a little to January 2012 for these posts.

there is more... but this is enough for today.

Possibilities.....

Growing a big quilt takes time, especially when one is faced with seemingly endless possibilities in terms of fabric selection.  Yes,  I am stuck on triangles galore (see earlier posts).  I have sewn 11 blocks (12.5 inch blocks).











I have cut the triangles for 14 more blocks.  (I cut two more after taking the picture)

I'll probably aim to cut an additional 10 - 12 blocks before I call it big enough. (Some of the blocks will be pillows.)












At one end of my table I have some the fabric pulled from my stash as possibilities.

At the other end I have already cut triangles waiting to be put together in whatever magic combination I conjure up.

I am trying hard to keep the pattern of strong radiating points against a light background, while the center triangles contrast with each other.  I am also trying to put together oddball  unique fabric combinations to make close-up viewing interesting.   Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

I suppose I could use excess triangles in a thousand pyramid quilt... more possibilities... hmmm.

That's not all I have been doing.  This canvas tote bag holds the fabrics I have selected as possibilities in the wedding quilt I am making.

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A block for this quilt is about 16" x 24".  Each block is different. I have 15 blocks to make.  I've done 4.   Nine more to go.  Here's a sneak peek of an almost finished block.

I've set a goal of finishing the piecing of this quilt by June.  Guess you could say I've got my work cut out!