Sharing is Caring

While I absolutely agree with this sentiment, I suspect we have all had a child use it to their advantage when we had something they want.  The fun part of that is turning the table on occasion.

But, I've had a chance to share Lola with one of the most important people in my life:  my-niece-the-quilter.

I actually love this quilt -- not necessarily for the fabric choices -- but for what it represents. She has a friend who will be moving to Pennsylvania in the next month or so and wanted to make a quilt from the group of friends. So -- everyone (including kids) were instructed to pick out a FQ of a fabric that had some meaning for them with the departing couple. That is brave -- these are not quilters and one never knows what they will get.

She got hippos that "may" represent when they were pregnant together. She got the logo of a pie restaurant where the two guys were on a first name basis. She got turkeys because two families always spent Thanksgiving Day together. She got pumpkins because they met in a pumpkin patch. She got Harry Potter because one of the children adores it. She got cowboy boots because they bought the first pair of cowboy boots for one of the kids. She used fabric for the border that was the same fabric she had made luncheon napkins for a maternity shower. What a conglomeration. The upside was that most of the fabric were Spoonflower and not cheap see-through material!

I think this is the perfect pattern (don't know the name) for so much variation and the use of Kona gray sashing to help tie everything together -- along with a black inner border -- resulted in a special special quilt.

Add to that, my-niece-the-quilter had only longarmed one quilt years ago. She chose to stipple and did a great job. Learning to stipple and keep it even is not easy but she did it.  

I am so proud of her and love the finished product!

I hope you are getting to share your love of quilting with someone you love!

Jan

1 in 8

I love these fabrics?  Aren't they the greatest?  I love them for so many reasons....

My niece-the-quilter gave them to me.
I love pink.
I love that salmon can be pink and that the "white" one is pink when compared to white.
I love the hot pink.  It is really HOT!
I love they are Konas and feel like a dream.
I love that I have leftovers.

Here's what I don't love.
I don't love that we still have to have a month devoted to breast cancer.
I don't love that 1 in 8 of the females reading this blog will get breast cancer (at least in the US).
I don't love that we do not have a cure.
I don't love that too many women I do love have had breast cancer.

If you're a reader of my blog periodically, you may have read this post entitled a Quilter's Fairy Tale last year.  This is a tribute to a special friend who successfully fought IBC (Inflammatory Breast Cancer).  But it was a terrible battle.

This year I happen to be reading the book "The Emperor of All Maladies" by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Subtitled "The Biography of Cancer" -- it is fascinating and horrifying at the same time.  I am particularly interested in the references to breast cancer early in the book.

Would you believe the first documented case of cancer was breast cancer and was noted in an Egyptian papyrus believed to be from the teachings of Imhotep who lived around 2625 BC.  It's a very clinical description.  The next documented case of cancer appears to be IBC and Atossa, the queen of Persia, around 440 BC. What's the irony in that?  The first two cases of documented cancer are still being battled today!

Since it's October and Breast Cancer Awareness Month -- and this is a pink pink pink quilt -- I'm linking to Amy's Creative Side's Blogger's Quilt Festival.  If you have a chance, check it out.  She does a wonderful job of providing an opportunity for all quilting blogs to post and for us to wander through a quilt show of blogs.  There are prizes and voting and, most of all, inspiration.  I'm going to link under the "Throw" category (I did think about 2 color but I thought that was stretching it!) -- not because I'm soliciting votes but because I hope a bunch of women will read this post and make sure they are doing breast exams and getting mammograms -- and pestering other women they love to do the same.

Details on the quilt:

• Modified from Cozy Modern Quilts by Kim Schaeffer
• 65" x 65"
• 21 shades of pink from Robert Kaufman's Kona line
• Phillip Jacobs fabric for lattice
• Quilted with Lava by Superior (no rush to do that again although I love the color changes)
• Bobbin was So Fine by Superior
• New overall pattern I wanted to try -- learned a lot and will use again

For a giggle -- here's how I started my month!  It's given me some opportunities to talk about breast cancer to people I might not have -- servers in restaurants particularly!  I'm happy to stay they are still intact. I wasn't sure if we would get through the month together.  I now think we will.

I hope you are

Playing with fabric you love
Finding inspiration at the Bloggers Quilt Festival
Doing breast exams and getting mammograms!

Jan

Too early?

Is it too early to be thinking about a Christmas quilt?  Particularly one that is a bit non-traditional?

Isn't this a cute design.  It's by Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts.  If you haven't checked out her blog, it would certainly be worth your time. Her version of this quilt is in great bright/pastel colors and so striking. I bought the pattern (called "trees") when she issued it much earlier this year. I knew I wanted to make it -- I just didn't know which fabrics I was going to use -- or when.

I finished this quilt top earlier this year and I love it.  It needs quilting and it will be so fun....but I have a lot of scraps leftover from the original FQ pack that I got as a gift from my-niece-the-quilter a year ago in the spring.  Somehow I couldn't bring myself to mainstream them with my other solids and wanted to do something else with them.  Since I don't have the palette that Amanda Jean used and I didn't want to do usual Christmas fabrics, I was curious to see if the chocolate brown Kona in my stash might work.  I had five yards from a previously planned project that didn't work.  At all!

I made a sample block last weekend. I don't know about you, but making a sample block is time well spent for me. I may hate the process. I may really dislike the block. I may find a boo-boo in the pattern before I do a lot of cutting. There are all kinds of reason to spend a bit of time deciding if my time and fabric are going to be worth the effort. I used a shade I don't "love" in this block; it's sort of a salmon rather than some of the great pinks that I have.  So - it may go in the quilt or if it doesn't, no harm - no foul.

My thought right now is to make all the backgrounds in chocolate and let the trees float.  Time will tell on that.  I won't cut all the strips just yet.

I hope you have something fun on your design wall or floating around in your head!

Jan

First Break All the Rules!

Seriously!

I love this quilt but it took every ounce of effort I had to "let go" and let it flow.  This is from Victoria at Bumblebeans and is her Waverunner quilt.  I fell in love with it when I first saw it and knew that I wanted to make one.  But I had no solids.  What's quilter to do?

Buy solids, of course! So when it was my turn to host a challenge for MacQuilts and Mom22smartchix, I bought nine different solids (Moda and Kona) and we each took 1/3 yard.  We could then add up to 4 different fabrics to the collection but you had to use every fabric in whatever quilt you chose.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot convey the look on MacQuilts face when she saw the solids--and especially the tan and dark brownish-burgundy.  She is a batik and Kaffe girl for the most part and it was priceless.  "Horror" is slightly overstated -- but not by much.  She added a great batik and made very modern quilted placemats which are used daily and the back has the scary fabrics on the back.  Clever!

Mom22smartchix made an incredible Amish themed quilt which still needs to be quilted and will also be spectacular when it's done.

For me -- this was hard.  I am pretty focused on good process and quality control so letting go and following the "waverunner way" took some getting used to.

Cut on a straight line?  Goodness no!
Press not iron?  Heck no -- steam the fire out of it!  Make it fit!

Measure twice and cut once?  Why would you do that?
If a block doesn't work, rip it out and redo?  Of course not. Add a strip!

1/4" seam allowance?  Sort of!
Square up blocks before sewing?  Well you could, but why bother?

Follow a pattern?  Why?  This is yours!
Same fabrics can't touch?  Are you nuts!  Who cares if yellow and cheddar are side by side!

Amidst the dogwood petals that are letting go this morning.  Alas....they were beautiful.

In the end -- this was a blast and I love the quilt.  It's bound in red and I smile every single time I see it.  I'm not exactly sure why I waited six months to bind it -- that was silly now that it's emerged again.   There are a few tucks in it and once I wash it, I believe that the crinkles of washing will really blend with the quilting.

This little gem will be entered in this spring's Bloggers Quilt Festival sponsored by Amy's Creative Side.  Have a go at it if you've never had a chance to see what she does. It's amazing and there is so much inspiration over there, it will make your head spin.  Seriously!

I hope you're having a wonderful day and following the rules if that makes you happy or making your own rules if that's even more fun.  I get it!  Jan

Maestro!

Aren't these gorgeous?

These are Kathy Hall's Maestro line for Andover Fabrics.  I have a total of 17 half yard cuts (that's 8.5 yards, people!) for a challenge quilt with two friends from Chicago.  They were generously furnished by one in honor of the 50th birthday of the other.  There are not a lot of "rules" other than you have to use some of each of the fabrics in the quilt and other fabrics can be added.  I have Kona brown to add and it really makes many of them sparkle.

I've been hesitant to start the pattern I've chosen because I'd like to finish up a few things before starting a quilt with these beauties...and I have until October to get it done.  I do, however, want to make a sample block before I decide and I'm lucky enough to have plenty of fabric to try it out.  I don't know about you, but I've become a more patient quilter and am willing to make a block when I'm starting a quilt...the time I spend doing that often saves me heartache or disappointment later.  I have quite a stack of "never mind" blocks....and that makes me a happy camper as opposed to an unhappy quilter.  Fabric is way too expensive to work with and be disappointed with the results.

Stay tuned....this is going to be fun...eventually!

I hope you're finding time to piece or dream...Jan

Quilting as Therapy

What a week!

Retirement!  Tears!  Reflection!  More tears!  Generosity!  Friends!  Support!  More tears!  Joy!  Gratitude!  and  then.... Quilting!

This has been a week that has been a long time coming and has been very humbling and joyful and sad -- it's a little more weird than I expected and when I didn't know what to do or was restless, I sewed.

Quilting as Therapy has a lot of promise I think.

You may remember the incredible Kaffe jelly roll of shot cottons and wovens.  Those have slowly been  sashed on two sides with brown Kona.  And those one patches have slowly become pairs ... and some of the pairs have now become 4 patches.

I've been slow and deliberate and in no rush.  Just pushing fabric through the machine at a fairly steady state.  And since this is therapy and not a race, I've been doing quality control checks as each block comes out and if I don't like the matching, I just rip it out and re-pin it and sew it again. I'm pressing the seams open and I'm taking my time.



This really is a case of it being about the journey rather than the destination.  I know that destination thinking is on the horizon but this has been exactly what I needed.  There have been hours and hours of cutting as my wonderful June Tailor strip cutter was packed and put in storage.  All these little 1" sashing strips were cut by hand.

The 4 patches will soon become 16 patches and then a quilt top.  Most normal people would have sashed on one side and made strips.  That would have been faster, taken less fabric and been equally effective.  I tend to be a little touchy about blocks lining up and find that when I do a horizontal strip across the width of the quilt, the blocks tend to float and don't line up perfectly.  That is not the end of the world -- but for this project, I wanted the workmanship to be reasonably good and I had the time for precision.

We pack tomorrow (my machine will be behind the seat in my car so I know it's okay), leave on Sunday and head to KY and to a hotel for a few more days before vacation.  It will soon be handwork therapy until we get back "home".

Quilting as Therapy definitely has promise!

Keep piecing, Jan

Ooooh-La-Lah!

 Aren't these just grand?  Kaffe shot cottons and plaids -- all nicely rolled up into one neat little package.  There are some indulgences that you just can't ignore when you have a craving.  Just like chocolate or strawberries or a diet coke.  You have to heed your inner voice and acquiesce or forever feel deprived.  Or that's what I'm telling myself anyway.

I had been on the lookout for a jelly roll of Kaffe shot cottons in the solids but it's a little hard to find and I'm not sure if anyone other than Grubers carries them (great shop if you've never been -- generally one of my favorites at any big quilt show as well!).  I know they cut these little strips and about 60% are in the plaids and stripes -- many of which I had never seen before.  

http://www.grubersquiltshop.com/

So, what does one do with such bounty?  Handle carefully for starters.  When you see this much fraying (even with wovens), you can be sure they are not cut completely on grain.  Therefore, you do what any reasonable quilter would do -- you starch them within an inch of their lives so you are in control. Works like a charm! 

And then - because there is so much in one's life that is out of their control (retirement in less than a month and no place to go), you decide to just sew and sew and sew for a while.  40 strips of fabric will end up as 2.5" squares that are sashed on two sides with 1" brown Kona cotton (love it!).  A simple quilt that will let the fabric be the stars and not the pattern.  And, I can sew whenever I need a fix without a lot of thought. This will take long enough that design is not likely to be an issue for a while.  I'll eventually make them into 4 patches in order to keep up with them (a 4 patch will finish at 5").

Here's a little Grubers story that is the reason I always keep my camera with me as I mentioned in this post:    http://iquiltforfun.blogspot.com/2011/07/just-passing-through.html   On a visit to the shop, I was turning down a side street and looked that street sign -- 2 1/2 Street!  All I had was a crummy phone with an even worse camera and I had no way of sharing that with the world.  I absolutely loved it and vowed not to be without a camera on my travels again. 

Keep piecing, Jan