Monday, January 25, 2010

It's been a quilty week...

Wow! Almost all of last week was quilt related. I finished my second BOM (Beyond the Cherry Trees Album Quilt). I am so ready to start the next block.



On Tuesday, my friends and I attended our guild (Metro Detroit Quilt Guild) and our featured speaker was Edyta Sitar from Laundry Basket Quilts and a Moda fabric designer. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of her, but she had 100 quilts to show that went along with her great story about how she came to be a quilter. Here are just a few of her beautiful quilts.
The first two resulted from a half square triangle exchange. Yikes! Those were small.

Then here are a couple of her applique quilts.
Then she had this beautiful New York Beauty AND a pineapple quilt, too
She is a very enjoyable speaker and her quilts are fabulous!
Then on Thursday night, my friends (the Quilty chicks) aka Sharon and Nancy attended another guild (Cameo Quilt Guild) to see Gwen Marston. She had a great talk and had plenty of her liberated quilts to show, too. I got myself a couple of her books and they are now signed, too
Then on Friday we took one of her classes....Abstract Quilts in Solids. Kind of reminiscent of the Amish quilts, but with a twist.
Here's Gwen!
Anyways, the class was pretty much no patterns, no rules, no nothing. A little hard for me since I am such a perfectionist (a fault at times!?!), but I got into it a little slowly but was raring to go by the end of the class. Hated to see it end.
Here we are....Sharon, our resident liberated gal, Nancy who is very thoughtful about what she designs(her Greek Key), Gwen and me...the perfectionist managing quite nicely with the beginnings of my "liberated" quilt.
Sure wish every week could be this quilty!

Friday, January 15, 2010

A day of "perfect"....

In preparation for my second block from the "Beyond the Cherry Trees Album Quilt" BOM, I used my "perfect circle" templates to cut out 17 red flowers. I used the larger template for the red petal and then a smaller template to draw the center circle on the right side of the fabric. The center of that was then clipped in pie wedges for ease in doing the reverse applique method.



Then on the wrong side, I used applique glue to add a square of fabric for my flower center. I stitched the center circle, and then trimmed excess fabric away. The last step was to gather the flower around the larger template, press and "walllah"!!!

I had 17 perfect flowers for block #2 in no time at all.


The perfect circle templates that I used were from the smaller circle package and in the mail today came the package of the larger circles. I find these to be the best product as compared to trying to draw and cut your own templates. I highly recommend them.


The last "perfect" for my day was this little guy. Within seconds he was sound asleep. I guess being cute and good was just too much for him.






Thursday, January 14, 2010

Movin' on....

Moving on to the next block as I just finished my first block for the "Beyond the Cherry Trees Album Quilt".
I am loving the scrappy look on this and now I am very anxious to get onto the next block. I know I am not replicating this quilt exactly, but the fact that I have been wanting to applique a red and green quilt and then this free BOM came along on the internet, I just felt that they were meant to be.
Stay tuned for block #2.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

BOM progress.....

Just a tad progress on my first block. Still trying to decide if I like the lighter green in this block. I may have to go and dig a little deeper into my stash to see if I have more greens to choose from, but I am really liking the scrappy look in this block so far.


....and....can you have enough of the Rouenneries fabric? I ordered another 2.5 yards of it from the Fat Quarter Shop and it came today.

So, now that I have even more fabric for this BOM, I need to get my first block done so I can move onto the next one and use more of this luscious fabric up.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Beyond the Cherry Trees Album Quilt is started.....

This is the BOM that I will be working on for some time to come I am sure. It is being offered over at Sentimental Stitches. Vicki over at  What a Load of Scrap blog  http://whataloadascrap.blogspot.com/2009/11/antique-applique.html was lucky enough to see this quilt in person and she took this picture. 



I just started what will be my first block and that is because I thought it was the easiest to work on. (Four blocks are now available.) What was I thinking? There were 12 flower petals and 18 leaves that need to be appliqued on this one. Not as easy as I thought. I should mention that I am doing my blocks very scrappy with scrappy backgrounds, too. I so wanted to do a red and green applique quilt.



Anyways, I have some greens picked out for the leaves. Not sure I will use the lighter greens, but I know some friends who would say "go for it", so I am going to give it a try. You can see the freezer paper pattern that I drew up so that I can use it to correctly place my pedals and leaves and the light box that I am using for this process is the extra insert that I got for my SewEzi table.



Here it is with my Ott light below for the light source. It worked out great. If you remember, I usually tape my stuff to the window which doesn't work well at night....when I am usually wanting to do something like this.

I do have to mention to you though that when I received my table for my Christmas gift, the wrong insert was sent to me for my machine. Now mind you, my machine wasn't listed on the available inserts for particular machines, but I e-mailed SewEzi and asked if they had it and they said yes, but the one they sent didn't fit. So with a couple emails, an e-mailed drawing for a template and some more readjusting at our end, they sent me a new one that fits perfectly..... all in less than two weeks. They were so courteous, quick to fix the problem and very helpful, and even though I think I may have been a guinea pig for a new machine that they didn't have a template for, I really can't complain. It fits great and as you can see my machine fits like a glove, so I am ready to go.
Well, I guess I am ready to go cut some green fabric and start on my leaves. Hopefully next post will be a completed block.




Saturday, January 2, 2010

2010 first finish....plus

My wool project is done!! Yeah.....and I love it. Working with wool is so easy and fun. Right now it is on my sofa/dining room table. So this is a good start for 2010.


Later this month, I am attending a Gwen Marston seminar/class at a local guild and we are doing her Liberated quilting in solids. So, I had placed an order online from Hancocks of Paducah and Equilter and came up with these solids.
As if I don't have enough fabric to keep me busy for at least two years, I went to Lake Street Mercantile ( http://www.lakestmercantile.com/) and started collecting fabrics for an on-line BOM that I want to do. No... I should change that. Not that I "want" to do, but that I "am" going to do since I bought so much fabric for it.
Beyond the Cherry Trees Album Quilt is found over at Sentimental Stitches.
Like I said though.....I have so much fabric that I probably shouldn't have been buying more and I was getting to feel that this little guy outside the window of the quilt shop was the little devil on my shoulder telling me to do it; and my friends weren't much help either (other than helping me pick out great fabrics, of course).
So, this is the stash that I started collecting. For some of the fabrics, there may be too many and others...like the greens, I will need more. I even went so far as to buy the backing for this quilt (so now it is really feeling like a commitment). I think I should be committed.

The majority of these fabrics are from the Rouennerie's by French General line of fabric by Moda.
Another good thing is that I am starting out the year with a clean and neat sewing room. Of course, you see that I am not showing you the inside of my cupboard nor the inside of my large double closet. After cleaning off just two shelves in the cupboard to make room for stuff that was lying around and seeing just how many projects from piles of fabric with patterns with it, to finished blocks, to nearly finished quilts, I was depressed and thought it would not be good for my health to clean out the rest of the shelves let alone the closets. I did get my buttons hung on the wall after finding them on one of those two shelves, so that was a good thing.

I had to make room for my Sew Ezi table anyways. There is room against the wall for it and I can move it to the large sewing table in the crook between the two extending sides which gives me lots of flat surface to put a quilt on while I am sewing with this table.
Anyways, it is a good way to start out the year. Makes me want to go in there and sew and not just use that room as a dumping ground.
So....happy new year and happy sewing, too!!!

Michigan quilters, take note

  Come see us at our first Quilter's to Quilter's sale.   Don't know what that is?  Well, it will be 28 quilters/vendors selling...