Thursday, July 26, 2012

An Exquisite Tute

OK quilt fans, here's a tutorial on making the Exquisite, wonky style.  What's an Exquisite?
You start by cutting squares of whatever color you want for the "background." Here it is white.
This particular quilt is going to be gigantic, so there are over 700 4-1/2" white squares. The baby quilt (above had squares that started about 4"). Next, you need to cut some triangles, or use scraps. The quilt I am making now is blue and white, so lots and lots of blue triangles.
I just cut a lot of 4-1/2" squares and then sliced them diagonally. (I stacked about 6 layers of fabric for this.)
Then sew the triangles to the squares.
You have to make sure that when you fold it over, the colored piece covers the white square.
Then you trim. This part is tedious. I suggest "watching" TV at the same time.
Next you trim away the excess BACKGROUND fabric (the white).

Ta-Da!

When you have as many blocks as you need, sew them up

Have fun!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Quilting One Handed

My niece is visiting from Oregon and asked if she could make a kitty quilt for her cat using my scraps.  Of course! She sorted through the pieces, found the ones she liked and assembled the top and bottom (it's reversible).

Mind you, this girl has a broken arm and had to do all of this one handed. DN just loved the knee lift, and the automatic thread cutter!

I helped by making the quilt sandwich and setting up the walking foot on my machine.  She did all the quilting herself. I helped her add the binding.  She was very happy with the results.
As she should be!
I think she did a great job!

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Love Gold!

I'm sure you're all bored as heck with this, but I finally got all these letters sewn together into rows. I am thrilled with the bright gold touches! They really sparkle.

I've had a really busy last few days and I'm going to take it easy for the next week or so. I may or may not post much, but don't worry. I'm just recharging my batteries!

Monday, July 23, 2012

Back to the Box - with GOLD!

The lower case letters are about five or so inches tall. The narrow part of the letters are 5/8" wide.  Those little gold "dots" are 5/8" square.  The gold fabric really is shimmery, reflective and GOLD!


Saturday, July 21, 2012

Birthday Surprise

On Monday I received a ship notice from UPS telling me my friend Julie had sent me a package.

I didn't think much about it, but when the package was delivered I was surprised when I saw the size of the box. What could it be?

 Inside was a birthday card

and a small red quilt
but then there was another box.
I was completely puzzled. What was it?

Holy Mackerel! It's one of Larry's beautiful wood turned bowls.  
 Julie's husband Larry Sefton is a woodturner.
You can find more photos of this particular bowl here.
 Doesn't it look beautiful with the Red Letter Alphabet?
Millie isn't quite sure about it.

Thank you so much, Larry and Julie!




Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Meet Me In St Louis!

Really! I'll be a speaker and workshop leader at The Quintessential Quilt 2013 in St. Louis, Missouri the weekend of October 5-6 2013!

I'll talk about My Life in Quilts and how it all changed when I adopted my cat Millie.  I'll have as many quilts as I can stuff in the biggest suitcase I own, including this one that my friend Julie made from my orphan blocks.

I'm really excited!  I'm looking forward to meeting you!

See you in St Louis!


Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Work Office Re-do

They rearranged the cube farm at work. Actually, we got to design our workspaces (within certain limitations, of course).  Everybody knows where to find me!

Actually that's only half my workspace. The other half is here:
My coworkers are lobbying to get to see a new quilt every so often. We'll see.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

The Colorado Gizzy Quilt

The Colorado Gizzy quilt is finished, with Millie's help, as you can see.
It is 60" x 78".

In the photo below, you can see Chris's lovely quilting.
 These are called "Gizzy" quilts because I started making them five years ago to raise money to pay for my cat Gizzy's vet bills. He was very sick, and I was in a tight spot financially.  I made custom kitty-sized quilts. This quilt was made from all the leftover blocks.  When I look at them, I see  blocks from quilts I made for the cats: Sophie, Poppy, Monty, the Fancidots Gang, Charmee, Beezer, Parker, Sanjee, Bubbles, Frostin, Trouble, Bella, Kipling, Angel, Star, Isis, Fat Eric, Madness, Faz, Miss Peach, Derby, Dragonheart, Angus, Padre, Meerkat, Panda Bear, Cookie, Caramel, Chance, Rudy, Rusty, Casey, Marie, Diesel, Roscoe, Ziggy, Kaze, Lilly Lu, Pippi, Loki and dozens of others.


I hope this quilt will bring a bit of consolation to the family that receives it.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Black Box Progress

Now all I have (all!) to do is figure out how to make the transition from dark to light and then to dark again from the top to the bottom. 

(Actually I am pretty sure I know how I am going to do it, I am not asking for help.)

THIS is the quilt I'll be donating to the victims of the wildfires in Colorado.  I'm keeping the Red Sticks for myself. Sorry for any confusion yesterday.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Red Sticks

OK, Here is a photo of the completed Red Sticks quilt. It's bright sun out, so I can't hang it on the fence just yet.  Everybody who sees this quilt loves it, which kind of surprises me since most folks don't name RED as their favorite color.  Anyway, I'll post more photos of this quilt as soon as I can.

Several people asked me yesterday if I am REALLY going to donate that quilt to the victims of the Colorado fires.

The answer is YES.  I was the recipient of the generosity of a lot of cat lovers when they raised money to send me to my goddaughter's funeral several years ago.  Donating a quilt is a way to repay that generosity.  Plus, it's just the right thing to do. I have an extra quilt that won't be doing anything, and there are dozens of families who have lost EVERYTHING. It's the least I can do.

Perhaps you can join me and donate a quilt of your own.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Millie Thinks...

Millie thinks I should donate this quilt to the victims of the wildfires in Colorado. (You can see more pictures here.)

She's a smart girlcat, my Millie.  I'll be sending the quilt to eQuilter to be distributed as soon as I add the binding.




Tuesday, July 10, 2012

More Red

 Millie helped me choose the binding fabric for the Red Sticks quilt.  We both felt like the black and white inner border was enough, and the quilt needed a red binding.
But it didn't have to be a solid red, so we picked this one.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Binding Red Sticks

My grandfather ran a furniture store, so I've inherited some nice pieces of furniture. One of them is a Duncan Phyffe style drop leaf mahogany dining room table. With the two extra leaves in place, and the table fully extended, it's 48" by 100" (122 x 255 cm) long. This table the one my family gathers around for Thanksgiving. (There were 12 of us last year.)  The big table makes it easy to add the binding to a quilt.

(I protect the tabletop with a painted floorcloth.)

Sunday, July 8, 2012

The Big W


The dishes are done. The laundry is folded. The bed is made. Everything is ready.  I'll be watching the Men's final at Wimbledon.  I love Roger Federer, and I'll root for him, but I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Andy Murray. It's going to be a great match.

I'm not going to answer the telephone. I'm not going to be checking my email.  I'm going to watch the Tennis.  I might add the binding to the red sticks quilt if I get too nervous watching the match.


see ya later!

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Scrappy Gizzy Quilt

The first of the scrappy "Gizzy" quilts is finished. I really like the black-and-white binding.
 You can check out Chris's lovely quilting in this shot.
There's nothing like a scrappy quilt.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Start With a Box

I am really, really, really happy with these letters and these fabrics. For the most part, these are the same pale batiks I was using when I started this quilt back in February. That orange "A" in "START" has been replaced with something closer to the other fabrics in the word. I have to re-do the "V" in "HAVE". I am going to start sewing these letters together into words.

WHEE!!

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Decisions, Decisions....

This is one of the scrappy Gizzy Quilts that just came back from being quilted by Chris.  I had to choose the binding fabric, so I asked Millie to give me a hand. Here were the final selections:
Option 1, a multi colored stripe.  (The dark batik in the foreground is the backing fabric.)

Option 2, a white with black stripes.

Option 3, a black and white zebra print.

As you can see, Millie took her job very seriously.  You can see how her own lovely black and white coloring informed my choices. It was very clear the binding simply HAD to be one of the black and whites.

In the end, Millie and I decided on the zebra print. I trimmed the quilt and made the binding. I'll be attaching it to the quilt in the next couple of days.



Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Before Before

Both "Before"s are made from the same fabrics, only the background is different.