April Showers

I'm on a roll with samples lately.  This is one of a bunch I've just whipped out. It's a little hanging quilt by Pieced Tree Patterns, called April Showers

I changed up the colors a little (of course) to showcase some of the American Made Brand solids we have in stock.  I also changed how I assembled the bottom umbrella portion, because I didn't want to assemble it separately from the rest of the quilt. Since it was going to require bias binding anyway, I just appliqued the umbrella shape on, then made the quilt sandwich as usual.

A word about the pattern, however.  If you look at my sample, and at the cover quilt, the stems are not centered.  This drove me nuts!  In the pattern instructions, everything is shown centered, so I thought it was a mistake on my part that they weren't lining up with the flowers correctly.  Until I looked closely at the cover of the pattern....they aren't centered there either!  Thank God for those appliqued leaves, because they help to fool they eye a lot.  This was otherwise a great little pattern though.

WIP Wednesday: The Power of Three

I wasn't kidding when I said I was pulling out some OLD projects.  This. Is. OLD.  Well, old for me.  It's from 2008-2009.

I remember I was working on this for a sample, and I getting frustrated with it, and put it aside.  I put it aside for so long that the fabric sold out, and as I said, "well, shit," I shoved it aside again.

Some very, very valuable lessons have been learned since then:
#1.  Keep the pattern with the project when you have to put something aside.  Lord knows you won't remember how it goes together six years later.
#2.  That 1/4" seam ain't no joke.  Learn it, live it.  Because when you have to put something away, having that 1/4" mastered means you won't spend an hour and a half ripping apart, and reassembling shitty blocks.
#3.  Take some damn notes as to which fabric is which.  Because you won't remember which pieces are which after they have chunks cut out of them six years later.

Grumble, grumble, grumble; gripe, gripe, gripe.

So this is The Power of Three by Quilt Woman.  My sample was out of the Za-Za-Zing line by I-Don't-Remember-Who.  And yes, since all I have left of this pattern is the cover, I will be assembling this by looking at the picture and winging it.  How hard can it be?

 

LOL

Actually, after about an hour of figuring, I think I have how it goes together down.  And if not?  Well, just like skinning cats, there's more than one way to assemble a quilt.  BAM.

SO here's what I have so far.  This is going back away for a few weeks until I can finish up the (several) projects I have to finish within the next 3 weeks.  

Don't worry, I took some of these apart and redid them, because WOW  o.0

Did I mention half of the blocks I found were in various states of completeness and missing-pieces-ness?  Thankfully I at least kept the extra fabric with it. 

WIP Wednesday: Witch Hazel's Medicine Cabinet

...of the handful of you wondering...YES HALLOWEEN ALREADY.

We got in Halloween fabric, Spooktacular by Blend Fabrics and obviously I loved it and obviously I had to make a sample from it.

CUTE.

I made this pattern up a few years ago, but that just goes to show how good I think it is if I feel inclined to make it twice.

I like it so well because there's so much room for focus prints without being just giant squares.  These are only 9.5" squares.  I've got all the colors arranged.

Just the bottom row is 100% done.  More work to do on the rest...maybe I'll have it finished in a week or two!

"Finished" Quilt: Fern Gully

This gorgeous fern fabric has been sitting around forever and I just don't know why.

Monaco by Dena Designs (Free Spirit)

What's not to like?  I guess for some the seafoam and lime green color combo could be off-putting I suppose.  Or maybe the large scale print is difficult to decide what to do with?  It reminds me of the the movie Fern Gully.  Probably because it's giant ferns, and you know, FERN Gully...but whatever.

The original Avatar.  

 

And obviously Batty was the best. This still cracks me up.  Yes, I am actually, literally "lol-ing" at this.  Still.

Aaaaanyway....I digress.  Thank god for the Villa Rosa $2 postcard patterns.  I love those little things!  Mom may be addicted to the mini charms, but I love these little patterns.  The quilts range in size, the instructions are clear and concise and they are perfect for scraps and large scale prints alike. 

So I did one.  

I just got it back from Frances (quilter) and I'll be on binding duty soon.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Halloween...

It's August and if you know me you know this is the beginning of my favorite time of year...Halloween merch is beginning to hit the stores and I am one happy camper. 

That, and it's time to get samples done for the shop for fall and Halloween.

We got a few super cute panels in, and I've finally finished the quilting on both.  One is a 13 Days of Halloween "Advent" calendar, and the other is just a cute panel....it'll be obvious as to which is which...or should I say, witch is witch!  Haha! 

This one is the Thirteen Days of Halloween...not sure what the line is called offhand.  But I did my own quilting and embellishing here, and in the second picture you can see Mom creeping around and  photobombing my picture of the display. 

And this one...I call this one "Oogie Boogie" because the pumpkins and the writing reminded me of Oogie from Nightmare Before Christmas...no idea why!  But I added ghosts made from Angelina Fiber (very fun stuff to use) and did my own quilting here too. 

Thanksgiving

It's hard to believe that we are already having to get ready for fall, etc, in summer. It's 94 today...I'm certainly not thinking of crisp fall air!  But since I work in a quilt store...I had to start thinking about Christmas in July. 

But aside from Christmas and Halloween projects...Thanksgiving gets lost in the mix. For a holiday that begs for table decor and whose themes are good all season long, there are certainly a real lack of cute Thanksgiving patterns. But we found one and it is cute as hell. 

This pattern by Kimberbell Designs is definitely a Thankgiving themed pattern, and while there are turkeys, there isn't a cooked one in sight. No cornucopias, etc.  I think this fits well into any fall decor, and so it has a longevity that the few other Thanksgiving patterns don't.  I have to admit though, the only think I wasn't wild about were the color choices. Personally, my eye went right to the black int he quilt because of how much it contrasted with the lighter cream that was used, so I changed mine up a little. 

Please excuse my toes.  No one will ever accuse me of being a great photographer. 

Sunday - Not a Day of Rest!

Today was a really, really full day.  I intended to sleep in, but after a 6:30am call from John, before he went out to the fire line, I was really cat-nappy.  I kept waking up and at about 9:30 I gave up?  Sunday, a day of rest? Pssh.

I completely forgot the Silverton Art Fair was going this weekend, so I called Mom up and to see if she wanted to come with me.  She, Dad and I ended up going, and wow...Sorry guys, but this year was disappointing!  Usually it is such a great fair, but this year it seemed like there were fewer vendors, and among the vendors that were there, a lot of them had similar stuff...lots of metal garden decor that was similar, lots of jewelry that was similar, lots of similar style paintings...only one booth stood out, and she was a doll/jewelry make that had a lot of spooky themed stuff.  I wish she would have had a business card available!

But once we got back, I got to binding a few samples that I needed to finish for the shop.  I got the Thanksgiving quilt done, and I'm just about finished binding the Halloween panel.  When I got home, I got the Generation Q quilt from my last post ready for quilting, as well as a Fall quilt and a Christmas quilt that have both been waiting to be finished in my backlog.  Looks like we'll have a change of the guard in the shop pretty soon...it may be August but it's time to get ready for Fall and the holidays....Already...Despite all the samples, I am NOT ready for the season to change yet! Wah.

I need to get pictures taken of the quilting-ready and 100% done quilts...I promised Isabelle I'd have them posted on Facebook tomorrow, so I have no excuse to not have them posted here.  Until tomorrow~!

Store Sample: Rain, Rain Go Away

Today when I walked outside, it felt just like home.  I may have been born in California, and I may have lived here for the past 8 years, but in between I lived in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  Every now and then I get a ration of crap when I say I'm from there ("But you weren't BORN there, so you can't be FROM there!"...yeah, I've heard that a bunch), but to me where you're from isn't always where you were born, it's the place you loved the most and the one that realize you miss the most once you've gone.  For me, that's good ol' Spotsyltuckey County (Spotsylvania, but that's what we all called it).

But today, in Salem, it felt like home.  When I walked outside, it felt like I walked into a luke warm bowl of soup...It's ALWAYS humid in Virginia this time of year, but for Oregon...this is some regionally uncommon humidity!  When I listened to the weather, the guy said it was supposed to rain all around us, but not hit us.  Whelp, weather dude, you miscalculated because the sky opened up on my way home from Panera (that Greek Salad...).  It's no secret that from October to May here it rains, rains rains, and I hate it, hate it, hate it.  But this muggy rain I don't mind as much, so long as it goes away after a bit.

In a nice little coincidence in timing, yesterday I started a sample for the shop using some really adorable rain boot and umbrella fabric that people haven't quite fallen in love with yet.  Seriously, it's so cute...awful rainy weather doesn't need to be dreary on fabric!  Plus, the new Generation Q magazine came in, and there was a perfect pattern for it. 

Hi there, "perfect pattern for rainy fabric"

So today, I'm working on rainy day fabric and it's getting drippy outside to match. On a weird side note...most quilter I notice get inspired to get cracking on a project by listening to music or being outside, or by being around like minded people/other quilters.  Me?  Yeah, those things are great but uh, I get inspired to work by watching documentaries about nerdy/weird stuff.  What's on tap for today?

 Say hello to Albertosaurus.  He's Tyrannosaurus Rex's older brother and once someone gets moving on a time machine and a way to clone mini versions of things, my future pet. Yeah, some girls wanted ponies as a kid.  Not this girl...Also, he will eat your face.

Annnnnyhoo...it took me a while to lay out the color placement.  The pattern calls for scraps, but I used 4 prints and a background, so I had to be a little more choosy.

Cute.

So I'm moving right along, and there are supposed to be fused/appliqued circles in between the diamonds, but I got really wild and crazy and decided to hand applique mine.  I'm not a stellar hand applique-er, so I may regret this after circle one.  Someone save me from myself. 

The circles are a little pretty wobbly,

FIIIINE. Very wobbly.  And this was with a template too.  Yeah, yeah, I know..."stick to what you're good at."

...but I figure once it's up on the wall no one will be totally focused in on my misadventures in hand applique. and instead will be looking at how adorable the fabric and pattern is.  Because seriously....it's really cute. 

Now it's time to get back to work getting this sucker put together and appliqued...and time to watch my dinos face off...Jurassic Fight Club...love that show!

 

A Color Theory Quilt: There's a Bull in the China Shop

Let's get one thing straight.  I am not fond of blue and white fabrics...you know, the ones that look like someone's nice china?  I don't think they're ugly per-say, but let's just say those fancy pantsy florals just aren't my gig.  I can appreciate that they're pretty, but to me they're just flat and boring.  Every quilt I've seen with those prints as the focus have been very monochromatic, very elegant, very tame.  But recently, I learned they don't have to be tame or boring.

There was a blue and white line that came into the shop, and when I saw it, I believe my words were something like "bleeeh."  Articulate, I know.  I didn't think much of it beyond that.  But when mom was having me edit the Newsletter, when she was discussing those pieces, she mentioned turning it on it's ear and pairing it with magenta, lime or orange to give it a little kick. Magenta and lime would look nice, but orange? Fine, Mom, you got me.  I was interested.  So I tottered into the batik room, grabbed a bright coral orange and grabbed one of the new blue and whites and...well...the rest is history.

If you look at your handy dandy color wheel (or, if you're just really into color theory) you know that blue and orange are opposites on the color wheel - complementary colors. That means that they're going to amplify each other, giving you the makings for a bright composition.  This quilt exemplifies how complementary colors play with one another, and how color placement effects the way the eye percieves pattern.

Here is a smattering of the blocks.  Each has a blue half, and an orange half. The middle block is the one that inspired the rest of the quilt. LOVE that combination.

Here are 2 examples of how complementary colors change each other depending on where you place them.  This quilt has alternating, concentric diamonds.  Look what happens if you start with an orange diamond in the center (left).  The blue diamond almost gets lost on the orange background.  Orange becomes the dominant player, and while I much prefer orange to blue, this looks chaotic to me.  To my eye, it's difficult to focus on the pattern because each fabric is screaming for attention - this is due to orange being a highly reflective color, and the eye has natural difficulty staying focused on reflective colors because they force the eye to move.









Yet, when you start with blue in the center (right), the orange diamond appears to float on a sea of blue.  It's a little calmer for the eye to focus on, because the blue becomes the dominant color.  It isn't as reflective as the orange, and this allows the fabrics to play a little more harmoniously rather than and each of the fabrics competing with each other.

Here is the finished product (right). Well, the quilt top anyway.  Once I got it all together, the blue became the dominant force and the orange is just that kick f color that the blue and white desperately needs.  I love the way the batiks and blended oranges (and magenta) pop in contrast to the extremely busy patterns in the blue and white fabrics.  I just gave it away for Frances to quilt today.  We picked out a really fantastic pattern and some gorgeous thread...I cannot wait to get this puppy finished and hung up!

Freedom!!!!!! Well, kind of.

Now that the holidays are over I can go back to doing what I do best....starting too many projects at once and going forth with a "I'll finish it when I feel like it" attitude.

Right now I've got a comfort quilt that's been pushed to number 1 priority.  After having a rough few months, everything came to a head for a dear family friend when his wife an daughter got rear ended by a drunk driver going 70.

Here's my public service announcement about that... Don't drive drunk.  Seriously.  If you drive drunk, you're not only selfish and entirely moronic, but dangerous to everyone on the road.  Don't do it.

Luckily, the story has a happy ending and no one was seriously hurt, but after everything else...let's just say they need a quilt. They're outdoorsy folks so I made this for them from a pattern by Aardvark Quilts:

I was going to add a border but...after trying a few different borders...eh.  It looks better borderless. Hopefully it'll come back from the quilter soon and I can send it to them in the next month or so.  I take FOREVER to bind things.

Then...during a slow moment at the shop I got bit with an idea, another out of that Modern Quilt Blocks book and I decided to do my first truly "Modern" style quilt, by stepping out of my box and going with solids.  I'm not thrilled with solids.  I know a lot of folks love them...but I don't.  The colors are beautiful, but the lack of even one iota of texture makes them boring to me. Just, blah.  But they're getting really popular again with the Modern Quilt Movement, so I thought it was time to give that little tree a twirl.  And as you guys know, I like playing with odd color pairings so I went with ochre and yellow paired with dark and light purple.  I couldn't go 100% solid, so there are 2 complementing and subtle prints in the center of the blocks. I'm pretty satisfied with it, I have to say.

Dorm Quilt

Whipped up another store sample...this time, a quilt made for the dorm.

Guatemalan Flora Row Quilt

I know, I know, I promised a long time ago to update more, and well, after getting let go from my job (not at the shop)...let's just say that just because you're technically unemployed it doesn't mean you aren't crazy busy! I wish I could say I had more time now than ever to sew, but sadly, that's simply not the truth. I've gotten a few projects done (or mostly done) and this is one of them.

Guatemalan Flora is a line of fabric from Robert Kaufman, and yeah, it's about a year and a half old...about as old as this sample is. It got pushed, as many do, to the back, back, back, waaaaaaaaay back burner as more urgent projects took the lead and this one sat and figuratively molded on my UFO shelf. Okay, who am I kidding? I have a complete set of shelves dedicated to UFOs. I wish I were kidding....I'm not.

But back to the quilt! This fabric came with a lot of great, large scale graphic florals and stripes, but the fabric I chose was a large border stripe with lots of littler rows with the larger ones. A lot of times we see these big stripes and think, "Well, this is only good for a border really," and we get stuck in a borders rut. But these large border stripes can be fussy cut into blocks, or a length of yardage to make into a row quilt, which I chose to do. Row quilts get scoffed at quite a bit simply because of their simplicity, and I don't think that's quite right. Even though they're about as simple as you can get, they can have a real impact and they don't have to just stay in long rows either! I cut mine apart and put large strips in between to break it up. But it made a large quilt very quickly and after it sitting on that shelf for months and months, it was totally pieced and ready for the quilter in an afternoon.

 I interuppted the stripe pieces with coordinating fabrics from my stash to get it to the size I wanted, since using only the rearranged stripe pieces it fell a little short.

 Here you can see the scale. In the upper left corner is my wastepaper basket and the right, my dresser. It's pretty large!

Now it's quilted and I thought I took a picture of the quilting, but I apparently didn't, so I'll have to update with a picture of the new quilting. Frances used a fantastic floral pattern and a really gorgeous variegated thread. All it needs now is the binding!