What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 

I finished the Table Scraps challenge for this month, to use purple scraps and interpret the word blossoms (English country garden)   I call it the butterfly house!

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I finished the gray rainbow scrap block for this week, and here it is with a few others. I now have 10 big blocks....

I have learned by doing these, that choosing to do one big block a month in one colorway, gives a big impact. In the beginning I might have mixed all the colors in each block thinking that might look scrappy. This way you see the color, then the patterns from different fabrics making it scrappy. 

Happy Colors!

tell her to make another run of this fabric ...

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I've been intrigued with faces for years, so I try to interpret them in lots of ways. I saw a female face  online this week, 

and just loved her... my paints, simple waterbrush, and flip notebook were by the computer so I painted a version. I wanted to not draw hard lines first, no sketch, and to provide all features with shadows only

I liked her, her lace dress, her features but something was off. Just like in real life, hair color makes a difference. I went back and added darker brown paint, which suits her skin tone...

Imagine ...

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 The Guardians 

a painting, just a quick painting to see colors dance with each other on paper, moving, spreading, blending and creating lines. 

I might be superfluous in the process

I lift the paper, let water guide the lines as it will, amazed at the life in a painting. I think of how life moves and blends and resists too, how the colors so pretty on their own, look when next to other colors and that each living thing has it's own colors, and how each living thing changes a bit when it's near another.

will they blend ...

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16.5" square

I'll start with this month's feathered star block, done in purple scraps for RSC.

I like the mix of purple prints and tones, and from the scraps from making the block

 (scraps from scraps)

I made this 5" X 7" something...

5" X 7"  so far...

here are the three colors so far...

I like how the tula pink background blends together

I use a foundation paper piecing pattern from this book

For this month's Table scraps challenge I used scraps from last week's PQ irish chain quilt

I layered them on a ...

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whew! completed 4 challenges, painted a bit, and took a workshop on writing/ illustrating a novel. 

It  required all my creativity!   

Click on images to enlarge them

Let's start with the Project Quilting piece. The prompt was "hourglass" and we had one week to design, make and finish it. Here is my finished project

It will hang in my studio, reminding me of the speed of time (tempus Fugit ) that artists are happy when they are creating

I started with cutting two triangles of peltex stiff stabilizer, covering them with backing brought to the front

choosing which of my ...

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sitting on the easel on hall table already!

light neutral scraps sewn improv fashion. Raw-edge applique bird, machine quilting, and hand beaded around the edge.... I call it Quiet Tweety-bird   and am entering it as my offering into Joy's Table Scraps for this month! 

I talked about this last week, that post is ( here...) including the inspiration for the bird

instead of batting I used peltex which is stiff but easily machine quilted. I put binding on the bottom edge so it can sit well on a mantel or easel. Then I used size 8 perle cotton to do ...

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aqua landscape 14" X 20"

This is one of two small improvisational quilts finished this month.
 

last week I showcased the first one, so I'll now share some close ups of what I see as an abstract landscape. 

I started by making sections, triangles turned into geese, and a zig zag section. Squares. strips. and at the end, some applique, raw edge freely cut out of yellow scraps. Fit sections together like a puzzle.

I now see mountains, water, sky...the strong squares remind me of land, the triangles at the bottom here remind me of rapids. On the ...

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welcome to this week's creativity round up... I spent more time with needle and thread this week. 

The turquoise/aqua color palette sang to me, of peace, comfort, soft beauty and clear skies. This little improvisational piece is finished, and fits my bedside table beautifully. 

it started with the 4 log cabin blocks... tiny scraps and color variations, one sewn to another, round and round then trim and sew the 4 blocks together. I had little triangles in the box, so those were done in an improvisational way. Flying Geese.

I wanted color balance  so I continued to add ...

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 On Sunday last, while chatting with my friend Cindy on FT, we had a 2 person stitching session. 

you may remember this is the table scraps challenge piece I finished but for the hand embroidery.. it's now done! On the bedside table and I LOVE how it came out looking like a sketch done with thread!

no marking tools seemed to work to transfer this coloring book page so I ended up cutting it out, and tracing around it onto my finished quilt, with silver colored pencil. 

That gave me the basic outline and propoprtions

I used #8 precensia ...

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"creativity takes courage"  H. Matisse

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I almost didn't make a table scraps challenge this month, feeling so tired from the last project quilting piece, and the round robin finish. I'm so glad I made this! 

Joy likes us to use scraps in the RSC color of the month if possible, so I pulled some strips to see what came of them...

after moving them around, I cut free formed curves and sewed strip to strip, pressing after each seam, trying out more colors and patterns... as one does. til it became about 15" wide by 22" long

time to quilt!

lots of quilting ...

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the challenge was to make something with your scraps. I made a bedside table quilt with the rainbow scrap challenge color of the month, dark and bright blues. This is a bit darker than it might look here. 

 I was inspired to make a snowy blue table topper...

I started with my littlest scraps, building improv log cabins which became the center, then started surrounding those with different sized squares,. The largest were cut about 2.5". 

See??

til it was big enough... then trim it into a rectangle ready to quilt and bind
I put a snowy scrap around ...

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 Welcome to this week's creativity round-up... first a finish!!!

I went up to the happy place, my studio one (small but mighty) and looked into the Christmas "parts dept" to see 7 pieced hexie blocks. I kept looking but they called my name, know what I mean? 

they were similar sizes so I cut them all to be the same size, adding in some strips here or there. I made them a few years ago with scraps from a big Christmas quilt, and thought mug rugs. 

putting them together like this required some fancy y-seam machine work, and figuring ...

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Welcome to my sewing round up for the week!

 This is my "Table Scraps Challenge" piece for February. Thank you to Joy for issuing the challenge to keep us sewing from the treasure that a scrap box provides! She suggested "improv" and that's how I usually work...

Using my box of turquoise scraps and squares left from making this really improv piece...

 in series with last month's red challlenge improv piece

not joined together... at the moment I'm not sure if I want to make a larger art piece from three colors or have all these finished ...

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47 half square triangle blocks!! The coaster is 6.5" square

 It is small but it goes on a table, it's a coaster. I made it from the cut away triangles after making the bats and boos block, so when the tiny sparkly triangles are sewn they make a 1.25" square block to use.

tried lots of concepts with them...

 this is my table scraps offering this month... two finished coasters and two runners for fall in progress

I used a turquoise scrap as accent. Turquoise/teal/aqua is the color of the month at rainbow Scrap Challenge ...

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A wildflower medley at Van Patten Woods

 Barn Quilts was the topic at the Zoom quilt guild meeting on Wednesday. Suzi Parron has traveled across the country to document these bold outdoor art installations.  She says there are at least 16,000 barn quilts and the list keeps growing.  

# # # # # #

I made a significant design change on the wedding quilt that required  three evenings with the seam ripper.  I'll show you the details in the Weekly Update next Monday.

To keep my spirits from flagging I took a break and made and finished a quick project.  Here are the 16 ...

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about 14" X 44"

I finished my "Table Scraps" entry for this month, in red because I wanted to use the color of the month at RSC too. 

I've been hanging some of my previous quilts on the bannister, pattern from Bonnie Hunter

 

why don't you come on up to the studio to see how it was made? (Milo will greet you and lead you in)
 

yea for improve piecing!

It started because I sorted some leftovers in the studio and put random blocks in with their color bin if possible. There were about 6 improv diamonds, plus ...

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Blue Moon #1 13" X 18"

I sewed a lot this week, and finished three items. Let's start with the one above, made for my husband's bedside table. I want to use my scraps to make a table topper for Joy's "Table Scraps" party each month this year. My husband loves blue, and the color of the month at RSC is blue, and Angela encourages us to use our scraps so I got out skinny strips and got busy!

 

I knew I wanted to insert a circle of strips, and make something like the moon on water ...

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We revisited Greenbelt and Ray Lake Forest Preserves on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. It was sunny but cool with very little wind.  The tree swallows are establishing their nests in the nesting boxes.  The flowers are trout lilies and [a yellow flower I have to i.d.](Click on the "waffle stamps" label to ...

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