Grand Rapids AAQI

 I have a new camera and spent the day in Grand Rapids at the AQS show.  The show has fabulous quilts and it also has a wonderful display for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative.  There were thousands of names on the purple and lavender and eggplant panels.  Thousands.  They were interspersed with small, lovely AAQI quilts.  The two that I photographed below were made by Michelle, a friend from the Liberated Quilters on-line group.  She has lost many relatives to Alzheimers and has been making these little quilts to raise money for research.  I have made a few and have two more in the works,

but there is still lots to be done.  Please check out www.alzquilts.org to see how you can help too.  You should be able to click on the photos to enlarge them.  

A Couple Things Going On

Still no camera, so no pictures :(, but I finished machine quilting a T shirt quilt tonight for a friend.  The long arm still has issues with threads breaking but I persevered until it was done.  I am going to have to figure this out because it is SO damned frustrating.

I finished hand quilting the Folk Art Fantasy last week with the 1/2" diamonds and really do like it much better than before.  The additional quilting added a lot of interest to the piece.  It has been re-hung above the mantle.

I also finished appliqueing the nine P3 Design blocks of tropical flowers and leaves and have them hanging on the design board with lots of green, purple and deep rose colored batiks for sashing and border.  It won't be huge, but it will look great in the summer on the wall next to the front door.  I tried to take Winter Moonlight down, but didn't have anything to replace it with (my quilts are way too big for that space) and had to put Winter Moonlight back up.  I'm trying to decide how to quilt it.  I could use the machine, I could hand-quilt, or I could do a sashiko style with embroidery floss.  I'll finish the piecing and think about it.

I'm on the last redwork bird of the Crabapple Hill series and bought a lovely brown fabric with little red birds last week to use in the quilt.  I have to decide if I'm going to do my own thing or if I just follow the pattern.  Again, I have time to decide.

I'm going on vacation and need to take some hand work so I'm thinking about starting some really fussy applique baltimore style baskets, so I'm off to look at the inspiration books...

Hmmm...

I can't find my camera.  It's like talking without my hands.  I can't seem to blog without photos :(
Still looking.

June 18, A Finish, Revisited...

Take a quick look back to the June 18 post.  Yesterday I took the Folk Fantasy to my quilt guild for show and tell...  The program yesterday was quilt judging by a certified quilt judge....  and Folk Fantasy was judged.  She said the colors were very good, the binding didn't have enough batting in it (oh well), my stitch length and consistency were good, but...there wasn't enough quilting.  It's interesting how everyone has an opinion.  I have asked at least 3 people if they thought the diagonals were quilted close enough (the quilt was marked using my 1.5" ruler so that's how far apart they were) because I wasn't sure either and all 3 said they liked it that way.  Anyway, there will be another finish because I came home and marked another set of diagonals 1/2" away from the first set and started hand quilting today.   Everyone can weigh in soon...I'll post another photo and you can tell me which one you like too.      

What I'm Doing...

 A Gift for Kate...I made this for a long overdue Birthday.  It was in May, but I couldn't decide what to do and found this pattern at a local quilt shop.  Kate loves lily of the valley.  It was a redwork or embroidery pattern, but I wanted more color, so I appliquéd the tea cup and leaves and then did the stems and lily of the valley flowers in embroidery.  I added the words and hand quilted it.  I think she likes it.  I photographed it outdoors in the herb garden with the thyme flowers.  It seemed appropriate.

 This quilt is just for fun.  I started the needle turn appliqué as a class at a local quilt shop last year.  The pattern had a pieced border, but I had seen this border done on an appliqué quilt at a quilt show and wanted to try it out.  The quilt turned out an odd size, so I'm probably going to add another green border to the outside and then machine quilt it.  The pastels aren't my usual color palette, but somehow seemed to suit this appliqué.  

I finished a trio of baby sized scrap quilt tops tonight.  Please excuse the terrible photo, they are really primary colors with white Kona.  These are scraps of a bunch of fabrics that I purchased last year to make 2 baby quilts for great-nieces.  I clearly overbuy fabric, since I have done those two, another one, and now 3 more from the same fabric and still have enough to bind these with...  after machine quilting them.  They are 35" x 50".

I am doing basket weaving with friends on Thursday nights.  This week, I made this basket from a kit that a friend had had for 20 years or more.  The basket is 11" across and I stained it.  I'll give it to her this week at quilt guild.

I'm behind on the baskets.  I said earlier in the year that I needed to make at least 12 baskets this year to call myself a basket maker because only a couple got done last year and I have a whole cabinet of stuff...  I think I may be up to 5 this year... better get moving.

Focus ...here today, gone tomorrow

It will come as no surprise to my family and friends, but I appear to be addicted to collecting how-to books.  I love reading them, using them as inspiration, following other's suggestions, and just enjoy watching my shelf fill up.  These are the  latest additions to the quilting library over the last month.  (I didn't photograph the basket weaving, cloth dyeing, or gardening stuff!)  Some are older editions, usually collected from goodwill stores through amazon, others are newer.  All are incredibly inspirational and would make me such a better quilter, appliquer, embroiderer... whatever, if I just followed the instructions.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to do that.  As I look these over, I realize that I can't seem to focus my efforts into any one or two or even six directions.

I change every pattern.  Many times I don't use a pattern at all.  I change fabrics and styles.  I don't quilt with a hoop.  I don't use betweens.  I don't usually use templates or overlays.  I do use a hoop for most embroidery.  I have hand quilted using 200 count muslin and/or batiks as backgrounds and/or backings, though I might not again.  I do take classes from great craftspeople and artists.

My WIP list...
-hand quilting the oak reels quilt, my design from a picture of an antique quilt
-the Civil War Bride's quilt with 4 blocks done in Jo Morton and Judie Rothermel fabrics (and a few more stuffed in the box)
-my designs on paper for a lovely appliquéd Baltimore style quilt
-the redwork birds from the Crabapple Hill pattern are almost finished and I have started collecting fabrics for the quilt top
- Blackbird Designs baskets (last count there were 78 done in Michael Miller and Kaffe Fawcett fabrics and many, many more cut out to appliqué)
-the appliquéd portion of the bird quilt is done in gorgeous green and rose pastels and 177 nine-patches have been cut out for the border
-the P3 Design's tropical flowers are finished in bright batiks and I am drafting more flowers to make a quilt top
-the dresden plates top needs to have the (already done) appliquéd borders attached
-the guild's BOM is done in high contrast batiks
-three string quilts have been cut out using scraps
-My Exuberant Garden is almost done using piecing, appliqué, hand and machine embroidery, and beading, my design made up as I think about it...
-a paper pieced BOM in batiks is showing up at the door every month, an impulse buy
-and I am supposed to be practicing on the Gammill in the other room since I have 3 pieced tops done that can be machine quilted anytime that I have nothing else to do.

I seem to be all over the place, all the time.  I love that there is always something to work on, no matter what you feel like doing, but it does take a long time to get anything done when you are working on everything at once.  

But I am not complaining.  As I write this, I realize that I really like to do it this way.  I have always had 16 projects going at any one time so I guess I wasn't supposed to focus anyway.  And Blackbird Designs has a new book out and I have a wonderful wonky houses/trees/words quilt in my head... I need to get started.