Oval Boxes and the Forest (or Too Many Trees)

These are the shaker oval boxes that I made in John Wilson's workshop last weekend.  There are 6 swing handled cherry boxes and 2 trays.  The swing handled boxes are cherry rims.  There are 4 with cherry tops and 2 with curly maple tops.  The trays are cherry rims with birch bottoms.  With lots of sanding and finishing they should look great.  I wanted to do some more as I had given away the 2 swing handled boxes that I made a couple years ago and they make good gifts.  They took me most of last Saturday, but I think it was worth it.      

 This is the thanksgiving weekend (mom can't mope if she's occupied) quilt.  The kids were busy, 3 of them away from home and 2 others with their mom for dinner, so I knew I was going to be sad if I didn't get myself something pretty complicated to do over the weekend.  So...I decided to practice piecing.  I found a traditional tree pattern, modified it to make it more complex, and then cut out, trimmed, and sewed together 500+  3.5" HSTs to make 5 trees.  My initial thought was to put them together in this fashion, but ugh...  nope.   Too much brown tree trunk, the trees are too big, the sashing is too narrow,  and there is too much of everything.  I decided to try and use one of them as a medallion quilt and appliquéd leaves and some detail on the tree trunk and I think I'm going to like it much better.  Just in case it's starts looking too symmetrical, I'm going to use different colored sashing and a spiky free form border to finish it off.  It won't be bed sized, but it will look great in the summer next to the front door.   Let me know if you have any ideas on what to do with 4, rather large, left over trees.  

The Guild Swap

I am happy with it.  Just need to quilt and bind it now.  Onto the string star!

The Guild Swap

Is Done!  I picked up the blocks on Friday and finished tonight.  Pictures tomorrow.   The blocks were done in batiks, 15" finished, and I used more 9 patches, sashing, triangles for a border, and a 6" navy batik border to complete the 93" square top.  The batiks in the blocks and triangles really glow with the navy sashing and border.  Now maybe I can get to that string lonestar....  

Bonnie Hunter in Ann Arbor

Bonnie Hunter's lecture for the Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild yesterday was a blast.  She has gorgeous quilts with thousands of pieces, lots of advice on how to store your scraps, and a very engaging speaking style that was wonderful to hear.  These are only 2 of the many, many quilts that she shared.  The first is string pieced and the other is a lovely hexie.  She said that the hexies were done in spare moments and took a couple years (more than 5000 hexies).  I really love this setting for the hexagon quilt.  Her advice for finishing the complex borders that she puts on her quilts was her best advice for me.  She cuts the border pieces with the center design and pieces them together as enders and leaders with the center design, so when you are done with the center, you have most of the border completed too.  That complex border, that would never have been done if I had started it after the center was done, is done too.  Take her classes, purchase her books, and hear her lecture if you get a chance.  Thanks Bonnie, for a lovely show.  My friend and I enjoyed it immensely.     

Seasonal and Tropical

I saw this pattern and thought about my sister Chris.  Not that she collects snowmen, but the words are significant.  My mom's favorite singer while we were growing up was Andy Williams.  The Christmas season at our house was Andy on the stereo over and over and over again.  I have probably heard this song 1000 times, so in honor of mom and Andy, I made two little wallhangings.  They were both made of mom's old towels, gram's black buttons, and orange wool noses.  So Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

And I just finished this quilt top tonight.  These are P3Design's free appliqué patterns from last summer.  I loved appliquéing and embellishing them with embroidery.  I wasn't sure how I wanted to finish them into a quilt, but I decided on this rather formal setting with lots of bright batiks.  It is different from the pattern, but I really like it.  I will probably hand quilt this one, echoing the applique and maybe quilting the leaf design into the border.

The houses and words are coming along, but more houses and trees are needed for the neighborhood, so I'm back to collecting scraps...    

House Swap

I have the houses from the Lib Quilter's swap and spent today trying to get them together.  I also made a bunch of little wonky stars this morning to add to the quilt top, several more houses and a pile of trees. I have to work tomorrow, but Tuesday is a vacation day so I should be able to get more done... and next Saturday is an all day sew retreat for guild.  Hopefully soon...with photos.

In the meantime, I've bound several little wall hangings for a friend and the mola that C brought from Panama.  I'm still embroidering on the tropical flowers and appliqueing on the CWBQ.  I also have woven and unwoven (several times now) a basket that I started at guild.  I guess I'm doing everything except blogging.