Blues

I had such a good time with the blue piano key border on the Liberated Round Robin that I bought a couple more 1/2 yard cuts of blue batik and made a window pane style quilt top.  I saw the inspiration for this in one of this month's quilt magazines.  This one is bigger, 102 x 102", since it is for my king sized bed.  I needed something that the dog hair wouldn't show on too badly.  The sashing, which looks black in the photo, is really 4 shades of dark navy blue batiks and the panes are different shades of blue and blue-green batiks.  It is more modern looking than I intended, but since my room is painted a fairly deep yellow and I have woven denim rag rugs on the floor with cherry shaker style furniture, it looks good.  I started it Sunday afternoon and finished it last night.  It will sit on the quilt rack until next week when I have time to put it on the longarm and get it quilted.  I'm thinking that I will do a freehand all-over leaf pattern for quilting.  I intend to tightly quilt since the dogs will be sleeping on it at night.  I'm pleased with it right now.  We'll see how the quilting goes, I haven't had time since May to do anything with the long-arm and I am really looking forward to the long-arm classes in August.   

Lib Quilters Round Robin

My liberated quilters round robin is starting to take shape.  I deleted some of the triangles and added log cabins.  I needed a border and added some more color.  So far, everything is from scraps and the stash.  I cut way too many strips to start with and then made too many log cabins too.  I originally thought I would put cabins all the way around, but I really like this design better.  So in order to get this much quilt top...I have extra pink triangles (and the triangles that I made and didn't use), extra log cabins, extra pink strips, and extra blue piano keys.  Hmmm... enough for another quilt.  I always seem to do everything twice.   

Row x Row and Round Robin

I am doing two completely different versions of small quilts.  Talk about differences in style.  The first one is for my guild.  We are doing a row by row challenge and passing it to someone different each month for 4 months.  We had the option of choosing our fabrics or letting the others choose for us.  This is my challenge for this month.  She wants me to use these background fabrics and her theme is stars.  It will be a challenge for me as these are not my colors and I will have to be different.  Hmmm.  More to come. 

The second photo is the Liberated Round Robin for my on-line group.  We started with a center block of our own design, some were simple and some very complicated.  You can see check out others on this blog http://liberatedroundrobin.blogspot.com/.  This round robin is different than others because we each do our own rows following directions given to us.  This month was triangles.  I liked these colors and the simple word, but since it is supposed to be design as you go, I didn't really think about colors for the next row.  This is the second set of triangular blocks that I have made.  The first were very cool, very liberated, but much too dark for the off-white background of the center block.  I have saved them and may use them later in the quilt.  I'm still not terribly pleased with my start, but have to trust that it will come together in the end.  On June 10th we find out what the next round should look like.  I need more colors next time... and more liberated...    

And the Quilting Journey Continues...My New LongArm

I know, it's huge.  A new Gammill Long Arm Quilter with a 12' stand.  I can do free motion, meaning self-guided, and follow pantographs (stencils) with a laser.  We bought a few pantographs to try it out on, but so far, I have finshed and bound the 2 baby quilts (and given them to the twins, who are ADORABLE!) and finished the spiderweb that is on the quilter and have only done free-motion.  I did daisy type flowers on the baby quilts and big spirals on the spiderweb.  It is very easy and quick to do fairly big, all over designs, but to have any real style is going to take some time and lots of practice.  I have a few more practice quilts already made and am starting a couple more soon, in between doing the big applique and hand quilted projects. 

Lots of things are going on, but if it doesn't stop raining soon, I'm not going to get to do a garden this year.  I can only imagine how wet the field is where I put the garden last year and even my flower beds are saturated.  Flint has gotten 8.19" of rain this month and that is 5.5" above normal.  Stunningly, we are at the historic high for the month of May and it is only May 18.  The little woods behind our house is completely flooded out. 

Tonight we are heading out for Vermont to help my niece celebrate her graduation from UVM.  I'm pretty excited to see my sister and her family since we weren't able to get together after Christmas this year.  AND Monday, I'm going to the Shelburne Museum to see the antique quilts.  You can't get a much better weekend than that.  I hope your weekend is lovely too.      

Bird Haven

 Bird Haven is a new applique project.  I am taking a class at the local quilt store with a couple friends.  The class starts next week, but I picked up the pattern last week and as you can see in the second photo, have a few of the blocks already done and a couple more started.  They aren't trimmed or blocked yet, but at least a couple of them are done except the embroidery.  The basket block will have ruched roses in it and there are a couple more blocks with ruched flowers too.  I am going to let Nancy show me how to make those next week.  For some reason, this quilt seemed to call out for pastels, or maybe it's just spring...  The rose fabric in the top left corner will be the border and I pulled the other colors from it.  A couple colors came from the stash and are left-overs from Kate's quilt but I did purchase some fabric when I bought the border fabric.  It's different from anything I've made in a while, but it will be fun to work on it with the women in this class.    

I have also been hand quilting on the oak reel quilt.  I have it all marked with wreaths of oak leaves in the empty blocks and a border of oak leaves and acorns on all 4 corners.  After I get those quilted, I'm going to do a fairly close set diamond design over the whole quilt, so this is a long term project.  I have one wreath done and 3 to go...   

My guild's quilt show is next week and I will be busy Thurs, Fri and Sat.  I'll help set up on Thursday and do white glove, help with food, take tickets and whatever else is needed during the show on Fri and Sat.  On Thursday, I'll drop off my Star Light, Star Bright quilt and the hand quilted baby sized quilt to be in the show.  One very wonky and one very traditional...  I'm really looking forward to seeing them hang in the show.  The show is every two years.  My goal is to get the hand quilted oak reels quilt into the next one.   

This is the center for a medallion quilt.  We have Quilters Night Out once a month and we are working on different border and sashing designs.  You could do a row by row quilt with each design or you could do a medallion quilt and put the borders around the medallion.  I had seen a feathered star quilt in the NY Red and White Quilt Show a couple weeks ago and thought it looked pretty cool.  I hadn't pieced a feathered star before, but I was really careful and it turned out pretty well, meaning the points more or less match.  I really like the scrappy reds, which is a good thing because I got carried away cutting fabric and must have 500 triangles of various red fabrics, so several of my borders will be done with triangles.  Fortunately we are doing a pinwheel design in May so that will take a few more... I only have 300 or so of the white/cream/gold triangles...  this star is only 16 x 16 so it will take many borders to make this a bed sized quilt.      

Progress

I know, it has been forever since I have written.  There just isn't much to take pictures of...  or write about.  Everything is in progress.  I'm in the middle of a really cool basket-making project at basket guild, have marked and just started hand quilting the oak reel quilt (which is going to take me about a hundred years, I have over-estimated my hand quilting abilities to the point where I seriously hope I live long enough to finish this), have finished 3! knitted dishclothes, am about 3/4 done with the baby blanket on the loom, have signed up for another applique quilt class at the LQS (because some really good appliquers are taking the class and I will get better just being around them), and best of all, tomorrow Harold and I are off to order my new Gammill long arm quilter.  It will be really cool to be able to quilt my own tops.  Harold also thinks that I should learn a skill that has the potential to make money (to support my "therapies"), and since I told him that I needed a lot of practice and I don't retire for 4 years, well, you get the picture.  I think I have 4 years to practice, Harold, of course thinks I really only need 4 months of practice... we will see.  He even went down to Detroit with me to see the quilt show last weekend so he could check out the "competition".  I'm not going to be "competition" for a long time.  I think we are going to one of the big national quilt shows this summer, so he can see real machine quilting...  Anyway, I have 4 full size and 4 baby quilts waiting for the LAQ so I will have plenty to practice on for a while.  The baby quilts will be first, since the babies are all here...  It will be a couple weeks and I'll post photos when I get it.           

Ideas and Snow

This is some of my new reading material; Amish quilts, Susan McCord's fabulous appliques from the Henry Ford, Gwen's wonderful quilting, Ami's stitches, and Tonya's words.  Enough ideas for dozens of quilt designs, now I just have to find enough time to get some of them onto fabric.  I love having lots of options and opportunities to try new things.     






This is March 24 in my back yard in mid-Michigan.  Last week was in the 40 and 50s, all the snow melted, and I went to buy seeds.  Hmmm...this week we got 5" of snow and 1/2" of ice on Tuesday night and it is still hanging around in the trees.  I'm going to be optimistic and pretend that spring really is here.  Tomorrow I start my tomato, basil, and flower seeds in flats in the florida room.  It will be good to see little green stuff.  It's time.