A Basket Weekend

 This is a basket that I started on Thursday night.  It has a solid wood base and 4 ball feet.  It will be large and although is quite the tangle right now, should be pretty cool when finished.  

This basket is double-walled, meaning that it is very sturdy, since one basket is on the inside and another on the outside.  This was one of the baskets taught by a teacher that we had come in for our basket guild meeting on Sat.  I love the cat-head design and twilled sidewalls on the outside of the basket.  Another feature of this basket is that the twill is going from left to right on two sides of the basket and right to left on the opposite sides.  The only real issue I had was how to lash with different spokes on the inside and outside.  For the most part, I decided to go with every other outside spoke and I think it looks ok.  I really enjoyed making her baskets and wish now that I had purchased her other double walled basket patterns.

Tonight I worked for a bit on the large basket, weaving 12 rows of smoked reed up the sides of the basket.  The main part of the basket will have a pattern.  I will start that on Thursday this week at basket class.  I also made a small basket this evening for a gift, so no photos of that one.  

I picked up my quilts at the Durand show last evening.  I didn't get photos since I got there late and forgot my camera.  The show was ok, though not fabulous, as several of the quilts I had already seen at other local shows.  But it was fun to see my quilts hanging in the show.  

Sweet Miss Ella

I am so glad she is enjoying Benjamin Bunny.  

Durand Quilt Show

Photos will be here tomorrow.  I put the Bonnie Hunter Easy Street, the be thankful, and the P3 designs Tropical flowers in the Durand Quilt Show this year.  I dropped them off yesterday (with strangers, it was really odd) and will go see the show tomorrow.  I also went back to basketweaving on Thursday evenings and started an intricate basket as a gift this week.  I also purchased a handle for a little sewing basket that I'd like to make and bought a small cross-stitch pattern at lunch today.  In the meantime, I found the yellow fabric that I wanted for the Red Flowers quilt and also just found out that the original is 73x73, just about the same as mine.  I need more hours in a day. 

Red Flowers and Green Leaves

Hmmm. I liked it more on the design wall than here.  I was going to do red and yellow leaves like the original, but after appliqueing a  couple green leaves, I thought I liked just the green.  Most of these are just stuck there, so I will applique every other green and audition more yellows.  Design decisions... as I go along.   

Planetarium Quilt Show

These two quilts are going to the local planetarium tomorrow so that they can be shown during the Flint Festival of Quilts next weekend.  It's the planetarium so the quilts had to have a star somewhere in them to qualify for that venue.  The red, white and blue lonestar hasn't been shown before, but the photo of Starlight, Starbright was taken at the 2011 guild show in Flushing.  They are certainly different styles of quilts, and I anticipate that folks will like one or the other rather than both of them.  I hope to be able to hang around and listen surreptitiously...

be thankful

be thankful is complete.  Long arm quilted, bound, washed, and dried.  Here lying on the family room rug.  I have to find a wall big enough, it's about 50"x76", but it turned out just the way I envisioned.  Started in February 2013, finished yesterday.   

Red Flowers

This is a photo of the antique Red Flowers from a F&P magazine in 2005.  Below is my rendition of this quilt.  As you can see, I have changed the orange leaves from the last post back to yellow and still haven't made up my mind which I like the best.  I had also simplified the leaves for ease of applique, but am kind of rethinking that decision too.  I did look closely at the photo to determine the original quilting design and it appears to be a big sweeping clamshell pattern.  I don't know the dimensions of the original and can't find it on google images, so my squared up blocks at 27" unfinished seem too big, or the leaves too small, or something.  I think I'll have to do more trimming to get that "bit of crowded" look that appealed to me.  I do like the idea of the big sweeping clamshells, specifically because I still struggle with marking and I will not have to mark to do that pattern.  I'll just get it started with a big arc and go from there.  You can also see that I have to remove a couple green (misplaced) leaves.  Three more flowers to go.  I should be able to finish this week, Don and Em are here so I've cleaned up the florida room and dismantled the sewing center so we have room to eat at the table.  Hand work goes faster when using my machine isn't happening.