Sew Sunshine

"From the Cutting Room Floor II - Edit"  42" w x 34" h local quilt guild Oh Scrap Challenge entry Earlier in the year our lcq had a scrap swap. We did it musical chair style sort of. I was MC for a while then jumped in to grab some scraps. Well I ended with a few more of my own scraps back and not enough of new to me scraps. I decided since this was my challenge for the guild I would just use some of what I got from the swap and use the buckets of black and white scraps that I had from previous quilts. While we all were working on our quilts a member of the guild offered to have her studio space open to us for the finished pieces to be on display.  Her space is downtown at the  Burkholder Project  an art gallery and collective.  The challenge ended at our last meeting at the end of May and we swooped in and got them down to the studio and hung for the first friday art walk in the downtown area. So last friday we had a small reception and enjoyed seeing

It has been ages since I have taken a few to post. I am glad to say that I have been working on things just not getting them posted. I am pretty pleased with some of my work but disappointed with other things in my life. Mostly, I have not felt up to a whole lot physically so getting a few things finished is a huge milestone of sorts.  Lots of rain and yucky weather in my area but occasionaly I catch a glimpse of something beautiful and miraculous.  So above is a bunch of curves sewn in a lqg pop-up workshop I put together. We did 4 different kinds of sewing curves. The ones with orange are being sewing into a crib size quilt and going to Quilts For Kids. It is really fun to have participants give me back the blocks they practice on and then they can go into a functional quilt for someone else.  One of the members in our lqg bought and donated a huge amount of coffee cups. Since our guild meets at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum we often try to supp

"From the mending pile"  41" x 50"... ish, as it is finished as it was with no squaring up, improv design, up/re/cycled materials of denim, twill, stretch twill and denim machine pieced and hand quilted in a long stitch fashion These textiles originally came from some leftover scraps my mom had in her sewing room box. I realized they were bits of her old jeans and a bit of denim off cut from some she made herself.  I happened to look in my repair pile and I had a pair of worn out stretch denim leggings that I used to wear, a pair of Bugle Boy twill pants and a leg of work jean from my husband. In another pile I found a pair of stretch twill pants from my sister who always needs longer length in her pants. I am not sure if I was supposed to hem them and give them back to her or if they were just done but...they are in the quilt now. :) And, lastly another pair of twill pants I inherited from another sister.  This accumulation is from 5 differen

It was a really snowy day but I wanted the chance to take a photo of my newly finished "Chihuly Inspired" quilt outside of the Josleyn Musuem. The snow was still everywhere so I got the courage to go in and ask if I could take a quick pic onthe rails.  Afterall, it was inside that I first saw the large installation of the Chihuly Glowing Gemstone Polyvito Chandelier. (blown plastic)  Up close you can see the fun quilting design. I worked with Marsha from Dog Ear Creek Quilts to come up with something that would enhance but not take away from this fun layout.  This quilt was made with one of my all time favorite things, The Quick Curve Ruler (QCR) and the pattern can be found in the books from   Sew Kind of Wonderful . I love their rulers and on a mission to make several of their patterns. This layout of colors and fabrics was my own design. I wish you could see the glittery gold fabrics that make up some of the orbs.  Since the pics outside of the Josly

Out of the doom and gloom of this winter that seems to never end..... my UFO finish Sunset Strip 27" x 35"  Strip set score from Sherri Lynn Wood book - The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters Aurifil thread pieced and grainline improv quilting The score is to make strip sets and then create from there. My limitations were the 2 colors of blue and yellow. I made strip sets of blues, yellows and one slightly mixed. I evidently felt I needed some blue waters and sunshine in this bleak winter because that is what it turned into.  I played around with some thread colors because I finally had some various shades of Aurifil to use. Then I sort of did this flame grainline type quilting. I like the texture but it did stretch the quilt out a tiny bit. I had to block it when I was done to get it into shape.  I chose to use up as much of the leftover pieced strips I could. I thought I did but then when I was cleaning up I found a small stirp set

"Shake it Off"  28.25" x 29.25" (could be where I went wrong) Five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes of sewing....um?  just kidding!!! She is made of 7 shades of gray and 3 shades of red There are 1179 pieces cut to make 558 pieces for the 279 hst blocks and another 621 1.5" squares cut for a total of 900 1.5" blocks! Made in Ne. completed only because a blizzard rolled in yesterday when I was ready to give up.  :) One week challenge for Project Quilting hosted by Kim at  Project Quilting Season 10. 4  which Trisha (quiltchicken) came up with Pixel Play. If you know me you know I love a good pixel quilt.  I am intentionally leaving my photos small because for this pixel piece it is best to see it from as far away as possible......really even if you squint you can see how much more of a photograph this looks like. Try it!!! Thumb nail size is best.  So I said we had a blizzard yesterday remember? I knew I ne

Project Quilting 10.3 is Bigger than a Breadbox theme. I usually don't have a problem with size when the challenges are given out. I thought that since I just had to make this bigger than 8 x 16 that I would give myself other limitations to learn something new or try something different.  Thus....   22.5" x 22.25" Large freezer paper pieced (my design) Inset pieced circle  played with colors I just loved how the colors played off each other. It was very hard to photograph and get the actual colors. I am not sure I did a very good job of that.  I tried for snow to help with the colors but most of it was melted off near me.  I used monopoly clear thread to quilt the organic lines. I think it worked well with all that color.  I am linking up to  Project Quilting 10.3 @Persimon Dreams and NTT at My Quilt infatuation

Urbanologie QAL was hosted by  Sew Kind of Wonderful I did the block sections at the time of the qal and managed a little change in the arrangement. It was a super fun quilt to make. But then how to quilt it? I felt it is such a whimsical quilt so thought I would go outside my comfort zone and have someone else quilt it. A friend in my lcq works for Mangelsons and they do quilting so she quilted it for me in a fun mash up of designs called 'texture'.  I brought it home and squared it up and bound it the next day. Whoop there it is.....one off my UFO pile!!!  It was 13 degrees out and snowing but I went out for a quick photo shoot and came home with these beauties to share.  So fun to put this naturey quilt out in the wild.  Here you can see the quilting that Haley did!. It is all texturey goodness.  Love the Quick Curve Ruler gals for fun innovative quilts.  Linking up with NTT @  My Quilt Infatuation and  Midweek Makers  wi