January Challenge Project

Stephanie from Peas in a Pod and I are working through Jean Wells' book Intuitive Color and Design. We are going to try to do one exercise a month from the book and started with the first exercise for January.

Stephanie and I both started with these fabrics.

All Kona solids, a few greens, a few neutrals and a zinger - the plum.

I started by piecing a unit.

Then I pieced another.

And I continued this way until I got a strip.

It is not straight but it is about the right length. I like that it isn't straight and I will just go with this curve.

Then my camera batteries died and I didn't want to wait for them to recharge before continuing, so I just put them on the charger and kept sewing.

By the time they were charged, I had the center together. My original plan was to add a few borders to this, square it up and call it done. Then I got my copy of Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci.

This book is the kind of book I love. It is heavy on technique with only a few projects. She explains in detail how to make each letter, but gives no specific measurements - awesome! There are lots of diagrams so you really don't even need to read the text to make a letter. Back to my project.

I just had to make some letters after getting this book and I already had the fabrics for my challenge project out. So I made a few letters.

Then I pieced them together.

Then I added my word to the bottom of my center and bordered the whole thing. Voila!

I call this my Fun Quilt. I am embellishing this with hand stitching, so I am not finished.

Here is a detail shot of the stitching. I am using a 12 wt. Sulky Blendables variegated thread. The colors range from light purple to dark plum and light gray to almost black.

I am thoroughly enjoying the "embellishing with stitch" process so I am taking my time with it. When I finish I plan to do a traditional binding with the dark gray border fabric. The quilt will end up being about 14" by 20". The letters are between 3" and 3.5" tall.

If you haven't already done so, go check out what Stephanie made with the same fabrics. You won't be sorry. She did an awesome job! We have already chosen our next challenge project for February. We will both post about what we make this month on or about March 1st.

UFO Bust Report - Charity quilt finished

Seems like all I needed was a reason to get some UFO projects finished. I completed two this week. Both are small (crib size) charity quilts. These just needed quilting and binding to be complete. The Pooh quilt was pieced at my guild retreat at the end of October 2010. The Cars quilt was completed at the same retreat but I started piecing it a year earlier. These will be donated to our local sheriff's office in March.

Pooh charity quilt

Cars charity quilt

I had my worst quilting experience ever on the Cars quilt. I spray basted both quilts then went to work quilting them. I used YLI variegated 40 wt. thread for the Cars quilt. Despite rethreading, changing bobbins, changing needles half a dozen times and adjusting the tension multiple times, the thread broke every three to six inches during the first half of quilting this quilt! On the second half it didn't break as often but still more than it should. I slowed my machine speed dramatically from the speed I usually quilt at. The thread didn't break as often, but my machine was skipping stitches all over the place. I have used this thread before successfully, but I don't think I've ever used it with a spray basted project. I switched to Mettler 50 wt. for the Pooh quilt and had no problems at all - no breaking, no skipping stitches and all at my normal quilting speed. I even used one of the rejected needles from the Cars quilt with no problems.

So I will not be using YLI thread with spray baste ever again. Or maybe I will spray baste a small sample piece and try it with YLI and other threads to see if the YLI gives me problems. I thought that maybe I used too much spray baste but I basted both quilts at the same time and I'm reasonably sure I did the same thing for both. The fact that the Pooh quilt with Mettler thread caused zero problems and the Cars quilt with YLI thread was a nightmare leads me to believe that the difference must be the thread. Everything else was the same for both quilts.

January Sketchbook Pages

The theme for the sketchbook challenge for this month is "highly prized." I have been doing a lot of sketching compared to what I am accustomed to doing. In reality it has been once, maybe twice, a week for at least 30 minutes a session. These are the sketches I posted on the Flickr group.

I chose these images to post for "highly prized" not because they are images of things I highly prize, although I do like trees and birds, but for what they represent to me. That is, spending time learning something new and realizing that I can draw something I like. Just taking the time to experiment with drawing and allowing myself to redraw the same thing, tweeking parts of the image and/or changing it to try something new, just to see what the change looks like.

3rd Grade Field Trip

On Mondays I volunteer in my son's class for a little bit in the afternoon. Yesterday they went on a field trip during my time to volunteer. They walked downtown to view the Ice Sculptures and have hot chocolate at a local coffee house.

This is the second year Alamosa has had Ice Sculptures downtown. I think the idea is to get people downtown during the winter. It has been so warm here this winter that only 3 of the 6 statues were still standing, the three on the south side of the street which are in the shade all day.

The theme this year is wildlife.

stallion

buffalo

bear

The bear is showing signs of melting.

These have only been standing 10 days. Last year the theme was railroad and the sculptures on both sides of the street hung around into March. Of course, for the one hour we walked around downtown it was cloudy, cold and snowed!

Numenorian Design Progress

I have slowly been making progress on my little Tolkien inspired Numenorian design. I started with a very basic sketch. I can't find my sketch at the moment, but it was essentially what I have stitched below.

I stitched out the design by machine after drawing it with a little sliver of Ivory soap. Just stitched on the drawn lines. Then I started filling in with hand stitching.

I'm stitching with number 8 white Pearl Cotton. This last photo is where I am with this right now.

The next step will be to cover the machine stitched lines from the first photo with thin crochet yarn. After that, I don't know what I will do next. I've got plenty of time to think about it though.

This series of photographs, all of the exact same piece in various stages, really demonstrates how uneven the lighting situation is in my sewing room. I need to work on that! I should also work on learning to edit my photos better. It's on my list for this year.

Unruly Letters and Words

I told you that I got a new book recently, Word Play Quilts.

I just had to give this a try. It was lots of "fun."

This is a sneak peak of the project Stephanie and I are working on together. We are working through the book Intuitive Color and Design.

This is the book my art group has been working through lately but we are pretty much done. I am still really enjoying working this way so I'm going to go through it again with Stephanie. I sent her a box of some Kona solids from my collection and I cut myself the same fabrics. For this first exercise we are only using these fabrics. You can read Stephanie's post about our challenge here. Both of us will post about our work around the end of each month so check back if you want to see how I put the "fun" in my project!

UFO Bust Report - Funky Santa Finished

I have a finish to report today - yay!

I was going to take it outside to photograph it. I get much better pictures outside in the morning before the sun gets too high. But it is 10 degrees this morning and I'm not that gung-ho of a photographer. Plus I'd have to take it down from its spot in the dining room. Yes - I hung up my Christmas quilt after Christmas! I'm just going to leave it up a couple of weeks.

I attached some eyelash yarn to cover the black around the center panel, plus a some buttons, bows and beads.

The beads are really hard to photograph inside. *sigh* Maybe when I take it down in a few weeks I'll take it outside and snap a few better photos.

Below is a photograph taken before I started embellishing.

Scroll up to the first photo of the whole quilt. Can you see the difference the green eyelash yarn made? Some folks liked it just fine with the black border around the center panel. For me it just drew my eye immediately to the center panel, highlighting the fact that it is a panel. I'm not embarrassed I used a panel but I didn't want it to be the first thing you noticed when you look at the quilt. For me, the green border does that. What do you think?

As a follow-up, I was successful in passing on my Cabin Lap quilt UFO to a friend at guild last Saturday. So this makes two I have marked off my list so far.