Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Part 18 A Life of Plenty


I have finished Part 18 of A Life of Plenty.  I was hoping for pink leaves, but the pinks in the orange box and the oranges in the pink box were the ones that jumped out at me.  The Stem fabric was used in the Star Wars quilt. The purple flowers fabric was used in Dear Jane, and the pink with the purple leaves is a really old fabric that was used in my Drunkard Path's quilt that is hanging on my wall now. I showed it to you a short while ago.  I like to use my fabrics in more than one quilt.


Although these are more orange leaves, you will see that they are more springy than the Part 1 orange leaves block.


I made another love shack.  Let's just say this one is prettier than the last one and let it go at that.

Linked to:
Let's Bee Social


Sunday, March 26, 2017

Part 5 A Life of Plenty


Part 5 of A Life of Plenty is finished. I have also started trimming the blocks and putting them together, even though there is one more block to do.  There is also one block I plan on replacing, so I will have to decide on what kind of block I want, and make that.

The leaves use the same fabric as the other blocks I have made lately, but the orange flower fabric is a new fabric I cut up.  The beige center fabric was used for Rey's face in the Star Wars quilt.


Here are some of the blocks together, so you can see how they look together. I've lost a house block. Hopefully, I will find it soon. Otherwise, I will just make a new one, and put the other house in the orphan block box when I find it.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Part 8 A Life of Plenty


This is Part 8 of A Life of Plenty.  I wanted yellow flowers but was too lazy to go upstairs to go through the yellow bin. I found this orange that had enough yellow to make me happy.  The background is yellow, and the orange is nice and bright.

This block has more leaves than the pattern because I didn't like my spacing of the leaves, so I added more to fill in the spaces. Most of the other blocks have fewer leaves than the original pattern, so hopefully this one will show that I'm not that lazy. (A hundred years from now, nobody will know about the yellow fabric situation, and if they do, hopefully they will remember that it takes me longer to go up and down the stairs than usual now.)

I watched some episodes of The Quilt Show this weekend to commemorate National Quilting Day.  I realized why the modern and old fashioned fabric in the last block seemed to me like I was breaking a rule. I was! The rule is that you are not allowed to mix muddy colors with clear colors.  I actually break this rule all the time, but this quilt is supposed to be muddy colors.

We need to come up with a better term than muddy colors.  I loved Bonnie Hunter's use of a variety of background colors and even bought more lights to have that kind of variety. Then people started calling it Low Volume and it became a thing. I think that if we call muddy colors something better, it will become a thing. Who wants muddy quilts?

The background of this block is really old. It was bought in the days when all backgrounds were beige, or so I thought, before I had seen how Bonnie used other light colors besides beige. The green was used in The Earth Laughs in Flowers, and the blue comes from the 1857 quilt box.  I haven't used the orange in other quilts, but now there is plenty leftover to add to other quilts.


I used the background fabric in my fall wreath, which was my first applique quilt.

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Part 12 Life of Plenty


I am still sew stitching on A Life of Plenty.  This is Part 12. Lots of little leaves and some double layers of needle turn applique. This one probably has the best quality of applique that I have done lately, as I have been getting more practice, and as I can sit more comfortably as I recover from my surgery.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Block 1 of A Life of Plenty



Part 1 of A Life of Plenty is finished. This definitely proves I am not going in any particular order.  Most of the leaves on this block were already done, so I just added the stem and the last two leaves for a quick finish.

Block 11 Life of Plenty



Part 11 of A Life of Plenty is finished.  I'm obviously not going in numerical order, since I showed you Part 14 last time. I was telling my sister that I was working on a quilt I started last year and showed her the pattern.  Do you see it? It is copyrighted in 2014. Yes, I started this quilt last year in 2014.

There is something about a weeping willow that really intrigues me. It looks so different from the usual tree. I was really happy when I saw that Jeni incorporated one of them into the quilt.



I have been trying to improve the quality of my applique as I go along. I think that I did pretty well on the trunk and branches (until I saw this closeup haha), but these leaves are much smaller than the leaves in the last block. I'm sure the next block will be better.

Monday, March 13, 2017

Part 14 of Life of Plenty Finished


I finished Part 14 of Life of Plenty.  All of these calming blues and greens make me happy.

I am using needle turn applique. I didn't make templates for this block either. I did a much better job with the size of the stem on this one. The curves aren't as smooth as they could be, but that is because I use so many different techniques in each quilt. Each time, I learn how to do the technique, then I move on to another technique. By the time I come back to that technique, I have to learn it all over again.  I'm fine with it though - leaves aren't all that smooth in real life.

Linked to:
Moving it Forward

Friday, March 10, 2017

Part 13 Finished Life of Plenty


I finished Part 13 of Life of Plenty. As you can see, I did not cut out the pattern and make templates - I simply eyeballed them to cut them out. This fabric comes from many different quilts. The brown in the center of the flowers was used in 1857. The green and orange leaves were used in Lansing Leaves. The stems are from the Glitter block.  The mottled spool has been used in many different projects. The green spool was used in a project long ago - maybe Dear Jane. The orange flower is also old - maybe Moonflower.

Unfortunately none of these other quilts are finished, but maybe someday.

Linked to:
Kathy's Quilts 
Oh Scrap!

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Slow Stitching


In an act of extreme spring cleaning, I have said thank you to my reproductive organs and sent them on their way.  No need to carry around the extra pound when I don't need them anymore.  I have switched to hand stitching during the recovery and am making more Life of Plenty blocks.

I am picking up the first scrap fabric that will work instead of looking for the perfect fabric.  I somehow like how that modern stem fabric looks with the old fashioned spool fabrics.