Thursday, August 24, 2017

Why My Sewing Room Doesn't Get Clean

 I was in my sewing room straightening it up.  I came across a box that had the Adinkra BOM quilt top and the leftover fabrics I was using and auditioning for it. It was too full to close properly.   Since the quilt was already pieced, I figured I could take the extra fabric and put them away for future quilts.
 
Then I could just leave the quilt top and any potential border, binding and backing fabrics and put the box back in the WIP /UFO stack.  I opened the box that held the other ethnic fabrics so I could put the extras away and came across another piece that I thought might work for the border.



I brought it downstairs where I could properly lay out the quilt to audition it.  The faces make me think of ancestors, which seems appropriate since I have been obsessively working on genealogy all week.  [I banned myself from doing any genealogy research yesterday, and I had withdrawal symptoms.  I got a fix by indexing some records. Today I am devoting to quilting. There's nothing like substituting one obsession with another.]

It's a little plain, which would work on keeping the attention on the center.  I liked it, but realized that the faces weren't going to be in a nice straight line, unless I cut the fabric on the bias, which I don't like to do for borders. I guess it  would be okay if they aren't level.



I went back upstairs to find my original potential border fabric so I could properly compare which one I like better. While I was in the box, I found another piece of fabric I thought might work.  I auditioned the original potential border again.  Busy, but looks okay. It is a smaller piece and I will have to be careful to cut a border size that will border the whole quilt. I've shown this one to you before.

Hard to pick which one is better.


Then I auditioned the other piece. Pick me!, it said.

 It is probably a piece I had rejected in the past; my ethnic fabric collection is small; but today, it makes me happy. It still has the ancestors feel, but has plenty of plain background to keep it from looking too busy.  The orange and green colors aren't in the center, and I'm probably mixing and matching cultures, but I think they still look good together.


Linked to:
Let's Bee Social
Oh Scrap!

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Quilt Reveal: Family Flower


Silly you! You thought that when I showed you a quilt reveal last time that you were seeing a finished quilt!

I couldn't leave well enough alone, and added some hand quilting and added a trim around the edge. I like it much better this way.  As I told you last time, the leaves have the names of family members embroidered on them so I need to cover them up for privacy reasons. The trim makes sure people see that this is a special quilt that was worth my effort to add the hand quilting and pretty trim.

I need to wash the guidelines for the hand quilting (yes believe it or not I planned this odd angle), and I think that will shrink up the remaining excess fabric.

Linked to:
Let's Bee Social 189

Friday, August 4, 2017

Family Flower


It is quilt reveal day, so of course it is dark and dreary outside that do not provide for photogenic pictures. But I am finished with this quilt, and am excited to show it to you so here it is.

I like to combine my passions for quilting and genealogy from time to time, and often thought about making a family tree quilt with names of the family members.  One day, maybe when I was working on Life of Plenty, I realized that our family was small enough to make good leaves on a flower.  I've covered up the names in order to protect everyone's privacy, which is a shame because I really like the font I used.  Besides the backstitches, a lot of the letters are accented with french knots.



I used fusible applique and stitched around the shapes twice. The needle kept gumming up with the fusible so the stitches aren't as smooth as they could be. The names are hand-stitched and chain stitches help show the family relationships.


Here it is on the bulletin board to show its relative size.  It is 12" x 12".    I wanted to keep the quilting stitches minimal, as I had seen that look on other quilts. Even my other two flower quilts shown here have minimal quilting.  But since there is so much space between the quilted motifs and the binding, the fabric did not stay as smooth as it should have been.  It looks worse in these pictures than it does in real life, but I may add more quilting stitches (and maybe some ribbon if there is a lot of excess) to smooth it out.

The fabric choice for this quilt comes from the one and only Glitter block I have made (so far). The original plan was to use the dark fabric for the binding, but at the end, I decided I liked the lighter fabric better.

Linked to:
Oh Scrap!

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

July's Favorite Pictures

Hello! It is that time of the month where we close one photo folder and open the next month's folder.  Before we close July,  I choose my favorite pictures from the month to share with you.


I've only seen passionfruit growing in my own yard.  It grows like a weed all over the yard, since the fruit doesn't always ripen in time for picking before the frost sets in in this climate, and the fruit is fun to throw at others so the seeds manage to get everywhere.  It is like a spoiled child though, and gets to grow almost anywhere it wants to in the yard.


This year, we had a special treat.  We had albino passionflower!  I didn't know that was possible.  It did not last long, so I am glad I got a picture of it.


I did not plant zinnias this year, or much of anything else, and am grateful for the ones that did come back.

 This flower is not in my yard.  I like how the orange flower in the front looks like a singer on a stage with the lillies as backup singers.


I found this purple bear in the quilt cabinet when I was cleaning it out.  I like how he matches with my current project. Wait, is that a new project?


Even though my garden this year is weedy and neglected, the butterfly still enjoys spending time in it.


A better shot of the markings on the butterfly.


Another passionflower.  They bloom all summer.


Thus ends the July picture show.  I talked about cleaning the quilt cabinet earlier, so I figured I should show you. I finally got smart and folded the quilts so they would cover the whole length and width of the cabinet. Because they are spread out so thin, you can't really see and become intrigued by the piecing. You can just see color. 


It is an antique as evidenced by the cord that holds the glass in the upper section down. It is impossible to take a picture of the cabinet without a reflection. I made those curtains for the room a long time ago and I am still very happy with them. The top shelf holds CDs, the middle shelf is my pencil sharpener collection, the bottom shelf has the wall quilts.


The secret drawer holds the small quilts.

Linked to:
WIPs with Friends 
Kaleidoscope of Butterflies

I Won a Prize!


I entered a drawing on Badass Quilter's Society and won a Wingman Mini Laser-Cut Kit. It is a kit to make this container to put sewing supplies with a built in pincushion and pockets.


The kit includes everything you need to make this, including the pattern, fabric, metal rings, buttons, and the pellets to make the pincushion that provides the weight to keep it upright. As a bonus there is even a sticker from BadAss Quilters Society. Things like this are worth buying as a kit, because I think it would be hard to find the parts and pieces you need in the quantities that you need.

Thank you so much Maddie! Thanks also to Paula for giving me a heads up about the win.