Quilt Reveal: Blue Ornaments

 As usual, in December, the photo quality is much diminished.  Today, I want to introduce you to Blue Ornaments, my mini quilt of the month for the month of December. 

This little quilt provided a little distraction from the Quote Quilt until I realized I am going to add fusible to the backing, and not the front of the quilt. This means, I can keep adding more stuff to the Quote Quilt while I prepare the backing and fusible. I'll show you my additions to the Quote Quilt in another post.

In the meantime, this little quilt is a wholecloth quilt made with three circles from a fabric I recently got from Joanns. I think it is pretty enough to stand on its own as ornaments. I quilted the sandwich lightly, added the ornaments with a decorative stitch, and then quilted it a bit more with a Decobob thread I got as a sample.

The backing is the same fabric as the binding. I took photos of it outside in the snow, but they were all upside down. I didn't want to confuse you more than needed in a topsy turvy year, so this photo will have to do until I can get a better photoshoot. By that time, I might have added some bows to the strings.

Inspiration Squirrels

Since I didn't work this week, I have been trolling the internet, and there is such an incredible amount of inspiration there.

On Facebook, Lona Powell is sharing her daily Coronavirus lockdown experience. She writes fun and quirkly positive notes and makes a watercolor to go along with it to describe her day. I see her posts on the Art Journal Junkie group. She is on Day 273 so she has been doing this for a while. Many people have asked her to publish a book when she is finished.

Also on Facebook, another person has started a journal about her memories. She hasn't posted very many, but it is also fun. Her style is different but the concept is the same, adding drawings and words to present different topics. She did one about school memories which was fun because it talked about the one piece gym uniforms. I remember having to wear them and the awful showers we had to take.

I already told you about the art classes I took with the London Arts Group.  There are many people offering art classes now.  YouTube also has so many,

Craftsy is back and offering a year's membership for $5. 

On blogs and on Facebook and Pinterest, there are so many inspirational quilts. I usually find 13 quilts I want to start each day.

2020:  Weeks 50 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

Can you see the two planes are in this photo?  There had been a lull in plane traffic this year and even though it has become more frequent, I didn't think it was so frequent that they had to have the planes so close that both could fit in the same photo.  I hadn't seen planes that close in all my years of living here, but this year, this is the second time I have seen this. I know that they are at different altitudes and are not in danger of running into each other.

This week's appliance race winner was the computer.  I was able to restore it to a previous point and so far, it seems to be cooperating again. It took a day of trying different solutions and another day and night for the restore process to happen, but we got through this and we are now on speaking terms again.

This week, besides all the internet traveling, I have been shopping for holiday gifts. I have started getting the backing and the second layer of fusible cut and pieced. Sandwiching will happen this week, hopefully.

About those 13 projects a day that I want to start, I succumbed to temptation and have started a quick and simple mini quilt. I find that the minis can keep the urge to start quilts satisfied without taking too much time to finish and without taking too much time away from the main project. I just have to bind it and will show it to you when it is finished.

15 minute days this week -- 7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 294 out of 348 days

Success rate  = 84%

 

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Winding Down the Weeks of 2020

 We are almost to the end of the year.  Every day this week, I woke up and said, "today is the day I will baste the quote quilt".  One day, like magic, I will actually get up and baste it.  In the meantime, here are some new additions.

I added this ladybug and quote. It is a fairly new quote, from Enola Holmes, Sherlock's sister. I haven't seen the show, but I liked the quote.  The ladybug makes me think of my friend, the first and only person I taught how to quilt. It is a bittersweet memory, as she passed before she was able to complete her quilt.

In all of the blue blocks, I make sure that whatever I add is small enough that you can see at a least a small bit of all of the blue fabric. I think there is only one place where the blue is hidden, but that fabric is elsewhere in the quilt so it isn't a big loss.

I added the needle on the quilter's block. I like the one at the top but I may have to do the one in her hand over again. It is completely the wrong angle. I chose that angle instead of the other because it looks like she is making a fist. Maybe she will be holding scissors instead.

 

The Great Appliance Race

The great appliance race continues. When I left you last, the washing machine and the dryer were competing to see which one needed replacement.  One of the rods on the toaster oven stopped working.  The computer and the can opener joined the race with their noises.  All of them, like me, were creaky and complaining, but continued to do their best.  Then out of nowhere, the hot water heater joined and won the race.

This week, we have a second runner up.  There are two lightbulbs which went out, but they aren't appliances so they are disqualified. The chopper has been recalled, but it isn't electrical, so after some debate, it too was disqualified. 

But the oven stopped working and it won second place. I turned on the oven to preheat it and mixed a batch of chai cookies.  Then I realized I smelled gas and there was no fire. I turned off the oven and opened the window and turned on the fan. Zeus and I spent a few minutes outside as we waited for the air to clear.  Then we had to make a run to my sister's house and asked her to bake my cookies. I was going to share some with her anyway if they turned out any good.
I ordered (and received) the oven ignition switch and am hoping that when I put my head in the oven, I will be able to repair it. The chai cookies, by the way, tasted good, but didn't taste like chai because they don't have any tea in them. They are basically snickerdoodles with ginger and cardamom added to the cinnamon. The recipe turned out crumbly so I had added milk to get it to be the right consistency, so maybe next time adding some strong tea would be the way to go.

 

2020:  Weeks 49 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

 

Always makes me wonder when I see sights like this, what the story is behind this situation. What happened here?

My work has finished again, so this week I took another online art class. This time it was about Indian art. The teacher didn't know how to use her technology very well so it took some patience to watch. She said "make shapes just like this, just follow what I am doing on the screen" but you couldn't see her.  The content of the class was really fascinating and I am glad I stuck around because she did work out the kinks.

I have also watched a lot of interesting art videos on YouTube. Mostly it has been flip throughs of art journals, but also videos from teachers like Dina Wakley. I started a bullet journal. I haven't done much to it, and I am not sure I will even continue, but I have a page with a habit tracker.  I just made grids to represent each day of the month and you color in the box where you did that habit. I find it very motivating to actually follow through and do that task you want to become a habit. It makes me more accountable.

15 minute days this week -- 7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 287 out of 341 days

Success rate  = 84%

 

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New Additions to Quote Quilt

 

I'm still adding more things to the quote quilt, as you can tell from the title. These are the new additions this week.

I added mostly decorative things this week. No deep meanings behind most of these. In the photo above, I  added the boy sleeping under a crazy quilt. The quote and the moon were there from previous additions.

This sun quote is on one of my index cards drawings. I got it from an art journal page I saw on YouTube. I really like the confidence of this quote.

I have pi on the circle quilt, and thought it would be nice to have here as well.  The diagonal lines kept distracting me so the pi is at an angle. I could fix it, but I think it still looks like pi.

This quote looked like it had some space for a little something, and since it said heart, I added hearts. The things at the bottom are supposed to be flowers, but if you thought paintbrushes or torches or faces something else, I am fine with that.

2020:  Weeks 48 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

We had a short, virtual Thanksgiving gathering, and a stay at home advisory. Since I had a long Thanksgiving weekend, I had plenty of time to add lots of things to the quote quilt.

I also soaked some walnuts to extract some dye and dyed some fabric for a little fabric booklet.  I didn't heat set it before I washed it so most of it washed out.  So I have soaked them in coffee and this time, I will heat set it before washing in vinegar, and hopefully some of the color will stay.

 

15 minute days this week -- 7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 280 out of 334 days

Success rate  = 84%

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Week 47

 

 

Since I've added historical events in the quote quilt, I have been trying to think of significant things that happened during the 2002 and 2020 time frame. Please let me know what big things happened in this time frame.

 

One of the things I remembered was the mini tornado that happened in the neighborhood. You can still see some effects of that tornado today. Then I listened to the news about the record breaking hurricane year.  I decided to add something to the quilt to represent all these weather related issues, and global warming in general.

I looked for the symbol for hurricane, and this one isn't the standard symbol, but I like it because it can also represent tornadoes and typhoons and monsoons. It also looks like a good symbol to show that one thing effects another. How we are all interconnected.

 

 

 

Since I didn't do anything else noteworthy on the quilt, I want to show you the button I added to this collage. I found it in the basement and added it a couple of weeks ago. 

This one too is from a couple of weeks ago. I found a purse my daughter had when she was young. The strap was broken and I decided to save the bow for the quilt.

2020:  Weeks 47 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

 

I added the hurricane symbol to the quote quilt this week.

 

I also made a quilt sample of a double layer of the fusible interfacing I am using and a double layer of the sheet I am planning on using as a backing to make sure that it won't be difficult to quilt through. It worked out perfectly. I am not planning on doing a lot of quilting on the quilt - just enough to tack the three layers together, but since I had heard that sheets are hard to quilt through and I will be tacking by hand, I wanted to be sure.

I had an unexpected day off work this week, so I took an online art class. There are a lot of art classes showing up on my Facebook and this one let you choose a donation amount instead of specifying a certain amount. I was late in signing up so I saw the recording instead of the live version but I didn't miss anything. Instead of just watching, I participated by cutting out shapes like Matisse. I used envelopes and quilt catalogs instead of plain paper.  It was fun and interesting.

 

15 minute days this week -- 7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 273 out of 327 days

Success rate  = 83%

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Still More Additions to Quote Quilt

 

 

When I took the photo of the bird in front of the red tree last time, I apparently wasn't done. She kept chirping to me to take her photo.  She didn't trust my photo skills so she didn't pose - she just sat very still so I could take a photo that wasn't blurry. Thanks, Robin!

After I did that, the crow let me know he was next, but I couldn't see him and he wasn't willing to come any closer. Maybe next time, Crow.

2020:  Weeks 46 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

Even though this bird also stood very still, my photo of her is still blurry. I was supposed to have started the quilting process at the beginning of the quarter so I could finish by the end of the year, but I keep wanting to add things. Good thing my word of the year is laid-back!  There is already a bird on the quilt, but I couldn't resist adding this one. I am really happy with how it turned out. I traced the bird on typing paper, pinned it on the quilt, and stitched through the paper, and then pulled the paper out. 

 

I shouldn't have read the quote, because it made me think of a candle that I just saw during a quiltalong.  Then I read the quote more carefully, and it is the torch that is the topic of the quote.

So I added an Olympics torch. It is in honor of the delayed Olympics in Japan, as well as all the other Olympics we have watched on TV. The fire fabric has been asking to be in the quilt for a long time. It has metallic in it and I didn't really want to add it until now, but I think it is appropriate for a flame.

 

Now the feather tells you to look down, but the torch makes your eye ricochet up to the right. This quilt will let you get your eye exercises in for sure.

15 minute days this week -- 7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 266 out of 320 days

Success rate  = 83%

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Week 45 of 2020

 

When I let Zeus out yesterday afternoon, I noticed a bird beautifully silhouetted in front of my neighbor's tree with the orange leaves. We have had fabulous colors this year, and this tree has never stood out to me. I ran inside to get the camera and when I came back, it was still there.When I zoomed in, I could see the bird clearly.  In fact, the bird stayed there and posed for me until I had more pictures than I could ever need. Most of them came out sharp and clear.

Work on the quote quilt continues. I decided that I do want to add another layer of fusible behind the quilt to hide the stitches, but before I did that, I wanted to make sure I was done adding as much of the big things as I could. I decided to add a blue moon. Before I had decided on the quote, I was going to add another moon to show that this is a moon and not just a blue circle, but then realized there was already another moon nearby.

The quote helps too. I am glad I found this quote to add for my moon. It is actually one I have been thinking about a great deal, as it reflects my thoughts on the coronavirus situation from the very beginning. Aim to eradicate it. I am thinking of adding a small Halloween motif since it happened on Halloween.

The fact that it is a circle makes me think of the Circle 365 quilt I have been making during the time period of the quilt, and  the fabric is from the Story Maze quilt so this block represents my former quilts too.  There are plenty of other references of that throughout the quilt too.

 

I added the virtual cemetery booklet to the quilt. I used the elastic from a disposable mask. The button on the left just hides the strings. The string loops around the button the right to keep the booklet closed. I added the yellow ribbon to hold down the pages. It isn't necessary but hopefully it helps to avoid stress of the weight of the booklet on the quilt. Underneath the booklet is a pretty ruffle from a bed sheet. I haven't sealed the outside so right now, it forms a pocket. I don't think anything should be added inside it though, since it would add more weight to this block.

When I saw this quote from Maya Angelou, I knew that it just had to be on the quilt.  I typed it and tried to see it in different fonts, and one of the font uses all capital letters. I think this quote is worthy of being in all caps.  The fabric was my first attempt at water-coloring the virtual cemetery booklet. I decided to use the watercolor underneath the block and let the colors shadow through. I put a light yellow fabric in the middle to hide the original [duplicate] quote. 

I had pictured other floral designs around the quote, but just let myself do whatever I felt like doing, and this is what happened.

2020:  Weeks 45 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

 

 

This week, we voted in person at the polls. Everyone was very friendly, and there was a festive atmosphere there.

 

I worked with my mother on a project. One of my distant cousins was buried this week and we were able to attend the memorial virtually.  I hadn't met him, but maybe I will add something to put in the pocket behind the booklet.

 

I tried to get my space ready for working from home again. I added more motifs to the quote quilt as I showed in this post.

15 minute days this week -- 7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 259 out of 313 days

Success rate  = 83%

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