think spring!

this past week's project quilting challenge was to "be inspired by spring." it was also the final project quilting challenge of the year :( i wanted to use this image of swallows in flight (which also happens to be one of my tattoos):

according to the book i got it out of "The Encyclopedia of Signs and Symbols," the image means "new beginnings," which is a perfect theme for spring!

i also wanted to make some flying geese, and looked through my various quilting magazines for some patterns. i lucked out with this copy of quilter's newsletter, which featured this gorgeous flying geese quilt:

there is a pattern for this entire quilt by Linda Cordell Wilkey in the feb/march 2010 quilter's newsletter, but i just used the part for the flying geese border. after i made the border, i enlarged my swallow image to fit on a white patch in the middle, and traced it onto the glue side of fusible web with a sharpie marker. after i had that done, i ironed it on to the white fabric. it didn't turn out quite as dark as i would have liked:

i decided the best way to deal with this would be to add some hand embellishments to the birds. i've been oogling an article in the april/may 2012 issue of quilting arts for a while now, called "extreme embellishment" by a quilter named Karen Loprete (that is a link to her site if you are interested.) here is a picture of one of the quilts i've been admiring, called "joy":

while i knew i wouldn't have time to do anything this intricate in one week, i had many dreams of a heavily embellished quilt square with birds in flight, resembling a kite for spring. well, here's what i got done:

i started off with some beads around the edges of the birds

then stitched around the edges of the birds, and added some "hashmarks" to fill make them blacker.

then i decided each corner needed it's own brightly colored "shisha"mirror. these things are hand-stitched, and boy did they take a LOT of time to do. but i think they look pretty bad-ass, so, completely worth the effort.

but after i did that, and quilted around the flying geese units, i found myself pushing the limits of how late i can stay awake on a saturday night, and the quilt was due the next morning! i went to bed with it about as done as it was going to get, with plans to make and add the binding in the morning before work. well, when i woke up on sunday morning, i realized that i had a BUNCH of stuff to do around the house, AND go to the grocery store, AND spend some quality time with my little two-year-old wild-man, AND show up to work at 3pm. so i just ended up zig-zag stitching around the edges for the binding real quick and submitting it as finished like this:

despite the many dreams i had for a beautiful kite-tail, strings of beads hanging off the edges of the bottom of the quilt, and a much darker image in the middle, i think it turned out pretty well. and i got to have a good time with the little guy AND get all my chores/errands done. oh yeah, and i went to work too :)

here are a few bonus pictures of rowan helping me with this project:

rowan actually took this picture of "mommy's thimble." as far as i know, this is his first photographic endeavour. not too shabby!

little hands with "mommy's thimble"

here he is looking into one of the mirrors. i think he likes it!

and here's the link to all the other amazing entries this week!

that's all for this one, bye bye!

hexy tree

with the fifth project quilting challenge up on Sunday, it was time to stop the quilt-a-long blocks and get down to business. for those of you unfamiliar with project quilting, you can check it out here.

this week's challenge has to do with print publications, and--in a nutshell--we were asked to pick a magazine, commit to it, and then turn to page 28. this was to be the inspiration for this week's quilt. while it was tempting to peek at a bunch of "page 28s" and then pick the best one, this was a no-no.

i just want to take a time-out moment and say that i LOVE this idea for a challenge. also, i will NEVER AGAIN be able to look at page 28 in a magazine without wondering "what if..."

SO FUN!

well, we are never at a shortage for print publications in this house. my husband writes and collects zines, and we are both big readers. well, i guess i should say he is a big reader and i used to be one...until i started quilting. anyway, my top choices for publications were (with links included in case you're not familiar):

a zine

a found magazine

a baker creek seed catalog

vanity fair

thrasher

or this juxtapoz

eventually i decided i would have a better chance at a more interesting picture with the juxtapoz so i was thinking about going with that, when billy (my husband) looked at page 28 on the juxtapoz and said "interesting...good luck with that." of course i had to look, which sealed the deal, and i immediately regretted it.

here was what i found:

oh great. a bunch of effigies in the desert. swell.

i can only imagine this is some type of representation of either refugees or already dead folks from a war-torn region in africa: sad, and attention-worthy, but SO not my cup of tea. usually I try to avoid political discussions when possible.

right about now, i'm thinking, "why did i not pick the baker creek seed catalog?" 

broccolli, kale, cholorabi, beets, melons, whatever!

page 28 of baker creek seed catalog

 

page 28 of quilting arts

page 28 of Doris (a zine out of Asheville)

page 28 of thrasher

page 28 of found

page 28 of a lion brand yarn catalog

page 28 of vanity fair

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

well, once i stopped with the "shoulda coulda woulda's". i decided to get to work. what i do see in the african desert effigy picture is a semi-barren landscape. i also see people wearing some bright colors on their clothes. i also am inspired by the artist's statement about his piece, which goes as follows:

"The battle goes on as the world rapidly races ahead
The casualties litter the fields and gutters
waste, garbage.
I look at these outcasts, bruised and battered from the battle with abandon;
and their innocent bleedings evoke a compassion in me as I pick them, bathe them, give them roof, nurse their wounds; rear them with the emotional touch of a mother...until the new yam festival."

i can definitely relate to the concept of being a nurse/mother combo.

this also reminds me of one of my favorite bukowski poems, "alone with everybody"

you can follow the link if you want to read it. it's pretty depressing though...just a warning.

while i initially wanted to post a nice blog with pictures about how i made the quilt, and the way it evolved throughout the week, it is almost 60 degrees outside and i think i would rather go outside and play than sit behind this computer screen. so without further adieu, here is my latest masterpiece!

basically, i just tried to emulate the shape and colors of the photo without getting too political. i also felt compelled to use hexagons for the first time, which i think turned out pretty well. the materials i used were an old shirt, a couple of curtains, some yarn from the gigantic antique/craft vendor store in my town, and of course some quilting cottons.

i think I'll call it "hexy tree."

YAY!

also, all the project quilting quilts for the week are subject to a public vote. so if you like my quilt (or even if you don't), and it's between the dates of 3/11/13 and 3/15/13 you can go here to VOTE FOR IT!

thanks for reading, I'm headed outdoors with this guy:

bye bye blog!

MFB QAL

it is 1:35 in the morning and I could have kept quilting for another two hours, but I decided to be a responsible adult and go to bed. my goal for today was to complete a wonky star block from the blog fiber of all sorts--the most recent block for my favorite block quilt-a-long, and the only one I haven't yet made. and I did!

wonk wonk

but I didn't stop there. I decided it might be time to add a little grey into my quilt. and I found a terrific grey cuckoo clock print from pink castle fabrics in my stash.

it's the one draped over the chair in the foreground

i am also digging the star theme tonight, so I went to town on four small "road to oklahoma" blocks (you can find the link with instructions here on amy's creative side) which I am planning to place together in such a way that they will form a nice bright white star in the middle:

well, i looked at the clock when i was done cutting all that out, and noticed it was already 0100. i thought i'd better just leave it at that, but then the sewing machine started calling my name, and i ended up doing a little tiny piecing before calling it a night. here's what I have done so far:

the block for the top left corner

                                                                          and this

i love assembly line piecing!

and now i am officially BEAT. good night!

MFB QAL

my current obsession is with quilt-a-longs. i swear, i should have developed some tech/blog/networking savvy years ago. i never knew such a thing even existed! for those of you out there who are not "in the know" about such things, it is almost like a modern day technologically fractured quilting bee. the one I'm currently participating in is called "my favorite block quilt-a-long" and is hosted by my new favorite website www.persimondreams.com. if you are a fan of quilting and you don't know about this website, you need to check it out.

anyway, as far as i can tell, here's how it works with my favorite block quilt-a-long (or MFB QAL, as i like to call it):

the supply box to prove it!

every other week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a different quilty/crafty/blogger person--who seems to be already pretty well-established in this quilt/craft/blog world i have newly discovered--posts their favorite block along with detailed instructions (and lots of illustrative pictures) on how to make it. they post it on their own individual blog, which is linked to the "host" blog (that persimondreams website i was telling you about). and then everyone who is participating in the quilt-a-long makes the block (or two or three), and then posts pictures of the end result on a flickr site (i.e. a photosharing website) which can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/2157792@N21/. at the end of the quilt-a-long, everyone will have their own sampler quilt top! let me just tell you this is SO FREAKING FUN and I'm learning so much!!! I only just started up on this idea about two weeks ago, and I already have quite a few blocks made. if you want to check my stuff out here's the link to my own flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/erinrebeccaz/sets/72157632750674582/ but here's a pic of what I have so far (sans owl block, which i made and just doesn't go with the rest of the quilt :(

i might be a little biased here, but i think it's terrific so far. sometimes quilts-and especially sampler quilts-just have this amazing random quality that you can't get away with anywhere else in art. that's why i think they're great. i am thinking once it's all done i will quilt it up with some hot pink thread.

thanks for reading!

love,
erin

WA WA WUBBZY stripey stars!

so this week went NOTHING like i planned. when the project quilting challenge went up last sunday, I thought to myself, "I'd better get this done tonight, because the rest of the week is going to be super-busy." I had work, doctor's appointments for Rowan, doctor's appointments for me, an extreme lack of home nurses (you can read my other blog "row your boat" if you're curious about that topic). so ANYWAY, i thought the only way i was going to make a quilt was going to be if I did it that night. and I did! the next day, everyone in my house got sick with the plague and I realized my week wasn't NEARLY as busy as I had planned...no, it was BUSIER. (especially for mom, who happens to be the only one not sick.) but that's another story.

the project was "wish upon a star," and required only that you use a star somewhere in the quilt. my dad happened to be over when the challenge went up, so i took a moment to go down and look at my fabrics for some inspiration. here's what i found:

SCORE!

let me just pause here and say, i am a lucky girl to have an aunt cordelia. aunt cordelia is a photography professor at Queen's University in Charlotte, NC. she happens to be friends with an interior design prof there, who gave her a bunch of upholstery (and other) scraps to use in her artwork...see here:    http://www.cordeliawilliams.com/   well, auntie cordelia passed some of these treasures, including this one, along to me last time I was down to visit. finally it was time to put it to use!

so the first thing i did was CUT all the baby upholstery fabrics away from the mama upholstery fabric. (cruel, yes i know.)

baby fabric

bye bye momma!

and then i drew stars on the back of the baby fabrics. i did NOT use a template because i wanted all the stars to be a little different. the tags on the bottom did get in my way a bit :(

unique baby stars

i actually cut stars from each and every baby fabric that i had. my original plan was to put all the stars on one backing fabric and just applique them there for a big "star smorgasbord." when i had the audition on the dining room table, billy (my awesome husband) walked by and said, "are you trying to make fun of the american flag or something?" well, i'm not usually one to let other people's opinions disturb my creative process, but when i looked at it twice, i realized he was right.

so i switched gears.

i threw all the cut-out stars on the dining room floor.

my son, Rowan FREAKED OUT!

yes i'm a holy terror

and he started saying STARS! STARS! STARS! and throwing them all over the place.

i thought, well, baby, if you want stars, i'll give you some gosh-darned stars! i let him play with all the stars but four, and took those downstairs and zig-zag sewed them into squares, and then i sewed the squares into a sashing, and then the whole thing into a binding, and then there you have it, a WUBBZY!

I gave it to Rowan when I was giving him his night-night bottle, and he promptly said "NO!" and threw it on the floor. which means, I think he loves it! YAY for wubbzies!

me and the proud recipient

the babysitter and his dog, Macy

and that's all for now. thanks and goodnight!