Thursday, November 17, 2011

Trying Something New

When I was at A Quilters Gathering at the beginning of the month I took a class with Sue Nickels on drawing fabulous feathers.  I decided to put to use what we learned and make a mini whole cloth quilt using feathers.

I'm still in the middle of quilting around the feathers, as you can see.  I'm hoping it will help make them pop even more.  I used a Kona grey, but I'm not sure which one and Superior Threads silver metalic thread.

Here's a picture of the sketched design next to the quilted one.  I sketched it out using tracing paper first before copying it onto the fabric and quilting it.

Here's a close up of one of the quarter sections. 

I needed to break up the work I was doing on the Storm at Sea and this was the perfect, quick project to do so. 

Monday, November 14, 2011

Continuing Storm at Sea

This past weekend I busted out the 32 6.5" square blocks for the storm at sea quilt that I'm working on for my parents.
Now, these may not seem that complex, but they sure seem to take a long time.  Maybe that's just because there are 32 of these.  Multiply that times the number of seams in this block - 8 and you have 256 seams.  Okay, now that makes sense.  Add in another 32 pieces because there are 9 pieces in this block and you have 288 pieces that were cut for just this block.

 Add in the 42 blocks that I already made and that's a lot of pieces.  This quilt will have 1026 pieces to it. 
It's coming together though.  Only 72 more blocks to go!  At least those blocks just have 5 pieces to them.

For some strange reason, Dorie from Finding Nimo just popped into my head singing, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."  Hmm, I might be swimming in blocks by the time I'm done with this...

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Storm at Sea Progress

I began planning and making a storm at sea quilt for my parents a while back but put it aside to work on a few other things recently. 
Here's the rough sketch that I did a while back based on the fabrics that I am using.  The colors are totally off shade wise, but It's good enough to get the gist of things.

I finished the 42 3" small squares yesterday and I'm going to move to the large squares next.  I think there's 30-something large square blocks.  I'm paper piecing this quilt because I like the accuracy it gives me without having to worry about my 1/4" seam being off a bit.  That's the beauty of paper piecing, you don't have to worry about that.  Just sew on the line.
This is what a stack of 42 3" paper pieced blocks looks like all trimmed up. 


Monday, November 7, 2011

Second Cathedral Window Block

After completing my first cathedral window block while at KK's camping out while we awaited power, I began prepping another cathedral window block. 
I'm really loving this. I'm not sure how far I'm going to take it, but I'm finding this a lot of fun and different than stuff that I usually do.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Sneak Peak

We're having a kitchen holiday swap in the BMQG, revealing our final product at our December meeting.  We were to bring in some fabric, put it in a bag and draw someone else's fabric for this swap. We know who we're creating items for and they know who's making something for them.  We could provide whatever guidance we wanted.  We could say that we didn't want additional fabrics added, or feel free to add just solids for example.  We could say, no aprons, but anything else is game.

I drew Rebecca, who provided a yard of fabric.  I knew right away what I was going to make once I saw it, I just needed to make sure she didn't have any color or fabric preferences.  I was basically given full reign but she said she wasn't a big fan of red. 

Here's a sneak peak at the beginning of Rebecca's kitchen item.
Rebecca provided the print and I added in the solids.  I love how it's come out.  I've already finished the quilting of this item and just need to bind it, so I'm actually a lot further along than this picture implies. 

I really love how it came out so far, and I hope Rebecca does too.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

84 Hours Later...

And I have power!  Man, the simple luxuries that you take for granted when you don't have them.  Electricity, heat.  Now it's time to try and get back to normalcy.

First, thank you to everyone who commented on my Blogger Quilt Festival quilt.  I hope to respond to you individually at some point today.

So while I was out of power for the good part of four days, DH and I spent time at my aunt KK's when we weren't at work because she was fortunate to have power. We are so fortunate to have the family that we do to help us out in times like this.

So, what did we do, we made the best of it and spent some time quilting of course.  I showed KK the cathedral window technique that we learned at our last BMQG meeting that she was unable to attend.
It's not perfect, but I sure do love it.
I can't wait to make more.