Thursday, April 8, 2010

Passing the time





Passing the time. Tom loves TV, I am not fond of TV, so how do we spend time together?

I embroider.

I am on my 2nd Winter Wonderland quilt. I am doing this in Variegated Blues... I do not like red work...






Motivation

Have not touched my machine since the weekend, and I look forward this weekend to sitting down at my quilting table, and finishing off the Curve Azy Star quilt top. To motivate myself, I found another ruler which will help with a quilt top design I have been mulling over with Electronic Quilter 6.

http://www.creativegridsusa.com/products/cgr4560

Since I had issues trying to get a good 60 degree cut while practicing with strips, I think this will help a lot.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Curve Azy Stars....UGH!



When I took Helena's classes she did warn us that we could become bored with fabric on our projects. I hit the IM BORED Wall with this quilt pattern. I am really BORED. At first I thought it would be interesting to cut curves (I like geometrics, I love batiks and different shapes). The Funkier the better in my book.

I loved learning the technique to do these funky blocks, but 3/4 of the way through the block assembly, I AM REALLY BORED WITH IT!!!!!!!!!

I am not really into traditional quilting or reproduction fabrics. It took me about 15 months to finish my pile of quilt blocks for Wendy's quilt. I got bored, so I worked on them to pass the time, while hoping I got another burst of creative thoughts. Maybe I have Quilters ADD....

I am now bored with my pile of Fat Quarters, and curvy funky stars. Thank god I did not commit to having a full size bed quilt top here. I would go batty!!

I have tried infusing other colors and to me this still does not feel right. Ah well, back to my Best Press Starch and Cutting toys to finish this quilt top off once and for all..... Pics later......

Wendy's Quilt...






I have been in a purple mood for a while now.... and Log Cabin blocks are one of my favorite blocks to do from Helena's Class. Last year to perfect sewing them, I bought some stashes of quilting fabric off Craigslist (FOR CHEAP!), and just started sewing blocks with no goal in mind other than perfect my stitching and not get any wonky offset blocks. I can make perfectly square blocks finally! Quilting is my TV, I would really like it if we could remove the U-Verse in this house.

I took most of the blocks (I chucked the blocks that I was not happy with) and donated them to the orphan pile for my quilt guilds Christmas party, where hopefully someone would like them enough to want to buy them and make a quilt top. When I assembled the 156 blocks, I realized, that from far away it still looked too monochrome for me. I am a color freak. I need lots of color!

While digging into my latest fabric treasure clothesbasket from a Craigslist seller (50.00 for 3 huge overflowing baskets of fabric, fat quarters and skinny 8's; plus you get to keep the clothesbaskets!) I got everything unpacked sorted by uncut size, scanned for Electronic Quilter 6 and put away for a while.

I found enough fabric that screamed Wendy. My friend Wendy is very dear to me, and she is a purple passion freak. Its GOTTA BE PURPLE. LOTS AND LOTS OF PURPLE; that is what makes Wendy happy. I covered one of my walls with 2 flannel flat sheets and started playing with the blocks. I found out I needed another 28 blocks to make a queen size quilt top. Back to the cutting board, and away I go.

By swapping out some of the middle blocks in the Log Cabin block with green, I think it adds life to the quilt.

I have to find extra wide quilt backing, and then it goes off to the Long Arm lady who will quilt it, and I will sew on the binding.