Bold & Brave - Project Quilting challenge 9.3

Ask anyone who knows me well and they can tell you, I overthink things.  Big or small, if it's a decision that is at all important to me, I will probably have to work through some analysis paralysis before I can move forward.  In fact I just recently had a conversation with a friend about this very thing.   My friend helped me realize that my unwillingness to make a decision usually stems from fear.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of making a bad choice.  Fear of doing something wrong.  Which leads to missed opportunities and regrets.

So this little wall hanging is a reminder to let go of my fears, to be bold, to trust myself and keep moving forward!

No Fear

For Project Quilting Bold & Brave challenge - February 2018

Size: about 12" x 9" 

I create in Casa Grande, AZ

Check out all of the entries for this challenge at 
Project Quilting - Bold & Brave challenge 9.3
click the link and then scroll down the page to find the entries

Triangulation - Project Quilting challenge 9.2

For the latest Project Quilting challenge, our theme/inspiration was Triangulation. "Projects should be (as much as possible) primarily made from and characterized by triangle shapes."

So many ideas went through my head, I had a hard time choosing one to focus on.  It was my overflowing scrap bin that made the final decision.   I would do a variation on a traditional string quilt.  The "strings" were made with leftover strips and fabric bits from other projects along with several orphan blocks that I sliced up into strips.  The background fabric was leftover from fabric I used in my daughter's wedding quilt.  The border and binding were made from excess backing fabric trimmed off of other quilts after they were quilted.  And even the backing fabric was what was left from a bunch of yardage I purchased a while ago on sale.

So I'm calling this quilt

Leftovers

For Project Quilting Triangulation challenge - January 2018

Size: about 54" x 60" 

I create in Casa Grande, AZ

Check out all of the entries for this challenge at 
Project Quilting - Triangulation challenge 9.2
click the link and then scroll down the page to find the entries

Home Town Proud - Project Quilting challenge 9.1

I used to live in Fairbanks, Alaska, known as the Golden Heart City. There is a Welcome to Fairbanks sign on a hill as you are driving into Fairbanks from the Parks Highway and on that hill there is also a heart shaped flower bed planted with yellow flowers. So that was the inspiration for my little mug rug.

Our home is currently for sale and keeping the house show ready has meant staying out of my sewing room.  So I didn't think I was going to be able to participate in this season of Project Quilting.  But as I've been watching each new entry get posted, I started getting inspired.  On Sunday morning, with only about 3 hours until the deadline, I decided I was not going to miss out on the fun.  I made the background using improv piecing techniques, and stitched it to a piece of batting.  I added the backing by layering right sides together, sewing around the edges and then turning the whole thing right side out.   I cut the heart freehand with my new "shark

applicutter", stuck it on with a little bit of fabric glue and then used free motion quilting to stitch around the edges of the heart multiple times.

I managed to take a photo and get my piece linked up to the Project Quilting blog for submission about 2 minutes before the deadline.  Whew!

Golden Heart

For Project Quilting Home Town Proud challenge - January 2018

Size: about 9" x 7" 

I create in Casa Grande, AZ

Check out all of the entries for this challenge at 
Project Quilting - Hometown Proud challenge 9.1
click the link and then scroll down the page to find the entries

Time is Up - Project Quilting challenge 8.6

Time is Up - an apt theme for the final challenge in season 8 of Project Quilting.

The first thing that came to my mind was Ted Allen on Chopped calling out the countdown and then declaring "Time is up.  Step away from your stations."  But I couldn't immediately figure out how to translate that into a quilt.  So I had to come up with a Plan B.

I thought about literally making a clock by doing a circle of flying geese and adding real clockworks to it.  But I had set a goal for myself when the challenges first started to use only supplies I already had on hand and not to buy anything new.  Clockworks is not something I have lying around the house.  ;-)

The next thing I thought of was the traditional hourglass quilt block.
 But I wanted something just a little more stylized, so I went from the hourglass block to the peaky & spike (aka tri-recs) block.  Put two of those together point to point and it definitely suggests an hourglass.

Next step was to play with my new EQ7 program to see what kind of layout I could come up with.  To highlight the hourglass look, I figured a minimalist/modern approach would be the way to go.  After a few tries, I came up with this.

I have literally made hundreds of the peaky and spike units using the tri-recs tool, but since I'm still new to EQ7 and I knew I could use it to create foundation piecing patterns, I decided to give that a try.

I loved making the units that way.  Perfect results every time.   Since I only needed 6 of them, I had the quilt top finished in no time.  I soon had it sandwiched and ready to quilt.

Then the quilter's block hit and indecision reigned.  I reached out to fellow challenge participant Mel Beach for suggestions.  Her ideas were similar to one of my not fully formed thoughts, so I jumped on that one and after quilting tiny pebbles in the pink areas of my hourglasses, I quilted a diamond grid all over the background area, leaving a few areas unquilted to create additional "ghost" hourglasses.  When it was all done, I stepped back to admire my masterpiece and......I was underwhelmed.  It was kind of boring.  I outlined the ghost hourglasses with lime green thread - one of Mel's suggestions.  It was a small improvement, but not enough to bring life to the quilt.

So then I added additional quilting to parts of the grid, trying to bring more interest and excitement.  Again it was an improvement but I still wasn't satisfied.  I needed more help.  I posted a picture and a cry for help to the Facebook Challenge Quilts group.  

I got some really great feedback from that talented group.  I added even more quilting to the grid, but still left some of it open because as Trisha F. says, variety = interest.  Then I beefed up the green outline of the ghost hourglasses.  Laura P. suggested I add tiny pebbles to the ghost hourglasses and my hubby agreed so I did that too.  

The last thing left to do was to quilt the "empty" yellow/green areas of the hourglasses.  And again inspiration eluded me.  I tried continuing the grid hoping for a transparency effect.  I didn't like it and ripped it out.  I tried a sort of V shape hoping to imply the movement of the sand.  I didn't like it and ripped it out. I decided to leave them alone since they were supposed to be empty after all.

Final touch was adding the yellow/green border and I had a quilt I could be proud of.  I took pictures ready to post my entry but when I looked at the photos, I realized the empty yellow/green areas looked sad and saggy.  Some quilting just had to be added.  So I went back to my grid idea but this time I only put lines in going one direction.  Better but it needed more.  So one more set of lines between the first set and I was FINALLY happy with it.

Thank you to everyone who gave me input and encouragement!

I'm calling this 

Going, Going, Gone

For Project Quilting Time is Up challenge - March 2017

Size: about 20" x 20" 

I create in Casa Grande, AZ

Check out all of the wonderful and creative challenge entries at Project Quilting

Round and Round

My friend Anne Carr came up with the pattern I based this quilt on.  She calls it Round and Round since you start with the center strip and then keep going around and around it with additional strips.  She wrote the pattern to be used with a jelly roll, but I just cut my own strips from scraps and leftover yardage.

It was fun playing with my new ruler foot to make the straight lines in the unpieced sections of the border to mimic the piano key piecing in the rest of the border.

This quilt measures about 60" x 48".

The Well Dressed Man - Project Quilting challenge 8.5

This week the theme for Project Quilting is Well Dressed Man.  I was initially stumped.  I had only the vaguest of ideas of where I might want to go with it.

In our younger days, my husband's unofficial theme song was ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man.  And Tom still enjoys the chance to dust off his dinner jacket now and then, like when he went to a movie themed costume party as James Bond.  Maybe I could do something with that.  But nothing specific came to mind.

As I continued trying to brainstorm, I considered the different types of fabrics and patterns used in menswear, specifically suits, dress shirts and ties.  And I started to get a clearer picture of what I might be able to do with pinstripes and paisleys.  I was almost ready to run with that idea until Tuesday morning when I was checking out the posts on the Facebook group Challenge Quilts' page where many of us who participate in Project Quilting post the inspiriations for our ideas, pictures of our works in progress and finished projects.  Seeing the various takes on the theme from others in the group helped get me past thinking of this challenge only in terms of more formal menswear.

Since I wanted Hubby to be my inspiration, and since he now wears golf attire more often than not, I decided to base my quilt on the well dressed golfer!  From there, the rest came pretty easily.

I am not very good at creating a drawing of this type from scratch, so I searched the internet for clip art I could use as a starting point and came across this free pattern meant for stained glass.  Eureka!  It was perfect.  With just a couple of tweaks, I had my applique pattern ready to go.

I originally planned to add stitching to create the plaid and argyle looks I wanted but as I looked through my stash trying to choose fabrics, I noticed the leftovers from my previous challenge entry Night Flight still sitting out on top of a set of drawers near my sewing machine.  Wow!  Those prints were exactly right.

By Tuesday evening I had all my applique pieces cut out and ready to fuse into place.

On Wednesday I stitched the pieces to the background using my go-to applique stitch, the blanket stitch.  I decided to use a dark grey thread for most of the applique stitching because I wanted it to help define the various elements of the design.  I'm still not sure if either the stitch or the thread color was the right choice, but I'm not about to try to change it now.

Once all the applique pieces were outlined I added a just a little bit of quilting to finish it off.

Course Couture 

For Project Quilting - Well Dressed Man challenge - March 2017

Size: about 9" x 12" 

I create in Casa Grande, AZ

Check out all of the wonderful and creative challenge entries at Project Quilting

The Brighter the Better - Project Quilting challenge 8.4

I love bright colors.  My fabric stash is full of bright colors.  And the brighter the better.  So when this week's challenge for Project Quilting was announced as "The Brighter the Better" I thought I had it made in the shade.  But for some reason I was initially stumped.  Not good when I knew I'd be away from home for two days this week and had a few commitments that would eat into my sewing time on the other days.

By the end of the first day, I did at least have a pretty good idea of the fabric I wanted to feature.

 Malka Dubrawski is one of my favorite fabric designers and I had two charm packs from her last line with Moda as well as some coordinating yardage.  I also have a pattern for some quilted slippers that uses a charm pack.  The slippers have been on my future project list for quite some time now and so I figured if I didn't come up with an original idea soon, I would make those.

But before I could do anything, I needed to spend Monday and Tuesday in Tucson as one of the volunteers to help at the quilt judging for the Tucson Quilters Guild show.  Part of my job was to stand by the tables as the judges were going over each quilt and then move the quilt to the appropriate spot depending on if it was held as a contender for an award or released from further judging. Which means I got a good look at most of the quilts that had been entered.  There were several that featured arcs of flying geese in the borders.  Which gave me an idea.  I would make some free form curved flying geese.  I decided to only use the green, yellow and blue fabrics with a black background so they would really glow.  I even had the name figured out.

First thing Wednesday morning out came the freezer paper and I began sketching out my idea.  First I drew curved lines to outline the path my flying geese would take.  Then I traced those lines onto a new piece of freezer paper to use as my pattern to paper piece my geese.

After I got them all traced and the pattern marked, I remembered that using freezer paper for a foundation is not a good idea.  It is too thick and can be difficult to remove.  So I took my first drafts to my printer/copier and copied them onto regular copy paper.

It wasn't until I was ready to start sewing my first set that I realized I had forgotten to make my patterns as mirror images of my final design!  When you paper piece, the fabric goes on the back side of the paper, not on the side with the marked lines.  When you turn the piece to the fabric side, it will be a mirror image of the marked side.  So the marked side needs to be the reverse of what you want to end up with.  Which meant I needed to retrace the marks yet again on the other side of the paper.  Not difficult to do, but time consuming.

All of that took up most of the day so I was only able to complete one set of geese before it was time to pack it in for the day.   Thursday I was able to get the rest of the geese done.  My friend Sheryl says it looks like octopus tentacles now.

Next step was to add the pieced strips to the background.  My preference would have been to piece the strips into the background.  But that would have taken some figuring and probably a couple of test runs as well.  So with only two days till deadline I went with turned edge applique instead.  It looks a little rough with all that bulk at the edges but I was hoping the quilting would smooth it all out.  The next morning it occurred to me I should have used a reverse applique technique to reduce a lot of that bulk, but too late now.  Next time.  Lesson learned.

Once it was quilted, I decided to try a new (to me) facing method to finish it off.  I saw the method here on the We All Sew Blog about a week ago and I'd been wanting to try it out.   In this method, you use four squares folded on the diagonal to make triangles for the corners.  I started with 5 inch squares. Then cut four 2.5 inch strips a few inches shorter than each side of the quilt and press them in half lengthwise.  On the right side of the quilt, place one triangle in each corner, then put one strip on each side, aligning raw edges.  Stitch all the way around with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.  When you turn the facing to the back, the triangles will cover the ends of the side strips.  It was so easy and it turned out beautifully.  I'll definitely be using this technique again when I want to do a facing.

Night Flight

For Project Quilting The Brighter the Better challenge - February 2017

Size: about 18" x 18" 

I create in Casa Grande, AZ

Check out all of the wonderful and creative challenge entries at Project Quilting

2/11/2020
I also just added this quilt to Sarah Goer’s Show Me Something linkup challenge for February, 2020.   Sarah is hosting a fun little challenge on her blog where she asks us to post new or old projects that fit the theme.  This month is Show Me Something with Triangles.