Monthly Archives: July 2017

Catching Up!

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I’ve had several things going on at once, so this is a mash-up of several of them.
First, I was forced (OK, not) to buy this Lotta Jansdotter FQ bundle:

Just too cute to leave behind!  It started with seeing those funky cat faces, and after that it was a “must do” 😉  I’ll let you know when it’s a quilt!

The other thing I’ve been working on is getting ready for a class I’ll be taking with Esterita Austin at Quiltfest in Tennessee later this month.  It’s all about learning a technique for painting on quilts, so it will be quite new to me.  I love to learn new stuff, so I’m really looking forward to it!

I considered a lot of different photos as my starting point, but Esterita really, really, seems to like closeups of machinery, so this is what I settled on:

Steve’s Cement Mixer

And here are some of the rejects:

Personally, I’m much more into the nature stuff, but I make it a point to try the teacher’s way the first time around.  And I DO recall from basic design class that closeups of object sometimes make for great designs.  I’ll let you see what comes of this!

 

A Little Quilt

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Finished the smallest size (41″ x 35″) Lombard Street pattern and I’m about to send it to Studio Stitch, where I’ll be teaching the class. The triangles are all dots, though not polka dots!Lombard Street quilt pattern
I quilted this on my home machine, just following the zigzags in the background, and it worked just fine.Lombard Street quilt pattern
And the backing is a fun fabric I found on the sale rack at Studio Stitch last time I taught there! Win!triangle quilt

I’m teaching this as an introduction to modern paper piecing, of which it’s a great example.  Paper piecing makes it easy to get all those nice sharp points, and the arrangement of blocks makes people wonder, “How did she DO that???”  It’s always fun to keep people guessing 🙂

Happy Blog Year to Me

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My blog just entered its 5th year, and I’m celebrating by linking to some blogs written by my blog-world friends.

First, two of my blog friends have nominated my blog for another Liebster Award.  This award was started by a blog called The Global Aussie as a way for people to find new blogs.  I have no idea how many times it’s gone around the world, but the Global Aussie keeps issuing new “rules” each year to keep it going.

I was nominated by both my friend Graciela, at Chela’s Colchas y Mas, and by another friend, Tierney, at Tierney Creates.  Both of them post on a variety of subjects, quilting and otherwise.  I enjoy them and would nominate them back if I could, but of course that would not be passing along the award.  So, I recommend checking out their blogs at the links above.  As an incentive, here’s a favorite picture recently posted by Tierney on her blog.  Isn’t it fantastic?

Photo by Tierney at TierneyCreates.com

I’ll answer a few of this year’s suggested questions in a minute, for those of you who may be curious about me.  But first, here are some blogs I enjoy and can recommend to you.  They are, therefore, my nominations for the Liebster Award.  I’m trying to get this out of one circle of friends who all read each others’ blogs so you can see something new.

  1. I enjoy Stephanie’s posts at My Imperfect Life.  She has a pointy sense of humor, and we have Texas in common, even though hers is an Aggie household (eek!). Oh yes, and she blogs about quilts, too.

    Here is one of Stephanie’s quilts. Photo courtesy of Stephanie at My Imperfect Life

  2. I also enjoy Crafting in the 21st Century, written by a couple who, like my husband and me, are a sewist and a woodworker.  I knew I had to follow them when they encased a bunch of fire ants in resin to make a blank for turning a pen. They’re obviously as crazy as we are.  In a good way 🙂

OK, here are my responses to a few of this year’s Liebster Award questions:

  1. Out of all the countries you have visited, which one did you like the most?  Canada.  The Canadians are mostly very sane, and they have some beautiful scenery.
  2. What is the most extreme thing you have ever done?  Woo!  People who know me would say this is quite a contest.  But I think probably the winner would be working as a health care provider in a male maximum security prison.
  3. What/Who inspires you to travel this world?  The opportunity to learn something new every day!

And that’s it!  Check out the blogs who nominated me, and the blogs I’ve nominated. Spread the love!

 

 

A Little Triangle Quilt

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After making the Lombard Street quilt and sending it off to the shop where I’ll be teaching that pattern, I decided to make a little one. (The pattern includes three sizes.)

I cut the triangles from my 3-1/2 inch scraps, and had almost enough scraps to cut all 200 triangles–very little yardage was used up for this part of the process.Lombard Street quilt

I decided on purple for the background and made a few test blocks. Looking at the test blocks, I particularly liked the triangle with the one big dot in the middle.  I also decided these triangles would look better with a light grey background, so naturally I had to make another quilt to use that purple background fabric 😉

I love dotted fabric, so I looked through my stash,finding about 30 different fabrics with dots of some kind.  I cut another 200 triangles and here are the sample blocks.  Aren’t they cute?  More later…

Another Kind of Sewing

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A friend and her dog visited recently, and luckily the friend enjoys cooking and sewing as much as I do, so we had a great time.

Australian Cattle Dog

Michele and Cowboy

Unfortunately, I did NOT get pix of all the yummy food.  However, we did make a cover for Cowboy’s portable crate.

Cowboy is a very talented dog but also a very “reactive” one who is curious about anything he can see.  So his portable crate needed a cover to let him get some rest between trials at the doggie events in which he competes.

Cowboy’s portable crate

Michele had been throwing a 20-year-old fitted sheet over the crate with reasonable result.  However, we made a dee-luxe cover with many fine features 😉

There is a little door at the top for giving treats.

There is a screen in one side where a fan can blow in cool air.  The screen has a flap to cover it when Cowboy needs rest more than he needs a breeze.

And of course there is a big flap over one end of the crate that can be thrown up to let Cowboy in and out.

We enjoyed the many challenges involved in making the crate cover.  Naturally, we had to make a few little bags for ourselves, as well.  A good time was had by all.

Cowboy is an Australian Cattle Dog