Fabric Bowls with Catherine Redford

This weekend was fantastic. The Road To California Quilt Market was at the Ontario Convention Center not too far from where I live in Orange County, CA. I participated in two classes. Thread Painting with Nancy Prince and Wrapped In Scraps with Catherine Redford. Both classes were fun. I find trying out a new technique is alway very inspiring. 

Here I am with Catherine. She is a great teacher and explained things very well. It also helped that were were not a lot of participants in the class, it gave us a lot of one on one time.

The bowl show here was completely made of scraps left over from other projects. Almost everyone in the class used yardage, I was the only one who really used scraps. I think my bowl is really pretty. I am going to make many many more bowls with this technique.

Eurasian Jay

This block was by far the most complicated block I have ever attempted!

I am satisfied I did the best I could do. I like the fabric choices and I am very glad I kept trying to figure out the pattern and that I finished it. It is for free on Craftsy by Shape Moth (here) But it is not for the faint at heart. No wonder why this quilt is taking me so long to complete. 

I am linking up with Free Motion By The River

Link Tuesday.

I love looking at all the new projects Connie fans come up with.

See them here!

In The Garden

Back to working on my "In The Garden" quilt. I love paper piecing and this one is full of it. The blocks are 12" square, I went thought all the free patterns I have and found two more that will work. One is an Australian Kokako (from Tartankiwi) and the other an Eurasian Jay. I have finished the Kokako and now working on the very intricate Jay. The Eurasian Jay pattern is from Shape Moth did not have a placement guide... what do you expect for free? I almost gave up, it was like putting a puzzle together, finally I printed out another set of of the pattern and taped it together - then color coded it. 

Australian Kokako

On the pink design board

Progress on the Eurasian Jay


"In The Garden"
Here are some of the other posts about this quilt:
Hummingbird
Sunflower
Tulips
Beautiful Bird
Squirrel

My friend Ann and I went shopping Saturday - another of our local quilt shops is closing...The Flying Geese in Tustin. Everything is 30% off.

Got some Kaffe Fassett and basic white.

Finally sewing again! Hope to be back soon with more.

Loving You!

Julie

Doggies ala Andy Worhol

I wanted to give my daughter some couch pillows for her new home as a Christmas gift. She is an absolute doggie person. She has three... 2 huskies and a chauwaha.

The applique art I found determined the size of the pillows. The chauwaha was a head shot and the husky was full body. After some consideration I decided to do an Andy Worhol approach to the chauwaha and of course I wasn't going to buy any fabric - relying on my stash. My daughters living room is blue based so a blue background - main color was in order. 

12" finished blocks. The pillow will be 24" with a piping detail finish.

 

 Found some 60's psychedelic prints and incorporated them.

The background here is one of most favorate Amy Butler designs.

I found the applique patterns on line at FourTwinSisters.com.  Thery have several fabilous quilt patterns available for free, all they ask for is "barter"... quilt fabric, notions or items you do not want or need. 

Her dog, Lelu, has a heart shape on her forehead.

Now these are works in process, alot of details are still missing, I just started on them yesterday.

 I have not been blogging much lately - not to say I have not been sewing.  I made a bunch of Egyptian costumes for the Muzeo in Anaheim...(where I volunteer as a docent).

 The new King Tut display is there now until January 24th.

Kids can dress up and see the exhibit, it makes it a more memorial experience. 

Quilting Economics

Very Productive Day

I made a major  progress on the Stunning Universe quilt today. 

At this point Stunning Universe is 51 1/2" wide x 56 1/2 long.

Got the images transferred to fuse - unfortunately I did not reverse the pattern so in turned out as a mirror image of what I had envisioned. But I was not going to throw away all the fabric, time and effort so it is what is is. The boarders tie it together. I do not know what I am going to do with the top and bottom boarders as of yet.

I love it!

And the center of the circle is not done yet either. Here is an enlargement of it. I found an image on line and printed it on fabric using the freezer paper method. I looks OK here in this photo but actually the pinks kind of clash and I should not use it. I experimented with several other ideas and I keep coming back to this one. 

Then I went on to try and finish:

#ELEPHANTS ON PARADE

DONE!!!! Quilted! Bound! Labled!

Here she is. I did add the pinwheels in the corner as I said I would. 

Really glad I started a baby quilt - my way of being prepared for the future... well now have to start another one.... yes as you will see on the label below this one has a home. One of my neices is going to have a baby and this Friday night - there is a "Find Out The Gender Party" - never heard of that one before.... but actally I have a notion it will end up as an Engagement Party. 

These youngsters - do everything backwards.

In any case I so excited to await the arrival of a new family member. CONGRATULATIONS!!

Here is the label. See the bar code in the center of the 9 patch? I will link that back to my blog so if you ever really wanted to know more about this quilt you can use your smart phone, scan the label and learn more about the whole process. The bird was one I did facing the incorrect way so I redid it instead of using it on the front. I hand stitched the words with floss. 

I wanted to show you my quilting on this quilt - look closely at the quilting. See the giraffe and the elephant in the stitching? I used a pantograph and long armed it myself - look mom, no computer. It feels good to be able to actually complete a top and quilt the quilt.

This pantograph also featured a lion.... see him?

Quilt Inspector photo bombing!

Hope your day was as productive as mine.
Hop eto see you soon!

Stunning Circle Closing In

I have finished the circle and in trying to get the scale correct I pulled out and taped some pieces of drawing paper together, layed the piece on it, and started penciling in some lines. I added shading to the circle and pulled out a little piece of circle that I had cut incorrectly - the quilt is taking on a universe look with a dark hole, or sun - and a comet. The length is being determined by the background fabric I purchased in class. I bought a yard and a half... wish I would have bought 2 yards now. Oh well. I will be adding some boarders 

This will be one of my first art quilts with an original design. 

I am really liking the direction it is taking. I love pink and grey together. 

While on a quilt run with my friend Ann and her children, we came across an adorable, friendly cat that needed rescue. I made a bad decision to take her home. The kids named her Lilly.

Playful little thing!

STUNNING CIRCLE QUILT

My guild had a fantastic speaker last week, Andi Perejda, she is really a wonderful creative person. Ann (my bestest of friends)  and I decided to take her workshop at the Orange Quilt Bee so we played hooky from work Wednesday and joined the fun. 

The stunning circleThe class was on her stunning circle quilt. It is a modern take on an old version. Andi uses a 9 degree angle ruler and strip sets to simplify this completely complicated looking design. It is unbelievably simple and goes together like a breeze. While we were all sewing, Andi went around the store and did some shopping for everyone. She picked out fabrics that would go with each persons blocks. The fabric she found for my pink on pink circle block was fantastic and I just had to pick up a couple of yards. There goes my promise not to purchase any more fabric.... but I justified it with the gift card I got from my son for Christmas... so no money out of pocket...Thank you Mr.M!

My strips.

Beginning to take shape.  In the background upper right is the
fabric for the background Andi choose.


Here is the fabric she chose. Pink fading circles repeated. I love it. It has modern qualities and certainly goes along with the psychedelic theme of the stunning circle.

I have decided to shadow the circle with some grey fabric in my stash, then for boarders I am putting together some pieced lines that are suppose to be star bolts shooting down from the sky, using the 2 pinks and some more gray's. I think my quilt universe is coming together.

The center of the circle needs to be special. Taking cues from our teacher who loves hand dying fabric.  This weekend Ann and I are going to delve into fabric paints to try and come up with appropriate centers for the focus block. I have a collection of fabric paints that I have put together in anticipation of a creative moment... so we are going to use them. Look at the prices on the packages.... most are from Tuesday Morning... see why I had to pick them up? 

Classmate Patti looking at trim options.

Beautiful red and white.