Wednesday WOW – June 29

Sorry I’m a bit late in posting tonight.  These long summer evenings have my internal clock thrown all cock-eyed.  That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!

Ahem.  What’s on my worktable at the moment is, um, my laptop?  That’s because I spent today at my local quilt shop.

After stitching this month’s Mystery Quilt pieces, I started working on a Kansas-themed quilt.  Kansas is celebrating 150 years and there are quite a lot of patterns showing up geared to that.

I found this ear-of-corn block on one of the blogs I follow . . . but I can’t remember who designed it!  I’ve got it written down somewhere and when I find it I will give credit where it is deserved.  I’m thinking you’ll be seeing more of this quilt top in the future.  This is just the beginning and I’m liking it already!

The Sunday Special

The next technique in the book (Fabric Embellishing) is Traditional Crazy Quilting.  Oh Goody!  I’ve been wanting to dabble in CQ, but I’ve hesitated because I really don’t need to become obsessed with anything else.  I have plenty of obsessions already, thanks anyway!

But, here is the perfect opportunity to play – and pretend I won’t get hooked on just one block!  Today, I pieced the basic block:

I decided I need to clean out some of my green scraps.  Of course, this did not make much of a dent!  I’m not sure a whole quilt would make much of a dent.  LOL!

I pulled out some possible trims to use and I will (hopefully) spend time this week embellishing the seams.  I discovered that, although I have a huge stash of laces and trims, most of them are too large for this type of embellishment.  Dear me!  Could it be that I need to shop for smaller trims?!?

Wednesday WOW – June 22

A very productive day!  One more item off this month’s checklist.

And this is what the finished block looks like:

One more monthly block and then it should be ready for borders!  Can’t wait!  Well, of course I can – no choice really – but this is one project that just might get finished by Christmas!

The Quilt I Forgot

It was pointed out to me that I have not posted a final picture of this quilt:

I had to dig waaaay back in my photos to find when I made the blocks for this quilt.  It was a Block of the Month at my local quilt shop and it ran from July 2006 to June 2007! 

 

The name of the BOM was Almost Amish. 

 

 

 

It was inspired by the Amish quilts and used solid fabrics, but with a more updated look.

 

 

 

I finished all of the blocks, bought fabric to finish it . . . and put it aside!  You don’t ever do that, do you?  So, here we are – four years later (!) and I finally pulled it all out from the pile of UFOs and put the top together.

I think Jake approves.  LOL!

Now, I just need to get it quilted.  Oh no!  Not another four years!!

Sunday Sundries

Last week I showed you something my brother calls the “creature from the planet SockKnot.”  Today, I opened it up to see this:

Hmmm.  Still looks like some kind of creature – only now there’s two!!!

I unrolled and smoothed out the pieces – not too much smoothing – and fused them to fusible interfacing.  The interfacing keeps the wrinkles from pulling completely out.   They looked like this:

Then I took them to my sewing machine and played with stitching.  I tried out several different stitches and tried stitching across the wrinkles as well as along the wrinkles.

I really like how the stitching across looks (on the left) and found that I prefer stitches that have some fill-in or strong stitching lines.  When stitching along the wrinkle lines (right side), I like a more open stitch.  The feather stitch looks great!

 

And this is the finished piece.  This technique takes some advance planning and you need to do the scrunching several days before you plan to use it, but using machine stitches makes assembling the final product really quick.

The other piece I finished today, however, took a lot longer to assemble while the fabric manipulation itself is a quick process.  I’m talking about the bubbles I showed you last week.  After a week of beading, this is what it looks like:

Yup, that was really a lot of beads!  Fortunately I enjoy beadwork and I did not do it all in one sitting.  The larger pieces are polymer clay items that I’ve had in my stash.  Yeah, it looks pretty wonky, doesn’t it?  I was trying not to cast a shadow when I took the picture and I guess I was standing at an angle!

“Brother Sun” is polymer clay pulled from a mold and then glitter added after baking.

“Sister Moon” was roughly sculpted from paper clay when I was making some primitive pin dolls.   I used a mixture of acrylic paint and a pearlescent paint and then beaded a bezel to hold it to a stiff backing.  The fringe was already on the piece and I added the ruffled part after stitching it down to the fabric.

This is a really fun project.  I can’t wait to see what comes next.  Whatever it is, I’ll be sharing more next Sunday, so y’all come back now.

Wednesday WOW – June 15

I’ve been working on this for several days now.  I’m quilting it in square spirals, so there is a lot of turning.  The way my arms feel at the end of the day you would think I’d been lifting weights!  Maybe I can lose my fat arms this way?  Ha!

I’ve been trying to take frequent breaks and when I do this is what I’m working on.  The beadwork is almost finished so I should be able to show you a close-up before long.

What is That?

Well, it doesn’t look very appealing now, does it?  Hopefully it will produce something pretty – eventually!

Over the years I have accumulated a number of how-to books.  I read through them when they are new and get excited about trying some of the projects.  But I never seem to get around to it.  As I received yet another nifty book last week, I decided I need to DO something about that!

So, I have designated Sundays as a day to explore and experiment and work my way through at least some of these books.  And that brings me back to that – er – thing – up there.  It’s a technique from this book:

If you are thinking it looks like a sock with something tied up in it . .  you’re right!  I wrinkled wet fabric and twisted it up into a tight knot and now I’m waiting for it to dry.

In the same chapter, this “bubbles” technique is described.  I think this is pretty neat, and I spent this afternoon working on adding beaded embellishments.  I’m liking what I have so far, but you will have to come back next week to see how it turns out.  AND to see how that lumpy sock turns out.  LOL!

I’ve got some other techniques already in the pipeline, too.  I can’t wait to share them with you.  Come back next week for ‘Sperimentin’ Sunday.  (I know, pretty sad play on words.  I’ll see if I can come up with something better.  Any suggestions?)

Wednesday WOW – June 8

I had several appointments today and then spent the afternoon at the quilt shop.  I’m not sure what happened, but I FORGOT to take any pictures!?!  But then, all I have to show for today is more of the pink blocks I showed you last week.

Fortunately, I DID take pictures of my worktable a couple of days ago:

I played around some in my journal.  One of the many groups I follow on the web gave a prompt of “Serenity.”

I instantly thought of a field nearby where the black angus bulls lie beneath trees and serenely watch the world go by.  Once I had the picture in my mind, I had to make it!  It gave me the perfect excuse to practice some layering techniques I’ve read about recently. 

Not bad for a city girl, huh?

Wednesday WOW – June 1

Well, here we sit for another evening of Severe Thunderstorm Watches.  Ah yes!  It must be summer in Kansas!

As good an excuse as any to work on quilt blocks!  These are for a Mystery quilt, so I don’t know what these squares will be doing.  I like the colors, though, and it’s taking a nice bite out of my stash.  Makes room for more fabric!