Chinese Coins 2 - hold up on the fabric side!

Well, I thought I had enough of the Aboriginal Dot

in the basket to finish up the strips for CC2 but

best laid plans sometimes go astray!

Last post I had this pieced

with a plan  to have three of these stitched together, I was fast running down

my Aboriginal Dot in the Teal.

I pressed on and had them all sewn but when I looked at this on the

design wall I had a problem!

The Teal strips I had carefully cut from the little fabric left

were curving slightly in the centre piece. 

 On to the unpicking. You can see the start of the problem in

below.

 No more fabric left so

off to the only local store stocking KF fabrics to hunt

for this particular colour, told no Teal listed.

Panic - but she did have a Free Spirit catalogue and we found that this

colourway is down as Charcoal.

None in stock and now waiting for a delivery, hopefully in the next day or so.

Next post link I'm hoping this will be completed, quilted and bound!

Maureen

Mapping - so near and yet...

I am so, so close to being done with this but things are conspiring.  My exhaust pipe is currently making dire noises but I can't get it seen till the end of the week, so my driving is limited.  As long as I keep below 30mph it's okay, but that rules out getting to where I do my piecing, unless I want to make myself very unpopular on the backroads of Nottinghamshire!

As it happens, I don't think the extra time thinking but not doing will do me any harm at all. This is the last photo I took and I can tell right away that all sorts of things are not working for me.

First off I don't like all the white sashing over on the right, second of all I am trying to stretch what just won't stretch.  I've added in new bits and pieces and more of the dark green but it feels rather like I'm forcing things. What I am pondering now is taking a more radical approach - maybe making the last bit pretty much all dark (maybe the dark blue and green in squares with lighter sashing, maybe keep the blue sashing but still go much darker in the squares).  Or even find a completely different and mis-matched fabric to fill in.  

Still plenty of time to come up with ideas, as I can't see much hope of getting back to this before next week.  

Trees, Trails and Maps

As some of you may remember, when I was first starting on this Maps Challenge, I had been consumed with trails of peace and quiet in the forest. How does one map a trail or demonstrate the importance of peace and quiet to our everyday healthy lifestyle.

I can feel the relaxation even not being there. Do you make a point of thanking our trees. We lost so many this past summer to forest fires, it makes you wonder how we will live if deforestation continues?

This tree above is so marvelous because its got three co-dominant trunks. Two of the trunks began as mere branches, but the tree evolved to allow this enormous weight of the two lower branches to become strong by building up the main tree trunk underneath each of the branches.

I've made progress on Maps Challenge. I've made a fall/autumn group of four blocks. I will have 16 blocks when this is done. 

What do you think?

My map of Outer Space.

I kind of stopped working on the little map of how to get from my house to my grandmother's house.  I couldn't figure out how to get everything I wanted on the map.  It was just a muddle.  I had too many things I wanted to put on this little quilt that only measures 21" X 25 1/2".  In the end I decided to put a border on it and put it in "time out" while I give it some more thought.

In the meantime, I needed to make a quilt for one of my grandson's.  He is the only one of my grandchildren that I have never made a quilt for.  He is six years old and it's about time.

I took him to the fabric store to let him pick out fabric he liked.  I though I would be making a dinosaur quilt and I had all kinds of things in mind.  No, no, he picked out outer space fabric, the big square on the right is from that fabric.  So, I've had to rearrange my thinking.

The gray fabric used in the top block has sparkles in it.  So does the gold fabric in the upper left corner.

I also picked out two black fabrics with stars.  I especially like that really dark tone on tone in the upper right.  And then I went through my stash to see what might go along with the universe.

The row on the far right is complete and sewn together with all the applique done. I have been surprised by how hard it is to pick the fabric combinations for this quilt.  I think part of it is that I'm using colors I don't normally put together and the other part is that I'm actually making a scrap quilt and my scraps are limited in variety.

I would love to get it done for Christmas but I don't think that's going to happen. . .  Things don't move very fast in zero gravity - ha!

Robin

Year Thirteen (2016)

Just Wing It was one of my

Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.

This photo was taken by Lynne in New Hampshire

while the quilt was there to visit

her Liberated Birds class at Quilted Threads.

Happy Accident was started in a workshop

with Sujata Shah in St. Louis.

Sujata and I have followed each other's blogs

for a long time so it was fabulous

to spend time together in real life.

Max --

 my APQS George sit down longarm --

came to live in my sewing studio mid-year.

Learning to quilt my own quilts continues 

to be quite the adventure!

Sea Glass has to be the MOST special quilt

 I've had the privilege to make.

It was gifted to our elder son and his wife

during their baby shower in late July.

They had told us for ten years

that they did not plan to have children.

We are thrilled that they changed their minds

and decided to have Little Man.

Moments in Time was created during 

Audrey's Quilty 365.

I opted for six months rather than twelve

to keep the quilt's size within reason.

It was also one of the very first quilts

I quilted with anything other than

simple wavy lines.

In November, ALL of the quilts from my book

BUILD A BARN - No Pattern Construction

were shown during the Davies Manor quilt show.

See Rock City

The Seasonal Sampler

and the incredible Gallery Quilts

(click the link in the paragraph above

 to explore more photos and stories)

Chris (left) quilted all of them and this was

the first time she had seen them

 completely finished and all in one place.

What an experience to spend that weekend

sharing the quilts with those attending the show.

2016 was a very good year.

Quiltdivajulie

Years Eleven and Twelve (2014 -2015)

In early 2014 I created this wall quilt named

Create With Abandon

using leftover liberated free pieced letters from Lynne.

It was juried into a number of AQS shows

and now hangs on the wall in my design studio.

Using more leftover orphans and orts from Lynne

and free pieced words from Lee Ann aka Nifty Quilts,

I created my quilt named What Matters Most.

This photo was taken in New Hampshire

during my visit with Lynne in 2014.

The quilt would later travel with me to Chattanooga

for a photo op with Lee Ann at the AQS show.

2014 was also the year of the three Celebrations quilts

made for our nephews and their families.

(Warning -this is what happens when you purchase

 TOO MUCH Laurel Burch holiday fabric . . . )

And as 2014 came to a close,

my sister "purchased" three of my quilts 

and Christmas gifted them to her in-laws.

Left to right:

Granny Smith, Summer Sorbet, and Tickled Pink.

During 2015 I continued to make quilts 

from Sujata Shah's Cultural  Fusion Quilts book.

This is No Ugly Flowers

made from her Peppermint Pinwheels design.

This is Midtown Vibe made for our younger son's bed

using her Rail Fence design.

And this is Azaleas in Bloom 

made with a saree and silks brought from Asia by our DIL 

using her Windmills / Winter designs.

When our oldest nephew and wife 

learned their third child would be a girl,

they requested a very pink quilt.

Girly Girl was the result.

Inspired by Teresa Rawson's 

X Marks the Block tutorial.

(permanent link in the sidebar)

And during 2015, I finished the six quilts

started during 2014, my first year with 

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

This is Arrowheads.

And this is Fruit Loops -

which has recently been gifted

to my brother-in-law.

The Eclectic Goose

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Umbrellas Unfurled

I'll be teaching a week long class for this one

in September 2019

at the John C. Campbell Folk School.

And Happy Happy Joy Joy aka HHJJ.

Another interpretation using 

Teresa's X Marks the Block design.

* * *

I'm very glad I chose this retrospective

approach to the Maps and Mapping challenge

instead of designing and piecing another quilt.

It has been most interesting

to navigate through my own quilting journey.

And there are still three more years

to share before reaching the present day.

Quiltdivajulie

I survived Houston, but my feet are still angry.

I'm sorry. I suppose that it's going to sound like bragging, and I don't mean for it to. I also don't want to seem ungrateful. That would be horrible because I had such fun. And I didn't want my time together with two of my sisters to end. (But we are sisters, so it had to end eventually.)

All of this chatter is about going to Houston for the international quilt show. The quilts were amazing! Of course, my favorites all have a quarter-million stitches and took well over a year to complete. Oh and let's not even discuss how perfectly symmetrical they were: top to bottom, left to right, up one side and down the other. It doesn't matter how you phrase it, they are perfect. And unrealistic. Impossible even. Except that I saw them, so they must exist, which means creating such works of art is possible. Just not by me. I could never stay with one quilt for that long.


As for the sisters, three of us were together for most of four days. Unfortunately my sister Lee, who is a math teacher, went home to find out that a student committed suicide. Her Friday was a wreck but she somehow managed and we had dinner together so we could spend a few more hours with her family. On Saturday we drove home stopping for quick shopping at a flea market or two. I don't like shopping or flea markets, but I just couldn't resist Angie and Pam's enthusiasm for a bargain.

I had purchased a couple of Christmas gifts at the show, both of them meant for guild parties. I surprised myself by sitting in a couple of classes. One was about using fusible web. Sounds interesting, right? In all honesty, I just needed to sit. I learned much more than I expected since I started out with a negative attitude. Precisely the type of student no one wants, but cranky feet cause bad attitudes. If you ever need info on fusible web, I'm the resident expert. It's a little like reading Whitman, no one wants to but eventually there will be a quiz. I majored in English.


The other class was about how to make those clothesline bowls and vases. I'd thought about it some some time ago but just never got around to even buying the materials. There's the surprise....usually I buy stuff before I abandon a project. Anyway, I may have to invest because I like the different take that the presenter had. She certainly made it look easy, anyway.

And there you go. An four days of sisters, quilts, classes, and lots of TexMex food. If you're interested in seeing some of the photos I took of the quilts jump on over to my blog. I'll never get all

A fail for me with the Mapping project but a new Chinese Coins

Yes, definitely a no show on the mapping side of things from me!

I have been following progress of all taking part but

due to unforeseen hiccups my plans came to naught!

I  had begun deconstructing a scrap vortex quilt-in-making (you can see details

on my blog), and decided I could go with another take

on Chinese Coins. I made a very bright one in the challenge, 

posted on this blog 28 June 2018.

So, I have strips of the scrap fabric below 12" x 3 and 1/2" cut

along with

KF stripes and his aboriginal dots

together they make

and when a few of these are stitched together

we have this

there will be three of these, hopefully very soon when

I am not so reliant on my crutches!

Maureen

Half Square Triangle Borders, Yo-Yos, a Ceremony and an Adventure.

I managed to get a photo before the wedding party started.

St. Jarlath Church, the ceremony was held here.

I got to see my littlest grandson! Here he is playing with his cars.

On the drive home we stopped in Buellton, CA and visited this fabric/quilt shop.

This is one of their beautiful sample quilts.

The Creation Station Quilt Shop front entrance

I bought some colorful, already made yo-yos, the owner's grandmother makes them.

And I've started work on borders for my new improv sample quilt. I love this look.

Hello! From Rancho Palos Verde.

Where it's sunny, warm and the Pacific Ocean sparkles.

We drove to Oakland, CA last week for my son's wedding. The ceremony was wonderful, held in the beautiful St. Jarlath Church. What a great way to start a marriage. It was fun seeing and visiting friends and relatives and it was all over too soon.

On the drive home I got to visit  The Creation Station Fabric & Quilt Shop , in Buellton, Ca. I enjoyed their sample quilts and they specialize in quilt retreats. I bought some already made Yo-Yo's, the owner's grandma makes them and they're well made! I've sewn them together and they're just the cutest thing.

This week I've been making half square triangles for borders for my new sample improv design quilt,

'Uneven Thirds.' I got the idea for the border from one of Jordan Fabrics' YouTube tutorials in which Donna made a similar border. Their tutorials are full of good ideas and exciting color use.

That's the news from the rancho, where I'm remembering to be thankful.

Have a good week and I'll be by to visit.