Amy's Creative Side - Quilt Blogger's Spring Festival - The Cottage Quilt

Thanks, Amy, for hosting this festival again! This is so much fun!
http://amyscreativeside.com/

In a previous post, I mentioned that my first quilt (as a grownup!!) was made at our cottage. I don't recall now why I selected this design, or what made me decide that now this quilt had to happen. I do know I started it in the fall of 2001. We bought our cottage in May of 2001, and I knew I wanted to spend time up there on my own. I also knew I didn't want to read all the time I was there, with guests - very anti social. I wanted something I could do while we had guests, so I could keep my hands busy and still be part of the group. I spent, well, maybe 2 hours in the LQS picking fabric. I didn't think about polyester VS cotton, or designer lines - i just went for colour. I cut out the same amount of squares from each fabric, and after I pieced all the 4 patches, my husband and I put it all together. My husband then bought me a quilt frame for Christmas 2002...and it took me 3 years to hand quilt this queen size quilt. Don't look at the binding too closely - well, OK, go ahead, do. It's something I've been working on improving since this quilt. I have made great strides in binding technique. Couldn't have gotten worse!

My husband and I slept under this quilt at our cottage, and when we sold the cottage, we moved it our bed at home. We sleep under it every night. The colours make me happy, and it evokes very fond memories of our very special cottaging period in our life.

Pattern: Four-Patch, from Diana McClun and Laura Nownes (http://dianaandlaura.com/) from "Quilts, Quilts and More Quilts!", published by C&T Publishing, 1993. The material...is all over the place, with a pretty traditional slant.
Machine pieced, hand quilted.

I managed to find a space between all the rain today to hang it outside and take pictures!!

Joy quilt teaser

OK, not posting too much about this one for now...but here's the cut quilt. It's already been sorted and organized...needs to be sewn up!

Peace & Adventure

Quilting, a celebration of creativity

There is a huge community of quilter in blog land. It is a fabulous resource for learning and inspiring creativity.

I've included a link here that celebrates all this diversity: Modern Quilting discussion.

Diversity, of any sort - whether in quilting, or in people, or in choice of career, or in the books we read or the music we listen to - is what makes the world go around. It inspires creativity and new ways of thinking.

peace is...a world in which women of all ages learn from each other's experiences....

Peace & Adventure
Liz

wow...it's been a few months

So a quick check in. The list of projects is growing, with little progress.

Christie sent a comment in in March - Christie, I don't have your email address. The Tulip Quilt is from a book called "Tulip Quilt", from The Quilt in a Day series. It's by Eleanor Burns, published in March 1991. Publisher: Quilt in a Day!

I gotta tell you, it took more than a day...

OK, projects on the go...
1. finishing up the sample quilt (hand quilting)
2. new baby quilt for Norah! (at some point)
3. pillows from scraps
4. completion of Listen test square
5. keep on planning the Peace Quilt. I think i have designs for all 9 squares. I have the designs for the corner spirals. There is a lot of prework for this quilt - i have to learn how to do the spirals, so there will be a number of tests. I need to learn how to do the applique required for the other other character block. And so on...the design for this quilt will be a whole 'nother blog.
6. gift quilt...more on this later, it's a bit of a surprise!

enough for now...time for some homework.

Peace & Adventure

Happy New Year!

I celebrated the start of the New Year in several ways. These included:

• celebration with close friends and family (kids and dogs included!)
• long meditation on peace and energy, at least for today
• walk with Toby in the pouring and blowing rain (well, the first 10 minutes anyways)
• and...actually some sewing!

I've finally made headway on a kit that I've had since 2006. When I pulled this out a few months ago, I realized that I really wasn't that fond of the prints now. However, cut fabric is cut fabric, and there is always a space for another quilt, and it's always great to have something to practice machine quilting on. Started & finished the quilt top today, now I need to figure out a border (suggestions welcome!) in terms of colour and width, and the binding, and then put it all together,

Picture was taken with my iphone, and I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the glare in the top corner. Photography is not a strong suit of mine. I'm if I had asked the DH (dear husband) to help me, it would have been better. However, he's down on the couch watching football with a full tissue box and a big pile of used tissues beside him. Better leave him be!

So, what to do now while I'm waiting to get to a store and work out the border? I can start on my christmas presents for next year!! The nice thing about not getting them done this year is that I now have a head start on next year's presents. Great planning, Liz!

What else - there's another baby on the way, due in May. Maybe I can get this baby quilt done by the time the baby arrives. This baby will sure have the advantage of all the lessons I've learned with the previous 4 quilts. And I'm looking at a pattern or tutorial online, and purchasing fabric online. These will be the new things for this quilt! There may be at least one more baby this year, so I will start keeping an eye out for ideas for that one too. And then, keep dreaming of my peace quilt. I got a Chapter's gift certificate for christmas, and I have a few quilting books earmarked - one particularly on spiral blocks. Very appropriate for the peace quilt! and something for Toby is brewing as well...some sort of Toby specific quilt for his bed(s)..

I'm not setting a resolution this year to post more regularly or frequently - rather the resolution is to not put too much pressure on myself to have to post!! Generally, as I'm sewing, I'm posting. If I'm not working in the sewing room...posts don't go up!!

Thanks for reading, all - comments are welcome & appreciated! If you are reading this as an email update, you can follow the link to the blog site. To leave a comment, you likely have to become a google member. To become a follower, you certainly do need to become a member of something!

And thanks to the 2 followers I do have!! it's nice to know someone is out there! It makes me realize that when I am following via a blog reader, that I need to mark myself as a follower on the sites still, so that the blogger knows that someone is out there.

Happy New Year, all!

really quick post

since I haven't posted anything for the last few weeks - you may be waiting with baited breath for an update on the peace quilt, or even just the Listen block...
Well, there are problems with one of the battery chargers, which is causing the camera batteries to whack out - so pictures are an issue right now. I wanted to post today about one of the reasons why there is no quilt update - I'm making Christmas cards! so just imagine the picture - my sewing desk cleared off (no sewing machine, rulers, cutting board, scissors or whatever) - and instead, covered with card stock, ink pads, stamps, embossing powder, embossing machine, more stamps and so forth. These have to get done! and it's fun. Most of it was done with DIL and her son, with Toby and DIL's dog CJ popping in to keep an eye on things (literally "popping in").

Also working on Christmas presents, so no pictures of the ironing board or of the fabric hanging on the quilt frame - that would give it away.

The Listen block - I ran out of my blue thread for my satin stitch, and haven't gotten back to it yet. But have ideas of how to do it differently next time! and thinking about my other squares.

There is a block quilt just waiting to be sewn (from a precut kit). I'm not terribly fond of the fabrics anymore, so am having a bit of a hard time just getting into piecing these blocks (8" blocks).

And I still owe 2 or 3 posts - one of the cottage quilt (my first big quilt), one of quilts & afghans from my Oma, and one of an afghan that DH's sister made for us, and it's history.

Anna in Switzerland finally received her quilt "Fast Asleep on Cloud Nine"...I hope she sleeps well on it!

Also spending a lot of time getting into a meditation practice - I think I'm on day 16. It takes about 21 days of repetition, I understand, to form and ingrain a new habit. Sleeping tons better and much less stressed about life in general.

Anyways, that's the update. Will try to get pix for next time!

Have a good weekend!

Listen Block

I'm so excited...I tried to get this up last night, but the batteries in the camera were shot so I had to let them charge overnight.

I've been planning a design for a peace quilt over the last few months, doodling here and there. It's based on concepts from a course I've taken called "Peace Building Conversations", which has turned into more of an ongoing journey than a course that you do and leave behind. I've met some great people, too.

This will not be a quick quilt - some of the blocks I'll need to practice first. Some blocks I need to buy a book for so that I can figure out how to do the piecing.

Last night, I was inspired to start the first one - this is the one that got me thinking about the whole concept of my peace quilt. It's the Chinese figure for listen. Another post, I will go through the various pieces of the figure...for now - it's started!

I'm trying reverse applique (my first time!). Last night I zipped up the pieces of material, and picked out the first piece of applique and satin stitched around it. If I couldn't finish it, I at least wanted to see if it was going to work!

The above picture is the backside. The white fabric is sewn with the good side to the underside of the blue fabric, and I pinned the paper to the top. In the pictures below, you can still see pieces of paper sticking to the top.

Once I sewed the design, I picked off the paper. I realized the blue thread I used for the piecing was too...blue...so I went over the stitching with a white quilt marker, and shaded in areas that need to be cut out.

This is the first cut out. So I trimmed out the material, really close to the stitching line, and then satin stitched, for an applique look, the blue material to the white, stitching over the straight stitch line and catching the raw side of the blue material.

Lot's of things to work out - the corners, the paper I used for the pattern (too thick), the fact that the blue thread I used to sew the material together was too dark - so I couldn't see where the stitching was, when it came time to start cutting out the material...so lots to learn. Stay posted.

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