Archive for the Category »traditional quilts «

Product review: Sulky Paper Solvy

I continued to push ahead with my “glorious” yellow quilt challenge, which my quilt guild so kindly proposed. I guess I’ve actually started thinking of it as “glorious gold.” Doesn’t that sound better? “Gold” just sounds so much more dignified that “yellow.” Tuesday I assembled the three sections of this little quilt. I don’t think I’ve mentioned how large it is. It will be 24″ square. That’s become my favorite size for making samples. It’s small enough to finish without a huge investment in time or fabric, but it’s still large enough to show to a room [ ... ]

Glorious quilt challenge, part 3

Ah…time for a break. I had a great day because I was able to spend a good four to five hours working on the middle ring of the “glorious” yellow quilt I’m making for my guild’s 2011 quilt challenge. I left this ring for last because I needed to use the gold tissue lamé. Taming Tissue Lamé If you’ve never used tissue lamé before, it can be rather annoying to work with. It is really thin and slippery. It frays horribly. It is made of 51% Metallic Polyester and 49% Nylon; that makes it potentially heat-sensitive. I did a [ ... ]

Happy birthday, DD#2

I finished my improvisational Cherrywood Fabrics quilt on Saturday. I think I’ll just call it “Cherrywood Improv.” In any case, I was thrilled to finish in time to give it to DD#2 for her 25th birthday! She loves the colors and I’m sure she’ll spend many happy hours snuggled up under it while watching movies with her DH. I’m really happy with how it turned out. I was determined to make a no-stress quilt. It all began with the wonderful suede-dyed fabric, of course. I enjoyed doing the improvisational skinny [ ... ]

Glorious quilt challenge, part 2

It’s just before 11 PM on Sunday night and I just finished paper piecing the outer ring for the “glorious” yellow quilt I’m making for my guild’s quilt challenge for this year. You may notice I changed the background color for the outer ring. In my original design, I was planning to use charcoal gray. I liked the idea of using a monochromatic color scheme, especially since yellow, white and gray is such a popular color scheme right now. After consultation with my advisor (DD#2), we both felt that the gray just wasn’t working. [ ... ]

Glorious quilt challenge

I finally started the “glorious” challenge for my quilt guild, the Miami Valley Quilters’ Guild. Yeah, the one where I have to use the solid gold cotton fabric and gold lamé. It must be done by September 13, and I’ll be gone three of those days First I procrastinated by buying a bunch more yellow fabrics… Then, I had the thought that this might be a nice time to try paper piecing. I’ve never done it before, but I’ve read about it for years and years. (Am [ ... ]

Getting back into the groove

Wow, I’m having a hard time getting back in the groove after being lazy the first part of the week! I’m tying up loose ends, and I have my machine back in it’s little nook. Now I Just need to buckle down and finish quilting the improvisational Cherrywood Fabrics quilt (maybe I need to come up with a real name for it, too!), because after that I really need to jump on my quilt guild’s challenge quilt. Time is running out, right? But first, I wanted to post one more portrait from [ ... ]

Quiet get away

We just got back from a quiet little get away in the RV my dad blessed us with several years ago. It’s so nice to just pack it up and drive to the nearest state park. We nestle in and watch lots of movies. Each day we come up for air long enough to go for a walk. We drive into town to download email at a local hotspot, and we make sure we eat a nice dinner. Oh, and ice cream…did I forget to mention ice cream? That is a priority because we don’t follow our [ ... ]

What’s wrong with this picture?

There’s something really wrong here… These are the fabrics for my quilt guild’s 2011 challenge. Where’s the blue??? Actually, I like participating in quilt challenges because it forces me to move outside my comfort zone. For this challenge we each received a fat quarter of gold Kona cotton and a fat eighth of gold lamé. We need to use at least half of each of them. Hmmm…I wouldn’t normally use either of these fabrics. We can add up to ten fabrics, and we have to have at least one 3-D embellishment [ ... ]

Cosmic Jewels quilt top is complete!

I finished piecing together the blocks for the Cosmic Jewels quilt. (Its new name is “Sapphire Star.”) I did end up changing that one fabric that was bothering me along the right hand side. I decided to leave everything else as originally designed. Next I’ll start digging around for some batting to use up. Since this will just be a wall quilt for my home and is not intended to be a show quilt, this might be a good time to use up some odd pieces left over from other quilts. As I was pressing the quilt top, [ ... ]

Give away: winner of Cosmic Jewels pattern

I pinned my work in progress to my “design wall” which is actually just a piece of styrofoam covered with black fabric. I mostly use it when I take photos of my quilts, so it is not permanently mounted anywhere. That way I can move it around to wherever the light is best. Anyway, Saturday I spent a little time trimming each of the squares so they were each 4″ square. I’m hoping that will make my finished piece more accurate. Then I pinned the blocks up so I could stand back and see if I wanted to [ ... ]
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