A Couple Quilts That Didn’t Make the Cut

I made a couple quilt tops that I decided not to include in the book. 

Both were set on point and they were the only two on-point quilts in the book. I knew that if I included them I would need to write involved instructions for on-point settings. But more than that, in each case there was something that I didn’t like about the finished quilt top. Don’t get me wrong – I like the quilts. I just didn’t think they were up to the standard I’d set for other quilts in the book.

Can you see what went wrong in the first quilt in reds, golds and greens? I used the same gold background for the borders and edge setting triangles. But I had bought the fabrics from two different sources because neither online store had as much as I needed. And, wouldn’t you know it, they were obviously different dye lots. It wasn’t so obvious in person – but when photographed, the variation in value shows up. And, unfortunately, it shows the piecing in the triangles (which I wanted to blend together – and it didn’t).



The other quilt uses all Kansas Troubles fabrics. I had a layer cake of 10” squares and extra yardage for background and borders. Unfortunately, I was limited in the fabric combinations I could do for the stars and some didn’t have as much contrast as others. It was a fun quilt, and I’ll probably make another one some day using the same star block design. But it didn’t make the cut for the book. So, in reality, I made 32 quilts for my book – not just 30. 



I can’t imagine that I’ll ever do that many quilts in less than a year. Yes, that’s 32 quilt tops. And 30 finished and bound quilts. Oh how I wish I could share them with you. I think I need to create a countdown timeline for my blog with the countdown until the book is released. But that will probably make the time go slower with the constant reminder.

Back to Blogging

I officially sent off my book manuscript to the publisher about 10 days ago! Yippee! My last quilt (of 30!) is being quilted. All of the quilts will be sent off the week of July 9th. Then the technical and copy editing by Martingale editors begins. The schedule has page proofs for review in November, and book ready to ship the beginning of June 2013. So, it will be nearly a year before it’s available for purchase. But at least we’re making progress.
I was able to do some non-quilt sewing over the weekend. I splurged on a serger a few months ago and other than thread it and briefly try it out, I wouldn’t let myself do any sewing/serging. I bought the Brother 5234 Project Runway serger (which was on sale back in early April). It’s not a high-end serger – but so far  I’ve been really happy with it. I couldn’t justify buying something too fancy for my first one.

My first projects were two large “fat quarter” bags which are great for toting quilts around. Each bag can hold 3 small quilts or 2 medium/large quilts.


Rather than use fat quarters for the first bag, I dug through my stash and found this great fabric that looks like the outside fabric was pieced. It was pieced, just not by me. It came off the bolt with the squares actually sewn together (it’s not your typical cheater cloth). I don’t remember what I had in mind  for the fabric but I had enough of it plus a matching plaid lining fabric to make the bag.
I did use fat quarters for the other version of this bag. I had  left over fat quarters from a fat quarter pack that I’d used to make a wedding quilt for my nephew and his wife. I  also had enough of a coordinating fabric to use for the lining and the ties. Ta da! Another bag but with a completely different look.


I have a third bag nearly done – except for the handles/ties. For that one I used a couple Kathy Schmitz fabric panels that I  impulsively bought several years ago. I knew I’d never use them in a quilt, so now they are a bag. I made that bag bigger than the pattern so that I wouldn’t have to cut away any of the panel. The bags are fun to sew up and they each take only about 2 hours.
I’m slowly getting my sewing room back into some semblance of order. I like how I’ve been able to situate my new serger to the left (in the photo) of my sewing machine. But it’s actually to my right when sewing. And I can push the serger to the back of the counter when I need more space by the sewing machine. Very handy.

I’ve missed blogging, but especially missed spending time reading other blogs. You’ll be hearing from me a lot more than you have in the past many months.
 

Please Vote For My Block

Hi everyone.
I submitted a block design to the Accuquilt Barn Quilt Design Contest, and my block was selected as one of the top 100. Now it’s up to you to vote for my block so I can win some great Accuquilt goodies.
My block is #29:

You can vote once per e-mail address until the 18th of April – so, please vote!

Click HERE to vote.


Thanks.

Can’t Show You the Fronts Yet…

But I can show you the backs of these quilts.
I got back the first four quilts from one of the four quilters I’m working with. (More coming next week – yippee!) My mom did the hand-sewing part of the binding. (Thanks Mom!)
So I thought I’d show you the quilting from the backs of three of the four quilts. On one of them, the quilting blended in so much with the backing fabric that it didn’t photograph well enough to show. (But in person and from the front it’s fabulous!)
This first quilt uses Minick & Simpson’s Banner Rose fabrics. Because of the Americana style, it is quilted with a subtle Americana design:

My quilter liked this design so much that she wants to teach it as a mystery quilt at her guild. The design lends itself to a mystery because it comprises lots of basic block components that are then put together into blocks and interesting borders.
This quilt uses Fig Tree fabrics from a couple of different collections. The back is from Fig Tree’s Strawberry Fields. Can you see the rose – floral quilt design? It is perfect for this quilt design – with my original blocks set with chain blocks:

The  last quilt back I’m showing off today is a totally scrappy design – using only scraps and stash fabrics. Even the star-fabric backing was already in my stash. I decided to echo the star design from the backing as the quilting. Love it!

That’s all I can show you, but I am slowly closing in on finishing all of my quilts for the book.
Bye for now.

First Came Love…

Then came marriage.

Then came Penelope in the baby carriage.

And then came the baby quilt. And for the first time in a long time, I actually had the quilt done before the baby came.

Penelope was born today – March 2, 2012.  (Some of us had been hoping for a Leap Day birth, but the trip to the hospital on the 29th was a false alarm.)

Book update: Release date is set for  June 2013. I know, that seems like forever, but I still do have a lot of work to do – and I’ll need every minute of time before my deadline  in June 2012.
I’ve been doing some freelance writing and editing for the folks at HandiQuilter. A great company with some great people. Too bad that the work  I’m doing for them doesn’t “require” them to permanently loan  me one of their quilting machines!
Bye for now. Back to my sewing room to finish the last few quilts.

My Exciting News!

I've been waiting to do this post for more than three months -- but now I can let you all know that I heard from Martingale Company / That Patchwork Place last week.

They ARE going to publish my book of quilt designs! 

We are still in the early stages so I don't know yet what the schedule will be for release. I do know that there will be 30 quilts in the book -- which means I need to design (and make) 3 more for the book.

So far I've completed 18 of the tops -- which means I've got 12 to go. I just snapped a photo of most of the tops that are done. Martingale has 3 of them, plus I was too lazy to go down stairs to get the other couple.

They all still need to be quilted and bound. Not to mention writing the instructions. So I've got a lot to do over the next few months.

Needless to say, I'm excited -- and I'll post updates as I am able.

This past weekend I went to the Heritage Quilters Winterfest quilting retreat at a great lodge up in the mountains. (Yes, it snowed and got VERRRRY cold while we were there. But my room had a gas fireplace that I used every evening to cozy things up.) Joanna Figueroa from Fig Tree Designs was the featured teacher, and I took two classes from her. She was delightful -- and did a fabulous trunk show of about 30 or so of her quilts.

I also had to post this photo of some visitors I had in my backyard a few weeks ago. It's not unusual to see a deer or two now and then. But to have 6 at one time was quite the sight!

Bye for now.

Wow! It's almost December. It's been a busy last few months. Here's a wrap-up of what I've been up to.

First, I finished my quilt book proposal about a month ago and sent it off to the publisher along with a few sample quilts. I hope that by the end of January I'll hear whether they are going to publish it (or not). In the meantime, I'm still working on sewing up the quilts that I designed for the book.

Second, I recently returned from long trip to Asia (nearly four weeks). We started in Singapore and then flew to Cambodia to see the Angkor Wat temples.

Transportation was primarily via tuk tuk. Imagine our shock when the drivers who met us at the airport were there with tuk tuks!

We flew back to Singapore and boarded a cruise ship. What a wonderful surprise when we found our cabin. We had been upgraded from a mini-suite to a full suite. It made the 16-day cruise (7 port days, 7 sea days, plus embarkation and disembarkation days) an even better experience to have the extra space, a huge balcony, as well as the extra perks that they provide to passengers in suites (free laundry, fresh fruit in the cabin, free Internet, a separate dining room for breakfast so we didn't have to fight the buffet lines, and more!)

Our first stop was Thailand. The flooding had pretty much receded in Bangkok (except during high tide) so we were able to see the highlights of the city.

The next port was Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. Great shopping. Great food. Crazy traffic. We even went to a quilt shop (not for selling fabric, but for selling handmade quilts). One of my travel companions knew about this shop because a friend of hers had been to Saigon to teach local women to make quilts to sell.

We visited another port in Vietnam -- Nha Trang. This is a resort area, but we went into the countryside to see how people live in the more rural areas. This included a visit to a kindergarten. It was fun to see the exuberance of the children -- they are same all over the world. We visited a village market and saw how people work in the rice fields.

Next stop: Hong Kong. I LOVED Hong Kong. Beautiful city. Great shopping. (We shopped mostly at the Ladies Market -- buying leather knock-off purses, iPad covers, iPhone cases, and more.)

Went to the top of Victoria Peak on the tram to see the city from above. Also saw the LDS temple.

And spent the evening watching the lights come on the skyscrapers and then the laser show before returning to our ship and departing for our next port (which was Shanghai).

What can I say about Shanghai? Huge city. Our guide said there are 23 million people, although online lists show it with 17 to 19 million (depending on the list). But regardless of who you believe, it is a huge city. We went to the top of the tallest building in the city and got a good view of all of the skyscrapers, but spent most of our time in the old city shopping (and eating).

 

Our next port was Nagasaki, Japan. Getting around the city was a snap because of its great streetcar system. We went to the Peace Park which was done to commemorate those who died as a result of the atomic bombing that took place to end World War II in the Pacific. Didn't do much shopping because the shopping areas we were at had pretty much the same stuff as we can get at home.

Our next port was Busan, Korea. We only had a half day in Busan, but we were able to go to the city center and saw the amazing (and huge) Jagalchi fish market. We really wanted to find someplace to eat Korean BBQ while in port, but although we found several restaurants, none of them served Korean BBQ beef. So, we ended up eating a late lunch on the ship.

We disembarked in Beijing, China. After checking into our hotel, we headed to the Pearl Market (which has a lot more than pearls -- although I did buy pearl earrings). We had lunch at a hot pot restaurant which was a fun experience.
And we shopped 'til we dropped. The next two days were spent touring the sights of Beijing -- Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Ming Tombs, and -- the highlight of it all, the Great Wall of China.

After nearly four weeks of travel, I was ready to go home. I had cashed in all of my frequent flyer miles to do my air travel via Business and First Class -- so even the hours spent at 35K feet weren't too bad.

I've done a lot of international travel in my life, and recovering from jet lag from this trip took more than a week. It was brutal. I'm finally sleeping normal hours again.

It was a great trip, although I'm not sure how many of the places I'm dying to go to again (except perhaps Hong Kong). But it was nice to experience Asia since I'd never been there.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, are getting ready for Christmas, and finding time to stitch, sew, bake, shop, or whatever you enjoy doing!
Bye for now.

Fabric Stash

When I started working on quilts for a possible quilting book, I gave up on keeping track of my fabric stash in and out. I  have a feeling that in spite of making 13 quilts in the past couple months, that the "in" stash still outnumbers the "out" stash.

Here are my latest stash acquisitions. I'm eager to turn them into quilts!

Fuschia and Lime:

Pink and Gray:

Red and Aqua:

Yellow and Black (whatever quilt I make just might be called  "Big Yellow Taxi"):

And this darling fabric called "Early Bird" by Cosmo Cricket:

And guess what I happily discovered this week?  Collecting fabrics and sewing quilts are two separate hobbies!  Who knew?

Fabric Basting Glue Tips

I just have to share my latest discoveries about fabric basting glue.

When I began appliqueing about 12 or so years ago, I discovered Roxanne's Glue-Baste-It. And I absolutely fell in love with the fast-drying glue for adhering applique pieces to my projects. They stuck no matter how rough I was on the project. However, I wasn't so in love with the glue tip that always seemed to be clogged.

Then when I took some classes from Kim Diehl, she shared the basting glue she was using -- Quilter's Choice. No problems with dispensing the glue -- but I found that if I didn't use the glue for a few months, it got really thick and started to dry out. Ugh!

This past January I learned that Jill Finley of Jillily Studio Quilting had repackaged the Glue-Baste-It as Appli-Glue and it had a much improved tip. In fact, when I first bought it it was in a very small little bottle (which I couldn't find in order to photograph). It worked great -- although a little on the expensive side. My only complaint was that the bottle didn't have a removeable tip -- so I couldn't re-fill  it with my two bottles of Glue-Baste-It with clogged tips. Jillily Studios now has Appli-Glue with what appears to be a much better tip (and a bigger bottle than what I bought in January). But I haven't used it because I'm now using something different.

Here's the great news! First, I've found the perfect tip and re-fillable bottle. The bottle is identical to the original Glue-Baste-It bottle. Plus, the metal tips screw on to the top of the plastic nozzle for precise, thin drops or lines of glue.  The lid fits perfectly on my Glue-Baste-It bottles that have perfectly good glue in them. Eureka! No more clogged tips.

But guess what else I just learned? You can use Elmer's Washable No-Run School Glue for fabric basting.

Note that the other Elmer's glues won't work. The School Glue is non-toxic and washes out, although it's not clear whether it is pH neutral. I did a fabric basting test comparing the Elmer's School Glue to Roxanne's Glue-Baste-It and the results were identical.  Considering it is less than $3 for 4 ounces, compared to nearly $10 for 2 ounces of the quilt-branded glue, I'll probably use the School Glue once my Glue-Baste-It runs out.

But even if you stick with the proven Glue-Baste-It, I highly recommend getting the metal tips. You'll need to get the plastic bottle too in order to have the lid that the tips fit on. Here's where I got mine online. (Unfortunately the shipping was outrageous -- but I figured it was worth it since I had about $20 worth of basting glue that was going to waste.)