Fall Quilt...

On Halloween I saw this cool wooden construction and thought it was a quilt.



Today, blustery, cold, rain pelting down, I found out it IS a quilt. Will start quilting tonight so I can sit under it soon!!

Orphan Block, Grocery Bag Quilt #4, 50" x 80"

The Orphan Blocks from the Innovative Scrap Piecing Workshop, by Nifty and me, are finally set into a Camp Erin Quilt. It was a battle, which probably shows, but I had lots of practice with curved-seamed piecing. Enough to "get that out of my system."

Cindy's Quilt of the Palouse from Jean Wells Workshop in September

Wonderful interpretation of eastern WA landscape. She still has to add foreground detail, and is almost finished with quilting.

20"x 24"

Basket top finished

It was crazy fun!

Basket blocks inspired by Gwen Marston's Collaborative Quilting II.. 

A baby quilt for our niece's new born!

Grocery Bag III, 50"x80"

Ragamuffin top done.

These are all orphan blocks donated to me by fellow bloggers.... 

I'm happy to say it's done at 109" X 111"

Nifty Quilts does Matisse Cutout

October Rebels: Patty's Framed Square

Grocery Bag Workshop, abandoned blocks, views 1 & 2

Needs a little work, but what an engaging project.

Basket full of Scraps

I am having way too much fun to make just one or two!
It is nice to use up all your scraps and these baskets are perfect for collecting scraps.

I left a little tutorial ( kind of.. sort of..) here with more pictures.

Improvisational Scrap Quilting Workshop

Buffy and I led a workshop yesterday for our local quilting guild. Ten talented and enthusiastic souls showed up with their scraps. We gave them 20 minutes to make each block, with Buffy's advice, "Don't think. Sew!" Look what they made in the first hour! We couldn't get it all in one photo.




Buffy added the dark and light strips, with Anna Williams inspiration. Aren't these gals amazing!

Basket full of Scraps

This morning's crazy patch.

Cindy's Sunshine and Shadow Quilt

A Little Note Arrives...

A couple of years ago I went to Sisters, Oregon, with Lee Ann and Cynthia for the annual quilt show, Gees Bend workshop et al. I threw myself into it that year and even made a block to send for the square competition. The group they put my block in was won by a woman from Colorado, and the other day I got a nice note with a photo of the finished quilt. I remember thinking my block was really in the spirit of Gees Bend (hah! as if...). Those who know me can probably find it. Hint: it involves turquoise but it doesn't involve chickens...(the challenge was that they sent out the fabric and you could add one color of your own...)

September Rebels, Mary's 9-patch

September Rebels, Cindy's Bright Quilt

Take an Ugly...

A few years ago, when the Rebels group was beginning, we gave ourselves the assignment to "take an ugly and make something with it."

Some shopped for quilting fabric at the thrift store for the first time. I had an old, faded, holey piece from my sister-in-law, Bonnie, (the black floral background,) and sewed on some 4 patches from a charm pack experiment. The border is a long strip I picked up at an antique store. It looks like it was pieced from a garment. Were they going to make a rug with it?

Anyway, I thought it needed texture, so added embroidery floss ties and buttons from Grammy's button box. Ah, the memories. I used to play with those as a little girl.

This is my first experiment with "out of the box" quilt making, thanks to Buffy and the Rebels!

Roberta's Camp Erin Quilt

Camp Erin is for children who have lost a primary family member (parent or sibling), and are experiencing grief. Roberta asks for tops that are 50" x 80". She then pieces backs and quilts them. Before the tops are quilted they are used as table cloths in the eating area at the Quilters Anonymous Guild Show in the spring. (Covered with plastic, of course)

September Rebels: Cindy's Fishy Quilt

September Rebels: Mary's Quilt

Julie taught art at the same school where Mary was a teacher. Mary's boys both took her art classes.

Mary's still a new quilter, but we are moving her right along and she is already "doing her own work."

September Rebels: Dawn's Art Quilt

September Rebels: Patty's Batik Diamonds

Front and back (with label). Patty really likes batiks.

Nifty Quilts "15" of fun", queen size quilt

She started with a 5 sided scrap, and added to it randomly, and pulled scraps blindly from scrap box. To my eye: great use of white and dark darks to make it sparkle. Also note the stripes and polka dots for fun.

Off-the-floor

Shadow on deck of Washington State Ferry

Back from Sisters, OR

Cindy, Mary, and Buffy went to Jean Wells workshop in Sisters last week. She is a very good teacher with extreme depth of knowledge from running her quilt shop for over 36 years. The workshop was on Intuitive Landscape quilts. Projects to follow as they are finished. The focus was on color and design. She introduced us to the Zen-tangles, which we hadn't seen before. See the books at www.zentangle.com I've ordered the first 3, because I believe there are great machine quilting ideas here. All of my workshops at Sisters have been first rate. It's a wonderful destination. Beautiful weather and scenery and over all small town ambience.

The Rocking Chair

I was digging through some old files, and came across these two quilts... 

This above was inspired by my grandmothers rocking chair that she sat in, to quilt... 

I think of her, and I can see her sitting in her wood rocking chair 

with her faded wall paper around her and floral pictures on the wall...

And this, for a good laugh, is the first quilt I ever made,

in it's now, VERY MUCH LOVED, condition...

eek! to funny.

More of Patty's Half-square Triangles, front & back

Rebels, 9/2010

Elda Wolfe

 Elda Wolfe, My late Grandmother, was a lovely Crazy Quilter....

She inspires nearly everything I do...

This is a pillow I have of hers, (front and back)

16" X 16"

Patty H. Half-Square Triangles Quilt, Rebels, 9/2010

Buffy's second machine applique quilt, 36"x39"

These pieces are a little small to do easily with machine applique, but it can be done. Also did a little machine embroidery embellishment with Sulky rayon threads. I like the Kaffe border on the traditional patterned quilt. Also added a piping in the border, because I'd just had a class on that.

Buffy's first machine applique quilt, 65" square

Pattern by Barbara Brackman. Technique from QUILTMAKER'S GUIDE TO FINE MACHINE APPLIQUE by Karla Menaugh & Cherie Ralston, Sunflower Pattern Co-operative, 2002

This book jumped off the shelf into my hands in 2002, and I've enjoyed machine applique ever since.

Roberta Horton Workshop, on Yukata cloth, 2006, 28"x34"

More from Buffy's archives

Pattern from book by Eli Sienkiewicz, SPOKEN WITHOUT A WORD. Kaffe shot cottons, and silk. This is from 2005, when I was more serious about quilting. Machine applique and machine quilted. As I recall it was about 20" square.

Jocky Cap Quilt from Kaffe Museum Book, 35"x46"

Started with a kit I picked up in Houston in about 2005, but except for the applique, I started using my own fabrics. The kit fabrics were a little too dull. I like the contemporary applique with the repro fabrics. Hand quilting with red thread, a forever project. Hand pieced, with machine applique.

Ragamuffin

Yes, I should be cleaning.

But I kept playing with all the lovely Orphan Blocks

for my Ragamuffin quilt...

and now, I'm about ready to sew it all together!

Right after I finish cleaning...

;-)

Premie quilt shown at guild

From Buffy's archives, Square Clamshell Block

Auditioning Binding for Dawn's Quilt, August 2010, Rebels

She decided to not use a binding, but to use a facing to better show the border.

Another great quilt from the Sisters 2010 show