I'm moving!

I'm moving!

In a little while, I will be deleting this blog and all of its posts. But the content has already been moved over to our new home, Harper Academy. If you are a follower here, you are welcome to become a follower of the new blog. Please join us over there!

At the new site, you can find quilting posts by clicking on Categories on the right-hand navigation bar, then clicking on Quilting in the Crafting category. Or click on Categories in the menu bar up near the top.

Want to be a quilter?

Hello, friends and followers!

I would like to welcome you

to a Wantobe Quilters Campaign over at Stash Manicure!

 They are having quilting supplies to giveaway 5 x a week for 12 weeks!

Supplies that will have you quilting

before you know it...From sewing machines to irons, to die cutters,

to mats, to rotary cutters, sewing baskets, scissors, batting, needles,

rolled sewing machine bags, patterns, books, magazines...everything

you could imagine to assist you in being a NEW Quilter.

Even if you are already part of this community you can win

quilting stuff too...Tuesdays and Thursdays are days for us.

All you have to do is give me your name and phone number 

and email sew I can submit this to the organizer, because if you win

anything I can win something too. 

All you have to do is be my follower and a follower

over at Sew We Quilt @ Stash Manicure....

That is all! There are over 49 Sponsors involved.

I am pretty excited to be part of this, sew should you.

I love being a QUILTER! 

P.S. You will not be eligible to win anything if you do not register

with me (or with any blogger where you see this message)

Music quilt

I apologize for being away so long. I've been very busy; I'm teaching 3 undergraduate courses instead of the usual 2; the homeschooling year is wrapping up..and I've been working on this quilt!

Our family has been at this piano studio for nine years now;; our younger daughter is now "graduating" from the studio (our older daughter graduated a couple of years ago). When the girls reached a certain skill level, the teacher at this studio passed the girls on to the next studio. So, as a goodbye present, I made her this music quilt.

You might recognize the general pattern; it is the High Light pattern (I made one in black/white/yellow).

The quilt actually looks better in person. The pictures could certainly be better than this, but, hey, I was finishing this quilt right up to the minute. I even sewed on the label and clipped threads in the car on the way to the event!

I may be busy, but I somehow must find a way to begin to piece more intricate quilts. I resort to the big block quilts because I don't ever really have a lot of time to quilt. But I'd like to slowly start piecing quilts with blocks that finish smaller than 12". Right now, I have a few that I have done and need to finish up. After that, I think I'll be doing more piecing...

Blogger's Quilt Festival May 2011

(It's ABOUT TIME that Blogger let me create this post! Geez.)

Here is my entry for the spring Blogger's Quilt Fest 2011. (NOTE: Don't miss the I Spy rhyme, below, that goes with this!)

I talked about this quilt before, but I'll quickly discuss it again. It is a string quilt, a charm quilt (no two fabrics are alike), and an I Spy quilt! Here's the I Spy rhyme my younger daughter and I wrote:

I spy bunny ears, a butterfly, a tree,
Dogs, a pepper, and some broccoli.

I spy a giraffe, a horse, some French fries,

An eggplant, an orange, and owls so wise.

I spy a fortune cookie, a stack of dishes,

A peacock, a black motorcycle, a cat, and fishes.

I spy a pumpkin, a duck, a snake,

A guitar, yellow sunflowers, and a slice of cake.

Can you find all of the things in the rhyme in the quilt? I have close-up photos of the quilt in the initial post of this quilt (and  in my flickr photostream) to enable you to see the fabrics more closely.

This was my first string quilt, my first charm quilt, and my first I Spy quilt. I don't know what on earth possessed me to try to do all three in one quilt. It was not easy, and I will never do that again! I've since done a couple of string quilts that were not nearly this tough, because I didn't worry about repeating fabrics, or the I Spy aspect, either. I may do an I Spy quilt again, or a charm quilt again (maybe), but not all three in one!

I absolutely love this quilt; I think the colors and the fabrics are so bright and fun!

Purple charm square exchange

Wow; has it really been a month since I last blogged here? I've traveled, finished up teaching a couple of undergraduate classes, etc. etc...

Photo source: Amazon/Moda

I got two purple charm squares in the mail recently, as part of an exchange. Now, I need to invite four of you to join me in this! Who's game? All you have to do is send two--just two--purple 6" charm squares to one person, and invite four others.

Let me know; this is going to be fun!

Sunday State of the Stash Report 4/10/11

I, um, kinda fell of the wagon.

Now, in my defense, I bought pretty much only what I specifically needed for a couple of specific projects. But, I also used some up, so it's about a wash.

March 27 - April 9
In: 4 yds
Out: 4 yds

YTD
In: 6 yds
Out: 116 yds
Net: -110 yds

Brown Bag Quilt - revealed

I completed the quilting and binding of my brown bag quilt late last night (or, early this morning is more accurate).

As part of the Brown Bag Quilt (BBQ) challenge, you were given a swap partner, and the two of you traded 2 yards of fabrics that you either didn't like, or would probably never use. The fabrics shown above are the fabrics I received last fall. Interesting color palette, but I noted that not all of the fabrics were a regular 100% quilting cotton. As I was to find out later, this posed quite an interesting challenge when it came time to cut these up and piece them into a quilt top. And, just to add to the mix, the fabrics on the right were 7" x WOF. Now, that's unusual.


Well, here's the completed quilt:

I'd been wanting to try the Square in a Square quilt pattern anyway, and so I decided to try it with these BBQ fabrics. The squares were 5" more or less, and I cut 2.5" strips out of the other fabrics. With the remaining strips that were about 2" or so, I used them on the back, to sample yet another quilt I'd seen that I wanted to try:

The quilt is roughly 48" x 64". With the exception of the border fabrics, binding fabric, and backing fabric, and maybe one small cut of fabric for the blocks, I used just about all of the fabric I'd received.

This was a fun project. I'd been reducing/eliminating my fabric purchases for some time now, and this challenge fell right in line with that; I had to use the fabric I was given, and while I could add fabric from my stash, I could only add 1 cut of purchased fabric. Sadly, I had enough stash fabrics that coordinated with this, that I didn't even have to go and buy anything.

Oops; don't mind those loose strings that I need to cut off. :)


It will be a gift quilt. This is definitely a little different from what I normally do, but I don't think it came out too bad. What do you think?

Wordless Wednesday

BBQ and Design Wall

Remember this BBQ, or Brown Bag Quilt contest?

http://www.brownbagquiltcontest.blogspot.com/

Remember that the due date is April 1st?


Well, I've completed all the blocks for my BBQ, and they are on my design wall:

The lighting is rather poor in here, which is why the photo is not well lit. Touching it up with Picnik only goes so far. At any rate, I should be done on time with this quilt. See? Even when I don't blog, I am busy.

Sunday State of the Stash Report 3/27/11

More yardage out last week!

March 20 - March 26
In: 0 yds
Out: 24 yds


YTD
In: 2 yds
Out: 112 yds
Net: -110 yds