Winter Wanderings

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

cards

I've thought of making my own cards to share with family and friends for years ... and this year, with the season here (early for me - Chanukah merged with Thanksgiving - a true rarity!), and being without a great family photo to share across the world .... I pulled out some old fabrics and had fun playing ...

This fabric was one I had in my stash, leftovers from a round robin I participated in years ago. One of the quilts in our circle had a Christmas theme. I used Wonder Under (or was it Misty Fuse?) to adhere the fabric Santas to the card fronts. Then I smeared some Elmer's glitter glue to seal the edges down. Inside: "Ho, Ho, Hoping you're having a wonderful holiday" or another similar Ho-Ho-Ho sentiment, along with a personal note and update of annual newsy-ness.

My mitten cards were simpler and used leftover strips of batting and backing fabric from an earlier quilt. I cut mitten shapes first, then stitched them directly onto the card fronts. I added an extra layer or two of the batting on the cuff, as needed. Sentiment: "Warm Wishes for a Wonderful New Year"

Now to ponder whether to come up with a new card design, or try to upscale these a bit - perhaps adding something from Stampin' Up. I must check in with my cousin, Kimberly Myers, one of the Stampin' Up demonstrators. Click here for her story.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Modern Quilt Guild meet-ups!

National Meet Up during Market was great fun as was the Houston Meet Up during Festival.

These are a few of the freebies I picked up at the Market Meet-Up with the National Modern Quilt Guild crowd. Thank you Windham Fabrics for sharing these with us! My favorites are Marcia Derse's fabric line.

I most enjoyed meeting so many, especially visiting with Jacquie Gering! Click here for her blog, Tallgrass Prairie Studio. I admit I was a little starstruck at first as I had just finished piecing a new quilt top for my son inspired by a pattern in her book Quilting Modern.

It's a great book -- be sure to look for it at your local quilt shop (or dare I suggest Amazon?).

Oh, and I will share my quilttop -- or quilt -- as soon as the last border is sewn on .... but here is a previous post showing the first blocks.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Letter Carriers

I like sharing some of my favorite quilts from the International Quilt Association's judged show held in Houston during the International Quilt Market and Festival. The winners are revealed on Tuesday evening, after Quilt Market has closed and before Quilt Festival has opened.

In the Mixed Technique category, sponsored by Robert Kaufman Co., this delightful quilt caught my eye. It was created by Janet Stone from Overland Park, Kansas and is titled "Letter Carriers". This quilt won a first place ribbon! (Validation that someone else likes the same quilts that I do!)

The quilt is an original design created by Janet Stone. It features a variety of techniques such as: weaving, machine piecing and raw-edge applique (also by machine). Decorative touches include prairie points, half penny circle edging, hand-covered buttons, and both hand-sewn and hot-fixed embellishments. There are wood, metal, plastic and glass embellishments - can you spy them?

Janet explains that a love of basket blocks sparked the idea to create baskets by hand-weaving new fabrics together. She also created twenty six new baskets to adorn the sides of the quilt, each with a single letter embroidered with in it.

I enjoy the variety of basket blocks, as well as the tucked-in alphabet. Is it possible that teaching my two and three year-old students has increased my interest in alphabet quilts? I love alphabet samplers too -- the embroidered samplers -- both old antique samplers and new modern-day ones.

It is a lovely quilt! Hopefully Janet will be publishing a pattern for it one day!

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Market finds

Here are a few of my Market finds. To think I was only wandering the floor for the last hour of Market, too.

First: I've never noticed this magazine before

Primitive Quilts and Projects magazine has 4 beautiful issues every year. Each one is filled with 15 or more cute cute cute projects in quilting, rug-hooking and wool embroidery too. I may have to subscribe to this new magazine soon ... check out their website here: http://www.primitivequiltsandprojects.com/

I've just signed up for their newsletter, and see that they share free projects on the website too. Naturally they are on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest too (aren't we all? or almost all?)

The Warm Company had packaged these cute little bundles -- a collection of all their products. I never knew there were so many options available in batting and all from the same company!

I think I will stitch up a little mini-series and use these little samples for the batting in this new mini-series (that is still percolating in my mind).

Or I may need to try sewing with this warm fleece first...

I wonder how it will work up in a purse or totebag pattern?

The Warm Company also produces Steam-a-Seam and Steam-a-Seam 2. If you haven't heard, they have hit a bit of a snag is supplying this fabulous product to all of us. You can read all about it here, or watch for the latest updates on their website: warmcompany.com

The worst part of Market this year? Not having my friends from Chicago, IL and Fond du Lac, WI in town to share Market with.

The best part of Market? Seeing all the quilt exhibits in a pleasant manner (no hordes crowding around each fabulous quilt! but then the winners for the IQA judged show are not announced until one day after Market closes).

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Wool!

In many previous Quilt Festivals I have admired Mary Flanagan's Woolens - from the wonderful colors of her hand-dyed wool fabrics and the great Valdani threads to the fun embroidery patterns and projects. For many years I have resisted the urge to buy - for fear that the purchased goods would only lie dormant with so many other bags and boxes of previous Quilt Festival projects.

This year was different. My eye was first grabbed by some wonderful packets of woolen strips and the lure worked! I was pulled into the booth (not against my will, promise! just had to touch some of these wonderfully rich colors). I started by picking up a woolen charm pack in one hand while grabbing 2 patterns in the other hand! I spent a long time drooling over the wonderful colors and choices as I labored to narrow down my selection......

This is what came home with me that day.

Stay tuned as I am determined to make something (or several somethings) with my purchase. Perhaps I will stitch up this pattern first ...

To order your own Mary Flanagan Woolens (believe me, they are luscious hand-dyed woolens!) check out her website: http://www.mfwoolens.com/

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Aloha!

The International Quilt Festival comes to Houston every year with exhibits of gorgeous quilts, vendors offering lots to buy, and classes covering a variety of quilting topics. The first class that I took this year was "Meet Me In Hawaii" with Kathy Kansier.

It was a fabulous class with the one big snafu being that the published supply list for the class did not include paper scissors, fine-tip embroidery scissors, or pins. Fortunately Kathy had some scissors for sale and many were happy to take turns with theirs (if they had them). We were in a classroom supplied with sewing machines, so we need not lug a machine (whew!).

Hawaiian Applique

This Kathy's class quilt which she shared, suggesting that we lay it down in the hallway to get photos of the full quilt. The one drawback was that more than one person walking by did not notice there was a quilt on the floor. We were standing around its edges taking photos, yet they cut between us and stepped onto the quilt! Yikes!!

In our three-hour class, everyone drew and cut their own original pattern to use for their Hawaiian applique block. Once the design was cut from freezer paper, it was traced and cut from fabric provided in the class kit. Then it was fused to the background (white or black) and machine applique'd before class ended. An impressive amount of learning, cutting and stitching was completed together that night.

This is my block, my original design. I was perhaps the only one to not finish my applique in the class.... It was my second block that I cut out, as my first design was even more detailed and intricate. Actually the true reason might be that I did not have the proper supplies. Fortunately I was seated next to a generous soul who happily shared her newly purchased scissors. Thank you Lish!!!

Kathy kept telling us that designing these blocks is addictive and I believe she is right! Since finishing my first block at home, I pulled out some freezer paper one evening and cut the three designs below. They will be stitched down soon, once I purchase yardage of solid Kona cotton white fabric and Wonder Under (for fusing).

These images are the reverse of my intended design. You see the paper patterns laid on top of different batik fabrics. Each block will be a batik in the center of the block, the design, that is stitched onto a background of white. If I can cut the batik fabric carefully, I might be able to fuse these designs as they appear here -- where the batik is stitched down on the edges, leaving the white design in the center. This will give me the positive and the negative of each design. Hmmm, I will have to try hard to do this.

Can you see the pineapple in the design below? It is meant to be a pineapple, not a pomegranate.

Below are the remnants from each design above. Can you match each triangle to their coordinating blocks above?

Answer key: The one on the far left is the pattern on orange/red above; the middle triangle is the pineapple block and the far right matches to the top pattern on blue above.

Just seeing them here is making me itchy to get sewing again!

Friday, November 1, 2013

Downtown on a Saturday Night!

Come one, Come all .... You are officially invited to attend the Houston Modern Quilt Guild Meet-Up this Saturday (November 2, 2013) from 8:00pm to 10:00pm in the Hilton Americas Lobby Bar during the International Quilt Festival
(Note: In case you didn't know, the Quilt Festival is taking place in the George R. Brown Convention Center in lovely downtown Houston, Texas this weekend.)

The gathering is hosted by the Houston Modern Quilt Guild (of which I am a member!). There are swag-bags for the first 50 who join us (be sure to sign-in to win!) and 17 more fabulous giveaways too (dare I say "door prize?"). Here are a few of the prizes waiting to go to new homes.