Jack-O-Planter

Our Bee Friends Quilt Group has a "stay at home" quilt retreat 4 times a year.  I know I have mentioned it before, but I just love those weekends.  We start at 3:00 on Thursday afternoon and go until 3:00 on Saturday afternoon.  We held our fourth and final one of the year, October 27th - 29th, right before Halloween.

My friend, Gerrie, brought a bunch of quilt patterns, marked down to one dollar, that were in her daughters garage sale, but they didn't sell.  She offered them to us for free, if we would just take them.  So, being the nice friend - who, by the way, doesn't need anymore patterns or junk in her house - I went over to look at what she had.  I looked them over and said "no, thank you", but the more we stood there and talked, there were two patterns that kept calling my name.  So, I said I would take them.  This was on Thursday night.  This pumpkin pattern kept yelling at me to make it so, that night when I got home, I reached into the batik buckets and pulled, without really looking, a bunch of batiks to make this quilt.  Did I tell you that this pattern was done in dark wools?  It was very country/primitive looking, but there was something about it that I liked.  I don't really know why I pulled batiks, that wasn't the plan before I got into my quilt studio, but that is what I came up with for this quilt.  After school, when I got to the quilt-in, I started drawing off the pattern onto the paperbacked fusible I also pulled Thursday night.  There were some fabrics that didn't work at all and some that only a bit of it would work.  I wanted the background to be a darker fabric, but I didn't have enough to make it work and it really wasn't dark enough for me.  This blue fabric was the only other piece that was large enough to use as the background.  Then, I went from there, selecting one by one the fabrics I was going to use for each piece.  The only one I re-did was the middle of the eyes.  The second color was going to be that dark orange and then the little bit was a dark blue and there just wasn't enough contrast.  Everything else stayed the same as what I haphazardly decided on, even the mouth - which I thought was too busy, but after adding the stitching for the teeth, it needed to be that dark.  Of course, once I ironed it on, it was staying there no matter what. 

This is really not the final picture.  I have totally finished it.  Yep, bound, hanging sleeve and label!  Amazing, I know.  It is ready to put out next year.  It also has these curly lines of perle cotton stitching that twirl out from the jack-o-lantern and some buttons.  It is really cute and I thought I had that picture, but nope, you only get the partially finished product.  At least it is a better picture than the previous ones and it, too, was taken with my tablet.  So, now I have a cheery halloween quilt to hang.  I have also finished the top from the other pattern  - oh, wait, the funny part of this whole thing?  After I started working on this quilt top, Gerrie decided she really liked the pattern and took it back to make her one, also!!  I told her I would sell it to her for one dollar, but she wasn't going for that!

Two new small quilts

Over a year ago, my friend Kathy and I joined an Art Quilt Guild in Lubbock.  The first meeting we attended we made a wonderful black/white top. I don't have mine finished to show you because I am not sure what exactly or how exactly I want it to be.  It was a lot of fun to make and just to be sitting in that room with about 14 other art quilters was inspiring.  Then, with the scraps and other things we made a couple of other projects.  This is one of the projects.  I used the leftover cutout pieces from my black fabric and made some more of that pattern in other colors.  I put it on a lime green background and there it was for almost a year.  A couple of weeks ago I decided to make it into a quilt.  I had fun quilting around the edges and off the edges.  It is bound in dark purple and is about the size of a sheet of paper.  (I don't have exact measurments.)

One of the assignments from that day was for strips and one shape.  I made this next quilt top and invisioned fish swimming among the reeds and seaweeds in a lake.  Everyone else that saw it just went, "yeah, that's good."  They couldn't see my vision.  After I quilted it, my friends thought it was wonderful.  Of course, now you can clearly tell that those black blobs are actually fish.  It all makes sense now. 

Okay, I can't make this picture turn the way I want so just turn your head to the left to see it the way it is supposed to be seen.  It is also about the size of a piece of paper. 

McDuffy Quilt

this isn't a very good picture and I apologize for that.  I am still a little bit in limbo computer-wise, but I am trying to make a go of it between several electronical devices.  I e-mailed this picture to my school computer three days ago and it finally showed up today.  It's a little bit slow, but that is probably due to needing to be re-charged.  Who knows.  I will try and do better in the future.  (If I can figure out the new high tech devices) 

this quilt is my version of the schnibble McDuffy.  I have loved that pattern since I first saw it and now I have finally gotten around to making one.  A couple of weeks ago, Midland Quilter's Guild, held their bi-annually quilt show.  that is where I picked up the charm packs, Etchings.  I loved the front of that pack and flipping through the stack, I thought it would make a great quilt.  After opening up the packet, I realized that there were a lot - - I mean a lot - - of light colored fabrics.  I don't usually work with light colored fabrics so putting this together was a bit of a challenge for me - not piecing it - that was simple - just dividing the lights from the darks.  there were more lights than darks so some of the fabrics are both a light and a dark depending on which other fabric it is paired with.  I like the look of this quilt (sorry again about the poor quality) it might be turned into a baby quilt for someone since I have about 6 friends and family that are pregnant and due sometime in the early new year!!  It's baby crazy here now adays.  Be looking for more from me in the near future since this isn't the only picture I e-mailed to my school address.  I am back to blogging!  It feels soooo good.  Now it's back into the kitchen for me and my students.