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Saturday, October 29, 2011

On and On and On

Here's the November 1 (a little early ) photo of the Hexie flimsy....  I am loving this so much, but boy oh boy is it taking a loooooooong time !!!! 

Happy Saturday night,

Kate



It's Gonna Work !!!!

Yippee - I have three sides of the pieced border on - and I can tell I have enough fabric to finish the borders!!! As you can see, I still have work to do on the corners, but I am so excited that I'm going to make it all the way around!

 And, just for a smile, here are my petunias..  we cut them way back a few weeks ago, and they just filled back in and started blooming again !!  And, yes, that's my little fall tomato on the left.. I doubt it will ripen, but it is fun to see this late in the season.  

Hope everyone is looking forward to a great quilty weekend!

Kate

Monday, October 24, 2011

Yummy Pieced Borders

I'm having the BEST time making this pieced border...  this is a pattern by Linda Ballard, but her pattern does not give a design for the borders, but leaves it up to the quilter - many put an applique border on, like in her photo - but I am playing with a pieced border...



I can't decide if the border should go all the way around, or if it should be only a partial border, one of those L in the bottom corner, and an upside down L in the top right -  Given that I'm not sure if I have enough of the fabrics to do a complete border, the decision might be made for me... we will just have to wait and see!   

I plan a third border, in solid brown, to finish it off... 

Happy Quilting,
Kate


Sunday, October 23, 2011

By-Products

Hi everyone;;;

You know that commercial where the lady is looking at the label on cat food and turns up her nose and says "ewwww, chicken by-products".............like her cat is going to be damaged by a little bit of chicken head, or eyeball...............  the same cat that would eat a whole mouse in a second, or a lizard, or some weird bug................. I promise you, most kitties think by-products are Yum, Yum!!

Well, I've been thinking about quilts...  especially scrap quilts...  in a way -  they are like by-products...  made from the left-over part...  So, on that lovely thought, here is what I assembled yesterday from my string scraps:  

You will remember these blocks from a few posts ago:






Well, assembled, they turn into this bright and cheery look.  
And, the bonus triangles from the corners are very very cute made into pinwheels:
A friend has sent the Quilting Professor a precious gift from Salzburg, home of Mozart;  this tiny violin , bow, and case... and, yes, that is a 2.5 inch square it is laying on.  It's just adorable.  thanks, great friend. 

So, the day is just beginning here on the west coast - I must tidy up a bit as the cleaning lady comes tomorrow (lord bless the cleaning lady).... and must work on a couple of charity quilts that need to be finished and sent to their new homes.  And, of course.... a bit more work with the by-products to move forward on the lovely yellow flimsy.

Happy Sunday quilting,
Kate





Friday, October 21, 2011

EARTHQUAKE ...... and PENGUINS

oh my goodness - tonight I was calmly basting a quilt when the upstairs of the house started shaking , like a big wind was blowing through - then the DOWNSTAIRS started shaking... it was my first earthquake experience...  only a 4.0...  that's enough for me...

I have to share this photo - knitters in New Zealand are knitting little sweater jumpers for penguins who were caught in an oil spill and can't fluff their feathers to stay warm... is that adorable or what???? 

Kate

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Eye Candy from Pacific International Quilt Festival

I lLove Living Close to this Fantastic Festival !!!!
Here's some eye candy for you...

Here's the Grand Prize Winner:
 this one is the winner of the World Competition:
 The rest are ones I really liked:::: 





oh - did I forget to tell you???

  I made all of these quilts !!!!

ok, I exaggerate - i made none of these quilts...wish I had... congrats to those who did...

Kate

Quilt Photography Class

Hi all - yesterday I went to Pacific International Quilt Festival !!!! yippeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Wow, but the quilts are just incredible...  photos to come later today.
For the moment I write about the class I took on quilt photography...  you know... here's how I do it now:
Honey, will you hold a quilt up?
Over there, in front of the louvers.
No, it's too bright., try over here.
ok - hold it up... keep holding it.
Right hand higher - no, left hand higher.
higher, please?
And, then, of course, the photo is too dark, too light, crooker, and has feet and hands.  I do know how to crop the photo, and that's about it...
Well - yesterday, I "went to the next level"... took a class on quilt photography.

Well - I learned I have two choices:
1) I can spend a BOAT load of money to get ready to photograph that prize-winning quilt when I get it done ;  or
2) I can just buy a few things and my photography will be a lot better!  (and heck, when I make that award-winner, I can have someone photograph it)

I'm so glad to have choice no. 2., and I can't wait to get started..

The teacher was Gregory Case, who lives at www.gregorycase.com...  and does lots of fabulous quilty-things with a camera...  he did such a nice job of handling the various skill levels in the class..
IT WAS SO MUCH FUN !!!! 

Here's to learning..

Kate

Friday, October 14, 2011

Three for NYC - Victoria here they come !


Have you read about the charity quilt initiative called BASICS?  I't's a project to give quilts to families in NYC who used to be homeless, and are now re-entering their own homes.  It is hosted by Victoria of Bumble Beans, and you can read about it here:
http://bumblebeansbasics.com/

I'm sending these three quilts... as soon as I can box them up... the one above is from a swap of 30's blocks that happened last year with some online quilters.  This next one, which did not photograph very well, is part denim, from the giant denim stash I have from a donation by Cone Mills of High Point, North Carolina.  It's a great quilt for a pre-teen - very snuggly.

 The last one is kid-sized, a string quilt - also snuggly with the extra layer of foundation to stabilize the strings.
I hope these quilts help some families to be warm and to feel cared for...

If you have an extra quilt, send it to NYC...  Victoria will personally distribute it to one of these wonderful families who are working hard to emerge from a difficult time... it will be much loved, I think.

Happy Weekend to all,

Kate

Thursday, October 13, 2011

PIQF

Saturday I'm going to the Pacific International Quilt Festival !!!!  Yippee!!!!

Saturday morning I will just enjoy the quilts on display - will take some pics, too!

Saturday afternoon I'm taking a class - on Quilt Photography!  Won't that be cool????
Fun, fun - wish you could come, too...

Kate

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Another RRCB flimsy is Born!

Hi all - at long last, the top of last year's Bonnie Hunter mystery, Roll Roll Cotton Bowl, is complete!

... and that's DH, helpig to hold it up - boy it's BIG!!!! 

...............i will think about quilting it on another day...

I think I will go sew on something tiny now!

Kate

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Finishes

I LOVE FINISHES!!!

And one of these has quite a story::

The story begins in NORTH CAROLINA - when I lived there, our Linus Quilt group was given enormous quantities of denim by Cone Mills . Cone is a long-time NC textile mill.   It was all legs of jeans - just legs...  with side seams and hems at the top and bottom of the legs, and a big metal ring in it to hang it up.  Turns out they make up legs in all the various colors of denim to use when they are selling their products - and then later they discard all those legs - so we got boxes and boxes of legs...  I took home FOUR GIGANTIC BOXES of legs!!!!

So, not long after, I moved - and moved four boxes of denim legs  - to New York!  While we lived there, I cut all the legs up, discarding the hems, and made lovely 6 1/2 inch strips, with the side seam down the center of the strips... yummy for quilts.  So now it was only THREE BINS of strips of legs!!! 
..... and I made 4-5 quilts using that denim, mixed with other fabrics to keep the quilts moderate weight.

Well - then we moved to CALIFORNIA - and the denim came west...and now this quilt has emerged from the denim bins... to be donated to the local guild - perfect for a teen..  (oh my, there's plenty of denim left - I better get busy) .  I truly think I can make denim quilts for another 20 years before I run out - but oh they are so very warm and snuggly, and rough and tumble for daily use..

 I also got this small top quilted up for the Sunshine Yahoo Guild - someone else made the top - I think it's quite pleasing... still have to sew down the binding... 
So - that's my finishes for now...  meanwhile I am closing in on finishing the top of the Bonnie Hunter Roll, Roll Cotton Bowl quilt...  I have vowed to work on it a bit every day til its done - and I am getting very close - just one more border to put on... 

I've been thinking a lot lately about my UFOs...  somehow I manage to finish all these donation quilts, but my larger, more substantial pieces are not getting completed... hmmm - need to give that some serious thought...  stay tuned and I'll tell you when I get that figured out. 

Happy Quilting, everyone,
Kate

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

A Halloween Tomato????

Hello everyone - my garden has just gone nuts... Indian summer just ended, and it rained for the first time since last May - (remember I live in the California Bay area, where it doesn't rain all summer)... and the evenings turned cool enough to need a blanket  quilt.    So now our outside plants have gone berserk:  These are my two-year old petunias - trimmed back for the winter, but still blooming away.

And this red plant is finally blooming again after a nasty run-in with golden aphids..................

 And - - oh - - look - OUR FIRST TOMATO OF THE SEASON - - YES, REALLY.  This poor tomato plant languished all summer, and NOW it grows a tomato...  Wouldn't it be a kick if it ripened????  Oh well, we will see... I do love a homegrown tomato, but not usually in November...
nuts, nuts.   I will return to my sewing machine where I am quilting a simple crosshatch on a charity quilt... it's lovely , though, and quite fun to quilt.  I love the way it begins my feeling like this big loose thing, and a bit later it starts feeling like a single unit, as the layers start to be connected...

Kate

Sunday, October 2, 2011

A Love Affair with Scraps

Happy Sunday Evening to All - and I hope you had a fun quilty weekend.  I spent a lot of time 'processing'...  lots of prep work - cutting bindings, cutting borders, making sandwiches, etc. 

Now I have a nice stack of charity quilts ready to quilt:::I like to see them all snuggled up, inside out... there's a fourth one hiding at the bottom...
and, after doing the sandwiching, I set to work on that basket of strings I had overflowing on my sewing table:  
These are all strips cut off the edges of things when the piece gets too small to go back on the shelf, or the trimmings from the edges of the backs of quilts.  I don't know how the pile gets so big so fast - it just does... and about a year ago I promised myself to STOP filling up plastic storage bins with scraps - they simply must be sewn up into SOMETHING - and for a year, I've created no new scrap bins - this is as bad as the strips can get (I'll confess later about the odd-shaped pieces that are hidden under the cutting table)
I sewedsome of  the strips into strip sets - LOTS of strip sets........  and then the strip sets into 6 1/2 inch squares:
 And turned the squares into snowball blocks with some bright yellow fabric.  I'm not sure what I will do with these, but I like them... 

 And - I got lots of cute little bonus triangles when I trimmed up the snowball blocks... aren't they cute - oh dear - now I need to think of something to do with THOSE !!!!

So - after sewing, and cutting, and sewing, and ironing - is the basket empty now???

OF COURSE NOT - ITS THE MAGIC SCRAP BASKET - it lasts forever!!!  I swear it's amazing - it is dramatically less piled up, but it's still a long way from empty ...... 
..............just a few scraps - and those will go into a big bag that I am collecting for someone who uses even the tiniest scraps... 

It feels SO good to make good use of these left-over pieces of fabric...  I love scraps...

Hope everyone is looking forward to a good week...

Kate

ps:  Blogger just seems to like this little duplicate photo so much it won't let me delete it ..... sometimes it has a mind of its own!!!
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