Calling All Kona Cotton Fans! Treasure Hunt Request & Giveaway

I am a self-proclaimed Kona Cotton Snob.  I simply will not use any other solid fabric line in my quilts.  I covet my Robert Kaufman Color Card, and I have a dream of one day owning each and every one of the 219 colors available.

If I have to rely on my own wallet and travels to accomplish this feat, it will take me a number of years to acquire each color.  I was willing to wait for however long it took, but I've just had an idea for a series of quilts, and now, well - that just won't do.  I know I should be preparing for my trip to Quilt Market, but... well... I can't help when ideas come & I have to put them out there before they are lost.

Not every store carries every color (obviously) so it's hard to find all the colors locally.  I can order them wholesale by the bolt, but I don't need 219 bolts of fabric, and wouldn't know where to put them if I had them.  [Ok... let's be honest here.  If I had them, I'd probably pull all the clothes out of my closet & put them there.  Who needs nice, neat clothes hung up anyway? It's overrated.]

So can you help me?  I need five rectangles of each fabric - 3" x 5".  This size should fit pretty easily in a standard envelope with regular postage.  They can also be cut from as little as 1/8 yard (or slightly less, but a lot of shops won't cut yardage less than that, and you need enough of a margin to accurately cut on-grain.)

Why 5 of each?  Well... I don't have the idea 100% worked out, but I'm working in a series so there will be more than one quilt, PLUS I would like to pull together one complete set and give it away to one lucky winner from among the contributors.  So it's almost like a 50/50 raffle, except it's 80/20 in my favor.  :)

I also will acknowledge, somewhere with the quilt, where the fabric came from so there's a record of who sent what.  I think it would be fun to see where fabric will come from, like a treasure hunt!

Some general notes & such:

1. RK Kona 100% Cotton only please. I know there are other solids out there, but it defeats the purpose if you send broadcloth or Bella or something that is not Kona Cotton.
   
2. Please don't pre-wash. For one, I don't want this to create more work for you, and I'd like all the pieces to be consistent, one way or another.
3. Don't cut if you don't wanna.  Don't let cutting it become a deterrent.  If you just want to slap a hunk of fabric in the mail to me and make me deal with it, I'm fine with that too!
4. Please tell me what color it is.  Yes, I have a color card, but some of these fabrics are sooooo close in color that it's hard to tell the difference between them unless you have ALL the colors.  So please be a peach & get the EXACT name from the end of the bolt.  The number probably won't be listed, but the names are unique.
5. Please do tell me a story if you have one!  A story about the fabric is great - where you got it from, whether you had to hunt for it, a shout out to the store where you found it, etc.  Especially for the rare colors.  A story about 1019 Black may be easier to come by than a story about 318 Grapemist.  I'll take them all though! I'll be featuring the most interesting, funny, or dramatic stories on my blog.
6. Please send by January 15, 2011.  Ok, sure - that date is pretty far out there.  But that should give a pretty good indication of what's out there to be had.
7. Pretty Please, Fill in the spreadsheet.  To reduce the chance of duplicates, please fill in my Google spreadsheet when you've located a color you're willing to send.  The mailing address is in the spreadsheet.

So what do you get out of it?  Well, for one, you get to help out your bestest good Blogger friend with a seemingly impossible task, and that's worth something, yes?  Plus, you get good karma points from, ummm.... the karma-points-awarders for doing a good deed.  Also, you will have an opportunity to win a full set of these rectangles too (and yes, if you send more than one color set, you get more than one entry.)  AND as I blog about the project I'll share at least one of the projects as a free pattern/tutorial.

You'll notice in the spreadsheet that I haven't indicated which colors I already own.  That's because I'd really rather all the rectangles come from elsewhere (makes the quilt more interesting!) and use the colors I already own for sashing, borders, backing, and binding.

Thanks for all the help you guys & gals!  Now to finish packing and get to the airport...


Happy quilting!

Give a Little... Win a GO! WINNERS ANNOUNCED

PRESS RELEASE  -  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ebony Love, of quilting blog & company LoveBug Studios, recently announced the winners of her AccuQuilt-sponsored "Give a Little, Win a GO!" contest.

"I've been feverishly posting over 300 photographs of the nearly 1,000 quilts, pillowcases, blankets, and quilt kits submitted to the contest since July 15th," Ebony said on her final night of the contest.

AccuQuilt, maker of the AccuQuilt Studio and GO fabric die cutting systems, invited Ebony to participate in a series of giveaways they regularly sponsor with the quilting blogger community.  She got the idea for her contest after witnessing a rash of giveaways that merely required people to post a blog comment or a note on FaceBook.  She elaborated by saying, "I really thought it was a lost opportunity, to do something more and make an impact on the local community.  Also, it was starting to feel like people were coming to expect things to just be handed to them, instead of recognizing that good things come to those who work for them. I wanted the winner of my contest to be truly deserving of the prize by earning it through charitable donations."

Ebony devised her contest to be a point-based system, with various point values assigned to donations given to three specific charities: ConKerr Cancer, Project Linus, and Quilts for Kids.  Focusing the contributions in this way enabled the impact to be concentrated and noticeable.  Ebony remarked, "One of the chapter coordinators told me that the influx of quilts they received would likely carry them through to meet the demand at Christmas.  To me, that's really amazing and I'm very happy to hear something like that."

With two weeks to go in the contest, Ebony introduced a financial incentive to the contestants, where she would personally donate up to $525 to be split among the three charities for each donation received.  "After that announcement, donations tripled.  "We received over 700 donations in that two week time period, compared to about 200 in the four weeks prior," she said.  "I will also be submitting a request for a matching donation to my full-time employer, which will double the monetary amount to $1,050. It really made an impact."

Overall, the contest generated 572 pillowcase donations to ConKerr Cancer, 238 quilts and kits to Quilts for Kids, and 170 quilts & blankets for Project Linus.

"The last 24 hours of the contest was unbelievable!  People were frantically finishing quilts and pillowcases and I couldn't keep up with the counts," Ebony marveled.

Of the 30 people who entered the contest, only 8 contestants submitted valid donations.  The top two competitors, Greg Bryson of the blog Flat Out Quilting and Jeanette J. of Inchworm Fabrics, took turns exchanging the lead position for weeks - right up to the very end.

"You could feel the excitement building as those two traded quilts and pillowcase counts for weeks on end.  They were both such good sports about it, and took turns encouraging each other to keep going."

Contestants were allowed to get their friends and neighbors in the act and submit donations on their behalf in order to earn points.  This strategy worked well for both contestants, but in the end, Greg's partnership with the Hibiscus Quilt Guild of South Florida sealed the deal.  He has been making and donating quilts and quilt tops to this guild on the order of 2-3 per week for nearly a year, and the guild was only too happy to get the opportunity to reciprocate his generosity.  Pat Shipp, the Chapter Coordinator for Quilts for Kids & a member of the guild had this to say:

We are going to be working harder than ever to support our friend and bumping up the number of quilts we'll have to donate at the same time! How ironic that we met simply because he wanted to make Quilts for Kids long before there were prizes involved.

Congratulations to Greg & his team for his well-deserved win.  Together, Greg, his wife, his friends, and the generous members of the Hibiscus Guild donated over 400 items across the three charities, earning him enough points (7,630) to win the grand prize of the AccuQuilt GO cutter and three dies of his choice.

However, Greg did not run away with the contest completely - Jeanette and her team earned 6,705 points in the contest, making this a contest that was too close to call until the final points were tallied.  It certainly kept everyone on their toes!  In an interesting twist of fate, although Jeanette did not win this GO contest, her family member Maxwells won the GO giveaway on another blog, Sew Fun Quilts.  "When I saw Judy post the winner of her contest this afternoon, I nearly fell out of my chair!  It really proved to me that things work out exactly the way they are supposed to.  Jeanette's family worked hard to win a GO, and they did - although it wasn't the one they were expecting!" Ebony said.

The third place contestant, Quilter Jan, held her own earning 780 points making quilts, all by herself.  She realized early on that she likely wouldn't win, but said, "It has been a lot of fun to see how many I could do in a month!!!"

In the end, the real winners here are the children who are the recipients of the 980 quilts and pillowcases, which will brighten their day, even just a little bit.

Official contest results are as follows:

Ebony's $$$ Commitment so far: $525
ConKerr Cancer: 572 pillowcases
Quilts for Kids: 238 quilts/kits
Project Linus: 170 quilts/blanket

Greg (21): 7630
Jeanette (19): 6705
Quilter Jan (34): 780
Joanne (24): 330
LSS Beth (4): 150
Maddie (2): 130
Kathleen (7): 50
Jacque (61): 30
Robert (91): 0
tlf (88): 0
Patty (81): 0
It's Complicated (78): 0
Sue (71): 0
Clair (70): 0
Jane (68): 0
MsWildflower (67): 0
Jane (60): 0
Millie (49): 0
Lilly (47): 0
Harleywife (45): 0
Kayli (28): 0
Vicki (26): 0
Stormy Days (25): 0
Patty (23): 0
Angela (17): 0
Lisa (14): 0
Sheila (12): 0
Fiesta (10): 0

Ebony extends a special thanks to AccuQuilt, the contest sponsor, the contestants, and the charitable organizations for the good they do.

All contest entries can be seen here. For the original post announcing the contest, click here.  For the original post announcing the monetary donation, click here.

Happy quilting!

AccuQuilt Give a Little, Win a GO! CONTEST CLOSED

First, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to the folks over at AccuQuilt, who offered me the opportunity to give away this awesome set of tools from their company, and for allowing me the freedom to conduct this contest in a dignified and meaningful way, and multiply their generosity in a way that would impact nearly 1,000 children in communities across the United States.

I really, really want to thank the contestants for their tireless efforts over the last 6 weeks.  This contest has exceeded my wildest expectations, and I am so grateful for the generosity of everyone who participated.  No matter who ultimately is awarded the GO, the real winners here are Project Linus, Quilts for Kids, and ConKerr Cancer - and all the children who have been helped by your efforts.  I can literally feel waves of love from all directions as people came together for a worthy cause to help people in their communities. I can hardly type through my tears to marvel at what you all have accomplished through this effort in such a relatively short period of time.

While the effort was really intense these past weeks, I hope that it has inspired people to give now and to keep giving, as the need is ever-present and looming.  No contribution is too small, as witnessed by the humble little pillowcase that can literally transform a gloomy, sick child into a giddy, smiling one at the touch of that special gift.  It is truly the gift that keeps on giving, as the child thinks about the person who took the time to make them something of their very own, and the quilter who lovingly stitched it thinking about that child somewhere who needed it.

Now, MY real work begins, as I tally up the points for donations received in the last 24 hours.  Please, PLEASE be patient with me, as I work through the 150+ email messages, blog comments, photos, and FaceBook entries.  It appears this is going to be a VERY close contest and I want to be super-fair and transparent with everything.  What I need right now is quiet and peace to view photos and verify counts, so do not send me messages about what is taking so long.  First, I will sleep and approach this with fresh eyes in the morning.  Second, I will count & post photos to Flickr, and third, I will tally the points & double-check the counts.  I expect to finish this work sometime around 4:00 PM CST on September 1.

I also want to thank the folks who remembered me too during this whole thing, sending me messages and little prayers over the past 6 weeks. I kidded a lot about how easy this was to run, but it honestly was more of a mental strain than a physical one. Resisting the pockets of negativity (I'll spare you the details) was much easier to do with the support & encouragement from my circle of friends.  THANK YOU.

Now... everyone go to sleep now.  There is not much to see here for another 16 hours or so.  :)

Happy quilting!

United Concensus - Finished Quilt for Project Quilting

With the quilt sandwiched and ready for the finishing touches, I am ready to unveil it!



Remember that this quilt is named "United Concensus", and is intentionally misspelled because I intend to update this quilt with 2010 census data as soon as it is released.  The finished quilt measures 43" square from the tips of the largest prairie points.

The back of the quilt was made with leftover blocks.  I ended up making extra blocks because I replaced some of the blocks on the front with blue centers instead.



You can see in some places the free motion stars that I added after the quilting was finished and the backing had been added.  I may get the urge to add more over time, but for now, it's fine.  The large open space in the lower right corner is for the legend I'll be adding once the 2010 Census results are published.

After I finished quilting the words to the Star Spangled Banner, I had a little bit of extra room to play with.  So I added the date and signed my name in quilting!



I love this shot because you can see the prairie points really well, but I also hate it because of the stray thread hanging from it.  Oops!

Here's another nice photo of the quilting:



And one more:


I'm really happy with how this turned out, although I haven't quite gotten the hang of photography to get the lighting correct outside of a light box.  But still - I'm happy with it & proud of my quilting!

Now I need a serious nap.  I feel like I've been awake for 4 days straight finishing this.

Happy quilting!

United Concensus - Quilting

The whole time I was making this quilt, I kept singing the Star Spangled Banner - our national anthem.  It's a hilarious song to sing because it's really easy to mix up the lines, and also if you start the song in the wrong key, you won't be able to sing the refrain because it will be too high to hit the note.

My original idea for the quilting was to do some free motion stars.  Then I thought I would stitch in the ditch.  Finally, somewhere just after the halfway mark, I decided that I was going to actually quilt the words to the Star Spangled Banner.  Literally.  The whole thing.  Until I found out that SSB actually has four verses.  So I settled on the one everyone knows best - the first verse.

Next I had to work out how exactly to write it so that the lines were straight and fit on the quilt.  I decided that I would just run the lines together - not pausing for punctuation or sentences or paying attention to the actual structure of the verse.  To do this, I used Golden Threads paper that I cut to the size of my quilt top, then using my cutting table as a grid for straight lines and a white chalk pencil, I wrote out the words in cursive.  I had to erase in some spots and start over, but I managed to get it all written without too much trouble.  I then pinned sections of the paper to the quilt & batting only, and free-motion quilted one line at a time so that all the words on that line connect together.  After the quilting was done, I just ripped out the paper.  I'll likely be finding those little bits all over the house for weeks to come.

I'm really sorry to not have pictures of this part of the process - the camera was dead and I didn't have time to wait to charge it.  If you're interested in seeing how this is done, just leave a comment and I'll make a video or something if there's enough interest.

Now, the biggest fear I had was in misspelling a word.  After a bit of handling, the chalk rubs off the paper and you can't see the lines very well.  Well, my fear came true when I came to "rampats".  Ummm... isn't there another "r" in there?  So I had to unstitch a couple of letters and squeeze in the "r".



I'm willing to bet though that you wouldn't have known this if I hadn't pointed it out (again - sorry about the "before" - no time to wait to charge the camera!)  The only tell-tale sign if you look closely is that there's an extra start/stop between the "p" and the "t" where I restitched the "a" and added the "r".  Phew!

I went back later to cross the t's and dot the i's (which I did with little stars.)  I added a couple of free motion stars before realizing that those would actually be the perfect way to attach the backing in certain spots, so I stopped adding stars for the time being.

With the quilting out of the way, I was in the home stretch!

I used some of the leftover yellow & leftover blocks to piece the backing, and then I cut squares for the prairie points.  Prairie points are easy if you know the finished size you want.  You just double the finished size + 1/2" for seams.  So for a 2" finished point, cut a 4-1/2" square.  Easy peasy!

Then, you just fold across the diagonal, press, then fold back across the second diagonal and press.  Squares in the center, half finished prairie point on the right, completed prairie points on the left. 



You can make so many of these so fast.  I varied the sizes for mine so my edge could be a little bit wonky like my blocks.  It made it impossible to estimate how many prairie points I would need, so I just made a ton of them and figured I could always make more.  Prairie points are so addictive!  I should use them more often in my quilts.



Originally I'd intended to use mostly blue and throw a few plaid ones in there for a little pop of color, but once I started positioning the prairie points, I decided they looked a lot better alternated.



 Positioning them on the quilt was pretty straightforward; the only thing to really watch is at the corners, you don't want to overlap the prairie points - you want to butt them up next to each other so they look like a mitered corner.  I nested them across the quilt & then basted them close to the edge.  Once the basting was done, I squared up the top, laid the backing on top, and pinned it together leaving an opening for turning.  In this picture, you can still see remnants of the Golden Threads paper - to make sure I got all the paper out, I had to sit down with the quilt and go line by line with a pair of tweezers.

Home stretch for this one!  This is the point where I needed to stop and get ready for my friend's wedding.  I wore a sari!

Happy quilting!

More About United "Concensus" for Project Quilting - When In Progress

My pattern for this quilt called for six different sizes of blocks, ranging from 2" finished to 12" finished.  I designed this quilt layout in EQ6 (yes, I have EQ7 but haven't installed it yet! I know!!) first by drawing the squares as a block, saving that block as a quilt layout, then starting a new quilt using that layout, and inserting my wonky stars block (that I also drew in EQ6.)

I took my pattern to the local quilt shop (Quilt Play in Grayslake, IL) along with a couple of samples of the red & blue centers I intended to use.  The ladies there helped me audition about 10 different bright yellows before settling on the one which looked best.  I didn't mind the block centers being scrappy, but I really wanted to control the palette on the yellow stars.  They also helped me audition a couple of fabrics for the binding, but I held off on buying anything because I thought having the top finished would lead to a better selection.

I sized the quilt primarily based on what could be easily cut using my AccuQuilt strip cutter.  So if the pattern called for me to cut squares at 4-3/8", I just went ahead and cut at 4-1/2".  I figured I could square them up later.  [[Now, this caused me problems later on as you'll see when the quilt develops, because I was not consistent in the direction of rounding, nor did I remember later that "finished" was not "finished" until it was squared up to the size called for in the pattern!]]

The wonky stars are imperfect triangles, so the size of these did not really matter - they just needed to be at least as large as half of the square they were being attached to.  So I only cut two sizes of triangles - 3" and 2".  This was really an advantage for me because I cut 320 triangles in three passes of my 3" strip cutter.  First pass, cut the strips.  Second pass, rotate strips 90 degrees to cut squares, Third pass, rotate 45 degrees to cut half square triangles:



It took about 5 or 6 minutes to do this, cutting 8 layers at a time.  You really don't realize what an advantage this die cutter has over rotary until you have a project like this to work on.
When I have a project like this to chain piece, I like to lay the project in a cookie sheet so it can sit next to my sewing machine.  It makes it easier to move if I need the table for something else.  So here's a shot of me in the assembly process:



All the pieces fit on the tray and I can just chain piece the entire quilt, one after another.  First stitching one triangle in a wonky way, pressing, and then adding the other in a wonky way After the triangles are stitched to the background square, they have to get squared up to the right size again:



That's a job for my Shape Cut ruler which is perfect for this task.  I stack them 4 at a time (the seams make them really bulky so that's the most that can be reliably cut) and square up the sides first, then I rotate and square up the other side.  The first block I finished was Texas:



How do I know it's Texas?  Well, this is the second largest block at 10" finished, and according to 2009 population statistics, it's the second most populous state in the union - separated from California by about 12 million residents.  See, you're learning something today!

As I finished blocks, I stuck them up on my design wall:



You can see my printed "key" on the right to help me lay out the blocks.  Some of them would stick to the wall on their own, but as I added more blocks, they didn't all want to stay up there, so I started pinning them to the wall.

At this point, I'd finished piecing everything but the 2" finished stars:


I had to work myself up to finish those.  They were so tiny and so numerous - I had to make 14 of them! I had a couple of VERY late nights (or should I say early mornings) to finish them.  Once those were done, I could start assembling the top.  The way this quilt is laid out, some seams are shared so it's easy to piece sections, but at the end of the day, there were still a LOT of set-in seams.  I'm glad I wrote a tutorial recently on doing set-in seams, or I might not have remembered that I know how to do this. 

When I started assembly, I recognized right away that my 2" finished blocks needed to be squared up.  They were cut at 1-1/4" wide, but should have been 1-1/8" before I rounded.  I knew those needed to be squared because I had some plain 2-1/2" squares to stitch them to.  So I had no problem squaring these up.  The problem started when I needed to stitch these pairs to the next size block - they weren't long enough. So instead of checking the measurements on the rest of the blocks, I just started adding squaring strips to make them big enough.  I figured a couple of these would be needed anyway because I wasn't insane enough to try to piece or cut a block that was 8-7/16" finished... but I didn't check.  I'd pieced quite a lot of these blocks together before I realized that I needed all the squaring strips because my blocks were the wrong size in the first place:



Also, for one of the block sizes ,I rounded the size down so it could be cut easily, so that one had to be squared with a new strip anyway.  A fleeting thought did cross my mind about taking all the seams out, squaring them, and doing it right, but I decided that I would only allow one level of insanity per project.  It's a good thing there wasn't a size restriction on this one though, because after all was said & done, it was nearly 3" bigger than I'd planned.



Phew!  I finished piecing the top on Friday evening at 6PM, which was perfect, because I needed to run back to the quilt shop for binding and they close at 7.

When I got to the store, I went looking around for red, white and blue, and located a blue Swiss dot that one of the ladies had shown me on Wednesday, and I also found a lucky red plaid with all my colors in it!  I took about 4 or 5 fabrics to the front to audition, and settled on the blue dot and the plaid.

Originally, I had thought of doing a regular straight binding, but after looking at the quilt a plain binding just wouldn't do.  Also because of the time constraint, straight binding takes me longer because I like to hand stitch to the back.  I knew I'd only be able to finish this if I pillowcased it, and that seemed to plain. The perfect solution came from inspiration at the quilt shop - a quilt they had hanging with prairie points.  That seemed ideal, and I could get a wonky look by varying the sizes of the prairie points.

Next up... my inspiration for the quilting!!

Happy quilting!

Behind the Scenes: United "Concensus" for Project Quilting

Yes, I know that "consensus" is spelled with three esses, and not two cees.  But my quilt is named United "Concensus" for a particular reason, and I'll try to explain why.


The challenge for the most recent "Project Quilting" assignment was entitled "Stars Over America" and had very few restrictions.  If you used red, white, and blue, you had to use at least one other color, but you weren't required to use those three colors.  That's it.


I actually refused to look at the challenge for a couple of days, because I had so many things on my plate last week that I was worried that looking at it would stress me out and I wouldn't get to the things in front of it on my list.  So it wasn't until Tuesday that I actually looked at it, and really late that night when I came up with my concept & knew what I was going to do.


When I read the theme, I knew I wanted to make stars, and the first technique that came to mind was Gwen Marston's "liberated" star block.  This is actually an AWESOME block to make when you're in a hurry, because your points don't have to match, and in actuality, the more wonky they are, the better they look.


I also knew that I wanted to have a star represent every state, like it does in our flag.  That meant piecing 50 blocks.  You might think that only someone insane would think to do something like that when they have to completely finish a quilt in 4 days, attend a wedding, and cut 100 pillowcase cuffs in that same timeframe too.  But you would have been wrong.  It's not the insane person who thinks to do something like that; the insanity is in COMMITTING to doing such a thing, and then actively making the attempt.


What made it worse is that I chose an accent color (yellow) for which I actually did not have a suitable fabric choice in my stash - which meant a trip to the fabric store.  But once I drew out the block, I knew only yellow would do.  Here's a pretty rough sketch:

In reality, the wonky blocks won't be nearly as uniform, but it does give an idea.  I first sketched this block plainly so I knew for sure that there would be 50 units (actually there are 60 because I thought I'd include the US territories too) before adding the star blocks.


The largest block is 12" finished; the smallest is 2" finished.  Yup... you read that right.  I designed a quilt that required pieced wonky star blocks (no paper was involved) that started with 1-1/8" squares.  Are you convinced yet that I am certifiable?


After I drew this, I thought that it would be cool to add information about each state, and actually write this in the blocks, so I went hunting for the day of statehood, the state capital, and population.  That's when it hit me:  this is 2010, and we just completed the census.  Wouldn't it be cool if each block were named based on the population size?  Therefore the largest block would be the state with the largest population, and vice versa.  Well, based on 2009 population statistics, the 12" block would be California - so I decided that I needed a focal point, which made me change the center block to blue.  I also changed the "extra" blocks from magenta to a mix of red & blue.

Now the second biggest state by population is Texas, and that block has a red center.  Now, from that, you might start to infer that there's some sort of political meaning behind all of this - red states, blue states, with red being dominant to show how right wing conservatism is sweeping through the nation, swallowing up the free-thinking, liberal tree-huggers, blah blah blah.  Well, don't get your undies in a bunch.  The color of each block was dictated purely by aesthetics and my willingness to make extra blocks when I decided that a particular section didn't have enough contrast.  The sketch is nice, but things are different when you have things on your design wall and they don't quite look right, and you have to do something else to fix it.


Although I've abandoned my idea of writing the state names & information directly on the blocks (I was too scared to either make a mistake or worried that I would HATE the way it looked & ruin the blocks permanently), I did decide to do two things.  One, I named the quilt, purposely spelling "consensus" incorrectly because I DO intend to tie it to the census.  Two, once the census numbers are released, I will print a large "legend" for the quilt to give the information I had originally planned to hand write.


Wait until you see how this turned out!

Happy quilting!

Feeling Quite Quilt Accomplished Today!

PHEW!!!

It has been one of those weeks, can I tell you?

Last weekend was the Grayslake Arts Festival, which is right up in my neighborhood, so I took the opportunity to do a solo show. One of my fellow quilting buddies from the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild was kind enough to drive out and help me (thanks Emily!) Outdoor shows require tents, and that's a heck of a thing to set up by yourself, not to mention manning a booth all day long by yourself.

The show went extremely well, and it really affirmed my suspicion that my pieces are really much more suited for art fairs than craft shows. The thing about art fairs is that you really need to prepare & apply 6 months in advance. Now that I've done an outdoor show alone, I have pictures of my set up, and that will really help my applications for next season's round of shows.

In any event, I ended up selling my Batik Beauty, I Spy a Red Square, and Fire Over the Mountains #3 quilts - all to the same buyer! Well, because of my laziness over the last 6 months, all of them needed labels, and two of them needed sleeves.

Anyway, this long story was just to say that I made labels for these quilts (actually, I made 5 labels, but I'm still behind!), the sleeves for both, and stitched them all on.

In addition, I wrapped up my Project Quilting entry which I called "Nine Pins" - the block centers are actually wearable art pins that are about 2.5" square. Those will get listed in my Etsy shop soon. I like the quilt for displaying the pins, and think I'll keep adding to it over time as pins get sold and removed.



I also fixed 6 pillowcases that were incorrectly made at a recent charity event. I have to tell you, I don't normally curse at things, but there were a couple that made me really want to mouth off a few. The person didn't cut the cuff the right width, so when they attached it to the body, it wasn't wide enough. Instead of stopping, the person sewed up the case anyway, but didn't match the edges or keep a consistent seam. In some places the seam was narrower than 1/8" and there were barely 2 threads keeping it together! In the end, I just hacked off the damaged pieces with my rotary cutter and then stitched them back together with my serger.

Anyway, other than the pillowcase repair, I had a good day. I still have a ton of finished pillowcases to wash - hopefully it's just one more load and I can call it a day and do my own laundry. :)

Happy quilting!

Coming of Age - Recycled Quilt for Project Quilting

Recently, I finished another quilt for Project Quilting, and I wanted to give a little bit more back story to the quilt. Before we get started, let's get the shameless begging out of the way: would you mind taking 10 seconds to go vote for my quilt? I promise the story is worth your vote!

Now, on to the story. It starts with this dress:

That's me, at 17 years old, at my Debutante Ball. This dress was the most amazing creation I'd ever seen to that point in my life, and I loved it the minute I saw it & absolutely had to have it. But the dress almost wasn't mine to have.

My family wasn't exactly swimming in dough, and by that point in my life it was just me & my mom. She was doing the best she could to keep roof over head, and there wasn't a ton of room in the budget for extravagances. Becoming a debutante was an honor, but it doesn't mean much if you can't go to the ball. One of my mom's friends took pity on us and gave my mom $100 to buy my dress.

Now, the best place to find a ball gown is at a bridal shop. The dresses have to be stark white, and if it has a train it must be bustled. Shoulders covered, cleavage contained, floor length, and accommodate white evening gloves.

Mom took me to a local shop (not a chain) and I started to try on dresses. It was really fun, but there wasn't anything that didn't need significant alterations ($$) and I didn't find anything that I liked. Well, the shop owner said she'd recently acquired some dresses from another shop that had gone out of business, and she hadn't even looked at them yet, but maybe there was something there I would like. This is the dress she pulled out.

Actually, I fell in love with the dress the very minute the miles of tulle started making their way out of the bag. I tried it on... it fit like a glove. Trying it on sealed the deal, so imagine my disappointment when the tag on the dress said $750.

I remember bursting into tears, because I knew there was no way we could afford the dress, and I also knew I would never find another dress that I would love as well as this one. I took off the dress, put my street clothes on, and my mom & I got ready to leave. How do you continue trying on dresses when you already know the one you want is the one you can't have?

Just as we were leaving, the shop owner hollered, "WAIT! WAIT! This dress is on sale!" Apparently, she found another tag that was attached to the dress bag, and the price on it was... $100.

Divine intervention? Or just a shop lady who felt sorry for a poor kid trying to attend a ball? I'll never know which is the truth, but at that moment, I knew that dreams sometimes came true.

I'll stop here for now since this post is super long already... but I'll continue the story later about how this dress ended up getting chopped into many bits and pieces to become this quilt:



Happy quilting!

New Project Quilting Challenge - The Recycled Quilt

Ordinarily, I don't do "recycled" quilt items. I prefer making things from brand-new materials. I don't crawl yard sales or visit thrift stores. I just recently abandoned two projects that were to be made from recycled clothes. I refuse to make quilts for others from questionable materials.

I have no problem upcycling embellishments... but making an entire quilt from something upcycled? Ick.

Until something occurred to me, that I'd actually been talking about (to myself) recently. First, a little back story.

Late last year around Thanksgiving, I contracted H1N1 - yes, the dreaded flu strain. As my flu worsened, I developed some complications, including pneumonia. I blogged briefly about my ordeal once I recovered, but the point to this is not about the flu, it's about my mother.

When she heard about my illness, she decided on the spot to drive the 18 hours to my bedside. I gave her quite a scare. Before she left Colorado, she decided to pack the car with all sorts of memorabilia from my childhood, no doubt to entertain me, but also to probably take the opportunity to clear her house of my junk. :)

In any event... it is from that assorted memorabilia that I will select items to make my quilt. This will require some destruction of said memorabilia.

Here's hoping my mother doesn't kill me.


Happy quilting!

Project Quilting Road Trip - Panel 6

RoadTrip-Panel6
Originally uploaded by LoveBugStudios

The sixth and final panel of my road trip quilt, which is actually the quilt label. I took some leftover pieces of the crab fabric and ribbon road and added those to form a border, then I machine embroidered the information about the quilt. I fudged the date a little as I truly thought I'd be working on this one right up to the very last day of the challenge! It was actually finished on the 27th.

I left space on the label to add information about this particular challenge - how many entries, and what the outcome was. I will print this information to fabric & fuse it to the open space.

The palm tree iron-on rhinestones were something I couldn't resist...

Project Quilting Road Trip - Panel 5

RoadTrip-Panel5
Originally uploaded by LoveBugStudios

This is panel 5 of the road trip quilt. It's finally the two of us at our destination! Sitting on the beach, in our matching beach chairs that we bought specifically for our road trips. I found a cute iron-on of a pair of flip flops (it's glued over my shoes in the photo), and another one of a shell. This is one of my favorite pictures of the two of us together.

The only fabric used in this panel is the printable fabric.

Project Quilting Road Trip - Panel 4

RoadTrip-Panel4
Originally uploaded by LoveBugStudios

This is the fourth panel in the road trip quilt. Augi & I both love seafood, and it was our mission to eat at every Joe's Crab Shack we could find. Sometimes we even based our destinations on whether they had a JCS there. We once drove around Atlanta for 3 hours trying to find the JCS; if you're not familiar with Atlanta, every street is named either Peach Tree or Zion, so it is very easy to get lost and drive for miles on the wrong road.

Anyway... the Joe's sign is a hand-cut scaled reproduction of their famous sign. The letters were cut first, then placed on the next layer to be fused & cut, and so on. The sign is stuck in a large glass of lemonade. The sign uses red, blue, black, and white fabric. This one was a lot of fun to make.

I also found some fun crab & lobster fabric, so I used that as well, and I found a lemon-shaped iron-on to finish off the lobster. Yum!

Project Quilting Road Trip - Panel 3

RoadTrip-Panel3
Originally uploaded by LoveBugStudios

This is the 3rd panel of the road trip. Augi always enjoyed taking the scenic route for the trip, and we were driving through a small town neighborhood and spotted this beautiful grove of bushes covered in pink flowers. We thought it was so beautiful that we actually pulled over and got out to take pictures. There are probably about 8 pictures of us under & around this bush, but I picked the one that features the two of us when a kind stranger stopped to snap it for us.

To get this look, I overlaid a portion of a color image over a black & white image, then thread painted the bushes with several colors of thread. You can read more detail about how this came together here.

Project Quilting Road Trip - Panel 2

RoadTrip-Panel2
Originally uploaded by LoveBugStudios

This is the second panel of the road trip, and is a fabric interpretation of the beach we would find once we arrived in Pensacola.

There are 9 different fabrics which make up the sand, water, and sky. The panel was embellished with seashell buttons.

Project Quilting Road Trip - Panel 1

RoadTrip-Panel1
Originally uploaded by LoveBugStudios

This is the first panel of the Road Trip quilt. It features a map (printed to fabric) of the southeastern US. It is actually a composite of about 7 images since I couldn't find a map that would give me the exact view of the cities I wanted.

I traced the route from Hopkinsville to Pensacola using a black ribbon that reminds me of a highway. The start of the route is marked with a red car button, and the end with a green car button.

The "Welcome to Florida" sign is a reproduction of the welcome sign posted on I-10, the last leg of the trip. It is hand-cut applique made from tracings of a photo of the sign, complete with rivets made from gray rhinestones. I ended up embroidering the smaller letters... they were just too small to cut by hand!

The fabrics used in this panel include: printable fabric, grey, black, white, green, red, blue, and orange solids.

Blogger's Quilt Festival and Project Quilting Road Trip

It's time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival! I'm a bit late to the party, but I wanted to finish my road trip quilt so I could enter it in the festival!

As you all must know by now, I am a contestant in Project Quilting. Our most recent challenge was to make a quilt inspired by a road trip using at least 12 fabrics for the quilt top.

I had a flash of inspiration, and decided to make a quilt that looks like a film strip and rolls up to look like a 35mm film canister.

Here's the quilt rolled up:


And here's the quilt rolled out:


I wrote pretty extensive captions on my Flickr page, but here's an excerpt for what inspired this quilt & why I made it:

I used to live in Hopkinsville, KY which is a really small town in the lower part of the state. My friend Augi & I shared office space, and very frequently on Friday afternoons, we would get a wild hair and decide to leave work at that very moment & drive to the beach (9 hours away.) We'd taken several trips to various beach destinations, and Pensacola was one of our favorites. Augi would always drive, and I would always sleep on the way.

If you want to read more about this, I'll be blogging about each panel shortly... click here to read all the Road Trip posts together!

Happy quilting!

Road Trip Block Detail - Project Quilting

I finished quilting one of the blocks in my Road Trip quilt, and I was so pleased with the results that I thought I would share with you the process that I used to make this block.

I wanted to do some thread painting for this panel, and I thought it would be more fun than having a straight photograph in this block.

I started with this photograph:



Then, I made a black and white version of it:



In the black & white version, I cleaned up the date printed on the photo (good thing I stopped doing that - it really does ruin the photograph.)

Then, I made a composite image by digitally "cutting" the center of the colored image and placing it over the black & white image:



I then enlarged this to my block size (8.5" x 12.5") and printed this image to cotton fabric.

Once I got the block pieced into the quilt top and layered with the batting, I did my thread painting in a couple of areas:



I decided not to thread paint everywhere, as I really wanted to show that I didn't just thread paint over a picture that was 100% color. I love the way it turned out, but boy is the quilting really dense! It was fun to do free motion quilting in a really small area, where precision was not necessary or desired. :) I did outline the photo of the two of us to give the block more stability since it's not quilted the same everywhere.

Happy quilting!

Road Trip Fabrics - Project Quilting Challenge

Yes, it is already Tuesday, and I haven't stitched an inch of fabric for this quilt yet. There's a lot of preparation involved!

I made a little shopping trip to the local craft store last night, to pick up some accessories for this quilt. The accessories will remain a secret until the project is revealed, but just know that I visited some non-traditional aisles in the store, including the wood area, the scrapbooking area, the beading aisle, and the paint section!

Since I have to use 12 fabrics on the front of the quilt, I thought I would let you in on what they are:
1. Black solid
2. White solid
3. Red solid
4. Blue solid
5. Green solid
6. Gray solid
7. Yellow solid
8. Navy blue solid
9. Crab fabric
10. Lobster fabric
11. Printable fabric
12. Fabric I made from a stitched scrap (which actually has a lot of different fabrics in it.)

I will also use at least two of these colors for the back. This is a very non-traditional quilt, I assure you! It is also a very ambitious quilt that I am not really sure I will be able to finish in time... this quilt will end up being over 6 feet wide!

Well, I guess I'd better get going! I won't be able to work on it until later this evening, so I have a lot of work ahead of me. Good thing I'm on vacation tomorrow!


Happy quilting!

New Project Quilting Challenge - Road Trip!

The new challenge for Project Quilting was posted today, and it took me about 30 minutes to come up with my concept to go with the theme.

The theme this week is to design a quilt inspired by a road trip, using at least 12 different fabrics on the front of the quilt.

I have come up with a concept that I am truly excited about and can't wait to execute, and I'm lucky this week to be on vacation starting Wednesday so hopefully I'll be able to get a pretty good start (and finish) on it!

I am REALLY excited about what I've come up with, but I'm afraid I can't even venture to tell you the tiniest hint of what it is. Just know that it is out of the box, will be completely unexpected, and although I can't promise to not complain about it as the concept develops, I can promise that it will be really COOL if I execute it well!!!

Happy quilting!