Wednesday, January 28, 2009

SuperBowl Twist

Here's a logo for anyone doing the Superbowl Twist (or sewing anything with Bonnie's patterns) on Superbowl Sunday.



For the html code for the smaller 125 pixel blog button, like I've got in my sidebar, you're once again free to right click, select 'view source' then scroll down and copy the code that starts:

< !Begin SBTwist code>

and copy all the way to the end of

< !End SBTwist code>

Then put it in YOUR blog template sidebar, and you're ready to go!

Happy Twisting!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Mini Strip Twist and Bluejean Purse

I'm going to join Bonnie this Superbowl Sunday as she makes strip twist quilts. If you scroll down, you can see the one I made my brother, I've also made one all in pink for a 'Quilt Pink' theme. Click on the 'Take me to Quiltville' button if you want to see Bonnie's pattern and join us.

This little one is all in blues and white, and since I'm using teeny 1½ strips, I decided to start early. Here's the first 16 blocks done:


I have 64 blocks made so far, and I'm trying to decide if I want just the middle of the quilt to be twist blocks or if I want to cut more 1½ strips and expand this.

I've also been working on a little bluejean purse:


I bought the girls' size jeans at a thrift store for $3, then got a really filthy white vinyl purse at a garage sale for 50 cents... I ripped out all the zippers and useable hardware for this purse, aren't the little brass D rings and clips on the handle cute? A lady at work says they make the jean purse look like a 'real' purse lol.


I had the black star fabric strips left from the border of a quilt, to make the belt, and the beads were left over from another project too. I made another back pocket-flap with a velcro tab just like this one, but decided that two flaps were overkill. Now I'm thinking of beading a little star or heart on the pocket with no flap, what'cha think?


The hardest part of the whole purse was putting in the zipper - I'm bad about tossing my purse on the passenger seat of my van, so I had to have a way to close it securely or I'd be losing change and pens and pencils. :D I couldn't sew the zipper on with the machine around the big lumpy jeans button, OR around the beltloops, so I've still got some hand sewing to do there.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Row Quilt

Well, instead of block of the month swaps for my guild this year, I've decided to try a doing a row quilt with them instead. Everyone will get to keep their own blocks, and I'll be putting up different blocks and rows each month. They can choose from three widths, 36, 60, or 72, and they can choose their own colors/themes too, Quilt Pink, Quilt of Valor, baby quilt, holiday quilt, or one to fit with their house decor.

First, I played in EQ and drew a few row quilts in different color combos, with blocks I liked. If any of you has any ideas for blocks that work good in a row quilt, I'm still open to suggestions, I'm going to pick each row as I go.

Here's one in Red, White, and Blue:


And then one in baby colors, mostly Pink and Blue:


And one with a black background, for people whose favorite quilt word is 'pop' and who enjoy brights:


I picked a really easy spacer row for the first month, January... to sucker them in, sorta. Simple quarter-square triangles, and they could choose whatever layout they wanted:



Then I chose the basket row for February. I'd appreciate feedback on the web page if you have a chance to go look - that one got a little complicated - do you understand all the steps? Did it get too wordy? Here's my finished baskets:

Thursday, January 15, 2009

4th File, 4th Photo

Hmm, I saw this blog-game on the blog after mine in the Stash Quilts blogring, Marcie at Patchalot More, and it sounded interesting. The rules say:

*Go to the fourth photo file on your computer
*Choose the fourth picture in that file
*post it and explain
*tag four people to do the same

So, curious, off I went to my photo files, to see what was the 4th file... I've taken a lot of photos, so my files were pretty nested, files within files. Is the librarian in me showing? After Catpix, Familypix, and HouseandGardenpix there came Quiltpix. And the 4th file in THAT (after BOMpix, MiscPix, and Quilts2004) was Quilts2005. The 4th cropped and named picture in the file was this one:



Brings back fond memories! This is my oldest brother, Dan, holding a quilt I gave to him back in 2005, around Thanksgiving. He liked it a lot, but I think his wife is the one that uses it the most. :) It was also the first one of Bonnie's patterns I tried, her Strip Twist.

I picked all the fabrics I didn't really like - my favorite color is forest green, so I pulled out all the olive toned greens, ikk. There were a lot of wine and burgundy and mustard FQ, and they made the pile too... then some 'ugly' pale colors. The ugliest one I remember was a beige with brown streaks and smears on it ... one of my brothers said the brown streaks looked like underwear 'skidmarks' -ewww! After that comment, that's all I could think when I saw that fabric!

Since I was making a guy quilt, I took out anything floral, then added back in a couple of blues, some prints with leaves and apples... till I had a mix I could live with. Even though it was all fabric I didn't like individually, I was pleased with the end result. :)

Now the rules say for me to tag 4 people - if you feel like playing, consider yourself tagged! Then let me know you're playing so I can go look.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Quiltville and Bonnie's Groupies

A message for all the other Quiltville fans out there! I think Bonnie's so terrific to give us all those patterns free - and I'm delighted that her first book is already in it's second printing. She does so much for us, I wanted to do something for her - and what better than to advertise and send a little traffic to her site?

So for those of us who love Quiltville, here are some free buttons that you can put on your own blog or website. First, a logo in red, for those of us with light colored blog backgrounds:


And then a logo with white background, for those of you with a dark blog background:



Here they are in a nice little 125 pixel size, that's the same width as the stash quilts, heartstrings, and quilt mavericks ring code sidebar items:





If you'd like to copy the html for the link, feel free to right-click on my blog and select 'view source' to take what you need. Scroll down, and you'll see a bit that starts < !-- BEGIN Quiltville code -- > copy from that till you see < !-- END Quiltville code -- > and stick it in your sidebar. ;)

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Little Wallhanging

Remember the 250 half square triangles I made back in October for the guild mystery? Everyone else made 2 inch hsts, but I made 1 inch ones, to make a smaller version. This is what it turned out to be:


I changed the pattern by adding an inner border that extends the brown diamonds - I liked the points 'closed' rather than open at the outer edge. Then added 4 pinwheels made from leftover blocks in the corners.

My problem is that I can't decide how to quilt it. I heard that curved quilting designs show off geometric piecing, but I'm not sure how I'd apply that here. I could quilt in the ditch or a quarter inch in, along the inside of those diamonds, emphasizing the diagonal lines... but then what? Any suggestions? There's not much room to quilt inside individual triangles, although I do have cream, green and brown thread. All input appreciated!

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Batiks!

I fell off the fabric no-buy bandwagon, and fell hard. But it IS all three yard lengths, which falls under the borders, backings and binding rule, right? *rationalizing* It's mainly FQ's I don't need any more of.

Phillyfabrics, on eBay, sells Timeless Treasure batiks and other fabric for only $3.33 per yard, in three yard increments. She doesn't charge more than she has to for shipping, either. Not sure what I will do with the cat fabric on the bottom right, but fell in love with it. :) I have lots of browns and blues that will go great with it, plus it looks great with the dark brown that's on top of it.


And here's the two I've unfolded, ready to wash (yes, I wash all my fabric before I use it, even the batiks.) First a pink and purple with dragonflies and bugs, which goes great with the pinks above:


And an orange, yellow, and purple with blue curls, which also looks good with the yellow in the first picture:


And here's one of Toby, so you can get a kitty pix-fix in:


When I lay out my blocks to make photo instructions for the guild website block of the month page, I usually tilt the pressing board, putting the end of it up on my sewing machine. That helps me get a picture that's more evenly framed and not bigger at the top than at the bottom due to depth of field. I'd just finished taking pix for the row quilt bom for this month, and Toby insisted he had to sit there. He CAN'T be comfortable, his fuzzy little butt is about 4 inches higher than his head! :D
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