One More Monkey Block for Mary

I hope you like this, Mary. It came out a bit more "Mod" than I had expected but it was fun to do and I'm quite happy with it.

Monkeying around for Mary

Finally got this baby done!

It was sooooo much fun!  

I hope you like it Mary, can't wait to see what you do with all of these.

Mary's Monkey Pieces

Okay...confession...this was my first ever monkey block...second confession...It was a blast to make...lastly, I hope you like the crazy-ness of it...  As I was thinking about what to create for your block ... I planned, sketched, and  pondered the amazingness of oh so many "structured" things..

Then I was looking in my scrap box and saw the leafy tropical red...and thought oooooo monkeys in the wild ... swinging from tree to tree...and then pieces started to fall into place...smiles

The ruler was tossed aside and the rotary cutter roamed free ...to create this modern monkey wrench in pieces...smiles...

I hope you like it....it was so free wheeling and fun...

Bee Block Catch-up

I finished Mary's on time~

This was probably the easiest, quickest bee block I have made to date.  And SO. MUCH. FUN.
Thanks Mary~  your quilt will be awesome (and finished by the december meeting, right? hehe).

And at long last, David's:

I hope there's room left for this on in your quilt top.  I'm sorry it's late.  At least I got it done before your 42nd..

I've got November, so I'll be posting about it on Tuesday, with instructions sent by email.  I am sending some solid fabrics, but bee members will need to choose 5 prints from their own stash.  (the largest being 6.5" x 6.5")  Before I head to the post office tomorrow, is there anyone who would like me to send the print fabric also?  I'd prefer to have prints of your choosing, but I don't want anyone to go out and buy fabric for this block.  I assume everyone has prints, but thought I'd double check to be safe...

Dec. Block

I started with a plan, then just started adding leftover bits... LOL!

I didn't have enough to make  12.5'' block... this is about 8.5''

Michael Miller Solids challenge

Here are my challenge blocks from the Michael Miller solids. I was lucky enough to receive two packages, so had fun trying different options. I'm amazed at how varied they are -- not just because of design, but because of color palette. The fabric is indeed so soft (but occasionally wanted to pucker as I sewed -- reminded me of Kaffe Fassett's solids.) Can't wait to see what everyone's looks like together.

Solids Challenge - Funfetti Block!

I just completed the solids challenge block from the fabric that we received in the last meeting!  It was great working with the new Michael Miller line, and I love the feel of the fabrics.

Funfetti!

You can read more about the block HERE.

PS:  The Modern Blocks quilt book is now shipping from Amazon!  I am hosting a giveaway for a free eBook copy of the book.  You can enter HERE until November 1st.  Good luck!

Mary's Monkey Wrench

I really enjoyed making this Monkey Wrench block for Mary. I love the freewheeling, liberated style of modern quilts, but this was my first time making something in that way-- working fast, not measuring, making it up as you go. It was fun, and I like how it turned out.

I added in some weirdo fabric I inherited from my Grandma (the teal, blue, and mauve mountains that look like they came from an Indian restaurant in South Beach in 1987) just to see if I could make it work. (The block looks a little more sane in real life, I think.) It will be interesting to see how the finished blocks play together. Good luck, Mary!

Speaking of which, all you Queen Bees of the past six months, how are your quilts coming along? Can we see some photos of work in progress? I'm really curious about how your projects are shaping up.

October Bee Block for Mary

I made this funky Monkey Wrench and added a bolt of orange for fun. Hope you like it, Mary.

Let's get talking: Holiday Quilts

Today I came across the 12 Days of Christmas blog hop and realized I should probably get started on my holiday sewing too, but instead, I came here to give us all a new talking topic for the week..

Have you made any holiday-specific quilts? 
Bed and throw quilts, wall hangings, table runners, tree skirts, dreidel mug rugs?

How and why did you make it?  Do you pull it out only for the holiday or does it get used year round?  Snap some pics, write a post, and tell us all about it!

I have always wanted to make a halloween quilt, and bought fabric and made sketches for one in May a couple years ago, but the project got shelved.  I'd also like a Christmas throw (because Victoria's are just adorable!!), but that hasn't happened yet either.  The one holiday piece I have made is a small tree wall-hanging (miniquilt?) for my mom:

(sorry, I took the pic before the quilting was finished.)
I made it for her one year when we knew we weren't going to be home for Christmas, and thought she might need some cheering up.  She ended up keeping it up year round, it's still on the wall across from her bed.
This was my first time embellishing a quilt and though I think it works on this piece, I haven't tried it again.

I used a store-bought sequined star and traced my son's hand in regular felt.  The project was originally inspired by trees Kathy had made, but I can't find the original post now.  I had grand ideas of making little mini-quilts for the whole family, but that hasn't happened yet either.

So, what about you?  Have you quilted up goodies for the holidays?  Halloween, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Valentine's Day?  Dig 'em out, and let's get talking~

Let's Get Talking.....

...About the hardest, the longest, or the most prized quilt. My Dear Jane quilt would be all of the above. Made of 169 blocks, 4 1/2" each, pieced by hand and machine, hand appliqued, and hand quilted, it took 5 years to make....plus classes, and a support group! It lives on my bed year round.

Today's Google doodle

Did you see Google's doodle today? Made me think of quilts...

HOUSTON QUILT FESTIVAL

I am excited! The 3 photos I submitted to FRIENDS, the photo exhibit at the 2011 HOUSTON QUILT FESTIVAL have been accepted. Here they are. Thanks for this opportunity to share.
Thanks too to Victoria for teaching me how to post!

Friends Connected

Hands of Castellers, Catalonia, Spain, create community through strength and friendship.

Jorge & Shirley

Friendship has no boundaries. Shirley, age 89, born and raised in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A. and Jorge Oncins Garcia, age 32, born and raised in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain - who could have envisioned their love and friendship across generations, cultures, and oceans!

CASTELLERS of CATALONIA, SPAIN

Friends are pillars of strength, holding and leaning into each other with trust and encouragement.

Let's talk about your hardest quilt..

or, your biggest accomplishment.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to last week's talking topic, I wasn't surprised to see that we all love shopping, but it was interesting to hear what parts of the process drive us to "make" the quilts we do.  (I still can't believe some of you enjoy cutting, uugh!)

This week please write a post (and share a photo?) of the quilt you are most proud of, the one you worked the hardest (longest?) on, that you were really happy to finally put in that last stitch and call it done.

Tell us its story, from start to finish, and let us know where the treasured quilt resides now.
If you don't have a chance to write a post (or aren't a member of the blog), please write some comments on this week's posts to encourage us all to push through the harder parts and get it finished so we can appreciate a new quilt in the world.

for me.. my  biggest labor of love (of the ones I've actually finished..) would be this one:

My T-shirt Quilt (2010)
Made from t-shirts collected from 1990-2005, this quilt represents 15 years of my life.  Childhood, high school, college, studying and living in Japan, meeting my husband, moving up an down the east coast.. and pieced in with all the shirts are my favorite fabrics from 1998-2007.  Like this one with the little fish:

and the fold-dyed Japanese one.  I was never a huge fan of t-shirt quilts, but I am a supporter of preserving material culture and personal histories (um, quilter), and I couldn't bring myself to throw away or donate any of these shirts, like this one from my traveling drama troupe in Hokkaido:

My life changed a lot in my 20s, and certain decisions set me on a path I couldn't have predicted.  A lot of  teenage dreams were set aside in exchange for options I hadn't thought possible.  But still, old dreams die hard.  For me, putting these t-shirts into a quilt gave me some closure on a chapter of my life I was sad to see end.

It's not my favorite quilt, but I'm really happy it's done, and I think 15~30 years from now I will really appreciate having made it.  Right now, it is folded on the quiltrack in my bedroom, and we put it on the bed in the coldest winter months, underneath this one.  I don't really show it off, but it's warm, and it's nice to keep the memories all in one place.

Process . . . preferences in quilting

My favorite part of the quilting process is the "before" part. The dreaming up (research, inspiration gathering, color preferences, etc.) of a design that I want to try, and then putting on my thinking cap to figure out how I would actually execute the design. Important to note that not all my dreamed up plans have an executable solution yet . . . but to dream, that is the thing. After that, fabric is the next most important part of my process . . . I love to shop and buy fabric, but have to admit that I purchase rather haphazardly and rarely purchase something I have a set idea for, which in the end leads to a large stash of fabrics that when said and done will require many other purchases of fabric to work with whatever I actually end up doing. A vicious cycle. The rest of the process I could probably eliminate altogether if magic fairies showed up in my studio late at night to do all the rest of the work. I love seeing the pieces I have cut up on the design wall, and love to manipulate them until it's just what I was thinking, or mostly what I was thinking . . . and then I dread having to actually sew them altogether, press and press and press. And then there is the back. I love the back and have recently found myself spending an unusually lengthy time developing and piecing the back, sort of two quilts in one. Because I have not built up the confidence to machine quilt anything larger than a 1 yard square, most of my quilts get sent out, only to return to my most loathed task, the binding. Although, the experience of hand stitching the binding is growing on me, so we'll see. And then, just like at the end of a good book, I am sad to have it finished.

Likes and dislikes

I enjoy fabric shopping, fabric touching, and fabric dreaming. My next is thinking about all the ways I could, would use the fabric that I have, bought, touched, provided I had all the time in the world. Then I also like thinking about all of the intricate blocks, techniques, etc. That I probably won't have the time to complete. Then I like all of the fantastic chopping, slicing and dicing, only to jump on the machine and put it all together again.

I can make quilt tops all day long. I love the idea of quilting, and enjoy the machine and hand quilting process, but I also don't have the time to work on all of the tops that I make. So I am about to begin sending things out. Binding, eh, I get it appreciate the finishing process, but jot my favorite.

likes and dislikes

I love, love, love acquiring material .... and then admiring it and dreaming of how it will be transformed. I do like cutting (with rotary, of course) and watching piles appear. I also don't mind machine piecing -- preferrably by chain stitching. When the rows get larger, I start to feel the pressure... knowing I'm getting to the worst -- BASTING! That's probably why i've started sending out most of my quilts for someone else to baste and machine quilt. I like to hand quilt but arthritis is starting to interfer... and I'm a bit impatient for the product to be done. I too like to bind as it means the end is near and I'll have time to start a new one (or finish an already started one). The other least-liked aspect is cleaning up .... so many threads, scraps (smaller than can be used again, of course!), and "fabric dust"....

Let's Get Talking.....about process preferences

My favorite part of quilting is binding. Then I can start a new quilt! My least favorite part of the process is machine quilting, and I have a stiff neck right now to prove it. I am currently looking for someone who will trade machine quilting for binding. I enjoy piecing by hand or machine, but I do not like pressing. Never know which side those seams go. Lately have been pressing open ... a compromise. I like to shop for fabric (duh, who doesn't?) but I have trouble deciding how much to buy. Never know what my next quilt will be until I get home from the shop. And lastly, I do not like making labels, so I often skip it. Shame on me! End of confession.

Let's get talking: Quiltmaking, your favorite steps

As I was thinking about a topic for this week's chatting point, I kept thinking about all the time I spent in the sewing room since my last post, what I made, and what I liked about it.  I have several projects going at the same time (as I'm sure most of you do), and I tend to jump from project to project, doing what I can when I have time, getting to the more unplesant bits when I know I've got a few hours available to push myself through it... and so, that brings me to this week's topic..

What are your favorite steps of the quiltmaking process?
And which ones don't you like as much?

Please write a post telling us how your mind and emotions work, when it comes to quilting.  What steps do you get excited about, which make you want to up and leave your sewing space?  Perhaps you can make a list, ranking the steps in order from favorite to least favorite, i.e.

1. fabric shopping
2. machine quilting
3. binding
4. choosing a pattern
5. piecing
6. cutting
7. squaring up blocks
8. ironing

(for example, my own ranking would be a bit diffferent).  Feel free to use more steps that I've used, tell us what the process is for you.

As for my quiltmaking.. On the spiderweb I've been working on, I love love love "choosing" scraps to add next to a block, pinning them in place, and chain stitching them down.  The step of removing the pins and ironing I'm indifferent to, but I'll happily do it because it means I can get back to choosing the next round.

I like trimming up the full triangle templates and laying them out to see which ones make pleasing blocks.

I don't like piecing the triangles together into blocks, ironing the seams open, or removing the papers.
I'm not really a fan of cutting out the paper templates, or cutting the kites, but being able to play with my strip stash makes it worth it.. like, as I'm holding the kite template down and rotary cutting a stack of 8 at a time (with a dull blade), cursing when the blade nicks the template, I'm really just looking forward to getting to choose and chain piece some colorful strips, and that makes the dull jobs easier.

Other steps I'd rather skip include squaring up (anything, but esp. HSTs), piecing fabric for backings, and cutting patches (except diamonds, I like cutting diamonds).  Oh, and putting fabric back on the shelves!  that's no fun~

So, which steps are your favorite?  Tell us as much or as little as you'd like, but please post this week!!

Small-Group Cathedral Quilt

This quilt has been in the works since February, when David brought the beginning of it to the meeting--and he wasn't too excited about it. Andrea volunteered to add something to it, and topped it with the incredible giant paper-pieced rays. From there, Kim quilted and finished it, and...wow. WOW!!!

Michael Miller Fabrics & The December Block Challenge

We were very lucky to have a visit from the delightful Christine Osmers and Kathy Miller of Michael Miller Fabrics, who showed us some new fabric and discussed how they come up with color stories to determine new lines.

They also asked us about what we were looking for and would like to see more of in fabric, and it was interesting to hear everyone's opinions. Solids with a little somethin-somethin (to provide a little depth) were high on the list, as well as prints that aren't so girly--fewer flowers, more plaids and paisleys and geometric designs. Also, a lot more grey. As a "modern quilter," what else are you looking for in fabric that you're not finding?

The best part? They BROUGHT FABRIC! And the wolves descended! Just kidding, everyone was very polite (we pulled numbers to pick two pieces each, which kept mayhem to a minimum). Congrats to Margaret who ended up winning all the remaining fabrics--can't wait to see what you make out of it!

We also got a preview of their new line of solids, which works into the December Block Challenge. If you were at the meeting, you got your fabric packet and instructions, and just a reminder that this is a special challenge. You can only use the fabrics provided, and here's what to do:

Make a 12.5" (or whatever size you can with the fabric in the pack) abstract block using only the fabrics included--no adding from your stash (no embellishments either). Consider angles, symmetry, balance, etc.

The yellow fabric should be used as the focal "pop."

Bring the finished block to the December 3rd meeting!

More October Show & Tell

Every single meeting, I'm more and more impressed by the work everyone has done. You're all so amazing! I think the pictures speak for themselves.