Blogger's Festival

It's that of year again - the Blogger's Quilt Festival. This is my quilt "Going Home" which was made for the 100th Anniversary of Naval aviation. It was accepted into the traveling exhibit and has been touring the country since January. Here it is hanging in my office - it was up for one day before I had to ship it off!

Of the quilts I've done in the past year, this one stands out as being very special to me. I'm kind of a traditional quilter and so this "art" quilt was a stretch for me. You can find the whole story here. It's also the first time I've entered a national contest. So even though I didn't win an award, just being selected to be in the traveling exhibit was a thrill!

The rules stated that the quilt had to finish at 40 x 40 and my squares finish at 1". So there are 1,600 squares in this. My biggest challenge was creating the setting sun and trying to reflect the sunshine on the water.

The planes are WWII F6 Hellcats. I learned a lot about planes doing this. I was pretty pleased with the quilting on this too.

While looking thru my pictures to decide what I wanted to use for this post, look what I found. A picture of Rodger - checking it out!! This almost made me cry. I don't even remember taking this picture. He was always so interested in my quilts LOL!! He might have been my biggest fan!! Still miss this little guy...

Anyway, thanks to Amy for this opportunity to share our work with each other. Go by and check out all the quilts!!
Until next time,
-Karen

Weekend work

I've been working on the vine and leaves - almost done!! I can't tell you how exciting it is to pull out an old book and make a project that you've been thinking about doing for years. That's how it is for me with these Joy Angels. I sure hope the whole "hanging it on the picture" thing works!!
When I hung this up this morning to take a picture, I saw my fall fireplace quilt - it's been up for a few weeks now. How I love changing these out for the seasons. You can check out the label list on the bottom right for more posts about my fireplace quilts (if you're new and have no idea what a Fireplace Quilt is :).)

I think it may be almost time to make a new fireplace quilt, that will have to go on my to-do list for 2012. Oh me, my list is already getting full for next year- LOL!! But for me, there is just something about a New York Beauty......... it makes my heart sing :)!!

Have a great Monday!
-Karen

Joy Angels

I have owned this book for probably about 15 years. I love Folk Art quilts and I've made lots of them. But there is one project in this book I've never made. I've used part of it, but never the way it was designed....... until now. This is the Joy quilt. I love these angels and have wanted to make this quilt forever!! But it's 61" x 21". That is an odd size. I guess you could use it for a table runner, but I wanted to hang it up. Where do you hang something that long and skinny? So I started walking around my house seriously looking for a place to hang it, and I ended up in the Dining Room.

Several years ago my DH painted my DR a brick red and I still love it. On the big wall is a fairly large watercolor painting (52 x 32). It struck me that if I made the quilt shorter and wider, maybe I could use the picture as a base and make a pocket of some kind on the back to hang the quilt. I've pulled out my precious stash or Robyn Pandolph Folk Art Christmas III and IV. It is still unbelievably gorgeous after all these years!! I am modifying the vine placement and adding a distinct border.

Can you see it???? How wonderful it's going to be??? I am very excited. And very grateful to Kim who came to the rescue with the perfect piece of green for the vine. How lucky for me that she hadn't cut it into 2 1/2" strips yet - LOL!!! Robyn decided to change the green on IV and there is virtually nothing on the market now that matches it. But now I've got a piece to make my vine, so I'm on my way.

I'm still working on my pink and green baskets (sort of) and also working on a secret project that I can't show for a while - but it's sooooo cool. I'm going to prep the applique for hand work as we're taking a trip in a few weeks and this will be perfect!

I am so excited that I'm finally making my own Joy quilt - I can't wait!

Until next time,

-Karen

Wedding Memories Linger Update

I have spent another lunch hour quilting - how wonderful is that???? Just wanted you to know I have not forgotten about this one - it's just a long term project.
I'm in the big light border right now. I think I've been there forever..... although, wait, I did have a sweet little 8 lb. 4 oz distraction born almost 6 weeks ago. How has it been that long??? I miss that little munchkin! So in between a new grandbaby, work, life, etc. I can definitely tell I'm making progress on this. And I will tell you that my thoughts do linger as I quilt over these fabrics - there's really nothing like recalling all those sweet memories. My daughter is coming up on her 10 year anniversary next spring and my son will celebrate 4 years in a few weeks. So 10 years ago, I was just starting to collect fabrics for her wedding quilt - and it all started at Mary Jo's!!

I just love the solitude of hand quilting.... even in the midst of a busy law firm office!

Hope you're having a great day,

-Karen

P.S. Angie, if you're reading this, I need your email - you keep showing up as a no-blogger.

The Journey has Begun

I finally got up the nerve to count all these baskets - 179!!! And they say it starts with one. So after several days of trying to decide on a quilting design, last night I started quilting. I am so conflicted about this quilt. I love it so much, and I'm so afraid I will be disappointed when I'm finished. I started this in either 1998 or 1999. It was either the second or third project that Kim and I worked on together. I have zillions of memories of the two of us using our lunch hour appliqueing basket handles on the prettiest pink and green fabrics we'd ever seen. I still feel that way too. This quilt is one of my all time favorites for many reasons. Here is the monster on my table. Can you see the puffy wool batting? This is one of my issues.

I always meant to hand quilt this and I love to hand quilt with wool batting. But now that the decision has been made to fmq, the wool is very puffy and doesn't really hold the layers together the way a cotton batting does so there are little tucks all over the place, and I've only done like 10 blocks! I'm so wishing I had a nice piece of 80/20.

While I'm pretty happy with this design, my stitch in the ditch skills are quite lacking :(. This is really an understatement - it's quite discouraging. I know I will improve over the course of 179 baskets, and I'm hoping the overall look will hide the individual mishaps. Here is what the back looks like.

This shadowed picture shows the pattern better. It will eventually have little feathers on the other side of the basket. So far, this can all be done as continual quilting, not having to break the thread or do any back tracking - which I really like. I have a hunch this will go on and off the machine often as I can only do so much of this "custom quilting" and I use those words loosely LOL!! I've already changed a few things and I'm not going back and rip out!

Sorry to do so much whining. I guess I just needed to vent. Now that I don't have my buddy Rodger to talk to when I sew (still miss that little guy), I'm glad I have bloggy friends.

Until next time,

-Karen