Almost Done

It almost seems silly that I've spent so much time debating about the quilting on this wallhanging, but that's behind me now and I'm almost done.  Yay!!!  I'm sewing the binding down, then I'll add a hanging sleeve and finally take it to my office.  I do love the way the corners have turned out with this striped border.  Exactly what I was hoping for.

After finishing the row of feathers, I stalled.  This has been draped over a quilt stand as I have stared at it for weeks - willing it to tell me what to do!  I tried several different ideas and ripped them out.  Last week I was walking thru the garage and saw a roll of 1" blue painters tape sitting there and that was it.  I decided to use the tape as a guide and sew 1" diagonal rows in the 4 corners and be done with it!

It looks "just fine".  Not sure what I was hoping for, but this isn't an heirloom piece.  I guess I wanted to do the best I could as I do think clients will see it when they first walk in the office and I wanted my boss to be pleased.

So the next pictures of this will be when it's hanging in my office :).  After all the angst I hope I like it.  Oh well, I still have the tumbler quilt as a back up if I don't!

Have a great day,

Karen

Plan B Progress

After taking in some tumbler blocks to my office and putting them up on the wall, I decided they did not look as good as I had hoped.  So of course I did what any quilter would do, I decided to start another quilt.  Since I'm working for an attorney, I immediately thought of Courthouse Steps.  I've had so much fun making these blocks as my Plan B for my office.  I took in a few last week, and I think they will be wonderful.

Since the colors were a good match, I'm using exactly the same fabrics as in the Tumbler quilt.  I went thru my stash again and found a few more lights and darks as this pattern uses more lights.

As I know many of you will agree, there is just something about a log cabin quilt that gets me every time.  I've never done a Courthouse Steps variation, so I'm quite excited.

It's so much fun to watch your blocks grow.

I'm up to 45 - I'm thinking the wallhanging needs to be at least 8 blocks square.  When I get to 64 I'll sew some sets together and take them back in the office. The blocks will finish at 5", so I may need to make this 9 x 9.

Until then, I have this to look at.  I'm kind of on visual overload, as these are some of my most favorite fabrics and colors.  When it's all said and done, I may have a hard choice.......  Of course, I could rotate them and end up being able to hang both :).  Decisions, decisions....

Hope you've had a great weekend, I'm back to work tomorrow.

Karen

Car Project - Office Art - Plan B

I have finally decided to do a tumbler quilt and this became my car project on my recent trip to NC.  I have been wanting to try this pattern for quite a while.  After starting my new job, my boss and I discussed hanging some art on the walls in my new office.  I told him that in the office at my former job, I hung quilts instead of art.  He was very open to the idea.  Imagine how excited I was to be able to hang "Office Art" again.  One of the quilts I brought in will work perfectly for one wall, so I needed to make a new quilt for the other - oh darn LOL!!

I immediately thought of the tumber pattern.  So using the oriental rug in my office as the starting point, I picked fabrics from my stash in that color palette.  The main color in the rug is a very dark navy and I had plenty of scraps that matched.  I have decided to mix batiks and prints.  Thanks to Edyta and making "In Full Bloom", I  have much more confidence mixing these.  I just still don't have a very big stash of batiks.

I was able to cut them all out on the trip and I started sewing as soon as I got home.

Loving the way this was looking...

and on Monday I took 3 rows into work to see how it was going to look.  Terrible!!!!!  So I came home, went back to the drawing board, and started cutting out a new project.  I have promised myself I will finish this (and not let it become a UFO)  and I will post pics soon of "Plan B".

In the meantime, my DDIL sent a few pictures of their recent visit.  Here is Miss Punkin when she has someone making her smile...

and here she is when we set the self timer :)!  But I still love it.

Have a great day,

Karen



My Fall Quilts

Fall is such a great time of year, even in Florida where we don't see much color change.  Of all my fireplace quilts, this might be my favorite.  It was the last one I made during my NYB series (8 in all).  I pulled in the clay/red color and made the golds a little stronger - love this one!  It almost glows at night.

My hand pieced and hand quilted apple core is always a favorite.  It's a good size and has so many wonderful memories attached to it.

This little fall wallhanging used to hang in my office in my ever changing series of  "Office Art", but now it gets to hang out in my living room, making me smile.  The applique is all by hand and it's hand quilted.  This is one of the quilts I've made using the "One of a Kind" method.  Love it!!

This last one is one I haven't shown before.  I made this quilt in 2003-2004.  We had just gotten this new couch and of course I had to make a quilt to match.

I'm not sure what this pattern is called, but it was fun and easy.  I carried this pillow around with me for weeks, making sure the fabrics would match.

It matches so well it almost doesn't show up!!  This was one of the last "utility" quilts I hand quilted before I started learning to machine quilt.  Now I pretty much save the hand quilting for 1st time baby quilts for the grands and the quilts I put in the quilt show.

It's not a really "wow" quilt, but was perfect for what I was trying to achieve.

Have a great day,

Karen

September Office Art

Fall is in the air, even here in Pensacola and it's time for new office art. This is my quilt from our Guild Challenge "Chasing the Rainbow". I absolutely fell in love with this project. I started out with a totally different idea that just didn't work with the challenge rules. After completely starting over, this quilt began to evolve and I got very excited.

I've never done a black quilt before and that was a personal challenge for me that had nothing to do with the contest rules. Besides being limited to only using colors found in the challenge fabric, the quilt had to be 40" square and contain at least one "square in a square" block.

After I'd pulled my matching fabrics, I just started making blocks - at this point, not having a real plan or design in mind. These are 4" paper pieced blocks I drafted on EQ7.

I decided to hand quilt this due to the design element I wanted to add.

Once I started placing the bright blocks around the center, I realized that I couldn't completely surround the center medallion - which had been my first thought. So I shadow quilted the remaining border with the square in a square design using different colored thread to mimick the actual blocks. I hope you can click on these to enlarge them to see how pretty the different colors look. I added small bits of piping for color interest and the gold border finishes at 1/4" (cut 3/4"). It's such an intense color I didn't want too much contrast with the black.

The fabric I picked for the basket lent itself perfectly to be quilted along the lines and it looks woven. Remember that each fabric had to be present in the challenge fabric to be used. Most of these came from my stash and the guild free table - how fun is that??!

Last, but certainly not least, is my kitty.

So far, I've had very favorable comments from fellow workers. This is kind of different from my usual hangings. I'm having issues (huge problems) with the mq in my autumn tree, so this quilt may get to hang for a while!!
Until next time,
-Karen

Patriotic Office Art

Summertime is such a wonderful season. It includes (sort of) Memorial Day, Flag Day and the 4th of July. What a fun time to hang a flag quilt. My office looks quite festive.This quilt has such a fun memory/ story. I was passing through Stone Mountain, GA in July of 1996. The quilt shop had this kit hanging in their shop in honor of the Summer Olympics being held in Atlanta, GA that year. I loved it!! So did my sister and my mother. I ended up calling the shop from N.C. and ordering two more kits, which I picked up on my way back to Florida.

Everything was included - what a deal :). I tried using the "Big Stitch" for the first time. I used perle cotton and a bigger needle. I didn't love it, in fact, this is the only thing I've done using this technique.

But it does look kind of cool. I used 1/4" stitches in the body of the quilt, and 1/2" stitches done in a star shape in the border. This is another quilt I need to re-do the binding on - LOL!!! It's so nice to see improvement in our work :).

Until next time,

-Karen

A Happy Mistake

Here is my latest office quilt. (I have had quite a bit of trouble with the lighting, but I think you'll get the idea - I think they changed the bulbs in my office - grrr). The colors vary somewhat, but here is my spring version of my original tree that I made last year. While they are the same size and composition, they look really different.

My new quilt reminds me of cherry blossoms. As I child I attended the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC and this quilt reminds me of that happy memory. Using a blue background and the pink leaves does not create as much contrast.

I quilted the same curly design in the background, which I love.

I added a small piping which is very subtle, but created some edge definition. I couldn't find a binding that didn't detract from the overall quilt, so I just used the same fabric.

The color of the quilt is somewhere between these two pictures - you can see I'm having camera issues.

My happy mistake is the bird. After I was completely finished with this quilt, I realized there was no kitty in it. Since I don't have any pink cat fabric, I ripped out one of the leaves and added a bird using red fabric. It really stands out and makes the quilt much more fun. It's kind of hard to see the kitty but trust me, he's there.

Until next time,

-Karen

Birthday recap

I love lilacs!! Growing up in Rochester, NY (which by the way, is the lilac capital of the world), we had a lilac bush in our backyard. The first time I saw this line, I went nuts!! It is so beautiful, I can't wait to see the yardage - which I think should be out soon. Anyway, back to my birthday recap. I had a wonderful non-birthday this year. As a leap year baby, this was an off year but it was wonderful beginning to end. Lilac Hill was a gift from my "partner in crime" -I'll let you guess who that is. She is such a dear friend. She was thinking maybe another Schnibbles, she might be right :) I can't wait to start planning....Speaking of Schnibbles, My Little Red is looking just fine in it's new place on my office wall.

The pattern looks different to me when seen from a distance. This really is such a sweet quilt.

And these were given to me by a co-worker, most of them from her garden!! She is our resident office florist :). Thank you Donna for the flowers. I also had 2 carrot cakes yesterday, my favorite!! In my opinion, the cake is there only to support the cream cheese frosting LOL!!

My desk just looks so pretty with flowers on it, makes the work go better, it seems.

Until next time,

-Karen

Ooooh, it's a little love from Utah

Last week, I posted a comment on Em's blog and what happened next was, well, I guess just meant to be. She was working on this little wallhanging, and asked for interpretations. I wrote about my perspective of working full time and balancing my household responsibilities with the need and desire to create beauty. That struck a chord with Em and we connected in a little long distance "quilty" way. I replied, then Em replied and the next thing I knew, she told me this was on it's way from Utah to Florida!! You can read all about it on her blog. The quilt arrived this morning and now proudly hangs in my office. :) I can't wait to tell people the story of how it came to live here (I'll actually only tell the poeple who I think would really care LOL!). It looks so perfect here.

This is the view from my desk, I can see both Tin Man (my current office quilt) and now my "O" quilt. I haven't come up with a name yet, but I will. With all this going on, I have to really focus to get any work done (only kidding).

So thank you so much Em, for this gift of friendship. Utah is a long way from Florida and we may never meet, but you never know - I'm just saying........
Hope you all are having a great Monday!
-Karen

The Tin Man

I got this book in 1994 as a gift from my 94 year old great aunt and have looked thru it many times over the years. It's a great idea book.
One of the quilts that caught my eye was this one. How cute for a little guy's room. My partner in crime (aka Kim) and I were looking for a joint project to work on and I thought of this little quilt.

I drafted a pattern (since the book is just pictures), we raided our stash fabric (which were mostly homespun and plaids at the time) and away we went. We each pieced the blocks and I quilted it.

We finished this in probably 1998 (I need to do a better job of dating things) and now it's hanging in my office! After 13 years - still full of fun memories.

And lest you think I forgot the kitties, here they are :).

Oh, and here's the back. I re-drafted the pattern to a much larger size and put one on the back. I love back art - should do it more.

Thanks for taking a walk down memory lane with me.

Until next time,
-Karen