Gifts

Last night

the Central Coast Quilters enjoyed our holiday party, and I've reached the end of my two-year tenure as president of the guild.
I've had a great time! It's a great bunch of people, and the guild really runs itself. I just made sure things ran smoothly.
I never managed to execute a vote properly, according to Robert's Rules of Order; I would confuse the procedure order every time, and depended on experienced members to set me straight.

So, I made a little thank-you gift for each of the board members/committee chairs for this year. I bought some plain, wooden needle cases from Connecting Threads. Then I painted them with bright stripes and dots.

Here are a few left after our soup supper at my house last week, when each of the board members chose their own. I think they're pretty cute!

 The guild's tradition is to give the outgoing president a quilt, made by the board members. When I was asked, two years ago, what kind of quilt I'd like, I told them I'd like a word quilt. Words that relate to quilting, to the guild, to my two years as president. Words that are appliqued or pieced. You pick the colors.
This is the quilt that was unveiled tonight! Isn't it great?!

It's fun to read words others have chosen for me. Some refer to the guild, like Costumes,  and ANGELS,(our philanthropy group), Super Quilter, and Sew far, So good, the sign-off I used on all guild emails. Some refer to sewing, like fun fabric, design and create,  strips and wonky. Some of the words are for me: Gramma Linda, Chirp, and some really nice compliments: kind, passion, joy, and you rock. Don't you love the bright colors, too? So cheery.

The back is sweet, too. All sorts of clever sewing phrases and  paraphernalia. Plus signatures! I love it.

I'm going to treasure this quilt, and enjoy snuggling with it!

Indie Groove

It seems I've had a serious case of blog flu, unable to write or post without being intimidated by ideas and overcome by procrastination. Now I need to use it or lose it, and I'm not quite ready to give it up.

I never showed you this quilt in its entirety, did I?

Indie Groove

Two years ago I won some of Pat Bravo's Indie fabric from Lily's Quilts. It seemed ideal to pair with Sujata Shah's Painted ZigZag quilt pattern. I think it's fascinating to follow the flow and break of the colors in the zigzags. 

 

I quilted it with a metallic copper thread. Maybe it's lost in the busy-ness of the fabrics, but I like to think it adds to the pizzazz of this pattern!

You can see here how I quilted from the back of the quilt, loosely following the floral pattern on the backing to get an overall floral design on the front.

Now this quilt has gone to live at Cris's house. The colors are perfect for her! It was great fun to surprise her with this gift for her birthday. 

Sugar Skulls

A lot of life and projects have happened since I was here last, but let's just jump to this project:

I posted this little tease on facebook, and I was happily surprised at how many people liked the sugar skull fabric.

This is what I made with it:

Matching dresses for Poppy and her doll, Becky.

Becky was Bethany's doll when she was a girl,
and we're delighted that Poppy loves her
as much as Bethany did.

Bethany says Poppy loved the sugar skull fabric when she opened the package, and she loved the dress when she unfolded it. But when she noticed the little doll dress that was included, she really got excited! She ran upstairs to put them on, and Bethany heard Poppy talking to Becky about loving the dresses. In fact, when Bethany heard a squeal of delight and asked what it was about, Poppy said, "Oh, that was Becky!" That makes me so happy!

A masculine quilt

I have a new finish to show you.

I want to give a quilt to my nephew for Christmas this year.  Last year, it was my turn to give his brother a Christmas present, and I gave him this quilt.

This is not the new finish, this is last year's Christmas gift.
Keep reading for this year's Christmas gift!

It's made with upcycled Hawaiian shirts I got from a friend whose husband stopped working at Trader Joe's, where Hawaiian shirts were his uniform. I wondered if a quilt was a dorky gift for a young man in college, but, apparently, it was well received, and is well used.

For this year's, and this nephew's offering, I started out by asking my hive-mates in the 3x6 bee to make quilt blocks for me in autumn colors on black or gray backgrounds. the bold colors were a stretch for some of my partners, but they came through with some striking, powerful blocks. It was a good head start on a manly quilt.

Nope, this isn't it, either.
These blocks are on hold for another day,

Then I became part of a newly-formed online bee we call Stars in Their Eyes, and I changed my mind about what I wanted to make for Alex. For my month in the bee, my bee-mates made the most gorgeous feather blocks from Anna Maria Horner's feather bed tutorial.

I love their blocks, and happily made more to complete a quilt top that I thought my nephew would like a lot.

I took the quilt top to my lqs to get advice on how to quilt it. As we discussed ideas, my advisor wondered if the purple feather might be too feminine for my nephew. Of course, Alex is more mature and worldly than that, but that comment was enough for me to justify keeping this quilt top for myself. I love it so much!

Aha! New plan! I had these blocks, some of the first I'd ever made when I first started quilting, and from the first online tutorials and quilt-along I ever participated in.

They were made using the same batch of Hawaiian shirts I used for nephew Christopher's quilt. The linen was found in a big bolt at the thrift store. I like that the two brothers' quilts relate to each other.

I put the blocks together with a beautiful plaid fabric my sister Laura gave me a few years ago from her overflowing stash. I love the beach-y looking blocks with the mountain-y plaid. The backing is a plaid flannel, also from Laura's stash.

The quilt is straight-line and in-the-ditch quilted. My goal was to stabilize the linen, which has a tendency to unravel, and to enhance the fabrics and the block patterns.

The recommendations for the batting is that quilting lines be no more than 4" apart. Only one of the blocks has a center square larger than that.

To tack that block, I free-motion-quilted in the center. Because the fabrics are from Hawaiian shirts, I googled "Hawaiian symbols," and found a tribal turtle drawing that I like. I printed it, then cut out a stencil from it, and drew it onto the block with a washable marker. Then I fmqed around it.

Once washed, the ink was gone and the turtle motif is subtle. Part of me wishes I'd painted the turtle, because I like the bit of blue there, but I'm glad the turtle doesn't compete with the traditional blocks and the lovely fabrics.

The men in my house agree that it's a very handsome quilt. I'm proud to give this one to nephew Alex. I think he'll like it!

I've been home for a week...

I spent five weeks in Pittsburgh, PA with my daughter, son-in-law, and 7-year-old granddaughter. First of all, let me say that it's wonderful to be loved by this little family, and to be welcomed into their home for such an extended stay. (Don't you hear a lot of stories about families that don't get along so well between generations?)

The little family.

 Second, let me express gratitude to my husband and youngest son, who support me spending time with our extended family, despite leaving them on their own. (They miss me, but they get along fine without me!)

Sitting on the front porch, enjoying the summer rain,
complete with lightning and thunder, and a double rainbow!

Third, since we leave so far apart, I'm glad to have the opportunity to really have relationship with my granddaughter, more than just a visit.

Admiring the community garden,
which Bethany and Max helped to found.

Now I'm home, with a little time before school starts and I go back to work. I've been enjoying time to myself, and getting reacquainted with my sewing space. I started by making some asterisk blocks for Sue, in our Stars in Their Eyes sewing bee. As usual, I got carried away and made more than the two expected, because it was fun to play with prints for the background fabrics.

Red and aqua on gray.

I wanted to make a gift for my cousin, who is getting married this week. (I know, the invitation said no gifts, but I just can't show up empty-handed.) I'd purchased this tea towel to make into a medallion quilt, and thought it would make an attractive cushion. When I started working with it, Ralph really liked it, and I started thinking maybe it's a little too kitschy for my sophisticated cousin. When I added the zippered back, I accidentally turned it so the zipper cover faces up (a dust catcher-ugh!), and that decided it. This pillow is staying at home.

Tea towel becomes a quilted cushion.
I even made the piping.

See that zipper cover facing right?
It's parallel to the top edge of the pillow front.
Too bad I didn't check before stitching around the pillow three times!

So I decided to make a set of cloth napkins as a gift. I used Penny's tutorial at sewtakeahike and tweeked it a little to get the best cuts from my fabric and still come up with a 16" napkin. The center is linen, and the punctuation fabric is a nod to my cousin's love of writing. To me it's also symbolic of the reminder to pause, to listen, to appreciate when sharing a meal. I love the mitered corners, thanks to Penny's easy-to-follow directions.

Aren't they sophisticated?

I'd sure like something to share for Show & Tell at this month's quilt guild! Just before I left for Pittsburgh I took Debbie Maddy's class to make her Labyrinth Quilt. Simple construction, it would be easy to make just using her pattern, but taking the class was so worthwhile! Debbie was entertaining, and full of really effective tips for cutting, sewing, and arranging fabrics. Here's my quilt in progress, now I'm working on quilting it.

Oh yes, I'll be back with more photos from Pittsburgh! I just want to live in the moment, you know!

So, what do you think, are the napkins a good gift? Is it okay to bring a gift when the invitation says gifts aren't expected? Can I wear a black dress to the afternoon wedding in the city? 

And what about that pillow, made from a retro-style tea towel? 

Finish It Friday

In a flurry of self-indulgent sewing and British detective shows on Netflix, I holed up in my sewing space and jammed through some projects I've been wanting to make for myself.

My LQS (local quilt shop) restocked the pattern for the Spicy Table Runner I'd admired there before, and just happened to be hosting a class for the same pattern within days of my asking about the pattern. So, I signed myself up, and in typical over-achiever style, I brought enough fabric to make two table runners. And I finished them, in one week, from start to finish, so I could show off a little share them at the quilt guild meeting.

Found this fabric bundle at the thrift store!

Won this fabric bundle, door prize from my LQS!

I had a lot of fun making these, seeing what I ended up with after sewing strips together and then cutting them up again. I experimented with free motion quilting, too, stitching pebbles and swirls, and feathers and vines into the different layers.

Click to see quilting detail.

I used my seam ripper to take out the quilting stitches from the first of these place mats, because I decided to finish the outside edges with an enclosed seam instead of a scrappy binding, for a cleaner look.

I'll be pulling thread bits out of this one forever!

I really like the look of the Summersville prints with the linen, and it was fun to use a different traditional block pattern with each mat. I may still add some hand stitching, but I already can't believe I put so much effort into something likely to get stained pretty quickly!

Set of six

Looking pretty on the table.

And, since someone who has just moved into a new apartment and started a new job said she really liked the Summersville fabric, I used some scraps to make her a couple of pot holders. My new sewing machine embroidered the lettering, can you see it?

I'm linking up with Amanda Jean's Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, to once again show off a little share my progress!

New Finish

Pretty new finish: this design is Garden Fence by Hyacinth Quilt Designs, and all the fabrics are by Amy Butler. I started with the paisley my sister Pamela chose for her contribution to Grace's birthday quilt, and added other fabrics in pink and green.

Free motion quilted; a free-form flower shape centered in each square, with big, wavy petals, and leaves to fill in empty corners. FMQ means I move the quilt under the needle of the sewing machine, and draw a picture with thread. Just think of the way names are added to Mickey Mouse hats at Disneyland. 

Here's the birthday girl, getting ready to blow out the candles on her Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake. After all, we all worked at Baskin-Robbins in High School, except Pamela!

We celebrated Pamela's birthday in Flagstaff, staying at this beautiful cabin with this glorious view of the San Francisco Peaks. This is the geography of our childhood!

Notice the beautiful pine forest, it smells wonderful! 

 Here's the birthday girl, isn't she cute?

She likes it!