Man Quilt...

...that's not so man-ish anymore.

This quilt (#6 for me) began with a charm pack of batiks I received with a mug rug swap.  They were ugly and I couldn't re gift them because I didn't want anyone to think I'd actually choose that charm pack.  They sat around for a long time.  I finally decided they would work into an ugly "man quilt".

So I got started on a design idea.  I'm sure it was triggered by something I've seen somewhere.  This was back last November.

Then the holidays came and other sewing commitments took over.  Finally in April it surfaced again.  And I found that I was actually enjoying sewing this quilt top.  It didn't look as ugly as I thought it would.  Probably because the ugly fabric pieces are only 2" square.

Soon it was ready to sandwich.

I love when a quilt top is ready to sandwich.  The three layers together is when it changes from pieced fabric to a quilt.  I love to hug it after pin basting it just to feel all my hard work as a "quilt".  The design wasn't hard, but those corners of all the blocks match up really well because I worked hard to do my best to make sure they would all match up.

I moved along to my favorite straight line quilting. 

I couldn't be more pleased with the way the quilting looks with this simple design.

I just can't imagine sending a quilt top out to be quilted.  There is just no better feeling than sewing a quilt from start to finish.

Time for binding...

I wondered if I would ever bind a quilt with the same fabric as the design background rather than a contrasting piece.  Sure enough, this one called for a binding that didn't frame the design. 

 And in the end, I love the quilt!  It doesn't look strictly man-ish. 

It's definitely non gender specific.

I still have lots of pieces of this "ugly" charm pack left over.  Who knows what it'll turn into...we'll see.

Quilt #7 is on the wall and it's calling me to come play.  It's a rather interesting concept that I'm having a fun time with, so off I go to play!

Annie

Blooming Dresden

Table Mat

I'm not the biggest fan of the Dresden plate.  I don't dislike it but it isn't a favorite design.  However, I really like playing with the Dresden ruler wedge lately.

For this piece I traced the 8" ruler wedge.  Shrank the tracing with my printer to 3 different sizes plus a partial wedge. 

I fused the pieces to the background and stitched them down with a raw edge applique technique.  Easy peasy!  The binding is not bias, it's straight grain.  I don't like doing bias if I don't have to.

This piece is another make with this fabric collection for a personal challenge.  Other pieces can be seen in my flickr photostream here. 
Confession:  One fabric piece is not part of this fabric collection but I didn't want to keep repeating too many of the prints to make enough wedges so I just added one more print to the collection.  Is that cheating?  Maybe I can't count it in that challenge.

I've made a couple of table mats for my daughter and she said she'd like to have "some" more.  I'll have to send this to her eventually, but right now I just can't part with it.  I like it and want to enjoy it for awhile before I package it up and send it off. 

Now I can get back to work on my "Man Quilt" that I started back in January.  It's ready to quilt...I'm always so excited when a quilt is ready to be quilted.  See ya ~

Annie

Blooming Measuring Tape

Pillow #5

My man very seldom makes any comments about what I sew.  However, this piece caught his eye.  Most  likely because of the measuring tapes...guys use them too.  His comment was:

 "Somebody got mad at their tape measure and cut it up."

I always thought I was to blame for mis-measurements but I can see now that the tape measure is the culprit and can be punished with scissors!

My tape measures are a download from Digital Collage Sheets that I printed to fabric (quite a while back) and cut apart.  I thought I had Wonder Under fused to the back of these but when they didn't "stick" when I ironed them in place...well, surprise!  So I had to tack them down with a glue stick. Then made them stay put with circular quilting. 

That was all I planned to do but I felt like it just needed a little something more.  Glass beads seem to be doing the trick for me.

I was a bit disappointed to use the same red fabric for the binding, but nothing else worked.  Another simple back with a few of the glass beads hanging from the zipper pull.

This was simply a fun wild design idea that popped into my head and I had to put it to play.  (I don't kid myself.  I'm sure this has probably already been thought up and done somewhere in the universe, but I haven't seen it.)  I think #5 looks fun next to #2

What I want to know is why is it that I really like some of these pillow covers while I'm working on them and when I put a pillow form inside them they don't look so wonderful anymore. Why is that?...why is that?

Just do it!

Annie

Happy Birthday

Annie!

from my dear friend Carol (mamacjt)

 Is this just not the cutest most delightfully little happy birthday wishes quiltie you ever saw?!!!  It is such a sweet surprise.  (I didn't know she knew when my birthday was).  It arrived last Thursday.  Perfect for me to enjoy days before.  It's going to be coming out for 'everybody's' birthday to come now.  (Actually it won't ever get put away too far.  It's much too cheerful to be hidden away)  I need to see it often.

That wasn't all.  Look what fun came with it...

I guess today is the day I view the world through rose colored glasses... (I never do that.  I always look at the world head on).

Fun candles, a "gold" happy birthday necklace and some fabric pieces!

...and this fun little bundle from my other dear friend Shirley (freidasew).  Some of the world's best people live in Wisconsin.

I just love the detail in the sunflower and the leaf fabrics.  Look closely for the myriad of french knots in the flower center.  Gorgeous work, colors and absolute beautiful quilting!  That little post-its pad says: "I'll have a caffe mocha vodka valium latte to go, please!"   ... that's what I want in a coffee.  LOL

 How fun is all this?!  I'm such a lucky birthday girl.

Carol and Shirley, thank you so, so much for the best birthday wishes ever!  You're the best!

My local quilt shop gives a birthday discount of half your age on your entire purchase.  I stocked up on some fun fabrics and a new book at a pretty nice discount.  There are benefits of getting old as long as you're getting old in the right place (meaning in my town where my local quilt shop gives this nice birthday discount).  After that, a Sundae at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory, YUM!

...and I thought it was going to be a rather quiet boring birthday!  NOT!

Thank you!
Annie

Revisiting Bird & Blooms

Now Pillow #4

I haven't been very happy with the outcome of this piece and have been eyeing it daily and it finally began to speak to me of what I might change.

Original details on this piece are in this post. 

The flowers bothered me the most.  They were too lost in the background.  I chose some pastel pieces to cut swirls to add to the thread painted swirls.  The stems and leaves were also very lost in the background and got fabric highlights added to them as well.

A bit more collage was created for the background to get it to a 15" pillow size and I'm now pretty happy with this piece.

  The back is simple.  I find that I like making the zipper part of the design and choosing one with color contrast for that purpose.  With my pillow zippers I'm trying to pull the "fun" out of "functional".

I think I need to look into some charms to decorate the zipper pulls.  This one will need a bird charm.

4 months into the year and 4 pillows.  At least I'm not behind...yet.  Pillow #5 is on the design wall and it also is asking for a bit of something extra.  I wonder what that might be.  I'll have to muse on it.

Annie

Altered Dresden

The unPillow 

I have this fat eighth collection that my friend Carol (mamacjt) shared with me just before I fled Wisconsin. 

Fat eighths make me think small project(s).  But there seems to be a lot more to a fat eighth than meets the eye.  A while back I made a couple of small projects with these and then decided to challenge myself to how many quiltie things I can make with the collection.  My flickr group of projects is here. 

I pulled out the predominantly pink pieces for this quiltie project.  I used my little Easy Dresden ruler to cut the wedges.  I stitched in a center circle and then satin stitched a spiral inside.

The spiral felt off centered (even though it wasn't), so I did a straight stitch following the spiral.  It still felt off.  Then the stitched-in center piece looked way less than perfect, so I cut and fused a ring to cover that ugly seam and it all came into a better perspective for me.  Plus I really like the way that light colored fabric ring looks.

 

I loved how this looked the entire time I worked on it. 

With the fixes to the center, it took on a whimsical look so I added a pink "stick".  I was SO happy with it.

Then I put the pillow form inside and my spirits took a spiraling dive!  It just doesn't look right as a pillow.  I hate that!

I think the design gets too distorted.  So, now what?  Well, I think maybe I'll try putting a thin foam piece inside and try it as a chair back cushion.  I'll just have to wait until it inspires me to know exactly what it should be.  But dang it all, I wanted it as a pillow!

There were some scraps left after cutting the wedges and the inside of the fabric ring was left as well.  I put them into the back.

This means I'm still on pillow #4.  So, I'll be back...

Annie

Publishing Comments

Why don't the little "publish comment" buttons all work the same?!!!  I suppose it has to do with the system you blog with.  I've no clue really because I've no clue about this techy stuff.  I'm just guessing.  Does any one really know why this is?

The orange "Publish Your Comment" buttons work the first time, every time for me.

The white "Publish" buttons that turn blue when you click on them hardly ever work for me.  Once I tried off and on for two hours to publish a comment on one of these before finally giving up.  I've sent many bloggers a private message just so they would know I was there, and I liked what they did. 

It's so incredibly frustrating and I know you want me to come back later and try again, but that's getting even more time consuming.  Please know that I'm watching you work.  I will continue to write a comment, but if it won't take after a few minutes of trying, I need to move along in life.

Remember...I'm watching you work!  Why wouldn't I?  You're very inspiring!  I just don't always get to tell you so.

Annie

Wonky Quilt

Literally!

I don't know how the "Monk" in me allowed me to make this quilt.  I'll explain how it came about, but I first must post this

WARNING:

What follows may horrify quilters everywhere.

As you read, please keep in mind that I never pay attention to quilting "rules"...never.  Sometimes they make sense, but, mostly not.  I think most "rules" were created prior to the creation of the walking foot.

First of all I needed to make one more "whole cloth" quilt.  And I fell in love with these fabrics. 

I love the colors, the wonky flower blocks and the plaid stripe.  It will be horrifying to some to learn that I found these fabrics at JoAnn's.  They aren't a bad quality but they are printed wonky.  This I didn't see until I set out to cut the top to size.  This was so disappointing.  

Eventually I wondered if I cut the design straight if it would show that the quilt would not be "squared".  Horrifying that I would even consider cutting a quilt out of square, isn't it?!  It's an optical illusion.  The eye is fooled.  Well,  my eye is fooled.

These fabrics are on the narrow side, so my next decision was to not cut off the selvages...more horrification!  They are actually nice and flat.  They don't pull inward on the edges.  And being wacky as I am,  I hoped they would add some curiosity to the quilt.

But now the back.  I hoped with the stripe going up and down that the eye would continue to be fooled.  Nope!  With it being a plaid stripe with lines going vertical and horizontal, it was obvious that I cut the ends at an angle to match the top piece.  Even more disappointment!

And then my boundless determination set in.  I wondered if I could save this quilt by creating an optical illusion on the back to once again fool the eye.  Now I find myself working on the quilt from hell.  And wondering about myself, why do I have to be this way?!!!

The quilt back was about 1/2 an inch narrower than the top.  Why not!  Why should coordinating fabrics be the same width?!  So, a strip of wonky flower blocks was added to extend the width. 

 Now the tricky part.  I stitched flower blocks at various levels along the top and bottom so the eye can't easily follow the stripe/plaid lines, therefore not easily noticing the wonky angle.

I think it worked.  So I sandwiched it and started quilting it.  I'm sure it's horrifying but I started at a bottom corner and worked my way across and up the quilt.  And horror of horrors, I also did not leave much for extra batting or backing behind the front for quilting.  I have found that nothing really moves that much during quilting, so I've stopped wasting so much batting and backing fabric for the quilting stage.

I bound it with the plaid stripe backing fabric.

This is only quilt #5 for me.  Probably because of all the challenges presented by this fabric that I feel I conquered, this is actually my favorite quilt so far.  It's a small lap quilt measuring 42" X 64" but just right for lying around watching TV.  And I am horrifyingly thrilled with it's conniving bit of wonkyness.

I had some wonky flower blocks left over and a chunk of the plaid stripe, so I made this small quiltie.  Now here's the real shocker for me...

...if I made that lap quilt for you, do you think your little doggie would like the quiltie?  Yep, I made her little doggie a matching little quiltie.  I cannot believe I did that!  Really, I cannot believe a made a quilt for a dog!

Well, there you have it...proof that miracles never cease to happen!

Annie

Into the unknown I go. 

Michele of Quilts From My Crayon Box blog is hosting a Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin.  I've always felt drawn to try a round robin but the quilts were always bed sized.  That's a size that doesn't interest me.  So when I saw Michele had thunk up a small scale wall quilt, I jumped in.

I only have until the 18th to come up with my center block.  I'm not a fast thinker upper so I had to get started immediately.  Good thing cause I made rejects!

First reject block is this one...

  I like the block, but I decided it was too busy for this project.  It most likely will soon be a fun potholder.

My next reject block is this one...

These are four 3" log cabin blocks.  (They aren't actually sewn together yet)  I liked them and thought I'd make some more with mixed colors.  That plan didn't go so well so I moved onward.

This is the next block I tried...

This one could be fun to play with.  It could have more colors added or it could even go in a Fall or even a Halloween direction.  But I'm still not quite happy with the simplicity of it to be my focal point.

This post published without me due to constant Internet connection interruptions this entire week.  Because of that I concentrated on sewing instead and then this post published this morning without me...so, to finish.....

This is the block I've decided on...

A bit dull and boring looking here all by itself, but I actually have a plan for it when it comes back to me in December.  Well, of course depending on what my border partners add to it.  Possibly their border decisions will change my plan in the end.  I'll just have to wait and see.

I do love a good mystery.....

Annie