Green Deco

 

I decided to make a Green Deco quilt to match the Spring Birds quilt of the birds with the light green backgrounds. 

The quilt is from Amy Walsh & Janine Burke's book, "Colorful Quilts for Fabric Lovers," and has two very simple blocks. I needed a lot of strips, so I cut a collection of lightish light greens.

Here are some of my first blocks, thrown on the design wall in no particular order. I already know I am going to like this, but it will look a lot better once I have a lot more blocks.

For the last day of school, my granddaughter decided to wear her "very best favorite dress" - the dress I made for her using Seminole Patchwork. You can click the link for my tutorial on basic Seminole patchwork.

Needless to say her description of the dress made my day!

Fancy Dress Up Day

 

It was Fancy Dress Up Day at my granddaughter's school on Monday. Naturally my daughter-in-law took a picture of my DGD and my son.

Pretty in pink, the two of them!

BTW, my seminole patchwork basics tutorial is available here, in my Etsy shop. The band on the bodice of her dress is more complicated than it at first looks, but the instructions are in the tutorial.

A Little Ham...

This is my granddaughter in the Pink Dinosaur Seminole Dress. 

Pretty sure she likes it. 

Seeing these photos (and the others my son sent), reminded me of what his pediatrician said to me during one of his exams.

"There's a little ham in this kid."

Clearly it runs in the family.

What's Next

 

Now that I know the dress fits my granddaughter, it's time to make "the real thing."

I'm cutting out the pieces.

And I am "making" the fabric for the bodice. The bodice is lined so there is no need to worry about all these seams.

Not a Quilt

 

I ordered some fabrics to make a dress for my granddaughter. The dress will have a seminole patchwork band across the bodice and a strip along the hem. The fabrics are here, but the dress pattern has not arrived quite yet, but it is due soon. I am quite excited.

Have you noticed the eyes in one of the green fabrics? They are supposed to be dinosaur eyes surrounded by dinosaur scales. Because OF COURSE, my dinosaur-loving granddaughter has her Memere wrapped around her little finger!

Another Biast From the Past!

 

WAY BACK in 1988 or 1989, I made my son a pair of shorts and I incorporated a band of seminole patchwork, as you can see in the photo I took back then. I think my son was 8, and I'm kinda surprised he actually WORE the shorts, and not just to humor me. I have pictures of him at school wearing them.

Anyway, I have long thought Seminole patchwork was sixteen kinds of awesome, and I still do. I think the shorts were pretty stylish then, and I think any cool kid would be happy with them now. It was super easy to insert a bit of seminole patchwork into a pair of shorts.

It's always nice to see the recipient of a quilt beam with pride when they are wrapped in a gifted quilt, but quilts are a bit hard to show off in public. One of the nice things about Seminole patchwork is how easy it is to incorporate into things we make for our loved ones.

The new Seminole Patchwork tutorial is in the final draft phase. Now I get to send it to my intrepid editors, which is when the real work begins.

Stay tuned!

A New Tutorial in Progress

I'm working on a new tutorial.

It's based on the ideas from Seminole patchwork, which I have always loved.

While these elements certainly can be used in quilts of any size, they can easily be adapted as decorative elements on dresses, skirts, tote bags, pockets, pillows, potholders, table runners and placemats, pants and blouses. The photo above is a small tote bag I used to carry my tools around when I worked in IT. The patchwork above was on the pocket. I figured if I was going to carry a toolbag around all the time it was going to be pretty*.

The rows of on point squares in my sampler quilt, Letters From Home, were made using this technique.

Stay tuned!

*True story: somebody asked me once why I would bother to spend so much time MAKING a small tote bag when I could easily BUY one for much less time and effort. "WHY would I want to spend money on something UGLY," I asked her, "when I can MAKE something BEAUTIFUL?"

Black & White

I keep telling people that I love the combination of Black & White, and that I love checkerboards. For example, did you know that every cat I have ever had has been black and white? (This photo of Millie was taken back in 2009.) But I digress...

You should go back and read this post about the bathrooms in my house from last Christmas. In that post I showed you the tiny shower in my main bathroom. It and the toilet live in a small L shaped room. One leg of the room is the shower and the toilet, and the other is a sort of closet of shelves that hides behind the bathroom door.

So now that you have "the lay of the land" as they say, this is what you see when you enter that little room. The shower is on the left, the toilet is on the right. This is the curtain I made. Look closely.

Yes, these are black and white bras and panties. What else is more perfect for a lady's bathroom?

This is an African mask I bought at Pier One a million years ago. I got it for my son's room back when he was in his last year of high school. He went to work with my brother in Colorado for the summer and asked me to spruce up his room when I was gone. So I did. When he moved out, he left the mask. Thank you son. Now it hangs in my bathroom.

You've seen this before. It's Seminole Patchwork and for the life of me I don't understand why it isn't more popular than it is because I think it is absolutely spectacular. Then again we all know I love the graphic (abstract) quality of quilts. The black and white are solids and the turquoise is like a batik. The color combination was inspired by the colors Danika Patrick wore one Indianapolis 500 race way back when. There are some very good books on Seminole Patchwork out there (I know, I own most of them), but they are likely out of print. Still you ought to be able to Google something if you want to know more.

This is a woodcut by Barry Moser. Go ahead, look him up. He's awesome and his work is fabulous. You can see more images here. This print is the Mad Hatter from his illustrated version of Alice.

I was cleaning out my closet to get to the Fontaine Sisters when I found the print. I had forgotten I owned the books. 

 

I thought the Mad Hatter's delightfully horrified expression would be perfect for the bathroom wall. I'd have placed him directly ABOVE the toilet if the quilt fit on the wall on the right, because I thought it would be hilarious to have him looking down at a man urinating in the toilet, except that there are no men living in this house and male visitors tend to use the guest bathroom. And besides, there is a nice symmetry to having the quilt in the middle.

I do plan to revamp this bathroom, but with the spa tub taking up so much space, and the skylight directly above it, I have some major rearranging and work, to do it. Since I am a big believer of not getting started until you know where you are going, this bathroom will wait. I will, however, be giving the guest bathroom a total revamp that should be done by summer. Part of that was replacing the toilets in both bathrooms. 

Honestly, never in a thousand years did I expect a post about TOILETS would generate more comments than a post about a quilt, but there you go. Proves once again the world is indeed a funny place.

I'll show you something EVEN MORE SPECTACULAR that I found that I didn't even know I had later.

What Can You Do With A One Inch Square?

What can you do with a one inch square?

Well, if you know me at all you know that I would NEVER, EVER use something that small in a piece of traditional patchwork because I think it's just too damn small and finicky...

I can't seem to be able to make any kind of patchwork whatsoever without sewing things together and then cutting them apart and then putting them together in a different way. (I was  in a techie chat room once and we were talking about our non-tech hobbies and I wrote..."I make quilts. I take big pieces of fabric, cut them up into small pieces and then sew them together again into big pieces of fabric...")

So my next trick is to show you what you can do with one inch squares that is NOT traditional. Naturally I have a few tricks, and surprises, up my sleeve.

Stay tuned!

Duck, Duck, Goose

OK, I don't really know what that means, but it sounds good.

I have been wondering what to put in the little bathroom to highlight the new curtain.

 The Mashed Potato Crayons fit, but it just disappears on the wall.

While packing up my supplies for the Letters class I'll be teaching at Quilted Threads next week, I found this seminole patchwork quilt I had made several years ago.  This is MUCH better. At some point I'll paint the walls and replace the hardware, but this is fine for now.

The project I can't tell you about is almost finished. I hope to send it off on Monday. Once that's in the mail, and I've finished preparing for the class, I'll be back sewing.

I cannot wait.

This and That Thursday

My son and DIL sent me these lovely flowers for my birthday, which was on Monday. It was one of those "0" years and I am still "in the Nile" about it.

This is where Millie has been camping out during the hot weather. On top of the Black Box quilt under the air conditioner. That cat's no fool!  The Black Box will be going to Paducah next week and on to Chattanooga for the AQS show there in September. If you see it, let me know what you think.  Millie is making sure the quilt is marked as HERS before it goes.  The other quilt on the coffee table is Julie's "Hidden Potential."  When I've got the AC running at night I cover myself with two quilts because it gets chilly, so I want to keep it handy.

As you can see I've replaced the Black Box quilt on the wall with "Too Much Chicken" (also known as "the chicken quilt"). It looks really nice.  It's a pretty nice quilt if I do say so myself. I made it as a lark and had a lot of fun with it, so I'm really pleased it turned out well. Here's another shot of it.

I've finally had a chance to sit and watch Gerald Roy discuss the exhibit Quilts and Color at the MFA Boston. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De8utOjr-G8. It's about 90 minutes long, but it's full of great stuff.  Gerald Roy appraised several of my quilts last year. At the time I didn't know that he was a Very Big Deal in the AQS.  We had a lovely chat while he looked at my work and exchanged views on quilts and quilting today. I was delighted to find we agreed on so many issues. He really loved my Nine x Nine quilt.

It was funny, when I was telling my pal Julie about the appraisal experience, she asked who had appraised my quilts, and I told her, she was like "OH MY GOODNESS! HE'S THE BEST APPRAISER in the COUNTRY!  How did you get him?" My answer was something on the order of "Um, I dunno. He lives two hours from my house?"

I've managed to get that awful summer cold that's going around, so I'm taking it easy. I'm still working on the Homage to the Square idea.  Here's a sneak peek of what's coming.

See this band of blue and white?

Would you believe it's exactly the same as this one, except for color placement?

I'll leave you to figure it out.

Homage to Many Squares

Here's a complicated looking design that really isn't.

I've got five different purple fabrics. Each of these WOF strips are 1-1/2". The cream strips are 2" wide.

I've sewn them all together with a 1/4" seam.

Cut the big strip crosswise into 1-1/2" strips.

Sew the strips into pairs, offsetting the rows by one unit.

And on and on until I've sewn all the strips together.

I pressed the strips to one side, one at a time, and very carefully.

 The end result is a series of graduated colored squares on point.

Not Yet Hip To Be Square

You know how there's something you SHOULD be doing, but you can't stop yourself from doing something else?  Well, that's what happened here.  All the top and bottom cream strips are 2" wide (except for that one between the orange and the rust in the middle, that one is 1-1/2" and the orange and rust are 2" wide.) All the other colored strips are 1-1/2" wide, cut WOF.

Soon, there will be lots of squares.

Lots.

Slouching Toward Christmas

I haven't been doing any sewing. I've got the tree up, and the house decorated. The Christmas shopping is complete, and I've even gifted myself a few little things.  My wordy project is moving right along. It's just like when I get totally involved in making one of my word quilts. The project gets into my blood and gets top priority for all my free time to the exclusion of all else.

Here's Millie on a Seminole patchwork kitty quilt I made back in 2007. The colors were inspired by Danika Patrick's team colors a few years ago. Yes, that Danika Patrick, the racecar driver.  You never know where you'll find inspiration, so you best be ready for it!

Harder Than It Looks

1. Finish a doll quilt
2. Hold it up in the mirror
3. Take a picture
4. Don't use a flash because of the "hot spot"
(Take another picture)
5. Make sure to hold it high enough so the whole quilt is visible
(Take another picture)
6. Don't cover your face
(Take another picture)
7. Shine a light on the quilt so it shows up
(Take another picture)
8. Hold the quilt up higher
(Take another picture)
9. Stand on your tippy toes (because you're only five feet tall)
(Take another picture)
10. Don't hold the camera in front of your face
(Take another picture)
11. Smile
(Take another picture)
12. Hold still, dammit!

It's harder than it looks!



OK~ Just take a picture of the finished quilt.

Surf and Sand

Here is the finished top of my swap quilt. It's really much prettier in real life. The colors are much warmer.

The pieced area is about 18-1/2" wide by 17-1/2" tall. I don't know how much of the white on all 4 sides will stay, or what color the binding will be.

Homage to the Square

The other day I was with somebody somewhere and we were talking about quilts. "Why don't you work with curves?" this person asked.

"Because I'm not done with straight lines yet," was my reply. "Hell, I'm not even done with squares!"

"Will you ever be?"

"Probably not."Here is another seminole patchwork band. This is the same three strip band, every other one rotated 180 degrees, and then offset and resewn together. I've photographed it as it goes together, so you can see, because this one can be confusing.

To Bebe's Boutique, who said I must have my 1/4" seam down pat, I say, actually no. As long as you use a -consistent- seam throughout, you will be okay when you sew these together. My 1/4" seam is actually a bit wider, but since I always sew that seam consistently, and I don't get all worked up if a block is 14-1/4" instead of 14-1/2" I am not worried. (Because -all- the blocks will be 14-1/4" and that's the most important thing.)

Remember those points will all get cut off when the band is straightened out.

Here are all my finished bands, in all their repetitive "square" glory.Next up, adding strips to line the bands up, then sewing them all together somehow.Hmmm... which one of these two do I like better? This light blue with the calligraphic lines...or this one with the blue leaves?