Presenting....Heart's Garden...is DONE!!

I took the last stitch this morning...

This was one of my oldest UFO's...in 2002, I took up quilting..in 2003, my Mom asked me if I would make quilts for both my Sis and me out of the scraps of fabric she saved from making clothes for me and my Sis when we were children. I finished my Sis's quilt in 2004..and started on mine..I had a grand notion of what I wanted to do for mine..I wanted to use up as much of the scraps as possible...so I started out with the big hearts..then the center bouquet...then the back blocks which started out as two strippy blocks, cut on the diagonal, rotated and stitched together. I used up most of the solid greens and the solid dark blue that became the sashings and the bindings -the light blue on the back came from the background fabric I used for my Sis's quilt...and then took a chunk of almost every fabric in the box and made the small hearts in the border and on the label. There are over 75 different fabrics in this quilt.

There are fabrics for dresses, several uniforms for Band, formals, swim suits, a bridesmaid's dress, shorts, blouses, a cape, Grand Bethel outfits, the dirndls we wore when our Grandmother took my Sis and me to Germany and even the fabric we used to slipcover the seats in my first car.

I had to learn to applique..the big hearts were prep-ed  by stitching on the line drawn on a piece of interfacing on top of the colored fabric, clipping and turning...by the time I did the hearts in the border a couple of months ago, I am a much better applique-er and did the small hearts with glue stick prep and the leaves by needle-turn.

I had to learn to free motion quilt...the hearts are echo quilted, and the setting triangles have a V shape with a heart-flower coming up from the center of the V...the V was done by ironing a piece of freezer paper onto the white fabric, then stitching along the edge. There is a flower stitched into the center of all of the large hearts.

I wanted a two sided quilt..so..I had to learn to make a Quilt As You Go quilt..this sounds easier than it is..because once the two halves of the quilt are together (the first couple of rows are a piece of cake!), the quilt gets VERY HEAVY! The two longest seams I ended up taking out multiple times..the lower one I took out three times before it lined up.. All of the green sashing is hand stitched down along the folded edge..

I used the same technique as the joining strips for the binding..the blue fabric is folded under the green and I did an invisible stitch along the folded edge of the green binding strips..

Pieces of this quilt went with me to the Arizona Retreats each year...I stitched the big hearts while my DH was in rehearsal for a play...


Here is the front side of the quilt: (click to make the picture bigger)

Here is the back side of the quilt:(click to make the picture bigger)

And the label:
My Mom wrote a poem for the label...and we collected up a few pictures of me, my Sis and my Mom wearing dresses made from materials included in the quilt.





And..as much fabric as I used up with this quilt...there are still TWO large boxes of fabric left!! (I think scraps breed when they are left in a box in the dark...LOL)

AZ Retreat 2012

I am back from the AZ Retreat...

On the way over, we stopped at KFC..I had wings and coleslaw..but they stuck a biscuit in the box..being wheat-free, I wouldn't eat the biscuit..and my traveling partner was way too full, so she suggested I feed the birds! A flock of mostly red-wing blackbirds eagerly devoured my biscuit...I didn't get a picture of the whole flock (every time I put the camera up, the birds took to the air..silly birds!) but here is one saucy fellow and a few of the bolder birds:

Here is a shot of the room before anyone started setting up.

Usually, when the two of us get to Retreat, only a couple of folks are there already..but this year, at least 1/3 of the Retreaters came the night before!! We were greeted in the hotel lobby by the whole group!

Here is a shot of the room after a few people had arrived...

I did a 'motorectomy' on Alis and turned her into a hand crank machine...I have a bit more to do - rewire the lamp to the plug receptacle and find a place to mount the plug or just connect the lamp to the cord or I could just remove the lamp (the hood is missing..and it may be too bright with a bare bulb)...and figure out how to move the hinges a couple of centimeters to the left so I can leave the hand crank attached - the hand crank is just a WEE bit too wide the way Alis is mounted into the case - I think I can do that without too much trouble - if not..I just have to leave the bolt tightener in the compartment under Alis..Oh..and I need to figure out how the heck the control box is mounted so I can remove it..I may need some 'manly muscles' to get it loose...

And I worked on stitching down the sashing on Heart's Garden...it's almost done!

 It was a fun Retreat!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Retreat I Go!

Its been a busy month..and I am SOOOOO ready for my week in Arizona!


A dove in the Arizona desert

Stuff for Show and Tell:
A Hug from Chris..quilt was made from bright wedges that I got last retreat from Chris's stash..(Chris was one of the Arizona Retreat's Hostesses..she passed away from pancreatic cancer just before last year's retreat...)

Will also be showing Heart's Garden and the table runner I made using Aurora.

Stuff I am going to work on:
Finishing the stitching except for the label ** on Heart's Garden..it has the borders on it and I need to hand stitch the joining strips down..it needs the binding cut and applied..and hand stitched as well..that will be my major project.

I am also taking Alis (the 99..I keep thinking maybe I should rename her to Agent 99, yanno like Barbara Feldon from Get Smart)...and am going to do her 'motorectomy'...and turn her into a hand-crank machine. Hopefully that won't take a bunch of time..

I also have both of my projects from the classes at Road to finish off..almost done with the Happy Village - just a wee bit more FMQ and it will be done..

And I have a couple of other projects I can work on..a pillowcase kit..a table topper using the wedge ruler from Phillips Fiber Art that I got for Christmas...my wee Hexie basket:



And..the OctiHoops..practice, practice!!

______________________________
**  I still don't have a printer to print the label with..the Epson I was using broke..they didn't have the replacement one I wanted at Fry's when we went shopping, so I have to wait for it to come in...

A Raptor in My Tree

Found this gorgeous hawk sitting in my eucalyptus tree this afternoon:


On the sewing front, I am almost done with one of the side borders for the Heart's Garden quilt.

Made the cruise ship for the Happy Village..its pinned but not quilted..and I added legs/feet to the Garden Bird..but haven't worked on its applique..both of these may be going to Retreat as projects to work on there.

Serendipity

The other day, I was looking for a brown knit glove that I could turn into a chipmunk (an idea from Pinterest)...I collect chipmunks and squirrels..have since I was a child..and this cutie is just too fun not to do!

I have a bag of singleton gloves that my Mom gave me..Once upon a time, a properly dressed lady would wear gloves whenever she went out and every once in a while, a glove got lost..so over time my Mom built up a small stash of these really soft doeskin gloves - they were way too expensive to just toss, even just a singleton! She gave them to me so I could make dolly shoes.. The bag has other types of gloves as well..a tricot one and some winter gloves..even a leather mitten from when I was small..

I was sitting here thinking about what I could use to substitute for the band-aid I was using to keep my middle finger from getting turned into hamburger..when serendipity struck - I could use one of those doeskin gloves!..I cut the thumb off one (my Mom's hands are tiny.....mine are not!) and so far, I am loving my new thimble..it's lightweight, it doesn't make my finger sweat..it's almost like it is not there, but it keeps the straw needles from poking holes in my middle finger!!

I normally HATE wearing a thimble..most of them are too noticeable..hot and unbending, heavy...or they let the needle still poke me - I have one leather thimble that has a piece of metal at the tip that is supposed to let you push a needle thru a stiff patch..but the straw needle eyes just get caught in the edge and worse, they go thru and poke my finger.. for hand quilting, I have a paddle thimble but its not very useful for piecing or applique.

and oh yeah..I did find a brown knit glove in the bag to make Mr Chips! He is going to go to Retreat with me.

Heart's Garden Progress

It occurred to me that I haven't taken a picture of the Heart's Garden quilt in a long time..

This is the front minus the borders. It is a Quilt As You Go quilt so all of this is finished. The two longest seams gave me the most trouble in getting this together..the quilt is so heavy that it was hard to get it pinned correctly..I did the lower long seam 4 times before it was correct..but it looks good now! The borders are being worked on currently... and I have a poem from my Mom that will go on the label and some pictures of my Sis and I wearing clothes made of the fabrics that these scraps came from that will also go on the label.

Here is the back, again, minus the borders, which will be the light blue. I am planning on putting the label in the bottom blue diamond. I thought by making the quilt two sided that I would use up a lot of the fabric.I think the scraps must be multiplying the the container as this quilt has used up the merest smidgen of the available fabrics..Some are mostly gone..like the green for the front sashing and most of the dark blue for the back sashing..but there is still TONS of fabric left! LOL..

Here are the top and the bottom borders, pinned. The bottom border is almost all the way appliqued.

Here's the pieces left for the side borders..I think I need to make a few more! I ended up using double of the leaves since they look cute in pairs..

Heart's Garden Update

I have finished prepping all of the small hearts and cutting out all of the leaves for the borders of my Heart's Garden quilt. Now..on to building the borders and appliqueing them.

 

Arizona Retreat 2009 - Part 2

We had a grand time at there retreat..I worked on my string blocks for the Hearts Garden Quilt (its been in a few posts!)

Here are some sample blocks..

I THINK I am done with all of the blocks I need for the back and hopefully I can start working on putting the quilt together now..I need to design a quilting pattern and start tracing it, get some sashing strips cut (need to figure out if I have enough of the green fabric for the sashing left over), and lay out the back so I know which block goes where..

I also worked on the batik landscape that I made in a class at Road To California in 2008...I wanted to add a tree to the landscape..and that involved cutting the landscape..I have been putting off doing this for MONTHS! But..one of the ladies at the retreat encouraged me to 'just do it'...and so I did...another of the ladies gave me a wonderful strip of fabric for the border, and another let me dig thru her bag of scraps, looking for fall colored batiks to make leaves for the tree...I appliqued most of the leaves on the trip home. I have been working on embroidering on the seams as well...

Some of the fun stuff we did:

• learned how to make cathedral windows blocks
• one of the ladies taught a class on how to maintain your Featherweight sewing machine - she brought one that she auctioned off and another of the retreaters went home with a real treasure!
• Patrick Lose, a fabric and pattern designer that lives in Arizona, came to be our guest speaker...you can read about his take on the retreat on his blog...
• we had 'Secret Sisters' again this year...that was a blast again.. My SS gave me lots of wonderful goodies - including an organizer basket that I have wanted for a long time and lots of material and my very favorite tea (Stash Chai Spice)...I gave my SS (not the same person) batiks, a pink pincushion, a glass nail file, dark chocolates and a laser leveler (she said when she got home that she had to carefully explain to her DH that No, the leveler was NOT going to live in the garage, but in the 'forbidden room'!) In case you are wondering what possible use it could have for quilting, its used to square up large quilts...
• Went shopping several times at the 3 Dudes Quilt Shop across the street

Here is what my workstation looked like..before the madness and flurry of activity started! It looked considerably less neat as time wore on!

Heart's Garden

After I got bitten by the quilting bug lo these 4ish years ago now and came down with a severe case of quiltpox (quite incurable, yanno) my Dear Mamma asked me if I would like to make quilts for both my sister and me out of the scraps of materials she had saved from the clothes she made for us while we were growing up. Such a treat! I finished the one for my sister a while ago and started in on the one for me.
Here are some pix of the one for my sister:



















On mine, the front is appliqued hearts and to use up some of the material (the scraps fill one of those flip top plastic buckets and that's AFTER making the one for my sister!!) I am making a scrappy strip block...but as every quilter knows, even if you cut up the fabric into little pieces (mine are 9 x 2.5 inch strips), you can't get rid of it all!!! Scraps, when left touching in the scrap box, breed in the dark and there just seems to be more and More and MORE of them every time you look in the box!!!

For this backing I need 56 8.5 inch squares which get cut into two and sewn back together into 28 10.5 inch blocks....I have cut almost half of the squares and have not even made a significant dent in the stack of fabric...
Here's the setting of the front: