Twinkle, Twinkle

I finally finished my 12 x 12 x 4 Challenge piece that was supposed to be done by April!!! (Better late than UFO, I say!)

This is a 12 inch circle. The pattern is 'Seven Sisters' - a variant of the 'Baby Blocks' or 'Tumbling Blocks' patterns. There are only two pieces of each of the colored fabrics..I used one in the stars, and one in the border.

Hand pieced with yummy wool batting and hand quilted with gold thread. Beaded with gold and iridescent beads.

This was a joyful quiltlet to work on..the colors are cheerful and just looking at it makes me happy. I was a bit surprised at how long it actually took me to finish it..but it looks just as I imagined so it was worth the effort.

Only One More Round!

Almost done with the Seven Sisters! Last row will be the same white with gold dots as the center.

Then it just needs a bit of quilting and maybe a few beads...

It was a good day for hand stitching - it was cold and grey out (no rain, just clouds, though we need it desperately)...so I made a nice pot of tomato beef soup and stitched away in my rocking chair between loads of laundry.

Wednesday WIP

It's starting to look round.... finally!

Have to mark and cut out the 80 little triangles for the border next...I am thinking I will probably do them in batches so I can get started.

It's still (mostly) fitting on the scanner bed, but the next pass will not fit.

I need a good name for this piece so it fits in with my circle theme...so far one is eluding me...

More Seven Sisters Progress

Thank you all for your lovely comments.

Got a little further along - the center has one more pass around it..then comes the harder part of doing the ring.

I was playing around with some beads earlier and this may just end up with some beadwork before its done...

This still fits on the scanner bed.

Seven Sisters Progress

Worked on my Seven Sisters block for a while today- got the center with the seven stars completed...its supposed to be finished for my 12x12x4 for this month, but its looking rather dim that its gonna get finished by the 12th...


First I completed all the stars, then sewed the white pieces around the center star, then was able to sew the rest of the stars and white pieces in one fell swoop around the center...only took two needles worth of thread too, since this is pretty small (The picture is a scan - it still fits on the scanner bed).

I still have the rest of the center to complete (it has to have white pieces around all the edges) and the diamond border which has oodles of tiny pieces...and which will turn it into a circle.


I am enjoying it though.

Wednesday WIP

I actually have some quilty stuff to show this week! I started working on my tiny hand pieced Seven Sisters which I HOPE I will get done with in time for the next Quilt Studio reveal. The circle will finish out to 12 inches so these are really small pieces. And all of it is from my scrap bag!

I started working on these at the car repair shop last Saturday - I had to do my bi-annual 'smog certificate' and I knew the car was going to need some work so I got there when they opened at 8am, hoping that they would be able to fix whatever needed fixing, and get the results to the state so I could get my car re-registered, all in one day. The car did indeed have to get a bunch of stuff done - they had to change the check-engine light bulb which meant they had had to take the dash apart and then there was some fancy-smancy part that only comes in an assembly costing 180 bucks(!) that needed to be replaced...but..it got done and whilst I was waiting, I ensconced myself in the waiting room with my Seven Sisters stuff...I only had the scraps picked out and put into baggies...so I marked and trimmed and stitched and got lots of comments (interestingly, mostly from the guys, though there were a few ladies that brought vehicles in to be serviced). The service guys were cute about coming into the waiting room to keep me informed of the progress (the rest of them had to go up to the counter to talk with them) so I did not have to get up and mess up my sewing setup..And by 1pm they were done, I had 5 stars completed and I was headed over to the AAA to get my car tag. I just need two more stars, the joining diamonds and the circle of diamonds around the outside border.

On Sunday, I took a class with my friends (most of them are quilters, one is a rabid knitter and only tolerates quilting because the rest of us are quilters!) on 'Color Theory For The Fiber Artist'. This was a very interesting class on why some colors make quilts look blah and why some make them pop. Part of the class was the teacher giving the groups assignments on what colors or color schemes to find and we went out into the store and pulled bolts of fabric that matched the assignment using our handy dandy 3-in-1 Color Tools ....wow, that was exhausting! Sometimes we just had to 'make do' because that color wasn't IN the store (at least that we could find!). I came away with a new appreciation of color.

A-Maze-ing Revealed

This is my first reveal for the 12x12x4 Challenge:

I added 'The A-Maze-ing Miss Bee' to the quilt to make it into a kind of 'interactive' quilt. The bee can be stuck to the quilt anywhere as she is made of felt which sticks to the flannel. Because the sticking is not foolproof (!), I made sure she would not get lost by using the perl cotton to attach her to the back of the quilt thru the flower.

Materials are cotton flannel for the background - the back is covered in the same flannel, black bias tape for the maze walls, felt and fleece for the bee and flower with perl cotton embroidery.

The back also has the information about the quilt printed on muslin and fused.

It's A-Maze-ing - Progress

My theme for the Quilt Studio 12x12x4 Challenge is 'Circles'. My first exploration this year is a circular maze. I've always thought a maze would be a neat quilting design.

The design I chose is a floor pattern in the nave of the cathedral in Chartres, France. This cathedral was built in 1235 AD. The pattern is known as 'Chemin de Jerusalem' (Road to Jerusalem). Here's a picture of the floor:



In the process of investigating circular mazes, I learned the secrets of how to draw a particular type called a Cretan maze. Fascinating stuff! I decided the full Chartres maze would be too intricate for my little 12 inch piece so I used a modified version that has 5 rings instead of 11. Here is the pattern:


I used a piece of mottled green flannel to represent the green turf that a lot of mazes in Europe are constructed with. I used my old Staedtler Mars SuperBow compass from my early college days to draw the rings onto the flannel and then used pre-fused bias tape and ironed on the maze walls.

I need to stitch down the bias tape and put the on the backing and satin stitch bind...and I have a little surprise that I haven't finished yet - hopefully it looks as cute as I think it will.