Rest in peace?

I'm just wondering if we're done with this blog. I know I'm a bit over committed sewing wise, and I'm sure Victoria is busy with everything that comes with a new book. I enjoyed our Christmas swap last year. Anyone want to do another one?

My May Challenge

My May challenge really had me stuck.  My subway token plan just didn't go anywhere.
 Meanwhile I'd been saving produce net bags to recycle.... they reminded me of my mom's old veils.  The other day  my friend Naomi gave me some lovely leaf fabric that she had dyed.  Then I remembered Victoria's own Mary fabric.   I dug in my treasure bin and came up with it and a satin rose taken from a valentine from my hubby...also some ribbons from holiday gifts.   Every element had special meaning, and it went together magically.  Sometimes you just have to wait a while for inspiration.

I used the pink net on Mary and the leaves, the yellow on the upper portion, and the green on the bottom.  It made subtle color changes and added texture.  Very ease to sew through, by the way.  

This year has been great fun.  I love the challenges we've had.  Thank you all very much!

April challenge update

OK. getting caught up...  I took parts of my photo and took liberties with others... 

I left in my dirty windows... 

and added the BIRDs that sit outside my windows and tweet, waking me up in the morning...  Lovingly, I used a pillow case my grandmother embroidered to keep it in existence in a quilt.

I want ot hand quilt with light blue Fans and incorporate a bit of Modern quilting in it... 

...to be continued.

Still working on April

I took this photo a while ago in the hopes of developing it for the April challenge.  I knew I wanted to play with the designs in the openings, but not just leave them so symmetrical.  I also wanted to play with color.  I have made a few sketches, and today I finally started the project with fabric. 

This is just the start.  I have some other fabric pulled to build more color.  I used KF Targets as the peek-a-boo fabric, and I like the way the design stayed in the background.  It gives me the feeling I wanted of looking through a fence at something hidden, but wonderful.  I don't want to lose that when I add on, so I am going to look at it for a while before proceeding.

May Challenge

I have been wanting to re-purpose these old subway tokens into a quilt somehow.  Have seen some interesting quilts made of used tea bags, real pennies, candy wrappers, onion bags, bubble wrap, CD's ,  so I am asking you to use an unconventional material with your fabrics in this challenge.  No rules, just head for the nearest dumpster and see what you can find.

February Challenge Finished

Yesterday I showed January's piece. Today I can show you February's piece.

I didn't want to show it till my recipient had seen it, but she has it now, so I'm here to tell about it.

I made this for my friend, Stephanie, who's had a pretty rough and stressful year so far, so I thought she could use a friendly heart, especially one that bore some messages of encouragement.

First, I made a white fabric background. This will have specific significance to Stephanie, because I made it using leftovers from a block I made for the Two's Company Quilt Bee that she and I are in together.

I quilted this background piece, and then added all the other stuff on top of it while it was already quilted.

I made red fabric and cut my heart out of that and appliqued it on.

At this point, I went ahead and put the binding on the quilt, since all that was left was embellishment-type things.

I attached a ribbon to the background with little tiny buttons on top, which you can't see in my picture, to make it look like the heart was hanging. I added a key charm hanging from the ribbon.

Then I used cardboard rectangles and scrapbooking paper to make the individual quote posters to hang on the quilt. I printed out the three quotes I wanted to use on my printer, then cut them up and embellished them. Then I had My Cowboy drill holes through them so I could run the thread through.

I attached the thread (which is just perle cotton) to the quilt, then ran the ends through the drilled holes, and tied the cards to the quilt. I put little beads on the ends of the strings, tied knots, and fluffed them up.

I thought about adding even more embellishment, but decided to quit while I was ahead, and it looked OK to me. Sometimes I get carried away and do too much!

Then I mailed it off to Stephanie. And after it was already in the mail, I realized that I hadn't put anything on the back for it to hang by. I'm so sorry, Stephanie . . . you'll have to add that part yourself to get it to hang!

Stephanie has blogged about it: Stephanie's Heart Quilt, and she has much better pictures of it than I do, if you'd like to see some other shots of the quilt.

January Challenge Finished

I've managed to finish another month's challenge piece: January!

Obviously, I chose the word "Inspire" for my quilt.

I blogged about it earlier, and did indeed decide to add the black embroidery around the letters. I think it helped.

I used "made fabric", all in various blues, for my background.

Then I added my word in bright colors that I thought would stand out on that background. But the background was pretty bright itself, so adding the embroidery helped them stand out a bit better.

That upper right corner seemed a bit bare, since all the letters were down low, so I added the sun. I don't know about you, but I'm always inspired more on a sunny day . . .

I quilted it with a blue variegated thread, and experimented with all sorts of little mini-filler designs, just for practice. The finished quilt measures 12" x 24". Perfect size to hang on the wall in my studio and be inspired every day.

I chose red binding . . . just because red is my favorite color, and that's just what I thought it needed. OK, OK, so it's really because I already had some red binding made for another quilt and there was just enough of it left over! But I think it works . . .

Am I the last one done with this challenge?