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.

April's Challenge

Well! Here we are at April already!

And it’s my turn to offer up the challenge.

Have I mentioned how much I love this group? You all have made me try things I never would have thought of on my own. And even tho I’m behind, I fully intend to finish each and every one of the challenges. They’ve all been so fun!

I’ve had lots of time to think about what challenge I’d offer up, and therefore, have changed my mind a million times from the beginning till now.

Besides, all of you are a tough act to follow.

But . . . there’s something I’ve been wanting to do for quite awhile now, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way I’ll make myself sit down and do it is by offering it as my challenge to all of you as well.

So here goes . . .

April Challenge “Rules”

1) Take a photograph. Take a picture of something around your house (inside or out makes no difference).

2) Crop it to pull out a section that is nearly unrecognizable as a “thing”.

3) Interpret this portion of your picture into a quilt.

4) Size is totally up to you. Make it a size you’ll love and want and use.

You can use any colors and fabrics you desire. You can embellish or not as you see fit. Use any technique that’s fun for you (or try a new one you’ve been wanting to play with).

Here's some examples . . .

An original photo of my kitchen cabinets:

A close-up portion of it:

An original photo of My Cowboy's antique dresser that belonged to his Grandma:

A close-up portion of it:

An original photo of the front of one of my sewing cabinets in my studio:

A close-up portion of it:

And here's one I'm thinking about using (altho I'm still snapping pictures and thinking some more):


I'll reveal my original and how I'm planning to interpret it in another post. You can make this as easy or as difficult as you wish, based on the photo you choose to use.

You can choose to reveal your original at the beginning, or show your quilt and then reveal your original afterwards and see if we can guess! Up to you . . .

So . . . I hope this is something you can have fun with. Can't wait to see what you all do!

Woefully Behind

How do you guys sew so fast and get so much done? I'm always behind!

But I promise, I'm still in the game, and chugging along . . .

Here's the beginnings of my October challenge:I've decided to make a fairly large quilt for mine, so it might take me awhile, but since it's not a race . . . I'm making what I want to make, and enjoying the challenge and the process for what it is.

Here's my January challenge piece:
I don't have it quilted yet, and I'm toying with the notion of outlining the letters with black embroidery before I do, since they don't seem to stand out as well as I'd like from my made-fabric background. What do you think?

And I have a plan and a recipient in mind for my February challenge, but I simply haven't taken the time to start it yet.

I also have plenty of orphans to use in the March challenge, so I'll be getting busy on that one fairly soon.

I'll post more when I have more to show!

I Got Trees!

See what Miki made for me?

I squee-ed when I saw it, cos it's just so cheery, but would you look at it? One big tree all decorated . . .

. . . and a medium tree, complete with birds, and then a little tree hiding in between.

AND . . . hand applique and hand quilting . . . and all that beading! Such an amount of work! I'm so honored!

But wait, there's more . . . check out that binding! I LOVE THAT! So unexpected, and very awesome indeed!

I know it's kinda Christmas-y, but I wanna leave it hanging all year.

And not only that, but look what else was hiding in the package for me! How did she know? I can hardly wait to use this in something . . .

Thank you so much, Miki! I really love it all . . .

I'm Known Around These Parts . . .

For my inability to make a decision very quickly. It infuriates My Cowboy that I can never decide where I want to eat, what I want to cook, if I want to go ride my horse or not, what time I want to go to town, what I should wear, or if I want to go with him when he goes somewhere.

I can't explain it, but so much of the time, it's due to the fact that I have too many choices and I like them all. Such was the case with choosing a palette for this challenge! Whew!

I must have looked at every single one of those palettes 2 and 3 times each. I slaved over the decision, and killed SO much time staring at the computer screen, still never coming to a conclusion. I'd think I had it nailed down, walk away, come back, and nope! Start all over again . . .

But I finally just HAD to decide, even if I could still go on looking for many more hours. Just. Had. To. Decide.


I know Miki said to try to choose colors that you don't normally work with, but I have to admit right from the start that I did not do that. I chose reds. Red is my favorite color, and I work with it a lot. But if I had chosen colors I don't normally use, I'd have had to go fabric shopping, most likely. That's bad for me for two reasons:

1) I'm trying to reduce my stash and use up fabric I already have and not bring any more into my studio . . . for now.

2) The nearest quilt shop to me is over an hour away, and I don't have time to go there as often as I'd like.

So . . . I've picked a palette, and while I still haven't pulled any fabrics for the piece yet, I will soon. I'm going to Houston this week, and after that, I can come home and play in the studio again . . . with a fresh dose of inspiration, no doubt!

Turning Tricks

I was afraid the next challenge would be issued before I'd had time to execute my self-professed brilliant idea for my Card Tricks challenge, so I worked hard on mine, and it's finished! (I'm tired of always being behind!)

I have a really hard time sitting still and idle (which is why I can't watch TV), so I sketched like a maniac while sitting in the hospital with my sister after she had surgery in mid-September. I must have drawn 20 different block ideas, and then started to play with them and how they built on each other from one to the next.

And here's what I came up with:

I'm calling it Turning Tricks. You can see my original block top center. The trick is, if you go either direction from any block, the blocks next to it are derivatives, all the way around the circle. Doesn't matter where you start or end, or which direction you go, they each build on the one next to it -- either side.

I arranged a setting that would make them go sort of circular, and then filled in the boring middle with some plain little squares of my four solid colors. I also thought it needed something to contain it rather than just having it all floating in the white, so I used my solid scraps to make the pieced border.

I quilted it with straight diagonal lines that are fairly random and overlap intermittently. It ended up 47" square.
And . . . I was so thrilled with it that I entered it into the Project Modern: Challenge 4 competition. Not that it'll take a prize, but just for kicks. I'm not usually quite so bold!

I Got To Thinking . . .

. . . before I start posting about the new challenge, I really should post what I made from the last one . . .

I used my Lotta fabrics to make a table runner.
After the fact, I realize that some of these fabrics don't work so well cut up in tiny pieces. I like my idea, I just wish I'd done something different with these fabrics. I may try this on a larger scale some other time with different smaller-scale fabrics or even solids (in bigger pieces). I think it'll work much better that way.

But, what's done is done, and I've moved on.

Seein' as how the first rule of the new game says: "Using Only SOLIDS . . . " and I didn't have enough solids in my stash to even shake a stick at, I had to order some. They got here Saturday, so I stayed up late last night after getting home to make my first original Card Tricks block.I had to sit in the hospital with my sister for the last few days (and I still have some more babysitting to do while she recuperates) so I've had plenty of time to play with my sketchbook, and I came up with a big idea for my Card Tricks blocks, so as soon as I get time in my studio, I'm gonna keep on going with this. More later . . .

A Lotta Charm

Here's what I'm working with . . .

(That's a navy solid, in case you can't tell.)

I was gonna use black, but the navy went better, and I had it, so that's just how some decisions get made around here. I had some yellow, too, but in my chosen design, it didn't create enough of an accent . . .

I know what I'm planning to do with my charms, and I've already started cutting. I'll show you more progress a bit later.