Scrappy Quilt

I finished the scrappy quilt (on schedule, I might add, but I didn't get around to posting about it till now), and am quite pleased with it.

It was so much fun to put together, and I like its rather crazy appearance.

The above photo shows the quilt after it had been washed and dried, to fuzz all the edges and "wrinkle" the background fabric.

Here's a close-up of part of it, so you can see just how haphazardly the sewing was done! Unfortunately, you can't really see the cute purplish binding I used. I was amazed how much thinking actually went into choosing the binding! (Probably more than the main part of the quilt...) I auditioned quite a few different binding fabrics. Some turned out to be too busy (i.e. colorful), some were too uninteresting, some were too bold. But I finally chose a purple that has several different purples in a print, so it reads almost like a solid.

I was planning to give this quilt to my Guild for a comfort quilt, but a friend suggested that I first put it in our Festival of the Trees booth and see if it sells. If not, then it can be a comfort quilt. Whatever! I just made this quilt for the fun of it, so I don't really care where it goes.

Very Scrappy Quilt

I'm really getting there with this scrappy quilt!

I referred to it way back in September in this post. I got the idea from the blog by crazymomquilts.blogspot.com. I was so excited to try this idea, but I still have a lot of fabric scraps left!

I did it a little bit differently than crazy mom did, but not much. I sandwiched the quilt top, batting, and backing, then basted it by pinning on the patches. That anchored everything quite well. I started to use my walking foot to sew around the edges of the squares, but that was way too much turning of the quilt around in my machine. The quilt measures somewhere around 40-something inches by 60 inches. That's a lot to push and pull through the machine for 2" or 3" lengths of stitching.

So I switched to the free motion foot,

and just did my best at getting fairly straight lines around the squares. I have to admit that I didn't worry about it too much. And they are not all sewn on perfectly, but that's ok.

If I did it again, I might make some loopy-loops between the squares, so I wouldn't have all those starts and stops to make. But what the heck! I spent some nice quiet time snipping all the threads and taking out a few remaining safety pins. I went outside and sat in the unusually warm sun to snip the thread ends, with just a light breeze, and the ocean waves crashing in front of me.

I have the binding chosen and pressed, so hopefully tomorrow I'll get this baby finished and I can show you the finished product. {Way to put the pressure on, MissesStitches!} Just had a little interruption this afternoon when the power went off for a bit. There wasn't a storm, so I'm not sure why, but my lights got dim, and my sewing machine and iron were idle for a short while.

A New Book

Here is a fabulous book which was recently published. It is by Judith Baker Montano, my guru for crazy quilting. The big surprise is that there is actually a photo in this book of a quilt that Little MissesStitches made! I am so excited about being in this book--it's such an honor. I think I'll buy several hundred copies to give to a few of my closest friends and relatives!

The book itself (even without the fabulous inclusion of my quilt!) is beautiful. It is an oversized book, with a spiral binding, and with beautiful, beautiful photos, almost all of which were taken by Judith. She's a fabulously talented woman, with lots of interests, and is a wonderful person to know and to learn from. The book talks about using different methods for creating a fibreart (as Judith spells it!) montage. In my case, I made a quilt/wall hanging of a landscape scene using crazy quilt piecing, embroidery, silk ribbon embroidery, burning fabric, dying fabric/trims, needle felting, and embellishing like crazy. It was a class that I took from Judith at Asilomar (Empty Spools Seminars), which is a fabulous place to go for week-long quilting classes.

Quilting Design Possibility?

Hm-m-m-m...

Could this be a possible quilting design?

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

It is simply a box of tissues!

But I looked and looked at it, trying to follow a line around, and I think it might work. I even tried drawing it out, and I think it's definitely worth an experiment. I'll have to put it in my "idea book." (That's the collection of little scraps of paper that have all sorts of different ideas, drawings, clippings, etc. It's supposed to be all in one place, but....)

Has anyone used this design? Or seen it used? Let me know!

Quilt Squares All Cut!

I have all of the quilt squares for my latest project cut now!

Next step is to take them to my design wall and try to arrange them in a pleasing manner.

I can't wait to get sewing! But I really can't start till I get them all laid out.

So here they all are, neatly tied up in a bundle, awaiting my next move.

I'm making this quilt just from a photo, so I'm kind of winging it. I wasn't sure how much fabric I would need, so I bought a half-yard of several different fabrics in a fabric group. I figure that I'll sew them all together, and if it's not big enough, I'll add borders.

Halloween

As I've been out walking around in San Francisco today, and even yesterday, I saw many, many strangely-dressed people. Some far out costumes. And I think it begs the question:

Which is more insulting? To be complimented on your costume when you're not really wearing a costume?

Or to be wearing a costume and have no one notice?

Because I've seen a lot of strange clothes these last two days, but it makes me wonder if some of the outfits I've seen are really Halloween costumes, or are they just normal clothing for people? On some of the other 364 days of the year, I could swear it's Halloween, by the looks of some of the clothing I see!

Start of a New Quilt

Isn't this pretty fabric!?!

I found it at The Grannery quilt shop in Sunnyvale.

(A very nice shop, I might add.)

They are from the 'Panache' by Sanae line from Moda. I don't usually make much mention of fabric lines or designers (except for Harmony, of course!) But I decided to not use any from my stash, and bought all these together.

I'm going to try a quilt that I found done by one of my

"blogger friends," Red Pepper Quilts. (Awesome blog, btw.)

I've started cutting out today, and seeing what a few of the different combinations of colors look like laid out together.

Man, I love starting a new quilt!

Now, if only I were as enthusiastic about finishing a quilt...