Hawaiian Quilting

Here is my latest project, a Hawaiian quilt square. I have to admit that I don't know the name of the design. Anyone out there know the answer?

The particular square came to me in an odd way. In our guild we have what we call a "fanny basket." Do all guilds have fanny baskets? It's our collection of odds and ends of fabric and we use this fabric mainly for comfort quilts or quilts of valor. People donate "what-was-I-thinking" fabric, or any fabric they don't want any more. Sometimes the fabric seems to reproduce on its own, making our basket very very full.....

Recently a few Hawaiian squares like this turned up in the fanny basket. I took this red and white one, because I like doing hand sewing. It had already been started--basted, and a little bit of the applique had been sewn down. It was in a zip-lock bag with thread and backing fabric, and even a needle! All ready to go.

I've made a couple of these squares before--quite a few years ago. But I've never done anything with them.

Should I make them into pillows?

Small wall hangings?

I have to show you the back, too, as I'm happy with how small and fairly even I managed to make my stitches.

MisterStitches and I took a road trip down to Phoenix for Giants spring training last week. So I had a nice bit of straight-highway sewing time. I finished the applique on the way there, and got started with the quilting on the way home. In the top photo you can see that I have started the quilting in the center.

Pretty New Fabrics!

I am, as a rule, very selective when it comes to buying fabric. I already have bales of fabric, so I try to only buy fabric that I have a specific use for, rather than just adding to my stash.

However,

(and there's always a "however," isn't there!) recently I have found some very very nice fabrics that were begging to go home with me. First of all I have some gorgeous hand-dyed fabrics that I bought from a friend and fellow classmate at a class I took in San Francisco last month. They are so lush and colorful!

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When I was at another friend's house a week or so ago, she showed me this piece of fabric. She had a huge amount of it, but didn't know what she was going to use it for, so she asked me if I'd like some. (Duh!!) I think it's cool fabric, because it is shaded from one end to the other, so it is multi-colored. Can you believe that one piece of fabric has all these colors in it!?

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My local quilt shop, The Loft, was having a big sale, so of course I had to go check that out. I found this green print, which you can see from the close-up photo below is made up of blades of grass.

(Maybe good for a landscape or scenic quilt?)

The Loft also had this beautiful fabric, a border print. It is a companion fabric to the print I chose for my Guild President quilt blocks. So I bought a couple of yards, thinking I might use it as sashing or border or both when I put all my blocks together.

Another fabric is new to my LQS. This is fabric designed by my friend, Harmony, who is also local. Harmony designs organic cottons, and boy, are they beautiful! Below you can see her light blue print called Silent Stumps, and also her light blue sateen.

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When I was at a quilt show a

couple weeks ago, I found the following two fabrics. Can you believe how realistic these grapes look! Aren't they beautiful!?!

And, while this one doesn't look very exciting, it is really more colorful than the photo shows, and I liked all the different striations throughout the fabric. Another good one for landscapes, I'm thinking.

I think this is enough fabric to keep me going for a while! I'd better go get busy. Bye for now.

Challenge Quilts

I am busily finishing up my quilts for my guild's challenge show this spring. The challenge coordinators were really, really urging people to have this be a big show, so I'm entering two quilts this year. The theme for the challenge is "Rhapsody in Hue" so I'm concentrating on lots of color. I've shown you sneak peeks previously, and that's still all I can reveal, I'm afraid.

One of my quilts is very red. In this photo you can see one of the front fabrics, a little bit of my scrappy border, and the flannel fabric that I used for the backing. MisterStitches really likes this quilt, so it will be a "TV quilt" to keep us warm at night when we're watching a movie.

And I was very excited to just a few days ago receive my second quilt back from my sister. SisterStitches has a room-size quilting machine, and she very graciously quilted this for me, as it is quite big. SisterStitches did an amazing job on my (our!) quilt. Her stitching is just so very good. I like just sitting and looking at this quilt. Somewhat like having a newborn in the house, I could just sit and look at this quilt for hours!

Here are just a couple views of the quilt. I really like it a lot, a great deal of which has to do with the quilting! Thanks, SisterStitches!

I am now finishing up the hand work on both of these quilts, sewing down the binding and hanging sleeves. The show starts April 1st (no fooling!) and I have many more inches to stitch down, so I'd better go get busy!

Red Quilt, or Name Undecided

Wednesday and Thursday I spent most of the day sandwiching and then straight-line quilting my red quilt. It's going to be in our guild's challenge show, so I don't want to reveal it yet, but I'll give you a few peeks.

I really enjoyed working with these fabrics. As I told you earlier, I made this quilt because I had a lot of red fabrics. I'm loving these fabrics! Above is one given to me by a friend.

I love this one with its peachy blossoms.

And these gingko leaves in a batik! So pretty...

And a nice, bright, cheerful Kaffe Fassett.

I did straight line quilting on either side of each seam on this quilt. If you can see the safety pins in the above photo, you can figure out that I didn't need to stop and remove safety pins while I was quilting, which was kind of nice.