I just finished a postcard for Shirley, the owner of the yahoo group Learning Fiber Arts. She just found out her son has cancer. The group is making postcards to send to her. She will donate them to Wellspring so they can raise money for Carma House, a center of support for cancer patients and their families. Over the years Shirley has donated many of her art works to Wellspring. I am glad to help the center as well.
Chris
So now I will begin to finish my Isle of Skye landscape quilt. This quilt was started in the summer of 2005 when I took a class at Quilt University with Susan Brittingham. This was my first attempt at making a landscape quilt and was based on a photo we took the when we were on vacation in Scotland. I think I struggled with everything up to where I stopped working on it.
I had a hard time picking a sky fabric. I had a hard time picking a water fabric. I had a hard time picking the distant mountain fabrics. At first I had too much contrast in the land directly behind the houses. I was so used to making patch quilts where you want contrast between the fabrics. I found out that you don’t necessarily want that much contrast in a landscape quilt.
I think I did the cliffs without too much difficulty which was certainly surprising. So I was working along fine until I got to the ground in front of the houses. I stalled on the quilt and it has hung on my design wall ever since.
My goal this summer is to finish it. So I will be starting to work on it on Monday. I will actually fill in details on the cliffs that I have not completed yet and add windows, etc to the houses before I start the foreground. I will post as I go along so you can see my progress and check to make sure that I am working on my New Year’s Resolution.
Chris
I belong to the yahoo group called Libquilters. We had an online retreat yesterday and it was a lot of fun. I was working on some free pieced wonky Halloween houses. That means that you don’t follow a pattern when you create them. I decided to use up Halloween fabrics and create a Halloween house quilt.
I made 4 houses yesterday. They are on my design wall. I just added some fabric strips from bright Halloween to simulate sashing to see how they might look together. I will need to make some more houses and I am thinking about making some that are about half of the size of the four houses that I have already made.
Chris
Well I am continuing to work on my UFO list. I am hand quilting my Scotland the Brave quit and that is going well. I finished my mini landscape. This is based on a photo that my daughter took last Christmas.
The size of this mini landscape is 9.5 inches by 7 inches (not including borders). I machine quilted/thread painted it. Now I just have to figure out if I am keeping it or giving it away. I might give it to my BIL since the stream is on his property and he is recovering from lymphoma.
Chris
All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray. I’ve been for a walk on a winters day. I’d be safe and warm if I was in LA. California Dreaming on such a winter day…
Looking at this log cabin quilt, how big would you say that it is?
The actual size of this quilt is only 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches. Each log cabin block is one half inch square and has 9 pieces in it. This quilt is part of a somewhat larger quilt that I made of the inside of a quilt shop. I saw a photo of this quilt in Miniature Quilt Magazine and used Electric Quilt to design it out.
My daughter fell in love with the photo of the quilt and I made it for her for Christmas 2000. It now hangs on the wall of my sewing room since she no longer wants it in her room which is mainly an Asian theme.
Here is the entire quilt shop. The quilt is 13 inches wide. The other quilts are very small as well, The log cabin is hung on the wall with snaps and the others hang over a quilt rack made from fabric stiffened with interfacing
Chris
I am looking at my project list for the summer and what I want to get done.
I have already started hand quilting the “Scotland the Brave” Quilt. That is going well and I like the Mountain Mist White Rose Cotton Batting that I am using.
The small stream landscape quilt (“California Dreaming”)is the next thing I will finish. This was started in January and I want to get it done.
Then I WILL finish the “Isle of Skye” Quilt that I started in the summer of 2004. Enough is enough…just get it done!
After that I will figure out what I am going to do with the maple leaf blocks from a block exchange earlier this year. I have some ideas and we need a lap quilt so that is my goal.
Looks like I have plenty to keep me busy this summer.
Chris
Well… I got the “Scotland the Brave” quilt basted this morning and ready to hand quilt. Should be interesting to see how hand quilting goes after not doing it for a decade.
I used EQ6 to design the quilting stencil that will fill the white blocks. I will mark the quilt as I go along. The chains will be quilted diagonally through the squares. The center block of the piper (that is my hubby) will be cross hatched quilted around the piper.
I bought the Mountain Mist White Rose Cotton batting that was recommended on my small quilt yahoo group. I’ll let you know how it is to quilt….guess I should have tried out a piece before I put it in the quilt! I will start quilting it tonight.
Chris
