Chris's Quilting Universe

Had to Put Our Girl Kitty to Sleep

2011-12-24T13:52:00.005-05:00

I cannot believe I am posting this information. Our kitty is only 2 years old. For the last few weeks she has not been herself and yesterday we noticed that her breathing was not normal. We we at the vet today and I was thinking that maybe she had asthma or a heart issue. I was never thinking that she had cancer. She started limping a week ago. I thought she hurt her paw. She had a tumor under her neck and had fluid around her lungs. She also had other tumors and had lost 2 pounds.

Treatment would have been to cut off her leg and treat the tumors with surgery, chemo, etc. And it may not have been successful. So we put her to sleep and sent her to kitty heaven.

So we are all very sad today. Her name was Panini and she was a really sweet kitty. Her brother is missing her right now. She is the one with the pink collar.

Panini, I will miss all the help you gave me when I was quilting.

Chris

The Ornament Tradition Lives On

2011-12-22T15:21:00.006-05:00

This is the 23rd year that I have made an ornament for my daughter for Christmas. This year I actually made her two ornaments. The characters are Finn and Jake from Adventure Time. She was Finn for Halloween this year and her friend was Jake.
I got the pattern from this link.

I also hung my blended Christmas quilt for the first time this year.

My daughter is coming home today so I am really excited. Have a great holiday and thanks for reading.

Chris

Color Study for Canal Houses

2011-08-09T08:13:00.001-04:00

I decided to try out some paint colors for the canal houses before trying it in fabric. I am basically going with a blue/orange complimentary color scheme. I will be using blues for the sky and the windows and oranges/browns for the buildings.

Here is my painted sketch. I did not have that many paint colors, but this gives you the idea.

Thanks for dropping by.

Chris

Onto the Next Project

2011-08-04T08:58:00.001-04:00

Well now that the Skye Quilt is finished I can move onto a new project which will be my Amsterdam Canal houses. Here is the sketch I will use for that quilt.

Today I am going to relax and take a day off of quilting and tomorrow I will go to Staples to get an enlargement made of my sketch. Plus I will start going through the stash to see what fabrics I can use.

It feels really weird having the Skye quilt done. I guess I won’t have to feel guilty about this one anymore! I made the label this morning and it is now officially called “Over the Sea to Skye.” This comes from a piping song called the boat song. You might remember that my husband is a bagpiper and he thought that was a wonderful idea for a title. Here are the lyrics to the song:

Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that's born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.

Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclaps rend the air;
Baffled, our foes stand by the shore,
Follow they will not dare.

Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep,
Ocean's a royal bed.
Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep
Watch by your weary head.

Many's the lad fought on that day,
Well the Claymore could wield,
When the night came, silently lay
Dead in Culloden's field.

Burned are their homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men;
Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath
Charlie will come again.

One of my favorite books called “Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon is about this period of Scottish history.

Another wonderful historic fiction series I found this summer to read is the Bruce Trilogy by N Gemini Sasson. It is also about Scottish history. I am waiting for the release of the 3rd book in the trilogy this fall.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Break Out the Champagne!!

2011-08-03T07:22:00.001-04:00

Well I finished the Isle of Skye quilt yesterday and washed and blocked it. Today I have to sew on a hanging sleeve and a label. I think it looks like it will hang flat enough that I will not need to put a sleeve on the bottom of the quilt for a piece of wood to make it hang flat.

So what is story of this quilt. We took the photo on our visit to Scotland in the summer of 2004. I took a class from Susan Brittingham at Quilt University called “On Land and Sea” in the summer of 2005. I got as far as the foreground in front of the houses and stalled on the quilt. For too many years I said that I was going to finish it, but this summer I decided enough was enough. My main problem was the rocks in the foreground and not having a fabric that worked for them. This spring I bought some Stonehenge fabrics and they were perfect. So maybe I was waiting for these fabrics to finish the quilt!

The size of the quilt is 37 inches by 26 inches. Now I have to figure out where I am going to hang it.

Now I have to figure out what I am going to name the quilt.

“The Isle of Skye”
“Summer on Skye”
“Over the Sea to Skye”
“My 6 Year Vacation on Skye!”

Chris

Almost Done!

2011-08-01T14:51:00.001-04:00

Well the quilting is done. Tomorrow I will square it up and sew on the binding. I will be glad when I can wash out the marks for the quilting lines and see what this really looks like.

Chris

Panini on Skye

2011-07-28T13:08:00.001-04:00

I am not even sure if they serve a panini on the Isle of Skye. Panini is our girl cat and she decided that taking a nap on the Isle of Skye quilt was a good thing to do. I am going to get my exercise in an let her nap.

Chris

Skye Quilt Pinned and Ready to Quilt

2011-07-21T10:24:00.001-04:00

So now for one of the final steps on this quilt. It is pinned and ready to go to the machine for some quilting. I can’t believe this is almost done.

My kitties were helping and keeping me company in the sewing room today.

Chris

Isle of Skye Top Finished

2011-07-20T14:23:00.001-04:00

Well I squared up the top and added mitered borders today. Will pin and start quilting it tomorrow.

Yeah me!!! The end is in sight!

Chris

More Progress on Skye Quilt

2011-07-15T14:54:00.001-04:00

I pulled a muscle in my back on Sunday and finally felt good enough to work on the Skye quilt today. Everything is sewn down and grasses thread painted. I think I will buy border and backing fabric on Monday and quilt it next week.

Yeah!

Chris

Is it Progress????

2011-06-30T14:44:00.001-04:00

I swore that I would finish the Skye Quilt come hell or high water this summer. Well I have been working on it for the last 10 days for the first time in years. I am happy to report that I am getting some things done.

I have now sewn down the background mountains and middle ground cliffs and hills behind the houses. I am working on laying out the stuff in the foreground. The houses now have windows and the foreground has rocks and darker grassy areas. It was the foreground that I had so much trouble with……I blame it on over analysis.

Photo from 10 days ago:

Photo from today:

Chris

What I’ve Been Up To

2011-06-20T11:16:00.001-04:00

I finished a quilt from a kit (Gees Bend quilt). I was going to meander free motion quilt it, but I found that to be really difficult on my sewing machine due to the size of the quilt. (Almost 60 inches by 60 inches). I decided to do curved fans on it instead with a variegated blue thread. This I did with the walking foot and had to turn the quilt a lot, but that was still easier than free motion for me. I think in the future all quilts this size and bigger have to go out to be quilted.

So it is ready to hang in our guest bedroom.

I am also sketching out Amsterdam canal houses to make into a quilt.

Chris

Orange Sky at Night

2011-05-23T19:31:00.001-04:00

Finally forced myself into doing an entire quilt with free motion quilting. I always say I am going to do that and then back out when it comes to quilting it. It came out better than I thought that it would.

I painted the orange fabric (sky and water) in a class taken at QU. I added the commercial fabrics for mountains and trees.

Chris

Blended Top Done

2011-02-11T09:54:00.001-05:00

I hope to get it ready for quilting this weekend.

Chris

Blended Friday

2011-02-04T17:00:00.001-05:00

Still working on the blended Christmas quilt, but I am almost done. At this point I am sewing together the pieced outer borders. I am really happy with the green floral I chose for the inner border. I debated about whether to make that inner border green or red and decided on green. I will also bind it in the same green fabric.

I still need to sew the top border blocks together and make two more star blocks for the other two corners, but I am nearly there!

Here are our two sleeping kitties.

Chris

I hope I Am Done Arranging and Rearranging Blocks

2011-01-21T09:49:00.001-05:00

I hope I have the blocks in their right and final places! I keep moving them and moving them…yikes! I will be piecing the border as well so that will give me a chance to use up more of these fabrics.

Here’s Chowder playing with a catnip mouse I made him for Christmas.

Chris

Snow Day!

2011-01-18T16:39:00.001-05:00

We were supposed to start classes at my college today, but we had a nasty wintry mix and the college was closed. Boy was I glad not to have to drive in that mess!

I worked on laying out my blended quilt today. I keep changing blocks around and at this point my eyes are bleary from looking at it so long. I think it is time to walk away from it for a while.

Chris

Design Wall Monday

2011-01-17T11:54:00.001-05:00

I am still working on the blended Christmas quilt. I am sewing some more star blocks together today.

Here are some of the red blocks.

Here are some of the green blocks.

Have a nice day.

Chris

Wordless Wednesday

2011-01-12T17:18:00.002-05:00

Design Wall Monday

2011-01-10T10:36:00.001-05:00

I got a lot of cutting done last Friday and started to put some blocks together. I have never done a “blended” quilt before so I am struggling a bit in terms of how much contrast you should have in each block.

I have sewn some of the blocks together, but have a ways to go yet. The blocks are not in their final location on the quilt yet.

Chris

Cutting Board Friday

2011-01-07T11:30:00.002-05:00

I decided to start working on a new quilt. It is a Christmas “blended” wall quilt. I have collected the fabrics for a few years for this quilt and it is time to start using fabrics up from my stash!! The fabrics for this quilt are reds, greens and tans.
Boy do I love my new Creative Grid rulers. I bought some new cutting rulers last year and have not really used them too much until today. LOVE THEM! I have to take lots of breaks when I rotary cut these days due to shoulder, neck and back aches and pains.

Hard to believe Christmas is over already. My daughter is going back to MIT this weekend to start her last semester as an undergraduate. That is another thing that is hard to believe…how can she be finishing college already?

Chris

Wordless Wednesday

2011-01-05T08:29:00.000-05:00

Oh My….a Blog!!!

2010-12-15T09:37:00.002-05:00

Wow it really has been a long time. This semester has been really busy and I am glad that my last exam will be on Friday and I will be done until mid January. I have not really been doing any quilting until last weekend when I started to finish some projects.
I sewed the sleeves on my daughter’s Panda quilt to give her for Christmas.

I sewed the binding and sleeve on my mountain scene quilt and hung it up.

I sewed the yearly ornament for my daughter. This is ornament number 22. Hard to believe that I have been making them each year for that long. Also hard to believe that I got it done on December 12. I have never made it that early ever.
Here is a photo of our tree. Most of the ornaments on the tree are ones that I have made.

And here is a photo of the owl ornament that I made my daughter. She loves owls. I found the pattern online at this site. http://juicy-bits.typepad.com/juicy_bits/2009/12/131-give-a-hoot-for-the-holidays.html

And for good measure here is a photo of our two kitties sitting and sleeping on my sewing chair.

Hope you have a great Christmas!
Chris

Working on a New Project

2010-07-06T11:36:00.001-04:00

My panda quilt is done and is currently being blocked on the bedroom carpeted floor. I did block it a bit before I put the binding on and thought that I had the wiggly issues worked out, but after I washed and dried it in the dryer, it was still wiggly. The quilting density is fairly uniform across the quilt and I was careful to measure the center of the quilt when I added the borders. I have never had such a wiggly quilt in all the years I have been quilting. The only thing I can figure is adding the bamboo strips which are mostly in the borders warped the borders somewhat. Maybe those fused pieces were stretched a little when I positioned them and they distorted the borders a little. This distortion just got worse when I quilted it.

So I washed the quilt again this morning and pinned it to my bedroom carpet this morning while it was still wet. Hopefully this will fix some of the wiggles. I don’t expect it to be perfect, but a few less wiggles would be nice. Here is the quilt pinned to the carpet. It is still really wet and I expect it to take days to dry in the humid weather that we will be having.

This morning I started working on another project. It is a McKenna Ryan kit that my MIL bought me a couple of years ago. I don’t know if I am thrilled about it, but it is easy and should be fairly quick to finish. Hopefully no wiggly border this time!

Chris

More Panda Progress

2010-06-23T10:00:00.009-04:00

I got sidetracked painting my front door, but I have finally worked on my panda quilt some more. The bamboo pieces and leaves are not sewn on yet, but you can see the quilt is moving along.

Chris

Panda Progress

2010-06-10T16:26:00.007-04:00

This week I am finally doing some quilting. I stitched the pandas to the background fabric and put the sashing around them. The border fabric is not sewn yet. I barely had enough border fabric. This was a kit and I really hate it when they barely give you enough fabric to cut out what you need to cut out. I had to cut the borders about 1/4 inch thinner than the instructions.
Once I have the borders sewn onto the quilt I will be appliqueing bamboo in various places on the quilt top.
I am thinking of binding the quilt in yellow. Will have to see how that looks when I work on it tomorrow. Enough for today. I have to go and exercise…..

Chris

I Wasn’t Sure…..

2010-05-13T19:40:00.001-04:00

…if I was going to blog again. I have been busy finishing the semester as well as getting new hardwood flooring in our family room. That involved painting trim and walls. We got the flooring installed last Friday, but still have not put the room back together yet. Our weekends have been so busy that I looked forward to Mondays and going to work to relax!

At any rate I was not able to do much in Elizabeth’s course that I was taking at QU. I did manage to sketch out a gate and stone wall from a photo we took in Ireland and then cut out part of the image and manipulate it in Photoshop. Here are my sketches. I am not sure if I will be making a quilt from either of these sketches. One thing for sure is that I will make some more sketches now that the semester is over. I also have a lot of quilts to finish working on this summer as well as revising a lab manual for one of my courses. Revising a lab manual is always a lot of fun…not a great way to spend the summer, but it has to be done.

Here is a photo of our two kitties (now 10 months old). I just finished packing away some of my antique quilts in the cedar chest and put a couple on top with some of my old cloth dolls. They found this spot to nap really quickly.

On the weight loss front I am now down nearly 30 pounds and my doctor doesn’t want me to lose much more weight. I had to buy all new clothes and that has been a lot of fun.

Chris

Trying Out Borders

2010-03-15T18:22:00.001-04:00

I love being able to try out border ideas in Electric Quilt. I am thinking that I will be looking for something like the photo below. I have to head out to the quilt store tomorrow. Hopefully some of the flooding has gone down by then.

Chris

Orange Sky at Night

2010-03-15T13:44:00.001-04:00

I am sure you have all heard that weather expression. Although I think it is Red sky at night…sailor’s delight. I did get some work done on my challenge landscape.

The orange sky and water fabric I painted a couple of years ago in a class that I took at Quilt University. I am finally getting around to using it.

Chris

A Good Week Planned

2010-03-15T10:38:00.001-04:00

Although I have been off since last Friday, I feel like my official spring break starts today. I usually don't teach on Fridays and normally have off on Saturdays and Sundays. So today I would normally go back to work. On a typical Monday I have 2 lectures and one lab to teach. So the fact that I got to sleep in this morning (until 7:30 am instead of the usual 5:45 am wake up time) and not have to go to my college today makes me feel like the break has finally started. I am sure that it will fly by really fast. It always amazes me how fast a vacation goes compared to a regular work week.
So what do I have planned this week?

The usual exercise and eating healthy of course. I am down 26 pounds at this point!!!
Going to Dress Barn to look for some new clothes.
Finishing a landscape quilt that I am working on for a challenge.
Working on taxes.
Going to the St. Patrick's Parade on Wednesday in NYC. My husband is a bagpiper so I will be walking with other family members behind his pipe and drum band (St. Anne's of Hampton, NJ). If you are watching the parade on TV look for his band. Sometimes we have been on TV. I think the weather is going to be nice. Thank goodness it won't be like what we had last weekend. Here is a photo of my handsome hubby.

Waiting to see my daughter at the end of the week when she comes home for her spring break.
Generally just relaxing and not having to look at students for an entire week!

Chris

Taking a Class

2010-03-07T22:13:00.001-05:00

Since I have been having a hard time getting motivated to do any quilting, I decided to take a class at Quilt University. I think I have the quilter’s equivalent of writer’s block. I think this class that starts in about a month will get me out of my slump and get me creating again.

It is a new class at QU called “Inspired to Design.” It is taught by a quilt artist named Elizabeth Barton. Here is her website if you want to check out her work.

Elizabeth Barton Art Quilts

I am glad that I signed up for the class as soon as I got the QU newsletter since it is already closed.

Chris

All Six Pandas

2010-01-09T12:45:00.002-05:00

All of the pandas are now fused. I have to buy some threads so I can satin stitch the pieces down and add the details.
I am also thinking about not blogging any more. Lately I have begun to question what contributions to anything that I am making by blogging. More than once I have thought about deleting my blogger blog. I think in the next few months I will make that decision. Meanwhile I will try to blog more and see if I can get back into it.

Chris

More Pandas…

2010-01-05T16:28:00.002-05:00

I have 5 out of 6 pandas made now. They are just temporarily sitting on background fabrics as I make my final decisions about the fabrics. The photo does not really show the colors that accurately.
Tomorrow morning I will create the last panda and tomorrow afternoon I will start to stitch the pandas in place incorporating all the details. Who knows maybe I will have it done for Valentine's day instead of my daughter's birthday in May!

Chris

Starting the Panda Quilt

2009-12-30T10:55:00.001-05:00

I prepared the fabric yesterday and started to make the blocks for the quilt today. I am making this quilt for my daughter for her birthday in May. She loves pandas.
Here is a link to the pattern:
Panda pattern by Critter Pattern Works
I make her pattern for a dinosaur quilt when my daughter was about 4 years old. She is now 20 years old. Where did the time go????
I think the pandas will be a little easier than the dinosaurs with all their claws, etc.
I have one block fused….5 more to go.

Chris

Oogie Boogie is Done!

2009-12-22T13:43:00.002-05:00

I can’t believe how late I am in terms of working on and finishing the ornament this year. I have been making my daughter an ornament each year since she was born. This year is ornament #21. You can read about all the others by following this link:
Cloth ornament tradition.
For the last several years I have been making the characters from the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
Oogie Boogie is pretty big…about 8 inches tall. I was trying to keep the same scale as the other characters that I had made.

Well the ornament is done for another year. Merry Christmas to all!
Chris

Dear Santa, I’ve Been Good

2009-12-16T19:38:00.001-05:00

Dear Santa,
You know that I have been really good this year.....right? I didn’t ask for any fabric from my family for Christmas because they think that I have enough already. They just don’t know that you can never have enough fabric!

So I would love to ask you for a Cobblestone Stonehenge fat quarter bundle from the Fat Quarter Shop. This is just what I need to create a beautiful quilt of an old stone building.

I had a really hard time picking out the fabric that I really wanted from the Fat Quarter Shop because they had so many wonderful fabrics. Santa, I hope that I am on your list of nice boys and girls this year and that I will find this under my tree on Christmas morning.

Hugs

Chris

Time to Make the Ornament

2009-11-28T13:53:00.002-05:00

Now that Thanksgiving has passed it is time to make an ornament for my daughter. I have made her an ornament every year since she was born in 1989. This year is ornament #21. At the beginning I made ornaments from patterns made by companies such as Butterick, McCall’s and Simplicity. Ten years ago the ideas from these companies ran dry since most of what they offered was made of felt and glued together. Since I am a sewer/quilter I don’t really like ornaments made this way.
So I had to start designing my own ornaments. After all the ones that I made from patterns it was not so hard beginning to creating my own. We love the Tim Burton animated film “The Nightmare Before Christmas” so I decided to start making ornaments based on the characters from the film. So far I have made Jack, Sally, and the Mayor. This year will be the villain Oogie Boogie.
I was checking Joann’s fabric site to see it they have the fabric that I need to make Oogie Boogie, but they seem to be down this weekend. I guess all the traffic to their site caused a major computer meltdown for them. Maybe I will stop in the store this week to see if they have what I need.
I am also going to make kitty tents for our 2 kitties. So I better get moving on these projects. I have always had the ornament done before Christmas. I don’t want to mess up my perfect record.

Chris

Yes, I am Still Alive!

2009-11-13T09:35:00.001-05:00

Seems I am having a hard time finding time to blog these days. The semester is in full swing and keeping me busy. I have not even been doing any quilting....so I guess that does not leave me a whole lot to talk about.

Mostly I have been focusing on losing weight and getting healthy. Since mid June I have lost 20 pounds. People usually ask me what my "secret" is. My answer to that is, "just a lot of hard work!" I have been exercising like crazy and seriously watching what I eat. I belong to a free online weight loss site called Spark People. It is absolutely great. You can track your exercise and your food consumption as well as join groups and get tons of support and inspiration.

At any rate I have been forced to buy new clothes since mine are getting way too big. So that has been a lot of fun. Tomorrow we are going to a anniversary party for my BIL and SIL. I will be giving them my "California Dreaming" mini landscape quilt. It was made based on a photo my daughter took of a stream on their property last Christmas. I hope they like it...although I am sure they will.

This is the quilt I am talking about…

The main part of the quilt is only the size of a sheet of paper so many of the pieces are very small. In the future I will keep my landscape quilts larger than this.

I still have to sew a sleeve on the back of the quilt and add a label to it. I guess I will do that today while we are being bashed by the Nor'easter that is hitting the Atlantic coast. At least I will have plenty to talk about on Monday in my Meteorology class!

Chris

Updated Kitty Picture

2009-10-04T13:23:00.003-04:00

We are really enjoying the kittens. Here is a recent photo of Panini.

Chris

The Whiskey Cruise Was Great!!

2009-09-11T08:13:00.001-04:00

We had a wonderful time last night on the whiskey cruise. It was held on one of the Spirit of NY ships that sails around Manhattan. As soon as you enter the ship they hand you a map of where all the vendors for the different whiskeys are located. Mainly the whiskeys were from Scotland and Ireland. You get to taste and learn about what you want. The even had some tasting seminars during the cruise. I did not really know much about whiskey before the cruise.

In addition to the whiskey tasting there was some really good food for dinner....chicken, salmon, a wonderful salad, great vegetables, pasta. So it was not hard sticking to my healthy eating plans.

We were supposed to have really bad weather last night...rain and winds. But the bad weather did not start until our cruise was over. So we were able to go out on deck and see Manhattan all lit up. We went under some bridges which was great. I think one of them was the Brooklyn Bridge. Also last night they had the lights on for the twin tower memorial. That was really nice to see since I has not seen it before. We also went past the statue of liberty. I had never seen her at night before.

There were 14 of us in our group...mainly members of my husband's piping band. We had such a great time we plan on doing it again next year.

Chris

New Kitties in the House

2009-09-07T22:23:00.001-04:00

My daughter raised 2 kittens this summer that were abandoned by their mother (a stray) at 3 days old. Initially she had to syringe feed formula to them every two hours. They are now about 9 weeks old and are a lot of fun. We have adopted them for her until she is done with school. We have to keep them separate from our other cat since we are not sure how he will react to them. He can be really nasty.

My husband got a photo of the girl (Panini) tonight. The boy is called Chowder. He also took some video to send to our daughter.

Here is Panini sitting on one of my quilts.

Chris

Some Vacation Photos

2009-09-04T13:02:00.001-04:00

Finally I got some photos from my husband from our vacation in Amsterdam and Bruges. He did not take too many photos so I did not have a lot to choose from.

Bruges

My daughter, Kelsey, having a beer our first night in Bruges at a restaurant in the central square area.

A windmill in the Bruges area. We saw this on a bike ride. Unfortunately this was the day my daughter’s camera was stolen.

Amsterdam canals.

My daughter’s boyfriend eating pancakes in Amsterdam. Imagine how many calories these are…yikes! I did not eat much of mine and managed to lose 2.2 pounds on vacation. We did a tremendous amount of walking.

All of us outside a dive bar called Gollem. We went to this bar twice while we were there and had a few beers.

Chris

Back From Vacation

2009-08-20T09:38:00.003-04:00

Just got back yesterday from our wonderful week in Belgium and Holland. I did manage to stop briefly in a quilt shop in Amsterdam and I pick up a pattern with canal houses on it. They had the quilt on the wall of the shop and my husband really fell in love with it. Fabrics were pretty pricey so I only bought the pattern. Besides my husband does not have a lot of patience when it comes to visiting quilt shops so I did not want to spend any time really looking. If I had been there by myself I would have looked a lot more. Probably would have bought a lot more as well!

Here is a link to a blog about the pattern and a photo of the quilt.

Little Amsterdam Quilt

Chris

Going on Vacation!!!

2009-08-11T20:50:00.002-04:00

We (my husband, daughter, her boyfriend and me) are leaving tomorrow for Holland and Belgium. I hope to get some great photos of windows and buildings for future quilts. I think my quilting inspiration is starting to come back and I will be motivated to do some creative work when we get back.

I will post when we return.

Chris

I Know That it Has Been a While!

2009-07-26T11:30:00.001-04:00

I don’t know why I have not been blogging much lately. I am beginning to think I am burning out on blogging and internet stuff in general. I think several things have contributed to this. First off I have signed up for and have done too many online exchanges. Some of them have been disappointing. A few people have not sent what they were supposed to send and some of the things I have received have not been as nice as what I sent out. I guess that is the way that exchanges go and I should not be disappointed, but I am. I am not signing up for any exchanges for a while to regroup from my experiences.

Second, I have also had several weeks of really bad poison ivy. I never had it this bad in the past. I had it all over my arms and I didn’t even do any quilting for 3 weeks. It is finally going away and I will get back into some quilting this week.

In one of my groups we are doing a secret sister exchanges which involves sending something every 2 months. The last things I sent in June, I have not even heard on group whether or not it was received by this person. She has not posted lately so I am not even sure she is still in the group. Since this is supposed to be secret, I am not supposed to contact her directly. For August I was going to send her a quilted tote bag that I made, but I am not sure if I should send it. I think I will send her a card without revealing my identity and ask her to post on group if she received the card before I send the tote bag. I guess if she does not post on group, I will break the rule and contact her directly because I don’t know what else to do.

Chris

New Miniature Quilt Finished

2009-07-08T13:13:00.001-04:00

I am still working my way through my sewing closest and trying to use up things that are in there. I had this kit for a miniature quilt that I completed this morning. The size of the quilt is 16 inches by 16 inches with the size of the half square triangle blocks being 2 inches square.

It now resides with my antique bear and dogs. I have placed it on my dresser and they are happily sitting on it. You can’t tell that some of the blocks are crooked using the quilt in this way instead of hanging it on the wall. I love my antique bear. I think he is from the 30’s or 40’s. The Halloween planter is from my MIL. She bought it when my husband was born in 1955 because his birthday is near Halloween.

Chris

Halloween Postcard for Wellspring

2009-06-26T11:35:00.001-04:00

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

Isle of Skye

2009-06-20T21:52:00.001-04:00

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

Free Piecing…What Fun!!

2009-06-19T15:47:00.001-04:00

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

“California Dreaming” Done

2009-06-17T17:18:00.004-04:00

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…

Log Cabin

2009-06-12T14:53:00.002-04:00

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

UFO’s for the Summer

2009-06-04T08:50:00.001-04:00

I am looking at my project list for the summer and what I want to get done.

View Full Album

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

Land of My Heart Forever…

2009-06-01T14:59:00.001-04:00

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

Quilted Duffle Bag Done!

2009-05-28T10:22:00.001-04:00

I finished the duffle bag that I was making for my daughter this morning. I started to make it on Tuesday so it did not take long at all. I am really happy with how it came out. The pattern was in the book Easy to Make Totes with Zippers by Cindy Taylor Oates.

I originally I bought the cute owl fabric to make my daughter a dress. Then we were going to make PJ pants with it. Then it turned into a duffle bag. I am sure you know how that goes…

Chris

T.Rex and Others Too

2009-05-27T13:26:00.001-04:00

Now that I am getting ready to hand quilt a wall hanging for my husband I have been thinking about all of the quilts I have hand quilted in the past. In fact when I first started quilting that is the only way I quilted.

This dinosaur wall hanging quilt I made for my daughter when she was very young and was into dinosaurs. It was a based on a pattern by Debora Konchinsky. She has tons of patterns. Go here if you would like to see them. Critter Pattern Works.

I picked my daughters favorite dinosaurs of all the choices that were offered. This was one of the first times I used fusible web in a quilt. In fact I used a fusible web made by Aleene’s. I sure miss seeing that craft show on TV. Plus I learned to do satin stitch for this quilt and sure knew how to satin stitch by the time this quilt was done!

I echo quilted quilted around the dinosaurs with mostly pink thread and quilted the names of the dinosaurs in the border. I made the most elaborate label I ever made for a quilt for this one. My daughter named the quilt.

Chris

Wedding Rings and White Roses

2009-05-26T09:33:00.001-04:00

I have been meaning to blog about this quilt for a while. I finished this queen size double wedding ring about 10 years ago. It is machine pieced and hand quilted. I think the time invested from beginning to end was around 800 hours which took about 5 years. This was my last hand quilted quilt!

I picked out fairly pale fabrics because I wanted an antique look. I think most of the fabrics were not bought in quilt stores! In fact they were bought all over the place including Joann’s Fabrics as well as other fabric stores that no longer exist. I had to use poly batting because they did not have batting that large in cotton back then.

I quilted roses in the off white spaces because I wore white roses in my hair when we got married. I can’t believe how thin I was back then! I made my own dress. Cost about $50 back then.

My daughter wants me to give it to her when she gets married. I told her it depends on who she marries. Actually she is pretty much a slob and that has me more concerned than what boy she might marry.

I remember she used to love the back of it because it looked like a white on white quilt from the back.

I have shown the quilt from the front and the back so you can see all the quilting in it. I won viewer’s choice for this quilt at a quilt show about 10 years ago.

Chris

Working on Postcards Again

2009-05-19T13:25:00.003-04:00

I am busy working on some postcards for an exchange again. Since I am fascinated by lightning I decided to to a postcard showing a desert lightning storm. I enjoyed using silver metallic thread to do the lightning bolt.

I always get a bit nervous during a thunderstorm since our house has been hit by lightning two times. I usually unplug my sewing machine and the computer. I would hate to have either one of those damaged. The last time we were hit (about 5 years ago) my daughter and I smelled something strange after the strike. I thought maybe we had fire in one of our walls. We called the fire company and were told to get out of the house. I did not think there was any immediate danger and I ran around the house grabbing all of my valuable quilts. My daughter grabbed the cat and the hamster. Turns out the smell was a melted VCR and not a fire in our walls.

Chris

Panda Quilt Quilted, Bound and Washed

2009-05-15T09:03:00.006-04:00

I did not do too much quilting on this quilt since I am not that crazy about it. I mainly quilted in the ditch. I meandered around the pandas in the borders. This was a mystery and since you don't know how it is going to come out, it is not easy to pick fabrics for it. Had I known what the pattern was I would have picked a different pink fabric.

At any rate it is done and ready to give to my daughter. I think it will make a good table topper. It did kill my neck and shoulders and made me really envious of all those folks out there with a long arm machine!

Chris

Get the Muscle Relaxants Ready!!!

2009-05-12T12:48:00.005-04:00

Well I have the panda mystery quilt ready to be quilted. It was killing my back and neck just to pin it...can't wait to start the quilting...ouch. My daughter is coming home next week so I want to make sure it is done. She turned 20 yesterday and this will be one of her gifts for her birthday. I sent her an Hello Kitty watch and a carrot cake. Yes even a 20 year old loves Hello Kitty. Her big gift was her MIT class ring. I guess the class rings are a big deal at MIT. They bused them from Cambridge to Boston for the ring ceremony.

She will be glad when the semester is done because it has been a lot of work. I am looking forward to her coming home. Hopefully she will want to help me create some rust dyed fabrics.

Chris

Happy Mother's Day!!!

2009-05-10T14:26:00.003-04:00

I hope you all are having a pleasant day. Unfortunately I will not be able to see my daughter since she is still finishing her semester at MIT. I did receive a nice package in the mail from Rust-Tex from her. I have been wanting to do some rust dyeing and this little package will be just what I need to get started.

My package consisted of an instruction CD, rust flakes, rust dust and tannin. Now that my semester is over I will be able to start enjoying quilting everyday. I am anxious to see what I can create with the rust.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

Chris

Painted Dryer Sheets

2009-04-26T19:21:00.001-04:00

Bonnie asked where the painted dryer sheets were in my pink portal. I have outlined the painted dryer sheets in this picture. They were painted with Transparent Setacolor paints in purple, yellow and some gold.

Chris

Pink Portal and Turkey

2009-04-26T16:03:00.006-04:00

More or less finished my third portal. I decided to try something more abstract this time and use up some of my pink, peach and purple solids. Pink and purple are not my favorite colors so I am going to have to stock up on kona green and blues for future portals.

The shear "fabrics" are painted dryer sheets. There is also some pink tulle over the window and lace in other parts of the piece. The grid in the window is the plastic netting that a turkey breast came in. Last night we had turkey and I managed to get perfect grid for my window.

It was a bit out of my usual experiences to use something like food netting, but it definitely was not hard to sew it into place.

I did have a hard time getting good pictures of it. Hope you all are having a good Sunday. It is really hot here in NJ today. Hard to believe a week ago we were freezing.

Chris

Last Comments About the Blue Portal Piece

2009-04-23T07:00:00.013-04:00

I would like to thank all of the people that commented about my blue portal piece. The comment that summed up my own feelings about the piece were made by The Idaho Beauty.

She said, "I agree that the quilting over/within the stones is too much of a good thing. I think the cleanness of the previous picture shows this work to better advantage. This is always my fear with machine quilting - when is enough enough and will I add one more thing that makes theoretical sense but in reality just detracts? Sometimes simplicity really is the best tactic. I have an awful time visualizing my results in advance. However, it is still a lovely little piece, and I like that you have learned from it, instead of just calling it a failure. It succeeds if only because you've chosen to allow it to help you grow."

The reason I have posted about this comment is that I think we all have a lesson to learn from it. When I was just starting to learn to machine quilt I pretty much did very simple quilting in the ditch because that's all I could do. As I learned to free motion quilt I began to feel like I had to do more elaborate quilting on every quilt I made. I felt like it was not doing my best if I did not quilt the quilt to death. I was no longer in my own mind allowed to do simple quilting even if that was the best thing to do for the quilt. My experience with the blue portal has been a wake up call. Sometimes simple quilting is better. Not doing elaborate free motion quilting is not wimping out...it might be just what the quilt needs.

My comments back to The Idaho Beauty shows that this is not my first experience of this nature, but I think this time I have learned my lesson....at least for now.

"Idaho Beauty, I completely agree with your comments. I think that for such a small piece that the thread within the stones overwhelms it. The thread sticks out way too much. Maybe if these were large stones that I could have done the stitching inside the stones and even so I should have used a thinner thread. I had a similar issue last summer with my house quilt for the trees behind the house. The trees were made of small pieces just like the stones in the portal piece. Initially I did quite a bit of free motion quilting inside the pieces. I ended up spending hours and hours tearing out all the stitching and then just quilting around the pieces. It looked 100% better doing that.

This time I will not take the time to tear out the quilting. In fact you would have thought that after all those hours of ripping out stitches for the house quilt, I would have remembered why I ended up doing that and not to do it again. I am going to keep this quilt so that if I ever think of doing this sort of thing again, I can look at this portal piece and see why I should not! It is a lesson learned and lessons are good things."

Chris

Nominated For the Friend's Blog Award!!!!

2009-04-22T18:33:00.014-04:00

My friend, Kathy, nominated me for the Friend's Blog Award. Check out her blog at http://kcn2cats.blogspot.com/ because she does some amazing art.

Here are the guidelines for the award.

I am to award this to 5 other deserving blogs. This is going to be really hard since there are a lot of blogs that I like and that inspire me.

For those of you that receive the award from me, this is the badge that comes with the honor:

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these kind writers ."

So here are my nominations for the award.

Quilting on a budget (Joan's wonderful site to help quilters save money.)

Janet's Fiber Art News (Janet's quilts and fiber art are inspiring to me. Plus she has been one of my online friends for nearly a year now.)

One of a Kind Fiber Arts (Shirley loves to share her fiber art through tutorials.)

Lazy Gal Quilting (How could you not love a blog with Tonya's inspiring quilts and her beautiful cat, Pokey?)

In Stitches With Bonnie ( A lovely lady with a lovely blog.)

Chris

Blue Portal Done....Live and Learn

2009-04-19T14:34:00.005-04:00

Well the portal is done, but I think that I should have just quilted around the stones rather than quilting inside the stones. I also quilted some vines going up the building, but I am not sure of those either. As you can see I still need a lot of work with my free motion quilting!!!
As someone once told me, "It is just some fabric." So I think I will make another portal, but I think I will do something more abstract.

Lessons learned on this one.

Plan the blocks out better rather than just winging it.
Make things straighter.
Use fusible web the next time.
Only quilt outside of such small blocks or quilt differently.
Make it bigger the next time. This was only 8 inches by 10 inches.

Chris

Portal 2 Continues

2009-04-18T15:40:00.003-04:00

I have started to stitch/quilt my second portal. I think this part is easier than cutting out all the blue stones.
My birthday continues since my husband is taking me out for dinner tonight.
Chris

Grandma’s House for Blogger's Quilt Festival—Spring 2009

2009-04-17T23:21:00.006-04:00

There is an online quilt festival going on. In order to participate you have to post the story of your favorite quilt. I know that I have posted about this quilt before on my blog, but since this is one of my favorite quilts I would love to talk about it again!

I made this quilt of my parent’s house for my Mom's 80th birthday which we celebrated last August. I did not think it would take too long, but it pretty much took the entire summer and was more difficult than I thought it would be. These are some pictures of the finished quilt.

When my Mom received the quilt she was really surprised. I think this photo is my favorite photo of the quilt. When people at the party saw the quilt they thought it was a painting. When I told them it was a quilt they looked at me with a puzzled look on their faces. I guess most people don't think of quilts beyond traditional patchwork quilts.

This quilt looked so much different when I first started making it. This is a photo of what it looked like not far into the process. At this point I was almost going to pack it in an get her something else for a gift since it did not look too good at the beginning. So I guess this shows that you have to keep going when making a quilt like this.

So you might ask if the quilt looks anything like the house. Here is a photo of the house so you judge how well I did. I decided to make a spring scene and my Dad sent me photos of the tree in front of the house in the spring. I sent photos back and forth to my Dad to get his feedback. He designed the house so I did not want to mess up. I loved his comment to me, "Don't be so hard on yourself." I should take that advise more often.

And yes, that is a cat in the window on the quilt. The cat is no longer around, but used to sit in the window all the time and make my Mom crazy.

Birthday Gifts

2009-04-17T17:46:00.011-04:00

Wow I am really racking up the birthday presents today. I received the beautiful roses in the photo from my wonderful husband. He gave me 2 quilt books and Fabrico markers and my daughter sent me 1 quilt book.

Quilt books received.

I got all 36 Fabrico Markers!

He also made vegetable lasagna which is baking in the oven right now and smells wonderful. I also forgot that he got me a fancy cork screw to make it easier to open bottles of wine.

To top it off the weather in NJ was absolutely beautiful today...sunny and 70 degrees. What a great day!

Chris

Portal 2 Continued Again

2009-04-11T14:46:00.004-04:00

I finished gluing down the blocks for my second portal. I think I am going to use invisible thread to stitch them in place. I am anxious to get this one to the quilting stage because I want to practice my free motion quilting. Plus I am going to be stitching lines in blue for the window panes so my portal will look a lot better when it is all stitched up.
Happy Easter to all. Eat lots of chocolate!

Chris

Portal 2 Continued

2009-04-10T18:10:00.009-04:00

Added some more to my portal. I am anxious to get the rest of the blocks glued down so I can stitch/quilt the pieces in place.

Chris

Portal 2

2009-04-10T14:59:00.004-04:00

I just started working on my second portal for my portals class. I am making this one out of blues. I still have a lot more blue blocks to add and lots of stitching to do so it is very much in its early stages.
Chris

Abstract Portal 1 Finished

2009-04-04T15:35:00.004-04:00

I decided to stitch lines on the windows to indicate individual panes of glass. I did not like how the windows "bloated" out on top if the quilt. I like my quilts to be pretty much flat. Hopefully this looks better.

Chris

Abstract Portal 1

2009-04-04T14:31:00.006-04:00

I am taking a class called Portals on the site "Quilters Keep Learning." I finally got a chance today to create my first portal. Portals are just windows created with shear fabric. It did not photograph very well. For once I tried not to over analyze things and just have some fun.

I never did anything like this before so working with shears was a whole new experience. I think it came out pretty good for my first attempt. Since I am a realism kind of girl I can't wait to do some windows (portals) that are more realistic.

Chris

Maple Leaf Blocks From Swap

2009-04-03T17:57:00.003-04:00

These are some of the maple leaf blocks I received from my block exchange for spark people. I think they are wonderful. The colors are fantastic and they will make a wonderful lap quilt. I only had room to put some of them on my design wall since they are 12 inch blocks. I am trying to figure out what to do with them. I have some ideas, but since I have so many projects going right now the maple leaf blocks will have to wait.

Chris

Another Postcard Swap

2009-03-27T11:06:00.011-04:00

This morning I mailed my postcards for the swap in the Val Hearder Landscape group. One of my postcards is going to Ireland, one is going to Canada, one is going to the USA, and one is going to Canada. This is quite the international group.

I decided to create a sunrise at the Jersey shore for my landscape. The fabric I used for the sky I painted last summer when I took a class at Quilt University on painting fabric for landscapes. I used Setacolor transparent paints. The water fabrics were just purples from my stash that I cut with my rotary cutter and then sewed to the sky fabric with a straight stitch. The grasses were just some black fabric from my stash fused to the foreground . I then fused the scene to some peltex and did the stitching. I used all free motion to do the stitching since this is a skill I need to work on. I hope the recipients like the cards as much as I liked doing them. The ladies at the post office sure made a big fuss over them!

Chris

Dancing Away the Blues

2009-03-18T10:30:00.002-04:00

Well my square dance quilt is quilted and washed and ready to use. All I did was quilt in the ditch, but even that took a long time. I realized while quilting it how much I don’t like moving around a lap size quilt under my domestic machine. I can’t imagine quilting anything larger than lap size this way. It makes me want a long arm quilting machine and frame. Dream on….

The goal for this quilt was to use up blue squares in my stash from a fabric exchange as well as use up more blues for the back of the quilt. Here is the back of the quilt showing how I used up the rest of the blue squares as well as some other fabrics in my stash. I also used different light blues/whites for the binding. Even though I used up quite a bit of fabric, I still have more in my closet.

The parade yesterday in NYC was great. The weather was fantastic and we had a really good time.

Chris

My Handsome Hubby, the Piper

2009-03-14T16:15:00.001-04:00

My sister found this great photo of my husband online. Last weekend started parade season for his pipe and drum band, St. Anne’s of Hampton, NJ. I think this is a really good photo of him. He has one parade today and two parades tomorrow.

His band will be marching in NYC on Tuesday, March 17. This will be his 5th NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade. I will be walking with other family members behind this band down 5th Avenue. I really enjoy the parade. If one of your TV stations carries the parade you may see us. I am hoping for good weather. Most years it has been cold and windy….good days to pass around the single malt!

Chris

The Mystery is a Mystery No Longer

2009-03-14T09:16:00.002-04:00

We have now finished our mystery quilt on the Learning FA yahoo group. The mystery was written by Noel and the instructions were really well done. I had never done a mystery before and thought that it would be a fun thing to do. It was fun! Noel had us guessing pretty much the entire project.

I picked out panda fabric for the main fabric because I was going to give this to my daughter since she is crazy about pandas. In fact I bought a kit at the NJ Quilt Fest last Sunday to make her another panda quilt. That panda pattern is done by the same person that designed the dinosaur quilt that I made her when she was about 3 or 4 years old. You can see the dinosaur quilt in the slide show of my quilts or on Flickr or Webshots.

At any rate back to the mystery…. I am a little disappointed in how it came out. I wish I had picked different fabrics to go with the panda fabric, but I guess that is the point of a mystery. You read the fabric descriptions and hope for the best. I am still going to give it to my daughter for her birthday in May. It is not big enough for a lap quilt, but will make a nice table topper. I don’t think it will be good enough for a wall hanging.

I plan on doing a lot of quilting on it to jazz it up. I am hoping that will make it look better. The pink fabric is not really intense enough, but maybe with some quilting with some pink thread that is darker than the pink fabric it look a little bit better. I need to practice my free motion quilting so this quilt will give me the opportunity to do that.

Any ideas for the quilting? I won’t be quilting it until April so I have some time to think about it.

The pandas are really cute and my daughter will love them!

Chris

Quilt Fest of NJ.....Amazing Quilts!

2009-03-13T16:15:00.009-04:00

I had the pleasure of going to the NJ Quilt Fest in Somerset, NJ on March 8. The show had traditional quilts as well as art quilts. I mainly took photos of the art quilts since that is mostly what I am interested in these days. A lot of the quilts were astounding. I did not include photos of all the quilts since the video file would be way too large. The quilts are much better in person than they are in the photos.

The show also had a lot of vendors and I did manage to spend some money...I won't say how much or I could be kicked out the the Quilting on a Budget yahoo group!

Enjoy the quilts! You have to wait a while for it to load once you click start.

Chris

Taking it Easy Today

2009-03-06T15:34:00.001-05:00

For some reason I am really tired today. I decided not to do any sewing and give my neck and shoulders a break. I feel like I have been going non stop on a quilting treadmill lately. Quilting is really wonderful and I do love being busy, but every once in a while I have to step back and take a breather.

“Midnight Stars”

A quilt I made about 16 years ago. Heavily hand quilted with cables and feathers. Even though it is only 60 inches by 60 inches, it took me a year to quilt it.

I am going to a quilt show this weekend in Somerset, NJ. Since I have not been to a quilt show for a while I am really looking forward to it. It will really be nice to see some wonderful quilts and be inspired by what I see. I am also looking forward to shopping. I just got a small royalty check for a lab manual that I wrote for one of my classes so I will have some money to spend!

Chris

Square Dance is Basted

2009-03-02T13:29:00.002-05:00

We had another snow day in NJ and my college canceled classes. I worked on getting my square dance quilt pin basted so that I can machine quilt it on Friday.

It takes me forever to pin baste a quilt because I have to give my back, neck, and shoulders several breaks along the way. Since this is a just going to be a lap quilt, I think I am not going to be doing any fancy quilting. Lap quilts in my house take a lot of wear and tear and basically a great deal of abuse. So I guess I don’t want to do too much quilting on something that will be pretty much worn out in about 15 years. In fact this quilt is supposed to replace one of our current shredded lap quilts.

I am trying a batting that is cotton and bamboo for this quilt. It seems really soft. I did wash and dry it to shrink it before I put it in this quilt. I did not really want this quilt to shrink anymore after it was quilted.

I hope you all didn’t get too much snow today. The end of winter can’t some soon enough for me!

Chris

Making a Lunch Bag Out of Old Jeans

2009-02-27T12:08:00.002-05:00

My husband needed a new lunch bag so I set out to make one. I found a free pattern at Loving Our Earth at Victoriana Quilters.

My husband thought that I should make it out of some of his old beat up jeans. So that is what I did. I cut up some light denim from a pair of his jeans and some darker denim from an old jacket. I even incorporated the seam from the pair of pants. I thought about adding other decorative elements, but I figured my husband would not really want all of that on his lunch bag.

I picked out some patriotic fabric from my stash to line it with. I was trying to find a fabric he would not mind as the lining. If it were my lunch bag I probably would have picked something else. I think it took about 2 hours to make it..not long to help the environment.

Chris

Working On My Landscape Again…

2009-02-23T12:53:00.003-05:00

I decided to get my landscape challenge out and work on it today. I am home from school because I am not feeling well, but wanted to get some projects done. So far I have kept my noodle soup down from lunch so I think things are starting to settle down.

I fused the pieces of the landscape in place and sewed the edges of the pieces down with a zigzag stitch and invisible thread. The skinny pieces like the thin trees I just used a straight stitch and sewed right down the center of these pieces.

Here you can see the thicker tree with the zigzag stitches and the thin branches with the straight stitch. I know that a lot of people don’t like invisible thread, but I don’t mind it at all.

While I sew the pieces in place I stabilize the piece with tracing paper on the back of the landscape.

You can see the tracing paper peeking out and all the pieces sewn in place.

The tracing paper is quite a mess from the back of the piece and I will have to carefully remove it using tweezers. Last summer when I worked on my mom’s house quilt, I discovered that masking tape helps to pull off the tiny pieces of tracing paper and cleans up the back really well.

The back is really ugly and a big mess!

The back looks so much better after taking off the tracing paper. It does take some time to remove the paper. I just put on some Loreena McKennitt and tear away.

Chris

“Beat the Winter Blues” PC Swap

2009-02-14T14:38:00.003-05:00

I had to make another postcard for a swap in one of my yahoo groups. I decided to create the side of a red barn with daffodils blooming beside it.

I love seeing daffodils blooming in the spring especially after such a long, cold winter like the one we just had or are still having. Seeing the yellow of the daffodils just makes me happy. Also I have always loved the intensity of a bright red barn. I thought both of these could chase away the winter blues.

I tried to make sure that I did some thread painting since that is a skill that I need to improve. I think it came out pretty good, but I am never sure how much I should do for these swaps. Sometimes I feel that I should have done more although this card took about 5 hours from beginning to end since I don’t work really fast.

Now that I look at it I realize that the window is pretty low and very close to the ground. Oh well…too late now! This is a barn for hobbits.

Chris

Making a Quilt of My Parent’s House

2009-02-07T16:39:00.020-05:00

This a photo of my Mom when she opened the quilt of my parent’s house that I made for her 80th birthday last August. It is my favorite photo of the quilt. A lot of people at the party thought that it was a painting rather than a quilt. I spent most of last summer working on this quilt. I thought that I would give you an idea of how I made this quilt.

I started out with a photo of the house. It was actually a fairly out of date photo, but it was all I had to work with when I started the project. The photo shows the house in the winter. This is how I got started.

I printed out the photo of the house as large as I could make it on an 8 1/2 in by 11 in sheet of paper.
I placed a sheet of transparency film over the photo and traced the image with a permanent marker. I used one of my pigma pens because it has such a thin tip. I wasn’t too careful when tracing things that were straight lines since I planned on measuring them and using my rotary cutter to cut these pieces out. That would include things that must be straight like windows, doors, etc.
I then put a plain white sheet of paper behind the transparency image and scanned it into my computer so I could print it out.
I took this scanned and printed image to Staples to have them make an enlargement for me. I think I had it enlarged 250%. (or maybe it was 200%). Once I had it enlarged I had a pattern to make the quilt. Unfortunately I did not save the copy made at Staples so I cannot show you that.
I used a large sheet of tracing paper and put that over my Staples print and traced the 250% enlarged house with a pencil and ruler. I use tracing paper since I can use a dark marker to trace the lines of pieces I want to create using fusible web. The trouble with that is that you must reverse these when you trace the pieces onto fusible web. The tracing paper allows me to do that. I just flip the tracing paper over for my pattern pieces.
The pattern for the house traced onto tracing paper. You can see that it has been folded up in my closet since I finished the quilt last August. The parts of the house I did not go over with a dark marker, I used my ruler and rotary cutter to create those straight pieces.This is the reverse side of the tracing paper pattern that I used to create my fusible web pieces.
I used Steam a Seam 2 Lite for the fusible since I needed the pieces to stay in place as I created the house. I am not thrilled with this fusible for any other reason. It is too heavy and it gummed up my needle when I stitched through it. But it was great for keeping all the small pieces in place.

I asked my Dad if he thought that my Mother preferred a winter or summer scene and he thought that summer would be better. I had him send me more photos of the house since all I had was a winter photo.

Here is a series of photos showing the progress of the quilt from beginning to end.

Here is the house at the very beginning of the process. Doesn’t look like too much at this point. I was almost ready to pack it in and buy her a gift for her birthday. I carried on due to encouragement from my daughter. The house is in Pittsburgh, PA and it hardly is ever sunny which is why the sky is so gray.

Here I am creating the trees behind the house. I just randomly cut pieces of about 3 or 4 different fabrics to create the leaves on the trees. My husband was really impressed with the trees because he thought they looked very realistic.

We had a big debate about what color of green to use for the grass in the front lawn. I had a darker green and a lighter green. We ended up using the lighter green.

This is the house with the darker front lawn. I was also doing a funky thing with the front walkway that I changed my mind about.

This is the house with the fabric I finally used for the front lawn and the corrected front walkway.

I also had some problems coming up with a good fabric for the flowering tree on the left side of the house. The tree was white, but I had a hard time coming up with something. I had pink and I had blue, but the tree was white!

Here is the tree as blue. This is the fabric that I wanted to use, but my Dad emphasized that the tree was white! So no creative license for the tree!

I also tried pink-white, but again the tree is only white!

So I had to come up with white!

So here is the finished top with the border added. Now onto the quilting! My machine was acting up so doing much free motion quilting or thread painting was pretty much ruled out. Since I am new to free motion, I thought it was me. I ended up taking my machine in for service after this quilt. What a difference!

Here are two photos of the final quilt.

I think the quilt came out great and my Mom was really surprised. My Dad designed this house so I wanted to make sure it really looked like their house.

Yes that is a cat in the window. That cat is no longer alive, but use to make my Mom crazy because she always sat in the front window. I printed the cat and the house number on Printed Treasures.

I will be teaching a free class on making a quilt of your house on the Learning FA group in May of this year. If this is something you always wanted to do why don’t you join us there?

Chris

“California Dreaming”

2009-02-06T17:03:00.003-05:00

I think that is what I am going to call the landscape quilt. I have decided to go with the darker gray blue fabric for the water. Shirley from Learning FA suggested that I paint the fabric along the banks bluish with darker blue near the shoreline. I tried to do that, but I am not sure it came out too good. I used the Setacolor transparent paints. It came out more green than I wanted. Maybe painting this fabric brown would have been a better idea. Too late now!

Short of tearing it all apart again I am not sure what to do with it. I don’t want to tear it apart and start again. I guess I could add some browns fabric in spots over my “botched” painted fabric. This entire shoreline is covered with leaves so maybe I should add fabric to simulate the leaves. I don’t know if thread painting it with brown will tone down the greenish look it has. This area definitely needed to be darker than it was after I used the darker water fabric, but not green.

I thought that I would try out an idea for borders while it is on my design wall. I think I am going to go with it as it is. Hopefully the finishing touches will make all the difference.

Chris

I’m So Confused!!!!!

2009-02-06T08:33:00.004-05:00

I kept looking at the water fabric choice in my landscape challenge all week and kept thinking that it should be darker than the fabric I picked. I was thinking that the water should be more gray and less blue since it was a gray day when the photo was taken. Also I know that I have to watch when I make landscape quilt that I don’t create too much contrast between the fabrics. I know that when making a patchwork quilt that contrast is important. In nature the shades blend more and there can be less contrast. So I stopped at the quilt store yesterday to pick another fabric for the water. I picked three different ones to try out, but the other two are too dark. I can use the other ones for trees in a future landscape quilt.

I lifted all the pieces to put the darker water fabric in place, but now I am not so sure….maybe my first one was better. I do this second guessing thing all the time. The point of this entire exercise was to get over “perfectionism”, but I guess I have not reached that point yet!

Usually I ask my daughter, but she is away at school. Right now she is probably breathing a sigh of relief since she hates it when I keep asking her questions about my fabric choices. Maybe you can give me your thoughts. Please help me!!!

This is the black and white photo for the challenge.

This is my original scene with the original water choice

This is my darker water fabric in place (some things are missing that I have to put back in place)

Now what I am going to do is post the original black and whiter photo and each of my landscape quilts turned into a black and white image. I thought this would help me sort out the value of the water and other landscape elements to see what I should do. Here goes….

Photo and first water choice

Photo and second water choice

What do you think?????? What is the better water fabric to use?

Chris

Janet has claimed her prize

2009-02-02T21:54:00.002-05:00

Janet has been feeling a bit under the weather so winning the book and templates was just what she needed.

Now I need to look at some weather maps to see how bad this storm is going to be in NJ tomorrow.

Chris

And the Winner Is…….

2009-02-01T21:44:00.007-05:00

I used a random number generator to pick the winner of the book and templates.

The winner is Janet Hartje!!! Janet, looks like you have another quilt project to start working on. Please contact me at my email address: dvontish@comcast.net so I can get your shipping information. You have until Saturday, February 7 to contact me. If I have not heard from you by then I will pick another name for the winner.

Thanks to all those that entered comments in order to win the book and the templates. It was amazing how fast the last 2 weeks went. I am hoping the rest of the winter goes that fast.

Happy groundhog day!

Chris

Main Parts of the Landscape are in Place

2009-02-01T13:20:00.003-05:00

The main aspects of the landscape are in place. Most of the fine detail will have to be thread painted/quilted. At this point I am going to leave it on my design wall to “marinate” for a few days and look at it again to decide if there are any more fabrics I have to add.

So here is my plan:

I will iron the pieces in place and use invisible thread to secure the edges of the pieces.
I will draw in the many tree branches and background trees with a water soluble pen so I will have some kind of plan when I stitch them in by machine. At that point I do want to add some dried leaves with fabric to the branches in the foreground.
Once I do that I will square up the top and add borders.
After that I will add batting and backing and do the quilting/ thread painting. I usually thread paint during the quilting process. I seem to have better luck doing it that way. I just have to remember to keep all the stitching fairly even so the quilt will be flat.
Then I will bind the quilt and wash it. Yes I always wash my quilts even my landscapes.

Go, Steelers!!! ( I am from Pittsburgh.)

Chris

Still Working on the Landscape…

2009-01-31T17:59:00.003-05:00

I am still working on the landscape. It is amazing how long something so small can take! I have added more trees in the background and rocks in the stream. There are a lot more trees in the background, but since they are so small I will have to add them with thread rather than fabric. This is definitely a landscape that needs thread painting and quilting to create the details.

Chris

Working on a Landscape Challenge

2009-01-31T13:38:00.002-05:00

Today I am working on my landscape challenge for the Learning Fiber Arts Yahoo group. We have to pick a photo and turn it into a black and white photo and then use the black and white photo to create the landscape. So we have to pick colors that we think will work rather than using the original photo as a guideline.

The photo I picked is one that my daughter took with her new camera over Christmas break of a stream near my BIL’s house. I thought I would give it to her if if comes out good enough. I plan on doing lots of thread painting and free motion quilting. I need lots of practice doing that!! The size of the scene is only 8 inches by 10 inches. I have barely started the process of creating the scene and I have a long way to go. Hard to say at this point if I am enjoying the challenge. Don’t tell Shirley!

Don’t forget to check here on Monday, February 2 because I will post the name of the winner of the Book and templates to make a Grandma’s fan quilt.

Chris

SNOW DAY!!! YEAH!!!

2009-01-28T12:34:00.004-05:00

We are having terrible weather in NJ today so I don’t have to go to school. We were looking at the weather maps yesterday in my Meteorology class and I told my students that we would not have classes today. I am so glad I was right. Now they are going to think I really know what I am talking about!

I decided to work on some Valentine’s day postcards. This one I made for my daughter. She just went back to MIT on Monday and I miss her already. Come to think of it I did not really see her too much while she was home since she mostly hung out with her boyfriend.

The Geisha is from a photo she took with her new camera when we were visiting my parents in Pittsburgh earlier this month. The Geisha was on a sign on the side of an old building in downtown Pittsburgh. She seems to really like taking photos of signs. The cat is our crazy cat, Meeko. Why is he crazy you ask? He puts all kinds of things in the toilet…socks, paper, DD’s hair things. He pushes his water dish around the kitchen and he chases my husband around the house. I decided to sew seed beads to the background fabric to jazz it up.

I made this very pink one for my husband. I think I will send it to his work address so that he is really surprised. Both of these cards were really simple.

Chris

Book and Template Give Away

2009-01-19T10:37:00.001-05:00

I made a Grandma’s Fan Quilt years ago for my DD. She wanted it made out of blues and she picked out the fabrics. I was cleaning out my closet and found the book and the rotary cutting templates stuffed into the back of the closet. Since I don’t plan on making a second quilt I thought I would give them away. Here is the pattern book called “Fan*tastic.” Apparently the TV show “Quilting from the Heartland” must have done a show or series on this pattern. None of my TV stations have ever carried this show. Currently I am not able to get any quilt show. This saddens me since I used to walk on the treadmill while watching “Simply Quilts.” I would learn something and get inspired while getting my exercise!

You can see that the thick pink laser cut templates already have “sandpaper squares” attached to them so they don’t slip while you cut the pieces. You will need a small rotary cutter to do the cutting accurately.

So I will send you the book and the templates if you are the winner. All you have to do is make a comment and I will randomly pick a name on my mom’s birthday which is February 2. It is also Groundhog Day. I forget if the groundhog is supposed to or not supposed to see his/her shadow. It is all nonsense since Punxsutawney Phil has only been correct less than 30% of the time. You could toss a coin and do better with your forecast for the rest of the winter!! On February 2 I will post the winner’s name and you can claim your prize once you send me your snail mail info.

Here are some photos of the fan quilt I made my DD. This was the only quilt I sent out to be machine quilted. It was just sitting around not getting finished so I figured paying someone to quilt it was better than having it just sitting in the closet as a UFO.

I don’t remember who quilted it, but they did a great job quilting feathers, fans in the white blocks, etc. I think the person was just starting out and did not charge very much to do it either. Unfortunately I won’t be giving away the quilt with the book. But if you were ever thinking about making this beautiful quilt here is the chance to win the pattern and templates for free. There are some great ideas for wall hanging size quilts in the book. There is even a stocking and a tree skirt pattern if you only want to do a small project.

Chris

More Projects Done…a very productive weekend!

2009-01-18T17:01:00.004-05:00

Project
22 Maple Leaf Blocks	Done
Square Dance Quilt Top	Done
Secret Sister for February	Done
Challenge for Small Quilt Group	Done
Challenge for Learning FA
4 landscape postcards	Working on
2 postcards for exchange	Working on
Quilt “Scotland the Brave” quilt

I am beginning to see the “light at the end of the tunnel.” I can’t believe how much progress I have made with my project list.

The challenge for the Small Quilt Talk yahoo group was to make a small quilt from beginning to end in one day. Obviously it had to be a simple design so I picked a 4 patch on point. I just used some “repro” fabric scraps that were in my stash and I completed the quilt today. I am guessing that it took about 6 hours. The size of the quilt is 10 inches by 14 inches and is machine quilted. I guess I could have made something larger and more elaborate, but since I have never done a challenge like this I was not sure how much I could get done in one day.

Here are some photos of the quilt. The second photo shows where I am going to display it with some of my cloth dolls and my antique girl scout tin on the bottom of my quilt rack.

Chris

The Beginning and the End

2009-01-18T15:24:00.004-05:00

I finished piecing my square dance quilt yesterday. The quilt ended up being 12 blocks by 15 blocks. That means I had to hand cut 180 blocks out of the original top. I have not hand cut pieces for a quilt since I first started quilting 20 years ago. I think that it came out pretty good, but working with so many bias edges on the outside of the block is a bit disconcerting. And there are still bias edges at the outside edge of the top!

Here’s what the top looked like after sewing of the 6.5 inch blue and white squares together.

Here’s what the top looks like now after cutting out and sewing the 180 square dance blocks together. Each square dance block ends up being 4.5 inches.

I think after I quilt it I will just bind it in a light blue/white fabric. My goal is to use up what is in my stash and I will use whatever I have. It probably will turn out to be more than one fabric for the binding. I also plan on piecing the back of the quilt to use up even more of my stash. The back will be a whatever I can find sewn together…..no planned pattern.

Chris

Asian Quilts

2009-01-14T18:32:00.006-05:00

My dear daughter loves all things Asian from video games, to animated films, to food. She even took Chinese for 2 semesters last year at MIT. I can’t even imagine trying to learn a language like Chinese. I had a hard enough time learning Spanish and Latin in high school.

Here is a photo of her that her boyfriend took over Christmas week.

She hates having her picture taken even though she always looks great in the photos.

She loves Asian things so much that I have made her 2 different quilts with an Asian theme. The first one is called “Japanese Garden.” I made this from a pattern in New Zealand Quilter for her high school graduation. Here are some photos of the quilt.

I fused the circles onto the black fabric and satin stitched the edges. I also fused the many hexagon “cherry blossoms” and used invisible thread to stitch them onto the quilt. Here is the beautiful label that I made for the back of the quilt.

The back of the quilt was pieced so I could use up the Asian fabrics so it is just as interesting and beautiful as the front. When she has a wall large enough to hang it I will have to sew a sleeve onto the back.

I also made her a smaller quilt showing a temple scene from Japan. The pattern comes from a series called “Postcards from Japan.” This quilt currently hangs on her bedroom wall.

We are planning to go to Japan on vacation this summer. DD has been begging to go to Japan or China for years. Now that she has a digital SLR camera I am sure she will take some wonderful photos while we are there. I hope to make her a quilt of one of her photos.

Chris

My Project List for the Next Month….Yikes!!!

2009-01-13T21:57:00.002-05:00

Looks like I will have plenty to do during the next month. Here is my list.

Project
22 Maple leaf blocks	done
Square Dance Quilt Top	working on
Secret Sister for February	done
4 Landscape postcards
2 cards for exchange
Challenge for small quilt group
Challenge for Learning FA

“Look to see to remember to enjoy.” (What my art teacher use to say.)

Chris

Windows Live Writer

2009-01-12T21:09:00.005-05:00

I think I found a software to make posting photos and editing posts in blogger a lot easier. When you upload a photo to your blog in blogger the photo always ends up at the top of the blog. I don't know about you, but I find this really annoying. With Windows Live Writer you can insert photos and video where you want them. You can work on your blog from your computer without being on the blogger site. The software will connect to your blog and publish your post for you.

Check out this free software. I created this post in Window Live Writer.

Windows Live Writer

Here is a small quilt I gave away to my BIL and SIL for Christmas. It is called Under a Purple Moon.

As you can see you can insert the photo and even tilt it if you would like to. Pretty cool!

Chris

Life's a Dance

2009-01-12T12:05:00.018-05:00

I am finally working on my Square Dance Quilt from a class I took in my Learning Fiber Arts yahoo group back in December. I had a bunch of blue and white squares from an exchange and I wanted to use them up. Finally after getting the squares sewn together, I added the royal blue border yesterday. I think you are supposed to introduce a 3rd color in the border so the blocks won't blend in with the border, but I did not have anything large enough in my stash and I wanted to use up that royal blue fabric. I thought about buying some fabric for the border, but decided instead to use up something that may not be perfect, but will be OK. One of my goals this year is to use up something I already own instead of buying more fabric. I can't figure out if my cat Meeko approves or disapproves of this....

This morning I started the tedious process of cutting up the top to create the "dancing" blocks. I am making a lap size quilt instead of a small wall hanging size so there are a lot of blocks that must be cut out of the pieced top. I created the template and started to trace it onto the top. The trouble with blue and white is finding something that will show up on both colors. I started using blue pencil on the light blocks and white pencil on the dark blocks. This seemed too much like work and not really too accurate as I was tracing the template. I decided to try a different approach by making a freezer paper template and ironing that onto the top and then cutting out around it. I have been careful not to cut too far into the fabric as I go around the corners so I don't snip into what will become the next block. This has been working out great. As I cut each new block I add it to my design wall. I think it is coming out pretty nice. It is taking on a bit of the "blended quilt" look. I just need to remember to be careful when I sew the new dancing blocks together because there are tons of bias edges. I don't want to end up with a wacky, skewed square dance!

Cheryl and Shirley, thanks for a great class! It is hard to believe that you can start with squares and end up with a fun tessellating quilt. Escher would be proud.
Chris