Countdown

It seems like the holiday seasons start earlier and earlier every year, and I guess I'm not helping much.  I got a head-start on my holiday quilting and have finished up a little advent calendar quilt.

I know that I don't do well with super-precise piecing, so I went for a slightly wonky look.

 The date-counter is supposed to be a candy-cane but I wasn't super careful about matching up the stripes.  It's little, so I might re-do it if I can find some more scraps of that fabric.

The backing has two little sleeves.  I'll need to get a dowel or figure out some kind of way to hang it.  I didn't think that far ahead... but it's got sleeves... so that's a start!!

The trickiest part was the letters... I printed them out, and copied them onto iron-on backing... then ironed that onto the fabrics.  It took one or two before I managed to get them to look right-side-up.  

 

Ironed the backing to the letters, cut them out,  ironed them onto the quilt... and then tried to do some outline stitching.  As I stated above, it was somewhat less than precise.

 

Here's a little close up of the embroidery and trim. 

Honestly, it was a lot of work for such a small quilt... but I love it.  I think it will look festive when it's finally up on the wall.  

Sisters Oudtoor Quilt Show - part 2

As promised, here are the rest of my pictures from the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. (actually - I thought I had set this to auto post... but apparently not!) 

I liked the way this one blended some traditional piecing in the background with the pictorial quality of the flower in the foreground... so pretty!

 There were quite a few modern quilts on display, and this one just looked like a party - so colorful and fun!

 

And here's another quilt with a sense of humor - the moustache quilt made with shirts from the quilter's husband.

I saw a lot of Halloween quilts and they're inspiring me to make one for myself... but this one went way above and beyond the others - the haunted house was very 3-D and had so many little details. 

 

Just one little bit of detail... seriously, the whole thing was so intricate, I loved it.  I can't imagine how many hours of work would have gone into this - in the planning alone!

Every year there's a quilt group called "Cover-to-Cover" who read a book and make some quilts inspired by the book.  This year the book was Hugo, and the quilts were, as usual, amazing.

The quilting looked like clock-work and they even included gears ... so cool!

This one was all stitch-work... there's no piecing, just painting with thread - amazing.

 Detail of the mechanical man.  Loved it!
 

 In the city hall, they displayed a quilt project called "Two Rivers, Three Sisters" and what they had done was have several quilt artist each create a quilt including the river... and then they were displayed as one flowing river.

Each individual quilt was gorgeous and incredibly detailed on its own... but the end result was breathtaking.

 

I couldn't fit the entire display in one shot... but you get the idea.


So that's it.  I actually have a bunch more pictures, but this gives you more than a little taste of the show.  I took a much more laid-back approach to this show... and I'm sure I missed several sections.  But as usual it was well worth the trip out there.  I would encourage any of you quilters out there to visit, and even send a quilt there to show.  Such a fun event for the quilting community!!

Time And Relative Dimension In Space

I may be a bit new to the Doctor Who world, but I love the Doctor and all he stands for.  I've been so busy the last few years I would have loved the opportunity to step into that beautiful blue box travel the universe live all my crazy adventures, and then pop back home in time to go to school / work again. 

Alas, I'll have to settle for making my own mini-tardis pillow.

There's some basic piecing, and a bit of embroidery... but the big secret is, I used Time-Lord Technology.  I poured all of time & space into the heart of the TARDIS.


  

 The TARDIS is ... as you must know... bigger on the inside!

 

 It can travel through space... and time!  (although it only travels through time forward... and very slowly. ;)  )

A little bit of timey-wimey outline quilting on the TARDIS, and some wibledy-wobledy meander quilting in the sky.

Instructions which will be roundly ignored were embroidered on the door. 


It's just a lap-sized quilt.  Although, since I'm short, that's usually all I ever need.  Ooooh... and the plus side of making a pillow-quilt is that when it's all pulled out... I have a little pocket for keeping my feet warm! 

I think the Doctor would agree - Quilts are cool!

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2013 - Part One

Once again, it's my favorite summer event - the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.  If you love quilts, it's worth a trip out to this show, at least once in your life.  It may not have as many competition-level quilts as the show in Houston, but maybe that's why I love it so much.  Just beautiful quilts, out in the sunshine. 

 The weather this year was amazing, absolutely perfect, 82 degrees, bright sunshine and a light breeze.  I was plenty warm enough, but the heat-haters out there weren't melting either.  And no rain to end the show short, so that was nice. 

Every year, I say I'm just going to pick out a few of my favorite quilts to show here... but then I start going through and they're all my favorites.  So it'll take a couple of posts to show off all my favorite quilts.

Sunbonnet Sue is such a classic, and I love seeing how quilters continue to reinvent her year after year.  This one shows has her "bonnet" as different flowers.  The names of each flower are embroidered in the corner of each block.  Very creative and cute. 

Dresden plate quilts are another classic, this one was beautifully executed!

I saw a few examples of this winter-embroidery pattern, but this was my favorite.  The blue embroidery thread and iridescent quilting thread just gave it such a snowy feel. 

 

Pinwheels are another favorite of mine... I just love scrap quilts.  

There were some breath-taking works of art, both traditional and more modern, but sometimes looking at those quilts can make me feel intimidated - I don't think I'll ever reach that skill level.  But then I see quilts like these, bright, beautiful, well executed quilts and I think - yeah... these are wonderful too!  So I appreciate seeing these normal-skill-level quilts, and would encourage any hobby-quilter to think about sending a quilt out to this show.  It's just fun to see them all!

 

 But speaking of amazing quilts I could never make - this sunset quilt was gorgeous.  The ones below just drew me in with their colors!
 

It wasn't just amazing works of art or traditional scrap quilts.  There were also quilts with a sense of humor.  This one really drew a crowd and had people laughing.  It was titled "What women want." 

So there's your first taste of the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show of 2013.  I'll post a few more pictures later. 

School's out for summer!!!

Spring term finished up in June, so I've actually had a few weeks to relax and breathe.  The very first thing I did was pull out my sewing machine and start playing with fabric.

Like most respectable crafters, I have an abundance of works in progress... fabric purchased, patterns planned out, everything I need except for time to work on them! 

I've had it in my head to do a Doctor Who TARDIS quilt for a while and finally started putting it all together.  

This is just the mock up to see if I had all the pieces right.  But I've been working on it and should have a finished object to show off soon. 


Here's the unquilted top:

In other news, the Sister's Outdoor Quilt show is this Saturday and I will be attending again so look forward to a post about that!

Woven!

So yeah... um... sometimes I craft!  But mostly I'm going to grad school.  And mostly the folks who read this blog follow me on facebook, so I'm mostly just posting these pictures so I can share them elsewhere.

But a big warm "Hi" and a hug to anyone who is actually reading this.  I kinda miss blogging and I wish I still had time to do it.  =)

 So this is a scarf that I made from some alpaca I bought at Oregon Flock and Fiber... years ago!  The main color way is called "October" and being an October gal... I just had to have it. I also had some slightly heavier alpaca in a simple brown that I used for a few stripes... just to give the scarf a bit of character.

Once again I think I wove it too loosely.  It's a lace-weight yarn and I'm using a 10 dpi heddle.  I really need to figure that out.  I'm sure there's a chart somewhere. 

But it's drapey and pretty and hopefully I'll find an occasion to wear it soon.

 And here is the scarf I made back when I took that weaving class... I don't think I ever posted pictures of the finished product.

It's wrinkled because I wore it quite a lot over the winter... love the colors, I think it turned out well.