Tuesday 31 August 2010

Hoot Hoot Greetings

I've finished appliqueing the owl to my Hoot Hoot quilt.

I'm currently searching for my big needles to embroider "ear hair" and claws. I'm getting a bit impatient to get going, so if I don't find them soon, I'll go and buy new needles.


Question for you: I also can't find my stash of embroidery yarn, do you think wool will do the trick or should I just go and buy some thicker yarn (embroidery or darning or whatever)?

Saturday 28 August 2010

Film Cafe Top - In Love

Here's another quilt I love these days!


The top for the filmstrip quilt using Moda's Bistro line (mostly) is done. I'm not supercreative with this name: Filmstrip Cafe (there are coffee cups on some of the prints that I didn't use in this quilt). It feels like I'm going to a special kind of cafe when I look at the quilt though - and for some reason my brain thinks "French" when I think of the quilt. Probably because I associate both Bistros and Cafes with Paris/France :)

Guess it needs some ironing ;)

As I commented back to some of you already, I'm still madly in love with this line of fabrics. So a day after I completed the top, I draped it over the bookshelves next to my bed so I can gaze at it on either side of sleep :) Sigh. It'll probably stay there still I have a chance to buy the necessary batting. I have a fabric for the back in mind already; it'll be non-pieced and one of the pretty fabrics I've been holding back on other quilts.

Wednesday 25 August 2010

I Love My Monkey Mechanic!!

Have to say, this turned out to be one of my favourite quilts!!!

I left off in July at this stage:


Wondering what I could do in the in between fields to not take away from the swirly pattern.

Well, after humming and hahing, I just set it aside waiting for inspiration.

It struck.

In a moment of haziness, it seems, because my inspiration was PEBBLES!

Argh. Why??? It took *FOREVER* to pebble all the brown spaces. And it, of course, used a ton of thread, blah blah blah. I have never read a single post about pebble quilting that didn't comment about the amount of thread used ;) It does seem excessive for pebbles, I admit, especially since I go around 2 or 3 times for most pebbles. And in this quilt, in the pointy bits of the 4-armed swirl, I did very tiny, 1/4" pebbles at times. Suffice it to say, I'm all pebbled out now, but I LOVE it! The polyester batting worked really REALLY well for pebble quilting - I felt like I was doing trapunto quilting without actually having to shove more batting in between the layers! But have a look yourself (and don't hold back with the comments :) Doesn't it look awesome? I'm so excited!!!)


Don't you want to jump on the little pebbles and bounce???

And check out the pebbles from the back!


And, oh my goodness, I LOVE the back too!!!


But you probably would like to see the rest of the quilt front? :)


I just want to shrink and bounce on it, from pebble to pebble, and then run and hop along the swirls... I've never had a quilt make me feel like that before - it's a teensy bit scary :)


My puffy swirls are still all there and visible:


Sigh, I could have put another 10 photos of pebbles from all different angles here, but let's not overdo it ;)

I'll leave you with the complete top - I'm off to push my fingers into pebbles again and giggle at the puffiness :) (Better than that bubble-wrap!)


Saturday 21 August 2010

Filmstrip Cafe

Ah handquilting, progress is truly slow doing that, especially in summer, when a hot quilt on my lap is not my favourite way of passing the time...

So I finally gave in and started a new project, well, technically I finished an old one (the Mossy Monkey Mechanic, pictures soon!), and I'm 90% done piecing the top for the filmstrip quilt recently featured at the Moda Bake Shop. I like a lot of their project, but have never realized one of their ideas so quickly!

Here are pictures of my pieces laid out - again, pics of the completed top coming soon!


Most of the prints in this quilt are Moda Bistro. I bought the fabrics 2 years ago at a little shop in New Brunswick. I loved the prints so much in the store that I bought them despite being over 15$/m - I usually abstain from such expensive fabrics, but couldn't help myself. I ended up buying a quarter yard of 9 or so prints. I added in a fat quarter of Moda Tranquility that I picked up in Kingston, Ontario (it's the center square in the bottom row). I love remembering exactly where I bought fabrics...

All these fabrics are very special to me, some of my treasure fabrics - that's whey they were still patiently sitting on my shelf. I was waiting for a pattern like this one - not just big squares, but enough of them to really showcase the prints.

I matched everything to the dark brown sashing (instead of the black from the pattern) and am quite pleased with the overall impression. I have a quarter yard of Bistro fabric left, in red with coffee cups. I thought about adding it in the mix, but it was too much "zing" for my taste :) I might used it for the backing, if I piece that...

I modified the pattern slightly, using solid 4.5" strips for the outside instead of pairs of 2.5" precut strips. Also, I only separated the center from the top and bottom film strips with 2.5" sashing, not 4.5". I thought it looks more balanaced that way.

Anway, it's been extremely satisfying working on such a quick project. I checked the pattern out on Thursday, cut everything by Friday and have most of the top together today (Saturday).

Tomorrow is a quilting bee meeting - I have a lot of hanging sleeves to sew on those quilts I want to put in the quilt show of my quilt guild in September. Lot's to do, with a deadline - exactly what I don't like :) I may have to downsize my contribution to the show!

Oh, and I'm done with going on vacation for now, though I've had a lovely time over the past 5 weeks, with only 9 working days - life could be so beautiful... :)