a little more LOVE

Following up on yesterday’s post regarding my Love in a Mist Bee quilt, I thought I’d share Trina’s three block runner/wallhanging she made after being inspired by my blocks last year…

She did an all-over echoed swirl quilting… the blocks just pop!

And the back is fabulous, too, just uses little leftover triangles for added interest…

This one hangs (vertically) in her quilt studio.  She made two of these at a retreat one weekend.

Trina’s wallhanging is a great reminder that even if you don’t have time to finish an entire quilt, you can still make something fun and creative!

After the Rain

This finish has been a long time coming, that’s for certain. I’ve participated in at least five Virtual Quilting Bees; a group of 12 participants, duration one year, each quilter is assigned a month to send out fabric and request a block to be made for them. I even led two years of One Block Over, a Bee I created.  This is the first finished quilt from any of my Bees…

In July 2011, I requested Love in a Mist blocks (tutorial link from here) and I sent squares pre-cut from my scrap basket. I think I got all but one block back, and I made a few more to have enough for the quilt.  My friend, and business partner, Trina quilted it and returned it to me prior to moving in March, and it got set aside.  Yesterday, I finally got around to binding it:

I’m calling it After the Rain (the rainbow, the spectrum of colors, Love in a Mist is the block name…). The quilting is fabulous, as usual… (hey, look!  PURPLE!  I scrounged like crazy to come up with enough purple scraps for one block!)

The backing fabric has been in my stash since roughly 2007, it’s Petal Power by Maggie & Sharon for Moda.  I had several colorways of this, but about 4 yards of this magenta pink color.  The full back:

For the inner border I sewed strips of scraps together and made a spectrum strip about 2″ wide around the blocks, and also added a wide strip to the back:

I added a fun Alexander Henry print called “bobby pins” for the outer border, adds to the rainbow of colors but still “reads as” white from a distance:

12″ finished block, the quilt is roughly twin size…

(Don’t let the greenery in that photo fool you, it was covered in snow yesterday morning!)

I love several things about this quilt.  Every time I look at it, a different fabric or print catches my eye, and I’m reminded of the project I made out of that fabric, or of my beloved Gramma B (some of her fabric scraps went into this quilt!), or who I gave the quilt to that I made from that collection, or of friendships with long distance quilters.  This one is destined to be favorite…

Makes me want to get moving on putting together my other Bee quilts!

Have you ever been in a Virtual Bee?

Did you get all of the blocks requested?

Have you finished your quilt?

Peace, Love and Understanding

(I couldn’t resist, I’m a bit of an Elvis fanatic).

It’s my day to share my version of Rene’s Peace Quilt Pattern!

Rene is one of my Grubers Retreat buddies, she lives in Florida, and spends time in the Montana mountains, where I suspect she travels to just to get awesome quilt photo backdrops.  Seriously, though, she is a genuine and generous friend ~ and as it turns out, a pretty good pattern writer!

Rene showed her first Peace Sign quilt in April 2010 when she revealed the finish of Feeling Groovy:

I love how the purple background fabric sets off the spectrum of pinwheel colors!

The pattern is written for three sizes, with the pinwheel blocks adding another design option.  I made the Baby size (30″ x 30″) and decided to make my background the stand-out fabric (“Peace Flowers” by Michael Miller), which in turn, makes the aqua blue Kona Cotton peace sign POP!  (sorry, we still have Winter grey skies in Iowa, so these are the best photos I could get with my Ott-Lite straining to provide some “sun light”).

I added two borders, the first one a 2 1/2″ border of the background fabric, and a border of aqua blue.  The verse is a Walt Whitman quote, I was inspired to add it after seeing this:

from here.

Eventually, I think this quilt top needs some utility quilting, perle cotton style; and I know a girl who would love this, so I may add some blocks and make it into a twin size quilt.  Stay tuned, it remains to be seen.

The pattern is laid out in vertical strips, and provides very clear, easy-to-follow diagrams for piecing it together.  I cut it out and pieced it together in one day.

Rene has generously offered to give a PDF copy of the Peace Quilt Pattern to one of you lovely readers!  Just leave me a comment before Friday, February 1st ~ if you were to make a Peace Sign Quilt, what fabrics or colors would you use?

UPDATE:  The winner of the pattern is comment #3, MarthaB!  

Don’t forget to visit the other blogs celebrating this Pattern Party:

Monday, January 21 –  Katie at KT Quilts

Tuesday, January 22 – Michele at  Nostalgic Cafe

Wednesday, January 23 – Cindy at  Live a Colorful Life

Thursday, January 24 – Michelle at  Frustrated Quilter

Friday, January 25 – Stephanie at Peas in a Pod

Monday, January 28 – Terri at Terri’s Notebook

Today – Me–here at Made by a Brunnette

Wednesday, January 30 – Mary at Mary on Lake Pulaski

Thursday, January 31 – Shelly at Prairie Moon Quilts

Friday, February 1 – Visit Rene’ at Rene’ Creates (http://www.renecreates.com for a give away!

*one more note: All of the fabrics came from my stash and scrap basket:

Stash Stats year-to-date:

Acquired — .75 yards

Used — 8.49 yards

-7.74 yards

 

December Drumroll…

I have to share my last few finishes of 2012, including a big one… but, it wouldn’t be as fun if I gave it away right up front, right? So a quick December recap first:

Every year, my girlfriend’s an I have a favorites party, you know, like Oprah’s “My Favorites” giveaway episodes? Only on a smaller scale, but same idea. We give the exact same gift to each of the women at the party, something that we consider a “favorite” from the year. None of these five friends are quilters, so no sewing themed gifties.  We started the “My favorites” party tradition last year, and I think it’s going to stick!

This year I gave them each an Aveda gift bag containing Aveda Foot Relief and Hand Relief Lotions:

My favorite Aveda product, period.  Especially for Winter dry hands, it’s a Godsend.  From my five friends I received:

From Michelle: her favorite car freshener and a Jason’s Deli giftcard

From Kelly: her favorite Gold Canyon candle, Vanilla Rum

From Carisa: her favorite Tea and a statement “Hope” bracelet

From Tonya: an Angel ornament, Lindor Truffles, and an Orange Leaf giftcard

and from Carrie: her favorite Bath & Bodyworks Candle, MERRY MISTLETOE and Pretzel m&m’s

I didn’t have much of a chance to create gifts this year, aside from the Baby Cheetah onesie for Carrie’s baby:

I did sew a pillowcase as a stocking stuffer for my sweetie:

The fabric is Alexander Henry’s “the great outdoors” – he picked out the pillowcase kit a while ago.  There are some risque images on this fabric, so I had to crop the photo accordingly.  He has another Alexander Henry pillowcase made from similar Cowgirl Pinups, only not quite as risque.  I think I eventually need to make myself one of Alexander Henry’s Valentine Men or Construction Men fabric pillowcase to match.

I made my sweetie another Christmas gift, a photo frame that I painted a pale pink and embellished with type stamps to read “Grandpa’s Girl”, since his first grand-baby was due to arrive on Christmas Eve.  She arrived promptly on her due date, so I let him open that present right away — She was framed and on his end-table before she turned 4 hours old:

If you’ve been reading this blog for a little while, you know we spent much of 2012 first moving my Mother from her house 100 miles away (selling the home, cleaning out, packing, garage selling extra stuff, etc.), to a very nice retirement cottage community only 19 miles from us, and THEN, helping my MIL clean out her house (of 58 years!) to move into an Independent Living apartment at a new retirement community.  That was a huge task, and it is still ongoing (she is moved into her new home, but the old house is not completely empty, yet – a saga in itself, but I’ll spare you the details).

We have made three, 3-day trips to the St. Paul, MN (about a 4.5 hour drive one-way) since Thanksgiving.  Sweetie even made one day trip in between without me along.  That is A. LOT. OF. DRIVE. TIME. my friends, or riding time for me, as my sweetie does about 65-75% of the driving on these trips.

But, do you know what that means?  You all know what I do when a passenger on a road trip, right…?  Hand-piecing.

And y’all know what I have been hand-piecing forever, right…?  (or at least since July 4th, 2010)…

Candied Hexagons!  These are a few I made on the Thanksgiving Weekend trip… and those I made in med-December….

and on Christmas Eve, I sewed the last blocks up while relaxing at home watching Downton Abbey Season 2 on DVD (possibly the only blocks I made outside of a vehicle!).  I finished the final one up just before the ball dropped at Midnight, and now have all 104 full blocks and 12 have blocks pieced!

Ta-Da!!! (insert drumroll, here):

Here they are unceremoniously laid out on my studio floor.  I have them all organized to start sewing into rows… My sweetie came in while I was arranging these on the floor and he said “wow, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see the day when you had these all made.”  I had doubts myself…

I’m considering alternatives for the border, debating whether I want to stick with the original border design or create my own. Decisions, decisions….  but I think I have a day or two before I have to decide.

Happy sewing,

Doris

What a Tangled Web We Weave – Spiderweb Block Tutorial

BLOGTOBERFEST, Day 31

Today is the last day of Blogtoberfest, and my day on the Wicked Blog Hop.  Also joining in on Bloggers Quilt Festival with this fun Halloween quilt!

My “wicked” quilt block is the spiderweb block used to make my What a Tangled Web We Weave quilt, which received an honorable mention in the Des Moines Area Quilters Guild show this October.

The finished size of the quilt is Twin Size, and it takes 20 spiderweb blocks.  Here it is spread out on our Queen Size bed:

To make the blocks:

•  Cut randomly sized strips of fabric across grain by width of fabric (wof) and sew into strip sets at least 6 1/2 ” wide.  (for one block you will need 1 or 2 strip sets, for the Twin size quilt you will need 18-20 strip sets)
• Using a 60-degree ruler, cut alternating triangles from your strips sets in this fashion:

• From background fabric, cut one 5 7/8″ square, cut in half diagonally into two half-square B triangles.
• Also, from background fabric cut two A template pieces, and two Ar (A-Reverse) template pieces.  Template is provided here: SpiderwebTemplate
• Add a B triangle to the flat end of two of your strip wedges, and add two A triangles and two Ar triangles to the flat ends of your other strip wedges like this:
• Sew three wedge pieces together to create half a block; repeat:
• Join your two half block pieces together and then square your block:

I fussy cut the inner border from a stripe fabric, it reads “Halloween” over and over…

And the outer border is an Alexander Henry fabric (from 2006, I think) called “Halloween Lane”.  And the backing is another fun Alexander Henry print called “Unhappy Hour”…

Trina’s long arm quilting made the quilt…the spider web details are fantastic, and I adore the cluster of spiders in the square areas of the background:

Thanks for stopping, I’d love to hear your comments on my quilt… and please go pay a visit to these Wicked Bloggers and see what they have to share today:

Beaquilter
Fun Thread Designs

Stitch, Stitch, Stitch

Made By A Brunnette (Me!)

Buttons And Butterflies

The Recipe Bunny

Quilted Delights

Sunshine Reflections

Louzeekreativ

Mice In The Mix

Rosemary – That Other Blog
The Fuzzy Hat Quilter
Sew We Quilt

…and keep it company

BLOGTOBERFEST, Day 29

Anyone who lived through the 1970s in America probably remembers the coca-cola commercial with the theme song “I’d like to buy the World a Coke, and keep it company…”, originally aired in 1971 (when I was 2, but I remember it well so it obviously stuck around for a while– here’s a refresher of the Christmas version:

I kept humming this song while I made this mug rug for Jill, in October’s Des Moines Modern Quilt Guild Swap:

Jill doesn’t drink coffee or tea, Diet Coke is her liquid of choice.  And she happens to be a big fan of foundation paper piecing.  I started by sketching the Diet Coke logo, and then free-hand, hand embroidering it:

Then I drew up the bottle, transformed it into a paper pieced foundation and got to piecing.  I tweaked it as I went, it’s not perfect, but it looks pretty good.  Then I cut into a Munki Munki coca-cola nightshirt I’ve had stuffed in my closet for a few years, and started piecing patchwork around the fussy-cut double decker bus:

The back:

Giving this to Jill was such a joy.  She made me this fabulous pillow in our last Guild swap, so I wanted to really wow her with something made especially for her.

FREE PAPER PIECING & EMBROIDERY PATTERN for the Diet Coke bottle Coming Soon!!