Garden Party

Bonnie Hunter is showing off photos of her Garden Party workshop in Las Vegas today.   It's making me want to make another one.
I don't even have the border sewn on the first one yet.

Maybe I wasn't really done with it after all...

A productive afternoon and a small mystery

I've only had one sewing day this week, and actually it was just for a few hours one afternoon, but I feel like the time was well spent.
This month's color for RSC is indigo, though black or gray can be substituted.  I have a lack of indigo, but an astute quilting friend pointed out that a good strategy is to use a multi-color print on a black background.  Hey, it's worth a shot.
I had two prints that fit that description, so I made a couple of blocks.  (And another green one, because who ever has enough green?)  

I figured I could use them in the corners, since I'm toying with putting all the dark background blocks around the outside.  (Well, for the next 5 minutes anyway.  I'll probably have a completely different plan tomorrow.)

A better picture would be helpful, but we're stuck with this one.
I figured there was no down side to making the blocks - if I don't use them in this quilt, I'm sure to be able to fit them in somewhere else.  I highly doubt this is the last Ohio Star I'll ever make.

So, three Ohio stars, three little monkeys (because there are always more monkeys), and...

See those blocks at the bottom?.
I have no idea why I made those.

But somehow, I now have six of them.  Six four-inch sawtooth star blocks.

Yeah, I don't know either.
Cute, though.


I bet I'm going to link to Angela's So Scrappy this Saturday.  There'll be rainbows galore!

hydrangeas and hydrangeas

A couple of weeks ago, I received a handpainted hydrangea from my friend Lee Anna  because I'd commented on a post of hers a while back about one of her color experiments and we decided to do a collaboration. 

Because I'm a quilter, I want to cut it up and put it back together.  The question is, how?  I've got several ideas that vaguely involve circles and slashing, but I was having a hard time visualizing what I wanted until I saw this quilt at the Syracuse AQS show.

 I'm not planning to put this many segments in each arc (I don't want to lose the painting by cutting it too small) but this is close to what had been camping in my brain.

But then today I saw this quilt that Cathy posted.  And this quilt from QuiltDivaJulie.  And I'm wondering if I can find a way to incorporate that kind of movement and energy.

More thinking required.  Or dithering.  (Call it what you will.)  Until I reach the tipover point and just reach for my rotary cutter and start slashing.

Until then, I can also admire this other hydrangea - one that's currently blooming out by the garage.

That main flower cluster is about the size of my head.  It's easily the biggest one I've ever seen. 
Apparently it's an excellent year for hydrangeas!

Okay, I give up - I'm making a Monkey Quilt.

I counted the blocks today.
I have 43.

If you have 43 blocks, you have officially started a quilt.  Especially if there are parts already cut for more blocks.
Maybe I'll even make two monkey quilts.  That'll show 'em.

While I was at the AQS Show last weekend, I spied a little ruler that I couldn't resist.  It was 2.5"x6.5" - and seriously, when would a 2.5" wide ruler not be useful?

It's very clearly marked, and best of all, the 1" markings run along the edges of the ruler,  with the half inch down the center.  Which makes measuring 1.5" segments a piece of cake, whether cutting 1.5" squares

or 1.5" segments for Silly Monkeys.

Since I've many many times cut with one end of the fabric aligned with the 1.5" line and the other end aligned with the 1.25" line, any help I can get is gratefully welcomed!
(This ruler was a mere $5 at the Hummingbird Highway booth.  Later, I saw the same ruler imprinted with a different shop name in that shop's booth,  priced at $6.99.  I'm glad I bought the first one!)

And since I'm now officially making a Silly Monkey quilt, here's a couple of blocks from today's sewing:

I'll leave it to you to guess which one was Right Brain's favorite...


I'll be linking up with Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Come see the fun!
And also?  Linking to Mrs Sew and Sow's Scraptastic Tuesday.  Because you can never have too much fun.

Scrounging for Indigo

I'm still looking for something I could call indigo, which is August's color for RSC.  Striking out bigtime, but today's my birthday, so maybe I'll treat myself to a trip to the quilt store this week to celebrate.  Once I get fabric home and cut a piece off, it's a scrap, right?

In the meantime, I played with blocks.  A couple more Ohio stars got made, and I had a new idea on arranging them.
By putting the light-background blocks in the center, and the dark-background ones around the edges, it should look like the center is glowing...

And just now it occurred to me that putting the darks in the center with the lights at the edges might look interesting, too.  Hmm...
In any event, I still have lots of blocks to make, and time to play with them, so no decision is imminent or necessary.
Who knows how many ideas I'll come up with before all is said and done?
And now, back to scrounging for indigo.  There must be a scrap in one of these boxes...

Linking to So Scrappy and the RSC - come see all the colors!

The Day After

Nothing like the day after a quilt festival to leave you all inspired, but pulled in too many directions at once.  I finally just cut fabric for a while to let myself think...
I've been watching the Stars in a Time Warp series since the beginning, but I don't have much in the way of Civil War reproductions, so was unable to play along.  But sawtooth stars are one of my favorite blocks (okay, okay, I admit I have a lot of favorite blocks...), so I decided to just make a few with fabrics I do have and like.

There, one itch scratched.

Another Sister's Choice block also got made, because someday I want to make a Sister's Choice quilt.  But every time I try making a block, I seem to say "Yeah, someday.  But not this day."  And the block gets added to the orphan pile.

 Pay no attention to the monkeys.  Apparently I left the window open again.

In my last post, I showed a picture of an applique quilt that got me all excited about applique, and gave a link to the pattern I bought.  Since I couldn't seem to light on anything, I started pulling some scraps to play with.
I didn't want to put a huge effort into this since it's basically just a test block.  If I hate it, I can drop the whole project with little investment.
This was the first thing I came up with.

Here, I'll make a mockup to show it better.

Pretty safe choices.  Not quite the bang I'm looking for.

I tried again.

That's a little more fun.  (That's that red that photographs as orange-red.  I've had trouble with it before.)

Maybe a different red?

Or maybe I'll just pull all batiks...
Which do you think is the most me?


Linking to Oh, Scrap, because it's Sunday and that's where the fun is!

There and Back Again

I drove all by myself to the AQS show in Syracuse today, met my swap partner Liz from the small quilt swap (and her friend, The Other Liz), and drove myself back home.

'Yeah?' you're saying...

A little background:
1.  I learned to drive late in life, and most of my driving experience is in rural areas.  Not cities.  City driving, what little I've done, has frequently made me cry.  Just thinking about city driving can drown me in a vast pool of anxiety.
2.  I have no sense of direction.  Literally, none.  I have not only ended up in the wrong city, but in whole other states.  I have to establish a path to places I go, then never ever ever deviate from that path because I will get lost.   Trying to find new places can be fraught with, you guessed it, anxiety.
3.  I am extremely introverted, and shy to the point of being broken.  I have to really work myself up to talk with strangers.  (Even on the phone...)

So read that first sentence again, knowing what you know now, and see that I faced a Perfect Storm of terrors today, and survived.
And had a good time in the process.
Both Liz and The Other Liz were really really nice and not scary at all!  It took less than 5 minutes of hanging with them to feel like I'd known them forever, and I haven't laughed that much in a long time.  Lovely ladies the both of them.
I managed to find my way into and out of the city without getting lost.  And I even parked in a parking garage.  (A first!)  You have no idea how scary that was...

And I saw fabulous quilts!  I've only begun to process some photos, but I'll share a few.
I went back and looked at this quilt at least three times:

I wish my photos really did justice to the colors.  They were literally breath-taking.  And the workmanship was jaw-dropping.
A close-up of the label (and part of that border!):

And just one of those gorgeous blocks.

I'd been thinking for a while that I'd like to make an applique quilt, and this quilt may have been the tipping point.  All that luscious color on a red background makes resistance futile.  It's been years since I've done applique, but I'm now tempted enough that I bought a pattern at the show.  Though the quilt I'm planning will be a wee bit smaller than that 'Funky Garden on Red' - the finished blocks in the pattern are 4.5" square.  Lots of pretty flowery blocks, but in a manageable size.

Like I always say, Go Small or Go Home.