Grandmother's Flower Garden Update

I haven't had much time to sit down and write a whole lot and have only been doing the minimum in the craft department. I thought I would share a picture of my progress on the grandmother's flower garden pattern. It's becoming very colorful and seeing it laid out makes me wish to work on it more. Too bad I have to work for health insurance and as well as more craft supplies.


Also, here is a photo of the nearly completed Trump Tower in downtown Chicago. We were down there last weekend. My photo doesn't nearly show how awesome the weather was. It has been a really cool summer over all this year which makes it great to go just walk around.


And, of course we had to go shopping although it was mostly window shopping and my daughter enjoyed the Lego store. She's not into Legos but since she got to be one of the first kids to go to the first indoor Legoland with her summer camp she does like to to look at the very large creations people come up with. Here she is sitting with a Lego-man outside the store.

International Quilt Festival/Chicago 2008

Well, almost a month ago I went to the International Quilt Festival/Chicago that was held at the convention center in Rosemont, IL. This was my second year except I didn't take any classes this year. Instead, I went one day with my friend Susie and one day with my daughter (who loved the shopping part the best - see picture) and I still didn't get around to seeing everything. There were many, many quilts that were just beyond superb. Quilting just keeps getting better and better. I can't even imagine getting close to the level of many of the artists out there today.


There were just too many pieces at the show to even begin to give details of even just some of the works I admired. I love collecting pictures of techniques I would like to try. Here are some of those details:

This first picture is a close up from one of the Journal Quilts 2007 - Journal Quilt Project. These were small quilts that meant to be pages of a journal. This one is titled Forgotten Flowers by Francis Holliday Alford. I love all the dimension in this and the wonderful use of beads.

This detail is from a large quilt by Carol Taylor called Tiptoe Through the Tulips. The base is squares and rectangles and then it's embellished with multiple threads and stitching. I love the swirls.

Here is just a small portion of a very large quilt with a technique of string piecing. It is called Prairie Dawn by Ann Brauer. This gives me an idea of how to use up the loads of fabric I inherited from my mom.


Now, unfortunately, I cannot find my notes on this next quilt but this detail photo is a very small area of the piece. I was amazed at the wave of buttons - all stars - that spread out through the middle of this quilt. Can you imagine sewing on each of the hundreds of buttons?



Here is an example of another technique that I would love to try - bleach discharging. This quilt named Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire! by Cynthia St. Charles shows the technique, I think, at its best. I also like the beads that have been added to enhance the starburst design.


This is a huge dahlia design and I've lost my notes on this one as well. It was just an amazing piece of an even more amazing quilt. If anyone knows who did this I would love to know. If I'm lucky I will be able to come across this one again and fully credit it. This also is one piece I cannot really tell what the technique was but it seems so geometrically perfect I just love its power.



I'm showing this detail of Open Up! Your Dream Flower by Harumi Asada from Japan. I love paisley patterns as well as the colors of this piece. I couldn't find a site for Harumi but I did find this picture of a quilt using a similar paisley.



The next two pictures are more traditional patterns but are a couple of my favorites. This is a feathered star which was the center part of the quilt Autumn Sky by Gretchen Neal Jackson. This shows 3 feathered stars inside of each other. I have done a feathered star but have not completed it in a quilt yet.



Mariner's compass is another one of my favorites. You might have noticed that a lot of the pieces I have shown has curves in it somewhere . I also like angles which explains the feathered star but the compass pattern has both elements. I really like the triangles (reminds me of distorted flying geese) that circle this compass. The full quilt is called Follow Me by Margaret Curley.

I hope you enjoy these little details from just a few of the pieces I admired and I hope they inspire you to try a new technique.

Olfa Rotary Circle Cutter

Check out my first article of 2008 over at Craft Critique. I just got this gadget a little while ago and it's very cool for cutting out circles from fabric.

International Quilt Festival/Chicago 2007

I've had another busy week. Work is crazy. We had a sales meeting with everyone coming into Chicago and we spent two evenings out at dinner and just getting to know everyone. My daughter had a doctor's appointment with an allergist today and I went to the special preview of the International Quilt Festival tonight for class registrants.

The show is great! It is the first time I've been to this one. I've never been to the original one in Houston but I have been to the Paducah Quilt Show which is amazing and is on my list to get back to. I am showing you a detail from a quilt by Kathy York titled Little Cities. It is machine and fused appliqued, machine pieced and machine quilted. The detail is the center of the quilt. I love how it has the circular quilting pattern rippling out from the center and the colors are so vibrant. You can see the quilts online beginning tomorrow on the quilt show's website, Quilts, Inc.

I am also sharing with you one of the vendors in the Make It University area sponsored by Cloth, Paper, Scissors Magazine. Ten Seconds Studio has unique tools to emboss metal and add them to your scrapbooking, cardmaking or as shown in the picture, wonderful little art quilts. You can find the supplies at alteredstyle.com. I picked up some of their rub-ons because they stick to fabric (used for art pieces not to be laundered). I will let you know when I get a chance to try them out.

At the quilt show I am taking a class on Saturday. It is called Threads of Imagination by Cara Gulati. I think I'm going to be a little tired and a little broke at the end of the weekend but hopefully I will be really inspired. I've already learned so much just from the vendors I've met tonight and I've probably only touched a small fraction of what is there. Wish me luck and if you can, stop by the show online.

Finished Tote Bag With My First Punchneedle Project

Wow! It feels so good to actually finish a project. I love to start projects. I love to learn new techniques and will take an interesting class whenever I am able to. But most of the time I start a project or finish a class it usually gets so far then ends up unfinished because I find a new project or new technique I just have to try. Of course, I have finished many projects over the years but compared to all the projects I have started the list is quite short. Lately I have been trying to start items that can be easily finished and this tote bag is one example.

I did go on a special shopping trip to find coodinating fabrics. I decided to try a new quilt shop, Quilters Destination, in Arlington Heights, IL. I found fabrics by Kathy Brown of The Teacher's Pet in the From "A" to "Z" collection. I don't think I could have done much better since I really wanted to try to have something bright and springlike.

The punchneedle emboidery piece was squared to the best of my ability. I added a couple of borders to complete a quilt block I wanted to use for a pocket on a tote. I used Heavyweight InnerFuse by Dritz to fuse together the block with a piece of muslin. The block was then trimmed again. I used a satin stitch across the top edge of the block. Then I centered and pinned the block to a ready-made denim tote and stitched it to the tote with the same satin stitch as the top.

A Valentine's Quilt - More Than for Just One Day

Today is Valentine's Day and it's almost over. It was a very cold and wintry day here in the suburbs of Chicago and we still had to go to work and school. My project I'm showing today I technically finished it last week because I finally put the hanging sleeve on the back. But, I actually made it several years ago when I was just getting started in quilting. I can't even remember what book I got it out of. I think it was one that had nothing but heart related projects. It was one of the first quilt projects I ever did. This is the first year I actually hung it in my home to celebrate Valentine's Day and the month of February. I like to celebrate the holiday until the last day of the month. It is definitely worth more than one day especially when we are too busy to put everything we would like to do in just one day and when the day after is my daughter's birthday! She is, after all, my favorite Valentine's gift.