Summer - At Least in My Studio

Charleston is once again thawing out of an ice storm - twice in two weeks is just too weird.  Although I grew up in Colorado, I have lived in the South for nearly 30 years so I think my blood has thinned.  I don't really like cold weather anymore!

For two days I sweated as the lights flickered (I have way too much sewing machine work to do to be without power) but we were lucky and had light and heat the entire time.  Friends nearby weren't as fortunate.

I worked on Bloom as the icy rain fell.  In my last post I estimated about 2 hours to finish the flower - was I way off.  It took nearly 2 hours just to pull the threads from all the stops and starts!  I probably have closer to 3 days of stitching.

Once again I struggled with the marking of the background of the quilt.  Finding a marking pen that I can see and that will come out easily is becoming like a Holy Grail search.  Any ideas?

I still need to put on the facing, sleeve and label and need to decide if any of the centers need beading but I am pretty satisfied.


Once again I am linking to Nina~Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Friday to show my progress.

Progress

Slowly the Quilt in a Box is getting finished.  I have almost all the blocks sewn together - only a little bit of hand work on the back.  I have also quilted some of the sashing.

I got a little tired of black and white and gold - so the back is something - shall we say - completely different.

Each fabric is part of Mark Lipinksi's Home Elements line - one of my favorite tone on tone fabrics.  They no longer produce it and I had a devil of a time finding enough different colors to make a very vibrant back.  I think I succeeded.  I need to finish sewing the forth row from the top together - a good Downton Abbey project.

Now for the borders.

I have also been able to make some progress on Bloom - another 2 hours or so to finish the flower and then the background.  

Two weeks and  12 hours until the quilt show turn in - not that I am counting.

Again I am linking to Nina~Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Friday.

Icy

Today was spent indoors staying warm.  Charleston was struck by a ice storm overnight and we woke up this morning to an icy scene and all of the bridges in town shut down.

We had a few snow flakes in the air - but everything on the ground was a combination of freezing rain/sleet.
 

Our Washingtonia Palms do not like cold weather any more than we do.

This poor little guy spent quite a while on our live oak in the backyard - notice the ice on his tail.

He flew off soon after this photo - hopefully to a warmer perch.  We are supposed to be in the mid-70's this weekend.  

Blocks Done

After a long week of marking and quilting all twenty-five blocks are done.

I don't have a design wall large enough to put the quilt on so the blocks are on the floor - hence the poor photo.  I have started sewing the blocks together and will be un-sewing the plain center block and the grey pinwheel.  It creates a bit of a black (grey) hole effect.  The pin wheel will move to the center bottom and hopefully will look better.  I have lots of hand sewing on the back to do - luckily it is Downton Abbey and Sherlock tonight!

I really want to get this project finished soon as it is one of four quilts I am entering in the Cobblestone Quilters Guild Show in late February.  The next quilt up is Bloom - a whole cloth dye painted quilt - much more my cup of tea.

I am linking to Nina Marie Sayers Off the Wall Friday again this week. 

What Was I Thinking?

For the past week I have been working like mad on quilting my Quilt in a Box. Twelve unique blocks, eight setting triangles, four corners and one central block.

Twenty-five total.

I am using the border as the basis of my quilting design and spent many hours designing the main motif.  The half block sketch looks okay:

But it really starts to work when the other half is added:

By having the design touch the edge of the block in a couple of places it creates secondary designs.  One of the blocks that I have finished is the quarter circle block that I showed in the last post.  It now looks like this:

I really like where this is going but - - twenty-five blocks!  Thirteen are finished, six are marked (the most difficult part so far - finding a marker I can see has been a challenge because of the wide range of lights and darks I am working with) and ready to quilt.

I am linking to Nina Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Friday

Now just to Finish It!

Quilt in A Box

For the last two years, my splinter group in Cobblestone Quilters Guild , Indigo Quilters, has been working on a quilt in a box project.

What is a quilt in a box you ask?  It is a type of block exchange where you get a little more control of the type of quilt you end up with.  I have been involved in several block exchanges were everyone makes you a specific block out of their fabric.  Unfortunately these have remained "orphan" blocks because the fabric just didn't play well together and there were not enough blocks that an odd block or two will fade into the background.

In a quilt in a box - you provide the fabric:  the focus and a background to be used in every block and a variety of coordinating fabric to be used.  Each person working on the project picks a block to make and they make that same block for everyone else in the group out of each persons fabric.  So at the end you end up with a sampler quilt that goes together. The boxes were exchanged at our monthly meetings and we did not get to see inside our box again until the very end.

My focus fabric is the black, white and gold floral print in the block below and the background fabric is the white with light grey print.  The block I made for myself and eleven other is called Nosegay and is a combination of paper piecing and traditional piecing.

The black and gold are additional fabric I had in my box.

One of the blocks made by another quilter is this star block.  I need to get names of each block and who made them to put on my label when the quilt is finished.

Another block is this quarter circle applique block:

We started this project in September 2012 and finished this past September.  I am planing to quilt each block separately (as I machine quilt much better on a smaller project) and set the blocks on point.  The black border in the pictures is actually the beginning of the sashing I am using.  The outer border is a black and white paisley print and I intend to use it as a guide for my quilting design.  I am planning on using gold thread for the quilting.  

The fun part of this project (besides a quilt out of fabric you like) is seeing how different your block looks out of different fabric.  This is a Nosegay block I made back in March.

One word of warning if you do this project - make sure you like the block you are making and that it is well with in your skill level to do quickly - it seemed like I had just finished one box when the next was due!

How Do You Eat A Tree (or Conquer a Long To Do List)

Last week we had a Pileated Woodpecker visit our "bird" tree.  We think this tree was struck by lightening a few years ago and is slowly decaying.  This guy decided he need to hurry the process along and spent most of the afternoon "eating" the tree.

Like most artists I always have more ideas and projects than I will ever get done. Add in teaching (last class of the year today!), working on publishing my first patterns, and of course handmade Christmas gifts (that should have been done and mailed by now) and the to do list is of epic proportions.

I have decided I will approach my to do list like this little guy - one bite at a time until it is done