My Work Out Buddy - Finally Finished

I finished this quilt about two weeks ago to show at the Cobblestone Quilt Guild's April meeting as part of the Art That Works monochromatic challenge.  Judy Heyward is charge of our challenges this year and is also the guild Vice-President and has issued a guild wide monochromatic challenge and want us to show the results of our efforts.

I didn't want another square quilt - so I did a variation on a scallop for the sides and bottom and cut some of the leaves out.  I used a facing instead of a binding - but when I got to the leaves the curves were too severe for the facing so I ended up satin stitching them instead.

Not entirely happy with the results - so I plan to play with a variety of edge finishes over the next few months.

I also added my friend via thread painting.  All of the thread is green - but in the picture some looks more blue. 

Again not entirely happy with the results - so more playing and experimenting to do.



First Annual Knitting Weekend

Two weekends ago I was in the Colorado Mountains outside of Keystone at the Ski Tip Lodge with my two sisters, two nieces and friends for the first annual knitting weekend and managed to get caught in a Spring blizzard.

My sister Nancetta has a big birthday this year and has decided to celebrate the whole year doing the things that she truly loves - knitting, bike riding, and travel. 

My niece Margaret is expecting her first baby in July - so I made an I-Spy baby quilt, a tradition for great nieces and nephews.  They are planning a woodlands theme nursery so I used batiks for the extra blocks and the back.

This weekend focused on the knitting.  We had a wonderful time working on our own projects, learning to knit with beads, and eating way too much.  We also had fun leaving little knitting souvenirs for the Ski Tip Lodge workers . . .

 

A small scarf for a warming pan . .



  

Another scarf for a trophy. .





 



And a hat for a lamp!





Birthday Quilt

To celebrate my sister's birthday - I made a small qult to commerate her hobbies - bike riding,. travel and knitting . .

I had fun making my smallest scarf yet -



Deer Attack 2011

Once again the deer have hit my garden.  When we moved here in 2005 - I brought daylilies and hostas from my garden in North Carolina.  Our house there was way out in the country.  We used to tell people that if they had reached the traffic light (the only one in town) they had gone to far.  I never had a problem with deer eating my plants. 

Fast forward to the spring of 2006.  My plants had settled in well in our new urban environment and the daylillies were full of buds.  My husband doubted me when I told him I thought we had deer in the area.  Then on my birthday they hit.  I went out in the morning and every single bud had been eaten.  I cut the stems and put them in a vase and I told my husband that evening that these were my birthday present from the deer.

I moved the plants to the fenced backyard and created my quilt Spring Interlude so I would always have a daylily flower regardless of the deer population.  My blog banner is a close up of this quilt.

Fast forward again to spring 2011.  We are in the process of straighten our fence and redoing a great deal of our backyard.  I had worked hard to divide the daylilies and move them around the yard.  The fence project is not complete - there are several gaps to be filled.

The other morning I was out on my elliptical and as the sun rose - I could tell something was not quite right.  During the night the deer had attacked.  What they didn't eat, they pulled up.  What was left is now on the porch until the fence is complete.

The saga continues . .  they came in again yesterday and got the ferns!

Maybe I need to make a deer quilt?

Spring TIme

I want to sew.  I want to knit.  I want to cross-stitch.

But I am moving dirt.

Six cubic yards of dirt. My garden will love me.

Another First

I had chosen the word ACT - Art Continuously Trained - for my word this year, but now I think First would have been a better choice. 

I just finished my first felted project.

At our quilt guild meeting in December one of the members had on a great felted hat and I just had to have one.  Found a pattern and some yarn over the Christmas holidays.  Unfortunately the yarn I had picked out - Paton Classic Wool was not the same weight as the pattern required.  Luckily my friend Sue pointed me to the book Felted Knits by Beverly Galeskas that had a similar hat using the yarn I had.

Started the hat on a Sunday and finished by Wednesday.  It is amazing how fast you can knit with fairly big yarn and needles.                  Of course it was a bit big.

 

Then I started the felting processes.  A little bit of soap and hot water and a small amount of time later I ended up with a hat like this.

I had padded out the wig head a little bit thinking it was a little to small, but when I tried on the hat after it had dried it was just a little bit to big.  So back into the hot water for another go.  I removed the padded from the wig head and let the hat dry again.  Now a perfect fit.

My Work Out Buddy

Last fall my quilt art group (Art That Works -ATW) had a challenge to create a monochromatic piece.  I quickly decided what I wanted to do.  I have a potted plant on my back screened in porch that my lizard friends love.  I have fun watching them when I work out on my elliptical. Trying to beat the heat in the summer I often wake them up and if they could talk I am sure they would be saying "Do you know what time it is lady?" 

So I had design and knew I wanted to do a pieced background similar to the one I had used in a quilt I had made as a wedding gift for my niece Margaret.

Then I went to my guild meeting (Cobblestone Quilters in Charleston) and saw a lecture by Bonnie Hunter about how she organizes her scraps.  She did a great lecture and her quilts were wonderful.  I can home and decided to use square pieces instead of random curved pieces hoping that it would make the process faster.

Except for one problem - I didn't do the math.  The piece I am working on in approximately 30 inches square and I decided I wanted the background pieces to blend together.  One inch squares seemed to be the way to go.  30 inches times 30 inches = 900 pieces.  I quickly ran out of the green fabrics I had and decided that there was not enough variety anyways. 

So out came the white on white prints and the Setacolor Paints.

I painted and cut and painted and cut and painted some more and cut some more until finally I had the background done (a little less than 900 pieces - I didn't put fabric behind the leaves or basket.

Needless to say - the piece was not finished by the challenge date.  I did get the top pieced and quilted the outline of the leaves. 

Last month, Judy Heyward did a wonderful machine quilting class for our group and  I decided to use one of the patterns she taught for the background quilting and I am again making progress on the piece.

I plan to thread paint the lizard - something I have not yet tried.