March winds

doth blow - and they sure are these days - just about blown off my feet tonight walking Chico.  And last night the wind and rain woke me up - it was pounding down, and just howling!  Guess it's those April showers coming early.  We've already had all the May flowers, so I wonder what will come next?

A couple of weeks ago I sent off my 4x6ers postcards - so I think I'm okay with posting my process and results.  Our theme was "Famous Women". I picked Emily Carr - a Canadian painter and author, who was a contemporary of the Group of Seven.  She lived in British Columbia, and her paintings represented native culture and the natural landscape.  You can read more about her here.  Here is her picture that was my inspiration

As I'm trying to try out a new technique with each postcard, this time around I decided to try doing one large picture and then cutting it up into the smaller postcards.  In addition, I wanted to try colouring with wax crayons and then heat setting the image.  I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out.  Here is my image before cutting up:

and then here it all sliced and diced and ready to go

It was a lot of fun!  I've received three of the postcards coming my way - they are fabulous - I'll post a picture of all of them once they've all arrived, but you can check out some of them here. 

Now to start working on the next theme - "Flowers"

I also managed to get my Potholder Pass 2 package in the mail.  In addition to the potholders, see my earlier post, I made a matching apron out of the leftovers and a dishtowel.  Love that Blush!

I'm currently sandwiching three donation baby quilts, which I hope to get all quilted and finished off next weekend.  Gotta love a long weekend! I'll show pictures next post.

Oh - you know that new job I started at the beginning of March?  Well its turning out to be not such a good fit, so I'm back to doing some more looking.  I'm hopeful the right thing will show up soon, after all, What Comes Next?

Happy quilting!

strike that one off!

I love it when a plan comes together and gets completed all in one seating!  Today was a good day with my Potholder Pass2 project.  I'd had an idea for the last few days that I wanted to do free-form curved piecing for my potholders, so today I grabbed my fabric - Blush, by Basic Grey, and started slicing away.   The first potholder was made in curves around the centre focus fabric, the second one was made by using the off cuts from the first and then adding some border strips to make sure I had a large enough piece. Then I quilted them pretty densely, using 2 layers of heat proof batting.  Squared them up and bound them. Job done!  and another OPAM finish, wahoo!

If you're not familiar with this technique, you stack 2 pieces of fabric right sides up,

 and using your rotary cutter, you make a gentle sweeping arc - can be concave or convex, either works, (making sure you leave enough fabric at the edge so that you've got a good chunk of fabric to sew together.)

then you "shuffle" the pieces so that you sew together 1 top piece with the opposite bottom. 

Now the fun part - you sew them together, right sides matching, no pins required!  I have the most success when I sew with the convex piece on top, and the concave on the bottom, but do some experimenting for yourself.  Hold on to each piece with a separate hand (I hold the top piece in my left hand and the bottom in my right) and carefully ease them together at the needle. 

Try not to stretch the edges - gets easier with practise.  Don't worry about keeping a consistent 1/4" seam - sometimes it gets a little slimmer, but as long as you've got at least an 1/8" of each fabric, your seam will be okay.  I find using my 1/4" piecing foot, with the single hole, not a slot, gives the best results

You will find that the fabric will naturally want to fall to one side or the other.  Let it do what it wants - no fighting permitted!

Gently press the seam from the right side.

  Admire your lovely piece,

then stack them up and do it again!

Keep adding to your piece, in any direction, until its the size you want, square it up, and continue making more for a larger project, or quilt / embellish what you've made.

I love this technique - I find it very forgiving and very freeing.  You can slice them any which way you want, only caveat, don't get too abrupt with your curves - smooth flowing ones work best.  You can even do gentle S-curves.

Some other projects I've made using this technique - my just completed Winter Glory for the Winter Time Mini Quilt swap,

and my "All Dressed Up" finished last summer

Happy Quilting!

Busy weekend!

I was assisting at a colour workshop put on  by our quilt guild this past weekend - lots of fun and I think everyone learned a lot - I know I did, and I was one of the mentors!  We covered the basics from the physics of colour, through the colour wheel, and tints, shades and tones, right through to texture and mood and colour schemes.  Everyone seemed to be having fun working through the various exercises.  Had taken my camera, but never managed to pull it out, so sorry, no pictures, although there were wonderful sample blocks made and lots of quilts on display.
My 4x6ers postcards will be in the mail tomorrow - one day late as I was too tired last night to do my write up and get them all addressed, but happening now!
What comes next?  my potholder pass 2.  My swap partner like modern - which I've never really done - what do you think -
a bit of Kaffe with some batiks

or some Blush?

I'm liking them both, but ???  Can you help me decide?
'til next time,
Happy quilting!

Finally!

It took awhile, considering I only had a little bit of handsewing left on it, but my Winter Time mini quilt is done, and will be flying of to its final home!  Yehaw!! and that's an OPAM finish for March, too!

If it looks a little wonky to you, that's 'cause it is, although maybe not wonky enough to be clear that its wonky?  I'll get wonkier as I try it again, I'm sure!

Next project is to get my Four by Sixers postcards done!  After that (or maybe during, who knows???!!), I've got my fabric and my plan for my Potholder Pass 2 potholders.

My poor embroidery projects have taken a back seat lately - must get busy on them - There's a new block out for March already in the Snowbound, so must get cracking! 

Not much progress to report on the kitchen reno - here's a picture of how the room looks today. 

The electrical is almost finished (outlets are done, just need to rough in for the new lights), then there's some patching and a "bit" of painting before we can do the floor and cabinets, but today is a beautiful day, so the sunshine is being enjoyed!

What comes next? we'll have to wait and see!

What comes next?

Well this week, I've started a new job, full time, and unfortunately I'm going to have a lot less sewing time.  I've been off for the last nine months (my choice) and have thoroughly enjoyed being able to sew when ever I felt like it.  This week, I am so dead tired when I get home, that sewing just isn't happening.  I am hoping that once I get back into the groove of working that I will be able to get something done in the evenings. Fingers crossed that that doesn't take too long!
Thought I'd be able to post a sneak peek of my postcard swap project, but when I went to upload some pictures, the battery is dead on my camera and now I have to remember where I put my recharger!  I'm trying a new technique and so far it seems to be working okay.  Hopefully, I'll have some pictures before the end of the week.  Other thing I'm working on is my Winter Time mini quilt for the Quilting Gallery's swap.  This is nearly done - label and a few beads and it will be in the mail.  Mailing deadline for it is next Monday...
Better find that groove soon!  and that recharger...
Happy quilting!