Stepping Stones

Last summer, I bought a jelly roll. That's 50 cuts of 2 1/2" strips of various fabrics. It was all batiks (one of my favorites) and in colors I would have never dreamed of putting together. A great creative challenge. After unrolling them, and putting them all on the design wall to see the choices, I decided on a simple log cabin variation. The result is Stepping Stones.

Front and Back

And since it's a bed quilt for ME (first time since 2003), I decided to have it machine quilted, and my quilter did a fabulous job. Yes, that's some trapunto in the alternate blocks.

Now, to remake the bed with my new quilt!

NeedleNooks

So lately, I've been pretty dry in the quilt inspiration department.... and so since its winter, I've felt more like knitting. We have a new yarn shop in town (conveniently located inside the quilt shop!) and I've been playing with samples and hats and little projects. I opened my knitting box and found a nest of needles, and I wasn't able to really tell what was what or what I had. I've seen fabric needle holders and decided I could make them! Here are my three, all folded up and easy to store. This one holds my smaller metal and plastic needes (single and double pointed): This one has my larger wooden needles and circulars:

And the last one has my crochet hooks, rug hook, cable needles and other small assorted accessories (in the small pouch on the left):

And NeedleNooks were born..... now the yarn shop is carrying them and I'm taking special orders!

Muses Shoes

An online friend of mine has enlisted the help of our gals group to create wildly decorated shoes for the 2009 Mardi Gras Parade. Since this has been a week of bad weather, and 2 days that work was closed, I decided to rock and roll. I donated the surviving pair of stilettos, the ones I can put on but not walk in!

First, spray painted them purple, inside and out. And then add lots of glitter, sequins, fabric, glitz, bling, glamour. Not to mention burnt fingers from the hot glue gun, and a glitter explosion in the kitchen. I just to to add a coat of clear coat (I'll get that when the roads clear... maybe tomorrow, Saturday for sure, we've had 36" of snow in the past few days). And then I'm ship them off to Crawbaby!

Not bad for a first attempt!!

Oh no, here comes the snow plow again.... that means the fourth time I've dug out today!

Halloween - Totally NQR (not quilt related)

Goofy Halloween Fun at the Campus Health Center The nurses: Me: I'm a Nuva Ring! Me and my adopted son Tony (he's Fast Food Fred)

Andromeda

I've been ignoring this blog since summer... job changes and life just get in the way. But I did find time to make Andromeda, which is now hanging at the Coconino Center for The Arts in Flagstaff AZ.

The current show is "Night Visions III" and celebrates 50 years of Flagstaff being a dark skies community (we have several planetariums and astromony centers in the area, so street lights and other lighting is either a yellow light or an other hue that won't interfere with star gazing. This quilt had a strange start. One episode of this season's Project Runway (I am addicted to that show!) featured a challenge where the designers took photographs of New York at night and based their garments on their images. Leeann Marshall, who went on to win the season, based her design on a photo of a tree grate, which suddenly sent me into the "what if" mode. I searched the net for pix of tree grates and manhole covers. From those images, I drew the foundation pattern for the 279 individual pieces in the arch. Placed in a starry sky, its up to the viewer to decide what it really is! Could be a star ship, could be a virus, could be a manhole cover!

Hoffman Challenge 2008

Path of the Lotus

The Hoffman challenge fabric for this year was a curious print of a large peacock. and a strong Asian feel. The coordiates included a black metallic stripe and some nice blenders, but I knew that I didn't want to focus on the peacock, just not my style! I've been working on ideas for labyrinth quilts since last year's Challenge and this seems to be the next installment! Challenge quilts have to fit a certain size (width and length) but there are no restrictions on shape, so I decided to start drawing a path. It almost drew itself! The half starts are all fussy cut from the challenge fabric and a darker colorway. The corner points are foundation pieced and the lotus at the top and bottom centers are stablized, hand beaded, and sewn on as 3-D elements. I was inspired more by the colors than the print in this case. Picture courtesy of Karen Pharr, and taken at the first public showing of all of the Hoffman Challenge Quilts for this year. Mine is off traveling for a year... to places I can only dream of. And the first labyrinth should be home at the end of month!

Eleanor's Legacy

I am so very blessed to have long time friends in my life. Celebrating 50 years of friendship is so very amazing! One of those friends is Jane, with whom I shared Brownies and Girl Scouts, and grade school and high school. This winter, she asked me to make a quilt for their family compound at Big Cedar Lake WI. The home has been in the family for several generations and is a very special place for the whole clan. So off we went through the design process, fabric selection, and for me, a marathon of sewing... but I met the deadline and the quilt is now on its way to her in Milwaukee.

Based on the traditional square in a square, I did some of my usual wonkiness that created a diamond more than a square, and then by changing directions, gave the quilt some movement. Jane had chosen a delightful small scale red print as the focus, and by adding a variety of other harmonizing reds, the quilt came alive (click on image for a larger version and see all the fabrics). Machine quilted by a professional longarm quilter. It is named for the matriarch of the family, Eleanor, and for the legacy she left for her daughters and granddaughters.