Love Apple Quilters 2011 Challenge

This quilt show's challenge was "A Tisket, A Tasket, Looks What's In My Basket."  There were only a few rules that we had to follow--144 inches in perimeter, a basket with something in it and had to be turned in on-time.

My challenge is named "A Tisket, A Tasket, Oops!  I Spilled My Basket!"  My dear husband and I sketched it out over lunch one day and he named it.  It was fun to play with colors and scale to make it look like the blocks were falling off the quilt.  Guess it turned out to be something of a quilted collage since the blocks are barely stitched down, some corners flapping in the breeze to a completed quilt of a basket made of low contrast fabrics.

Am pleased to report that the guild liked my entry, giving me a second place ribbon! 

Red And White Quilt--Wish You Well

To celebrate the opening of Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts at the American Folk Art Museum in NYC, we're blogging about our red and white quilts and having a virtual quilt show on the Repro Quilt Lover.

This quilt is my own design and was entered in Love Apple Quilters 2007 quilt challenge. Am pleased to say  it won an Honorable Mention.  Louise McDonough design talents show in the machine embroidery designs.

"Summer Fun" Notebook Challenge Quilt

My big gift for Christmas last year was a Cricut electronic cutting machine. Have enjoyed the various paper related projects I've been making with it--love the accuracy of the cutting and the ability to manipulate shapes by size and orientation. When my DH gave it to me, he said he thought it could be used with fabric and I could use it in my quilting. Sweeter words were never spoken!

First, felt I needed to become familiar with how to use the machine with paper before I could start working with fabric. Then, after six months of practicing (and a smidgen of procrastination) the perfect project came along--a notebook quilt challenge with Love Apples Quilters. Seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally try fabric with the Cricut.

There really isn't much written about how to use fabric in a Cricut machine on the internet. What little I did read suggested ironing on fusible adhesive and using the paper as a stabilizer, putting it on the sticky mat, placing it into the machine and cutting away. Well, it doesn't really work that way. Found that sewable fusible peels away too easily from the backing, although did work on simple shapes. Peeling off the backing and then placing the fabric directly onto the sticky board didn't work because the sewable fusible doesn't provide enough stability. So, in a final attempt, I used heavy duty fusible on the fabric and placed it directly onto the mat and had success! (Took me five attempts to get the word "Summer" to cut correctly due to it's curlicue style. It felt really good to conquer that hurdle!!)

In addition to using heavy duty fusible, it was necessary to slow the cutting down to a minimum, increase the pressure and blade length (used it set on 4).

After learning a few of the secrets of using fabric on the Cricut, thought it would be a great project to test out using textile glitter to add a little sparkle in the lightening bugs' tales and on the flag of the sandcastle.

Here's how it turned out:

Notebook Quilt (8 1/2 inches by 11 inches) using "Stretch Your Imagination" cartridge

The little guy in the lower left corner is a cricket in his grasshopper pajamas--our girls are very concerned that crickets are black and grasshoppers are green, but a black cricket wouldn't have shown up on such a dark background. You have to love their desire for accuracy!

This little project, learning curve included, took me about a day to complete. Would love to make one for every season and am working on some more layouts.

Notebook Quilt

Love Apple Quilters is having an October challenge making a "Notebook Quilt." Seemed like a perfect way to try out a technique I learned several years ago at Quilt University. The technique involves a tracing of a photograph and machine applique. (You should really take the class--it's fascinating!)

Wanted to incorporate my flowers into my quilting, so took a host of pictures looking for one that was simple enough to finish in a limited amount of time. My fifteen year old hibiscus proved to be a perfect candidate. Of course, this past summer wasn't very sunny, so the leaves are a less than perfect. Was excited for the chance to use some of my hand-dyed fabrics, but putting scissors to them was not easy!

Got to work, tracing, cutting, stitching, outlining and trimming. With very well-written directions, the learning curve was kind and I made only a few mistakes and easily recovered.

Here's how it turned out:

Happily finished putting the last few beads to realize that the challenge required the object to be oriented in a vertical position. Ugh!! With the excitement of finally doing a project I had waited to do for over a year, getting my flowers in fabric and using my hand-dyed fabrics, completely forgot to look at the directions one more time!

Hope the kids don't realize I didn't follow directions! Perhaps I should listen to myself when singing the virtues of reading the requirements before starting the project!

Putting the UGH! in Ugly

Had the privilege of selecting a game for Love Apple Quilters last guild meeting. Regularly scour the internet for games suitable for workshops, but thought this game would be perfect to involve the whole guild.

About 30 of us all brought one yard of the ugliest fabric on our stash. Amazing how one quilter's "ugly" is another quilter's "treasure." We tore our fabric in two, keeping one half and passing the other half around the circle. The passing and tearing went on for three more turns. The challenge was to make a small wall-hanging out of what we acquired, without adding any other fabric.

Here's what I got:

Sort of redefines "ugly," doesn't it?

Looked at those five fabrics for two weeks before being inspired. Started to grow concerned when they started to look nice together...except for one. The small squares just did not fit in the abstract pattern of the block print fabric, no matter what pattern I picked.

So, I decided to tea dye the odd ball. Well, hours in a tea bath did not make much of an impact. Tried coffee next, without much success. Turned out a brown pencil did the trick! Pleating the fabric to show only the complimentary squares seemed improve the situation.

Here's what I made:

Thought a fitting name would be "Tile Work in King Neptune's Privy." Our teenage daughter is horrified I would use the word "privy"--fearing the Quilt Police will revoke my license, this quilt isn't making any public appearances, so she can save her embarrassment for a future event.

Here are a few of the other contributions:

Such a talented group of ladies! (No names were used to protect the innocent.) By the way, the first entry pictured won!

Love Apples 2009 Quilt Challenges

Well, the quilt show that consumed all of our time and energy for the past two years has come to a successful conclusion. Back to laundry, dusting, vacuuming and cooking! We had over 200 quilts, twenty-one vendors, Civil War reproduction gowns, kids' quilts, charity quilt auction and challenge quilts. A little something for everyone!

The challenge this year was just that--the fabric did not speak to me at all. Could only come up with one reasonable design and tweaked it over and over. Did a modified "stack and whack" quilt, lining up the fabric repeats and cutting 60 degree triangles from the strips. There are 358 triangles, 132 are challenge fabrics, but the angles at which they are cut drastically changes their appearance.

Thankfully, my travelling design team, better known as my parents, came over and offered some excellent advice. Their suggestions added a much needed spark to the quilt.

After the quilt was done, noticed that the scraps might work together to make another quilted item. Used Pink Chalk Designs pattern to make a large folio. Added a quilted cover and pieced many of the pockets.

Now is the time to bask in the glow of a job well-done, but not for too long. We will begin planning the 2011 show in a couple of months and the exciting roller-coaster ride will start all over again.

Challenge Quilt, Well, Sort Of

Have been feverishly working on my challenge quilt for Love Apple Quilter's 2009 Show in March. Wish I could show it now, but it is to remain anonymous until the vote is taken. Instead, I decided to show the one made for the last quilt show.

The challenge last time, was to create a quilt reminiscent of the 1930's two-color quilt. We purchased the challenge kit with the red fabric and were allowed to add either a white or off-white fabric.

Played and played around with designs for at least eight months and this idea was the best I had. The spinning blocks reminded me of fleur-de-lis and the wide spaces needed a little embellishment. Decided on an embroidery design digitized by Louise McDonough and it seemed to compliment the design perfectly.

Very pleased that my quilt received an honorable mention that year! Will up-date in March with a photo of this year's creation.