A finish and an apology...

Wow, have I been negligent with comments. Thanks to two dear quilters who posted and sorry I didn't check and left you in cyberspace. They are now posted. Both of your are big encouragers to me.

I also want to post this. It is a quilt for a very nice neighbor. I asked her to find something she liked and she found this...

And I finally got this finished and gave it to her this past weekend. I was supposed to be a lap quilt but she and her hubby decided it will go on a bare wall at their mountain condo retreat. They were happy and so was I. It is about 60" square.

 I had all the fabric except the blackish border and backing. This black has very small grey flecks in it, just enough to take away that dead look that black can have. It was fun, but took forever. Life has been very full of unexpected events!

Progress Report

 The days fly by and yet a few things get done or at least there is progress. Here is the landscape started this week. I just love it when the fabric creates a design before any applique or thread play or quilting. This background mountain looks like a distant mountain. Thankful!

Also happy to have a warm home. It is -40 or so with a windchill closer to -50. This is Celsius, but when the numbers are that low, it is about the same as Fahrenheit. COLD! Hubby went out this morning to indoor golf. Lots of cancellations. He usually stays out for lunch, but not this time. He said the streets are icy and brutal.

Time to make supper but nice to be warm and glad I'm not needing to go anywhere...😰 Stay warm -- wrapped up in a quilt!

A New Challenge

This is a sketch from a photo that will become a landscape lap quilt... when I get my act together. The fabrics are merely a value exercise... the sky is okay, the large background mountain needs to be a tad darker, the next two ranges should be bluer, but I'm happy with the green hills, water, and foreground fabric -- which almost disappears at the bottom right. Of course this is simple and will be more 'realistic' which is what the customer wants. A double-click might show it better.

Progress reports as I go, now that I've figured out that a photo on my new I-Pad automatically shows up on my new MacBook Pro. The learning curve for that change is far from over though!

Granddaughter's Quilt

She wanted to be surprised, but when we chatted today on Messenger, she said she could stand it any longer, especially since she knew I finished it, so I had to hold up her quilt so she could see it. Now I can show it to everyone.

She sent me dozens of pictures of what she liked, many with water and various shades of blue. This delightful young woman is a teacher who lives in a coastal city. She loves helping people who struggle, but is also aware of her need to find a quiet place now and then. She asked for a lap quilt and told me to surprise her. I drew a scene, put her in it, and only had to buy one piece of fabric; an ombre with light to dark blue (sky and water). Each step found me clueless and asking God for wisdom and good ideas. I learned that I should do this all the time!

A Peaceful Place

This is about 60" square, backed with a lighter blue-green bubbly fabric. The binding is the same fabric as the left background trees. I didn't want thread play and make it stiff so asked the Lord for ideas to quilt it and did some free-motion never tried before. The figure represents dear GD but as I told her, it is not intended to be a perfect likeness. 

I'm very happy with this quilt and am anxious to finish the lighthouse one now on the longarm so I can make something for our son's fiancée who wants lots of flowers.

Bike and walking path, takes 15+ minutes to walk

Birch trees

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still no snow where we are in western Canada. Just started freezing a couple of days ago. Such a lovely fall that some people are calling Hotumn. Here are some pics of a nearby walking trail taken 2-3 days ago.

 

Using Rulers

This quilt looks like a painting, but quilting a painting could involve a lot of thread work and I'd rather not. It is not a wall hanging and dense quilting would make it too stiff.

For this quilt, ordinary fillers do not work, and I didn't want to simply meander. So I've been praying a lot, working slowly, and listening and looking for ideas.

This is what came up for another group of trees. It is Angela Walters' quilting tool called "Taj" which is about 3-4" and gives this the look of a short, wide tree, yet points up. Since the thread is a bit lighter, the stitches show, but not too much. Double click on the photo for a closer look.

For what I wanted, it works. Thanks, Angela! (Just one of her videos, click here) I'm using a panto, free motion, and a few other simple line designs. It is taking a while but nearly done.

Trees from 'tree' fabric

 Using fabric that looks like trees and rocks sometimes works. It has to be the right scale and the right value. Since this quilt is a gift and a surprise, I'm showing only the trees. The first one had lots of overlapping tree trunks and shadows and could have been upside down in places. However, I trimmed the top and sides in tree shapes and stitched it down and it looks like a stand of trees. 

The rocks were all over the fabric. I cut them as a 'pile' and turned down the top edge and sewed it very close to that edge. I did the same with the second photo, but used the backside of the fabric, first to give it more 'distance' but also to soften it. The trees were easier than the top photo.

As for the reflections, that was another fabric entirely. The top one was blurry like a reflection on wind-blown water. Some quilted 'ripples' should look okay on both reflections. This top is done, about 60" square. Deciding how to quilt it is my next challenge!

Work in Progress

It has been a busy summer. Our oldest is building a house in a wilderness spot and photos don't do it justice... so we travel a couple hours one way to see it. I'm almost jealous but more excited for them. We also took a trip to South Carolina to visit our daughter, hubby and all. It was wonderful. Our youngest lives in our city and we spent most of a day with him and his fiancee looking at a show home and eating. Besides those things, the usual visits with friends, our church activities, and now I'm a new member on our local guild board, so that's one big learning curve. A few quilters in our neighborhood have started a Bee Group, so that adds a new dimension. Also, have a work in progress on my table that is where my heart likes to sew, but it is a challenge turning a sketch/photos into fabric and making it work. This is a shot of part of it. 

The sky and background are done, sewn, along with about 6-8" of water. This shot shows the sky pinned to a wall and the rest on a table where I am auditioning and fiddling. There is about 24" or more water to go, then a sandy beach with rocks in the very bottom foreground. I've not a lot of perfect water fabric. Also planning to put a couple islands of trees in the sides. This is fun, but not moving very fast. I keep playing with it until the best ideas show up. I've a sketch to follow (loosely) and am not sticking strictly to it. 

We had a wonderful August, sunny and warm (needed AC most days) with cool nights. By far my favorite month. No signs of fall yet, but some report a bit of yellow here and there.Back too school showed up far too soon!

A small Lighthouse

 

This little project was done way back last April, but I finally got it in a mat and frame, with a label, so now consider it finished. It started out as a patch for Julie's lab coat, but when I found out it was too big, I was kind of glad that I got to keep it. (Sorry, Julie... I know you liked the bird instead...)

Actually, it isn't quilted, but tacked down and sewn to a bit of background. I would love to make more of these landscapes. It is like a postcard only larger,  6 1/4" by 11 3/4" and took about 30 minutes of madly diving into my stash for just the right bits and then madly cutting them up. 

FQ and landscape quilts

This week has been hectic, but I'm making progress on two quilts. The first one is an idea from the book, "Fast Quilts from Fat Quarters" by Barbara Chainey. I've adapted the blocks from the book, but this one is fun and easy to match points, etc. The finished quilt will have sashing, but the one in the book uses black... ugh. All I see is sashing in that one. So I may put a medium tone fabric such as what is between the two finished blocks on the top, just so these blocks get all the attention. Each finishes to 12" and I used 10 different fabrics.

This skinny quilt is an idea prompted by a book called "Skinny Quilts and Table Runners" (various contributors), but my own design from a sketch that I've been holding on to for years! I'm also making up the method as I go.

The blue pieces on the bottom are water. This will have reedy 'islands' and more trees, etc. to fill in the space nearest the POV. It will be quilted to make the rocks look rockier, and so on.

This one will finish to 12" x 48" and is an experiment for a larger one that will be more complicated.