Hitting the Blocks » Fabric

Quilt Going Walkabout!

admin — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:31:31 +0000

Well, I didn’t win the Hoffman Challenge (I really didn’t expect to), but it looks like “Paisleys, Pearls, and Peach Blossoms will be traveling in Trunk Show C! Woohoo! Granted, that means I won’t get my quilt back until next October, but I’m not upset in the slightest! As soon as they post the schedule and locations, I’ll put it up here just in case any of y’all are close enough to go see it.

Now I’m waiting for the official letter (I went and looked on the Website instead) so I can have a sneak peek at next year’s fabric.

“Paisleys, Pearls, and Peach Blossoms”–Hoffman Challenge 2009

admin — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:51:30 +0000

Well, I got it done. At 2 am Tuesday morning. And then nine hours later stood in a UPS store paying entirely too much to rush the quilt to Colorado before the Friday deadline.

This year’s challenge fabric was a beautiful cream, green, and brown paisley design with pearlescent highlights. I had the circle design in my head for months, but couldn’t get the original design to work out. The second tack I tried was a Tiffany brooch with pearls and green sapphires, but that one didn’t work either. Finally, about 3 weeks ago, this one fell into place.

I was going to machine quilt it, with my lovely new Fabu-Motion. However, the learning curve was a bit steeper than I expected, so I was forced to hand-quilt it as usual. I used my “whipping” stitch (from Quilt and Embellish in One Step!) on the background paisleys (I got it out of Quilting Makes the Quilt, which I picked up at a library booksale for under a dollar) and the brown vine design on the flowered border (notice the pearl accents).

The green paisley print is the challenge fabric that I hand-dyed. It’s folded in a fan design, then echo quilted at 1/2″ intervals. I’d like to add some beading to that section at some point, but I ran out of time to do it.

Now that the quilt is finished and I can focus on other things, my daughter is clamoring for my attention…like making quilts out of clay

Cool Fabric from Down Under.

admin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:36:28 +0000

My aunt works for United Airlines, and gets to travel the world much cheaper than the rest of us mortals. A few weeks ago she asks my mom (her sister), “Hey! Wanna go to Australia?” Of course my mom, being quite sane, immediately said yes. They got back to this side of the planet on Tuesday–the Punkin and I drove up to Dulles to pick Mom up and take her home to WV.
When it comes to gift-giving, my aunt and mother know me quite well. So, unknown to each other, they both bought me the same kind of gift–fabric! Coordinating fabric no less! The package on the right is actually designed as a patchwork kit. The three smaller designs on the left are 100% cotton handkerchiefs (there are 6, but 3 are repeats of the patchwork designs). There’s even a 54″ coordinating square tablecloth residing at my mother’s which is fair game if necessary.

Now the question is…what kind of quilt to create using these unique designs? Ah, decisions, decisions, decisions