Beauty and the Beast

A while back, my blogging buddy over at Coloring Outside the LInes and I decided we would do a New York Beauty quilt.  I decided to step out of my comfort zone completely and move away from the reproduction fabrics.  It was a chilling thought…didn’t know if I could do it.  I decided to use batiks.  The pattern lends itself so well to batiks.  Of course I had no batiks in my stash.    I begged some batiks from my sister and purchased some others and dug around in my mountainous stash and found two.  Yep…two.  Have I  mentioned that I usually only work in reproduction fabrics?   I guess the Civil War era ladies just weren’t that into Bali . 🙂

I went through my minute little pile of batiks and pieced some NYB blocks.  I can see now that my mini stash of batiks is sorely lacking in brights.  Looks like the only brights I have are red or pink.  What’s a girl to do?  SHOP!  I guess that’s the only answer.  Shop.  So, that’s the plan for this weekend.  Shop for batiks.

Here are the blocks I’ve finished.  I usually don’t paper-piece.  I like the nice, crisp points you get with paper-piecing.  I just hate the waste.  I have a difficult time deciding how big of a piece to cut.  And I always cut some just a smidge too small.  Then the next ones are much too big.  Feast or famine…..  Beauty and the beast….  If anyone has any tips on frugally cutting fabrics for paper-piecing, I’m all ears!

In my last post, I sang the praises of Down Under Quilts magazine.  I still have to make that hexagon quilt that’s on the cover.  The quiltmaker recommended Marti Mitchell’s hexagon template ruler kit.  So, for the small price of $12, I bought it.  I made a test block to see if I’d like the templates.  Oh yeah….they’re great!

My only concern is all of those Y-seams.  I can’t seem to get away from them!  I should be pretty good at them by the end of this project!  BTW….these aren’t my fabric choices for the project!  😉

My little friend and I would like to wish everyone a fun-filled Halloween!

 Happy Halloween!

The devil made me do it…

I was wandering through Joann Fabrics the other day and I was drawn to the magazine rack.  In the past few months, I’ve put myself on a magazine diet.  I read them, can’t bear to part with them and they stack up.  I’ve probably killed a small forest over the years.  Having said that, you won’t see me on the next episode of “Hoarders”, but it is a habit I’d like to break.  I’ve been very selective in my magazine purchases of late.  So, when I passed by the rack, I tried to just skim over the rack and move on.

But, then….I saw this.  Ooooo….I like that quilt on the cover.  “Don’t pick it up”‘ that little angel on my shoulder said.   “Oh, just a little peek won’t hurt” the little devil said.  A little poke from his pitchfork and there it was…in my hot, little hands.  A closer look at the cover quilt.  I gotta make this!  Oh, yeah…I gotta make this.  The little angel said “You have a huge pile of “gotta makes” in various stages of completion.  Shouldn’t you finish those first?”  Yeah, but…  “No”, she said.  “Maybe another day.”  I sighed.  I returned the magazine to the rack.  I walked to the batting aisle and picked up the one thing I came to purchase.  I turned the corner.

“Pssst….hey, kid, over here!”  I turned.  I looked.  There was that little red devil,  perched on the corner of the magazine rack.  “C’mon….you know you want it.  Think how awesome that would look in reproduction fabrics.  Seriously, it’s only one magazine.  Just a tiny tree…a twig.  The stack isn’t up to the ceiling yet.  It’ll fit.  Besides, you know you love it….”

Darn devil!  Now the magazine is in my hands again and there’s no turning back.  So, here it is, in my house and I discover that the Installment 2 directions are in the next issue…and so it goes.  I only hope I can find it since I found this one by chance.

All joking aside, this is a beautiful publication.  It’s informative, wonderfully photographed and a very nice blend of quilting styles.  I was especially drawn to the article “Beneath the Southern Sky”.  It’s a traveling exhibit that shows the quilter’s interpretation and vision of the theme.  It makes me want to visit Australia.

I’ve always wanted to visit Australia.  Others want to go to Paris or Hawaii.  I want to go to Australia.  It just seems uniquely beautiful in a rugged sort of way.  But since there isn’t enough Xanax in the world to get me on an airplane, it appears to be the impossible dream.   I don’t even think the remote possibility of bumping into Russell Crowe in the corner store could get me on a plane.  And it would be a pretty long drive/swim.  So, I’ll just admire from afar.  And hope that maybe Russ will show up at our local 7/11. 😉

Off on a different tangent…why does Barbara Brackman hate me? 🙂  Another variation of the dreaded Amethyst block in Grandmother’s Choice!  One wasn’t enough.  She had to give us two!  She is one tough task master!  By the end of this quilt, we’ll all be doing Y-seams with our eyes closed!

If we were talking about Maple Leaf quilts, this photo would tie right in.  But we’re not.  And I love this shot, so I’m including it anyway!

Maybe we should all take some time out it think like a kid!  Might make us smile!

Ready to roll!!

I’m finally caught up with the Grandmother’s Choice blocks!  I wasn’t sure that would ever happen.  Some of those blocks were pretty complicated.  But they were not going to get the best of me.  It was personal now.  So I played catch-up this  weekend and they are finally finished.  Whew!!

I really like how they’re looking.  I used the Mill Girls line for the basis and then added some fabrics from my stash.  Now that I’m caught up, I’m ready to roll on the rest of them!

Have you ever cut out pieces for a block and found out that even thought you think you did the math, they were the wrong size?  I’ve done that twice while making these blocks.  And I did it again yesterday while cutting out pieces for a small quilt.   I’ve found that I can’t cut out pieces if I’m distracted.   And I’m kind of like a cat….I’m easily distracted!  🙂  So rather than recut more pieces for the small quilt, I put it to the side.  As I had a few minutes left to sew, I picked up a little muslin “sammie” that I was using to practice FMQ.  I decided to play.  I hadn’t practiced in a while so I was afraid I was back to square one.  But I really felt good about it!

Now, I’m really excited to begin quilting the basket quilt for MiniQuilter!  I am finally beginning to believe I can do this!!

And the winner is……

ME!!

Yep!  I won first place in the Large Quilt category at our quilt show this weekend for my Civil War Tribute quilt.  I feel validated as a quilter.  It’s one thing when your family and friends tell you your work is good.  But it’s something else when strangers think so, too.  See…I guess there are traditional people out there after all!  My husband was looking for the big check.  He’s a funny man!

The Best of Show was a pictoral wallhanging…very pretty.  It was interesting how she made the fabric patterns work for her.  A little broidrey perse I think.  (Yeah, I’m pretty sure I spelled that wrong!)

We had about 20 vendors…most of whom I made very happy with my purchases. 🙂  Picked up some fabrics for Grandmother’s Choice and a couple of  patterns and just lots of things!  A girl can’t have too many things, you know!  I took my grandchildren to the show on Sunday and they bought out the resale shop.  They spent $6 and walked out with two shopping bags of “stuff”.  One man’s stuff is another man’s junk.  I’m just glad the junk stuff went home with them and not to my house.  I have enough junk stuff of my own!

It was a very busy weekend.  Setting up, working at the show and taking the show down.  But my husband and I still managed to go to Shipshewanna on Monday….where I bought more repro fabrics and another pattern.  Laying in supplies for the winter. 🙂  We also bought an old window from a church in Mexico.  I’m planning to make a piece of patchwork to frame behind it and hang it above the door in my front entry.  It will be very nice when it’s finished.  My husband is very smart…he put it right next to my sewing machine so that it’s the first thing I see when I sit down to sew.  Clever man!

Enjoy this slideshow of some of my favorite quilts from the show.  Which is your favorite?  Mine is the one with the ribbon on it! 🙂

This slideshow requires JavaScript.