Dyed with Friends

Last night was the Edmonton Guild meeting and year end dinner. We had a great time and got to see Kathy Wylie speak and her beautiful quilts in person. Check out her web site and you will know which award winning quilter I mean. She is teaching 3 classes here in Edmonton but I did not sign up. We had a great time, thank you Kathy. ( She has just the best first name, just the spelling is funny, doesn't she? ha ha)

Last Thursday my friends in the Surface Design group gathered at my house. We planned to do some fabric dying. First off I went though my old pages of samples and dye recipes and picked out what colours I wanted to dye. I for sure wanted some dark purples, brown, red, and always a few more greens. 

We are very good at having a great potluck lunch. The table is set and we are ready to eat. 

Here are my results. Each fabric is one meter, except a few pieces were just short as I had the fabric cut for something else and thought, just dye it. 

I just love the second one from the right. It is Turquoise with a bit of black. I may have to play with the family of dyes again.  

My reds. 

I forgot to take many photos the day we dyed. I carried my camera in my pocket but forgot it once my gloves were on. 

Greens and a few brown. I may over dye the brown again as I love darker and richer browns. 

Design Wall Monday June 16

I have finished up all the blocks I needed for the Kaffe Fassett Quilted swap Block exchange. I had sent some early but had to finish a few more. This is the final group of blocks. All the blocks are 12 1/2" and uses the Kaffe Fassett Collection of fabrics. 

Log cabin block

The blocks that use the bright Yellow Tropical print. 

I have added today's post to Judy's Design Wall Monday link.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day. Not sure I will see my dad today. He is fishing, I might call him. Me and the kids have a few things planned for their dad. 

I got to see the Wetaskiwin Quilt Show this past week with mom and a few quilt friends. We had lunch out and took a look in one of the better clothes stores too. I picked up a few fat quarters at the quilt show. I love the bright pink and brown dots, well I like them all. 

This is one of the quilts from the show. I think it says it was a group quilt. It was for one of there charity groups. Love the strings. 

I also got some good mail this week. I had ordered some Kaffe Fassett fabric on sale and it is here. The Green and purple on the far left maybe a backing some day. I think I have enough if I do not cut it up too much. 

Thanks you all for the great comments about my slump year on yesterdays post. 

Scraps Got Me Back

Last week I made a post about all my UFO's related to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I kind of got doing the RSC in late 2012 because I wanted a project to kick start me. Well it did. Before that I was having a very long quilting slump. I was having trouble finding the joy in quilting for me. Also know I machine quilt for other and have been for 15 years now. I had made many art quilts and traditional quilts that were good enough to send to large National quilt shows. I had been apart of a small art quilt group that did a new themed show each year and sent to many galleries in Western Canada, I needed to do six to ten good art quilts each year. I had done some teaching at a local shop and then was doing some travel teaching as well. I think I lost some goals. You know "been there done that" feeling. Why did I quilt? I do not need more quilts in the house, really. I have not had much luck selling them.

Well the RSC helped me find the joy, I would find a little block or two to work on here and there. The colour I worked on was picked for me at Soscrappy. I could try out a block and not make something big. I was not needing to buy more fabric. I was using the scraps. I could play with a little block pattern and not make a big commitment. I had fun playing in my stash and sorting out the little bits of fabric. It really helped me to get back to patch work for fun.

Bouncy Ball -72" x 92" completed in 2012

I show you Bouncy Ball because I was so inspired by the RSC I could not stop and made the whole quilt in just a few weeks. I just went ahead and did a few extra colours and I quickly had a top done.  Then I wanted it quilt it right away. Done.

Bouncy Ball on the agility equipment. The block looks like a Hollie Roller that I use to help train my dog at agility. 

I tell you all about this because I see a few friends and internet buddies that are saying they are in a slump. We never know how long it will last. We do not know how or when it will happen to any of us. I know I have had little slumps before, in part from some kind of lose or sadness. Like when my grandmother died. It only lasted a few months so no big deal. But for a slump to take more then a year, maybe two years. Och. And to not know why or what triggered the slump did not help. I know some are in a forced slump like losing your sewing space to family moving in or needing to take care of someone sick. But they will be back as soon as they can.

Making my list last week helped me get back to work on the RSC. I have had a very busy spring and was not getting my patchwork done. I got behind on a few blocks and colours. I was not sure where I was at. I am hopping to finish a few quilts this year. I have loved having a block or two to do each week, but someday I will have to get to the larger job of sewing the blocks together.

So this weeks RSC2014 blocks.

My lantern block.

My yellow spool, in the correct size of 8". 

Yellow and Green nine patches. I did not get the green ones done last month. These are 3 1/2" square. 

The whole wall at once. Not too bad for a week of colour. 

You can go see what others are doing in Yellow this week by checking out the linky page at Soscrappy.

Sea Life Quilt

This past month I have had a few very large and wonderful quilts to do. This is one of them. My customer had bought this yardage and hated to cut it up so made it the center panel and then used blocks around the outside. It was a great way to show off the sea print. 

I quilted most of the quilt with sea weed looking lines but then in some of the teal fabric I hide sea animals and shells. Can you see the sea horse.

This shot has a shell in it. She said it was like Where is Waldo. 

My husband also spotted it and told me he really liked it. He never comments on the quilts I work on. 

Scrap Challenge UFO list

I have been working on Rainbow Scrap Challenge for over two year now. I have many projects on the go. I thought it was time to make a good list to include all the projects not yet done. I am at a place were I need to finish some quilt tops. So my list of 16 and what needs to be done yet. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2014 blocks 

1. Jack in the box - Top done, needs backing and quilting.
2. Square 12” with 6” center – get it up on design wall and finish top.
3. Lanterns – 3 of 12 done – behind on Purple, Green and Yellow
4. Spools 3 ½” size – design wall and put together 
5. Hexagon flowers ¾” size – What to do next?
6. Kitchen Sink – More blocks needed. Large spools, flowers, hearts, X’s, O’s, clover.
7. Sampler blocks 6” make 9 per colour, to go with 16 patches (which are done). Behind on 2 purple, 9 Green and 9 Yellow.
8. Around About – Rows around the colours, next up Yellow
9. Sprouts – Still need 5 Red blocks. Then What? 
10. Coin strips – I think I have all the colours? What next? Add to another project?
11. Flying geese units – what to put them with? Some colours missing
12. Nine Patches 3 ½” size – behind need purple, Green and yellow
13. Triangles – Missing some colours – Green, Yellow, other colours to come this year.
14. Tulips and Apples – make more, need many bottoms for tulips in Green. Yellow tops
15. Wonky Log cabin blocks. Not sure what I need in a box. 
16. 6" crumb blocks - not sure what to do next, make more or add to something. 

3" spool block and hexagon flowers on the left

Wonky log cabin blocks

Jack in the box Top

Some pink from this year

Blue 6" crumb blocks

So I have a few blocks I need to do in Yellow this month and a few things to do to finish up Purple and Green. I guess I need to go sew. 

I have not started the yellow yet but others have over a Soscrappy, check it out. 

Block Exchange Pay Back

I got some great log cabin blocks by mid April in a Kaffet Fasset Block exchange and now it is my turn to make blocks for some of the other ladies. The top set of blocks are called Counter Spun and are paper pieced to 10". The pattern came from this site Quilters Cache. I was amazed to see how many different blocks and different sizes there are here. 

I made these blocks for the next lady she found the hexagon  pattern on Freshly Pieced, and directed us to the site. Then she asked for just a few small changes, Like to leave the blocks as a hexagon and not make it a square. I love log cabins and have fallen in love with the block. Maybe I have to do a quilt for myself someday.

Well soon the next lady will post her block pattern and I will have a month to complete and get them in the mail.

Design Wall Monday June 2nd

May was the month of Green scraps. I thought on the weekend I would fill my wall with all the Green blocks I have done this year and last year. I am very late but I will add this to the Scrap Saturday over at Soscrappy and today being Monday Design Wall Monday with Judy. 

I got this green free form piece last week but had not downloaded my photos till today. It started out as two Fat Quarters of green. Part way into re piecing it  I thought it needed more interest. So I added the Bright flower like squares. I think of this as spring. 

I got a few more Dear Jane Rainbow blocks done. Some purple ones are still needed and then the first few lime and green ones. 

This little green block is total hand pieced. It is all Y seams so I thought I would try hand piecing and I am very happy with how it turned out. 

This is part of my colour plan for my Dear Jane. I have cut out a 1 1/2" square of each fabric I use to show the colour of each block. This way I will not have same fabric to close to each other. This Dear Jane is going to be very well documented. 

Gemma my 6 month old Lab puppy went for her first swim yesterday. She had so much fun. 

It has been a while since I post photos of her. She is getting big and getting into more trouble.