Halloween Banner

Happy Halloween!
Here's the new decoration I made to celebrate, a pennant banner complete with Edgar Allen Poe "The Raven" quotes.

I bought this panel at the recent PIQF, my friend that I was with already had one and we challenged each other to actually get it made before Halloween. I have to find out if she did or not....I did momentarily entertain the notion of using the triangles to piece something (a wall hanging maybe?) but I went with the intended pennants as you can see.

And here's a fun reading of The Raven:

64/100

Here's a group of the blocks I've gotten done for the #100Days100Blocks project since I last posted here about them.

 I wish I'd thought to pay attention to lining up the crossing lines a bit better, but it wasn't part of my plan as I made the block.

 First one I forgot to use one of my hand-dyes in, whoops!

 The eyes of the deer got lost in the seam allowance, but at least the angry elephant eyes are there.

The end is in sight for this project! (Well at least  the making of the blocks part!)

Twelfth Study Square

Here's the twelfth study square quiltlet. I'm still really enjoying making these and filling up the box that I'm keeping them in. They're fun to look at and pick out which fabrics are from which projects I've worked on in the last twelve weeks.

Here's the beginning of working on it. The stitching really changed the look of it quite a bit.

Close up of some of the embroidery stitches using variegated thread.

The words for the week are:

• supplies


• silo


• label


• class


• rib


• advertising


• soccer


• gown

How Could This Possibly Need More Color?

 After writing here about the CQFA Round Robin, I decided I wanted to work on mine a little bit more. The central embroidered motif didn't get colored in or messed-with as I'd hoped, and it looked a little out of place to me, so now it was my turn. I got out my Inktense blocks and pencils to add some colors.

 Here's how the embroidered linen looked before I added water with a soft paintbrush.

Here is how the whole thing looks after the water has done it's blending work and dried.

Now to figure out how to proceed next....

56/100 Blocks

I've kept up with making a daily block for the #100Days100Blocks project, and have passed the halfway mark.  Here's a catch-up post of all the blocks since I last posted. It's an absolute color riot up on the wall, and I love it.

 This is a very fussy looking block to me, and I'm bummed that the fabrics I picked don't show off all the piecing I had to do to make this one.

 I love how the variegation in my hand-dye works in this block.

 The only thing that matches is my blue hand-dye.

 That is one wild print isn't it?

 Happy with how the prints play together with the blue and purple.

 Kind of boring block, but I'm happy with how the blues match up.

 Too many teeny tiny triangles.

 I liked using three shades of purple in this one.

Because there's always more than one raccoon!

Eleventh Study Square

Here is last week's Study Square Quiltlet, the eleventh in the series.

This might be my favorite one so far.

As you can see I'm having fun rediscovering the embroidery stitches on my machine.

The words of the week were:

• prank


• fireplace


• stage


• fireman


• compass


• university


• Summer


• rumour

CQFA Round Robin

 As part of the most recent CQFA meeting some of us participated an instant round-robin. We made a  starter piece that would travel around the room getting added to in each round. Maureen picked an inspiration word for each round. So here is my start of Juxtapose. Three of the pieces of fabric were selected from the FabMo bins that surrounded us.

And here is how mine ended up looking at the end of all the rounds. It's very freeing and fun to do these exercises with CQFA, there's not a lot of pressure because it's not meant to become anything, although sometimes it does. It's all about the improvisation and the just-do-it experimentation.

 I tried to take before and after pictures as I received each piece but I wasn't always successful, getting caught up in the creative spirit isn't good for that sort of thing. But that's okay.
So here was Jen's starter piece that was inspired by Juxtapose. I was the first to work on it using the word Motion.

 I ironed random folds to make a mountain range to travel up and over, somehow going up and over seemed to go with the amount of motion that was already in the piece. I inset it into Jen's piece and then had to stabilize it on the grey background that I added.

 I just had to hope it made some sense to the next people...

Here's how it ended up after all the rounds.

This one was really fun to work on.

This is how it ended up after all the rounds. I added the green polka dot and the blues for the word Symbolize, meant to symbolize ground and water features.

 

 I added the bottom section for the word Fragments, this piece came to me already looking like a house, so I added on what fragments of ancient cultures might have been built over.

 A close up of the embroidery stitches I did.

I love how this one turned out in the end!

 I added the pieced border on the bottom for the word Geometric.

 And here was one I didn't even get a chance to work on.

One of the best parts was the piece of paper that went around with your piece that everyone wrote on explaining what they did and why for each round. Fun to get a glimpse into other artists' thought processes.  I glue-sticked in bits of the fabrics that I used in my starter piece.

Thanks for walking us through this fun round robin Maureen!

Tenth Study Square

Hard to believe this is my tenth weekly Study Square Quiltlet. The scraps keep on coming with no end in sight since I'm not planning on quitting sewing, so I'm definitely keeping this project going.

The words for the week are:

• motel


• faith


• sled


• cripple


• crown


• soap


• cave


• courage

More Input

I got the chance to work at the Santa Cruz FabMo distribution day last week and came away with a smallish sized bag full of goodies.

 This time there was a nice selection of modern looking, simple graphics in linen or linen/cotton. This is all going into a couch quilt to go with our lime green couches. The nice cuddly flannel one I have in there done in primary/brights doesn't go at all and it visually upsets me to see it. I love the idea of all this stuff getting used instead of being thrown away, go FabMo!

I scored a nice selection of Cotton & Steel prints purchased from the Quilt Show table at the Alden Lane Nursery Show. They were leftovers cuts from this year's block-of-the-month kit, being sold at cost, saved some $$ on these, yay!  I think I love the matches print the best.

Some new backing fabrics (i.e. fabrics I find at a comparatively cheap price that I like using for the backs of quilts because I don't have to worry about how much they cost) and a few more to add to the grey-yellow quilt project box, and disco witches just because.