Tsunami Quilt Block

Tsunami Block got finished off and sent to Marta in Spain. Hope it gets there by 2/14. There may be time still for YOU to do one. So get off the computer and go do it. Here is the info again, at the Tsunami Quilt 2005 . And there is a Flickr website with photos of lots of the blocks submitted so far.

Ladybug

A 3"paper-pieced Ladybug for Adrienne, just because. She likes ladybugs. And she made me one a while ago. So there she is. I hardly ever do paper piecing, but I always like how it turns out. I forget how to do it if I don't practice occasionally! Use or lose it rules in my brain these days, DO NOT ask me any calculus or statistics questions. Oh and this green fabric that I used was soooo soft, almost sueded. Pet, pet. I got this pattern from a page of Mini-Block swaps , that's a good page of minis, cats, swans, a snails trail, and insane pineapples. Oooh, I gotta put that on the list of rock band names for Zach, Insane Pineapples.... the list is getting longer. He better keep practicing that guitar huh?
If you have any suggestions for me to add to the list, let me know!

Marie's Angels

So, Marie was first with her Swamp Angels, aren't they great? I need to get mine made up and sent out to the Mavericks that are in this swamp. We call our swaps, swamps because of a typo years ago, but it suits us I think. This block can be found in Alex Anderson's book Simply Stars

Sexy Rexie

Rexie picture taken by Zach. He's getting good with the camera, I love the framing of this shot. What a beautiful cat we've got, thankfully he puts up with us hassling him with cameras. I think he looks a lot like a breed called Ragamuffin , maybe who knows? He was a pound kitty and we are blessed to have him in our household.

First Iris of 2005

First Iris of 2005! I love irises. I won an iris drawing one year after voting for my favorite at the iris show at the mall. There were so many beautiful varieties. Some were brown and purple or yellow and white, ruffled and not. Sigh. But they haven't come back in a few years. Maybe this year? Here is a photo gallery at the iris society website, beauty! Oh and please disregard the gigantic dandelion growing behind it. Time for some weeding now that it isn't quite so mucky in the backyard.

CQFA Row Round Robin

So here is the first CQFA Row Round Robin that I received from Nadine. Beautiful Asian fabrics and a curvy/square block, what shall I do to contribute a row to this great start. Hmmmm. That's why it is up on the design wall, so that it can talk to me...

Straight and Narrow

This is the Straight and Narrow Challenge piece that I made on Friday and Saturday. Not sure if it is "done" or not, but I'm liking it so far.

Keiko and Friends

I made "Thanks Debbie! " out of blocks I started at a CQFA meeting where Virginia Schnalle taught us the circle technique from one of Keiko Goke's fabulous books. Debbie gave me some of her fabulous hand-dyed fabric to make the blocks, thus the title.
So this little quilt (only 14" x 10") got sent off to the Keiko and Friends show that Laura Wasilowski is hosting.

Almond Tree

Almond tree in bloom just this week. And check out that blue sky! Every year this tree has bloomed in January. And every year just as it blooms, we get the biggest storm of the season and all the blossoms get knocked off and we get zero almonds. This year I *told* the tree to wait, to not get fooled by the unusual warm week of weather, which was then followed by a big windy storm. And check it out, it listened this year, hooray! Maybe we will have some almonds to fight over with the squirrels this year??

Feeling Blue Round 2

Feeling Blue first layer is on! And sent off to Adrienne. That's a lot of blue! And so far only one repeat from the blues I used on my base blocks. But then Jaye has several boxes of blue fabrics if I'm not mistaken .

Book Learnin'

I've found that I do some of my best learning from books. So, there is a new one that I've read recently and would like to blab about.
If you are at all interested in getting beads onto your fiberworks, I highly recommend the brand new book EMBEADERY by Margaret Ball. You can order it from her at: http://www.flameweaver.com/embeadery.html
She knows her stuff, the directions are clear, and the pictures actually help you figure out what you are doing!
Oh and she has a great blog too, with lots of examples of her wonderful art: Fiber Fantasies
Also, check out her tip page with good instructions on how to make face cabochons and other stuff too.

Meme-i-liciousness

Diane at Going to Pieces emailed me today with the cheery "You've been memed!", excusemoi? Que? Oh, I see a rite of initiation in this blog-o-sphere bidness.
SO here goes....

The Music Meme

1. Total amount of music files on your computer? 1 File, one lonely little file - The one and only song I've ever downloaded "The Zephyr Song" by the RedHotChiliPeppers. I use this computer to play Yahoo Launch Music Videos or my custom radio station, it comes with my DSL package. So the files aren't actually stored on my system. That's one of our favorite family things to do, sit around the computer and play a bunch of videos for songs we like. IMO, much better than letting my kids watch MTV. Although I can only watch Weird Al Yankovich so many times :(

2. The last CD you bought was: The Killers "Hot Fuss" a newish band that I dig or Power of Soul a tribute to Jimi Hendrix or Itzhak Perlman reDiscovered Violin Sonatas. One of those. What can I say, I'm an eclectic listener (understatement of the century).

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
"Stand" by REM, this is the preferred riding to school music right now. We always have an uptempo song that we listen to, since there is NEVER any music on the radio in the am.
Zach is in charge of putting the cd on the right track, since he remembers stuff like that. I'm just lucky to be able to start the car and back up without hitting our other cars in the morning. I really don't wake up fully til 11am.
Oh, and last night I listened to the soundtrack to the musical Wicked while helping Alex learn longdivision. We love that song Popular.

4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:
In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel, (that's "our" song, first one we danced to at our wedding 15 years ago this march!),
the entire Moulin Rouge movie soundtrack, because it got me through a bad year and kept me working at my art
Sting's Sacred Love, the disco remix, because it gets me up off my rear to dance and the lyrics are hopeful.
XTC's Dear God, just because it rings true and makes me cry every time.
U2's All That You Leave Behind, either Beautiful Day or Peace on Earth or Grace or...shoot the whole thing, I can't pick.
And just because I can't stop, Dave Matthews Band's Grey Street because it perfectly describes me when I'm down in the pit of depression walking the legendary black dog.

How do you like all those amazon links? Tempting eh?

5. What 3 people are you going to pass this baton to and why?
Dara at DaraMusing because I know she loves lots of different, interesting music
Karen at ChaoticQuiltArt because I know she needs another thing to focus on today
and Rayna at studio 78 because I love love love her work and she is new to the artful quilters blog ring.

Bubble Wrap® Appreciation Day

Happy Bubble Wrap Day!!
According to the Bubble Wrap Personality Test I am a: Stomp-Popper Extroverted, Self-Motivated - You like interesting and varied work and are not afraid to take risks. You are ambitious and eager to play an active role in events. More than likely you will have an aggressive career as a professional wrestler or stunt person.
Well way back when, I used to race cars!! I actually sold my Porsche and bought my sewing machine.

Still Untitled Pigs.

Pig Strips are now painted. I'm liking this better now. The strips were painted with metallic acrylic paints, gold, blue, and green all kinda mushed up together. Now onto the embellishing. Beads, and ? We shall see what I come up with. No title yet, but there is a good storyline in my mind about these pigs and what they are doing. It will come from that I imagine.

Eye Spy Hexagons

Eye Spy a bunch of 4" hexagons. These are for Jaye who is planning to make a quilt for her son. She gave me a Come Quilt With Me template in this size, so I would cut some out for her. She sends me Tumblers, I send her Hexagons. A nice way for us to do these charm type quilts out of our fabric stashes. I still have several conversational boxes of fabrics to go through to get all the bugs and frogs and other things that kids like. Oh, this is actually a set of templates with a triangle so that it is easier to sew together in rows. Sewing together hexagons is a bit fiddly. But Jaye is cutting those out in I don't know what color. Maybe I should do an Eye Spy quilt too and cut double. Hmmm, who needs a quilt? My boys already complain about "too many" quilts on their beds (heehee).

Tumbler Project

At the same time as I was cutting the squares for the Feeling Blue project, I also cut out Tumbler pieces using the Come Quilt With Me plastic template. Jaye bought one too, so she sends me Tumbler pieces every now and then, when I put them together in a strip they look like this:

Feeling Blue

I spent a few hours getting the 8" squares cut and folded in quarters, ironed and ready to put on the 10" blue backgrounds. 36 of them from Jaye, then when I'm done sewing on the 8" squares, they go to Adrienne for her to apply 6" squares, then back to Jaye for 4" squares, she'll cut them in quarters and we each get the equivalent of 12 blocks, 48 pieces, 144 total. We each started with 36 blue background squares, so there will be a lot to play with at the end of this swap. This is for a new bullseye project. Last year it was "Seeing Red". This year it is "Feeling Blue" I love working with Jaye and Adrienne on these, they both have great fabric stashes, and wonderful color sense.

Quilted, now what?

Most of the quilting done. You can really see the piggy spiral here. I added on the little hearts that were sprinkled on the original fabric. It seems that the right facing pigs and the left facing pigs were separated for a long time, and now they come together. What a love story. Or perhaps it is a Sneetches story? Stars on thars and all? The hearts, even though teeny tiny eentsy teentsy were EZ, since they were already fused. I love EZ. Now onto painting the pigstrips so that their hideousness doesn't split the marching pigs up again. Hopefully I'll dream of the title tonight, and hopefully I will NOT have nightmares about pigs.

Cavorting Pigs

I woke up with these cavorting pigs on the brain (what a way to wake up, thanks a lot Frank!). I had an image of them massed in a couple of big groups, like a crowd of pigs waiting for something to *happen*. So with the assistance of some WonderUnder, now they are marching to my direction instead of higgeldy-piggedly(hah!). The other fabrics are scraps I found in the boxI just got from my friend Kay who moved recently and decided she doesn't need fabric in her life (she's a ceramic artist, but still, can you imagine a life without fabric!Heehee!). I love working with other people's scraps and making them work in my stuff. The purple moon is stuffed a bit, and it will be definitely be beaded with silvery beads. The dark green bit at the top used to be a curtain tieback I think, it has grommets on either end, which will require some kind of enhancing and embellishing of course, maybe tassels? Now I move onto the quilting! And then painting of the pigstrips. The challenge is that the fabric be 20% of the top. I think I'm over that.