Hancock retreat quilt

Finished the star top from the Hancock retreat. I changed the placement of some of the colors in the strips and changed fabrics for the stars. I used two different golds and alternated the center colors on the stars. I like the effect, even DH said he liked it a lot. So suspect I will finish it and he will be the proud owner of the quilt. Now to decide what to do with the quilting.
The new Take it Further challenge came out, the subject is change. Now what to do with that? The moderator mentioned "circle" and I thought life is a circle, so may think up something using circles. The color scheme for this time is kind of neat too, so may have to play with that a bit also. should be a fun challenge though.

progressive center

Finished this little 6" block for the center of a progressive that I am doing with my friend from Las Vegas. Their guild is doing a personal progressive, where each person works their own quilt. Each month new directions will come out as to the next step. Should be fun. I decided to go really small as I don't need another large project right now. Machine appliqué with invisible thread. Can't wait to see what the next step will be.

A photo of the crazy 9 patch class we did at quilt club on Tuesday. It turned out a lot better than I thought it would. Used leftover black/white plus some green squares to start.
To do this you cut 9 squares of fabric, all different if possible, Stack them and cut through vertically at an angle through all the layers. Keep the edge of the cut at least 1 1/2 inches from any edge. Take the top piece from the smallest section and put it on the bottom of the pile. Sew them all together. Keeping them in order, press the seam open and restack in the exact order you sewed them in the first time. Make a second vertical cut through all the piles, move two of the pieces from the smallest section, to the bottom of the stack. Sew again. Press, restack, cut across horizontally, move 3 layers to the bottom of the smallest section. Sew them all together, keep them in order. Press, make the 4th cut horizontally, this time move 6 pieces of the smaller section to the bottom of the stack. Sew again. Press then square up all the blocks to your smallest block. Repeat this with 3 more stacks of 9 fabrics. This will give you 36 blocks, This is set 6 x 6 blocks with a 3" border around. Really good way to use up fabrics. I started with a 9 1/2" square to start and ended up with 8" blocks. You can use any size starting square. One in the class used 18" squares to start, one did 12 1/2" squares to start. So you can figure about 1 1/2" to 2" smaller square in the finished block that the square you started with. If you want larger quilt, keep making stacks of 9 until you have enough to make a quilt the size you want.Have fun with this.

challenges

Finally getting something posted. The flower is for February Take it further challenge. I remember the beautiful peony's that my Mom always had blooming in the summers. Had to locate a photo and get it on the computer, then printed the actual photo on the fabric. What fun.
March is little things. There have been many little things this month, but mostly they have been not so good, so will not bore people with them. My piece for March is of my former neighbors kitty. I put it in a kaleidoscope program and then quilted it. Angel kitty was rescued last winter while almost frozen solid. She did earn a place in the house though, so maybe being frozen was worth it.
The last piece is of my poppies, also put into the kaleidoscope program.

progress

Stitching on block #9, then 3 more to stitch down and I am ready to trim and put together.
Was -2 degrees this morning with a wind that made the wind chill minus 22 degrees. brrrr. Good day to stay indoors and sew.
TIF--small thing today was watching the temperature get all the way to the teens. Ah for some of that global warming they are always preaching about!!!!!

Geese flying

Went out early this morning and the geese are flying North. Beautiful.

still stitching

Still stitching the appliques down on the blocks. Working on #5. decided to do colors for the applique instead of invisible thread, so its taking longer to switch colors all the time.
New take it further challenge is "small things". My first small thing observed was the crocus poking up through the snow bank. Also saw the first string of Canadian geese migrating. The first morning I heard the cardinals singing too. Lots of small things in the spring of the year. Now to figure out something for a small quilt.

Block 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12

Ok --would you believe they are all up on the wall? They all have seams turned and now are liquid stitched to the backgrounds and ready for the actual machine applique to be done. I couldn't stop until I had them all in place and ready to stitch.
Next step the stitching, then deciding how to put the blocks together and if they need border. I am thinking they will need borders, but will see once all the stitching is done. Now off to bed. I deserve a good nights sleep.

Las Vegas challenge

Hi Shirley, here it is the fabric challenge. I just love the through the window look and thought this fabric was ideal for that. Anyway, looking forward to the challenge for next year.
FYI Shirley and I have done a challenge every year since she moved to Vegas. One year I buy fabric and send to her and the next she buys fabric and sends to me. Then we each make a wall piece using the fabric. What fun way to keep in touch with a dear friend.

block7

Block 7 is up on the wall. All those little pieces!!! Kept me working lots longer than I anticipated. But its up on the wall and Block 8 is ready to work on.

block 5 and 6

Block 5 and 6 are on the wall. Sorry the 6 block is a little off, but it was late when I completed it. Will work on 7 later today. What fun seeing it come together on the wall.

block #4

Yea, block 4 is up. Now to work on Block 5 while the weather is so crumby. 16 degrees and dropping plus strong wind and snow flurries. Where the heck is all that global warming the news media is always hollering about? Humm don't hear much about it these days when we are freezing our tails off--wonder why? Anyway off to work on block 5

block #3

Block #3 is up on the wall --I think I am liking this quilt already. 9 more blocks to go. The flower pot is one of my hand dyes. I really need to make some more hand dyes as my supply is running low, however I do not like mixing dyes in the house, so will have to do that when the weather warms and I can do it out on the porch.
Stay tuned for block #4 coming soon.

home again

Block #1 and #2 are done. Yea. Started an applique quilt a few days ago, Have all 12 blocks cut out and the pieces ready to glue to fabric. I'm using Stable Stuff for the inside of the blocks and liquid stitch to position the pieces onto the backgrounds. Its working great so now hope to get the rest done in the next month or so. Some blocks have 70 plus small pieces to work, so will take a while. I'm working on #3 and will put it up when I have it finished. This is really fun.
Norfolk retreat was this weekend. What fun. We had to have it at a different venue this year as the place we usually go was being remodeled. So it goes. We were at Divots Golf Course. Nice place but not quite as handy as before. Completely spaced off taking my camera so I didn't get any pictures of the neat stuff people were doing. We had two working on Dear Jane blocks. Oh my goodness, I am glad I didn't start that one. Would take me a lifetime to do all those tiny blocks. The blocks were really neat though and I give them credit for having the nerve to do this quilt. Lots of bright colors this year. and lots of projects completed.
Had best go start unpacking. Will post pictures as I get blocks done.

door decoration

Yea, door decoration for retreat is done. The theme is "
Wine, Women and Song. So, I found this fabric that has ladies going in all directions. Made a wine glass from two layers of fine net and some red fabric for the wine, fused it in place. Wrote Wine women and Song and my name in purple letters, fused in place then added a CD which I painted bronze, then wrote the theme on it with permanent marker and fastened it to the bottom corner of the piece. So am ready for retreat.
Still have to pack my suitcase, but have all my project stuff ready to go. Plan to work on an applique piece at retreat. We will be at the golf course this year, so will be different venue. Usually we are at a Monastery . Will be quite a change. ha. They probably have the wine and song!!
Turned nice today after yesterdays blizzard. Will take the blizzard though as the other side of the front had devastating tornado's. Scary . Heard from the people I know in the storm area and they were ok.

February challenge

The Feb challenge is up. color swatches are a deep colonial blue/ gold/ cream and two shades of egg carton blue. (OK a light and med light blue-but to me its egg carton blue) The theme is What do you remember? A light bulb went off when I read that and now have to figure a way to use the idea in a small piece. I'm thinking maybe trying to do something with photo transfer, but we will see if I can come up with anything.
Next week will be quilt retreat, so will not get anything worked out beyond a sketch or two. Have some more stable stuff appliqué planned for retreat. Wish me luck and that we do not get a snow storm and have to stay home. (That happened last year)

New piece

This is the new piece using the stable stuff inside the pattern pieces. I do not have this quilted yet, but haven't decided if I will do thread work over some of the pieces, or just quilt around each piece. The flower is done with the reverse side of the border fabric. I really liked the subtle coloration on the back of this fabric. The gold running through the front side, I thought, detracted from the fabric when used as flower pieces, so used it as border. Now I need to decide what to do to quilt it. What fun playing with fabric.

The rose pattern came from a class by Kandi Paige Gallup.

new project

Yea, it works great. I tried the stable stuff by Ricky Tims in this applique. It really works great. Keeps the applique pieces fairly stiff while doing the applique and dissolves when washed. I can see many uses for this --You can see some of the quilting in the closeup. Finishes about 24" square.
It was -15F this morning. brrrr Its now 10:30 AM and is still -8F. Unbelievable that they are saying 45F+ in a few days. But its Nebraska, wait 5 minutes and the weather will change.

Take it Further January

Spent the day finishing the January "Take it Further" challenge". Looked at my calendar and decided if it were to get done, I had best do it this weekend. The closeup shows the thread painting I put over the paint/ink in the design. (see yesterdays post) Decided the paint/ink just didn't do what I wanted, so thread painted it all. Added the "lightning" border fabric because it matched the dark purple color in the flowers. Quilted with a pale yellow thread in the body of the piece and purple in the borders. Am pleased with the experiment using the threads on top of the paint/ink ----

Take it Further

OK, worked a bit with the color swatch for the challenge. Sketched out some little fantasy flowers and colored them in with color pencil and some inks.

I did take the print out to the local hardware/paint store and picked up some paint swatches that were close to the color bar given.

So they aren't exact,but close enough. Added some yellow paint wash behind them (doesn't show to good on the picture) Now I think I will try to quilt it and see what happens.
This is really a fun challenge.