Life's Buttons

Several years ago I wrote a post about buttons.  I have both my mother's and my mother-in-law's button collection along with my own.  Both reflect the woman who owned them - as I'm sure mine does.  And I have a deep inability to use some of the buttons in any project that will leave me and never come back again.  They are so much more than buttons to me.  Some of the ones in my mother's box have been there since I was a little girl.  I remember looking through them during the long lazy summer days.  I just can't seem to part with them.

Yesterday our quilt guild speaker, Deborah Schupp of Gumbo Design Studios shared several of her quilt designs.  This one caught my eye and a bit of my heart:

She made this wall hanging out of buttons from her mother and grandmothers...and maybe great grandmothers.

There is definitely one of these in my future!

"Q" is for WHISPER Quilts

Several of the Whisper Quilts were displayed at the Quilt Show.  I shared about these along the way, but to recap:  this challenge placed us in groups of five.  Each person choose a picture that they liked.  The picture was passed on to another person who interpreted it into a block.  Then that block (but not the picture) was passed to a second person who interpreted it into another block which was then passed on again and one more time.  The results were surprising and not what you would expect at all.  Here are a few of them:

 

 Some of them are difficult to appreciate in such small pictures.  The last one is my favorite.  The original picture wasn't included, though and I'm curious weather it was a picture of a sunflower or the sun.  I also wonder if it's hanging upside down? 

So, I think that wraps up my "quilt show report".   I'm heading to the show in Hershey, PA at the end of the month with some quilting friends for some more quilty eye candy.

"Q" Is For Quilts, Russian Challenge Exhibit

Remember this fabric......

.....that was given to my quilt guild by our sister guild in Russia with the challenge to create a quilt that expressed our view of Russia?  And that I used to make this....

 Well, all of the quilts along with all of those made by our sister guild and showing their interpretation of the USA were exhibited at our recent quilt show. 

 

I thought the uniformity of the Russia to US quilts was quite a contrast to the variety of the US to Russia entries.  The pictures on the quilts made in Russia are a bit hard to see here but they are images of: cowboys, Indians, the US Capital, basketball players, a sax player, a mountain landscape and a city skyline. There is some talk of this exhibit traveling to some other shows but eventually the US to Russia quilts will be given to the Russian guild and their quilts to us will stay here.

"Q" is For Quilts

This past weekend was our local quilt show titles: "Q" is For Quilts.  This was the first show I've participated in since joining the guild.  It was a lot of work, but a great experience.  There were nine categories of quilts and judging was done by those attending the show. 

In any case, this quilt won Best of Show and clearly deserved the honor with any kind of voting:

Here are a few others:

 I entered several quilts in a variety of categories and was very excited to come home with a red (second place) ribbon in the First Time Entry category for this one:

One more - the write up on this next quilt said that the maker bought the unfinished top in a thrift store.  When she brought it home her husband declared it, "The ugliest top ever."  But, she felt like every quilt deserved a home so she finished it and displayed the result.  She said that her husband still thinks it's an ugly quilt.

The title:  "Ugly, Homely Quilts Need Love, Too."

The Pillow Puddle: Part One

Next month my local quilt guild will be having a quilt show.  Much of my sewing/quilting time lately has been directed at this.  I've put hanging sleeves and labels on quilts I'm entering, finished up my Whisper Quilt and Russian Quilt and, most recently I've been making pillows for the puddle.

The pillow puddle is a big child's swimming pool filled with pillows.  To win a pillow visitors will choose a ticket out of a jar for a given price (I'm not sure what the charge is) and if the pillow is marked as a winner they get to choose any pillow out of the puddle. 

So far I've made these:

It's sort of addicting.  As I'm making one, I come up with an idea for another one.  I've used mostly orphan blocks and scraps and stuffing from extra pillows around the house.  All but one of the orphans above came from some items I won at our winter quilt guild auction.  So, another member donated the blocks, I bought them and made them into pillows to donate back to the guild for the puddle!  I also got to use my Sashiko for some of the top stitching.

I thought I was finished, but I came up with another pillow design and have planned to make a few more.

My two favorites from this batch are:

Stay tuned for part two!

My Quilt for Russia

A long while back I mentioned that my quilt guild had been issued a challenge by our sister guild in Russia.  They provided us with some Russian fabric and we were to make small quilts that expressed our view of their country incorporating the fabric.  We in turn gave them fabric from this country and they are making quilts of their view of the USA.  They will be sending their quilts to us in time for our June show and both sets will be displayed side by side.  Then our quilts will be sent on to the Russian guild. 

I see Russia as a grey country - hence the grey boarders.  But the people seem to fill it with so much color.  The blocks are red square, nesting dolls, babushka kerchiefs and onion dome buildings.  The red and green flowered fabric is the Russian fabric.  Here's a few close ups:

I had a lot of fun with this project using my decorative stitches in several places and metallic thread on the domes.  I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the collection.

MY Whisper Blocks!

I've finished quilting and trimming the whisper blocks that were made from the picture I choose for our whisper block challenge at quilt guild.  For anyone new to this idea, we worked in groups of five.  Each person provided a picture which was passed to another member of the group.  That person interpreted the picture into a block which was then passed to a second person.  They in turn interpreted this block into another block.  This was repeated for a total of four blocks.  Just to be clear, the person organizing this made sure that the order of sewists for each picture varied.  In other words, the block that I made was passed to a different person each time so that we were not always interpreting the same person's block.  If you've read the other posts, particularly the most recent one you'll understand why I wanted to point that out once you see this group.

I provided this picture:

Person #1 made this:

Person #2 made this:

She told me that was a Frisbee and the blue on the left side is a splash where the dog has run out of the picture.

Now.....hold on to your hats because here comes the big transition...........

Person #3 made this:

She thought the Frisbee was a goldfish.

So, that resulted in person #4 making this:

I was supposed to sew these together into one composite quilt but I just couldn't.  So they are all sewn in such a way that with a very little alteration they can be made into separate pillows.  I intend to put a single hanging sleeve alone the back so that they can hang as one for our show and then latter I can make them into separate items.

I used to work for a large organization and we were always having in-services on communication.  This project would make a great illustration of one of the popular communication adages:  "Real communication is ALWAYS a miracle."

Whisper Block #4: The Mystery Revealed

Saturday was the big Whisper Block reveal at my quilt guild meeting.  I'll soon share the blocks that I received made from the picture that I provided.  As a teaser let me mention that over the course of the four blocks a dog morphed into a fish.

But, remember just a few weeks ago when I shared my Christmas tree created from a...well, a something?  Here is the full transition.

The first person submitted this picture:

Quilters number one and two made these (#1 on the left, #2 on the right) from the above picture:

Quilter number three made this which she told me was an earing:



And I made this:

I'm not really sure what to say!!

Whisper Block #4

I guess I just have trouble thinking abstractly.  Because this month I received a block for our guild Whisper Challenge that looked like...well, like nothing.  I stared at it for a long time:

Then I turned it upside down (or maybe right side up?) and stared at it some more:

It looked like a rib cage with a lot of tumors and then it looked like an oak leaf with acorns, but mostly like those alien things from the TV show "Falling Skies" that were placed on the back of the kids to allow the aliens to control them.  But finally I saw a Christmas tree with candles and I just ran with that idea.  Here's the result:

I tried to keep the colors and the swirly nature of the design and the glitter.  I don't how the previous sewist accomplished the glitter but I went with metallic thread.  This was my first time using metallic thread and I was expecting it to be a bit of a challenge to sew with.  I was surprised at both how smoothly it sewed and how nice it looked!  I'm anxious to use it somewhere again.

Although it was never said, I sort of expected these blocks to become more abstract as the weeks went on.  But somehow I made this one less abstract I think.

So, next month we will get back the blocks created from the picture we provided and will have the challenge of combining them into one. 

Whisper Block #3

I've finished the next whisper block for my local quilt guild.  In this project the first person chooses a picture and passes it to the second person who interprets it into a block and passes that block onto the third person who interprets the block into another block and so on.  Any technique can be used to interpret the block. In the end each person receives back four blocks related to the picture they provided.  They then incorporate these four blocks (made by four different people) into a wall hanging quilt.  This has been quite a challenge.  You can see the first two blocks here and here.

This month I received this block:

And I created this:

After I took this picture I did some trapunto on the outside picture frame which gave it a bit more perspective.  If it looks like the border is uneven that's because it is.  Again, I was going for perspective, but apparently you need to have a greater difference in the size of the borders to get the effect I was going for.  I didn't have enough of that border fabric to have another go at it.  Also, my block may come up a bit small because I didn't account for losing a little to the puffiness of the trapunto.

 

So, one more to go.  I'm anxious to see the blocks created from my picture and I'm already planning on how to put them together.  They will all be displayed at our quilt show in June.  



 

Whisper Block #2

Remember my post about the Whisper Block project at my quilt guild?  Well the next block is due tomorrow (assuming the meeting isn't cancelled due to the weather).  I guess some members were a bit confused about the workings of this project because this month I received both the original picture and the first block (You are only supposed to see the previously made block and create yours from that).  In this case it didn't matter too much because the first person did a rather straight forward interpretation.  Here's the picture and the first block:

At least, I think that's the original picture.  In the same envelope was also another Christmas picture of a sled and a snow scene.  I'm guessing that the maker of this block thought she needed to choose another picture related by theme to this one.  In any case, since I was only supposed to get the block I choose to ignore that other picture.  This block is all applique but I didn't really want to go there, so I decided to make use of my machine embroidery module and came up with this:

So, two down, two to go.  This has been an interesting ride so far!

Whisper Block #1

Remember the children's game - we called in "telephone" - where one person whispers a sentence into someone's ear and then they in turn whisper it to the next person and so on down the line.  The last person says the sentence as they understood it and often a LOT has been lost in translation!  I'm not sure that this game really had a winner or loser; it was just a little fun activity to pass the time of day.

Well, I joined an activity at my local quilt guild that is based on this children's game.  We are organized in groups of five.  The first month everyone comes to the meeting with a picture they like.  The picture is given to another member in the group.  So each of the five go home with a picture and create a 12 inch quilt block based on the picture.  You don't have to make the exact image.  You can use the colors or the theme or just one part of the whole picture.  The next month you give the picture back to the owner and the block to another person in your group (all the exchanges have been planned by the coordinator).  The second month each person goes home with their own picture and a block.  They are then to create a block based on this first block.  This goes on for five weeks and at the end you have four blocks from your original picture.  The fun is to see how the elements were "whispered" from one person to another through their creations.

It sounded like fun when I signed up.  And then I received the picture:

And I sort of panicked!  There were so many elements in the picture and there was that darn perspective with the downhill and background.  Several months ago we had a speaker at guild who talked about "looking through the window"...how to create perspective in a piece. Of course, I didn't attend that workshop and now I was wishing that I had.  So, I pushed this to the back burner for quite awhile.  I took the picture to several people and asked them what they saw.  The husband commented on the thatch.  A friend commented on the hill.  I saw very muted colors, a narrow palate and a grey sky.  In the end I came up with this:

I sort of cut off a bit of the grey sky in this picture.  The "thatch" is wool that I bought back when I made llama's for "this".

 

So, it's not a work of art, but let me tell you it was difficult to figure out how to fit that all into 12 inches.  And I'm not really sure what I could have done differently or better.  I hope my next picture is a bit easier.  And as usual, I learned a lot along the way.  



 

Inspiration From All Around

We've been on vacation this past week on our annual beach trip.  (Yes, I have even MORE vacation pictures to share soon.  I'll understand if you pass on the opportunity.)  Thanks to the wonders of technology and an unlikely amount of planning on my part, I was able to write a few blog posts and schedule them to post while I was away.   And I've been able to keep up reading all your blog posts, but alas, my techno-savvy stops there.  You see, I find commenting on my iPad a bit difficult so I tend not to comment as much as I normally would.  And my smart phone decided to stop being smart, so it no longer sends me email.  I've tried every trick I know but it stubbornly refuses to cooperate.  I fear this means a trip to the phone store where they will try to sell me a new phone that I really don't need, especially since I barely need the one I have.  I keep hoping that my phone just took a bit of a vacation too and will soon be back to work sending me email.

It takes about five hours for us to travel to the beach.  We like to stop several times on the way and one of the stops is usually this fantastic quilt shop:  The Quilter's Corner.  I came home with these 1930's reproduction fabrics and then some other pieces that just sort of called to me:

 

My husband also got into the act.  He picked out this for me to make, not really knowing exactly what it was.  He thought it was a quilt kit, but it's for a teeny tiny paper pieced project.  I've done some paper piecing but nothing this small, so I have a challenge!

 

The day before we left for the beach my local quilt guild had a visit from Jenny Doan of the Missouri Star Quilting Company.  I wasn't able to stay for the workshop, but I did get to hear her speak and see her trunk show.  She is SO much fun to listen to and so very creative.  I wanted to make every quilt she took out to show.  She works a lot with pre cuts...something I've never done, but I wanted to run out and buy some after listening to her.  She has a great web site and sells a ton of precuts.  Each day at midnight the website lists a new "Deal of the Day".  And they really ARE good buys.  The deal is good for 24 hours or until the supply runs out, whichever comes first.  Shipping is five dollars for any amount or free is you spend $100 or more.  And, there is now an "Iron Quilter" contest going on which sounds like a lot of fun.

 

So, between my fabric store trip, Jenny's talk, the Iron Quilter challenge and some browsing on my iPad, I came home with enough ideas to keep me busy for the next year!



 

To Russia With Love

My local quilting guild has become acquainted with a local guild in Russia and recently we had a visit from one of their members (...who happens to have a daughter living in this area and is a new member of our guild). 

This year the Russian guild sent us a collection or Russian fabric with a challenge to create a small wall quilt that represents our impression of Russia.  Participation is totally voluntary.  The quilts will be displayed here and then be sent together to the Russian guild.  At first I didn't take any fabric because I had absolutely NO ideas of how to represent my idea of Russian with fabric.  I think my experiences in art class as a child had my mind totally frozen.  But, after I went home, the ideas started to flow and now I actually have several.  So, I asked to have some pieces mailed to me and they arrived yesterday:

The shades of color remind me of vintage fabrics.  This won't be my next project, but it's high up on the list.  I hope I can make my thoughts transfer to fabric in a meaningful way.

Jitterbug Quilt Top

My local quilting guild had a mystery quilt activity a few weeks ago.  The pattern was created and named by one of our members and she cleverly organized the instructions to make the result a mystery.  At the start we were told that this would be a good two color quilt with a light and a dark color or a scrappy quilt using light and dark scraps.  I decided to make it red, white and blue and donate the result to Quilts of Valor.  But, when the teacher realized my color scheme she gave me "permission" to peek at the final layout and decide how I wanted to arrange my colors.  Here's what I came up with:

It measured 65 inches square.  I'm going to send this one on (once we have another meeting so that I can show the pattern creator) as a top since my "to quilt" list is getting a bit long.