Week 25

It's One Flower Wednesday time! This picture was taken at the local Kroger. They had so many pretty flowers sitting out in front, I was inspired to pull out my flower and phone to take a picture. The Polack was with me and I thought maybe he'd scurt away so as to no be embarrased. But he stayed with me as I took a few shots. He always enjoys seeing the finished flowers and I think he likes the idea of the flower in the flowers photo shoot.



I love black with color fabrics. I only have a few fat quarters so I don't really do anything with them. I also love teal, though I've never really made a teal quilt. I'll add those two ideas to the wish list.

This is the last post in June which means I'm half-way through the year of flowers.

Week 24

Whew - I'm on a roll with these flowers. My production started to peter out a few weeks ago. I was bored with the project. I was scraping the bottom of the barrel with the scraps I had for the flowers. I didn't like the colors I had left and I thought several of the scraps were ugly. My face would scrunch up when I thought about sewing more hexagons. To get out of my funk, I threw away several scraps (I just heard a horrified gasp from Christy) and cut in to some of my favorite fabrics from my stash. Viola! The sewing picked up some speed.

Lesson learned.

Here is my latest flower - another photo shoot on campus. This was taken near the Indiana Memorial Union, just next to my alma mater's building, Journalism.



Someone commented on my scrappy flowers. Traditional flowers use the same fabric for each row of petals. I'm so used to using scraps that I didn't even think about doing the traditional method. It would have been smarter - sometimes it's hard to find 12 of the same color for those outer rows - but hopefully when everything is put together, I'll have a quilt that is very unique. (Or very Polish as some would say!)

Blimey

I have another finish for 2011. Woo hoo! (It's been a slow year so far.) This quilt has been in process for some time. It started with an idea and discussion during Quilt Camp in January of 2010 when several of us decided to do a block swap. Each month was assigned to a specific person who would decide what she wanted the blocks of her month to look like. One person chose Christmas colors, another gave us fabric and asked us to incorporate it, someone else wanted bright blocks, someone else wanted stars. Then each person made a block for that month. All blocks had to be 12.5 inches.

I happened to be the first person. I asked for blue and lime green blocks with black and white incorporated. It was so much fun to get the different blocks and see each quilters personality come through with them. I carried those blocks to several camps but never got around to putting them together until quilt camp in January. I added the block borders and sashing, put them together and got the top sewn together with their borders. I also made the back for it.



Fast forward a few months and I finally got around to layering the quilt. I wasn't sure how to quilt it but I knew I definitely wanted to show off each block. I remembered someone on a quilting blog using painters tape as a guide for doing straight line stitching. I couldn't remember the site, or blog, or much about it but I thought I'd give it a try. HA! It didn't go well. I used two different width painters tape and made several - probably 50 - 60 - lines going all different directions of the quilt. Here is a picture of it. I was really proud of myself until I started sewing along the first line and came to a cross line of tape for another line. I knew I couldn't sew through it because then I wouldn't be able to get the tape off - it would be sewn onto the quilt. So I had to the cut the cross tape, continue sewing my line, then try to stick the cross tape back in place. Imagine doing that 500 times. It sucked. Plus all the maneuvering of the quilt and cutting the tape made several spots of tape become unstuck to the quilt. So then I had to pin the tape down. So my easy project ended up being really hard.

But in the end, I love how it turned out. I will definitely do the technique again except I'll only do a few tape lines at time and I'll make sure they don't cross. This will also allow me to hopefully use each piece of tape more than once. I like the idea of being able to conserve the tape! Here is a close up of the quilting.



I was able to get all the blocks in the photo. There are 12 blocks from 12 different quilters.
The top row from left to right are from Cheryl, Pam, and Carol.
The second row blocks are from Kathy, Laura, and Celeste.
The third row blocks are from Christy, Cherry, and Elizabeth.
The fourth row blocks are from Bobbie, Nancy, and Betty.


This quilt measures 91X73 and gives me 13,286 for the stashbusting contest.

Week 23

Now that I'm participating in the One Flower Wednesday group, I thought I'd display my photos like some of the others - my flower immersed in to the scenery with other flowers. I feel so grown up!



Because I live in an apartment, I don't have any flowers surrounding me. And once I move in to the new house, it will take a few months before I can afford landscaping. Luckily I work on a college campus that boasts about it's beauty. It rivels some of the best in the country which means lots of flowers for me to take advantage of.

Week 22

When I started making my hexagon flowers, my personal goal was to complete one per week. Apparently, I'm not the only one! Karen from Journey of a Quilter has started a flower garden party. I've decided to join so that I can see what other flowers look like as well as have some incentive to keep going with mine own flowers. This means I'll start posting my flowers on Wednesday.

Weeks 20 and 21

Once again, I apologize for the bad picture. It looks like it will be awhile before I get a new camera. Light fixtures, appliances, a family cruise, and new tires for the car have sucked up all extra money.





At least I'm currently all caught up!