Loose Thread’s Lesson Five in “Fearless Design”

Mine

Deo's. I like that she did them all in one grid pattern.

Grace's

Barbara's cute blocks look like trains.

Anna's bubbles.

Sara's amazing table runner. The leaves change from monochromatic on through all the different color combinations we studied on the colorwheel. You should see the quilting on this!

Tonight we discussed the color wheel and how to combine colors. Of course, it’s not necessary to know the technical terms like triadic or double-split complementary color schemes, but it’s helpful to understand how colors relate to eachother in theory. But color is also intuitive and emotional and very personal. So, we just had fun talking about our blocks and what combinations we were striving for. I made labels for each of the different combinations- I guess I was in a teacher mood! I am also happy that Barbara gave me her “train” blocks. She was not going for a train look at all- in fact, she got the idea from a scrapbooking technique… She was not planning on doing anything with them, so I said they would make an adorable kid’s quilt for charity…. or even better yet, a train quilt for my friend’s little boy Grant. So she handed them on over to me, and I can’t wait to see what I end making with them.

Another “Fearless Design” Lesson

My group Loose Threads meets tomorrow for our lesson on chapter five. We were to design our own composition and then make it several times in a variety of color combinations according to the color wheel. I don’t have pictures yet for that lesson because I haven’t completed all of my examples. I still have three more to make and we meet tomorrow night! Yikes- I hope I get it done in time!

the block is called Indian Puzzle

But here is a picture of my work from the previous chapter, also focusing on color but this time in regards to value. We made an achromatic block, then we made it using color while keeping the values from the achromatic example. Then we had to do it again, in new colors but same values. Next we did another in new colors, but now with different value placement. And the last example was a study in unbalanced value.

Today I went to the Springville Apple Festival with my mom to help sell raffle tickets for Orange Blossom Quilt Guild’s Opportunity Quilt. It was a lot of fun. My mom and I split a hamburger, fries, raspberry ice tea, and a slice of apple pie. Of course, my mom’s pie is  way better! Then we walked around and looked at all the booths. She bought me a very pretty necklace. She got one for herself, too. We also bought ourselves a basket from this one African woman, all hand made by her self. They were beautiful and a lot of people we walking around with them. I have seen her at Best of the Valley, but I didn’t get one then. I decided today was the day though to get one. My friend Karen uses one all the time for her quilting stuff and she loves it. I can’t wait to start using mine! My mom and I also got roasted corn on the cob, but by the time we walked back to the shuttle we were exhausted and hot! It’s so muggy! I want cool Fall weather NOW!!!!

When I got home I crashed out. When I woke up, my dad was at my house organizing the garage. He took me out for pizza at my favorite place, Me ’n Ed’s. Then we poked around in Big Lots. It was a nice day and I am glad I got to spend it with my parents.

Great News!

Quilter’s Paradise called me today and asked if I’d like to teach a second class for my “Merry Christmas” machine applique wallhanging! They said that there is a waitlist of 10!!! Wow!!! That was great news, and of course I said yes!!! The second class is Friday, November 20th from 5:30 to 9:30 at Quilter’s Paradise in Clovis, CA.

machine qpplique

This is the supply list:

http://www.classschedule.net/cgi-server/schedules/classdisplay.cgi?account=qparadiseca&supplylist=5088

Adorable Baby

He's using a pile of my fabrics as his pillow. So sweet!

 I work up this afternoon at 1:30!!!! Ay yi yi

The reason is because I was sewing with my Cutthroat Quilters group from 6 pm to 2 am! I got home around 1:30, took my cough medicine, and crashed OUT!!! I have had this nagging cough for over a week and finally went to the walk-in clinic yesterday. They x-rayed my lungs, which are fine. However, I do have bronchitis so he gave me a prescription cough syrup with codene in it. So now this morning my brain feels foggy and I in a slump. And this is not good because I have a game tonight! I can hardly breath but I have to skate hard tonight against Fresno! I am almost tempted to call in sick but I really don’t wanna do that! It’s our last game of the season and I didn’t get to skate in the previous two games becuase of a knee injury. Arrrghh!!!!!  I will have to figure out what to do.

Aaahhh….cooking & baking.

Hello! I just have to share that I am finishing the most delicious dinner I have made in a long , long time. I made meatloaf and roasted red potatoes. Ymmm… and I made thee most amazingly yummy cake called “Chocolate Fudge Pudding & Kaluha Cake.” O. Ma. Gaw. It’s loaded with cake mix, pudding mix, 4 eggs, 2 C. sour cream…..a lil milk & oil….chocolate chips…. over the top good.

 

so good I want to cry

Oh, and a 1/2 C. of kaluha!

I got the recipe at www.RecipeLand.com

 

So, yeah…good night.

Now I have Six!

this witch is cranky

happy witch

moon dress

moon background & cobweb dress

New Witches

 

Now I have four… not sure if I want to stop here or shoot for 9. Want to sprinkle in a few rows of wonky star blocks, maybe some wonky churn dashes…. Definitely need to add more purple & green! And a cute sawtooth border! ooooo it’ll be so cute when it’s done!

 

Still Not Much To Say…

except I am waiting for the cookie dough to chill…and I keep nibbling on it! Snickerdoodles. Mmmm….I was craving something sweet so I thought “A-ha! I am going to bake cookies!” I haven’t baked something in a while. I also made myself dinner last night and tonight, which I never do! I made cold curry chicken rice salad, bulgur salad with cucumber, tomato, feta, and basil, aaaand tonight I cooked a salmon that I marinated in terriyaki sauce & garlic. I guess since I went to the grocery store  and actually have food in my cupboard it makes me want to cook. But it’s also dangerous. I could eat every single little cookie I bake. Tonight.

Haven’t made anymore progress on my witches…have one all cut out and waiting to be sewn together. Maybe I will work on that tonight????? I have an hour to kill before I can bake my Snickerdoodles….yumyumyummyummm

Not much to say….

I just really liked this painting. Unfortunately I do not know the painter's name or the title of the piece!

Halloween Witches

What a spooky dress.

mean witch face

I made a few of these little witches last night. They are from a Freddy Moran pattern, but I got the idea to turn Freddy’s Garden Girls into witches from Deo. She is so clever! The embroidered face is my touch. I really like her spooky dress…. very creepy.

 

witch

black cat dress

Today I took a machine applique class where I practice a sampler of techniques. I did invisible applique with nylon thread, blanket stitch in contrasting color, raw edge with fusible web, and I practiced putting a light interfacing in one piece to add dimension, plus making stems. I was also shown how to make perfect circles using washers and making stems using metal bias bars. This was a very helpful class because I tried a few weeks ago to do some different applique techniques from Sue Nichol’s book, and I had a horrible time. Kathy’s method with freezer paper was waaaaay easier. It will help me a lot with my Loose Thread’s challenge.

flower sampler

invisible on green, variegated on petals

yellow is raw edgethe veins shouldn't be so similar, but hey

So I am in charge of Artist Trading Cards this year. (Plus I am “Historian” or scrapbooker.) I am continuing on with Barbara’s good idea of coming up with a theme or focus for each month’s set of cards. September’s is music. Any take on the theme goes- song, musician, instrument, etc. October’s is of course Halloween- don’t fix it if it aint broke, right? Can’t get much funner than that! November’s theme is fruits & vegetables- this is a more broad version of the traditional cornucopia. December’s is winter night, I believe.  I see snow, black sky, star, cabin, wreath on barn door, one light shining from a cabin or cottage. hmmmm  

music atc

i like the pressed flower looking stickers.

Today was my mom’s birthday so I went by in the evening to giver her her card & gift (a lavendar plant…. that plant always reminds me of her)…but she wasn’t home! I hung out for an hour….drank a beer, checked out her quilting books & magazines, tried to get the satellite cable to work but couldn’t… petted Willie…… then left. I wonder where she could have been so late at night! Usually she is asleep early. Well, anyway…..before that I took Barnabas to the Bark Park at Plaza Park (ha!) and walked around the baseball diamonds and ditch. The ducks did not like Barnie, but he found them quite interesting.

asleep in his spot in the sun. Cuuuuuuute!!!!!!

No word on job…. didn’t get it. = (

The Valero gas station is hiring.

Selling my Stuff on Etsy now….

This will be a new adventure, kind of. It’s something I have been wanting to try out for a while now and I have finally got the ball rolling…though it’s a little overwhelming because there is so much to learn about selling and promoting your stuff online. I have three items listed on etsy which you can find by searching under sellers “missadenaej” or cut and paste this link:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5201465

I have a lot of nice friends…

And I have been spending a lot of time quilting with them at Thimble Towne. Even though I have been bummed out about not having a job and other stuff, it’s been really nice to be surrounded by supportive friends. I had my fifth interview today and I still get very nervous!!! And they were all very encouraging, which is nice. Still haven’t heard about the job- won’t until Friday evening or Saturday morning.

sums it up

So, yeah, I have been sewing a lot. And I think I have enough cut up scraps to make a Scrap Therapy quilt. There’s this one pattern that everyone is making and it is turning out so cute each time. I have a bajillion works in progress (WIPs) and I am getting a little bit done, bit by little tiny 2″ square bit.

And because I have no pictures from today, I will post old ones.

Honorable Mention!

A Very Scrappy Baby Quilt

too cute!

The flying geese were leftover from a mystery quilt… and the rest of the blocks were made just for the heck of it- well actually I was making this other quilt and was getting tired of fussy cutting the stars, so I started making these ugly four-patches and then I decided I would add the applique hearts… but I am glad to say they never made it into the original quilt. I am still working on that one. But these were just laying around so I said “Hey! This would make a cute & fast baby quilt top!” Now as to when I will get around to quilting it- who knows. But I have been on this kick this past week of using old stuff, so here it is. I also had this pretty lavendar fabric laying around so I decided to use it as the border. I still have plenty left over for the back, too.

Finished a Quilt!

da back

This was a class with Diana McClun & Laura Nownes called “Monet’s Garden” I think. “From Me to You” patterns.

a flower block up close

the entire quilt

quilting up close

me and my quilt

Started Doing Scrap Therapy

hey, at the very least it made me clear off my cutting table!

that’s a lot of scraps!

At first I thought this was soooo stupid, but in actuality it’s a great way to tidy up an obnoxious pile of left overs. Though it is overwhelming when I look at how much crap I have! And now every time I cut anything for a project, I am always going to cut the left overs too for scrap therapy, which slows ya down. Though I guess the right way to look at it is I won’t have a box full of scraps! I will have nice organized shoe boxes of 2″ squares. (Really, sometimes I think I need to get a life.) But anway, I have filled two shoe boxes with scrappy squares of 5″, 3 1/2″, and 2 ” blocks. Of course, I cut a whole bunch wrong (5 1/2″ and 2 1/2″) but I will deal with those scraps again when the time comes.

 

lovely tidyness

 

Loose Threads met again last week, and we had some really neat examples of value & balance.

one of my asymmetrical pieces

the symmetrical piece; this was very difficult to figure out!

Deo explaining the value in her piece

Sara's asymmetrical piece.

Barbara's symmetry on point

Grace did her's in green. This is symmetrical & monochromatic.

Anna's symmetry, also done on point. She also added a new twist by cutting the large green square into fours! Looks good.

That was a fun night at Deo’s house. She made us cranberry cosmopolitans that were pretty damn tasty, and very pretty in pink with a yellow lemon twist. She also made up a nice spread of snackies! Her house is adorable, especially her kitchen.

So, we are on to lesson 4 I believe. Another practice in value & color, but this time we are making several of the same blocks of our own choosing, starting with an achromatic piece. Then we have to do two with color but with the SAME value placement as the achromatic one. Then we make a fourth one with all new value placement & color, and lastly another with unbalanced value placement. I have really liked this exercise so far and could definitely see myself making an achromatic quilt.

yet another

IMG_1018, originally uploaded by David C. Photography.

goofin’ around

IMG_1183, originally uploaded by David C. Photography.

me yelling at Edusk8tor “Inside! Inside!”

IMG_1219, originally uploaded by David C. Photography.

head on a swivel!!!! oh yeah

IMG_1260, originally uploaded by David C. Photography.

keeping my eye on the jammer

IMG_1277, originally uploaded by David C. Photography.