Michael Miller Challenge

I recently submitted my first quilt to QuiltCon.  It was for the Michael Miller Challenge.

The challenge was to use the new line of Glitz fabric somewhere in the quilt.  When you signed up, they sent you 1/8 yard cuts of some of the fabric.

This is what the fabric looked like.  I got the white and gold poka-dots and the black and gold "flowers". 

To be honest, the fabric isn't my favorite.  It took me a long while to figure out what I wanted to do. I decided that the gold dots looked like a fifties style skirt and decided I wanted a dancing lady in the quilt.  After looking online for inspiration, I decided to focus on dancing feet. 

The challenge allowed you to use solids with the fabric, so I decided to make a parquet floor for my dancers out of rail fence blocks. I quilted them to look like wood flooring.

The man's shoe was super fun.  I made laces out of solid fabric and used grommets to lace them.  I quilted the shoe with 12 wt thread to make it look like the stitching in a man's shoe.  For the lady, I kept the quilting simple, with a bit of thread painting to show shadows.

Here's the result!

Bullfrog Boogie

I wanted to make my cousin Erica a quilt for her second child.  My mom had a pattern called bullfrog boogie that she was saving for when I had kids.  Since I have decided not to have children, she gave it to me to use for Erica's baby.

Here's the original pattern

The pattern is super cute.  It has bullfrogs that are dancing around the center of the quilt.

Here's my first bullfroggy block.  The pattern says to use buttons for the eyes, but I wanted a baby to get to use it.  The dark blue creates a border around the "dancing" frogs.

Here are the blocks put together to create the center of the quilt.  The center is around 40 x 40 inches.  I wanted it to be larger so that the baby can grow with it.

I started playing with different designs for borders and decided to add dragonflies to the corners.

For the center of the border I decided to use leftover frog fabric to make it colorful.  

For the quilting, I wanted the center to stand out, so I decided to go for lily pads.

I drew all the lily pads on with a pencil and traced around them several times.  Once the pads were down, I used blue thread to create water and used an echo technique.

For the borders I wanted to repeat the flower from the lily pad in the center of the quilt.

Here's the final result:

Round Robin Project

Many of you know that I have been doing a round robin project with my mom, my friend Debbie, and her mom.  Yesterday, the project is officially complete.  All ladies have received their final quilt top!!!!

I can easily say that this was one of the most challenging but thrilling quilting experience that I have ever had. Plus, I love my quilt top more than anything!!!

How the round robin worked was each person made a 20 by 20 block and passed it along.  The next person added 20 inches to the width and height and passed it along.... etc.

We didn't set any other rules to keep it creatively open, but we were all supposed to create a journal and add to each other's journal.

My Quilt!

My starter block was inspired by my love of camping and canoeing. I wanted it to look like you were in the canoe, paddling through the Muskokas.

 

Here is the finished block. I then sent this to Linda for the next round.  She added a gorgeous tree and flying geese border to it.  Isn't it cute?!?



Next round was my mom.  Being a typical mom, she added a hand embroidered tree... seriously, there are thousands of hand stitched pine needles in there AND a tiny squirrel peaking out from the trunk.  She also added the bear, camp fire, and 3-D tent.  A pieced border finished her round.  Way to go mom!

Debbie was the last round and she finished it off with these AWESOME paddles.  It really tied the quilt back to the canoe theme.  Look how lovely it turned out.  I couldn't be happier!!

Debbie's Quilt

Debbie's quilt started off with a "wonky" red plus blue makes purple block. It took me a little while to figure out what I wanted to add to it.  I drew up several designs and decided to keep the theme of combining colors.

 

I added a yellow border and then green and orange to finish off her original squares.  I thought it made a nice medallion for the center of her quilt.

Linda then added a fractured rainbow border.  She mimicked my yellow border in the corners of her piece.

Mom then added the last border.  She created open pieced squares and then added fabric paper-airplanes flying through the squares.  They even have embroidery flight lines!!

Look how cute this quilt is!!

Donna's Quilt

Mom started out with a beautiful ocean scene.  She says she was "practicing" a technique, but we all know she was just showing off.

Debbie then added a black and white border and then extended the scene. 

I thought it looked like a stained glass version of mom's block. So I made that stained glass into a window.  I added black and white compasses to the corners to tie in the border.

Linda echoed the window and created a bunch of attic window blocks but with a gradient color scheme. 

I love how serene this quilt is.

Linda's Quilt

This is the last quilt I worked on!  Linda started out with an 11 sided circle.

Mom added a grey border and appliqued triangles to make a hexagon.  I love how modern this turned out to be!

Debbie then added a triangle/hexi border to two sides.

I knew I wanted to tie in triangles, hexagons, and squares, so I decided to add a bunch of modern borders. 



I love all the projects and it was such an amazing project.  Each person put so much thought and work into their piece of the project.  It was such a wonderful experience.

We all opened our tops yesterday at the exact same time.  There were no spoilers.  No one cheated or leaked what we were getting.  BEST IDEA EVER!

 

Embroidery Projects

I finished another Instagram swap.  This time it was for the Canadian Hoop Art Swap.  You could create whatever you wanted (applique, embroidery, etc) as long as it was within a 6 inch hoop.  My partner liked animals and flowers that had a Native American feel to them.  I wanted to practice embroidery (while we finished a tv series).  I decided to make a dream catcher out of the hoop.

The design I picked was a combo of two designs: a fox and a dream catcher. 

I drew the fox in pencil and the dream catcher in water soluble pen so I could keep track.
I quickly got bored with orange, so I decided that the fox was going to be colorful.

For the dream catcher, I decided to make it as realistic as possible so you could tell what it was.

I got bored with brown.  I decided beads would look nice.  A trip to Michaels was in the works!

I really like how the beads turned out.  Next was to make feathers for the dream catcher.  I wanted to make them more whimsical to match my flashy fox.  I decided to go with Kaffe Fassett fabric.   I ironed to pieces together with fusible webbing and then cut out a feather shape.  I then stitched them together.  Hind sight... should have stitched them THEN cut them.  Oh well.

I made the string out of brown fabric.  I learned from the feathers and stitched lines 1/4 apart and then cut them out with a rotary cutter.  To attach them, I strung up a bead (this was not easy) and then hot glued it in.

Before I put the embroidery in the hoop, I painted the hoop to look like it was wrapped with leather.
Here's the finished product!

My husband then asked me to make him an embroidered rose for his linen shirt.  He's been bugging me for years and said, "you're making things for strangers but not for me <insert pouty face>"
Here's the rose I did for him.

It still needs to be washed.  Crossing fingers and toes it doesn't bleed!

Birds on a wire

I signed up for a mini swap with the Ottawa Modern Quilt Guild.  The theme was modern.  I wanted to create something simple to focus on the quilting.  I decided to create birds on a wire. 

I drew out 6 birds on fusible webbing and ironed them onto fabric.  I decided to go with solids because I normally do patterns and I wanted a change.  I couldn't resist making one fancy bird though.  I cut out the birds and looked for the best placement.  For the wire, I used a clover bias tape maker (1/4 inch finished).  It was the first time I tried using it and I loved it.

Here's a close shot of the birds sewn on.  I used a straight stitch because I wanted it to be hidden.  Since it's a mini quilt I wasn't worried about fraying.

For the quilting I wanted it to look like moving clouds in the background so I decided to go with wavy lines filled randomly with paisley swirly thingys. Once done quilting I decided to try out hidden binding.  It was an easy tutorial I found online and I think it makes the piece read more like a canvas than a quilt.

Here's the finished product!

Yellow Lab

I signed up for my first instagram swap, which was dog themed. With an instagram swap, you basically fill out a form with what you like/don't like, the organizer assigns a person to you and hands you their form.  You make them a mini quilt and receive one from a stranger.

My partner had a yellow lab and used a collage of pictures of him as my inspiration.  I knew I needed to do a yellow lab, but I didn't want to use all yellow.

I started with the background making equilateral triangles.

For the dog, I found a grey scale drawing of a dog I liked, so i printed him out.  I placed the picture in a clear page protector sleeve and drew him out with sharpies.  The darkest value I assigned blue, medium was red, and light was yellow. Once drawn out, I used a old classroom projector (I bought at an auction) and projected it on the wall.  I traced each piece out on fusible webbing, and ironed them onto the background fabric.

Once ironed down, I sewed each piece down with coordinating thread,  I quilted the piece with simple triangles.

For the back, I added a paw print as the label.  I blurred out the name (just in case).

Hope she loves it!!!

Embroidery and Piping

I'm very proud of the embroidered chicken I made for my mom.  I'm getting better at learning how to keep my stitches from stretching the fabric.

 Although I think the chicken is totally cute... my grandmother's work still kicks it's butt!  When I was in Houston in October she ended up giving me a beautiful peacock embroidery.  This weekend I decided to turn it into a pillow for my bed.

When I bought the fabric for the pillow I had originally decided to make two borders: a small blue border and a design border. The peacock was so large though, that I decided (with my friend Ali's help) that the design border should really just be piping.... so it was time to learn how to make piping!
Here's the result!!!

I love the back fabric so much!  I have a lot extra and my plan is to make two smaller pillows out of it for my bed!