Times Square {Project Quilting Challenge}

I've joined the fun over at Persimon Dreams and entered in the first Project Quilting challenge of season four.  It's a bit intimidated as the rules state you must create a quilt and finish it within the week and have the design based on the challenges inspiration.  This week we were asked to interpret "Square within a square within a square."  Simple enough, right?

{Project quilting challenge for Season 4: challenge 1, Square within a square within a square}


This piece is about 20 by 12 inches.  I started with the colorful squares in the background.

Then you will see several raw edge squares secured with embroidery stitches. I was inspired by Sashiko stitching for these.  And then I've been interested in trying "quilting on air" a process where you cut whole in your layered quilt.  Gulp!

Pillowcased and ready for quilting.  And here you can see the three holes I cut.  See the green from the cutting mat coming through?

After I quilted a bit, I zig-zagged the edges of the holes and then sewed over the opening with a walking foot to create a spider web look.  So scary and so fun!!  I could see using that technique again!!

A closer look at some of the detail.  By doing the three holes, I got better at maintaining the shape as I went on.  And I sure learned a lot.

Phew, what a challenge!  I'm happy to have stretched my creative muscles and tried new things!  Is it perfect?  Nah, but chalk it all up to practice and muscle memory and experience!  And now we rest for a week.  The next Project Quilting challenge will be announced next Sunday the 20th.

I will also be linking up with Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday.
Happy Weekend!!

Forms of a Dress Challenge

This is the continuation of the dress challenge; here is the first post.
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So, I knew I was up against a deadline to turn in my challenge mini and that I had to get back to my sewing desk.  Sammy was not thrilled with the idea.

Can't you just hear her... Mamma... your going to sew again? Uggg!

This is Katie's position for most of my work.  Yes, her head is on my knee/leg.  Always there to give me advice or cheer me on.  This gets a little challenging when I need to get up to iron something, but that hasn't deterred her.

So, once the pups had their positions I knew I could settle in to finish this mini quilt up.

I did some free motion quilting on the ivory and gold background following the design with a light blue shiny thread.  Gave the background a nice texture without taking away from the skirt.

And I decided to use the same background fabric for the binding so that it more or less melts away.  This mini measures 10 x 14.  I see a lot more minis in my future... hand sewing the binding went so quick!

And with that I give you "This Dance" ... as in, may I have the pleasure of this dance with you? 

I don't ever think in a million years that I would have thought to create a dress like this without the challenge pushing my far far out of my comfort zone.  But, then again, I guess that's what challenges are for, right?  For pushing, and pulling, and general creative creating discomfort. 

And I'm smitten with the results. 

Would I make another dress?  Maybe.  Probably not my first choice, but I have to admit it was pretty fun embracing my girly side for this one. 

Then, off to the guild meeting we went.

And guess what?  The next time I see This Dance.... it will be hung in a guild quilt show in May. 

I know.  I'm still pretty tickled myself!

And yes, I'll be linking to my favorite parties from my left sidebar to include Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story.

One Thing, One Week Challenge

This past week I joined up with Amy's Creative Side to participate in her One Thing, One Week Challenge.  It's great motivation to pick just one thing to work on for the week! 

I decided that I wanted to get a healthy start on my Forms of a Dress mini art quilt as I've been stuck in the get ideas, sketch, and play with fabric stage for too long.  I am so excited to report that I made leaps and bounds this past week! 

I'll let the pictures do the talking! 

I'm really looking forward to the finishing touches this week, quilting it lightly and binding... too cool for school man!!  In fact, I will probably be finishing this up during the Friday Night Sew In!

Won't you join us in signing up to sew the night away?  There are prizes involved!!

Wednesday WIP {Three New Things!!}

I can feel the pace of the year starting to pick up as swaps are beginning and I am getting back into my rhythm to enter an art show in March and my guild quilt show in May. 

--NEW--

Spinning Starlets {English Paper Piecing} -- a.k.a. I've reached a new level of crazy!

A new blog friend of mine Kris from Duke Says Sew What has turned me on to the idea of English paper piecing.  Sounds so formal, right?  Well, you might remember that I had paper piecing on my list for 2012, so when I looked over the Block Party at Selfsewn and saw how cute the Rose Star was... I caved. 

So far, I've cut out the template from paper, cut my fabric scraps, based most of the pieces, and begun hand sewing them together.  I think I may do a seperate post on my experiences with this process so far.

Private Swap with Megan from Silver Threads of Happiness

Adding this here so I don't forget.  I have so many ideas to surprise Megan and I'm tickled that we have the same silly forest, mushroom, elephant, and button likes!  And have you see her Pink Granny Blanket?  It's totally sweet!  Makes me want to get started on a crochet blanket.

Name Game Swap -- due by 15 March

We are swapping a mini quilt that uses the name of our swap partner in the quilt.  Cool, no?  I haven't gotten my partner information yet, but am going to pull together an inspiration mosaic to help my partner stalk me!

--IN PROGRESS--

Star Struck or Map to the Stars -- star quilt-a-long by Melissa at Happy Quilting. 

I made zero progress on this last week.  Bad, bad, me.  I really need to just sit down and whip up a bunch of stars.  I'm feeling more inspired to sew after last night's guild meeting! 

Naughty Notions Challenge -- make a clutch using lots and lots of notions by the end of the month

(you can still join if you like)

I have a pretty good idea what I want to do now... just need to make the basic clutch and start embellishing!

 
--ON PAUSE-- 

Laughing Leaves with Frieda Anderson

More of the project can be seen here.  Can't wait to roll up my sleeves and dig back in!  You can also check out what I learned about using fusible in an art quilt!

{Your're My Sunshine}: Bottled Rainbows {ticker tape quilt-along}

Still no deadline for this one.  The way things are going, maybe I pick this up once my show pieces are done?

This Week's Work in Progress (WiP) Stats:

Last WiP Wednesday Total: 5
New Projects: 3

Finished Projects: 0
Total WiP's: 8 (creeping up as we get closer to quilt show time!)

And, how about a picture of Sammy and Katie?  That was a lot of rambling and not a lot of pictures.

Forms of a Dress -- due 14 February

This is my first guild challenge!  I have completed my sketch and am ready to pull fabrics to get going. 

Wednesday WIP {More Planning Than Sewing}

As I admitted yesterday, there hasn't been a ton of sewing on this end, but as I was thinking about it more, I think that is also because I am in the planning stage with a lot of my new projects.  Let's take a look.

--NEW-

Forms of a Dress - a guild challenge

I don't have anything to show, but I have started sketching what this small art quilt will look like and I think I even have my thoughts narrowed down to two ideas.  And of course I am extra nervous because this is my first guild challenge!

--IN PROGRESS--

Star Struck or Map to the Stars -- star quilt-a-long by Melissa at Happy Quilting. 

I have a bunch more stars pieces cut out and ready for sewing. 

Naughty Notions Challenge - make a clutch using lots and lots of notions (you can still join if you like)

I started this by pulling out a bunch of notions that were easy to get my hands ... goodness knows I have a bunch more .. as I wanted to let the notions be my inspiration, since I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do. 

So far I have pulled out a pile of colorful zippers, snaps, beads, lace, floss, and some green and turquoise fabrics, and and buttons (not pictured).

I'm leaning (at the moment) toward using the hexigon print on the outside.

The more I am stewing on this project the more I would like to be sure I use these specific brown and turquoise beads.

And I'm sure I will find myself also reaching into this bag for a few of my treasured favorites (that are so overdue of being used in something).

 

You're still asking what I'm making aren't you?  Well... so far I am thinking a rounded bottom clutch and the rest will have to be a surprise for next week.

--ON PAUSE-- 

Laughing Leaves with Frieda Anderson

More the project can be seen here.  Can't wait to roll up my sleeves and dig back in!  You can also check out what I learned about using fusible in an art quilt!

{Your're My Sunshine}: Bottled Rainbows {ticker tape quilt-along}

Still no deadline for this one, but I am sure it will be an awesome winter project and just the right thing to pick up after all the crazy holiday sewing!

This Week's Work in Progress (WiP) Stats:

Last WiP Wednesday Total: 4
New Projects: 1 (started Forms of a Dress)

Finished Projects: 0
Total WiP's: 5

Dragon Tote is Solidly Done!

I have finished my Solids Only Tote (with only hours to spare!).  I'm going to post a few quick pictures tonight and will be back tomorrow with a few more words and details!!

And, oh, how good being done feels!!

You can read about the challenge by clicking on the button and see the other entries here!

Making Solid Progress {Dragon Tote}

Get it?  Solid progress? 

I'm talking about my (until now) neglected entry for the Solids-Only Tote Challenge! (details can be found here) that asks participants to create a tote or bag using only solid fabric.  The extra twist is 

that we must use either applique, reverse applique, or patchwork to adorn the tote.  Sounds like fun, right... and finally feeling real.

So, I've had a dragon swimming around in my imagination that I've declared must now come out.  Now.  Here is my tote start.


I know, I know... you can barely see my blue Mark-B-Gone pen, but wanted to show you where my sketch started.  It's loosy goosy and ready for snipping... since was to become reverse applique.

Reverse applique is a two layer sandwich where the top layer is cut in a stencil like picture allowing the second layer fabrics to show through.  Here are my second layer colors pulled (all solids -- so tough!!)

Confession time.  I sort of cheated.  Since I was still working through what the dragon would look like, I decided to cut the 'stencil' first, instead of committing to colors, sewing all the lines, and then cutting.  Glad to get that off my chest. 

With the stencil cut out I could begin to audition colors for the different portions of my dragon.  Red for the body.

Light and dark gray for the wing.  Only the light gray is shown below.

Fire orange spikes up and down the body and tail.  I also added the baby pink for the underbelly.

And the finishing touch was a hot pink/purple textured fabric for the front horn.

 

I know.  Your thinking, great dragon, but it doesn't look a thing like a tote.  I have some work to texture-ize and bring the dragon to life and I have to figure out how a tote is made.  Loving this challenge!!

One Thing, One Week Challenge

Amy from Amy's Creative Side hosts a great motivator every now and then to get one thing accomplished...  take one more step in a project...  finish off that one last thing that's been lingering on your creative mind.  It's not meant to pressure us, but simply provide that extra nudge to get that one thing checked off!

For last week's challenge I said I wanted to finalize the design for my X Marks the Spot quilt.  You will remember the pieces have been sitting around sometime now.

So, I started by taking the stack of squares and putting them up on the design wall to get reaquainted. 

Beautiful! 

Stunning!! 

I am still so in love with this line and the concept I started (phew!)

I opened a small sketch pad and started to doodle different ways to connect the squares.  Seeing them on the wall again, I am remembering that the patterns and colors are very strong.  I remembered that I wanted to used bigger pieces and solids to help break up the chaos a little. 

I am still playing with the concept of X's or crosses.  I started drawing them out and realized I had a lot of little holes that weren't filled... I wasn't connecting them in the right way.  hmmm...

Start over.  new graph... free hand lines...

Then it hit me. 

What if I use those tiny squares I made with all the wildness and patterns as the 'center' of the X?  And then I use a mix of solids and large pieces of fandango print to fill in the rest of the larger X?  So, it would be an X within an X. 

In my doodle, the highlighter colors are meant to be either a solid or a large piece of fandango fabric, while the pencil drawn block is meant to be the squares I made (pictured in the beginning of this post).

I started to outline the bigger X's just to get a feel for how the pattern works and I am really liking the effect. 

I also realized that I don't like how an X is cut off or incomplete here.  I am leaning toward adding a border that would allow the arm of an X to reach toward the edge of the quilt.  The border would also fill in a void if there wasn't an X filling the space.

I feel a sense of renewed direction with this quilt now.  I am ready to tackle some of the math to decide what pieces I need to cut... then I will be off to the horses to really start assembling this top. 

I hope you enjoyed a look into my design process.  It's mostly messy.  It's probably unconventional, but at the end it's very much me.  Please tell me I'm not the only one who designs in highlighter and pen (ha!) 

Also, have a look over at Amy's to see what others have completed in one week!

日本のための多くの愛
Much love for Japan

Straight from the Sewing Table

--NEW--

Katie Fiber Art

 

Totally new.  Totally on a whim.  Totally inspired.  Totally excited to add a ton more detail and realism to this!!

--ONGOING--

 
X Marks the Spot 

No real progress on this one last week.  I did pull the stack out of the basket, but really need to spend some time with my design wall to settle on the layout. 

I decided for my One Thing, One Week Challenge with Amy from Amy's Creative Side... I will work on this layout.  Yup, that's my goal!!  Looking forward to it!

Crewel Spring Flowers

Not technically quilting, but I will continue to include it anyway.  Still slow going, but the relaxing aspects of it can't be matched.  I am still working on the third flower of nine.  The reds in this one are so perky.  Can't wait to see what it looks like with the green stems and leaves added in!

Tulip Runner

I thought for sure this project was going to die before it even started.  But, after it's long run on the no progress list I had a break through and spent my FNSI... that's Friday Night Sew-in.... dedicated to making this come to life.  When you last saw it here, the blocks were still without leaves.

I have since finished the blocks -- 12 inches square.  I also picked an order for them and sewed them together -- it's five feet long, ha!  Yes, it's headed for a very big long table.  I am still deciding to add a border or not to add a border.  What do you think? 

And then, I will settle on a backing and get this one sandwiched together.  I should made good progress on this one over the next week!

Bottled Rainbows

I am still waiting for my solids to arrive. 

I have organized my scraps into what I think will be color groups to coordinate with the solids.  I also cut out all 16 plain centers.  I decided to use a nice crisp white.  So, I am ready to go as soon as I have all my materials in hand.  Can't wait! 

Read more about the Bottled Rainbows Quilt-a-long if you like.... or join even if you are thinking of still joining!!

--BACK BURNER-- *cricket, cricket*

You Can Sew-a-thon! - I have picked the next project and will announce it soon!

This Week's Work in Progress (WiP) Stats 

Last WiP Wednesday Total: 6?
New Projects: 1 ~ Katie Fiber Art

Finished Projects: 0
Total WiP's: 6 ~ I added one this week and still only count 6 total? *puzzled* counting... not my strong suite apparently.

---Linking to W.I.P. Wednesday---

日本のための多くの愛
Much love for Japan