2011 Journal Quilt 17

I was inspired by the color palette offered by 3 Creative Studios.  I made some strip pieced patchwork from my crooked strips and then did a little bargello for my journal quilt.

I used some of the leftover piecing for the back of it.

2011 Journal Quilt 15

I hope no one was expecting a white background behind those flowers, LOL!!!  You know me, busy quilts.  I made 2 more flowers from the little strips and tacked the center in place on all 5 with a bartack on the sewing machine.  I knew I was going to put buttons on as centers so it would be covered up.

I thought about tacking down the ends but decided I really liked the floating pieces.  As I said in yesterday's post, one edge of the tiny strips is selvage so they aren't going to ravel much.

I only wanted minimal quilting so I followed the edge of some of the squares in the printed background.

2011 Journal Quilt 14

I added some more strips to my 'fun' piecing from scraps to make it large enough for my weekly challenge journal quilt. 

2011 Journal Quilt 13

This journal quilt is my humble piece.  I had never made a Chinese Coins quilt and had these little pieces of Kaffe fabric to use.  The trouble is the coins in the right column are heavy and they are tilting the bank.  Oh well, it is done.  I may go back and add more quilting and maybe some coins to take the attention off the tilt.

2011 Journal Quilt 12

After using all of the skinny strips on the #11 Journal Quilt, I then picked up all of the squarish pieces and started in the center with light ones and progressed out in values to dark at the edges.  The base is fusible batting so every piece is partially attached and the rest is floating free.  I started at the outside edge with the quilting and made a square cornered spiral hoping it would still be fairly straight when I got to the center.

You can see the loose edges in this photo.  So now I am caught up with one a week for the Journal Quilts.  I was afraid my creative well had run dry but I shouldn't have doubted myself.  I made both #11 and # 12 late in the day yesterday after rearranging my studio.

I met my deadline..........

The piece I showed yesterday (on left) is my inspiration for this Journal Quilt # 11.  I rounded up some more of the skinny strips and made 'fabric' with them.

It may remind you of my 'second favorite' quilt on my right sidebar.

I made sure I won't continue with this madness of using teeny strips when I have so much yardage to use.  I sent all of the rest of the strips to a friend in California.

2011 Journal Quilt 9

In one of the drawers was a little plastic bag of paper pieced squares.  I knew they were made at least 15 years ago.  In the early to mid 1990's everyone was collecting show pins, guild pins, anything quilt related pins.  There was a pattern for a vest that you could make with squares to put all of the pins on and wear them to a quilt show or guild meeting.  I'm not sure if this block was meant for a vest or a wall hanging, but I never finished making the blocks.  Fortunately I had just enough to cover my 8.5" x 11" Journal Quilt.

I still have a little pile of the papers to piece on, but they will probably get turned over and be used for scratch paper now.

Miscellany again.........

There were inquiries about what do I 'do' with the journal quilts.  For me it is the process of making them, the learning and surprises as I am making them, and my growth as an artist that is most important.  The product is pretty to look at though and I remembered I had this basket that was my mother's when I was a child.  I think it will hold about 40 or more of them and I think it would be nice on my coffee table.  It would be a conversation starter for some guests; others would look at it with that 'what are those?' look on their face, afraid to ask.  I'm a little bit of a rebel and challenger when it comes to guests in my house.  A lot of people don't why I have 9 wallhangings on my walls.  That's OK and I don't have to justify why I don't buy generic pictures to hang there instead.

I finished a third tote so the pile is growing.

This programmed machine embroidery is for another water bottle cozy.  I need to make a few more cozies while the construction is fresh on my mind.

By the way, if your name is 'anonymous' and you have a question for me, there is an email link on my right side bar.  I can't answer your questions otherwise.

2011 Journal quilt 8

After teaching classes 2 days in a row, I needed to do something loose and spontaneous.  I save strips that are too narrow to sew together for a lady who uses them for stuffing.  I decided to raid the bag and sew the strips onto batting and backing, overlapping about a quarter inch.  Then I went into my tiny scraps bin and pulled the little plastic bag with triangular shapes.  I overlapped them so they are like a mobile with each connecting to another all the way from top to bottom.  Everything is raw edge, no fusible, and topstitched with rayon thread.

2011 Journal Quilt 7

You may recognize this one from a few days ago, a found item in the bottom of a drawer.  It is a Cindy Losekamp design and I used her instructions to do the sewing machine fancy stitches to resemble branches and flowers.  I taught the class several times for our local sewing machine store.  It was about 10" x 12" so I trimmed it to 8.5" x 11" to match my other Journal Quilts.

Week 6 journal quilt

I have realized that to keep up with a journal quilt each week, some of them are going to have to be simple spontaneous pieces.  This week I am making a Valentine using 2 pieces of my collection of Valentine and heart fabrics.

The back is strip pieced instead of just one fabric so I had a chance to introduce one more of the heart fabrics.

Friday.......Journal quilt.

While reorganizing a sewing area in the basement last night I found this penguin panel which I had purchased at a quilt show many years ago.  I think it is stenciled and the light areas are a sparkle paint.  With all of the snow and frigid temps we have had this winter, I thought it was appropriate for this week's journal quilt.  The penguin panel was already pinked around the edges so I decided to do the same around the whole journal quilt.

Ditch quilting continued......

A number of you asked me to explain myself after yesterday's post so I'll try.  First, ditch quilting enhances the pieced pattern.  I love piecing and I want to emphasize the pattern I spent so much time making.  If you look at the dark triangle at the left you can see how rippled it is.  The all over meandering gives an even distribution of quilting but the piecing doesn't look so great.

On this block all of the ditch quilting has been completed and the piecing becomes very crisp looking.  I have never seen a good job of ditch quilting done on a frame quilting machine so I would rather do all of the meandering on my mid arm machine, (which holds the layers together just like basting would) and then go to my straight stitch machine and do the ditch quilting.
Let me clarify here that this is the order for frame quilting first and then home sewing machine.  If you are basting and using a home sewing machine for the whole thing, you still ditch quilt first so you don't distort the straight lines of the piecing with your free motion quilting.

Here is another shot of the bubbling and rippling before the ditch quilting is done.  I have never been a fan of quilting that disguises the pieced pattern.  Why bother piecing if the quilting takes center stage; just make a whole cloth quilt to show off the quilting. (Just my own opinion of course.  You are welcome to disagree with me.)  I set the standard for my own quilts, and you can do the same for yours.

We got another inch and a half of light fluffy show early yesterday morning so I spent an hour cleaning off my driveway again.  I was running out of steam after that so I found 3 smaller bins and divided all of my spare parts into 5 categories, all batik strip piecing, all regular fabric strip piecing, crazy piecing, partial blocks and machine embroideries.  

I couldn't resist taking a photo of all of my journal quilts (not journal covers).  I made the top 3 in the fall of 2009 and the bottom 3 this year.  I hope to have enough of these to cover a double design wall by the end of this year.  Why?  Just because!

2011 Journal quilt 3

I took several photos and none show the vibrancy of the hand dyed fabric in the border.

The center was made about 15 years ago to promote a class, and quilted about 8 years ago.  I layered it on batting and added the borders and channel quilted them.

Check out the other journal quilts here.

Just under the wire again......

I am determined to post my 2011 Challenge Journal Quilts on Friday each week.  This is made from leftovers from 2 quilts here and here.

Just in time, Friday Journal Quilt

I joined the challenge to make a Journal Quilt every week.  I don't know if I really will make one every week but I want to try.  There is a button on my right sidebar under Followers that will take you to the challenge by 3 Creative Studios.

I'm starting out my challenge by using leftover blocks from other projects. 

For the back I used a batik that I had never found a use for in any project, so I decided this is a good place for it.  If you like the back of this little quilt better than the front, please don't tell me, LOL!

Vicki had a good idea not to name these quilts or spend a lot of time talking about them.  They are basically playtime fun and a place to try out ideas.

Since I just spray basted my Crooked Cobblestone quilts 1, 2, and 3 yesterday that seemed like the perfect group of leftovers to use for this first Journal Quilt.

Terri mentioned today that she was going to use up spools of thread that are almost empty so she inspired me to find my bag full of ends.

This is one hour of ripping the first try at the stitching on the edge.  I'm not sure if the second try was what I had in mind either but I kind of like the bumpy edge.  I'll decide tomorrow if it needs to be changed/fixed.

Influenced by nature?

When I decide to start playing with my scraps I don't have anything in mind. I just start pulling out the scraps that look interesting and start sewing. My subconscious is evidently influenced by what is going on around me. I made these 3 blocks which I trimmed to 11.5" and I will make a table runner out of them. This piece was smaller so I trimmed it to 8.5" x 11" for another journal page.

Last spring I did some stamping on Cherrywood hand dyed fabric with a copper metallic paint. I have had these laying on my cutting table thinking I was going to use them on some of the journal covers that I made in Aug. and Sept.

I decided one of the coneflower pieces looked good on the journal page.

There were 3 programs in a row on TV last night so I decided to go ahead and finish it while watching/listening. It may need beads or buttons but I will decide that later.

Here it is in the line up with the 2 that I made and posted about last year in Sept./Oct.

Maybe someday I will end up with 12 of these for all of the months of the year but so far all of my ideas have come in the fall.

**************

Dad had his nose cauterized again so we will have a follow up visit in 2 weeks. We were able to get him right in for a hair cut on the way home so we are all ready for the reunion today.

A finish, finally

Last night I finished my September Journal Quilt. This series of little quilts are all about simplicity and clean lines. I have a couple more series in mind, techniques that is, subject matter to be decided. I either have to go back and do August or start thinking ahead to November now for this series. Here is one of the redbud trees in all of it's fall glory. The leaves will fall quickly so I took a photo yesterday so I could remember it.
One little section of the viburnum bush has red leaves. This has only happened about 3 times in the 13 years since I planted the bush. Usually the green leaves just drop off.
I don't know how many of you read the comments that people leave on the blogs, but yesterday one comment really touched me. I showed the preemie layette items that I work on for my church and Jina left me a comment that made it all so real. We are all about numbers at the church circle, how many extra small, small, medium and large layettes that we have ready to deliver to the hospital. We work in a little production line, each with our own task. But Jina made it real for me that these are treasures for the parents. And she was right, we get a generic "Thanks for all you are doing" from the hospital but rarely if ever hear from a parent. Now I will be able to picture those tiny little babies as I work on the pieces and know that I have made a difference.
I am the only quilter in our church circle so I get all of the scraps from cutting the little jackets and I make them into patchwork quilts for the preemie ward.

Maybe a fix

My friend Diane mentioned in her comment yesterday that maybe I could mix some Kaffe fabrics in with the fossil ferns as I increased the size of this Starburst Mosaic. I had some squares leftover from the last quilt to put up on the design wall. I like the 4 on the left but not the 4 on the right. That means I need to pull the most saturated prints and leave out the spotty ones. I think this is what I will do and make it at least 2 rows of stars bigger all around. The center part is 24" square so each row increases the size by 6".


I pulled out a purple batik that had orange squares in it and cut some of them out and pinned them to my Sept. Journal page. I needed to get the orange into the other areas to bring out the butterfly and flower center colors. I have to go to work for a couple days so I will stare at this each night and decide if I am ready to finish it.
The sun is shining this morning so it has to be a good day.

More found items

I was looking for something else when I spied this box on an upper shelf of my fruit cellar. They used to build fruit cellars into homes and retired farmers built my house in 1953. I imagine they probably had food in there. I have quilting supplies in there. Anyway, I found this box and now I have another guilt trip facing me. I used all Fossil Fern fabrics and have this much sewn together.
Here are the rest of the pieces. Now I have to make the decision: is this piece going to be bigger or will I just use those pieces in a different quilt.
I started my September Journal page but I'm not sure what I want to add so it will probably simmer for awhile.
We had rain yesterday and it is gray this morning but the sun should come out this afternoon. We are supposed to have 80 degrees on Saturday, the day of my family reunion.