Machine Quilting

This is my set up in the basement for machine quilting. I also have a studio on the main level. I feel very spoiled that I have so much room in which to work, but it wasn't always that way. I used to have a little corner of the dining room blocked off with a screen. Both kids got married the same year and I instantly had a studio and a guest bedroom. Then I started cleaning up the basement and I had room to have workshops with 8-10 people in them. The quilt I am finally quilting is "Jewels in the Grass", a paper pieced pattern by Karen Stone. I made part of it as the class sample, probably in 1998-9 and then it sat in a box for years. Last year I decided to finish it and early this year I basted it. Then there were the leftovers.......
This is the first piece I made with the tiny leftovers from the paper piecing. It is 8" x 12" and was one morning of pure joy, lost to the world in my creativity. The second piece I made is the postcard size piece below.
The whole quilt top before basting and quilting.

Photography

This is the house I grew up in. I lived there 17 years. My dad was an amateur photographer and we went on lots of outings to state parks, flower shows, etc. so he could take pictures that he hoped to enter in the Photography Club shows. I'm sure he took a lot of them just because he wanted to too. He developed his own films and printed his own pictures. Our bathroom was the darkroom. On developing night he would give us fair warning that NO ONE was going to able to use the bathroom once he started working. I can still smell the developing chemicals and see the little 2 or 3 frame ends of film that would be left in there. This is my favorite picture of me that he took when I was about 10 or 11 years old. I don't know where the red coat came from because I never had new clothes, just hand me downs from cousins and friends. The reason I know I am probably 10 or 11 is because I am holding my Brownie camera and my older brother and I got them for Christmas when I was 10.
I don't know which state park this is in, I just remember my dad needed a picture of nature to enter in the show and he wanted a spot of red in it. When my parents moved out of state, my dad sold his darkroom equipment and cameras to my son who is now our official photographer. He also developed and printed his own pictures as a teenager and the basement bathroom is still painted black.

Africa, from a zebra's point of view

The leftovers! When I finished making #9, I had most of the brown strip pieced triangles left over. I started playing with them on the design wall and then searched through my stash for a focal fabric to use them with. I found this African scene fabric and thought it would work so I started cutting it up. I soon realized I didn't have enough of it to fussy cut the scenes going in the right direction so I went to my stack of African fabrics and found the perfect two to complete this quilt. When the piecing was done it was just missing something. That is when I added the zebras that seem to be peering into the scenery of the quilt.

For commercial print fabric lovers

Here are some close up pictures of blocks from Prismatic Garden #10. I love commercial print fabrics and hand painted batiks. I look for the ones that will give me the most painterly look when I combine them.

Prismatic Garden Design Time

This is how I design these pieces, one triangle at a time on a flannel wall. I thought I might have something good going at this point and continued working on it all day.
At the end of the day I had created a piece this size. This is one week later after piecing some more strip sets in med-dark range because it was too spacey looking. I am still not completely happy with it. It is still just triangles on the design wall so I can take it all down and start over if I want to. I think the reason I am still unsure about this one is because my strip sets aren't as multicolor as in previous pieces. I may just need to sew another 20 strips.
This one isn't considered part of the series because it is a playtime thing. I took all of the leftover triangles from one of the projects and sewed them together. Then following Wendy Hill's "On the Surface" book I did a ton of stitching on it. It would make a great table topper.
A close up of the stitching, and below the back of the small quilt.

Prismatic Garden Continued

This is the view from the bottom of my basement stairs looking at my largest design wall. Here is my next piece in the beginning stages. More on that tomorrow.

This is second big piece I made in this style. It is #9 in the series and is the same size as #1. It is a lot darker than #1 so I still trying to recreate the first one in my next piece (in progress). I still own this piece and it hangs in my "sunshine yellow" guest/computer room. I look up at it every time I am at the computer, and analyze it.
This one is #10. I had it hanging in my bedroom for several years and it was the first thing I would see every morning, with my fuzzy vision before I put my glasses on. I really like a lot of the fabric combinations that I used in these strip sets and I go back and look at if often when I am starting a new one.

Prismatic Garden

Continuing from yesterday's post, the one above is Prismatic Garden 2. I thought I had named it Midnight Garden, but when I found my information from a show it had been in, its name is Part Sun, Part Shade, Acidic Soil. It was sold at the show, so again all I had was a slide so this one too has been changed to digital by my son.
This is best picture I have of this one. It was made from the leftovers of several of the previous pieces. Since I don't even have pictures of some of them, I'm guessing from memory that this is about #8. I no longer have this one either so I can't get a better photo. Lesson to myself: always take the best picture possible, I may need it later.

More tomorrow.