Pam Holland Letters

Pam Holland has a great series of patterns for fanciful letters.  I made three little wall-hangings with them at Christmas this year, one for me and two as Christmas presents for friends.  I loved inking and using colored pencil on the design.  It was also a fun (placemat) size to practice machine quilting, a skill I'm not very good at.

Plan

I don't really have too much of a plan for this space;  there are so many great tutorial websites/blogs and art quilt websites/blogs and fabulous places that help foster creativity, I don't really want to compete with those.  Mostly I just want to share some pictures and thoughts about the projects I'm excited about and working on.  I have a lot of old things to post for a while, and I'll sprinkle in some new stuff too as I get to it.

For the things I've already completed, I mostly have finished shots, but as I start to talk about some of my bigger projects, I may show some works in progress and share some of my design ideas and challenges.  I always welcome feedback and opinions, especially as I try to improve in my weak points.

Happy project-ing everyone!

Book Covers

Back in high school (in our pre-quilting days), my mom helped my sister and I make Bible covers.  They were fairly simple, and a great way to protect often referenced books, especially paperbacks.

More recently, I started keeping photos of my quilts in a small sketchbook and thought that it also ought to have a fabric cover.  This one doesn't have a layer of batting, but does have some raw-edge applique with beading a little bit of decorative stitching.

And then, just last week, my boss mentioned that she wanted to print out some 8.5x11 pictures to give to her far away granddaughter.  She had them in sheet protectors in a regular three-ring binder, so I made this book cover for the binder.  Fun colors for a little girl I thought, and fun colors for me too.  Anyway, the book covers are a super easy way to dress up a book, binder, sketchbook, or whatever.

Eye on the Ocean

This was my first big quilt after the bargello.  It's called "Eye on the Ocean" and I started on it in 2007.  The large center panel was a sarong I picked up in Hawaii, and the border points are made out of hawaiian-shirt fabric I also purchased there.  There's a great chain of about five fabric stores on the Hawaiian islands, we visit them every time we are lucky enough to visit.  I love these colors, they crop up again and again in my projects, no matter how hard I try.  Working with the sarong was a little bit tough; it was some sort of rayon and quite stretchy.  The quilt is almost large enough for a double bed but not quite.  Someday when I have a guest room, it will go on my twin beds with it's partner in quilt-brightness (One Hen, Two Ducks).  This was also the first quilt I ever did on the long arm (my mom's voyager); I can't imagine quilting something this big on my regular machine.  Hats off to the amazing quilt artists out there who do!

Eye on the Ocean, 92" x 65", 2008

Adventures in crazy quilting

When I first started quilting I had lots of accumulated fabric, but very little for quilting.  Most of it was from making clothes or costumes or crafts, so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to try crazy quilting.  Sadly, I had no idea what I was doing and just made it up as I went along, so the end result was, um, less than perfect.  Certainly fell short of some of the phenomenal crazy quilts out there. It was a lot of fun to make though, and fun to see the fabrics and remember the other projects they came from.

Bargello Fun

Ditat Deus, 69x64 2005

Shortly after making the birdhouse quilt, my mom gave me a quilt class as a Christmas present and I enrolled in a bargello class at a quilt store in Tucson.  I had a bunch of fun, and learned so many critical basic quilting/piecing techniques. I'm still not really precise though, and always envious of people who are patient enough to have good points!  It's one of my long-term creative goals!

In any case, I thought the quilt I started in the bargello class turned out pretty nice; I love the colors.  I called it Ditat Deus (God enriches).  That's the motto on the official seal of the State of Arizona, and the quilt reminds me of the colors of sunset in the desert.

Early Quilts

My mom has always been crafty, and as a result so have my sister and I.  About five years ago, she got into quilting and so did we.  I've never looked back since!  My very first quilt project ever, was this paper-pieced birdhouse triptych made using the patterns from Jaynette Huffs fun book "For the Birds: Paper-Pieced Birdhouses and Birdfeeders."

Paper-piecing (or foundation piecing) was so easy that I quickly made a paper-pieced pillow with a Judy Mathieson inspired Mariner's compass (which the dogs have since gnawed on), and this fabulous Christmas cactus wall-hanging from a pattern by Eileen Sullivan.

Sorry for the bad pictures.  More quilts and projects coming soon!