Let's Book It, April 2015

A few months ago Sharon was listing off all of the possible places for patterns to use for the Let's Book It and she mentioned the internet, light bulb moment, I have a few (many) quilts bookmarked so that's what I used this month. Here's a link to the pattern

http://www.robertkaufman.com/quilting/quilts_patterns/spring/

All I saw when I looked at that was what a great string quilt.

I didn't follow the directions, just cut the strings the same width they had in the pattern, 1 1/4".

My strings are completely out of control, somehow they've expanded from their usual home to 4 reusable shopping bags, I guess I had a plan at some point because they are sorted by color values. 

This quilt made a small dent in the "brights" bag, was easy to do and I love the way it turned out. 

I'm declaring war on my strings so you'll be seeing a lot more string quilts, hopefully I can have my shopping bags back by the end of the year. 

Think about joining in, I love the "Let's Book It" linky party. 

Later Gators,

Dana

Summer Flowers

Sometimes, just before I fall asleep I'll see a quilt in my head, if I can remember it in the morning it's usually some impossible curving thing that is probably my brain saying I should be painting. 

I remembered this one and I even know where it came from. I've been asked to make a Dresden throw with heavy quilting.

I've never been interested in Dresden's, but I started researching and found a lot I do like. I've always seen them in 30's fabric which is pretty, but has never appealed to me. It's pretty obvious to me that this quilt was my rebellion against working in lighter fabrics, LOL. 

The borders don't wrinkle like in the picture, if I want to lay a quilt on the deck I need to be quick before the terrible twins see it, nothing like all of that white with puppy prints added. David says lock them in, I'd rather be laughing and getting doggy kisses.

The heavy quilting is what was really bothering me, how do you quilt a dresden? For my rebellion quilt (that's what I call this one), I pebbled the purple centers, then shadow (is that what you call it?) the rest of the flower. For the white sections I drew more flowers and repeated the outline/shadow quilting. This thing is really quilted!

Now that I've got that out of my system my future holds a more traditional Dresden. Neutrals, not brights, rounded plates, not pointed ones (my research was for the pointed ones) and heavy quilting. Any hints or tips would be much appreciated. Do they need to be hand sewn when you do the rounded plates? How would you quilt it, with and without sashing (she hasn't decided yet). Would you use the freezer paper method to make the plates? I bought the EZ Dresden ruler, but I don't think that will help me with these plates, will it? As you can see HELP, just help, LOL.

Meanwhile I'll probably make a Dresden or two in the style I liked.

Linking up to QuiltShopGals #CreativeGoodness Linky.

Later Gators,

Dana 

Jazzy Peter

It's said that here in the Keys we have two seasons, tourist and hurricane, one just ended and things are slowing down around here so I'm hoping to get back to blogging. 

I made this just before Easter, when chocolate bunnies were dancing in my head.

I drew him up one afternoon and had him appliqued the next. For the border I used the left over fabric, added a few colors, then sewed it on log cabin style. The yellow background was hand dyed, I just didn't have that perfect bright yellow in my stash. 

Years ago we had two pet rabbits in our family. I was approached by a friend who told me the story of "Peter", he was being horribly neglected and the man who owned him had been reported, but nothing was happening and the abuse continued, which led to a truck pulling up to my house at 1 A.M. just before Easter, three woman I didn't know all dressed in black unloaded a hutch and handed me a skin and bones, cloudy eyed rabbit and left. 

The second one came when David heard about a family who's electric was on the fritz with no money to pay for an electrician. David went by to help out and met a rabbit they had found and couldn't afford to keep. David said his family would love to have the rabbit and took it as payment, I love that man. So, Jazz came here to live. 

I call this guy Jazzy Peter :)

I'm linking up with the Creative Goodness party over at QuiltShopGal's blog (formerly know as SewCalGal). I've been wanting to join in since she started it months ago. 

Later Gators,

Dana

"Let's Book It" for March

I was afraid I was going to miss the link up for Let's Book It for March, I had the pictures ready to go, but finding the time to sit and write wasn't happening. My walking partner broke her ankle, yes while we were walking, and I quickly filled that hour of time with other things, now she's back and I'm having trouble squeezing that extra hour out of the day. I'm supposed to be mopping floors and cleaning, people are coming on Sunday, but I work better under pressure :)

For my Let's Book It I used this:

It's from Winter 2013/14

I had been working on a HST quilt, beautiful but by the end I wanted something quick and easy, so I picked this:

I had a fat quarter of bright batiks I wanted to use and thought this would be perfect with all of the white. 

It was easy and quick to make and I like how it turned out,  BUT the pattern called for 10 inch blocks to start out, then trim to 8 1/2, mine came to 8 1/4, so I ended up with really big trimmings

I won't repeat what I had to say about wasting fabric, use your imagination, but when life gives you scraps you make lemonade or whatever that saying is, so I made more, randomly put them together in a log cabin and make this

I think I like it better than the other quilt. 

I hope you're linking up with Let's Book It, it's a nice no pressure way of using what you already have, I like that, no waste :)

Off to mop, that's probably not true, it's a beautiful day here so I think the terrible twins and I need to enjoy it :)

Later Gators,

Dana