Jo Morton Little Women Show and Tell

Look at these teeny tiny Jo nine-patches in their own little wooden box. Each is a stack of perfect miniature nine-patches in the most beautiful color combos.

Now, this woman amazes the rest of us each month with her phenomenal talent for mixing reproduction prints. Isn't this little basket to die for?

And this is hers, too. This is her choice for an upcoming Little Women block swap. 6" blocks in a pattern of our choice, so we will all end up with a sampler quilt of about 18 or so blocks (since there are three sessions of Little Women).

Oh, same talented woman. These are for "Jo Morton Meets the Easter Bunny", as she says :-).


Two Mini-Nines...

Amazing quilt top. Don't you love the featured central block?

Now is this a perfectly amazing quilt or what? The pictures do not show it off well at all. This was made for a Member Challenge that will be shown at the Bulloch Hall Quilt Guild Show. There will be about 20 of these challenge quilts. The challenge was to do a quilt that is 20" square, using either black or white or both, and which uses some property of the color wheel, i.e., analogous, complementary, split-triad, monochromatic, etc. Is that cool or what? You see she won a ribbon and deservedly so.

If you're considering traveling to see this show, it is always a very, very good show.

Pattern Cover

Phew, I've been working all day long on this cover for my "House Party" quilt that is destined to be a pattern that I will offer for sale. Heavens, what a process, figuring out how to use a tripod for the first time (had no idea how many moving parts there were in a tripod), flooding lights all over everywhere, wondering all the while if I should go ask my next-door neighbor who is a freelance photographer to do the photo work for me, searching through my thousands of .ttf files on my old computer looking for just the right font, shooting stuff all over my house looking for the right background (old book covers, old suitcases, old canvas, old cobwebs, old dirty dishes, old kitty litter...kidding). This particular background is my very old chalkboard by my sewing machine on which I keep lists of quilts to work on. And I don't want anybody to know how long it took me to figure out how to make that little girl with the chalk in her hand.

So okay, the pattern cover is done, but I haven't done all that stuff inside it that tells a person how to make it :-) . I don't suppose that will go very quickly, either. What about if I just wrote inside "oh just wing it and do what you like"?... I like it :-) .

Theorem Painting

Went to the most enjoyable class at the LQS taught by the resident Baltimore Applique teacher, Wanda. Shading in Oil Pastels. All present enjoyed this class so much. The shading is done by smearing the oil crayon media on to the fabric from a window template. Here are my creations.

A classmate, Kathy, was busily making her own sihouette boyfriend; she kindly made the one below for me. A boyfriend! Thank goodness, I've been wanting one of those.

Antique Quilt, Two Quilt Tops Assembled, and Generosity

Here is a little quilt study from a book called "Come Look With Me: The Artist at Work" (click to see enlarged image). Isn't it a wonderful quilt...

So, having pieced Muriel's setting blocks for the BOM Vintage Applique blocks (see below), there I was trying to digitize and stitch out the 13th applique block. I meant to do a slightly different form of one block and flip it, oops, forgot to do the flip, and besides the flower shape I had done was hopelessly ugly, so Orphan Block no. 1:

2nd time, improved the flower shape and remembered to flip, but flower colors were too drab. Orphan Block no. 2:


Got it on the 3rd time around (lower right-hand corner) and assembled the top (30 x 30"):

Those little green squares in the center of the setting blocks are only 1/2". I refused to do blocks that size for the most recent tiny Jo Morton Little Women quilt, electing to do mine at 1" and here not a week or two later, I ended up sewing 1/2" squares anyway
:-). It was so much fun to digitize these blocks this past year and to add little critters of my own or to do entirely new patches, such as the one in the center, the bunny eyeing the three heads of lettuce, and the parrot in the center bottom. So does anybody have an opinion on border or not for this??

Also pieced this 36 x 36" quilt top. Just guess where the fabrics came from: remember when I put out an SOS for the beige Gatherings fabric designed by Brannock and Patek? Well, who should send me the fabric but Linda Brannock herself! And not only did she send me the beige Gatherings, but she also sent five quarter-yards of fabric from her new line, Hemming House, which you see used below (there are a few fabrics from stash in there as well) and which Moda says will be available in March. Am I a lucky girl or what to get to play with preview fabric?? Thank you, Linda!

Two Block Sets

Got the two pairs of blocks done for the next Stars Around the Garden class:

I've had a collection in my stash of these Pennsylvania fabrics but have rarely gotten into them, so this will be a major stashbuster.


Hope the background fabric holds out on this group. I'm scaling these sets down to 9" rather than 12".

Broke into the beige and green scraps/stash:

Stay tuned for the result.

I also have something to tell/show you about the Gatherings fabric that a *kind soul* sent me in response to my plea. Got that last Blockswapper block done thanks to this person but also am assembling a little quilt top with the rest of what she sent me. Stay tuned for this one as well :-).

It's January It Must be Time to Assemble BOMs

Here is my version of the Kaffe Fassett alternate colorway for this past year's LQS BOM:

I did lots of my own block choices, since I was interested in making some new blocks, like the two that have one motif repeated four times, and the tree. The fabric at the side is my original idea for the borders, which I may use (my goodness those cabbages are big), but may bring the top in to the shop to get opinions on finishing.

Had our first Stars Around the Garden class last night; this is the new version of Stash Sisters. We are all going to make some version of this quilt from Bits and Pieces in Michigan:

We're all doing our own color scheme. Some are going to do the applique, some are going to put a feature fabric in the center, some may do a completely different layout of the blocks, etc. Some of us are going to pull fabric from stash, like one woman who pulled fabrics using a Piece o Cake book cover as an inspiration and her fabrics are wonderful. Some people are going to use bright fabrics, several reproduction, one reproduction in red/black/ecru, one batiks, one in pale blues, etc. We went home with patterns for two blocks and the applique for those who want to do that. It will be so much fun to see everybody's color schemes begin to come to life next time. I'm probably going to do antique Pennsylvania prints and scale the blocks down to 9". I also am interested in doing a drastically scaled-down version for a table runner, or in this specific case, bucket bench runner since my destructive little kitties want to sharpen their claws on the delectably soft wood.

SOS for 4" WOF, Gatherings by Patek & Brannock

Pulled gorgeous fabric from stash to make my Blockswapper blocks for LQS and was just sure that there was enough of the beige fabric. There would have been if it had been the four-square color instead of the five-square color. But no. It came up short (incidentally, the pumpkin fabrics below the block are for a little quilt I'm working on). Of course, there's LOADS of the brown fabric.

So Help! Can anybody sell me a piece of this fabric?

It is from the Gatherings line by Patek & Brannock, Moda. All I need minimum is a 4" wide piece WOF, or even 4" x about 9" would do it. I've put an ad on missingfabrics.com as well.
**beep beep**blog update**: a kind soul is going to mail the fabric to me tomorrow! Thank you to all who were searching their stash for this for me, quilters are the kindest ever.

Yesterday was the most incredibly busy day at the LQS, easily the busiest day I've worked there yet, and FUN. Reason: it was the unveiling of the setting choices for the various Second Saturday Sampler block colorways (reproduction, blended, Kaffe, batik, vintage applique). The finished quilt tops were on display, and finishing kits were available for some, patterns for all. It was a phenomenal array of possibilities and very exciting for all. I'm planning to use the main colorway setting suggestion for my Kaffe Variation colorway that I worked on this past year (still not sure if this little brainstorm of mine has turned out at ALL; I'm hoping to get the last block done today and then will toss the blocks up on the design wall to see what they look like together and by the way I would like to set up like three design walls around my house) and will do the inspired vintage applique setting for my blocks (which are 6" and done by digitized machine rather than by hand, so they will not look as delicate as Muriel's beautiful 12" originals but hopefully will have a clunky charm all their own lol).

Today, looking forward to a full day of sewing, and may nothing or nobody interrupt me.

Jo's Little Women - January Show and Tell

Squeak, late for work! Show and Tell from class this week:

Long Arming

My generous long arming friend had me over several times over the holidays to work on these quilts. Can you imagine a person being kind enough to share her long arm setup?? I did meandering on the second two and the very beautiful camellia template on the first quilt:

These three quilts were all done during Little Quilts' annual Second Saturday Samplers and have been all sandwiched and awaiting quilting for...who knows how long :-). But they are done now and I must now do my part to get those bindings on. And maybe even labels, eh?