Koi Quilt

So I decided to make a quilt with the winners from last years WK&WGS Koi Show (http://washingtonkoi.org/).  I printed out the winning Koi onto printable fabric, it needs to say washable.  You can find this at places that cater to crafts.  I've gotten them from Jo-Ann Fabrics, and this year I got EQ Printables from the Sewing and Stitchery Expo (http://www.sewexpo.com/).  Anyway then I used my EQ6 software to create a design to put the photos into, and then I started looking for fabric.  A little here, a little there, and finally Saturday I had the red that I was looking for.  Yesterday afternoon, I started ripping strips and just kept going, couldn't stop even when everyone else in the house went to bed. 
As you can see I embroidered the winning category next to the picture of the winning Koi.  I still need to add the year and my initials to the sashing.  The back will be the same blue koi as the outside boarder.  I still need to figure out how I want to quilt it.  It would be fun if I could do a simplified version of a fish all over it, but I don't know if it would look good.  I think I will consult some professionals.

French Braid Quilt

So the woven jelly roll rug got me going, and I pull out this quilt I had bought while still living in Phoenix and started earlier this year, and then I got busy and put it away and forgot, well almost forgot about it.  The problem I discovered is the directions are missing something, cause it is uneven (it angles up from left to right).  It's sort of hard to see in the picture but take my word for it. So I took it apart and trimmed it, like the directions said to do, and well it still does the same thing but now it looks like steps.  I probably should have just trimmed it when I took this picture.  My reason for leaving the zigzags was because I wanted to put a trim around it, and I thought that would create an interesting design.  Back to the drawing board so to speak.  Since I am currently working on this, I will post another picture after I get the strips sewn back together again and trimmed again. In the picture to the right, you can see, I'll need to cut another 4" off the design to level it out.  I hate wasting fabric :(.

Ok, I finished trimming, and then sewed it back together again, and then trimmed some more, (note to self, must make something from the scraps) It now looks more landscape than portrait.  I added a black batik border, that really brought out the colors, but I needed it to be a bit larger, cause I wanted more than a lap quilt.  So I added a strip from the fabric that was suppose to be the back. 
 
As you can see, it now almost fits our king sized bed.  My husband says that if only it were about 3 inches longer here and here, so I'm adding another black batik border around the outside edge.  Hoping it will look like a mated frame.

I now also need to decide what I want the back to look like, it was going to just be one piece of fabric, but I'm not sure if I have enough of it left.

So we tried it out on the bed to see the fit, the husband didn't want his face in the picture so all you see is his cap. :) 

 

On the right is the almost finshed front piece of the quilt.  I ran out of the 6" wide black batik, so I took what I had left and cut it in half, then I noticed I had some left over from the middle border, which just happen to be the same size (3") so I will be sewing another strip to the top of this which will make the frame really pop out.

I have about 8 yards total of each of the fabrics. Not enough of each to only have one color, so I'm using my eq6 to fabricate a design using both.





This is what I came up with for a design.  I'm thinking about trying to use some of my cut away pieces in a sort of crazy quilt block  in the middle.

Woven Jelly Roll Rug

My sister turned me on to this site (Moda Bakeshop www.modabakeshop.com),

I am absolutely fascinated by jelly rolls, especially the batik jelly rolls.  So when I discovered that I could make fun stuff with them, I was excited to say the least. I had some trouble with the weaving but I figured since it was my first time, I would let it go.  I recently found my self with a whole lot of time on my hands, and I needed to immerse myself into a project that would take my mind off of my worries and whatnots.  I finished it in less than 24 hours and it was actually fun.  When it was finished I put it at the front door, and discovered my husband wouldn't walk on it because he said it was too pretty :).  What a complement.  The picture doesn't do it justice, because the colors are real vibrant.  The only thing that I don't like is how thin it is.  It works real nice as a dog or cat pad on the sofa, but for the floor I will want to use some batting to insulate from the cold hardwood floors.

Fabric Art

Ok, so last year I got into dying fabric and making batiks, using stencils, resist medium, salt and other really interesting techniques. I spent most of the winter dying pieces of fabric some fat quarters, but some smaller because I was in a learning mode. I then gave most of these samples to my sister for her stash, (like she needed them). Then after this years Sewing Expo I got more creating fabric ideas, our classes were all on making fabric; (hehe, that really was an accident).
My sister had accepted an order for making 500 cloth grocery bags for her Eastern Star organization, so I pitched in to help. First we hit all of the second hand stores for fabric, sheets, duvets etc. then we brought them home and cut or ripped them into far quarter sizes. I kept some that were plain to dye, and had a field day. I tried all of my techniques that I had already learned and made some absolutely beautiful pieces of fabric. I was having so much fun making fabric, that when I ran out of blank pieces my first thought was that I have a white duvet I could use.
Then I started laughing and called my sister to share my crazy thoughts (she was almost rolling on the floor laughing) I took the finished fabric over to my sister to make into bags. link to pictures on facebook

I then took home some already made bags that where plain brown and needed some spicing up. So I decided to try this new technique I just learned this year using a product called de-colorant. First I tried stencils, they worked fine, but then I decided to try painting. Bet you'll never guess what I painted? Koi of cource :) and lilies.

Exploding Convergence

In April of this year, my sister and I took a class at the Pendleton Quilt Works, we had a blast.  There were four of us all total including our instructor, Johanne Moore.  It was a 2 day class, which was nice, because it gave us time to actually do the work, instead of doing some and then taking lots of notes.  I drove over to my sister's place the night before, then we commuted together into Pendleton both days.  At first I had agreed to do the class just because my sister asked me to.  But I found myself actually having fun, and I learned a lot.  Thanks to Johanne being a great teacher, I believe my piece turned out beautiful.  You should know also that we were to bring our own fabric which I did, but I did'nt understand how to count repetitions, and I didn't bring enough fabric.  Luckily for me; Johanne brought not only enough, but it was Koi fabric.  It was perfect in more than one aspect;  first I'm a koi lover, and keeper; second I already made a blanket for my antique sofa with the same fabric; third I'm a member of the Washington

Koi and Watergarden Society (they loved it).  Anyway my sister and I had a lot of fun poking fun at each other, and at first I think the third lady there thought we were being unkind, and made a comment to that point.  By the second day tho, she and our instructor had joined in the bantering.  Mostly we teased my sister on how much time she spent talking about everything to everyone.  In fact she spent so much time talking, that she was the last one to finish :) Still she did fabulous work as you can see.  Anyway I found a place on the wall at the end of my kitchen to hang my master piece and have yet to remove it and finish it.  My plan is to see if I have any more of the same koi fabric for the backing, then use the same gold fabric for the edging. Ultimately it will probably always be a wall piece, unless I enlarge it.

Doug's Quilt

Took long enough, I was already to start quilting when we packed up and moved home from Arizona back in the fall of 2009.  I didn't even unpack my sewing machine until this year.  Then I had to take it in to get serviced because it was missing stitches like crazy.  Once I got started, it went pretty fast, but it turned out really nice.  Most importantly, Doug loves it.  Now tho, I have 2 new grand daughters, so I'm putting together pink warm wishes and then I promised both my son, and my daughter quilts.  Now I understand how my sister feels :)

Fishbowl Quilt Blocks

I went up to see my sister graduate from College (Diesel Tech / Mechanic) and of course we bought fabric, we went through her stash, and decided to use some of it to make a couple of skirts. They turned out real cute (I'll upload a picture of mine). Also we decided that we would do our own version of quilt block of the month. Each of us would make 2 blocks, keep one, and send the other to each other. Our first choice was the fishbowl block, and our variation was since the block is only a 6" block, we would alternate the block with a solid 6" block and create a 12" block. The only other criteria was the fishbowl was to have fish in it. I had finished mine, and then discovered some really cool fish fabric my mother had brought me from Hawaii, and I had made Doug a pair of boxers with it, but had some perfect sized scraps for the fish bowl blocks. I was originally looking for some black fabric as the contrasing color, but then my eye fell on the rainbow fabric I had bought for bags, and decided it would be a fun contrast since all the colors were already in the fish fabric.