Pillows

Here are the pillows I've made so far.  A friend has offered to lend me a small love seat for my art quilt  show in May. I will throw a quilt over it and display the pillows on it.  I also plan to do the same thing with my rocking chair. It's good to fill up a bit of the floor space as well as the walls at a show.

Art Quilt Show

I am back from Australia, almost over my usual long flight cold and getting over jet lag.  Getting there is not half the fun.
I have been asked to do a quilt exhibition in our local gallery for the month of May.  I want to show mostly quilts with words. I may also make some pillows with words.  This one is my first attempt.  There is not much contrast but I don't mind that when the word is Dream.  It may end up being too large for a pillow though and could  possibly become a wall hanging.
I am very happy to be back at my sewing machine, although I did enjoy my travels a lot.

 I have not fallen off the face of the earth, just gone around to the opposite side of it. I am in Australia visiting my daughter and her family for six weeks, two of which have already passed. I have been busy enjoying the beach, wonderful food and a couple of birthday parties.

You can probably see from the photos why I haven't been spending much time sewing or blogging.

Enjoying Mazatlan

Sunset from our balcony.

Delicious food, this one a plate of assorted Mexican treats.

Shrimp and  beef skewers.

Ribs to die for, with pork and  beans and cole slaw.

Shopping treasures.

 Huevos rancheros.

Mazatlan

 I am on holiday in Mazatlan, Mexico with my daughter-in-law, two granddaughters and one of their friends. Of course, the first thing  we did was eat and what better choice than tortilla soup.

 This is the beach right in front of the condo we have rented.

 You can find great deals on mani/pedicures here so why not give it a go?

Lunch yesterday was excellent but I forget what it was called. It was tortillas stuffed with eggs, bacon and smothered in that delicious sauce. Yum!

Borders

This morning I put the inner and outer borders on so this quilt is now officially at the flimsy stage. As soon as I get back from my holiday I'll sew together some gray for the backing and quilt it. I think the borders really finish it up nicely. I must say I'm very happy with this one.

Food and Fabric

Two friends came over yesterday and we spent some time organizing the words on this quilt.

Then we collaborated on cooking the evening meal. The chicken was amazing and the squash was filled with quinoa and raisin stuffing. Wow!

Fabrics, Fabrics

My friend needed curtain fabric so I agreed to go to a fabric store to help her choose some. Big mistake as I well knew.  They must have just re-stocked their $3.99 sale shelves because there were many interesting fabrics there yesterday. These ones came home with me. I particularly like the three batiks and of course I can never leave dots on the shelf. The white has small embossed roses so is more interesting than it looks in the photo. Now I have a LOT of new fabric to use but I'm going away for most of the winter.  Oh well, there will be lots of inspiration when I get back.

Almost There

I need to add a few more short words or phrases to fill in the spaces and I'll be  ready to assemble this one. I'm planning an inner border using all the colors of the letters and then a wide outer border of the background gray. I really, really hope there are no spelling mistakes!

Remnants and Words

 I have been writing fabric words for the last few days for a Meditation quilt. The phrases are from the works of Jon Kabat-Zinn, originator of the Mindfulness course that I took awhile back.

Brenda bought me this bag of remnants when we went to Faye's Henhouse fabric store in Mayville, ND. When I unwrapped them, I discovered that they were all third yard and quarter yard cuts from gorgeous fabrics.  Now, what to do with them...so much fun deciding.

More Words

I made another phrase this morning.  There are lots more to go if this is to  be a throw sized quilt.

A New Start

I have started a quilt using the words and phrases from the Mindfulness course I took this fall.  The bottom words show up much better in real life. If you notice any spelling mistakes please alert me. The sewing machine has no spell check!

Fabric Shopping

I finished this one on Friday. The only word I'm a less pleased with is NOW because the yellow is a bit too bright. I may make another one or take one of my Shiva paintsticks to that one and dull it down a bit. Or look on it as the most important word.

When I folded my fabrics last week I realized I was very short of red and had only one piece of purple. Yesterday in Fargo I went a little way toward curing that problem.  The green piece is obviously neither red nor purple but it was just too beautiful to resist. Some of the fabrics are from Mill End Textiles in Fargo and some are from Faye's Henhouse in Mayville, one of my favorite quilt store in the world.

Breathe in Brown

I finished the letters with the same fabric but with a brown background.  They show up better than the photo would indicate. It was already quite dark when I took the picture. I like the B better in this version but the A not as much.  The cross bar doesn't show up as well. Still the message is there. Tomorrow I'll quilt and back it and start on the words.

Done!

I finished this one this afternoon. It is just pinned up until I can get a curtain rod that is long enough. The wall is actually bright yellow so all the colours are a bit off.  I think I'll start another one with a dark brown background.

Keep Breathing

I am almost finished the words. I'm thinking the last one will be gentle, as in "Be gentle with yourself".
Of course, I could make lots more words and not hang them all at once. This could be an on going project.  I have pretty well decided that I will use buttons and make a loop on the top of each word with some round black elastic that I have. I'll use fusible fleece instead of batting in the words so they will be stiff enough to hang properly with only one loop.
I am really liking this project now and I may have to make at least one more, maybe in brighter colors.

Breathe Some More

The basic banner is finished. Now I want to make some words to hang from it. I did LOVE in different fabrics, mainly because I don't have enough background fabric to make them all the same as the banner. This one might be too different but I'll  make a few more words and see how they look. I'm thinking of doing some sort of hanging system so I can hang one word if I want to focus on that particular feeling, or many words if I wish.  I'm thinking of either buttons on the front or a strip of velcro on the back of the main banner. The velcro would give more freedom for the placement of the words. I could then make some of them horizontal if I want to use a long word or a phrase. I already have a long list of possible words so stay tuned.

Breathe

Sorry about the bad lighting. I have it pieced together and it's nearly six feet long. That should get the message across. I am debating the idea of making smaller words vertically to hang from the bottom. I'll make one or two to see how they look. I thought of dream, love, relax, calm, and other words like that.

Starting to BREATHE

Today I started the letters for the BREATHE  wall hanging that I have been planning for my Yoga space. These letters are about 12 inches high. My usual size is about 2 inches so it's a bit of a challenge to get the  proportions right. I'm not satisfied with the R. The slanted part is too cut off but I may be able to repair that without making a whole new letter.  Also I'm not sure about the blue bars on the B.                                                                         

Daisy Quilt

I got this one pieced together yesterday. I will need to find some backing before I can quilt it so it's on to the next project.

Elkhorn Resort Mini Vacation

I went to Elkhorn Resort at Riding Mountain National Park for a few days with my family. This is a picture of the part of the crew that went for a hike. We also had a spa/massage afternoon and did a lot of eating. We stayed in fully equipped cabins so were able to do our own cooking. It was a beautiful time.

On  the way home we made a slight detour to stop at the quilt store in Plumas. They have such interesting fabrics including a package of Beatles fat quarters and lots of Australian fabrics. I was hard put to get only two of those. I also couldn't resist the word fabric but have no idea how I'll ever use it. A close runner up was a piece of jelly bean fabric.

All Cut Up

The quilt is all assembled on the design wall except for the borders. I decided to go with the striped fabric since I had nothing that looked better in my stash and I'm trying to curb my fabric addiction right now. (Not very successfully, I might add.)
I'm thinking I might add several borders but I'm not sure what color the first border should be. I'll audition the daisy fabric first.
Meanwhile, the Miles Davis quilt is now off the frame waiting for binding. First I have to find the fabric I want to use in the mess that is my studio. Maybe it's time for an organizing session.

Daisies

I have the Miles Davis quilt on the frame and half quilted so I thought it was time to start a new top. This is just on the design wall so far, no sewing done. I'm thinking I want a more clear red and I'm not sure about the stripy squares in the sashing. I do love the daisy fabric and I wonder if the stripes kind of overpower it. I have some dot fabric that I will audition before making a decision.

No Mistakes!

Today I finally got the rows all sewn together and the borders on. The next step-off to the quilting machine. It was meant to be a wall hanging but ended up about 65x80. There's no telling what will happen when you start one of these quilts.

Moving Right Along

I am almost done the piecing on this one. I need one more row of the random patches. I have a pile of half finished ones at my sewing machine so that won't take long. About half of the rows are already assembled. Then I will add a fairly wide border so it will be easier to quilt. The frame doesn't really like all those seams along the edge. It's so nice to work on a quilt that has No Mistakes!

Fabrics

I had several JoAnn's coupons that expired yesterday so it made  sense to make the trip to Grand Forks for more fabrics that I don't really need. However I did need new rotary blades so that makes the whole trip worth while doesn't it? I love the blue daisy fabric and got the green, yellow and blue to match it. I got three yards of black because I am out of black and find I use a lot of it. The black and white fat quarters are for an eventual black and white quilt.
I think it's time to get in gear and finish the quilt I'm working on so I can start something new with these gorgeous fabrics...

Yesterday I went to Winnipeg to pick up my son-in-law, Matt, at Perimeter Airlines. The lucky thing about that is that I had time to spare and Northwest Fabrics is only a couple of blocks away. I scored all of these fabrics for $3.99/metre. The last one has tiny gold stars on it. I love the blue with yellow dots the best. It will be soon time to start a dot quilt. The brown may work for the back of the Miles Davis quilt so I got three metres of it.

Getting Wordy

I added a couple more words today. I still need at least one more to balance the bottom row. It will have to be a short one. Right now I am thinking of Awe but that's not exactly what I want. I'm sure the right one will come to me...

Words

 Today I added the first word. I also plan to add Wonder and Enthusiasm and possibly others if the quilt doesn't get too big. Right now it's about 50 inches across and I'll probably add a border to stabilize it for machine quilting.

This is one way to organize your scraps. This is the third tub I have filled. Where do they all come from???

Putting It All Together

My studio and blog have both been idle  for too long.  Today I started assembling the top of the quilt. The words are put together but I need to get that whole section the same size as a row of blocks. That will take a bit of cutting and adding but I will get there in the end. I was going to make some more words but this morning my cutting table was a huge pile of scraps so I made more scrap blocks. I may sweep them all into a tub and start the words tomorrow.
All those blocks and the scrap pile is just as big as it was before I started. Go figure.

I got the words sewn together and started arranging the blocks. I need a lot more blocks and I may add some more words like Enthusiasm, Curiosity,  Innocence...

Miles Gets Credit

I have finished all the letters for the quote. I may re-do the D since I think it looks a bit small.  Then I'll add spacers, a hyphen and a period.