Fabric wood

Today I finished the binding on my "wood" table runner. It's 77 inches long and I always do binding by hand so today's dark rainy day was the perfect time to curl up on the daybed with a quilt, dog at my feet and kitty on my lap watching the drizzle.

It's hard to get a decent photo today, but I love a good brown batik.

The back is flannel.

 

Close up of the quilting. I now have wood grain down :-)

 

I think this would look nice on a light wooden table, wish I had one to take a photo with.

Hadn't realized how crappy my table looked till I looked at this photo..........hmmmmmmm time for a new island counter top I think.

I'm happy with how the wood runner came out thought and will put it up for sale on etsy.

Also finished a couple more mug rugs

 

 

These a fun, easy and let's me play with my novelty fabrics (of which I have many)

Have a great week - Quilt on!

Projects - some go fast, some go slow

I started a new project that will be taking me some time, as it should

Can you tell yet what it's gonna be? I have just started picking the fabrics and it's a slow and enjoyable process. I'll be updating my progress when it happens. But sometimes a girl needs immediate gratification.

Mug Rugs!

So I made this

And this

 

And that led to this

And finally this

 

I consider mug rugs mini quilts, so I finished 4 quilts on my two days off this week!

(I'll turn around so you can pat my back :-)

Have great week!

 

Burlington mural

Yesterday we went to the church street marketplace in downtown Burlington, Vermont to check out the mural that was just finished called Everyone loves a Parade. It is so cool!

It runs the whole side of the alley from the marketplace parking garage exit to church street and was done by a French tromp l'oeil artist.

Samuel Champlain who discovered this region leads the parade.

There are many familiar faces of burlingtonians and Vermonters from the last 400 years.

Snowflake Bently

The staff at Leunigs cafe

Mayors present and former (they forgot Bob Kiss) oops ;-)

 

Grace Potter

 

 

Phish

 

And of course Ben and Jerry (what's Elvis doing there?)

Is he alive and well and living in Burlington?

If you are in the area, this mural is worth the trip (and the first two hours in the parking garage is free)

So it won't cost you a dime;-)

9/11

I wanted to post something yesterday in honor of 9/11 but couldn't think of anything that hasn't already been said until I saw this wonderful art quilt made by Lyric Kinard. I follow her blog and she is very inspirational and this piece touched me. 

We are
ONE NATION
No matter where we came from
UNDER GOD
No matter what name we give Him
With 
LIBERTY 
And 
JUSTICE 
For 
ALL

go to her website and read about this piece here to get the full story - you will be glad you did :-)

storm sky and FMQ project update

Inspiration time

We had a storm last night and after the sky lit up in this weird eerie way, like God had a multi colored flashlight and was pointing it on our house - either that or some sort of toxic waste got loose because everything was bathed in a pinkish orange glow.

 kind of a rainbow without the bow - just all sky

Now for the free motion quilting exercises inspired by Susan Brubacker Knapp

On the right is the photo and the left is my interpretation - I know this is supposed to be for quilting designs but it's my nature to want to make it into a pictorial piece. It's hard to tell in
the photo but there are a million little pebbles
quilted in the background to make the leaves pop
and I outlined the leaves with a thick gold thread
(put in the bobbin)



this one, I learned not to use a thread that it
to thick and cheap because my thread kept
breaking due to so much heavy quilting. The aurifil thread I used on the next piece behaved beautifully. (It's still hard for me to dish out $11.00 for a spool of thread, but really it's worth it)

this also had alot of those little pebbles as
a filler - I never thought I would like them
but they are very effective in this type of thing.



this one is the first I did and my favorite. I didn't realize it when I picked the background and susan made a comment about the fact that it makes the background look like woodsy fauna that is out of focus but there and it highlights the foreground.
looking at it in the photo I can totally see that and will keep that in mind when deciding on future backgrounds - a good tip





I'm sorry the wording on this is all jumbled today - it looks good when I am writing it and then on preview and when published it's all crazy. I've gone in and tried to fix it a number of times and now I'm just going to leave as is - not worth getting frustrated over - I'll save that for when my sewing machine decides to act up on me ;-0

Bringing home the Blue

Blue ribbon from the fair for best appliqué quilt

 

Blue ribbon for best machine quilting

 

I won a whopping $6.00 for each ribbon (can't even buy a yard of fabric these days with that)

But then it's all about the glory, right?

FMQ design inspirations

Sew Cal Gal has a Free motion quilting challenge every month with a new quilting master giving a tutorial. This month is the best one yet since she has one of my favorite quilt artists - Susan Brubacker Knapp. 

Go here to see the tutorial you will be glad you did.

I spent the last two days looking at everything differently - through the eyes of quilting designs.

I took lots of photos - here are just a few.

I have finished one of the bough above - it's not exactly like the photo but then again it shouldn't be.

I love how this came out!
thank you susan for inspiring me :-)