And so, let it be Christmas gift making time...

You guys are never, and I mean never, gonna guess what I am making for Mom's christmas gift. Ok, so you guessed it was a runner cuz she seems to get one every year and I used to be the Runner Queen but you'll never guess the pattern. Come on give it a good try. Can't guess, can ya?! I thought so!

Remember those graduated FQ packs from Cherrywood that I got in Houston?

Well, I finally cut into the Madagascar set last night (yeh, I know, only 23 days 11 hours 54 minutes and 5 seconds until Christmas but I am also the Queen of Last Minute) and, wait for it, wait, have you figured it out?, started working on 2" hexies!! LOL - you knew that right?! I hope so.

 

Yeh, I was sew excited to #1 cut into them and #2 make hexies that the pic is out of focus


 The original idea came from this runner I found online which only uses one hexie of each fabric pattern.

I had planned to lay out the fabrics like the following picture but in reviewing the original runner, it appears that the color actually comes out of the corner. ie one block in the corner is purple, the next row is 2 purples, the next is 3 purples and then you move on to color blue. I do think that will look better than my original plan but I plan to make all the hexies and then lay them out before picking a design.

I was able to get the first 2 colors made into hexies last night while watching DVDs so I don't think this will take too long to accomplish...yeh right, you don't want to hear the list of to do's but it might get done on time :)

More Houston Quilts

Hmm...well...I was going to pick a "theme" for today's quilts but I can't decide on one so just enjoy some eye candy...

Houston Classes Continued...

Keep your fingers crossed that Blogger will be a little friendlier...

My second class was Saturday morning and called "Fantasy Flowers." Again we spent a lot of time on the prep work and not the stitching. For me that was fine because I have a "little" experience on the topic but there were some newbies that had no idea what they were doing. I think another hour of class might have helped - the newbies to learn the stitching and the rest of us to get more done on the project. Also, where as I baste in a manner so that I don't have to take the basting stitches out later, she uses freezer paper patterns and must remove the basting to take out the patterns. I think I'll stick to my way but I'm glad to have had the chance to try hers. The real premise of the class was using pieced fabric to create alternative designs within the paper pieced project. The teacher sews strips together and places a certain section of the template along those seams to get the spiralling designs. She gave us plenty of extra strips to go home and play with. AND as teacher's pet for this class, I got to take all the leftovers home. Wootwoot!

Teacher on the far right. Yes, those are my diamond hexies on the display wall along with the teacher samples.

Our class project - we were supposed to learn all three flower designs and the prairie points.

As far as I've gotten on my class project. It needs a good pressing and then to remove the basting stitches and the freezer paper. Luckily the class kit included the supplies to make the rest of the flowers as well as the background and other fancies.

 

Another possibility - leave out one of the "bishop" or jewel shapes for a different flower

Fussy cutting fabric for the center or adding embroidery add plenty more details.

Houston Classes

Wow - 10 comments yesterday - for this little blog that is definitly a lot of visitors. I hope some of you will come back again! I realized I never finished this post. I hope you don't mind hearing more about Houston - I am sure you have been inundated all over blog land with pictures and stories. I do have more quilt pictures if anyone is interested - lemme know...




I was able to take 2 classes at Houston - one on converting a photo to a quilt using fabric and threadpainting and the other on English paper piecing (Teacher was British and she said they call it English Patchwork). Sorry, can't remember the teacher names at this point as all my papers are at home - let me know if you want me to look anything up.

My Friday class was an all day affair titled "Start with a Photo." The teacher provided us all with the same photo of a red barn and the three pages we could tape together to create the pattern. She also told us how to create a pattern for when we get home and begin work on our own designs. The pattern was then traced onto clear vinyl to create a placement guide for the fabric pieces and some of the quilting. We used a light box to transfer the pattern pieces to the fabric and then fused them to the background with Steam a Seam 2 Lite. Mine isn't sticking so well at the moment but I think it's from being rolled up in my suitcase. I can certainly re-iron it but them I'm worried my chalk lines will disappear for the quilting. I'll have to iron a test area first. We spent most of our day prepping the pieces so we didn't get to spend a lot of time on the thread painting but I took a number of pictures of her sample quilt as well as the others on display. She said that her pieces take 20-40 hours of FMQ at the minimum. One of her quilts even took 48 spools of thread. Yowzer! Luckliy she now has a deal with one of the thread companies and trades product for patterns. Lucky her. Superior Threads - If you are listening - I can barter just as well!!



Teacher on the left with a portion of her samples.



This was the teacher's class sample



NO Laughing allowed - this is my class project and it clearly needs LOTS more quilting. At least 19 more hours of quilting according to the teacher.

 



Alright - I've had enough of Blogger's shenanigans...I'll try to put the second class info in another post...

Houston Quilts I would consider making

As of this moment - we have at least an inch of snow with a weather warning to get at least 1 more inch by 5:30pm. I may not have thought to wear boots today but I do have the scaper in my car to clean her off...

Never fear - it is also supposed to be 50F this weekend :)

No plows out yet but I just saw a county sherriff slide down mainstreet, lights and sirens on, trying to slow down but not stop for a red light.





Back to Houston - below are the top five quilts that I would consider making myself. Ok - you know this list is in addition to the quilts in yesterday's post, right?!

This would be my second most likely to recreate. I love feathered stars but haven’t made one yet.

My closeup of this quilt is actually in focus and this is probably the first quilt I would like to make because I think the basket is so different than most I’ve seen.

There were many cat quilts but I do think this was my fav - it's made with thread painting.

Which one would you copy first?

Almost Wordless Wednesday

I missed a few other hotshots ... next time!

What I did do, instead of carting a lot of books around, was to bring large address labels and a sharpie pen for signatures.

(Denise - check out the quilt/ruler in the background - I sew wanted to make that quilt but I resisted the ruler. Lucky you!)

Houston Quilt Show - hexies

Sorry - today has to be a quickie post - lets stick with yesterday's hexie theme...

This was an antique quilt for sale on the vendor floor. A lot like the diamonds I am working on but I liked the setting. I couldn't open it up but I have a feeling it's set as a very large star. Even if it's not it's a place to start when I play with my hexagon graph paper...

I have a lot of 30s fabrics to use up but not so many solids - anyone want to trade something for some 30's solids?

The first day I meandered around the show floor (meandering was the best I could do - didn't care for the show setup and there was no map to carry around) I ran my camera battery into the ground. I can only assume that's why I never got any more pictures of this quilt nor any closeups. When I got back to NY I was completely disappointed to discover I didn't spend any more time studying it... Check out the baskets and the stars and the flowers...

This quilt was quite easy to find and I did spend a lot of time taking pictures of this one. I think these are 1/2" hexies and I just love the way the colors bleed into one another. Up close sometimes you wonder why 2 fabrics were together but from a galloping horse they are just beyond words. I have a lot of closeups that I would be happy to share with anyone who is interested...

Can you believe this is a miniature quilt?? It's made with 1/4" hexies and it looks like a bead has been added to the "petals" of each flower as part of the quilting process.

This is just a quarter of this quilt. The center appeared to be a 4 sectioned panel but I thought the hexie and other pieced borders added a lot to this quilt, especially since the panel didn't have a ton of color. Check out the hot-fix crystals too.

Houston sightings

Sew - today I had planned to post info on the classes I took in Houston. Unfortunately, my camera card isn't playing nice and letting me rotate pictures. How about I post some random pictures that don't need rotating?!

This is the chandelier in the Hilton-Americas Lobby. The glass is made by Dale Chihuly and if you ever get the chance to see an exhibit get there yesterday because his work is strange but oh so beautiful. Luckily the hotel was attached to the convention center by covered walkways over the street. It made for easy drop offs after class or a shopping jaunt.

Speaking of the convention center - I swiped this from someone else's blog as it was taken from her hotel room on a different block of downtown. I am pretty sure this isn't even the whole Center in her photo. This Center is HUGE - supposedly the size of 7 football fields and it felt like it when you realized there was something at the other end you wanted to go back to. To the left side of the photo, in the park, was a "hill" over the entrance to underground parking. On Friday that hill served as seating for a silent movie accompanied by a band playing music. How cool! That park was busy every day I was there...

This is the view from our hotel room looking in the opposite direction. This is a concert venue near the Convention Center. The que was for a Guns-n-Roses concert.

This was the actual downtown area. The skyscraper on the far right appeared as a flat sheet of paper from our position. It was really a diamond but a neat illusion from our room.

These carpets were everywhere in the hotel – just a gorgeous/delicious jumble of color and design.

This 3D world map was in the lounge/café in the lobby area

Huh – forgot I took this picture of PART of the convention center. Can you read the little digital sign? It says “Welcome Int’l Quilt Festival.” Quilt Fest is supposedly the largest convention in Houston.

And last but not least for today, this was taken from a window on the second floor overlooking just a portion of the 1100 vendors. You can see the aisle markers - this is less than half the sales floor.

Shopped til I dropped

Yes, I literally dropped each and every day. Dodging scooters, strollers and gawking shoppers is hard work when there is sew much to look at. Every time I wandered around the shopping area I found new stuff to see, even if I had already been to the same booth. Partly because I skipped some booths that were too crowded the first time but I also noticed new merchandise as the old was sold off.

Do you remember the quilted sweatshirt jacket I made? I hope so cuz I can't find the post where I blogged about it. Anyway...the jacket was made with Cherrywood fabrics and I wore that jacket when I went to the Cherrywood booth. Surprise Surprise - they gave me the little bundle of fabrics for "advertising." There are two 8FQ bundles there, one labeled Kiwi Berry and the other Madagascar, that I hope to use for hexie projects. Somewhere online I saw a runner with larger hexies that was graduated in color from one end to the other. I hope to make at least one of them for a Christmas gift. The bag is Cherry scraps - can't wait to get into that pack.

Yup - more fireman fabric. The quilt needs matching pillowcases ;) I bought enuf to make the body of 2 pillowcases as the firemen but then someone mentioned they wanted to know where to buy the fabric (really hard to find) so maybe I make the pillow end in firemen and sell the rest? The sushi and Asian cat top left and sewing house mice bottom right were just because purchases. The butterflies and yellow cat fabrics on the bottom left were to try fussy cutting hexies.

Gotta buy Texas fabric when in Texas!! 2 FQ with the intention of gifting one - we shall see. I always purchase neutrals so they were a given. The black, red and blue were for the Orca Bay mystery - altho now I have seen so many other color combos online I am kicking myself for not being more inventive.

Yes, there really was a tea booth at the show! What fun to have a little sample. I purchased some Orange Roobibus that smells divine and she told me that my tea might come out bitter sometimes because I was steeping it too long and had too many tea leaves - hence the spoon. The kit on the left, my only "regret" once I figured out exactly how much I had spent this weekend, is a kumihimo starter kit and book. Kumihimo is a way of making braids and I can make round or flat braids. You can even add beads to the braids.

You know I had to buy zippers! A teeny bit more expensive than locally but different colors. The cat scissors are for me and the fish scissors are a gift. My first Zentagle book is geared towards quilted projects. I thought it would be an easy place to start and see if I am any good with Zentangle since I can't actually doodle worth beans. I really look forward to the freemotionquilting aspect of it. The wooden stamp is used to stamp fabric. The demos showed black images on hand dyed or batik fabrics and it was stunning. It came in the little bag. They also had much larger stamps but I felt this was a good place to start.

There is also a picture of the threads I bought but Blogger is having fits so that's it for today...
I also have to go thru the rest of the laundry basket to see what other purchases are hiding. Oh and I think I packed some things in my shoes...

Design Wall Tuesday - 11/8/11

Yup - I made it back safe and sound from Houston but I think I am the most exhausted I have ever been in my entire life. By the end of each day I was just shuffling and stumbling along. One should never shop when they are that tired...don't ask me how I know...

My actual design wall is exactly the same as it was last week. The design wall in my head is a whole 'nother story!!! After looking at 1100 vendors and probably as many quilts, my brain is full of ideas, colors and designs. A huge jumble of ideas, colors and designs.

I was especially excited to see several booth demonstrations with rulers I already have but had never used - now I have several ideas to use stuff I already own. I bought fabric - you knew that, right??!! - for the Orca Bay mystery, fussy cutting hexies and a few for just because. I bought some rulers, needles, pins and lotsa thread. There are even some freebies from booth give aways and classes.

This laundry basket is haphazardly full of purchases and supplies I took with me for 2 classes.

As life gets back to normal I'll be able to write posts on my classes, the vendors, the quilt show, the food, etc. What would you like to see first?