H.O.P.E. Challenge

It's actually called the Hope Springs Eternal-Challenge 1 of Project Quilting Season 10.

This is my first season. This is my first entry. This was so much fun to do.

While I have plenty of other goodies in my bag to create and do, it was fun to just park those off to the side for a day and have fun with scraps, letters, appliqué, quilting, and then finding a way to present the finished project.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning. First a decision needed to be made (because plenty of ideas were rattling around in my head), WHAT exactly should be created. Since the ideas rattled around probably a day (or two) longer than should have, a clean and concise project was decided upon.

Starting out:

From the "White" bucket

All my little scraps are kept in buckets on a rotating stand. With the previous project, I was able to reduce all but the whites/off whites (and the browns) down to less-than-overflowing amount. I decided to make fabric out of some of the whites/off whites for the base of my message to reduce them somewhat as well.

Next:

Two blocks down. Two to go.

Making four fabric background blocks to put the letters on.

Oops!

Enough?

I needed to fuse the letters to the background blocks and this is all the fusible that was left in my supply. There are no resources nearby to acquire anymore because we live pretty remotely. Part of creation sometimes is making due.

After working through the fusible shortage:

Making the letters freehand and sizing them correctly

Each letter is individually appliquéd down with a different stitch.

A star stitch for the "O"

After trimming off threads, the blocks needed to be quilted. They could have been done on my home sewing machine, or put onto the long arm. Long arming gets me off my behind, so decided to go that route.

Echo quilting around each letter

After trimming and deciding on how to finish the blocks, a hanger was applied for display. The blocks are left without a formal binding and a zig-zag stitch around each of them was applied instead. I didn't want to detract from the letters and couldn't decide on a binding color that wouldn't.

H.O.P.E.

This will be a gift for next Christmas. I have a son and daughter-in-law who had a child born with a digestive abnormality. She spent her first month of life in the NICU and they never gave up hope on Hannah. She is now a thriving two-year old who loves to dote on her new baby brother.

It was great to use some of the left over scraps hanging around in the studio. It was fun to quickly come up with something and then use many of the resources available to textile artists today. It was not fun losing sleep over trying to decide which of the many ideas bouncing around in my head would be created in a short amount of time, and still be something proud to make, give away, and display. But I think the kids will enjoy having this hanging in their home.

Moving Along Despite the Mud

Yesterday was two-fold. Clean the dog/studio from mud. Piece the striped quilt top. Here's where I was at around 5:00 last night.

The striped top

I still had one more row to go and after Jim finally got home, was able to get the sixth row added. Notice the photo bomber in the bottom right hand corner. I must say. If one is looking to reduce their scrap stash, this quilt will reduce it significantly.

Those buckets behind Hazel were overflowing prior to my starting this top. Each bucket has its own color and Jim installed a rotating device underneath the stand that holds the buckets up. I can easily twirl it around to get to the color needed for whatever is being worked on. The only color still pretty full is the browns and whites since my intention was to make the striped top brighter, and felt the white may be too stark of a contrast.

Not sure what today is going to bring in the studio. Mud recovery is well at hand and there is still plenty to do in that regard.

Enjoying Winter

This hasn't been a normal winter. So far. Freeze. Rain. Snow. Freeze. Rain. Snow. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

While I enjoy the milder temperatures, I do not enjoy a puppy, who likes to play in the mud, during this weird weather pattern we've experienced so far in northern Michigan. And, now she's growing out of her morning naps and has to be amused during most of the first two-thirds of the day. Like now. I'm playing tug-o-war with her while writing in my blog.

But I was able to finish this cute little piece yesterday during her afternoon siesta.

Moo!

I made another one similar to this for Ben a few years back and for some reason, thought I needed to make another for our house. Although, I haven't a clue where to put it now that it's done. 

I want to work on my striped blocks today, but we have more rain in the forecast and more milder temps until later tonight, so getting mud off Hazel and cleaning up her messes may be more in the cards. 

New Year, New News

So, let's get this out of the way first. Here's our baby girl.

Hazel at nearly 18 weeks

Apparently she'll mature at a much larger size then we originally thought, which is okay; closer to 75-90 pounds rather than the 40 we were lead to believe she would mature to.

Quilt Camp! I made this top.

Antelope Canyon

I constructed 36 blocks like these eight. I now have to play on the design wall to get them all together.

Scrap Buster for Sure!

Future project: Katie sent me a link this morning about a Project Quilting thingie. It sounds like fun.

Basically, you have a week to make something "quilty" focused around a word/theme and then post for a chance to win prizes and an opportunity to see what others are doing. I have to ask myself if I really need more things to do and I can't help but wonder just how much I need to make more "little" things that are of virtually no use to me around here. Getting a whole quilt done, start to finish, in a week is not where I want to venture into, and making more wallhangings just isn't what I need around here. I think I need to think about this further.

Puppies

My silly pup decided to challenge the temporary fence she had around her yard. It was temporary after all. And she is growing much faster than we anticipated. Needless to say, we spent last night installing a new permanent fence for her yard. And we made it much bigger to accommodate her size.

Since I was basically on total puppy watch yesterday, I didn't get much sewing done.

The previous few days have just been cutting. And more cutting. And then when a blister formed on my thumb from all the work, I did some more cutting just to hit the point home.

Pictures of cut strips of fabrics aren't any fun, therefore I'll not include any. But I'm ready for our retreat in January and have two quilt tops (similar in build as they are a log cabin-type of block), but it's mindless sewing and easier for me to do while visiting with all my friends.

After the cutting commenced, I needed to do something tangible. Something quick and fun. Something with a little whimsy and sense of humor. I haven't been able to get Ben's cow out of my head for about a week, and found the book I based the cow off of (It's titled 'Out of the Box with Easy Blocks' by Mary Lou Weidman and Melanie Bautista McFarland).

I started it yesterday and hope to have a completed top at least by the end of today. More to come...

New Guild

The quilt guild I belong to downstate is going to be a thing of the past in a few short weeks. My membership expires on December 31. I am not going to renew. It's too hard to travel down and back for a weekly meeting with a five hour drive round trip. I needed to find a new "home".

I tried a guild north of our new place. Twice. But it doesn't seem to be a good fit. The women there aren't very inquisitive about me and haven't really made an effort to get to know me much. I said something to a few of the ladies that work at a quilt shop near me and they mentioned another guild south of our new house.

I tried them out yesterday. They meet weekly too! Every Monday morning at 9:00-ish and you can bring whatever you want to work on in the four (or so) hours you're together. I brought the Witches along to work on (which is hand embroidery) so that I could talk and get to know the girls without having to talk over a sewing machine.

Yesterday was their Christmas party and they actually wanted me in the pictures when that time came. I already feel like I've been with the group for ages. They welcomed me warmly and were curious about me and the family and my quilting interests.

I haven't been in the studio much the past three days. Saturday dad and Charlotte came for a visit. They loved the art piece I made for them. Sunday we were in Kalkaska all day with my mom picking out our new dining room table/bar to replace the large dining room table we have/had that is too much table for our new house. Yesterday I was at the new guild.

I did manage to fit in some cutting time to prepare for our retreat in January and an occasional Christmas Vintage block that Katie and I have been working on for a few weeks now.

Today I plan on taking advantage of the poopy weather day and getting some "real" work done in here. I'll be doing a lot more cutting up of scraps to prepare for the retreat, but that's not all I plan on doing because the back and hands can only take so much of all of that.

Merry Holidays Everybody

May the holidays find everybody not so busy to be able to enjoy their peace, their companionship, and their friends and families.

I feel like Christmas, in particular, has found such a commercialism opportunity and it's not the reason for the season. Even quilting stores and web sites have used the holiday to try to ply you with "deals" and "values". Hopefully this is a trend that won't stay around long.

For my Christmas giving, I volunteered to quilt five charity quilts for the ASQ guild in Charlotte. Five quilts in 10 days. They were delivered on Wednesday of this week (thank you mom once again for assisting in getting them here and back).

Four of the Five Charity Quilts

The fifth one was on the frame when I snapped the pic, but it was orange, orange, orange.

Hazel seems to be getting bigger by the day.

Hazel at 13 Weeks with her "cigar"

She is learning about studio time and self-play. She tries to "help" me in the studio and I have relegated to giving her left over handles from various bag projects so she feels like she's actually a part of my studio time. 

Since she's getting so much better at independent play she enabled me to actually get this finished this week for my father and his wife Charlotte. They are coming later today for a visit and I made this for them for Christmas. 

The photo and the finished project

Here it is a little closer...

This took me about a week to complete

I love, love, love doing art projects! This is probably why I enjoy doing my long arming so much. I get to enhance the quilt with my version of art (since drawing and painting are NOT my thing). Here's what's on the frame this week.

My New York Beauty ready for long arming

I have started putting curly feathers into the outer border, curls in each of the "points", half feathers into both small borders strips, and half feathers into the quarter circles. I haven't actually started quilting the quarter circle points or the spaces between since the art project above took up much of my time.

Katie and I have realized we are less then a month before our annual winter retreat! We look very forward to this event every year, and last year, due to circumstance and weather, we were unable to attend. Barb and Margaret are supposed to come along again this year, so it's going to be very nice catching up with them during the four days we get to sew together.

I'm trying to get all my pieces cut before we leave. Everything is cut for the Antelope Canyon top I'm going to make and am now cutting for a pattern Katie drafted (from a picture no less). It's a rather complex scrappy block, so to make sure I'm keeping myself organized I have devised labels.

Keeping things organized as I cut from my scraps stash

That's about all the news as of late.