Color Predictions 2016 and AHIQ linkup.....

My contribution to Ad Hoc Improv Quilting link up #4

Some of my 2015 projects starting from the right....

More recent work on the left....

My colorful butterfly 2016 calendar, talk about inspiration!!

Pulling out some practice Square in a Square blocks I added sashing and corner stones. The Square in a Square blocks were not all the same size; should I make the smaller ones bigger or the bigger blocks smaller. Smaller won out and some points were sacrificed but I'm all about color and technical perfection ain't my style. And so I offer my contribution to AHIQ #4.

I looked at some of the projects I've completed this year, taking  note of the color journey. Quilts and projects are to me about the color story. Color reminds me of events and places I've been in my life. I always steer to the light and the contrast.

I found this amazingly colorful butterfly calendar and I knew it would be a priceless tool for ideas this coming year. So here's to hope and more color adventures, loving contrast and dispelling darkness! 

Happy New Year to you!!

Happy Holidays......

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family!

Citrus Rose Quilt #1 Squared Up for Binding and Iron Orchid Designs.....

Citrus Rose #1 squared up.

I've been cutting binding and getting it sewn together today. In the next couple of days I'll get it sewn onto Citrus Rose #1, then I'll hand sew the binding to the back and both #1 and #2 will be done. I enjoyed designing them both, some of the fabric I used in these quilts was by Iron Orchid Designs , beautiful fabric. Visit Iron Orchid Designs, they have a great sense of style.

Happy Friday, enjoy the season!

Hand Quilting and Christen Brown Great Crazy Quilt Resource....

Turquoise 3845 DMC

Tuesday, hand quilting Citrus Rose #1. DMC embroidery thread 3845, turquoise, is a lovely color.

Make sure and stop by Christen Brown's blog , she has a new series of classes coming January 7, 2016 in San Diego, Ca, called The Crazy Corner. She also has online classes available. She is an embroidery and crazy quilt artist, she does fabulous work. Her books on embroidery are invaluable.

Enjoy your Tuesday afternoon and stay warm!

Liberated Log Cabin binding color choice...

Interviewing turquoise for binding..

Turquoise or black for binding?

Black it is!

The small version of 'Citrus Rose' art quilt, made with 'liberated' log cabin blocks, was hand quilted and ready for binding. I couldn't decide on color for the binding. Turquoise, orange or black? I narrowed it down to turquoise or black, then black won out. I like the effect of using several borders, using a light-dark-light or a dark-light-dark.  The binding is sewn on and pinned on the back waiting to be hand sewn down. That was my Friday quilting adventure.

If you love color and you enjoy sewing for your special little someone, Jennifer Paganelli's book, Girl's World, is a beautiful book full of inspiration for color and projects, don't miss out!

Have a great Friday!

Bright, Cheerful, Piecing, Hand Quilting...

Hand quilting in progress...

Backing is turquoise.....

How fun is this?

I just had to show you this, so exciting!

This bright and cheerful quilt was designed and pieced by my daughter for my 'full of fun' five year old grand daughter! Miss 'full of fun' is a perfect match for this lovely quilt. 

Also visit Jennifer Paganelli's blog for more colorful inspiration.

May all your best dreams come true!

Hand Quilting and getting into the Spirit....

Hand quilting progresses, I've quilted the grey border since I photographed this.

Merry Christmas cross stitch pattern by Blackbird Designs.

Virgin and Child by G. B. Salvi, Christmas cards by Galison NY

Hand quilting, getting Christmas cards ready and maybe starting a new cross stitch project.

That's what I'm up to this Friday.

Stay tuned, soon I'll post my daughter's quilt in progress, her design and colors and she's hand quilting it, the best.

As Mary said to the angel, 'May it be to me as you have said.'

Getting in the Spirit.

Maintaining my Own Garden...art notebook...

Quote from Rachel Ashwell's book, Shabby Chic Interiors.

Doodles from my notebook.

More ideas from my notebook.

Page ripped from Elle Decor Magazine, stapled in my notebook.

My butterfly calendar, note the colors.

My copy of Rachel's book full of classic inspiration.

Why keep an art notebook? I keep a note book to catalog inspiration and my doodles. Ideas and inspiration have a tendency to fly out the window and get lost as fast as they came. I document ideas from other sources carefully giving credit where credit is due because it's never cool to plagiarize.

This morning I took 15 min.s for 'play time', as in Victoria Findlay Wolf's book, 15 Minutes of Play, Improvisational Quilts.

I got out my notebook and reviewed ideas and got out some scraps and worked out a few things. 

The stage must be set. 

Use what you have, where you are and some really amazing things can happen. 

Art Quilt 'Liberated' Style, design process...

Last night I sewed the outer borders together and decided on black for the corner blocks. After Thanksgiving I'll get the borders and corner blocks sewn on.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, we have so much to be thankful for don't we?

Pam, my blogger friend at Hokkaido Kudasai.blogspot.com , has finished her wonderful, hand pieced and quilted, blue hexi quilt. If you enjoy and appreciate hexi quilts then you must see this one. Pam puts a lot of care and attention to detail in her projects. Congratulations, Pam!

Remember to look in on the continuing projects at Ad Hoc Improv Quilters #3 . 

There's a lot of interesting quilts being made.

See you after the holiday!

Hand Quilting with Embroidery Thread and Four Patch Piecing.

Hand quilting progress on Citrus Rose #2.

Close up...

Piecing four patch blocks

I'm ready to start hand quilting the borders of my art quilt, Citrus Rose #2. The turquoise embroidery thread really works with the whole quilt. Progress is being made.

Four Patch blocks are fun to piece, simple but lots of possibilities. I'm making a variety of blocks for a sampler of 'liberated' blocks as in Gwen Marston's book, Liberated Quiltmaking II . 

Happy Stitching!!

Hand Quilting, Citrus Rose 2, Liberated Log Cabin

Oranges on my orange tree are almost ripe.

Hand quilting Citrus Rose 2 with three strands embroidery thread.

Coffee and black berry coffee cake anyone? Come on over!

Happy Friday! Share a smile!

Celebrating Rain, Green and Beading..

The colors were clear and bright this morning after a couple days of rain.

The mix of greens, yellow greens, reds into oranges is delightful.

See the rain drops? Lovely.

Shrub with berries.

Blue Gum Eucalyptus does its flower thing.

Beading  accomplished here.

It's rained here the last couple of days, it was fairly respectable too. This morning the sun was out

shining and the air was clear and clean. I had to get some photos of the colors to share. So thrilling.

I got some beading done. My needle threader broke, my beading needles are almost impossible to thread without them. I had three more beads to sew down and needed more thread on my needle and the threader wire broke, oh no! So tediously I worked and fiddled and finally got the beading needle threaded by eye and hand. I sure didn't want to run to the store so late just to get a threader!

That's what I've been up to today. I also made dinner and it's on the stove, home made pea soup with lots of veggies and left over roast beef.

Have a great day!

Making more Blocks Arranging Auditioning...

String blocks on a fabulous orange batik.

Remember the four-patch 12" x 12" blocks I took apart? They're rearranged and back together.

They're calling to me....I just have to figure out what they're trying to say.

More hand quilting done in turquoise embroidery thread.

Adventures in color and design and happy Friday! 

Most of the fabric, from the fat quarter bundle I wanted to use up, has gone into 'liberated' blocks and now I'm shuffling the blocks around and auditioning sashing, border fabrics. The orange batik is very bold and eye catching, but it will need a contrasting 'friend' to enable it to play well and not totally over power the other 'players'. There are certain colors like certain personalities that need a handler.

The theme or score with this quilt is that it's a 'liberated' sampler. The liberated blocks take center stage and sashing and borders have to work with the blocks.

More hand quilting has gone into my Citrus Rose quilt. It's got a heavier cotton batting, making hand quilting more work. I've been using Warm and Natural. I'm going to look around for a lighter cotton batting for other quilts.  Mountain Mist makes a light cotton batting. Do any of you have a preference? What is your favorite batting and why?

Rearranging 'Liberated' blocks, sewing strip fabric...

Strip fabric pieced, four square borders etc.....

'Liberated' blocks rearranged. I think I'll use the foursquares as borders.

I began the process of arranging my 'liberated' blocks as in Liberated Quiltmaking II by Gwen Marston, a few days ago. Usually I change my mind several times in the design process and take something out or add a little of this in. Originally I had the foursquare blocks all sewn together in a 12 x 12" square block, that just wasn't working the way I wanted it to. So the foursquares are now separated into borders. I sewed up some strip fabric today and plan on having a little fun using it in borders and or blocks to add to the liberated blocks. 

In keeping with Sherri Lynn Woods ideas in the The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters, about improvising from a score or framework and setting limits, I limited myself to using the 'liberated' blocks I had already made from a set of fat quarter quilting fabric I wanted to use up and adding bright, knock your socks off, batiks just because I can't stay away from them. The black and white got added as neutrals, wow, so much for limits, or shall we say as the infamous Captain Barbosa said, 'They're more like guidelines?'

I'll be sharing more design adventures, see you soon!

Improv projects and 'Liberated' block arranging, AHIQ Linkup #2

'Pacific Blues' #1 & 2 close-up, I like the colors together.

'Pacific Blues' #1 mother of pearl and 'star fish' added.

'Liberated' style blocks arranged in sampler style.

Pacific Blues #1 needed a couple of 'star fish' and some mother of pearl pieces sewed on, I decided.

I want to have 3 in this series to show the moods of the Pacific Ocean. Of course the many moods of that ocean are endless but I figure three, one for relative calm and bright, one for darker, moody and restless and three for a late summer sunset. That will keep me busy for a while.

I've taken some of the blocks I have sewn together going through Gwen Marston's book, Liberated Quiltmaking II, and laid them out on a piece of fabric I'm using as a 'design wall'. I'm going to use that fabric for sashing and flying geese borders. I wanted to get a feel for how the blocks could go together and what I might want to add to fill it out. So this is my progress on improv projects so far.

I get a lot of encouragement and inspiration from all of you other improv designers/quilters at
Ad Hoc Improv Quilters Link up #2

Long live the challenge!

San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles.. Found/Made

Quilt top made from double knits.

Quilt tops displayed hanging from clothes line.

String quilt

American flag in log cabin blocks by Luke Haynes

Entrance display quilt.

Friday I drove to San Jose to see family and the San Jose Quilt Museum exhibit, Found/Made, a quilt collection including quilts from 1940-current. I went with my daughter-in-law and we enjoyed ourselves looking around and talking about fabric, quilts and the memories of vintage fabrics and quilt patterns in our lives. Good time! 

The song, 'Funky Town' reminds me of San Jose. It's a colorful mix of hustle, bustle, palm trees and a beautiful rose garden, San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, right in the middle.

Enjoy something beautiful this weekend, it keeps you young!