Improvising Traditions Quilt

I got together with some friends a couple of weekends ago to work on a quilt top for another friend.

Our homework was to each make a strip a la the quilt in Improvising Traditions. 

 Since the three of us work together we all brought our fabric and 

made selections for the sections each of us were going to sew.  

The three colors we chose were green, aqua and royal.  I got the green section.  

Here are some of my progress shots.  

Seems like my pieces got smaller as I went along.

Yay improv!

This is going to be a pretty large quilt and I could barely get a good photo of my strip!

This is all the strips laid out together.  So much prettier in person!  

With the three of us working all day we were able to get the gray background cut.  

Robin, a graphic artist, was in charge of figuring out how large we needed each element as we were enlarging the quilt to fit on a queen sized bed.  

She had cutting diagrams and everything!!  

We also got the entire top put together and the binding all made.  

We used the gray with a 2 inch "pop" of each color. 

 I went home and got the fabric together to make the back.  A strip of each color.

A finished top!!!

This is the same crew that worked on all those napkins!!!  

We all love how this came out and working together on a project.  

It was determined that we will do this quilt 3 more times with each of us making a strip for each quilt.  We will each end up with a quilt and will have strips made by our friends incorporated into it!!!  

We will all choose the colored strips we want too.

It was a fabulous day spent sewing with my friends.  

Robin's mom was able to join us too. 

 She is an artist and her work is fabulous.  She always enjoys spending time with us when we work.  Now that the work is over it's wine time!!!

Happy Quilting!

~XOP~

Baby Pea Fowl

Yes it is that time of year again.  

We seem to have a million things hatching out over at Long Feather Acre.  

My daughter set some pea eggs in her incubator and most of them have hatched!  

I think they have all been sold already too.  

For the minute we have babies though and they are freaking adorable!

As you can see they are much larger then the chickens that hatched at a similar time.

This little one is only a few seconds after hatching.  Not quite as adorable!  LOL

My daughter bought a webcam and had it in with the chicks. 

 It was fun to watch them. 

 It is currently not operating (she turns it on when she is not using her computer).  

Here is the link for later though

 ustre.am/PhKx

I hope you are having a wonderful week!

~XOP~

WIP Wednesday

I have any number of these to talk about but I will choose just the one...for now.

I am in a swap using Lizzy House fabric for the mini quilt. 

 I have my top all finished but need to make the back and then quilt it.  

I originally put in a pair of red geese but opted for all low volume in the end.  

Just to show you how it changed how the quilt looked.  I really liked the second layout much better.

This left me with a pair of geese so I decided to unpick the sewing and 

sew them back together as a pinwheel.  

(Have you figured out where I'm going with this?)  You probably have, smarty pants!

I am going to put it on the back and *try* to get it close to where the pinwheel is on the front.  

My plan is to do concentric circles starting in the pinwheel to make it look like waves of wind.  

Wish me luck!

Linking up to Lee's WIP Wednesday

~XOP~

My Quilt Went To Market

I know some of you have been following the progress on my Pie Making Day quilt. 

 I am still going to do a tutorial/QAL if anyone is interested, I just need more hours in a day!

I did just get it finished in time to go to market and it was prominently displayed on the table in Brenda's booth at market.

This is Brenda and Jason in their Pie Making Day booth at quilt market.  

Their booth won first place for a single booth!!

You can see the quilt a little bit better here.

Brenda requested we use her fabric for the back too, so this is what I went with.  

Seriously, this fabric is so vibrant.  

The colors were just amazing!!!  I can't wait for the line to come out in July!!!

My little embroidery done with Aurifloss.  

That floss was so nice to work with also.  

It just glided right through the fabric!

I also made a few more Polaroid blocks.  

I'm not gonna lie, I'm actually kind of happy this is done now.  

I do love how they came out and participating in that swap.

I have also been embroidering some quilt labels for my friend, Robin. 

 I finished three of them. 

I like this one the best though.

Lots more to share.  Man I really need to catch up!!

~XOP~

Kara and Dan's Wedding Quilt

I am sorry I have been MIA, but I have had jury duty for the last 7 business days

 in downtown Detroit!  

It was a very serious case and we deliberated a long time but in the end the jury was hung.  

 It was interesting to get to see how things work.  

Even though no one wants to go it is important to serve.  

A truly awesome responsibility.  

Enough of that! 

 Now back to my regular life, so to speak.

I was finally able to gift that purple and gray wedding quilt!!  

I can now show you a photo of the entire quilt all finished!!!  

It was a BEAST of a quilt finishing at 102" X 102".

This first photo is of the top before it was quilted.  The background is really white.

My lawn was the only place large enough to lay it out for a photo!

Close up of the center.  My awesome quilter, quilted the center with hearts.

Of course it had to be inspected and the proper amount of cat fur deposited before gifting!

I used up my entire stash of Kona Ash for the back and 

it still needed a strip of fabric to make it long enough!

Label sewn into the back

Another close up.

I especially love the feathers and "pearls" in the borders!  Right next to the X and O borders!!

 Kara and Dan and the big reveal at Kara's parents home the day after the wedding.  

We were so fortunate to be able to be there when they opened it!

I think they are pretty happy with their new quilt! 

We stayed around while they opened all their gifts and when they were all finished I snapped this 

Collier Studios did their photos and these were two of my favorites!

My beautiful daughter is the first one on the left.

It was an amazing weekend and we were so blessed to be able to share in the celebration!

I have LOTS more to share about the things I have been doing so stay tuned.

~XOP~

Still AWOL

I just realized that I have not posted in over a week!  

I have been sitting on a jury in downtown Detroit for the past week.

I gave to go back today too. We are deliberating.

I will be back soon, I hope!!

~XOP~

WIP Wednesday

  I know I promised some more Shipshewana stuff but this first but it is Wednesday after all. 

 I am *still* working on that gigantic wedding quilt!   

I can't show the entire quilt until after the wedding on Saturday as I want to keep some of it a secret.  I have to say in addition to being one of the largest quilts I have ever made

 it is also one of the prettiest! 

 I will have a difficult time handing this one over to it's new owners.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

I decided to hand embroider the label and then border it with squares.  

The last time I did this I loved how it looked.  

Once finished I used a matching square of solid white and sewed RST, turned it right side too and voila, a finished quilt label! 

 I had some issues with it being "puffy" when I sewed it on the last time I made one so I decided to actually sew lines into this one, sort of underlining the words.  

I like how much flatter it laid. 

 I also top stitched around the outside of the label (no hand stitching that opening shut, LOL).  

So here is the label before sewing it to the backing.

And here it is after with the lines stitched in and the top stitching done.

I did attach it to the quilt by using Elmer's washable school glue and a hot iron.  

I ran a thin line of glue along the outer edge on the back of the label and

 then ironed it down on the quilt.  

This left it so I did not need to use any pins to stitch it down and

 the glue will wash out when the quilt is washed! 

 I hand stitched it in place using a blanket stitch and some lavender embroidery floss.  

I forgot to get a close up of that though.  

I need to do before I gift it though!

I stitched the binding on to the quilt and then pressed it toward the backside.  

Then using the same gluing technique, I glued the binding into place for hand stitching.  

As you can clearly see, I had help from Autumn, once again.

As she was rolling around and bathing on this quilt, she was making sure to deposit just the right amount of cat fur on it to add to the warmth of the finished quilt. 

 I think she wanted Kara and Dan to know just how much she loves them too!

Sooooo much hand stitching to do to get this binding on!  

So far I have done about 6 hours and have 3 sides stitched down!! 

One more to go, hopefully tonight so that I can take some photos tomorrow or Friday.  

Good thing I love these guys!!!

The "Big Day" is Saturday.  

I can't wait for this wedding.  

Kara will be a beautiful bride! 

 It's almost like one of my own getting married.  

Then they are off to PA for her residency in Pediatric Cardiology. 

 Not sure when we will get to see them again in the near future but

 I wish them all the happiness in the world!

Love you Kara and Dan!!  Happy Wedding!!

Shipshewana

Hey there, I can't believe it has been a week since I last posted.  

Life has been a little bit more hectic then normal and 

I really can't see this letting up for all of this month.  

Our eldest daughter asked us to attend a bird swap with her and 

her friend near Shipshewana last weekend.  

We have been trying to get to Shipshe for quite a few months and 

it looked like this was the prime opportunity to do so.  

We decided to go on Friday and do our "usual" things then meet up for dinner with our daughter

 and her friend and her mom.  

First up is always Jo Jo's Pretzels. 

 I LOVE their pretzels. 

 I was even able to look them up for their point value too.  

That helped me to know that I should only eat half of one!

"Horse Drawn Vehicles Only"  Don't see that sign every day!

They were having their May Fest and the fried pie people were there.  

They were making them right there.  How could I just walk away without sampling one?

  I could not do it!!  Mmmmm, Pie!

Worth every point!

I will share the rest of our time there in another post as the quilt portion is pretty extensive! 

 We had to get up at 4:30am (on a Saturday!! You know we love her if we were willing to do that!)  Drive for another 20 minutes to the "swap".  

This way, she assured us, we would get a place to park that was not in the back 40. 

 It was still dark actually, when we arrived.  

This was after walking down 2 rows and I thought to get a photo.  

We actually needed a flashlight to see what they were putting out!

I think the predominant chicken was the Isa Brown.  There were LOTS of those there.

Many different kinds of chickens.  

There were also, pea fowl, Guinea fowl, turkeys, ducks, goats, cows, puppies and 

kitties there as well as some fox kits and raccoons.

 There seemed to be a little bit of everything.

We were on the hunt for a few peafowl.  

This little purple female pea came home with us.  

No name as of yet but she is very sweet and unafraid of people.  

As I understand it, my daughter will be picking up a purple male at the next swap 

(arrangements have been made!)

She seemed to fit in well with the other birds too. 

 We stopped in to see how everyone was doing on Saturday night.

Octavian the second likes to perch on the pen door!

All in all a successful swap and trip to Shipshewana all the way around.  

Quilty version coming soon.

~XOP~