Saturday, January 28, 2017

A Japanese Craft + 3 Quilts

I lived in Japan for 24 years. That's where I met my husband and where we raised our children. Part of our hearts are still there, in Japan, with our Japanese friends. We received a gift at New Years from one of those dear friends, Hiroko Sueoka of Hikari City. She is very talented in the craft department and is often sending us beautiful things she's made.

These are "Hana Kago" translated as "a basket in the shape of a flower":



Each one is made from many colorful origami papers.



She included detailed instructions on how they are made and some pre-folded papers, as well as some extra origami papers.



Here's some of the different designs she's made. They look to be published in a book:



I finished the binding on my Lego quilt. It took about a week, since it's 97" square:



And here is a baby quilt I quilted for Tracy this week. It features these adorable woodland animals:



I quilted it with a pantograph called "Butterfly Garden". It has butterflies, leaves, swirls and hearts.



The back has all kinds of loving words on it--very sweet:



And quilt number three is my En Provence quilt. I finished assembling the blocks and put on the final border this week:



I did make some changes in mine. For comparison, here's Bonnie Hunter's original En Provence quilt:



Grace & peace!

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts
Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday
Confessions of a Fabric Addict,
Busy Hands Quilts
Love Laugh Quilt
Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework
Sew Can She
Kathy's Quilts
Patchwork Times
Em's Scrapbag
Sew Can Do

Saturday, January 21, 2017

4 Quilts

I've been working on 4 different quilts. The first is my Lego quilt, also known as Momentum, made from leftover 1 1/2" strips. I'm working on flipping the binding. It is 97" square.

 

Next up is Wendy's beautiful quilt. It's all batiks. I quilted it with an edge-to-edge design called "Americana Flourish". The pattern she used is by Glad Creations Quilt Block in Minneapolis, called Birds In the Air.



This is Julia's quilt. She modified a Jacob's Ladder block and sashed it, with colors to match her bedroom. We decided on a simple meander.



And my own next big project--putting my En Provence Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt together. I have many more units and blocks to go, but hope to get working on it, now that my Lego quilt is together.



Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts,
Busy Hands Quilts,
Fort Worth Fabric Studio,
So Scrappy,
and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Grace and peace!

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Sew Many Scraps

Ever since Christmas, I've had my momentum going on my "Lego" quilt and have the binding sewn on the front--almost finished! Here it is on the design wall, still being rearranged and short 9 blocks:


It's made from 1 1/2" strips I've been accumulating for years. After sewing, the strips finish at 1" each. I squared up the blocks to 12 1/2", finished to 12". 

I started by choosing 60 different fabrics for one block--I tried not to duplicate any fabrics within each block. Then sewed them into 12 strips, and arranged them on my mini design board. Here's a block in progress:


At the beginning I had more strip choices, so the blocks were color coordinated, like this aqua and red block:


And this yellow, orange and pink block:


22 blocks have "color" words on them, and are to different degrees color coordinated:







My newer fabrics are brighter, so when those got used up, I had to dig back into some older scrap strips. That meant rearranging quite a bit on the design wall, to get a good mix up of bright and dark blocks. Here it is, arranged and sashed on the design wall:


Next up, quilting. I chose to quilt it with "Figure 8" quilting in light grey thread:


And here is the quilt--binding is yet to be finished. 97" X 97" finished, 3500+ pieces:


Now that my design wall is free, I'm going to get back to work on my Bonnie Hunter En Provence mystery quilt. I'm making a few slight changes, and have several more parts to make:



Grace and peace!

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Sayonara 2016! Yōkoso 2017!!!

Welcome 2017!!! My friend, Paula, of the Knitting Pipeline Podcast, did a review of her knitting projects for 2016.  What a great idea! So here's a review of the quilting I've done in 2016:

Client quilts quilted:  77
Charity quilts quilted:  5
My own quilts quilted:  24
Total quilts I quilted in 2016: 106

Of my own 24 quilts, here is the breakdown:

1 Queen size quilt
7 Twin/throw size quilts
3 Baby quilts
10 Wallhanging/Mini quilts
3 Tablerunners

I have quilted 301 quilts since I first got my APQS Freedom longarm sewing machine in June, 2012. Number 301 was a client quilt I quilted on December 31, 2016.

Two of my quilting highlights in 2016 were, winning 1st Place Viewer's Choice at our Dakota County Star Quilters quilt show in April, for my Bob & Weave quilt--made and quilted by me, from Strip Your Stash, by Gudrun Erla:



And getting Honorable Mention in the Modern Category at our Minnesota Quilters quilt show in June, for my Tsukubai quilt--my arrangement of Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks, quilted by Angela Walters:
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