Design wall Monday with Judy

I am constructing a small quilt (40" x 54") and attempting to do a tutorial on it (just to see if I can) at the same time. Here I have horizontal strips lain across the back of my "design wall" couch. I laid them out according to my design. I think.... that this will be a satisfactory layout.

Five sets of horizontal strips will be alternated with four six inch pieced strips. The pieces will be of varying widths from 6" to 1 1/4".

Come on over to Judy's website and see the other WIP's.

http://www.patchworktimes.com/2010/04/26/design-wall-monday-april-26-2010/

Shaggy umbrella plant, marsh marigold

I was walking my dogs this morning when I spotted these blooming in the woods. So I went back home and grabbed my camera and came back with the dogs for a minor muddy adventure. The dogs were happy because right near there someone had dumped a couple of dear carcasses. So I plunged in, literally, and snapped the photo below.

This is Caltha palustris aka marsh marigold. Native to moist areas in the cool northern hemisphere. Very pretty plant but poisonous. It is a member of the buttercup family.

This is one of the coollest plants growing in my garden, Syneilesis aconitifolia aka shaggy umbrella plant. I'll be posting later in the season to show you the mature foliage. It is native to Asia where it grows on dry hillsides. It is happy growing in dappled sunlight near my birch tree.

First bouquet of the season

After being sick and accomplishing NOTHING for an entire week; this is very cheering. Lovely, lovely fragrance.

Tutorial: travel pack tissue holder

The other night at book club, we were tasked with bringing a refreshment that contained eggs. (in honor of Easter) I thought to myself..... Butterflies come from eggs! So I whipped up these little dahlins. A lady from quilt club had passed out instructions on how to complete these little babies so I thought that I'd add some photos to ease the construction.

You will need:

two fabrics

thread

basic sewing suppplies

Some handy notes to keep in mind as you sew: Backtack at beginning and ends of seams and trim thread ends as you go along.

Cut out a 6 1/2" x 8" piece from each of the fabrics and decide which is the outside and which is the lining.

Place Right Sides Together (RST) pin, and sew a 1/4" seam down each of the 6 1/2" sides.

Press seams open using the tip of your iron. (so that it won't put unintended creases elsewhere)

Turn your piece right side out and press it flat along the seam lines.

Topstitch 1/8" from the sewn edge.


Fold your holder in half RST, matching up seams to find the center, use a pin to mark the center of each 8" edge.


With outside facing up, fold each seam into the center RST so that the sewn seam will be touching the marking pin. Remove marking pin and pin in place.


Sew 1/4" seam across both ends, removing each pin as you sew up to it. Sew back and forth across center to reinforce the edges of the opening. Trim a small triangle off of each corner so that the corner will lie nice and flat when you turn it to the right side.

Zigzag, serge, or treat raw edge with Fraycheck to keep edges from ravelling.

Turn right side out taking care to push the corners out.

Place your travel pack tissues inside and voila, finis!

Check out other completed projects:
http://www.amylouwho.com/2010/04/sew-tell-guess-what-i-did-this-week.html

Design wall Monday with Judy Laquidara

Youngest dear daughter requested a wall hanging. I said, "Go drag something out of the stash." Doesn't she have excellent taste; especially for one unschooled in quiltery? Although I now have a design involving applique in mind (machine applique of course)I think I will delete one fabric and add a different one altogether. Can you guess which one? Not telling.

The design is going to have six background blocks.

Above layout or below layout?


I can't stand it. The checkerboard is too random. I'm going to have to go with the
2 yellow, 2 blue, 2 yellow.


I'm linking this to design wall Monday come on over and see other WIP. http://www.patchworktimes.com/2010/04/12/design-wall-monday-april-12-2010/

Interested in seeing how last weeks Violet butterflies turned out? http://quiltingaccordingtoannette.blogspot.com/2010/04/violet-flock-of-butterflies-finished.html

Violet flock of butterflies finished

Here is a detail of the latest creation to spring forth from my head, like Athena. Photoing it from this angle really brought out the sculptural quality of the quilting. As you can see, I used dk. violet thread for the purple bits and white for the background fabric.

Unfortunately the two fabrics on the right photographed much bluer than they are in real life.

Detail of quilting on the back.

As you can see there is a handsome fellow holding it up for me to photo. Well, perhaps you can't see. At any rate, I finished quilting and binding it yesterday. Quilted the heck out of it.

I'm linking up to Amy Lou Who's blog to share with everyone there. You can travel there also: http://www.amylouwho.com/2010/04/sew-tell-march-and-april-bee-blocks.html

Project Linus quilts

The inspiration for this one was "ticker tape quilt". It was designed to be doll size but I can't just follow the directions. Tutorial here: http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=2311

This one I had to tie from behind. I hated to obscure the interesting design with a lot of yarn ends. It would've looked really sharp machine quilted but my goal was to make it a community project so some other ladies and myself pieced some tops and then several people gathered around and tied them.

Sanguinaria, tulip

Sanguinaria canadensis.

A native wildflower with various medicinal applications.

Toxic if taken in large amounts.

Tulipa species.

Violet flock of butterflies

I don't think that I ever heard the word purple cross the lips of my seventh grade art teacher, Mrs. Kemble. There was only the word violet.

She was pretty intense. "We don't draw with that end of the pencil", she would exclaim if she caught you erasing some lines on a drawing.

So...... Dedicated to Mrs. Kemble. Violet cloud of butterflies. Named for the color and the butterflies I'll be quilting into the small blocks.

I'm going to attempt to link up with Design wall Monday.... Here goes http://www.patchworktimes.com/2010/04/05/design-wall-monday-april-5-2010/. Click on the link to go back to her website and view the other WIP.

Annette