Project Quilting 7 A Goose in the Monkey Wrench

The final challenge!
You still have time to enter the final challenge for this years Project Quilting.  It is due at noon on Sunday, check out the instructions here.

This was my first year entering this challenge and I have enjoyed it.  Some of my pieces were so-so and some I really liked.  The important part for me was trying new techniques, and the challenge of creating within a certain time frame.  It was fun to see how many different interpretations there were of the same theme. Here are all my entries for this season.

1.  Confetti
2.  Bird Watching Season
3.  All About That Thread
4.  Vacation
5.  Through the eyes of a child
6.  A Goose in a Monkey Wrench


I am inspired by the creativity of these wonderful participants and look forward to watching what they create in the future.

I have never made a mug rug (If you don't know what a mug rug is check here) and since I have a number of other projects I am trying to finish right now I decided to go small this week.  Literally.  We needed to include a flying geese block and a monkey wrench block in our piece.  I shrunk my patterns by 50% to include in my mug rug.

Covering all the Bases

I am starting to like paper piecing more and more.  I paper pieced the monkey wrench and the flying geese but the rest of the block, I just sort of added on here and there.  It shows doesn't it.  I should have taken more time to plan it out.  Not my best work but it was fun to collage together.  It is approximately 8" x 10".  But actually since it is meant to sit my coffee and a treat on, I'm kind of glad it isn't a spectacular piece.

I am calling it "Covering all the Bases" because I also included some literal geese and a monkey.

Don't forget to stop at the Persimon Dreams blog after Sunday noon to see all the entries and vote for your favorite.  Or challenge yourself and add your own piece before the deadline.  It is International Quilting weekend after all so what better way to spend the weekend than creating a new quilt.

Have a Creative Day
Janet

Yeah for Project Quilting!

Just had to share what arrived in the mail today!  So excited.  I won these through Project Quilting.  The aurifil thread colors are so luscious. Thank you, thank you, thank you to Aurifil thread.  I use a lot of your thread in my quilting and can't wait to find a project for these.

I won these prizes for the I need a vacation challenge.

I love the buttons.  I have always been a button collector.  

There is one more challenge left for this year, beginning Sunday afternoon.  I will have to wear this button until I get it done.  This has really been a fun thing to do and I am glad I joined in the fun this year.  Thank you Kim Lapacek at Persimmon Dreams.

Have a Creative Day

Janet

Project Quilting 7 Through the eyes of a Child

                     

This is the fifth piece for Project Quilting 7.  The theme this week is Through the eyes of a Child.  Children's artwork was a recommended source.  I love this theme!  I know when my kids were little I often thought about turning pieces of their art into pieces of my art.  I always said 'someday' when I have time.  Well I guess someday is here!  I'm going to look around the house for more.

I wanted to finish early this week because my husband's birthday is this weekend and we want to go do something fun to celebrate.  I did it!  Done on Thursday, definitely a record for me.  Be sure to check back sometime next week to see all the entries and vote for your favorite at Persimmon Dreams.  There are some amazingly talented people creating these quilts.

I used a charcoal sketch made by my son in I think 5th or 6th grade.  It was easy to find and one I always liked.  I framed this one a long time ago and had it hanging on the wall.

I like these two fabrics, I found them at JoAnn fabrics, I really did not have anything in these colors.  They are both designed by Tim Holtz ECLECTIC ELEMENTS.  The lighter one is called Symphony and the darker one is called Ledger.  I liked the musical connection in the background fabric.

This was very fun to make.  It was completed on my Bernina as were all the quilts I have made for Project Quilting.  I can't wait to make a few more.  It might be fun to make a whole quilt with a dozen individual pieces of art, I'd better start looking for my saved box of art work.  I knew there was a reason I kept all those treasures.  This one I kept true to size, it is about 19" x 12".

Have a creative day!

Janet

Project Quilting 7 Vacation

I am calling this quilt Unexpected Treasures in Unexpected Places.  When my family goes on vacation we are all about new experiences in new places.  Sharing these treasures with the people I care about most in the world only enhances the experience.  While I wasn't on vacation when I found this treasure, I was with a huge number of people from my family.  Yes, this really is most of my brothers and sisters and my nieces and nephews.  If you look through the gap in the people, you can see the trestle bridge in the background, just beginning to light up.

My husband suggested I add a little police car with flashing lights at the end of the bridge.  Our car was almost towed because there were too many of us to fit all the cars in the tiny parking lot.  (They have built a bigger parking lot since we were there.)  One of my sisters suggested adding a bike, since it is a bike trail.  Another sister suggested adding my two kids from this picture.  

I didn't think I could get any of the extras done by Sunday at noon.  I may add one or the other at a later date.  Don't forget from noon on Sunday until Thursday or Friday you can vote for your Project Quilting favorite.  Please be sure to go and look at all the entries they are spectacular.

This is the photo I used to create my pattern, I took this one while I was there.  It was fun and a challenge to create.  It has raw edge appliqué, paint, fabric paint sticks, the white lights on the trestle beams are from a t-shirt iron on that you can cut to whatever shape you want.  This one is a little bigger than my other challenges.  It is 35" X 29".

If you ever go to see the bridge be sure and stay until dark so you can see the lights.  This photo is blurry but it gives you an idea of how spectacular the whole bridge really is.

The scenery along the way is beautiful as well.  You can look up more about the bridge here.  

Have a creative day

Janet

Project Quilting 7 All About That Thread

I wasn't sure if I was going to enter this weeks challenge.  I've been working on a couple of gifts for people, and a mystery quilt as well as a block of the month.  I really like these challenges though they are getting me back into the creative aspect of quilting.  It's fun just to be a part of something with so many creative people, hopefully a little will rub off on me.  I really enjoy making traditional quilts too but the design of an art quilt is somehow rejuvenating.  So, when Friday arrived I just had to make a quilt for the Thread challenge on Project Quilting.

This is a photo of a postcard I made several years ago.  It was donated to a guild in Ireland to be used as part of a fundraiser for breast cancer research.  I made two others at the time but this was my favorite.  Here is a link to that post.

I severely underestimated my sewing time for this but was able to finish all in one day.  I used a hand dyed velvet because that just seemed to go with roses and Valentine's Day.  I plan to use this for a Valentine's Day gift.

I drew the pattern on some water soluble solvy and pinned it to my fabric.  First I outline an area with a straight stitch.  It is easy to get confused as you are sewing so having the stitch guidelines helps keep me in the right area with the right color.  I fill in the area with a small free motion zig zag stitch.  This photo is from the postcard I made but I did them the same way just on a different scale.  Postcards are about 6" by 4".  This is about 10.5" by 8" without the border.

Once it is complete I soak it in water to dissolve the solvy pattern.  So it was dry this morning (Saturday) but I could tell I hadn't rinsed it very well, it was still tacky in spots.  So back in the water it went, which of course meant no sewing for awhile.  But, that was ok since I didn't have a fabric picked for the border yet anyway.

I had an awful time figuring out what to use for the border.  Every thing I tried seemed to clash.  I dragged my husband (he is really a very good sport and has a good eye for these things) to the store so I could get a second opinion.  We found a couple of choices that were ok but not very exciting.  I happened to run into an old friend, Mary Jo, who suggested green.  I hadn't even considered green but guess what, it was just what I needed.  My husband found this fabric and with just a touch of pink in it seemed like the perfect choice.  kind of gives the impression of leaves.

I just wanted it to look a little like a picture frame, so I hope you like it.  Don't forget to click the Project Quilting link at the top of my post.  You can see all the amazing entries and vote for your favorites.  You click the heart to vote and/or click the photo to be transported to their blog to see more about the entry.  Enjoy!

Have a creative day

Janet 

Bird Watching Season Project Quilting

I did better this time making my quilt for the challenge.  The first one I finished at 2:30 in the morning!  I am too old for late night quilting!  This one I finished by 9:30.  Yeah. I got to bed on time. 
Had to wait for morning to try to get a better photo, the light helps.

I also started earlier in the week this time. I thought about it for 3 
days. Gathered materials for a day and a half, and then I started to 
sew.  They are each only 11.25" X 9.25". I made four so didn't want to go big.

I love watching birds in my yard or at the local parks or the zoo.  I 
am always snapping photos.  One of these days I may even be 
quick enough to get a photo of those few hummingbirds I 
occasionally see.  The bright colored cardinals are one of my 
favorites, along with the Orioles and chickadees.

I pieced in the rays of the sun to try to show the heat of a hot 
summer day.

I cut up a sample piece of fabric I bought at JoAnn Fabrics a long 
time ago.  Every now and then you can find samples from their 
home dec department on sale.  I knew it would come in handy 
some day.  It made perfect raindrops for my spring day.  I also added a female cardinal.

I added snow and icicles to the bare winter branches.  We have very defined seasons in "Minnesnowda".  I tried to show how the birds hunker down and puff up their feathers when it is cold.  It really does help them stay warm

For fall I have the leaves being blown right off the tree.  Love the 
autumn colors, red, yellow and orange.  Wish they stayed on the 
trees longer.

On to the stitching, winter

Spring,

Summer

And fall (anyone else feel a song coming on?)

Now for the binding, winter

Spring

Summer

Fall

And all four together!  I used beads to attach them to each other, may have to tighten them up in a couple of spots or add another in the middle, but I kind of like this look.

Have a creative day

Janet