What have I been up to?

Well lets see I have about two more weeks of summer before school starts. I have opened up the laptop and started working on the Science curriculum. I have the calender with what I am going to do each day for IS1, done for 12 weeks, except three days in the middle. I have the first 3 weeks mapped out for Chem 1, so not bad. I still have to write two new worksheets for my chem course but I am hoping to borrow those from the other Chem teacher. But more importantly I have been spending alot of time in my study piecing.

First of all there is Patty's Quilt:

The details:

Pattern: Around the World

Fabrics: Out of stash (Yea), except I had to buy more of the pink because I was one square (Yes, just ONE 5 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches) short. The fabric line is called Scrap Bag Treasures for the flower prints. Then there is two batiks and two moda prints.

This quilt is for the office manager at my high school. She has decided to take a position at the district office, at the end of this past school year. I will miss her greatly. She is a fellow quilter and was always happy to see each of the quilts that I make and show off some of her pieces. I know this decision did not come easy so I wish her the best of luck. The quilt has a green inner boarder and I am in debate with myself if I should do a 4" outer boarder of the larger flower fabric so I started the next quilt. Which turned out to be the Butterfly Snuggle quilt of the last two postings but I got ahead of myself (it happens alot). I usually only like one quilt on the ironing board at a time but this rule has gone out the window for the

Second is my daugther's Quilt: Butterfly Breeze
The details:

Pattern: Yellow Brick Road

Fabrics: 1/2 stash :) & 1/2 new purchases :s

Colors: Pink, Lavender, white and a bit of light green

Main focus fabric (and outer boarder once I get there): Butterfly Breeze by Lakehouse.

OK so the name is a little tongue in cheek, for the quilt was not a breeze or blissful to make. It is a whole lot of quiet pinks and lavenders with a little bit of green and white to keep it from being monotonous. I cannot stand to look at it right now so the boarders will get put on in a few days. There is only so much quiet that I can stand and I have reached my limit. So I went against my better judgement (again) and started the next one.

Third is the quilt on the ironing (drawing) board: Cat's Chaos

Details:

Pattern: Yellow Brick Road (Yes, Again)
Fabric: 3/4 stash and 1/4 new

Colors: Yellow, Orange, Fushia and Purple

Main focus fabric (and outer boarder): Day Z by Lakehouse

This is using the same pattern (once I get in a rutt I sometimes stay there). Last year (or was it two years ago?) I purchased a set of beautiful hand dyed fat quarter pack. I washed them, ironed them and then lovingly put them in my stash, not knowing what to do with them. So when Cat said she wanted a bright quilt I pulled them out and with the black and brights that I had left over from Catastrophy. The colors are anything but quiet. She wanted a bright quilt and I think I can honestly said she will get her money's worth. I have sewn together all the blocks. I am on the third row out of 8 to put together the center. I am then going to put on purple or yellow inner boarder and then the small daisy outer boarder and it will be complete, just in time for her to go to college with it. She received a good sports scholarship (tuition plus room and board) for softball at a two year community college in California. She is going to be a pitcher for them next year. I do not know what I will do without her as my primary baby-sitter.

Butterflies: Round 2

Ok so before I get hip deep in a quilt I did not think to make (not that this was a bad thing just not something I would like to repeat on a daily basis. This is a picture of the fabrics that I am planning on using for Butterflies. There is a total of 18 fabrics 9 pinks and 6 purple and 1 green and then 2 mixed. 6 are dark, 6 are medium and 6 are light. Well this quilt is going to be balanced at least in the planning stages.

"I LOVE IT"

Well B got her quilt and promptly said "I love it!" As shown by the fact that it has been washed twice in 24 hours. Once after the quilting before I gave it to her. The second time was because she got pizza sauce on it that the dog tried to clean up but only made it bigger. But then again the motto of my quilts are: Love, Use, Wash, Repeat. Add in a little of the Cashmere and Silk Fresh Downy to the wash (it smells like a combination of vanilla sugar cookies and apple blossoms) and and you have the perfect Frebreze commercial. Todays adgenda is: I need to go finish the laundry, clean the kitchen, mow the lawn, and then wash the dog. Then I can come back in my study and play with the new fabric that I picked up yesturday to finish the bed quilt. Ok, the dog may not get a bath but dogs are suppose to smell like a dog, Right? All things that I have not done because of working with fabric this week.

Well to wrap this post up and stop procrastinating even more then I already have, the quilt that was not supposed to happen, is greatly loved and I have even come around to the fact that it matches the personality of the recipient and will be well used and loved.

B's Snuggle Quilt

Ok you know the story of how the baker's kids always goes hungery.... Well, the same kinda goes for my daughter. She is three and this is her first from scratch quilt that I have made her. I have made her little baby quilts, the type that are made from leftover blocks of quilts the I have made before. Either the blocks just did not fit with the rest of the quilt so I had to make more, or I made to many in my zeal of block heaven (can you say math errors). She has also had multiple gifts of quilts from good friends, usually with strange names like: Acid trip, Puke me up Pink, Electron Cloud, and Picnic in the Park. All of her baby quilts are very bright, it hides the stains better. Well the colors of this quilt, as you can see will fit in very well with the rest.

This snuggle quilt is a complete accident. I am making a twin sized (sedate) quilt for her bed. The focus fabric being the Lakehouse Butterfly Breeze in pearl. With the main colors being pink and purple. If you look closely at the quilt you will see three squares that do not have any green in them. And those if they were a meal would be Mac and Cheese. Nice, filling and kinda bland (but in a good way). That is what the volume level quilt was supposed to be. Well I wanted to add a "bit" (three fat quarters) of not purple or pink. My best friend always says "Lime green is a neutral" and normally it is. But, this time it decieded to change the quilt's feel entirely. So I did the same thing with the blocks as I would in my classroom with an adnormally loud student. I seclude them in the front beside my podium so that I can give them the attention they need. And to also keep the other students from bending to the desire to talk out of turn, pass notes or do strange things with the chemicals in the lab. So I secluded the blocks, and gave a strong idea to tossing them out (most of the fabric is from my stash so it would not be that much visible cash in the circular file.) That idea was being debated in my head: do I toss the blocks because they are not playing well with others verses my love of bright colors and they might work with the right boarder and quilting. My daugther walked into the room, looked at the ironing board and said "Pretty" and then "I am chilly" which is code for I want to wrap up in a blanket. So her Snuggle quilt that was not supposed to happen occured. I decided to back it in lavender Minkey fabric as this is a Snuggle quilt (this is the first quilt that I have used Minkey) and the batting is Warm and White (I have half of a roll of this in my closet because I use it so much). This should lend itself to a warm, bright, and chearful quilt that is great for the rainy winter months. And though it was an accident some times you just need a little hot sause.

Monkey Buisness

Oh how I love being a teacher. I have two words to say... Summer Vacation. I love my students and teaching them not just about science but how to be a responcible adult (or at least a little closer to being a responcible adult.) But one thing I love about summer, other then nap time, is the chance to finish projects that I have the best intentions to get done during the school year there just is no time to do them. This past christmas I said that I would make up some jungle themed panals for my daughter's pre-school. The panals are hanging between the two year old room and the three year old room. There is a half wall with plexie glass at the top and the teachers are good about keeping the kids busy. But when has that stopped any little kid from looking. And of course any kid (or most adults for that matter) thinks that the other room is more fun then what they are doing.

Well, I have three done and this fourth one took a really long time to finish. The panals are of an elephant, then a tiger, then a zebra and now a monkey with a lizard popping out. Well my daughter just turned three and now is in a new classroom at preschool so she won't get the chance to enjoy the monkey one but they tie the classroom togther. You need to remember that I claim very little artistic skill being that I am a SCIENCE teacher and not an artist. But I think the panels came out really well for free-handing the animals. The vine does not carry through to the zebra but with the amount of time and the skill level that I have I think they turned out OK.

Cat-Tastrophy and Winnie the Pooh

This is the quilt that was in the bottom of the basket for my niece. A big pain the the butt. The pattern is found in the book called "Season Sampler" by Cabbage Rose and the pattern is called Razzle Dazzle. I called it Cat-Tastrophy becasue I fussy- cutted in each of the diamonds there is a cat. The finished quilt is about 57" square. This quilt was a strech for my sister because she is not a fan of black and brights but that is what babies see first. My niece and siter did grow to love the quilt but it did spend some time in the bottom of her closet at first. Now it goes every where she goes on vacations and that is what she sleeps on in the hotels.

This is the next quilt that I gave A. Something that was more in my sister's color scheme. But even with being a theme and color scheme that my sister enjoyed it spent some time in the bottom of the closet. Why who knows. But it did get the "Dellos stamp of approval".

This is a very simple "Trip Around The World" pattern. There is two prints and two solids with 3 inch blocks. I did X quilting in each square and then bound it in the pink. The backing was the larger print and the fabrics where purchased at J's fabric store.

A loves both quilts and they get lots of use out of them. The Bunny quilt will go on her "Big Girl Bed" and I will post a picture of the finished product.

A's Bunnies

So here is the story of how A's Bunnies was created.

About 4 years ago when I had just moved from the mid-west (Chicagoland) to the "Rainy City" I was invited to a baby shower. My sister was pregnant with her first child, and it was going to be a girl. (She also lives near the "Rainy City" also.) Well, like most quilters I asked her what the theme of the nursery was going to be and she said that she was going to do the Ceramic Farm building Bunnies and that no-one had purchansed anything from her registry. So I went on like the internet shopper I am and purchased the crib bumper along with a great stuffed bear. Well if that was not enough (because we quilters are overachievers) I also made a quilt that went into the bottom of a basket, that I quickly sewed a liner that matched the bumper. I was going to assist in spoiling the niece even before she got here.

Well a few years later, A graduated from her crib to a "big girl bed" and my sister asked me if I could make A a quilt from the bumper. She gave me back the bumper. Well I looked and looked at the bumper and asked what it wanted to be. Elaborate plans came to mind because in the bumper there were only 10 rabbits. And I did the math and that left me with a few options. Option A: a throw size quit to have at the bottom of the bed- not acceptable. Option B: a every other block patern- possibly a irish chain of some sort- acceptable but the final quilt would have ALOT of white. And though alot of white is acceptable on a quilt it shows the dirt and this is for a 4 yr old. A is a very neat and quiet little lady, she is still 4 yr old. Option C: Go to the internet find another bumper and have then 20 bunnies and do a large border around each block. And as you can see that is what I did.--Don't tell my sister.

I have to devote a paragraph to the border. Not normally I don't really put that much into borders. They are the things that frame the center, not alot of thought or energy goes into the border. Sometimes I do a thin inner border of a co-ordinating color of a darker shade, then a thick outer border of a larger print found in the quilt. But other then that there is no real effort put into a border. This one on the other hand called for something fun and unique. And when I think about bunnies I recall the tale of Peter Rabbit. And where would the story be without a fence to crawl under. So I built a fence. The fence is not from a pattern other then one pictured in my brain. So here is how my thinking went:

1: the blocks had to be the same width as the blocks in the quilt finished 13 1/2. The center bunnie is a 8 1/2 inch square. The largest I could use from the bumper. Then the block border is 2 1/2 inches because I can get four strips across using that width on my Short Cut (my life is ruled by by rulers). Then there is a 1 inch finished yellow strip inner border. OK so that is the center of the quilt but the blocks I thought for ease needed to be the same width as the center.

2: The rales to the fence. Finished three inches wide. I cut stripes of fabric. Green (grass) Raw: 2 inches. The I needed white (2) Raw: 2 inches. Then blue Raw 2 1/2 inches. Then sew those together using a .25 seam allowence and press the heck out of it.

3: The pickets. Finished 3 3/4 (To make the block 13 1/2). Cut 4 1/4 wide white strips and then cut the length to 9 inches. Then cut 1 1/2 inch square blue fabic to make the "Dog-Ear Picket". The french picket comes to a point.

4: Then sew the blocks together.

5: The corners. One of the pickets is a normal picket the rale is a 2 1/2 inch wide section and the end post is a 9 x 4 1/4 white block followed by a strip of green and then blue.

6. sew the end post top: 2" x 5" piece of white with the same Dog ears as the pickets then sew a blue 2" wide piece to the top of the rest of the fence sewn together. This is the almost there stage.

7: PRESS

8: Hold your breath and sew it to the main part of the quilt using the continous block method.

Done.

I am going to bind this using the green to make more "grass" but I will post a picture of the final quilt when I get it back.