a few of my favorite quilts

(forgot to mention that these are favorites from the Long beach International Quilt Festival)

I'll start out with my most favorite! This is a big quilt -- probably 80 x 80. It's "My Double Wedding Ring" by Keiko Goke of Japan. I love that it's both traditional and modern, and the quilting is wonderful!










Here's a close-up of one bit -- she used a whole bunch of different fillers and doodles, and then added some feather-stitch for an extra treat.





                                            
 Next up is "Concentricity" by Cheryl Lynch of Pennsylvania. Really interesting fabrics and graphics.













Here's a detail:


















This one is "Roses - Sun and Shadow" by B. Lynn Tubbe of California.  It is stunning in real life!

 Here is "A Parliament of Owls" by Carol Goddu of Canada.  I think she might have used something like Julie Hirota's "Art Glass Quilts" technique, but I'm not sure...

One more -- blogger is making me crazy again!  This was one of the Hoffman Challenge quilts -- it's Asian Jade" by Kay Pennington of California. I love that she used the challenge fabric as bokchoy leaves -- they're perfect!

I wanted to add a few more, but blogger has decided not to let me, for some reason...  hope you enjoyed the show!

  

small rant, What a Girl Wants and scrappy Sunday

 The new Blogger editing process is still making me nuts... my signature just sits there at the top of the page and won't move over to let me type. It seems to take me twice as long to write a new post as it used to because I have to keep manhandling the photos and signature block. Please tell me it's not just me! (and why did my margin just change?)

The first photo is a little UFO I just finished. It's called "What a Girl Wants". The strip blocks  are from a swap a couple of years ago, and several of the others are from a much older swap.

Is anyone out there going to Long Beach next weekend?  Every year I say I'm not going to go the next year, but  then I do -- want to meet up for a coffee?

It's still red-white-blue month in the rainbow scrap challenge, and I got this little top put together today. It still needs a border, which I haven't rummaged for yet. 
 

something done

Finally -- I feel like I've been working on this puppy for a long time! It just needs to be washed (with about 5 color catchers, just in case) and then it's a wedding gift for my oldest nephew -- only a couple months after the wedding.

The pattern is "Boxed In" from Jaybird Quilts, but I first saw it on Kate's blog, and she saw it on Scraphappy's blog... aren't blogs the best?

weekend notes

This month's scrappy rainbow colors are red, white & blue. I was wandering around Judy Martin's website the other day and came across her "block of the moment" call Posts and Rails, and decided it would work well for these patriotic colors.  And then I rummaged in the scrap bins a bit and found enough strips for 12 blocks.  Here are the first 3 -- they're quite quick to do! (the blue strips in the photo aren't showing up as blue as they should be...)

And, as promised -- here are my first to Farmer's Wife blocks, #45 and 49

The next two out of my manual-random-number-generator are 71 and 83.

Robin flies home

Several months ago I started a Row Robin with a little Yahoo group I've been with for years... I think I showed my first row of maple leaves on the blog.  Well, all of my rows arrived home a couple of days ago (actually, they're individual blocks rather than rows) and I'm just so pleased with them!

 

I just slapped them all up on the wall, so they'll probably  be rearranged a few times before I decide on a layout.  

I'm sort of tired of regular sashing and cornerstones (I keep saying that and then I do it again) so I'm open to any suggestions for how to spice this up a little, layout-wise!  They're 9" blocks, so right now it's 45" x 54".

Meet Pressiippora!

One of my favorite places to play, quilt-wise, is Paper Panache. Linda publishes paper-piecing patterns, and several times a year there is a free mystery pattern.  They range from sophisticated to silly, and this month is something special.  You answer a few questions, and the result is a "customized" pattern for your own Fairy Quilt Godmother!

Well, everyone needs one of those, so here's mine: Pressiippora

The piecing is a bit fiddly -- after all, it only measures about 12" x 14" altogether. If you need a little magical assistance from time to time, be sure to check out Paper Panache for your own Godmother while the patterns are still free!

Surrender Dorothy

 I've been trying to resist, but it was ultimately futile. "It" is the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt that everyone and her sister seems to be doing. I'm a sucker for sampler quilts.  You would think that after doing Nearly Insane, I would be cured of quilts with 111 6-inch blocks, but you'd obviously be mistaken.


So, I wandered into Joann's yesterday to replace my very old and pitted cutting mat, and look! They had the Farmer's Wife book front & center and 40% off.


I couldn't decide whether to do the blocks in numerical order (blah) or in the order they appear in the book (predictable!) so I got my geek on and made an excel spreadsheet with numbers 1-111 and cut them out and put them in this container that was sitting around empty -- so when I want to make a block I can just pick a number, and then mark it off in the computer when it's done.

I picked two to start -- #45 and #49.  Of course the real question is fabric -- what am I going to make this out of?  I had fun cleaning out a closet a couple of days ago and decided it was time to dig through the box of dressmaking fabrics * and found this beautiful paisley:

I think it might be Liberty, but it's been there for a long time! It's a lovely soft cotton, only 36" wide. Does anyone recognize it?  Anyway, I decided to build the sampler around it.  Stay tuned for the first blocks.

If anyone wants a copy of my spreadsheet to use for your own quilt, let me know.

* I opened up an Etsy shop and listed some fabrics for sale; most are rayon, and they'd be great for  blouses, flowy dresses, harem pants... take a look if you're like to make clothing!