Day #5- Winter is just around the corner...

...so this past Saturday, one of the rare days Rick and I were both home, we decided on the spur of the moment to go hiking at Bluff Point. We had a glorious time. It's the perfect hiking place- shoreline, woods, hills, etc. And rocks- lots of rocks. You can still see old stone walls that probably once marked property lines- too rocky for fields or pasture in many places.

     I love the leathery browns shades of oak leaves in autumn. And wouldn't this hollow log with lichen make a great fairy house?

    

In the 17th century this was the homestead of Connecticut's colonial governor John Winthrop the Younger.

     And here we have Rick atop a rock.

     Looking forward to our next outdoor adventure.

     On the quilting front, I'm making progress on my scrap quilt. Pictures of that as well as another completed piece may come as soon as tomorrow or the next day. The 6" blocks are all sewn and trimmed, need to be joined into larger
12" blocks. The sashing and cornerstones are all cut. I think I have enough striped fabric for a border, and if even have an appropriate fabric for backing, although I may change my mind and go scrappy there too.


  

Day #4- Hasn't killed me yet!

     Wow! Four consecutive days!
     I had a few minutes to kill before work today, so I ran into my favorite consignment shop, armed with a $1 off coupon.  Five minutes and $7.83 later, this is what I left with.

Today's haul

     It's rare for me to find one, let alone five quilt books that I don't already have, let alone want, so this was a treat.
     Sometimes it's just a theme, or combination of colors, that gets the imagination working.
     I also managed to get a few minutes at the sewing machine early this morning, and again before dinner, working on the new Boxy Stars I mentioned a couple days ago. After reluctantly settling for my second choice for the sashing (all I had left of the "perfect" fabric was a couple of strips) I decided it would work just fine. I'll probably have pictures in by the end of this week.
    

Day #3- Supernova

     Earlier in 2016 I submitted a design to a major quilt magazine. Like Twisted Star, it was a design I had done a while ago, but it wasn't until I changed my color selection, that I decided to do something with it. The Powers That Be liked it, and wanted to hold onto it for a while. Then, all of a sudden, while I was in the midst of other projects, it was "officially" accepted for publication, not in the magazine to which I had originally sent it, but to another of that publisher's magazines.
     Things moved very quickly from there. The magazine would provide me with fabrics, so I poured over the suggested textile companies' websites. Once my box of fabrics arrived, I got to work.
     Supernova was published in the October/November 2017 issue of McCall's Quick Quilts. It's a large (for me) quilt, so I had it longarm quilted (a special shoutout to Kathie at Stitch Chicks in North Franklin, CT for her lovely cloud quilting).

Supernova

Day #2; Three's Company

Making the scrap quilts I posted about yesterday was a great way for me to get over "Quilt Designer's Block". I discovered after they were done I was ready to tackle some of my own new designs once again.
   Design #1 had been languishing on a sheet of graph paper for a couple of years. Once I ditched my original (very uninspired) color palette and thought about using OPM (Other People's Material), things began to take shape. In my bag of "dead lady's stash" was a huge piece of  teal tonal fabric, and a smaller piece of teal and tan bird print. Two fabrics down, two to go. A beige tonal was a no-brainer, even though I begrudgingly had to purchase that. I was still missing one fabric. VOILA! A customer had actually given me a piece of fabric because she was unable to find a suitable coordinating print in a heavier home-dec fabric, and was tired of shopping around. She hadn't even bought the fabric in the first place- another person had given it to HER. The dark mustardy gold reproduction-looking print was perfect, and Twisted Star was born.

Twisted Star

     Somewhere during the process of making that quilt, I played around with the original design. Keeping the same basic block, and using five fabrics instead of four, I came up with a quilt that looked, 3-D, A Whole New Dimension.  I used two values each of two colors, along with an accent fabric.

A Whole New Dimension

     I'm not a fan of doing straight-line quilting, but this pattern called out for some so I forged ahead. The accent squares each have a quilted flower.

     But wait; there's more! Same block, this time only three fabrics and a more modern look. I love this pattern, and thought "Twist of Fate"was the perfect name.

Twist of Fate

   This was another fun one to quilt,with dense loops and hearts on the nearly-white print, and lots of little curlicues on the grey.

Day #1: Alive and kicking!

     Wow! Almost a year and a half since I last posted. I have no good excuse for this, so I am challenging myself by participating in Cheryl Sleboda's "31 Day Blog Writing Challenge". This is Day #2 of the challenge, but as I only found out about it this morning, it's Day #1 for me. Which means I won't finish the challenge until 2018.
    2016 ended with several fall shows, including a new one I had never done before. I also had the opportunity to take a workshop with Bonnie Hunter, and was inspired to put some of my scraps to use in two of her free scrappy patterns. I hesitate to call them "my" scraps, as truth is, most of them were other quilters' cast-offs.
    I made Bricks and Cobblestones for a nephew. The picture isn't great, but it was cold and damp and I wanted to get back inside to my hot mug of coffee. I LOVED making this quilt. and got rid of some seriously butt ugly scraps in the process.

Bricks and Cobblestones

     Of course that didn't make a discernible dent in my scrap pile, so I made a Boxy Star quilt. I didn't realize until the other day, that a year had passed since I finished the quilt, but I had never taken a picture of it. See the bright green piece with the white scallops in the second row down, middle block? It's OLD! My guess is 1940s. I only had a small piece-enough for just one point of one star.

Boxy Stars

    When I make a scrap quilt I have one of two rules. Either I have to make it entirely from my stash, as I did for Boxy Stars, or I can only purchase fabric for the outer border and/or backing (Bricks and Cobblestones).

      Playing with these colors and fabrics was a great way to keep my creative juices going until I came up with some new designs for 2017.

Where's Barbara?

     I'm here. Wow! Has it really been 8 months since I posted?
     The huge scrappy quilt I referred to in my last post has been quilted, and is available as a laminated pattern, as well as an e-pattern on Craftsy. It's a slightly tweaked reproduction of an antique quilt I own. The original is in ugly browns and reds. I wanted to use ocean colors with some pops of sunshine yellow- so much prettier. It's a great way to use all those little bitty scraps.
     I call the pattern "Wind Farm", but in these colors it's obviously an offshore wind farm!  I completed it in time for spring show season.

Wind Farm

Another pattern that debuted this spring was Five and Fabulous! You can purchase a hard copy or e-pattern. This is my third pattern using five 1-yard pieces of fabric. I had purchased the fabric a while back, and got tired of them taunting me. I really regretted buying them until one day, while searching for something on my computer, I came across a pattern I had worked up in Quilt Pro. I barely remembered creating it, but with only a slight change in border widths, I was able to make it work with five yards of fabric. What's more, the Warm Company provided me with a great batting to test, and with a little cutting and piecing, I was able to use it on this quilt. Viola!

Five and Fabulous!

      When my mother saw the finished quilt she said, "Jody would love this." Jody (my niece) isn't getting it, but she IS getting this:

Pineapple Blossom

     This is Bonnie Hunter's "Pineapple Blossom" pattern. I used the scraps from "Five and Fabulous!" with other pink, green, black and white fabrics in my stash. The borders are the leftover backing strips from "Five and Fabulous!" This was a fun pattern and I love the border of pieced triangles made from the cutaway corners.
     I found this fun fabric for the backing, "Chinoiserie Chic" from Westminster. I have enough left over to make a cute bag or two.

"Chinoiserie Chic"

I had a booth at three quilt shows in March and April. At the first one, I purchased a sweet Moda charm pack, and by the third show had created a new pattern with it. "Rick Rack Charm Pack Bed Runner" uses one charm pack and 2 1/2 yards of background fabric, plus a tiny scrap for the butterfly bodies. Bed runners are great for a pop of color on a white cotton bedspread, or as extra warmth for those of us with cold feet. This will be up on both my web site and Craftsy this weekend.

Rick Rack Charm Pack Bed Runner

     After spring show season was over, I was VERY busy at work for several weeks, and the last thing my brain wanted to do was be creative. So I put my spare time to good use working on UFOs.

     This is a remake of one of my earlier patterns, "Star Light, Star Bright." The original was made from floral prints and was too busy for this bold, graphic design. I loved the pattern, but not the finished quilt.  I had long wanted to do a more "solid" version.
     A couple years ago I was asked to make several long, reversible runners - red tonal print on one side, cream tonal on the other. I was left with long (over four yards long) strips along the fold of the fabrics. I started cutting pieces to remake the quilt, and when I was done cutting, I had enough pieces for 7 1/2 of the 12 blocks! I only had to purchase fabric for half the quilt. And for backing I found this lovely floral stripe from Red Rooster. It's so soft and silky it would make great pajamas!
    I decided a while back that I wanted to hand piece and hand quilt this baby! I only had one border left to go, so I dug it out of the UFO pile and stitched it on. How to quilt it was a dilemma. I didn't want to quilt it as separate blocks, as the pattern has so much movement I thought an allover design would be better. Finally I decided since I love free form, free-motion machine-quilted feathers, I would reproduce the look in hand quilting. I chose thread to match the bits of tan in the backing. I have a LONG way to go, but it's a portable project, as well as something to do with my hands while watching television. Of course if I want to finish it in this lifetime, I need to seriously up my scanty tv watching.

Star Light, Star Bright

allover feather quilting

     Next in the UFO pile was my Judy Niemeyer table runner, "Cactus Blossom." I started this in a workshop with Jackie Kunkel two years ago and finally finished piecing it. I have some amazingly gorgeous variegated thread in my stash to start quilting it, but not enough to finish it, so I need to order another spool, which I will do today.

"Cactus Blossom"

     One of my favorite workshops was the one I took with Anita Grossman Solomon, "Anita's Arrowhead".  I made extra blocks and added a border for a large quilt for my tall husband! This is completely from my stash. Still not sure how I want to quilt it, but no hurry! I've got the backing pieced and batting purchased, but it's too warm to use this time of year. Can you tell I'm procrastinating basting this big boy?

"Anita's Arrowhead"

     I love this pattern, and Anita's amazing techniques, so I signed up for her Craftsy class, "Traditional Blocks Made Simple." I sat and watched almost the whole thing in one sitting. I highly recommend this class, which includes an e-book version of her Rotary Cutting Revolution!  (And with that last sentence, I inadvertently gave a nod to not one, but two companies in which I am an affiliate- Craftsy and C & T Publishing.)