Easter Monday

Last fall I found myself making a Halloween quilt shortly after Halloween. The pattern is repeating itself this spring.

I know I haven't shown it to you yet but the Dr. Seuss quilt top is complete, and I caught up on my Bead Journal Project as much as I could over the weekend. So this morning I found myself without a specific project to work on. I was toying with the idea of making some string blocks when this UFO popped into my head:

If you double click on the picture above you should be able to see that there are Easter prints in the wacky log cabin blocks. Better yet, here's a detail shot:

The blocks were created when my children were in grade school. I don't even want to think about how long ago that was! Most of the blocks were made in a class. Eventually I made enough to create this top, which measured about 37" x 49" when I pulled it out this morning.

I've pulled this out before, thinking I might make more blocks to make it bigger. I could never quite get up the confidence to do that I guess, and the top always went back into the closet. Today when I put it up on the design wall I could see, all of a sudden, what to do without having to make more blocks.

I decided to treat the whole top as a giant log cabin block and went round the four sides with one inch strips one more time, yellow on two sides and pink on the other two.

I'd been hanging onto some yardage of one of the prints used in the original set of blocks. At this point I got that out to see how I could put it to use. I debated whether to use it to create a pieced border of some sort but first I tried it as a wide border.

No, that's not good enough. But the prints is large enough to work as a border and I wasn't really wanting to spend a lot of time piecing a fancy border. Maybe another strip to frame up the interior?

I auditioned several colors and prints. Nothing really worked for me until I came across this stripe. It doesn't appear in any of the blocks but it works with everything else. And it did a great job of separating the border (the bunny print you see above) from the blocks.

It's still a small quilt, only 49" x 61" or so, but it's bright and fun. Once I get a back made for it and get it quilted/tied it will live quite happily with my four granddaughters who are also bright and fun (read loud and busy!). Maybe in time for next Easter? ;- )

2012 Bead Journal Project

I made such good progress on the Dr. Seuss quilt the other day that my mind was free to turn to other projects I have on the back burners. One of those is this year's Bead Journal Project.

Late last year I thought I knew what format I would use for this year's BJP. Then, at the beginning of the year a whole new concept came to me. There aren't many rules for the BJP (which is one of the reasons I like it so well) but one of the few is to pick a format - the size and shape of our piece each month - and stick to it. So it was important that I find something I could live with.

In the past I wanted each BJP piece to be a stand-alone piece of artwork. I have three year's worth of those now and storage becomes an issue. My plan for this year was to bead on six inch batik squares that I would then assemble into three or four little wall hangings. My intention was to go with a fantasy or fairy tale theme rather than trying to journal specific life events. Choosing a subject each month has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the past so I thought working from a theme would be helpful. It would appear to have had the opposite effect. All of a sudden it's April and I didn't have a single piece even started, much less finished, for this year's Bead Journal Project!

Then the other morning I woke up with an idea for a new format for my BJP. I'll still be beading on six inch fabric squares and assembling them into one or more little quilts but I've discarded the fantasy theme. The first thing I did was play around with sizes and set up three foundations for beading. I had a pretty clear idea what I would do for January and March. Unfortunately I didn't have appropriate beads in stock for March's piece. And something about my foundation for January kept me from starting in on it...

When I realized that I needed a calmer background for January everything fell into place. I had cut a 6.5" square from a text print Quiltdivajulie shared with me. Yesterday I swapped that out for the same fabric I'd used as the background in the swap quilt I made for her.


And what I ended up making was a sort of replica of the swap quilt:


At the very bottom of the rick-rack heart I used some beads also from Julie. Hurray!

Here's a shot of my beading area just before I cleaned it up all the way. I use the ceramic paint palette as a bead palette. The glass bowl currently has the bead mix I worked from to fill in the bottom point of the heart.


I rarely use the leather thimble you see in the middle of the ceramic palette; it just never got put all the way away the last time I did use it. You may be able to see that there's an accumulation of stray beads in one of the sections of the palette. Eventually they will go into a little baggie in my bead stash and become the ultimate bead soup!

Back on Track

Quiltdivajulie offered a couple of suggestions last week when I got stuck on this Dr. Seuss quilt. One of them was to put the "Readers Are Leaders" block under the reading child block and then treat them as one large unit, a central medallion of sorts. That would have been easier to do, perhaps, if I hadn't already made the child reading bigger than "Readers Are Leaders."

I also tried out this arrangement, after I'd framed what had been the lower right corner block with the same black prints that are used around the bigger blocks.

It just didn't feel right. But framing that smaller block up was helpful in one respect. It distributes the black more evenly across the surface of the quilt top.

The next thought I had, after putting the blocks back where I originally had them, was to take out the prospective 4-Patch checkerboards and replace them with the flying geese units that were going to be star points and background.

It was okay. Still a little busy, and a little... light, maybe?

What if I were to use the blue I bought for the 4-Patch blocks as flying geese instead?

Oooo, now that I like! Thank goodness I still had enough of both of those prints to get the job done!

Now I just have to figure out how to resolve the lower portion of the quilt. I may have to go looking for more of the white with red dots; there's not much left! I'm thinking I'll want to bring in more of the strong red to balance the bottom out with the top and sides. We'll see.

It feels awfully good to be well enough to tackle a design challenge like this again. Over the weekend I considered setting myself up with some sort of embroidery project to do the next time I'm under the weather. Something where all I have to do is thread a needle and follow the lines. I was tempted to sew scraps together a couple of times in the last few days. Not sure what kept me from doing so. Maybe it was fear of being completely derailed from the Dr. Seuss quilt. I seem to do much better when I can focus on one project at a time. Who knows where scrap sewing would have led?! ;- )

Wrestling with Dr. Seuss

Remember I said I had a lot of yellow in the studio?

The tiny star block in my American Hero Quilt (last post) gave me the idea to try stars on either side of my reader in this child's quilt. Pulling the yellow down from the top row seemed like a good idea too. Using that same dotted print turned out to be too much so I tried another yellow, but with white spots this time. Still a bit much. Maybe red instead?

That's when I decided that maybe four stars were also too much. I removed two and centered two, thinking I would create a checkerboard above and below them to fill in the space. The question then became what to use for the checkerboard. And as much as I wanted to include images other than the ones drawn by Dr. Seuss I just couldn't get them to play nicely together.

I have been tinkering with this project, off and on, for what seems like a long time now. It hasn't really been all that long, I've just been frustrated that I couldn't find what I considered acceptable solutions to the problems I was facing. I also had several days of not feeling well enough to tackle anything this demanding. Consequently I've been reading a lot of fiction the last few days.

Finally I came across a Kaffe Fassett print in my LQS that looked like it could be the answer to my problems. I cut some 3.5" squares, fussy cut some more images from the Dr. Seuss prints, and this is what I now have laid out on the design wall:

It looks a bit busier in person. The KF print is from his paperweight line; it's more dots. Things aren't lined up quite right on the design wall either. I think I'm going to have to live with this for a bit to see if I really like it before I sew it all together. I want to encourage children to read, not scare them away from it!

Hearts & Flowers

When I met with my friends this past week I was able to get a full shot of the Patriotic Heart top that will eventually become an American Hero Quilt.

C~ will hand it over along with the binding I made and someone else in our local quilt group will do the quilting. One more wounded soldier will have something to warm and comfort them during recovery.

I happened to notice this darling little star block while we were refolding it:

It's all of four inches square. It's got me thinking...

Also that day I was given a couple of branches of forsythia to brighten my studio. On the way home I stopped at one of the bulb farms near here and bought some daffodils to put with the forsythia. For whatever reason, the daffs were half price so I bought two bunches. :- )

All of a sudden there's a lot of yellow in my studio! The flowers and Mr. Bingley are the same color. It just so happens that it's the same yellow that's showing up in the Dr. Seuss quilt.

I have been playing with this, off and on, since I first showed the pieces to you. The top row has been sewn together. Since this picture was taken I have also sewn the stacked books border around the reader panel. The bottom and the sides have yet to be resolved. They are being much more problematic than I anticipated. It doesn't help that I've had a couple days of migraine headaches (which is also why I haven't been back sooner to keep you up to date on things here in The Magpie's Nest). I believe you will see the influence of the daffodils and the little star block when next you see this top however. ;- )