Wonderful Wednesday!

I think it has been a while since I did a Wonderful Wednesday post with flower pictures...

.....so here you go.....

While sitting in the backyard the other day talking on the phone to my sister, I noticed these gorgeous flowers blooming.

Does anyone know the name of these beauties?

I am not familiar with them, but absolutely love that they are growing in my backyard!

Please tell me if you recognize these flowers.  It was be nice to refer to them by name ;-)

They also come in purple!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!!!!

I'm headed to the fabric store....

Planning

I love dreaming about and planning new quilts!

As I mentioned yesterday, three graduation quilts are on my list to be completed by May 27th.

I've been thinking about this first graduation quilt for some time now.  It is for my middlest who will soon be a high school graduate, and I want to go with a star theme.  I've sketched out several ideas before deciding on randomly placed stars of various sizes.

I made the mistake of asking for input from my son who has requested the colors garnet and gold (Edited to mention he is following the family tradition of attending FSU).  I've searched for examples of gorgeous quilts using these colors, and can you believe I can't find any ;-)

These batiks are the closest to garnet and gold that I have in my stash....I believe it's time to go fabric shopping.  I am picturing stars in various shades of reds, red-oranges, and orange-yellows against a pale batik background.  Any comments, concerns or suggestions?  

Also to be decided:  whether to go with a "pointy" star like the shape above....

Edited to say....Sorry...but there was an error in linking to the picture....you'll just have to envision the "pointy" star from my drawing ;-)

....or a wonky star shape like this Christmas block.

Any thoughts?  

The second high school graduation quilt shouldn't involve such tough decisions.  It will be nice to play with some print fabrics for a change.  Maybe tomorrow I can show you the fabrics I've chosen for this Shoo Fly quilt from Malka's Color Your Cloth.

Have an amazing day!!!

Been Thinkin'

Three graduation quilts have been mentally added to my list of to-do's, 

and I've spent some time thinking about possible quilt designs and fabrics for those.  

I'm sure soon I will be asking your advice regarding my options ;-)

So as to not tax my brain too much with all that thinking, I have taken short breaks to work on some other quick and less mentally challenging projects.

These eight boobs have finally been mailed to Nina Lise for her Make a Boob project for breast cancer, details of which can be found here.

Do you think the other customers in line at the post office were impressed that of my three packages, one was heading to Canada and the other to Norway?

Could be they were relieved that they weren't the ones filling out customs paperwork for their mail ;-)

Have an amazing day!!!!!

I'm off to do more thinking....

"B" Block

Here's another quick post....

Brenda asked for "B" blocks celebrating her upcoming milestone birthday.

Brenda is often making quilts to help others, so I wanted to contribute a "B" for her quilt.

In making the "B", I used these gorgeous (you should feel them) fabrics from Pink Chalk Studios.  

I just love that thread fabric......very appropriate for the occasion, don't you think?

I am thinking this is a good idea to steal  borrow for my upcoming milestone birthday.....

start practicing your "R"s....it's only 15 months away!!!!!

Have an amazing weekend!!!

A little mini

There are many projects that I want to get working on, but those have been put on hold for a day or two so my family will have clean clothes to wear and food to eat ;-)

I have been trying to get back into my blog posting routine, so took a quick photo of this mini quilt I completed this morning.  I started this a while back (maybe last summer), but I didn't like where it was going, so like many others it got put away.

I took it to Sew Day to get advice/ideas on how to rescue this little quilt.  Maybe everyone was just being nice, but the consensus was to leave it as is.  When I pointed out a few flaws, helpful (easy) suggestions were given on how to fix them....good answers ;-)

I was happy to realize that I could finish this with a minimal amount of effort.  I replaced the backing (which is becoming a habit) to hide my messy embroidery stitches, tweaked a few stitches here and there, and machine sewed the binding with a little swiggly stitch.

Originally, this mini was destined for AAQI, but the quilt size is too large.  

I'm thinking it might make a nice little "happy" for someone ;-)

Have an amazing day!!!!

I'm off to put another load of laundry in the wash

Solids Challenge Finish

Like other Modern Quilt Guilds, the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild participated in the Robert Kaufman Solids Challenge.  Last night our guild had an Open House where members displayed their modern quilt projects and revealed their RK Challenge pieces.

If you've been reading my blog lately, you'll know I was very indecisive with this project.  

In the end, I decided to keep it simple.

All the wonky blocks I made ended up as HST's with red fabric I had in my stash.  I didn't realize until I was done with the piecing that two shades of red was used.  I actually like the look of that.

When binding, I did throw in a little strip of leftover wonkiness.

I made another attempt at FMQ (inspired by Mary Ann at Sew Day....I doodled the design on paper first) and quilted inside the red diamonds.  I referenced my handout from Juanita's workshop which helped tremendously.  I didn't worry about the quilt design being the same size in each quadrant....I tried to just have fun with the process.

At one point in the design process, I considered adding a colorful wonky border.  I wanted the quilt to be larger, and I wanted to use more charm squares.  However, the addition seemed to take away from the central layout, so I decided against it.

Instead, I added the wonky strip to the pieced back.  I like the understated look ;-)

It was exciting to see the different quilts designed and made by OMQG members for this challenge!

Soon I will be posting pictures of all the RK Challenge quilts on our Flickr page if you want to check them out.  The Modern Quilt Guild also has a special Flickr group set up for all the MQGs to post pictures of their RK Challenge quilts if you are interested in seeing them all.

Now to decide how to use my letters....

Have an amazing day!!!

Edited to add:  Michele has posted some pictures on her blog from OMQG's Sewcial event.  Click here to see some great quilts.  I know others took pictures as well, and I will share those links as well when I find them ;-)

Quilting Weekend

Saturday (International Quilting Day) was spent with the fun members of the OMQG.

As with previous Sew Days, there was lots of sewing, collaborating, and creating going on!

I had high expectations for the amount of projects I would complete in the six-seven hour time frame allotted.  I packed up supplies for finishing quite a few WIPs that have been gathering dust, as well as recently purchased fat quarters for one or two new projects I've had my eye on.

The first project I pulled out was this 3R's wall quilt which I started at a previous OMQG Sew Day.  At July's Sew Day, guild members brought scraps to share and make mini quilts based on Amanda Jean's ticker tape tutorial.  That day I didn't get any further than pinning my scraps to the background fabric.  

This time I was determined to finish.....and I did....but it took much longer than I expected....

hmmm....can you say the whole day:-)

Beth's first AAQI

While I spent hours sewing around tiny bits of scraps, I enviously watched my fellow guild members crank out some really cool blocks, quilts and other projects.  I did feel better when Beth referred to me as a Goddess....Temporary Quilt Registration Goddess that is ;-)  

Check out her first Priority: Alzheimer's quilt!!!  

I love, love, love it!

I didn't want the sewing to end, so I extended IQD to Sunday....besides I still had lots of quilting left in me ;-)  I did manage to finally finish my March AAQI quilt Two Hearts.  I ended up changing the backing and binding several times.

I also finished (except for stitching the binding down) my RK Solids Challenge.  I ended up in a totally different direction from previous pictures I showed.  I will save the completed quilt picture for another day, but here's a glimpse.  

I'm off to hand sew that binding.  Have an amazing day!!!!

Happy National Quilting Day!!!

Shouldn't this be an international holiday????  

How are you planning on spending this momentous occasion?

I will be celebrating with my OMQG friends, and I can't wait!!!!

My "bags" are packed and ready to go...

I will be working on finishing some projects and starting some new ones.  

Have an amazing National/International Quilting Day!!!!

New Direction

I've taken my RK Challenge piece in so many different directions ....

I've made letters....I've auditioned several backgrounds....

I spent several 15 minute play sessions experimenting with wonky blocks....

Liberated saw tooth borders were considered....

I tried making HST's out of wonky blocks...

I even "consulted" Gwen and others for inspiration...

My head is spinning .... and I still don't have a finished piece....ugh!

No worries....I still have five days....

Next Step

Continuing with my RK challenge piece....

After piecing my letters, I still had quite a few charm squares left.

I enjoyed playing around with the leftover strips and the unused charm squares which eventually led to these wonky blocks.

I'm thinking of quilting the "Rene'" and the "creates" as individual pieces and mounting on a Cherrywood fat quarter kind of like what I did with the AAQI Tranquility mini quilt.

As a sample layout, I thought of using the wonky blocks as a border ... what do you think?

I'm not loving it ... how about a liberated saw tooth border instead?

{Turn to page 64 if you have your Liberated Quiltmaking II book handy to see what I mean.}

Any suggestions on what my next step should be?

Have an amazing weekend!!

Too Many e's

When I joined the Liberated Quilter's Yahoo group last year, I had not made anything "liberated" so for my first project, I tried free piecing letters.

I used my, at that time, newly acquired AB LOVE fabric because I thought those fabric colors would look cool in my sewing room.  I think I did a pretty good job constructing the letters, but the letters did not stand out with my choice of fabric combinations.  Discouraged, I put those letters away in my orphan block basket....I'm sure they are still there somewhere.....

...but I hadn't given up the idea of piecing a "Rene' Creates" for my studio/mom cave/sewing room/workshop/lab/my room, so when the OMQG announced its Robert Kaufman solids challenge, I decided to "give piece another try" ;-)  

{Yesterday I posted a blurry "Rene'" because I wasn't going to show pictures of my challenge piece until it was complete.  As you can see, I've changed my mind about that decision.  What else would I blog about? ;-)}

From the above two pictures it looks like the letters are attached to the background, but they are not....I was trying out different layouts for the letters and used the background fabric as a design area.  Should I  place the letters in a straight line as in the first picture or have them "dance" as in the second picture?

Since I had originally planned on not showing this challenge in progress or asking for advice, I went ahead and made an executive decision....so glad from now on I can ask for your advice ;-)

Once I decided on the straight line layout, I pieced the Rene' letters and the creates letters.  

Allow me to ramble off topic for a few sentences.....

I have to take a moment here and thank my parents for naming me "Rene'" and not "Renee"....no offense to the Renee's out there....I have always liked my Rene' name...even though I sometimes get mail addressed to me as Mr....the spelling just seems balanced....maybe it's the analytical part of me...who knows..but I now have another reason for liking the spelling...one less "e" to piece!!!!

If I had known, when I chose my blog name, that I would eventually try to piece that name, I may have chosen something with fewer e's as that is the letter that gave me the most problems ;-)

Stay tuned for how I incorporate the remaining charm squares in this....

Have an amazing day!!!