More Adventures in Quilt Photography

I tried to show these pictures last week in one of the posts eaten by BlogPress.  I am home now with my laptop, so I can finally post about the last two weeks' fun.  I hope you aren't sick of seeing this quilt by now, but I need to show it one last time, completely finished and photographed at one of my favorite hiking spots.

Peace, Love and Happiness resting at the rocks.

Almost two weeks ago, I celebrated a really big birthday.  I started this quilt at last year's Gruber's retreat (tomorrow I will share pictures from this year's retreat).  The name says it all:  Peace....it is a peace sign after all, Love.....Amy Butler Love fabric used exclusively in the pinwheels, Happiness....happy to sew with friends.  Wouldn't it be nice to also photograph Peace, Love and Happiness in my happy place?!

Can you see my happy place waaaayyyy up there in the distance?

I thought this was a brilliant idea.  Let's just say only on my birthday (and probably just because it was my 50th) could I get away with such a thing!  The group except for my daughter who would rather do anything than hike wasn't opposed to hiking Beehive Basin, and my husband and daughter are used to me stopping to take pictures of wildflowers along the way, but the challenges of hiking and photographing a quilt are another matter entirely.  The experience ended up being similar to this adventure in quilt photography rather than the ease of photographing my recently finished Liberated quilt.

Quilt wrapped in plastic to protect against the dirtiness that is the inside of my backpack.

Do you know how much a quilt weighs?  This one weighs 3.8 pounds.  That's not much, but it is rather bulky and took up my entire backpack.  Luckily, since it was my birthday, others carried what they considered the essentials:  food, water, bear spray.  Did I mention this hike is an all day hike?  Unless you are younger, in better shape, not walking with two kids and two unwilling teenagers, and not taking photographs, you can probably do this hike in two-three hours.

That's me in the middle with the messy hair.....not the young blonde on the end ;-)

So we are hiking along fine on a very hot and sunny day and stop at "the rocks" to eat lunch, take our obligatory group photo and rest before starting the second and hardest part of the hike to the top.

New camera with wide angle lens for turning 50!

Did you know that quilts come in handy as a tripod for taking photos with the self-timer feature?  The kids (and adults) roll their eyes at me when I suggest the group photo, set the timer and run into the picture, but I think they secretly enjoy this part.

Look at those angry skies.

While resting at the rocks I notice really dark clouds hovering over my happy place, so I suggest we take quilt photos at the rocks just in case we don't make it to the top.  I direct my husband to hold up the quilt so I can take a photo.  I wasn't counting on the windy conditions and the fact that four people would be needed to hold the quilt down.  It's a good thing the cousins were visiting!

The cousins realizing the quilt is a peace sign....."cool"....

How many people does it take to photograph a quilt?!

 I have to thank my family for being such good sports about this.  The wind was blowing all over the place, hats were flying off, and I was a little bossy.  I didn't hear any complaints about how many pictures I took (don't worry, I won't show them all), and no one rushed me to finish.  Again....only on my birthday.....

Yeah, it work's better when the kids are holding the bottom and the tall people are holding the top.

"OK, can we go now?"

 By the time we reached the top of Beehive Basin (and we did make it to the top), the rain was coming down hard and then we got hailed on.  That plastic bag protecting the quilt came in handy for holding my camera too.  I pulled out my cell phone and snapped a quick pic of the two teenagers at the top, but there would be no quilt photography going on here today.

Beehive Basin on a sunny day

Celebrating my 45th birthday

Learning photoshop is on my list of things to do....maybe I'll photoshop the quilt into the pictures I took on my 45th birthday.....

Of course, the sun was shining and the wind had disappeared by the time we reached the rocks on the way down.  I took advantage of the situation and had my husband take a few photos of me holding the quilt.  I AM smiling!

So, even though I didn't get any pictures of Peace, Love and Happiness at the top of Beehive Basin, at least I have some of Lone Mountain in the background.  It's all good!

Quilt Stats:  Peace, Love and Happiness; 73ish" square; started July 2011, finished July 2012; fabric is Amy Butler Love prints for the pinwheels, Kona Snow for background, Kona Teal and Ash for the backing, scrappy binding; quilted with a walking foot using Connecting Threads; pattern design, quilt made and quilted by yours truly.

Give yourself a pat on the back if you made it all the way to the bottom of this post!  Stay tuned...tomorrow is retreating at Gruber's.....

Friday Finish: More Peace

Well in between the rainy day napping, I managed to quilt the humongous (as I am now calling it) Peace quilt, piece together scrappy binding and stitch the binding onto the front.

I debated about whether to show this quilt until I had finished stitching the binding on and washing it.  I had a difficult time getting a good picture and an even harder time showing the quilt design.

This crude drawing shows the quilting I had in mind.  The red marking indicates the quilting lines.

If I had to do this all over again, I would go with something closer to what I had done on Leo's Peace Baby quilt.  I also would have used a blue for the background rather than the cream, but hindsight is.....as the saying goes ;-)

The pieced backing with two different solids joined smack dab in the middle ended up being spot on!  The joining of the two colors is centered (almost perfectly) with half of the peace sign quilting on the gray side and the other half on the teal.  When it is all done maybe I can find a helper to hold the quilt up for a better picture.

The binding has been stitched onto the front.  Hand stitching onto the back to be done on the road....once again.

My estimation of the required amount of binding was completely off.  No worries....I now have quite a bit leftover for another project.

I am hoping when the binding is stitched onto the back, the quilt is washed, and I have photographed it in my happy place, I will once again refer to this quilt as Peace, Love and Happiness!

Hello June!

A few days into June and I have done more sewing than the five months of January through May combined!

This quilt top has been almost a year in production, only because I haven't been working on it ;-)  I pieced all the pinwheel blocks at last year's retreat, and it would be nice to finish the quilt before this summer's upcoming retreat.

Once I got going on this project it wasn't so bad.  I don't know why I kept putting it off.   I did make a few mistakes in layout because I couldn't remember my baggie system and had to pull out the unsewing tool.

Here is a picture of the quilt top as it began to look like a peace sign.  As with Feeling Groovy, I pieced the middle strip and then worked my way out.  The hallway outside my sewing lab is just wide enough for this shot.  Of course my design wall which should be used for this purpose is full of other WIPs.

No helpers were available for a photo shoot, so I didn't get a decent picture of the entire quilt top, but I am happy to say it does look like a peace sign.  Now to piece the backing....

Peace, Love & Happiness

When flying rather than driving to a retreat, more thought and preparation is needed when deciding on what projects (not to mention machine and supplies) to bring due to space (and airline) limitations.  

Retreat Quilt 2010

At least year's retreat, I only brought one project to work on - my aptly named Retreat Quilt which is a pattern from Material Obsession called Red Centre.  (Coincidentally,  classes for this quilt were going on over in Oregon during this year's retreat.)  I was able to assemble most of the quilt top during that retreat, and this quilt lives with me providing comfort and warmth as well as a reminder of fabulous times and friendships made.

I wanted to do something similar this year in that the quilt made will be a memento of another glorious time retreating with friends.  I gave this project quite a bit of thought and decided I wanted to make another peace sign quilt.  Feeling Groovy was made for a school auction with a 70's theme, and at that time I went with batik pinwheels hoping for a tie-dye feel.   For this one, I went through my fabric stash looking for something that said "Rene'" ;-)  Then, I couldn't find my "pattern" for the peace sign, so I had to redo it... zoomed in on a picture of Feeling Groovy and drew from that...took the opportunity to change it a little bit too...

My quick progress with the Retreat Quilt was helped by the fact that Julie PRE-CUT and GAVE me all the fabric squares needed!  This year, I didn't come close to piecing the quilt top.   As a matter of fact, I'm not sure my retreat friends could even tell what I was working on!!  Most of the time was spent sewing around pairs of fabric squares..cutting them diagonally twice..trimming..chain piecing half square triangles...  {I'm planning a discussion on HST methods in the near future...}

A stack of pinwheel blocks is all I left with (see two photos above), but you couldn't even tell they were pinwheel blocks because I didn't have time to press them.  OK..so maybe I spent too much time shopping at Gruber's...or maybe I talked too much...but I rather like to think it's because I had to leave really early Sunday instead ;-)  

When I got back to Montana, I pressed open all the pinwheels (need to get me some Best Press), pulled out my handy dandy pattern, and starting arranging blocks in the shape of a peace sign.  That's as far as I've gotten as I've been too busy visiting with Harper's (who brought happies)!

Here's a closeup of a few blocks.  This weekend I plan to start assembling them.  Can anyone guess why I'm naming this quilt Peace Love & Happiness?  Really...it's not a rhetorical question...I want to know if the name makes sense to anyone besides me....so, do you know why the name?  Oh, and I am open to suggestions of background fabric to use on this one.

Have an amazing day!!!

Sew & Tell Friday #29

I was so bummed that I did not have anything to share last Friday, that I was determined to participate today.  I was up pretty late finishing my pinwheel sampler quilt so I don't have too many pictures, and the ones I do have aren't that great.

This was taken on the back porch last night WAY past my bedtime.  You can't really see the entire quilt or detail of the quilting (at least I hope not in regards to the quilting).

This quilt is entirely Verna except for the solid background.  My original thought was to piece the backing with some mini pinwheels, but at this point, I just wanted it done.  

I had better results this time with Red Pepper Quilt's machine binding method.  I pinned more and went slower which helped.

I'm off to another theme park today.  This time it's Universal with my daughter's choral group.  When I get back, I look forward to seeing all the Sew and Tell Friday finishes.  The group of participants gets bigger each week!  It usually takes me the whole week to see them all ;-)  

Have an amazing weekend!

Checking In

I'm participating in Jacquie's Spring to Finish Challenge.  I don't know what I was thinking when I listed  my goals.  Of the seven, at least four of them involve quilting and binding in order to consider them done.

The first goal I listed was keeping up with the pinwheel sampler quilt along.  The pinwheel quilt top is finished, basted and ready to be quilted.  I plan to work on that today.  

My second goal was to keep up with the hexagon quilt along.  So far, so good.  The latest block was made with our solids.  You can see I used the chocolate brown.  I also have some blue that I am considering.  I need to make some Block 4s with the blue to compare.

My AAQI needs to be labeled and mailed.  I'm just waiting on my number assignment so that I can add that to the label and ship it off.

Speaking of AAQI, today is the last day to bid in the May auction.  I've got my eye on one or two lovelies.  We'll see if I'm still the high bidder at 10pm EST!  If not, there are a couple for sale that I've also been eyeing.  Check it out!

Have an amazing day!!!

Sashing and Cutting

I was cruising with the pinwheel sashing...until my realtor called and said she wanted to show the house.

This is as far as I got before I had to pack it all up and make my studio look tidy.

I'm still loving this clever ruler.

I used it to cut triangles for Hexagon Block 3.  Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to sew these together.

Have an amazing day!!

Slacker

Not much sewing went on here over the weekend.  Who would have thought a few days after recovering form the flu, I would get a really bad cold?  Ugh!  So once again I am behind in responding to emails and reading my favorite blogs.

It didn't help that I had to replace two of my pinwheel blocks.  After trimming and squaring, two of the blocks were a little wonky.  I added this Mosaic pinwheel block

and this Mosaic pinwheel block.  The sashing strips have been cut, but that's as far as I've gotten on this project.

Here is the latest layout for the pinwheels.  Hope to get them sewn together today so I can get to my hexagons.

I cut a few more blocks for V's Basics Home Gather...hope to finally put these in the mail.

Have an amazing day!!!