Thursday, January 20, 2022

Chain Link


 Chain Link is made from Kaffe Fassett stripes and Yoshiko Jisenji fabric.  I was sorting my fabric stash and decided to use fabrics that made me happy and these two designers just stood out.  I saw the pattern for this quilt from the 2020 Tokyo Quilt Show.  Of course I didn't attend, but saw the photo from a blogger who did.  The quilt was an embroidered crazy quilt made by Matsuko Sugi.  Her fantastic quilt was hand embroidered with a beautiful selection of what I think are japanese silks. I named it chain link, but I'm not sure if that is the correct name of this pattern, because I haven't seen it in a book.  It is a challenging piece to put together, but if you use beautiful fabric you'll be challenged to finish it.  

Hoku Anuenue or Rainbow Stars




 The Hoffman 1895 Watercolor panel was the inspiration for Hoku Anuenue or Rainbow Stars.  I had received the panel as a gift from Betsy and I wondered how I was going to use the colors on the panel.  I didn't have a clue and just started cutting out the small diamond shapes.  I finally made my own pattern of 5 pointed stars and used the panel color chart to mimic the layout of the colors.  The stars are hand pieced and the borders are machine pieced using the leftover diamond shapes.  It is machine quilted.

Saturday, January 30, 2021

Kaffe Fassett #1

This is the first Kaffe Fassett quilt that I made with the cut up scraps.  Can you see the major design flaw?  I keep telling myself that it doesn't bother me, but it does.  Somewhere I got lost and couldn't figure out how to place the red and the blue fabrics.  So I convinced myself that it didn't matter and to keep going.  This is what happens when you don't have a big design board.
The crysanthemum, guinea flowers and big blooms are so pretty.
I started from the outer edges and worked my way in alternating with red and blue fabric.
This is the first quilt that I used this technique, so I have learned to pay attention. I should have stopped and taken it all apart until it looked right. 
 

Kaffe Fasset #3

This is the third quilt made from the Kaffe Fassett and KF Collective fabrics that I cut up into usable scraps.  I  wanted to use a fabric that made me smile and the KF fabrics have always made me happy.
The fabrics were all cut into 6 inch squares and then sorted by color.  
It was more interesting to put the squares on point and then go round and round with 10 squares on each side.  I used my bed as my design board and put a sheet on it.  Still it was hard to fit all the squares onto the sheet and I had to pin some down.  Once the pattern looked pleasing enough, I sewed them together.

 Some of the fabrics are really old and some I'm not sure if they were KF but if it looked like it, I used them.

My friend Lily was able to fix my laptop, so I am able to write on this blog.  Thank you Lily, it took a long time but it was worth it.  I'll have to catch up for the whole year that I didn't post.  Please bear with me.

Friday, July 5, 2019

Twinkle

 This is a quilt that I finished for the Moilili Senior Community Center.  Twinkle had donated the blocks made from the HGTV show sometime in 2003.  It was a block swap, so the blocks were from all over the country and had the makers name and city on them in ink.  What a fun swap.  As you can see some of the blocks are complicated, and I'm sure they took a lot of time to make.
 Luckily, I had some bright green solid fabric and a nice hawaiian red print fabric for the backing in my stash.  It was perfect to simply highlight the blocks with the green fabric and use the red fabric for the binding.
 I called Twinkle to ask permission to use the photos on my blog.  Thank you Twinkle for donating the blocks.  The ladies at Moilili were oohhing and aahhhing the quilt when I brought it to them.  She said that they were going to put it in their annual Temari Trash to Treasures sale in November and put a price of $100.
That is a bargain.  They asked me how long it took me to put the quilt together and I said 20 hours.  I think they record how many volunteer hours are used.  Now I have to fill out a form to say that I am a volunteer.  Well, it keeps me busy.  I have asked my mom Sue, aunty Shinno, Carol and Lea to help me.  The ladies from Moilili have given me 3 more tops to complete, so I need to share the wealth with my Ohana.

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Japanese Fabric

 I decided to start cutting my Japanese fabric and make some queen size tops for donation.  This is the first one that I made.  It is cuts of 9 inch fabrics sewn together.  There are 10 across and 10 down for a total of 100 stash busting fabrics.
 The fabrics are pretty, but this layout does not enhance the design or the fabric.  The size is 85 x 85 and was donated to EBHQ quilts.
 This layout is a little bit better.  It is the same 100 assorted japanese fabrics.  This time the fabrics were matched with dark and light.  Then a diagonal line was drawn and 1/4 inch sewn on either side of the diagonal.  This gave me 2 half square fabrics.  Put together in this placement is much more pleasing.
 Here is a closeup photo.  From far away you can clearly see the dark and lights.  Up close it is not as easy.  This was donated to EBHQ and came out to 83 x 84.
 This is the same assortment of 100 fabrics of japanese fabrics.  I like this design much better.  I sorted out about 20 dark fabrics and cut the 9 inch fabrics into 4  to make 2.25 x 9 inch cuts.  I placed 64 fabrics on the design wall sorting them by color.  I also cut about 81 brights of 2.25 x 2.25 for the cornerstones from the scraps.
This took a little longer to piece and arrange but it shows off the fabrics much better when it is surrounded by a dark fabric.  I've shown this to family and friends and they all want this one to be made up.  Well, I do have more japanese fabrics that I haven't cut up yet.  I have to find the backing, but I won't donate this to EBHQ.

Friday, December 21, 2018

It started as White - 2

 This is another quilt that I made of my hand dyed stash.  Sorry the picture is missing the fabrics on the two sides.  The center squares were made with Sujatas technique of freehand cutting.  The dyed fabrics have retained their bright colors.

 I wish I could remember how I made that green batik.  I know that I had a lot of fun making these.  It helped that the classes had everything prepared and all the dyes and materials there for you to use.
This is the backing fabric of a cotton childrens yukata.  I think I bought the fabric at a craft fair at the JCC in Hawaii for $25.  Its getting harder to find this type of fabric for a reasonable price. I quilted the quilt from the back and followed the outline of the flowers and leaves.  It was a very nice quilting pattern since it started on one end to the other.