Phoenix border

 This is the phoenix border that I am quilting on the silk quilt.  I am using a 100 wt silk thread from YLI and a 50 wt Gutterman cotton thread.

 Have you guessed how this is quilted?  The silk thread is in the bobbin and the cotton thread is on the top.  I free motion quilted the lines and the phoenix birds from the back of the quilt.  To prepare for this, I hand basted the edges of the quilt and used a red thread to baste around the hexagon middle.  The red thread helped me to define when to stop.  There were some instances when I continued the phoenix into the hexagon because I didn't want to just cut it off.  I have decided to hand quilt the inner hexagon.  After seeing Joan's beautiful hand quilting, I thought that would be the best way to quilt the beautiful silks.

This is the end of the bolt of cotton yukata that I used for the back of the quilt.  Yes, I think this is an indigo blue stencil.  There is a repeat that I haven't figured out.  I washed it and ironed it.  I don't know how old the fabric is, but the washing could not remove all of the brown spots.  Still, I thought it was better to use it than to let it sit for more years.  .Luckily, I had enough to cover the whole back of the quilt, since it was only 14 inches wide.  You'll see why I was so happy to choose this phoenix fabric when you see the next post.

Red and White dolls

 Here are some pictures of the Japanese Red and White dolls.  A friend of ours gave us these two dolls about ten years ago.

 Here is a back view

 Here is a side view.

The beautiful silk brocades in this new quilt came from my friend who made the dolls. She carefully kept all the scraps of the silk that were used to make dolls.  Her collection of dolls is awesome.  Her collection of scraps were more awesome.  To me anyway.  There were so many fabrics with gold thread in them.  I have never seen these types of silks for sale, but I'm sure they are very expensive.  I'm very fortunate to have these beautiful fabrics.

Rice Bag Challenge

This is a 100 pound rice bag.  A local quilt shop in Hawaii made a challenge to use these rice bags in a quilt or garment.  Carol sent me two of these rice bags so I could compete in the challenge.  Since I had just finished the indigo workshop, I decided to dye one rice bag in indigo and keep the other as a white with the lettering.  

 This is how the challenge quilt came out.  Do you recognize the stencil from the John Marshall workshop.  The stencil is of a plantation worker with a brown staff and a hat and gloves. I was hoping to better match the lettering and white graphics with the indigo blue graphics.  That didn't work out.  Even though I put the placement on the design wall.  When it came to sewing the blocks together, they got all jumbled.  It started out as a log cabin furrows, but it looks like she is in jail.  In a way, it fits that plantation workers had to work long hours, in the hot sun with very little pay.

 This is the label on the back of the quilt.  It is made from one of the leftover blocks written with a sharpie fine tip pen.  The name is "Obachan" which is japanese for grandmother.  I named it after my grandmother who worked in the Waialua Sugar Plantation.  I don't think rice was ever grown in Hawaii, but the state was built from the Sugar and Pineapple plantations.

 This is a closeup of the quilt.  I used the stencil that I bought from the Santa Rosa quilt show to pounce chalk on the blue indigo.  That gave me a wave pattern to quilt.  I used the Blue Aurifil 12 weight thread as the quilting thread.  From far away, you don't see the quilting or even the indigoed rice bag.  Up close, you can see the that the blue is made from a rice bag.  Cool.

Hula Girl Bag

 Hula Girl bag is done.  Doris needed a new wheelchair bag.  You can see the holes and the rips in the old bag at the bottom of this post.  This fabric is called Hawaiin bark cloth. It is used a lot in upholstery, so it should be fairly strong and durable.  I cut out a hula girl motif and interfaced and topstitched her on.

 This is the back of the bag.  It worked out really well having the buttons on the side that does not show.  There were no ripped buttons or ripped fabric like the first bag I made.

This is the bag that I had to replace.  The topstitching on the demure hula girl was starting to come apart at the right edge.  There were tiny holes becoming visible in the merimekko fabric.  I think this is more from washing.

This is the inside of the bag and the reason why I decided to make a new bag.  She just ripped this fabric to shreds.  I love putting a pretty print on the inside of the bag.  The new bag has a light purple japanese geta or wooden shoes fabric.  I think Doris will get a good kick out of it.  Its always fun when the inside looks just as interesting as the outside.

On the design wall

This is what I am working on.   These are all silk fabric scraps.  I have been cutting silks for about a week now. Luckily, I have about another hundred fabrics to cut into triangles.  From each fabric, I cut three pieces and try to short them in to categories. So far the categories are white, dark, red, yellows, etc.

At first I tried putting them on my design wall, a tablecloth pinned on the wall.  The silks would not adhere to the wall.  Then I placed a sheet on the bed and used that as my design wall.  Taking a picture of it really allows you to see the separations of the light and dark.

There are problems with silk that I have been pondering, but haven't made a decision yet.  Should I put on an interface backing.  Some of the silks are very flimsy and sheer.  Should I hand piece them?  

I still have a long way to go.  But it is taking shape.  Now back to cutting more triangles.

Puppy and purple bags

Here is a picture that Resse drew of her new puppy Oreo.  It was such a cute picture that I made a bag for her.  I copied the picture onto a pretreated Bubble Jet Set fabric with freezer paper backing.  I used the leftover Cherrywood fabrics to make the surrounding borders, handle straps and backing.  There is a zipper close and japanese fabric for the interior.

This is a simple purple bag for Alyssa.  It is made from a Kokka heavy cotton and a hawaiian print pocket.  I really liked the feel or weight of the Kokka fabric.  Unfortunately, it is so expensive.  There is extra padding in the handle and a zipper close.  The inside has the hawaiian print fabric with a purple pocket.

These two bags took me 1 day to complete.  Simple, no embellishments, no quilting, no beads.  The girls are  growing so quickly, I hope they don't outgrow cute and simple things.

Santa Rosa Quilt Show 2013

These are some of the quilts from the Santa Rosa Quilt Show presented by the Moonlight Quilters of Sonoma County.

 These are from students of Gloria Loughman and Laura Fogg workshops

 I like this pattern on the diagonal.

This pomegranite was made with scrap fabrics.  If you look closely, you can see an alien ship and other interesting fabrics.  There is no net.  The quilter carefully machine quilted around each of the edges of the fabrics.

This pineapple block is offset and has some beautiful feather quilting.

This is a picture of how they used a chain for their framing.

The red quilt was from a red challenge made by Linda Morand.  The houses quilt is from Judy Mathieson.