Freddys Spikes

This is my Spikes quilt from the Freddy Moran workshop.  Isn't it spectacular.  The words I would use is bold and graphic with the red black and white.  I don't know why I don't use more of the black and white fabric in my quilts.  It is such a eye catcher.  This was also a very improvisational piecing.  The other quilts in the class were purple, yellow, brown, some with japanese fabrics, batiks and prints.  With all of these different fabrics and styles, they all came out beautiful.

Freddy quilted feathers and stylized quilting in the red rows and borders.  I quilted straight lines in the borders.  I think I used white thread to outline stitch the spikes.  Much more simple, but just as nice.  The red fabric was a JoAnn special when they had a bolt of red fabric for sale.  The white is mostly muslin with some white on white fabric.  I was able to find some black on black fabric.  The color spots were leftovers from other projects.  There was 1 fabric of black and white dots that made gradation dots.

I liked Freddys easy going style of teaching.  She kept us all on track and yet allowed us to use our creativity on a great pattern.

Sebastopol Center for the Arts

These are some pictures I took from the Sebastopol Center for the Arts.  The exhibition was CALL FOR ENTRIES--Innovations in Fiber Art VI.  It ran from Oct 24 - Nov 30.  Wonderful show.

 4 pieces displayed on a table at the start of the exhibit

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Freddy Moran - Red Sticks

Red Sticks was one of the workshops that I took with Freddy Moran.  She is famous for her color choices.  Some of the things I learned:

Red is a neutral
If its too long, cut it off.  If its too short, add on
10 fabrics is good 100 is better

Can you tell this was very improvisational.  The picture should actually be turned 90 degrees.  The red bamboo fabric was placed in the middle, because I got tired of making more pieces. This was all pieced in 2 days and the quilt was put together in quilted in another 2 days.  I was very surprised to see all the workshop students show their quilts at Freddys lecture.  They worked all weekend and some finished their quilts by Monday.

The border on Freddys sample quilt had red on red squares bordering the whole quilt.  It added an extra depth to the quilt.  She also used a focal fabric in the middle of her quilt.  It was not as large as my bamboo fabric.

Red Bamboo is going to be a gift to Lola and Jason for their baby Casper.  The back is a patterned red fabric.  I quilted it with a Red Aurifil 12 wt thread on top and red gutterman 50 wt thread on the bottom.  I used the walking foot and followed the lines of the sticks to stabilize the whole quilt.  At first I thought this quilt was too bold and red to be a baby quilt.  Doris convinced me that they will love it.  Its bright, lively and will endure many washings.

Shirting Scrap bag

 Here are two scrap quilts made from a shirting scrap bag.  Deanna always stops by the factory outlet store when she is in Monterey and offered to pick up scrap bags for our mini group.  Three of us took her up on her offer and gave her $20 dollars.  She came back with 3 bags full of mens shirt scraps.

Isn't it amazing how wonderful these lap quilts came out.  Just in time for gifts to some coworkers who are retiring soon.  There is still a lot of scraps left over.  They are very high quality cottons that almost feel like silk.  I really haven't done much quilting on these.  I used an Aurifil 12 wt white thread for the top and used my walking foot to keep the stitches from puckering.

David is one of my coworkers who is retiring at the end of this month.  He will have 40 years working for the post office.  This material is perfect, because he won't have to wear his dress shirts and ties anymore.  We are planning a pot luck lunch with gifts.  I was planning to bring some Sharpie marking pens, but I think I'll ask him if he wants his quilt without everyone writing all over it.  There is a poster size picture we made with his picture that we are writing all over.

Thank you Deanna for getting the scrap bag for me.  I can think of at least three more coworkers who are planning to retire soon.  They keep talking about it, but are holding out for an incentive from the USPS.  I'm glad I have the resources to make these small gifts.  Now I have to sit back and see who the second quilt will go to.  Loreice..Gary...Sonny...Ed..Rana..

Rice Bag Challenge

 These are photos of the window of Kaimuki Dry Goods on Oahu, Hawaii.  It is my favorite fabric shop, when I visit Hawaii.  They have a great selection of hawaiian, japanese and quilting fabric.  Carol took these pictures to show the window display.  There is a table runner...

 An Apron, a bag, a window quilt...

 my Plantation quilt

and this lovely dress.  I like this short dress with the rick rack and pleats.  I don't know who won the sewing machine, but challenges are always fun to see what your creativity will come up with.

Bath Mat

 I made a bath mat for Midori.  I used a regular towel, folded it in half and then used the walking foot to sew around the edges and into the middle.

It was simple, easy to make and it felt good to recycle an old towel.

Here is a mat that my Aunt Helen made.  It is simple, not so easy to make and uses recycle fabric on a towel.  What a colorful inspiration.  To give the mat depth, she folded squares of fabric into prairie points and sewed them down starting from the edge of the mat to the middle.  This mat was well used, well taken care of and lasted at least 20 years.  Yes. at least.  I'm sure it was washed many times, but you don't see any unraveling.  The mat I made probably wont last a year.  Something made well will give you such pleasure in its simplicity and longevity.  Hopefully, one day I'll have the time to make a bath mat like Helens.

Dragon

 The royal blue silk dupioni is at least 40 to 50 years old.  My father bought this silk when he was in the Air Force and traveled all over the world.  I'm not sure where he bought it Japan..India..Indonesia.  It works beautifully as a border for the hexagon.  I auditioned other colors, but this just popped and made the other silks really shine.

 The dragon came from a Dover clip art.  Ellen told me about it and encouraged me to sign up for the weekly email of free clip art.  Each week, I would look through the selections and save the ones I liked into an excel spreadsheet.  This dragon clip art was actually only 3 inches long and it was holding a flower in its talons.  I used the excel picture tools to crop the dragon.  I measured the border at 10 inches by 15 inches.  Since 1 sheet of paper is 8 x 11, I expanded the dragon to cover 3 sheets of paper.  These were printed out in black and white and pinned onto the border.

I used a gold thread from Superior as the top thread with a size 90/14 needle.  I free motion quilted the dragon using the printed paper.  My mistake is using the regular copy paper.  I should have used either a tissue paper or light interfacing.  As I tried to pull off the paper, it was too heavy and strong and lifted the gold threads.

One of my favorite books is Dragonsong by Anne MacCaffrey.  A quote from her book is "When thread falls, dragons fly".  Thread had a different meaning in the book, but I just love the thought of the dragon flying around the edge of the quilt looking for loose threads to singe.