Blogger's Quilt Festival 2014

For age is opportunity no less than youth itself, though in another dress, and as the evening twilight fades away, the sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Levi's Stars

I spent last week getting the binding hand sewn down on this quilt for my grandson.  I wanted to get it finished because we were going to see him Saturday and I also wanted it to be my entry in the Blogger's Quilt Festival for this Spring.  I finally got the pictures edited this morning so now I'm sharing it with you.

This project lasted almost a year.  I started sewing on it last June.  Tomorrow is Levi's 1st Birthday so I am a little slow in getting it finished.  It is large enough thought that he will be able to use it for a while yet.

Levi's Stars
53" x 57"

Since his name has just four letters I s 

I kept the quilting simple.  I did a small meander in the background and a wavy line was used to outline the stars and the piano key border.  These pictures were made before I washed it.

The backing fabric is one that caught my eye.  It is a print of multi-colored unraveled thread or scribbles.  Depends on if you draw in thread or pencil as to how you see it.  LOL

This is how it looked before it was quilted.  There are two of four different blocks in the quilt.

Here is a look at how it changed after it was washed and shrank up a bit.

I think you can see that the letters puffed out a little more as did the stars.  I hope you like it.  I would like to thank Amy for making the Blogger's Quilt Festival such a fun event.  This is my entry under Small Quilts.  There are many great quilts entered for you to take a look at!  I am sure you will enjoy looking at them all and voting for your favorites.

Linking with: Crazy Mom Quilts

Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2013

Life is a festival only to the wise. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

After debating for far too long I finally came to a decision on what to share in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Looking back over the year so far I realized that my only finishes have been for other people, charity and blog hops.  This being true I am reaching back into my past and sharing a couple of oldies but goodies.  

This first quilt is a Strip Pieced Colorwash Wall Quilt which I am entering in the Scrappy Quilts Category.  I made the top as a sample for the technique when I was teaching the class.  A few years later the guild I was in had a challenge of depicting a song in a quilt.  I was stumped for months and then looking through my UFOs I decided that this top looked like a garden after a rainstorm when the sun breaks through the clouds.

Out Came the Sun

I added an appliqued water faucet and some flowers cut out of various prints.  I quilted the rain with a sparkly thread and couched down some heavier metallic thread to make a spider web under the water spout.

Close up of Water Faucet

Even closer look at the Spider Web

Can you find the Spider? 

Did you guess the song yet?  If you are thinking the little nursery rhyme ditty "Itsy Bitsy Spider" you are right.  Sorry if it gets stuck in your head for the day.

The second quilt I selected is a cotton crazy pieced one.  I am entering this quilt in the Bed Quilt Category. I used the book Crazy with Cotton by Diana Leone for my inspiration on this one.  I also taught classes on it.  The blocks are crazy pieced but there is no embellishment.  The inspiration was the wonderful Alexander Henry cat print I used in the border.  The blocks are primarily filled with cat and bird prints.  There is one tone on tone dog print used (because dogs are just a minor note in a cat quilt).  It was a lot of fun to make.  I don't usually do such large borders but I wanted the cats to be the focus of the quilt and they were just to wonderful to cut up any smaller.

Who Ate the Canary?

Great cat print! 

Backing Fabric

The blocks are bordered with this delightful black and cream checkerboard print.  I used it for the binding also.  The sashing is a gray feather print.  That gave me the name for the piece.  With so many smug looking cats someone had to be up to some mischief.  The quilting is a large meander done with a primary colored variegated thread to look like yarn.

I hope you enjoy my entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival and will check out and vote for your favorites!

The Sunny Side

Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends feel there is something special in them. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.  

Christian D. Larsen

I've been stitching away at the binding to get this quilt FINISHED so I could enter it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  So here it is still warm from my hands and from the photo session.

The Sunny Side
72" x 89"

This is a Thimbleberries design called Sunny Side Up.  I decided to to just call mine The Sunny Side because I prefer to think of the attitude described in the quote above rather than eggs when I look at it.  LOL  I hope you enjoy looking at is also!

The top is all Thimbleberries fabrics.

Because the Background Fabric is a paisley print I decided to use a paisley panto-graph.  You can see it in the photo below but the fabric colors are not right in that photo.

I used some of the leftover fabrics to make the back a little more interesting.

The back is just lovely texture.  It will look even better after it is washed.

This quilt is entry number 69 in the bed quilts category.

See my other quilt entry Nine Lives if you click here.

Thanks to AMY for giving quilters so much eye candy and a chance to share our work on Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Make sure you check out ALL the categories!

Also linking with:  

Link a Finish Friday 

Finish It Up Friday
Fabric Tuesday
Sew Much Ado

Nine Lives

Dogs come when they are called; cats take a message and get back to you. 

Mary Bly

I didn't have to think about it very long before I decided which quilts to enter in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I decided on this one fairly quickly because it is one of my favorites.  It was made for a guild challenge that I participated in a few years ago.

The challenge was to make a quilt using as many fabrics that had circles or dots in it as possible.  I had a group of Black and White Nine Patch Blocks from a Block Swap from a Longarm List that I had participated in a few years before.  When I looked through them I pulled the ones that fit the description best.  I had some Laurel Burch Fabric that I knew would work well with Black and White Prints so that's what I went with.  The Laurel Burch Print had a lot of circles and dots in it too. I pulled my bright star colors from the border print.  Most of them have circles or dots.   After playing on EQ for a little while I had my design done.

Nine Lives

Here are some close up shots so you can see the prints better.

More Cats on the Back

I quilted on my longarm using a variegated thread and floral panto-graph (which doesn't show up  because the fabrics are so busy).

This quilt is entry number 33 on the ROYGBIV page.

You can see my other entry The Sunny Side if you click here.

Thanks to AMY for giving quilters so much eye candy and a chance to share our work on Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Make sure you check out ALL the categories!

Linking with: Sew Many Ways

A Big Surprise

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. 

George Jean Nathan

Before I went to vote today I took a minute to check my blog stats.  I had not looked at them since yesterday morning or at my email either.  What I saw surprised me.  There were a lot of page views coming from Amy's Creative Side.  I knew that it was time for the category nominations to be posted but when I had checked yesterday they were not up.  I shook my head and told myself it couldn't be... then I clicked the link and YES it was!!!

Oak at Sunrise

OAK AT SUNRISE made it to the 

TOP FIVE in the Wall hanging category.

Whoopee!!!   

I was shocked, stunned, speechless...  you get the idea.

I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone that voted for my quilt.  I am so excited and amazed that this has happened!  A big THANK YOU goes to Amy for putting on this event too!

If you haven't read my post about the quilt it is HERE.

Now if you want to see all the nominations click the link above.  My category is the next to the last one down the page.  I would appreciate it if you voted for my quilt to win the category.  If I win is will be another big honor but making it this far was a big one too!  There were 628 quilts entered and they can all be viewed here. 

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Oak at Sunrise

The greatest achievements were at first and for a time dreams. The oak sleeps in the acorn. 

James Allen

I excited to finally get to participate in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.   Amy has created a big event in the quilter's blogging world and if you want to see a lot of great quilts hop over and check out the link above after you read about My Favorite Quilt.

I would like to welcome all new visitors to my blog.  If you haven't been here before I hope you will take a little time to poke around a bit.  It has been a busy fall for me and I have been in several blog hops.  There are tutorials and free patterns that you can check out and some pictures of quilts, flowers and landscapes for eye candy.  I hope you enjoy them!

I couldn't decide at first which quilt to show.  If you have been reading my blog lately you have already seen this one.  Since I didn't get anything new finished I thought I'd share it again along with how it came to be made.

Oak at Sunrise

Several years ago I was in charge of a Guild Challenge.  I had read about an idea for a challenge on one of the internet groups I am in and decided to use it.  Everyone drew a bag that contained two crayons.  They could use any value of the crayons, light to dark, and add a background fabric.  My two colors were a golden yellow and a rich dark brown.

The idea of an oak tree came to me.  I drew inspiration from a number of pictures and drawings of oaks and came up with the tree.  I don't usually do a lot of applique but this seemed to flow.  I had a small selection of yellows that gradated in color and added several batiks and prints to the mix.  I tried to convey the sunrise sky behind the tree and the darkness still in the foreground.  The flying geese in the side borders reflect the idea of light rising.

Variegated Cotton Thread used for Quilting

Straight Line Quilting around Geese and Borders

Rayon Thread used for Satin Stitching

Freemotion Quilting done on my Longarm

Vintage Paisley Print on the Back

Quilt Measures 31 3/4" Wide x 36 3/4" Long

Techniques:  Satin Stitched Fusible Applique,  
Pieced Flying Geese and Background

Made and Quilted by Patricia Lines

Categories:  Wall Quilt, Applique Quilt, Two Color Quilt

That's the tale of my Oak at Sunrise Quilt #510 in the Festival.  I hope you enjoyed it!

If you made it this far take a peek at the previous post for a HAPPY HALLOWEEN smile!!