Lemon Tree Tales: 8 posts from April 2013

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8 posts from April 2013

Fab Little Quilt Swap 3: Finished Quilt

Today I mailed out the quilt for the Fab Little Quilt Swap session three. Thank you everyone for all of your votes for which background to choose. I guess all of the snow that we've been having here in Cheyenne determined the final choice of a solid white. (We had 17" of snow the other week!) The quilt shops out here didn't have plain white so I went with a very subtle white on white micro dot. The flash of bright color against all the stark white gave the quilt its name: Aurora Borealis, The Northern Lights.

This is the first time that I was able to practice my new FMQ skills that I learned from Jill Schumacher at the Empty Spools quilt retreat at Asilomar recently. I even used nylon thread for the first time when I ditch stitched the NY Beauty circle. I also didn't want to do just one allover pattern so I divided the quilt into four sections. Instead of a sun the NY Beauty circle really brought to mind a map's compass but it needed an 'N'. Rather than embroidering it I took a cue from Angela Walters' and quilted it. Wow, was that a fun technique. I'll be doing that again.

Detail of the quilting from the back

Detail of the front ... red/orange binding accent to bring some warmth to balance out the large sun. At first I wasn't going to quilt the white triangles of the flying geese but the triangles just weren't popping. That little bit of quilting really made a big difference.

A bigger view of the back ... I sewed two hanging triangles in the top corner.

The hand drawn quilt label ... the swap recipient hasn't received it yet so the name is covered until it arrives at its destination. I love the simplicity of drawing a label using fine line Sharpies.

This was such a fun quilt to work on and I'm thrilled that my FMQ skills have improved so much. I'll definitely be practicing in the near future. After my round robin commitments I still have to quilt the Ohio Star quilt. We need some artwork to hang on the walls in our new digs. That quilt would be perfect in the living room. Okay it's time to get warm because it's snowing once again in Wyoming. Geez, I thought that Spring was here.

Lemon Tree Tami on April 30, 2013 in Quilts | Permalink | Comments (6)

Fab Little Quilt Swap 3: Background Choices

Okay folks, I need some opinions please on finishing the quilt for the Fab Little Quilt Swap. Which one of these background choices do you like the best?

A) Black/White/Grey triangles no sun

B) Black/White/Grey triangles

C) Solid White

D) Solid Black

E) Solid Black/White

Which option? A, B, C, D, or E? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Lemon Tree Tami on April 22, 2013 in Quilts | Permalink | Comments (8)

Fab Little Quilt Swap 3: Flying Geese Ribbon

Part of the design for the Fab Little Quilt Swap 3 quilt is a ribbon of increasing flying geese. I've never tried one of these before so I went to town with pen and paper to draft it out.

I bought a Moda jelly roll of pale polka dots on rainbow solids. I didn't realize that they were gradations until I opened it up. Yay! They let me draft 27 flying geese with purple at the bottom. I wanted them to pop so I decided to use white fairy frost as the backgrounds. Of course before I started sewing I had to retrace the drawing in reverse so that it'd sew up correctly.

Here I started with a few of the flying geese. So far so good.

After a while I realized that if I had it to do over that I'd divide this ribbon up into three sections so that I wouldn't have to fight a long curl of paper. Midway into the greens section I realized that I forgot to sew the turquoise. Oops! I had to frog that section and re-sew it the right way. Also I tried to sew too much of this while I was tired and I kept making silly mistakes like letting the ends of pieces curl backwards into seams. Ugh! Don't you hate when that happens?! After a few too many mistakes I turned off the sewing machine and took a break.

Finally I got back to it this morning and worked until a little after noon when I completed the last flying geese section. Whoo-hoo! Isn't it a cool thing? Here it is next to the NY Beauty circle.

A little bit of a rest and then I'll get cracking on the background. I've decided to cut out those black/white/grey fabrics with the triangle Sizzix die cutter. Hopefully they won't take too long to sew. Then I'll split it apart for the ribbon and then reverse applique' the circle. It's starting to come together.

Lemon Tree Tami on April 22, 2013 in Quilts | Permalink | Comments (1)

Fab Little Quilt Swap 3: NY Beauty Circle

In between all the snow I've been sewing away. Finally I finished the NY Beauty circle for the Fab Little Quilt Swap quilt. I'll probably reverse applique it to the background. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, especially since it's the first time that I've ever tried sewing them. I found the patterns from Sew Sweetness' NY Beauty Quilt Along. The only change I made was to reduce the size by 50% so that I'd have 4" blocks, not 8". I can't remember which blocks I used. They were a bit fiddly at that size. Next time I'll try one full size and see how they turn out.

NY Beauty Circle:

It's hard to see in the picture but the "white" background fabric is a white with gold metallic to give a touch of sparkle. Now it's time to attack the flying geese ribbon in the quilt.

Lemon Tree Tami on April 20, 2013 in Quilts | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fab Little Quilt Swap 3 progress

Before I left California I signed up for the third session of the Fab Little Quilt Swap that's hosted on flickr. I've been working very slowly on this quilt. First I took a long time trying to figure out what my partner would like. I don't like to get it wrong and make an effort to stalk their flickr photostream for favorites as well as their blog if they have one. After many weeks I came up with a bunch of sketches:

These are the cleaned up thumbnail sketches. The first ones are doodled here and there on my notepad in between to-do lists and info on possible rental houses before we settled on the one that we moved into.

I decided that I liked the lower left sketch the best. The background will be a gradation of neutrals from dark to light and back again. It's bifurcated by a flying geese band that gets bigger at the bottom. Those will most likely be in a rainbow of colors. Then on the right there'll be four NY Beauty blocks sewn together to form a type of mariner's compass. I may or may not embroider a 'N' at the top. That'll be for last.

So far I've pulled fabrics for the NY Beauties and the neutrals. I only had about five tan/brown fabrics so I discarded them and went with black/white/grey because I had a lot of those. I'm not exactly sure how I'll do the background - whether I'll just piece random rectangles/squares or if I'll cut out triangles with the Sizzix die cutter.

I've sewn parts of two NY Beauty blocks so far. I think they'll be pretty cool once they're done.

Lemon Tree Tami on April 19, 2013 in Quilts | Permalink | Comments (1)

Messy New Studio

I'm on the hunt for furniture for my new studio space. So far I have my eye on a few sewing cabinets on craigslist. If they get down to a reasonable price I may call on them. If not then I have another idea and will shop for a sturdy wood desk from the thrift store. Take a look at my pinterest board for ways to turn a desk into a drop down sewing machine table. Isn't that a great inexpensive way to house your sewing machine.

In the meantime this is what my studio looks like:

At first I had my sewing machine set on the floor but that was a bit difficult to sew. I took it to the dining room table and set it there. It's a bit better than the floor but it's one of those pub height tables so it's a bit of a stretch to sew. Steve recommended that one because when we want to switch to a bigger table later I can use this one as a cutting table. Smart man!

Hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to start organizing the new studio. I'd rather wait and buy the type of shelves and furniture that I'd really like from thrift stores and craigslist than to rush it and just buy any old thing. The most important thing is a sewing table and chair. The good thing is that this room is quite a bit bigger than the studio in Sunnyvale. Whoo-hoo!

Lemon Tree Tami on April 17, 2013 in Studio | Permalink | Comments (2)

Cheyenne Rental House

Just as we were giving up on ever finding a house to rent in the countryside (and had turned in an application for a condo in town) Steve found a house for rent on Zillow. Who knew that they also listed rentals in addition to houses for sale? At any rate I called and made an appointment for that evening. We loved it and said we wanted it. The very next day the landlord called and said that we could rent it. Yay!

Here's a picture of the house:

Yes, that is indeed a dirt driveway. We also have a small private unpaved road, a named unpaved road and yet another named unpaved road before we get back to pavement. Our heat is provided by propane, thus the propane tank to the right in the picture.

The view from the front door - notice no houses in sight:

And the view from the french doors in the living room - that house off to the left in the distance belongs to our landlord. He took his forty acres and subdivided it so that he could build this rental house on the very far corner of his land. Our address is officially on the street that his house is near but you can only access it from the private unpaved street (which is really like an extended driveway since there are no other houses off it) off of another side street. It's a bit confusing for deliveries but so far no major problems.

There's no fenced area so we'll go to Lowe's and get some fence parts and put up a small area for the dogs. So far I'm still leashing them for potty breaks. The first thing we did last week was to drive my car over and park it in the garage because a storm was headed our way. That Monday the furniture arrived (just the basics, bed, 2 recliners for living room and a dining table with chairs) and then I hurried around and bought a credenza and side table for the tv and Steve's lap top. Don't you just love craigslist?! When the weather clears up again I'll scout for more used furniture.

I didn't have everything moved into the house that Monday so I decided to stay in the RV for the blizzard. Hmm, that perhaps wasn't the best idea. It was soooo cold even with all the heaters blasting away. Finally I was able to get a bit warm after two layers of clothing, three blankets and a very warm dog on my lap. We all slept most of that Tuesday except for quick potty breaks. I then needed to get to the house Wednesday morning for the Dish installer. This is what I saw when I got to the house:

All I can say is thank goodness for the used Yukon that we bought in February with its AWD. There was too much snow piled up in the driveway for me to make it to the garage. So I walked to it and traveled back and forth in my footprints unloading the car, including the dogs in their crates:

After I was unloaded a neighbor came by and plowed the private road and my driveway. Wasn't that nice? Steve brought back some See's Candies from California so that we can thank him as soon as the weather is better this weekend.

So far we're loving it. In between the snowstorms we've walked along the dirt roads. We met another neighbor on her horse, Bailey. She just got her pro rodeo license and does barrel races, etc. The dogs weren't too keen on the horse but they'll have to get used to it since almost everyone has horses in their pastures here. And when the weather cleared for a few days I saw a few dozen chickens too. It's not far from Steve's work, maybe 15 minutes or so and not too much farther from town. We're very glad that we found exactly what we were looking for in a rental house.

Lemon Tree Tami on April 16, 2013 in Daily Life | Permalink | Comments (4)

Art Journal: Pages from my Friends

January of 2012, three of my friends and I decided to make fabric journals with a theme. Each of us would make pages for each other so that we could have an art book to keep. My theme was dragonflies and now I have all three pages back from my friends.

I showed you the one from Laurie already, but here it is again with her very cool stuffed 3-D dragonfly:

Next is the page from Valerie with some exquisite needlework dragonflies. Lovely, lovely work!

Did you see the silk ribbon embroidered flowers? I love it!

And finally a Monet waterlilies inspired piece from Daisy, complete with awesome 3-D dragonfly fairies. She likes to make beautiful nude dolls from batiks. I smiled when I saw that these little gals had her signature rounded tushes.

I'm so happy with them ... they're gorgeous! Now I have to work on my page and then it'll be time to figure out what to do for a cover. My page will probably also have a dragonfly fairy with a face similar to the 3-D fabric paperdolls that I did for the previous pages. In the meantime I'm just having fun admiring the work that my friends put into my pages. Thank you!