Lemon Tree Tales

Missing U blocks

I joined a mini group that's a subset of the larger quilt guild here in Santa Clara county. The mini group has a modern quilting focus and meets in Sunnyvale a few days after the main guild meeting. Last week I attended the first one. They're working on a charity quilt. The pattern selected is the Missing U quilt from the book, Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkinson. Three of us made red blocks and there are already two orange blocks so we went back with assigned colors for the remaining two blocks. I've made orange, red, medium blue and purple. Most of the fabrics were from my scraps stash that's stored in a shoe organizer over the studio door. Sadly the purples had to come from the stash. Even though I like it, apparently I don't use purple enough to have generated a lot of scraps. And oddly enough, orange is an okay color but I must use it quite a bit. The guild has a requirement of a certain size for their charity quilts .. they must be about twin size so we'll be adding a white sashing to the blocks on one side to make it a narrow quilt. I think the white sashing will make the white bits in the center of our blocks pop.

 

 

 

 

It's such a fun block to make. No hard and set rules. Just sew bits of colored scraps around a white scrap. Of course after the fact I wish that I had cut down the white triangle in the red block into a rectangle or square. I'm thinking that this is such a great way to use up scraps that I should make some of my own. It's now added to the ever growing UFO quilt list.

Stack a New Deck Quilt

Last week I finally tried out the computerized stitching on the Gammill longarm at Jukebox Quilts in Fort Collins, CO. It was definitely a trip watching the machine stitch the pattern out for me. I still had to baste it myself and stood watch to make sure that the threads didn't break or the bobbin run out.

The quilt flimsy was one that I first pieced at the beginning of this blog in March 2006 - here. A few years later I finally got around to getting it ready to hand quilt. The design was going to be circles of various sizes but I didn't like what it was looking like so it was abandoned yet again.

When I took it out of the project box I noticed for the first time how horrible the borders were. When I sewed them on, I knew that I was supposed to measure, cut and then sew but thought that it wouldn't be that big of a deal to cut after I sewed them on. Au contraire mon ami, when I ripped them out I discovered that the short sides had an additional 6" of length for the borders. And the long sides were too short by 6"! Ye gads! That's what happens when you don't measure first. (I finally found the photo of it on my flickr photostream .. here ... isn't that border wavy?!) If I had left them that way it would have been lots of tucks at the longarm. Instead I took a fairly flat flimsy and it quilted up without any problems.

Once again I pieced the backing and had no problems. We did keep the fabric tension looser because of all the batiks but I think that it ended up being too loose because the back-tracking didn't line up properly in some places. But it was amazing how a much more complicated design was able to be stitched in the same amount of time that I hand-guided simpler designs on slightly larger quilts.

Now I just have to do the binding. I'm thinking of making a binding with the dark red/orange and a light orange piping for a bit of pop. Then a hanging sleeve and it'll finally be ready to hang up on the wall after all these years.

The piecing is from Karla Alexander's Stack a New Deck, quilting design is Natalia Major's Waterdrops Simple. Quilted on a Gammill Statler Stitcher with Signature thread in Stone Blue. 80/20 batting.

40" x 65" wall hanging size.

 

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Fabrics for Fractured Quilt

Now that my nephew's quilt is done (well, the binding needs to be finished but I have the fabric so for argument's sake we'll check it off the list) I need another project to longarm. I don't know if you've seen the weather reports lately but it's been cold here in WY. The other day it was 8 degrees during the day. Yes, you read that correctly, eight. And let me tell you that in this case, eight is NOT enough! We don't have enough blankets in the house and we don't have a quilt to snuggle under. (I know, horrible of a quilter not to keep her household warm.) So the next two quilts will be for our bedroom. When we moved here we got one of those king-sized beds that's made from two twins that can change position. Comfy but one king bed covering isn't practical. Two twin quitls it is then. But I don't want them to be matchy-watchy.

That's where Kathy Doughty's lovely book Making Quilts comes into play. She has the Fractured and Red Centre quilt patterns that are made from the same wonky block unit. It'll be lots of fun!

I have lots of great turquoise and green fabrics in my stash that would look fantastic in a quilt. I took my Pink Chalk Fabrics gift certificate and ordered some darker blue fabrics to use as the contrast.

Of course on the monitor these all looked close to navy with the exception of the solid. Funny how it turns out that the Kaffe Fassett fabric is more teal and that the Moda Grunge fabric is more of a charcoal. They'll still look great and will add more depth. 

 

I may get a few darker navy fabrics to make more contrast with some of the turquoise fabrics. I'll only use a bit of the magentas and a shot of that brilliant chartreuse fabric in the upper center. It'll probably be a bit more color than what Steve would like but perhaps after I'll make a blue only bed runner to balance out some of the more feminine colors.

 

And just for fun I also ordered these three colors of Moda Grunge by Grey ... you never know when a good textured solid will come in handy. Sometimes I prefer textured solids to a plain solid. It seems to add that little bit of depth to a quilt. What about you? Do you use solids, textured solids, or mainly prints in your quilts?

Mary Lou Weidman

Remember how I was debating between two classes to take at Asilomar? The one I didn't take was with Mary Lou Weidman (and I do LOVE her story quilts) but I had one of her fantastic books Out of the Box: Unleash Your Creativity Through Quilts and figured that I could start with that and eventually take a class with her in person. Well she and her friend Melanie Bautista McFarland wrote another book Out of the Box with easy blocks and had a book signing at Pacific Grove's Back Porch Fabrics which is an amazing store. When I introduced myself and said how I read her blog Mary Lou and Whimsy Too and that I had one too and said what it was called; do you know what she did? She jumped up and hugged me and said that Lemon Tree Tales was one of the ten blogs that she regularly reads. WOW!!! That made me feel sooooo good. She's just as sweet in person as she is on her blog. (And both she and Mel signed my book too. Yay!) Now maybe she'll be teaching a class somewhere near Cheyenne next year so I can take a class with her. Hmm, Denver is only two hours away, maybe that's on her list.

There was an exhibit of her cow quilt design made by local quilt artists and we posed in front of the Dia de los Moouertos one. That was appropriate since we all three were very colorfully dressed.

 

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The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Oh my goodness, I just read a book that has me breathless and oh so eager to create - The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It's set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries so think of beautiful costumes - bowler hats, walking sticks, long corseted gowns, feather plumed dainty hats - now set this in cities such as London, New York, Basel and finally the playing field is a circus. Oh, but this isn't any ordinary circus, no, this is one that opens at night and closes at dawn. Everything about the circus is black, white, or shades of grey, no colors at all, and the most amazing acts are performed in individual tents. But wait, everything is a bit dreamy, magical and not quite as it seems. For in reality, this night circus, le Cirque des Rêves, is actually the backdrop for a contest between two magicians who have been groomed and tutored from childhood for this duel, everyone else is merely a pawn in the game. But then a marvelous thing happens, the combatants fall in love and that my friends, changes everything.

This is definitely a book up my alley, for it has the magic fantasy and beautiful imagery. Wouldn't you like to attend a circus and meander the circular paths of black and white to sample shows in individual black/white striped tents? Every act is interactive with the attendees, whether by having the shows performed in the round sans a stage, or by directly engaging them with rides or the like.

Half way through the book I almost wanted to take a break to savor what I had read so far, to keep the images dancing in my mind, but I couldn't do it. Instead I galloped through the rest of the story. I couldn't sleep last night because I kept imaging what fun it would be to make a series of dolls inspired by the story... all black and white with grey and perhaps a hint of red here and there. An accent of the color red is how the fans of the circus, the rêveurs, tell each other apart from the performers - a red tie, red rose in the lapel, or a red scarf.

Oh yes, I highly recommend reading The Night Circus. I'll probably wait a bit and then read it again a bit more slowly, perhaps with a sketchbook at hand for any inspirations that may come my way.

"The circus is coming..."

Disclaimer... links to Amazon.com are affiliate links, meaning that I earn a very small fee if anything is purchased via the link. The amounts are small and help to pay for my blog.

Audio Books and Sewing

My friend Trena was telling me how much she likes to borrow e-books from our local library. I wondered if they also had audio books available to borrow electronically. Lo and behold they do. Wow! What a great concept! There's a built-in timer so your download is only valid for the loan period. I tried it for the first time the other day. Other than having to turn the volume up very high so that I could hear over the noise of my sewing machine, it was perfect! So now I get to listen to books while I'm busy in the studio. If you haven't done so before, find out whether your local library offers this function as well.

I managed to sew the strips together for the baby quilt. Still not as quick as I'd like but it'll get done soon enough. Later this afternoon I'll listen while I press open all those seams.

Cloth Doll Artistry by Barbara Willis

My copy of Barbara Willis' new book Cloth Doll Artistry arrived the other week. Since then I've been looking at every page in delight. Quarry Books did a fantastic job of presenting Barbara's Victorian Parisian flea market style from showing her dolls to photographing the basic supplies needed for each project. There are three dolls complete with pattern pieces and instructions. The first is a sweet "paper" doll. The word paper is in quotes because that's just the beginning. Barbara layers her dolls with luscious fabrics, trims, laces and findings. The other two dolls are 3-D cloth dolls; one with a flat face and the other one with Barbara's trademark knit fabric sculpted face.

I've been fortunate to take two classes from Barbara in person (here and here) and those sculpted face instructions are just as clear as if Barbara was in your studio gently guiding you along. In addition to all those goodies there are gallery guest artists showcasing how they've interpreted Barbara's patterns. Another must have for your doll making library.

Book Review: Creative Cloth Explorations by Patti Culea

If you're at all interested in cloth dolls then the name Patti Medaris Culea is already a familiar one in your studio. She's the author of four amazing books about cloth dolls: Creative Cloth Doll Making, Creative Cloth Doll Faces, Creative Cloth Doll Couture, and Creative Cloth Doll Beading. Her fifth book, Creative Cloth Explorations, goes beyond cloth dolls and delves into the wonderful world of fiber art along with the company of fairies.

While you work on the book's main project (a fabric fairy book) you'll learn how to use shiva oil paint sticks, silk rods and silk waste, beaded embellishments, embroidery, silk ribbon embroidery, and create your very own "fabric" made with threads. There's also mini projects to play with: ATC, bookmark, flat doll and a fabric fan. As always with Patti's books, the patterns are included in the book as well as a gorgeous gallery of guest artists' interpretations of the projects.

Read this book to spark inspiration for that next art quilt, pillow, doll, journal cover or any other fiber fantasy that springs to mind. It's printed on Quarry's nice slick full color pages for that extra touch of eye candy. It's a beautiful addition to the library of anyone interested in the fiber arts.

Book Review: Knit Two

Kate Jacobs has done it again. She's revisited the characters from the successful Friday Night Knitting Club in her new book Knit Two. I was so excited to see this arrive in the mail box and couldn't wait to begin reading it. I started it late evening and didn't put it down until I had finished it -- at 5 am in the morning! Even though my eyes were red and bleary it was so worth that missed night's sleep.

It's five years later and the ladies from Walker and Daughter have rallied around to support Dakota as she grows up in college. They have developed strong relationships that aren't always perfect but are full of love. Unlike the first book the story doesn't seem to revolve around the yarn store as much as before but centers more around the individual club members. Once again these are extremely strong female characters that you would want in your corner. They don't always have the answers but they are extremely loyal and supportive of each other's ups and downs.

Apparently Julia Roberts has optioned the rights to the first book. I do hope that her production company makes this into a movie so that they can then make the second book into the sequel. If you haven't read the first book run to the bookstore and get a copy so that you'll be ready to read Knit Two when it comes out on November 25.

My artwork is in a book!

I'm so excited! I have a piece of my artwork published in a great looking book! Around Thanksgiving of last year I heard about a blogger who was looking for artwork to illustrate her essays. I can't remember how I found out about this but for some reason when I saw it, I thought that it was something that I could do. We had only ten days to get it made and sent to her. She and her publisher would go through the artwork and select one for each essay. When they saw the artwork her publisher decided to use ALL of the art!

The book is called Life is a Verb by Patti Digh. It's a gorgeous book with bright colors, slick pages, and wide margins to make notes. Patti's step-father was diagnosed with cancer and died only 37 days later. This had such a profound effect on her life. What if you only had 37 days to live? What would you do? How would you live your life to the fullest so that you wouldn't die with regrets? Thus she began writing essays to leave for her two daughters. The book is a compilation of these essays and includes two different types of exercises to do at the end of each one. One is a short-term, quick exercise while the other one is designed to be done for 37 days. It's not meant to be read in one day. Rather than trying that, I've been enjoying it by just randomly opening the book and reading one essay. I highly recommend it! And of course, if you buy it, turn to page 95 and check out my digital collage artwork.

Here is mine:

Here's the lovely inscription from the author, Patti Digh:

And here's the book cover (no I didn't do that artwork):