A quilt for Chrystal

Chrystal came to the guild's quilt show last March and while wandering through the vendor booths she saw this quilt made up and really liked it.  They were selling kits to make the quilt so I purchased one.   It wasn't a difficult quilt to piece which is a good thing because I didn't feel like the instructions were as clear as they could be.

I quilted it on my longarm and struggled with how to quilt each area.  

I decided the quilt would be Chrystal's birthday gift - which is December 21st - and finished it in just enough time.  I think she liked it - at least I hope so!

While I was gone...

During my blog 'vacation' my guild held its quilt show.  I entered a couple of quilts and actually was awarded two ribbons!  My "Ohmigosh, what WAS I thinking" earned an honorable mention.  I love the color gradation on this quilt.

And "Success" was awarded a 2nd place.  

Both quilts were pieced by me and quilted by Karen Kendo.

The Success quilt was made for Craig in honor of his graduation (with honors!!) from The Citadel's evening program.  It's in Citadel's colors.  He had attended 5 different colleges over the course of 25 years so it was a great relief for him to finally finish.   This is the first quilt I've ever made for Craig so it was long overdue.  I had to laugh when he opened it - he said it was much more traditional than what I usually do.  Guess tradition is in the eye of the beholder.

At the end of last year I got a long-arm machine so I'm hoping that future quilts will be entirely made by me.  I won't have to quilt by check any longer!

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth!

My brother recently asked me for a link to my blog and I realized that I haven't updated it since January.  Babies have been birthed in less time!

When I last posted Jerry and I had just finished running the Disney Half Marathon.  I enjoyed the experience so much that I signed up to run the Glass Slipper Challenge at Disney World in February.  The challenge is a 10k on Friday and a half marathon on Saturday.  If I'm successful I'll get 3 medals - one for each race and one for completing the challenge.

Yes, I think I'm crazy!  Jerry is only going to run the 10k this time. 

I'll post about other doings in our lives in the next few days - I hope!  I need to get used to the changes they've made to blogspot first.

Disney Half Marathon

Last spring Jerry and I decided we'd run the Disneyworld Half Marathon. Back then it seemed like a good idea but as the date of the race approached I began to have second thoughts. They stressed throughout all of the race info that if runners failed to maintain the proper pace they would be pulled from the race course. I was so worried I'd fail and wouldn't get my coveted finisher medal. But....I made it!




It was an interesting race weekend. On Thursday they held a 5K family fun run. On Friday it was a 10K. Saturday was the half marathon and Sunday was the full marathon.

They had 2 special challenges - the Dopey and the Goofy. The people running the Goofy did both the half on Saturday and the full on Sunday. Those running the Dopey did all 4 races! Since each race began at 5:30 am those doing the Dopey were pretty sleep deprived by the end of the weekend!

There were about 21,000 people in the half marathon in 16 corrals, each starting about 3 minutes after the previous. Unfortunately we were in the 15th corral so there was a lot of standing around until we could start.

The entire race was a party atmosphere. There were Disney characters all along the course and runners would stop and line up for photos with each character. I didn't stop because I was too worried about maintaining that pace. There were also lots of costumes. It was a warm humid morning and I'm sure some people regretted the attire.

We didn't spend as much time in the parks as I'd anticipated. We started just outside Epcot and ran along the roads to the Magic Kingdom. We ran down Main Street USA and through cinderella's castle and then out onto the road to return to Epcot. We ran by Spaceship Earth and then back out of Epcot to the finish just outside the park. I thought we'd be done before the park opened, but I was mistaken and enjoyed the cheers from the park goers as we ran past.

Note Donald duck's butt in this photo and the runners that stopped this close to the finish for a photo! I don't even remember seeing Donald there and didn't realize it until seeing this photo. Guess I was too focused on finishing.



Jerry ran the race without his glasses. His last few miles were really rough as his calves cramped up on him.


All in all it was a fun event. Don't think I'll be doing it again anytime soon though.

Decided on a border

After much consideration and a lot of input from folks I decided on this for the border of my Ohmigosh quilt.



I might bind it in the blue or fuchsia but will decide that once it's quilted.




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Ohmigosh - I must be crazy

 

 

At our quilt show last year Vicki McCormick entered a quilt called Ohmigosh.  I was white gloving near her quilt and spent a good bit of time admiring it.  For some reason I decided I wanted to try to make the same pattern.  Vicki's was done scrappy and was just lovely.  I thought I'd try to do my version in a more controlled color palette.  I had been reading Joen Wolfrom's book on color and liked a color wheel she featured that had yellow, magenta and turquoise as the primary colors instead of the red, blue and yellow we're used to seeing. 



 

 

The quilt consists of 2 blocks which finish at 4.5":   A double nine-patch

 



and a shoo-fly block:

 

 

Most of it was strip piecing using 1" wide strips.  I used triangles on a roll for the half-square triangles.

 

After working on and off for over a year I finally got the blocks sewn together. 

Now I need to decide on the border.  The pattern calls for an inner border of about 1", a middle border of about 3/4" and an outer border of 4".  In keeping with the established color scheme I auditioned a blue and magenta border combination

a blue and yellow border

a magenta and blue border

and a magenta and yellow border.

I'm open to other suggestions!  I need to get this one finished and off the design wall!

A quilt for Hayden

A while back Hayden asked me to make her a very specific quilt. One side was to be yellow and pink squares and the other was to be a pink dog and a yellow cat on a light blue background.

Here's the yellow/pink square side. I used a new to me technique of disappearing 4 patches to piece this side. I posted photos of the technique here




Here's the dog/cat side. I enlarged pages from a coloring book for these images. I don't like the placement on the background fabric but I mis-measured and didn't realize it until too late.




Unfortunately Hayden informed me that I confused the colors of the dog and cat. The dog was supposed to be yellow and the cat pink! She figured I could just change it. I had to break it to her that it wasn't that easy.



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Springtime in Charleston

My guild has a show every 2 years. In the past we've had a raffle quilt but can't really call it that because technically raffles are considered gambling and that's against South Carolina law. To avoid potentially breaking the law the committee for our next show decided to do a theme contest. Members would submit a quilt based on the theme "A Quilters View of Charleston" The image of the winning quilt would be used in all advertising for the show and we would also sell patterns of the quilt as a fundraiser.

The winning quilt is a beauty and depicts the bridge over the Cooper River with the Charleston skyline in the background. It will be a wonderful representation of the quilt theme.

This was my submission for the contest.




It was fun to make, but the workmanship is not very good. I had to rush to meet the deadline and took too many shortcuts.

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Disappearing 4 Patch

While browsing around on Pinterest I saw this take on the disappearing 4 patch and thought it was interesting.

Hayden recently asked me to make her a quilt and she had some very specific wishes on how it should look.  One side "should be yellow and pink squares" and the other should have "a pink dog and a yellow cat on a light blue background."  I decided that I would use the disappearing 4 patch to make her pink and yellow square side.  I know it's not really what she asked for, but hopefully she'll think it's okay.

I started with a basic 4 patch using 6" squares - so it measured 12.5" at this point:

Then I marked 2 inches in from each corner:

 

I put the block on my rotating cutting board and cut a diagonal line from the upper left corner to the lower right. Then I turned the board and continued making cuts from the upper left to lower right until I had made 4 cuts without disturbing the block until all the cuts were made.

The pieces were swapped around to look like this:

Then sewn together in 3 sections.

Finally the block was trimmed up to 9.5"

Here are several on the design wall.  Sure hope Hayden likes them.  Now to work on that cat & dog!

Ohmigosh

 

 

 

Recently I finally got back to my Ohmigosh quilt.  I saw this pattern at our last quilt show done scrappy and thought it was really cool.   I decided to try it myself but in a very different color palette.  The blocks finish at 4.5".   It's slow going and I'm not even half done with the piecing.   

 

 

 

 

 



My mother

My mother passed away on January 9th at age 88. She had been dealing with COPD and congestive heart failure for several years. She got sick in December and eventually ended up with pneumonia as well as sepsis.

Jerry and I flew up to Detroit on Tuesday the 8th and mom passed just after midnight. In her last day family was able to get to the hospital to say goodbye.

Her service on Sunday was as lighthearted as a funeral service can be. There were lots of laughs along with the tears.

I'm back home now and just absorbing the situation. Here are mom's 10 grandchildren.





And a link to her obituary

http://www.thayer-rock.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=1899820&fh_id=10492



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Christmas tree

We had a couple of great helpers when we put up the tree.











And Hayden even helped by crawling to the back of the tree.



I spent the other day wrapping the gifts and we're almost ready for the big day!


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For Curt

The day after Thanksgiving Craig's best friend, Curtis, was in a serious motorcycle accident.  Craig & Curt have been friends since high school and Curt has been an important part of our lives since.

 
Curt was life flighted to the Medical University where he has received fabulous treatment.  He has lost the sight in his right eye. Most of the bones in his face were shattered and both wrists required pins and plates.  In spite of the injuries they seem to think he'll be going home this week.  Ronna, Curt's wife is a nurse which may have contributed to him being released so quickly.

In all the helplessness of wanting to DO something right after the accident I started a quilt for Curt.  I estimate that I spent about 30 hours over the course of 3 days cutting and piecing the top.  I found someone with an opening in her Longarm schedule to do the quilting and a week after I started the quilt it was complete - label and all.   Tonight we were able to go up to the hospital to see Curt and deliver the quilt.  I think he liked it, but the meds he's taking are making him too hot so it didn't stay on his bed very long.

I named the quilt "Hugs for Curt" and hope he feels my hugs every time he uses it.

While I was on my blogging break I attended my guild's annual beach retreat. We spend 3 days in July on Seabrook Island -one of Charleston's barrier islands - and sew on our own projects. 3 meals a day are provided by the facility.

This year I worked on a Christmas tree skirt. This photo is of what the skirt should look like when I'm done, but I'm a long way from finishing. It's a very intricate foundation pieced project.



I also worked on finishing up two charity quilts. These are one block wonder quilts. It's always fun to see how the blocks turn out.




Here are some other quilts that were worked on during retreat.










The 2013 retreat has been moved up to January, but I'm not going to be able to attend.

Fans

It's been a long time since I posted here. I've been more active over on Facebook and have been neglecting my poor blog.

I got back yesterday from a week long class in Tryon, NC at Marilyn's Melrose Inn. It's a B&B/retreat center being run by Marilyn Doheny.  melrose-inn.com.

Our class was on using Marilyn's 9 degree wedge ruler to make interesting fan designs. We start by sewing strips of fabric together into strata sets and then cutting them up in various ways with the rulers.














Some of the designs were more popular than others. We all enjoyed making this spiral fan.







Here are some other designs











We even made some bugs (which we all decided we didn't care for)



Marilyn's Inn is quite eccentric. She has funky decorations everywhere. After a while the sheer volume of stuff began to wear on me. Every surface was jam packed with stuff.




The food was excellent and I came home several pounds heavier than I left!