Reasons to EQ - #1

I finished my Modify Tradition swap quilt top!  It's very cute, and I knew right away that it deserved a cute quilting motif.  But what motif?  Diagonal lines didn't seem quite right and neither did stitching in the ditch (Which ditch?  There's a million!).

Luckily I've got Electric Quilt 7.  Did you know that you can print quilting stencils with this program?  It's so easy!  All you have to do is search through the stencils (they're in the blocks library) and add your choice to your project sketchbook.  Then, drop it into the appropriate layer of your quilt.  The program will size the stencil as necessary!

I decided on an orange peel pattern and printed four copies of the stencil.  Just cut them out and use spray adhesive to attach them to the quilt.  Then, stitch along the quilting lines.  Go as fast or as slow as you are comfortable.

Once you've finished quilting, carefully rip off the paper.  Use your fingernail to hold down the stitches and gently rip away the edge of the paper.  If you pull some stitches up, just tug on either side of the stitch and it should go right back.

After you peel all the paper away, you may have some tiny specks caught in the seam.  Use tweezers to pull them out.  Voila, you are done, and you have perfect quilting!

Swap Progress

Something is happening with my Modify Tradition swap quilt.  You know there's a swap going on, right?

I've paper pieced these blocks with templates from EQ7.  I have to say, the program is amazing!  The block I chose (from what seemed like hundreds of blocks) isn't even intended to be paper pieced.  However, the program allows you to print any block in foundation piecing format.  It will even section and number the pieces for you!

My swap partner likes house blocks, and I've always wanted to try them, so I decided to go for it.  I went through several virtual mutations in layout and eventually settled on some kind of combination of all of them.

The blocks are about 6.5" square and I think they are super cute!  I love the fabrics I chose.  Originally I had picked a pink Kona solid, but decided to use a bit of pink dotted batik from my stash instead.  I'm glad I did; these pink houses are adorable.  The background is a natural colored Kona solid, and the roof is also another Kona solid.  I don't really pay attention to the colors; maybe I should get one of those whacked out color cards.  Or just check the bolts when I buy.

Look, Mom!

Today my friend Jenny came over to play.  We stuffed our faces, saw a dead possum, and I taught her how to make a quilt!  Well, sort of.  I taught her how to make a quilt block.  A Sawtooth Star to be exact!

We dug into the old stash (which is really just large pieces of fabric leftover from finished projects, since you guys know I don't stash) and chose some cute fabrics, including some Amy Butler and a nice batik.  I showed Jenny how to use the rotary cutter and grid ruler, and I also taught her about 1/4" seams and pressing seams between steps.

 

The whole thing is only 4.5" square.  What a tiny block for a first-timer!  She did a great job, and I was quite proud of my teaching, too (I should be good at that, though, right?).   Next time I'm going to have to teach her how to do binding.

Here's Jenny and her finished quilt.  Don't you love this picture?  She looks pleased as punch!  Actually, Jenny looks like this pretty much all the time, except when she's really furious.  She's the happiest, smiliest person I know.

Blogger's Quilt Festival Entry

This year, I decided to enter my piece de resistance, my modern opus, my masterpiece-- my hand pieced grandmother's flower garden quilt. I was inspired to create this quilt by an enormous patch of coneflowers that blooms in front of the Virginia Fine Arts Museum every year. The museum is just down the street from my apartment, so I get to enjoy the flowers all season, every year. The flowers are so colorful and full, and I get sad when they burn up and wilt each summer. Now I can have those flowers all year long!

The quilt measures approximately 93" x 67" finished and unwashed. I used a cotton-poly batting had it professionally quilted by Rebekah Richardson of Kept In Stitches Quilting (Richmond, VA).

The center of the top is entirely hand pieced by me. I followed the English paper piecing method seen here. Each piece is whip-stitched together using waxed or glace thread. For the flowers I used batik cottons, and the path is created with my favorite pink fabric ever, Lakehouse Antique Dots in Berry.

I created a pieced back using leftover pink squares and Cufflink in the Leaf colorway from Summer Soiree by Paula Prass. The quilt is bound with a really cool dot designed by Faye Burgos for Marcus Fabrics. It's super black, and it turned my fingers grey while I was finishing the binding.

I love this quilt and can't wait to use it for many years to come!

Serious Conversation!

Serious Conversation!

Originally uploaded by McAzadi

I love this photo. There is clearly some serious conversation going on here. She looks absolutely crazed with purpose! What she is saying is clearly important.

I patched Disqus (a commenting management tool) onto this blog to help me reply to everyone's comments. Those no-reply bloggers really bug me, because sometimes they have awesome contributions but I can't respond. Disqus allows us to discuss in threaded comments, which will be super helpful.

You don't have to have a Disqus profile to comment; just fill in the info and comment as a guest, just as you would have done before. Hopefully it works!

Aunt Millie's Flower Garden

So far, I have completed one of twelve Aunt Millie's Flower Garden applique blocks.  One lone block.  I started it over a year ago.  That's pathetic!

I will finish appliqueing all these blocks before September 1, 2010.  That gives me three and a half months to finish.  This means I will have to complete 3.14 blocks each month.  Quite a lofty goal.  Check my progress in the blog sidebar.

HEN Swap

I signed up for the Hand Embroidery Network swap a month or so ago.  Apparently I hate deadlines because I didn't even start until this weekend (which is way late, let's just say).

The swap's theme is spring time.  My favorite part of spring time is how everything is so full of blossoms, fresh, clean, and green.  So, I let that feeling take me away while stitching.  And of course, I got inspired by beads and fabric.

Hopefully my partner likes this.  I still have another to make for my partner, since we agreed over email to make two.  I don't know much about her; she only uses facebook (and I don't!) so I haven't seen any of her work.

Gnome Homes

I finally sat down to sew Sharon's block for the Shrinking Quilters' Bee.

Sharon's month was April (oops!) and she asked for pink, wonky gnome homes.  She sent a bunch of cute pink fabrics, in addition to a lot of white fabric, and a little bit of Heather Ross's pink gnomes print.  I added in my favorite pink polka dot ever, and also a bit of green for the grass.  

I've never done wonky before; I'm not sure if I like what I came up with.  I tried to recreate my neighborhood here in Richmond.  The final product is quite different than my idea drawing, but that's because there were certain elements that I just couldn't bring myself to attempt to create (like stairs, porches, and columns).

Compared to others, my block seems like a failure!

Mail!

Look what Reba brought!  I immediately stopped talking with Conky about the Secret Word of the day, sat down in Chairry and opened this package.  Lo and behold!  My very own copy of EQ7.  (Holy @#$#%!)

Thanks Sarah and all the folks at the The EQ Blog.  I'm so utterly lucky.

And don't forget you can still pre-order at an awesome price until May 21st!  

The giveaway is over!

I've been receiving a lot of comments asking to be signed up for the EQ7 giveaway.  Maybe new visitors missed the last few posts, but the giveaway closed a while ago and a winner has been chosen.  I love your comments, but please do not leave any more asking to be signed up for the giveaway (it's over!).

Instead, feel free to read about my quilts and leave comments there!

EQ7 Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to everyone for participating in this awesome contest.  I really enjoyed reading all of your comments; so many people are unlucky like me, and others have won (or know someone who has won) amazing prizes!  Some people were just plain thankful for another day on this beautiful creation (those comments made me smile).

Without further ado, the lucky winner!  Congratulations to #39, blueberrymoon, who said: "Wow, Awesome win Girl!!! I won a case of Foldger's coffee when I was eight, In a raffle. How funny is that. Hmmmm.. Maybe that's why I am a coffee addict."





I'll be emailing the winner shortly.  If I don't hear back from her by Friday at midnight, then I'll choose another winner.

If you didn't win, you still have several chances to win the software.

Thanks for stopping by.  You came for the giveaway, but I hope you stay for the quilts. :)

MT Swap Inspiration

I love quilts!  There's something about all that patchwork that just makes me absolutely giddy.  My favorite quilts are bold and geometric.  Quilts that exhibit brights against a pale, neutral background are especially gorgeous.  I really love star blocks (couldn't you tell by my Round 2 picks?) of all types.  Flying Geese are some of the coolest traditional blocks I've ever seen; I love them en masse or just a few sprinkled over a solid background fabric.  Right now I'm really digging quilts that use the same block in multiple sizes, like these two.

There are no colors that I hate, but I'm not a fan of dusty colors or a shabby chic look.  I especially love chartreuse, magenta, and gray.  Prints, batiks, and solids are all acceptable fabrics in my book.

Perhaps the only thing I really hate is when a quilt isn't squared up properly.  I think it makes the overall piece look badly done, no matter how nice the piecing and quilting may be.  Any shape is fine, but I particularly love equilateral square quilts.

I can't wait to see what my partner makes for me!  I wonder if I'll be able to pick it out of the flickr pool...

EQ7 Giveaway

As you know, the Electric Quilt Company announced a contest on their blog offering 10 lucky bloggers the chance to win two copies of EQ7-- one to keep and one to give away.

Imagine my excitement when I got an email on my Blackberry stating I had won not one but two copies of EQ7.  I literally got out of my car and did a dance in the street!  

Normally this is where a blogger would post a picture of the flesh-and-blood object to be given away.  Instead, I have an email (Click on the picture to go to flickr and see the original size.).  Sarah from the Electric Quilt Company will be mailing the loot directly to the winner after the giveaway (I think she is trying to keep me from selling the software on the black market of quilting).

To get a chance at winning my extra copy of Electric Quilt 7, simply comment here.  If you need something to say, tell me about the best thing you've ever won.  I will use random.org to choose a winner at 9PM EST on Wednesday, May 5, 2010. 

(For the record, this is the best thing I've ever won.  Josh, however, won $400 on a Virginia Lotto scratcher ticket!  That was lucky.)

Foot in Mouth

Just when I said I don't stash...

They were calling out to me! Plus I had a coupon for a free yard at Quilting Adventures. What wonderful thing shall I make for myself?

Electric Quilt 7

Okay people. The Electric Quilt Company is getting ready to release Electric Quilt 7!




I covet this program! There are so many excellent tools that I really wish I had. I love that you can print blocks in any size and that you can test layouts and import fabric swatches. I also love that this doesn't include doing math by hand or drafting on graph paper.

Martha Washington Star

Check out my Martha Washington Star Tutorial at Modify Tradition. It's the last block tutorial for Round 2! Don't worry-- there's still one more project left this round.

Bow Tie Quilt

This has been finished for a while.  Sorry it's taken so long for me to blog it!

The Bow Tie Quilt was originally supposed to be my sister's birthday present.  However, I fell in absolute love with the fabrics and the quilt during the construction process and decided to keep it for myself.   Good thing, because Katie says it's a little too shabby-chic for her.

She's a bit right; I didn't realize that until after she'd said so.  It's not normally my taste either, but I just can't help myself this time.  The whole thing is very sweet.  I love it!

Fabrics are mostly from Hope Valley by Denyse Schmidt, but there are some favorites from Freshcut by Heather Bailey as well as a brown print that is recent (but I can't remember where it comes from).  Bound with the Prairie Rose print in the Piney Woods color way.  Backed with a pink damask from the Promises line.

It measures 70"x70" and is perfect for napping on the couch.  I quilted it in mostly evenly-spaced mostly-straight lines.  Try not to notice those incorrectly placed blocks in the corner... I didn't notice them until after the whole thing was basted, quilted, and bound. Too late to fix, otherwise I would have done so.

Magic Cross

I've got a new tutorial over at Modify Tradition.  This week's block is the Magic Cross.  Very easy to prepare for and very easy to make.  Not to mention, very cute!

Shrinking Quilters - March

I'm a bit behind, but today I made my bee block for The Incredible Shrinking Quilter's Bee.  March was Suzanna's month.

We made an off-kilter Shoo-Fly block inspired by a project in Liberated Quiltmaking by Gwen Marston.  Suzanna sent jewel-toned fabrics and requested that we use a black background. My final block has a pretty Amish look, which I'm digging.  I couldn't resist the light blue blender fabric that she sent and so I decided to use that as my focus fabric along with some funky purple print for the border.  I love my block!  I have plenty of scraps left over and so I think I may make some extra blocks for Suzanna to make up for being late.  I'd also like to make some of these for myself! If you'd like to know how to make this block, surf over to Modify Tradition to learn how to view the Shoo Fly block tutorial.  Then, add some borders and trim at an angle.  You're done!

Engaged!

Engaged!

Originally uploaded by jenamoured

Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got, I'm still (I'm still) Jenny from the block.