Eye Spy Quilt Completed!

My first completed quilt of 2024 is my Eye Spy Quilt.  This is officially my first one.  However, my friend, A, says I have made Eye Spy quilts before.  She mentioned how so many of my quilts have an abundance of fabric prints and colors, so one can look at them for a while identifying all the unique prints that make up the quilt.  I know she was specifically thinking of my Random Chickens Quilt, and she is not wrong.  But this one was intended to by an Eye-Spy quilt.

To enlarge the photo, click on it.  Then you can see the details a bit closer.  I have determined there are 76 different fabrics in here, and some graphic for each letter of the alphabet.  There is also a secret fork, knife, and spoon fabric in here.  Of course, the polar bears and cows are for Teresa.  The backing is seersucker!

OMG! A is right!  My B&W Mostly quilt, completed and posted in Sept 2019, is a perfect example. Click on B&W Mostly and see what I mean. 

String Pieced Quilt Top and Tea

I am having some tea right now, in my smancy mug.  I made the border and finished up my string-pieced quilt top.  I have delivered it to be long-arm quilted.  

See, I did have an idea for the borders.  I think it looks so much sharper, now that it is completely pieced together.  I made the backing out of one ginormous piece of granny fabric.  Granny fabric is what this top screams for.

I, also, got my "I Spy" quilt top finished and delivered for quilting.  My amazing long-arm quilter, Virginia, had the quilt quilted in quite the quick fashion.  I had to go get it, even though the snow was piling up.  I drove the big pick-up and went and fetched it.  

The strip quilt that was laying on my table, earlier this month, is all pieced and just needs me to make a backing for it, then I am going to quilt it myself.  Sometimes I just do that.

I bought, before the big snow-storms, a package of lose tea, of the lavender-vanilla chai type.  Last week I sat down and sewed twenty-four tea bags and filled them with tea.  

Here they are; all done.  I folded over little scraps of fabric to use as the handles on the ends of the strings.  They will eventually all make it to the landfill anyway.  I will be sharing them with the CLS, at our meeting in February.  Plus, there are a few extra, so I have been using them.  The tea is delicious and soul warming.

You Would Not Believe The Stuff I Got Done In December!

WARNING:  This post may be lengthy, but extremely informative, fun, and creative.

December was a busy month, and I should have posted this prior to the New Year, but I was busy.  I belong to a small exclusive group of ladies, who have been getting together somewhat regularly since 1997.  In the early days, we met every Tuesday evening to work on projects and solve world problems.  These days we are fortunate to meet once a month, on average.  Each December we meet at a favorite restaurant (one with gluten free selections on the menu), and we have a little gift exchange and tons of conversation.  A couple of years ago, I was rather in a rut or complete oblivion as to what to give these wonderful ladies.  I have managed to pull my creative-self up, by my bootstraps, these past two Christmases, and create meaningful gifts.  In 2023, I finally took the leap into Spoonflower, and I created some fabric with the photographs I took during the year.  First, H gave us all some Zinnia seed packets.  I planted my Zinnias, and they grew.  I photographed them throughout the summer and fall.  I photographed my friends, all members of the Cloverdale Ladies Society (CLS), with their curler hats on.  I melded ladies with curlers and zinnias into some artful botanic beauties.  My very smart daughter assisted me in getting my fabric design sorted out.  I plunged into Spoonflower and uploaded my design.  I ordered two yards of fabric and waited, with hope, that it would be usable.  It was!  I made the pillowcases for five travel pillows, which were gifted to my long-time friends.  

I have to admit, in the event of the fabric thing falling apart, I made a back-up plan, which actually fell apart, instead.  I have actually successfully completed my back-up plan, but since I did not need it, I am holding it hostage for a little while longer.  Meanwhile, my very smart daughter, on December 3, celebrated her 20-year anniversary for being in the Air Force.  Since she lives on the opposite side of the country, I pulled out my creative hat, again, and made a meme with my husband's "old" G.I. Joes, and my Air Force stuffed bear.  It is amazing, so I have decided to share it here.  

Much of what I create has to do with being amusing.  This peaceful living room scene is taking up half of my cutting table.  All the items used to make the meme, I already had on hand.  The wallpaper is actually 1.5 yds of Army man fabric that I pinned to the quilt that is hanging on the wall behind my cutting table.  I have decided to take this little project and make a calendar out of it, thus more business in December, because now I have to pose the scene for twelve months of the year.  I confess, I have only eight months completed so far, so I have to keep this set-up on my cutting table a couple of weeks longer.  Then, I have to order the calendar, so we are sure getting a late jump on having a calendar for 2024.  

                                    I never imagined I would ever sew something for a GI Joe.

Because of the necessary creativity to make twelve G.I. calendar layouts, I had to make a Hawaiian shirt for one of the G.I.s for Shark Month. Shark Month also needed some decoupage and of course a metal spatula for flipping burgers.  These G.I.s need a lot of accessories.  H came to the rescue again, by providing leftover clay from a CLS project we did last spring.   Currently, the clay things are curing, so they can be painted.  I better decide if I need more clay things, so I can make them so they can cure and be painted and not hold up the reclaiming of my cutting table.  I will likely not keep you updated on this activity.  I actually have been piecing some quilt tops as well.  I have three in the making!  

I decided yesterday, mine has pictures represented from all letters of the alphabet, starting with alligator.

This Eye-Spy quilt is nearly finished.  My friend, A, and I got together during Christmas week and worked on getting these UFOs completed.  She whizzed right through hers, but of course, I have to make mine a certain way and with all different sizes of spy blocks.  Eye-spy quilts are a great way to use up a very few of your scrap heap.

The string-pieced top on the design wall, I started in November, with eleven of Betty Rays blocks, then I made 41 more blocks to make this top.  Four of the blocks are for corners of the outside border, which I have not made yet.  I have an idea though.   Then the one on the table needs only ten more inches on this end for it to be finished.  I hope to get it done this coming weekend.  I took this photo a couple weeks ago, so it does not reflect the true state of the table at this time.  It currently has nine American Girl Dolls on it, standing in their winter garb.  In December I cut up a garage sale sweater that I made two 18" doll sweaters out of, two doll hats, and three GI Joe stocking caps, and an additional two GI stocking caps out of another old sweater.  That is all part of why December has been so busy.  The other reason is playing Scrabble and building a puzzle with my husband.  He tries to suggest creative layouts for "his" GIs, but I tell him to "not interfere with my creative process."

Graffiti Quilt (one type of artist inspiring another type of artist)

I heard about "graffiti quilts" last August.  The term intrigued and excited me.   When I went on-line to look this up, I was very disappointed that some long-arm quilters were making "thread paintings," but calling them graffiti quilts.  The "graffiti quilts" I was seeing were fancy immaculate quilts, which to my mind, have nothing to do with graffiti.  I think, actual graffiti makes a statement in a bold and raw fashion.  I had a discussion, about this situation with a fellow quilter, who's little group of quilters decided to each make a graffiti quilt, but not with thread painting.  They wanted to do small wall-hangings that had a message in a bold fashion.  I thought they were quite good and not fancy and elegant.  I started my own "graffiti quilt" in November.  

I decided to use some words from a song as a statement in my graffiti quilt.  I mulled it over for a while, then went with Once in a Lifetime, by the Talking Heads.  

My wall-hanging is 15.5" X 22".  I sewed a casing on the back and cut a branch from the bush in our front yard to hang it on, using a ribbon that had previously tied up a stack of fat quarters.  I used what I had on hand to make it.  The words are painted on white muslin with woodless watercolor pencils.  The entire thing is quilt-as-you-go.  The backing, batting, and the two pieces of fabric behind the Roman pillar started out as a piece to practice my stippling on.  I just added everything else to it.  This is my graffiti. 

Pizza Rounds Quilt

In late August, when I was not working at the Home Arts Dept. at The Fair, I was playing around with some of my favorite bright fabrics and some curves.  I started what I call my "Pizza Rounds" art quilt.  To me, it is an art quilt.  It hangs in my quilt room, where it adds nicely to the atmosphere.  My quilt room has a lot of atmosphere. 

Our daughter came to visit in the first half of November, and we had so much fun.  We went on a day trip to Twin Falls, where we strolled down Main Avenue, window shopping.  We discovered several interesting places and spoke with a number of engaging people, especially small businesswomen.  

We met a friendly print shop cat, and an adorable creativity shop bulldog.  This little bulldog was the shop greeter at "Altered Purposes".  The shop, Altered Purposes, is amazing.  It has stuff creative of all types, not limited to wood, ribbons, decals, metal, paper craft, paint, inspiration for upcycling, classes, and bunting.  I bought some small drawer handles, that I intend to use on an art quilt.  I also bought some woodless watercolor pencils and a length of plaid grosgrain ribbon, which I used to make my "Ever Was" graffiti quilt.  My daughter asked the owner, who happens to be a woman veteran like my daughter and I, if she had a room upstairs for rent, as she would love to live upstairs and come down every day to play.  My daughter does a bit of sewing and is very creative, and her true creative love is everything Halloween.  

She has inspired me to do some Halloween quilts, bunting, and some small art quilts.  I have taken about a month off from quilting, and now I am trying to clean the Christmas lights and wrapping stuff off my quilt table.  Just this evening, I got a little twitch to do some piecing, so I better get my table cleared off, so I can get going again.

Dalek Quilt for Daughter

In 2015, I found some amazing Dalek fabric, on-line.  I could not pass up buying it, as my daughter is a huge Dr. Who fan.  She visited over the holidays (2015-2016), and I gave her the pillowcase, I made out of the fabric.  She loved it.  She says it "exterminates bad dreams".  See it in my post of 3 Jan 2016 .  I think I started the stack-n-whack quilt in 2016.  I completed it in 2017.  I did not make a blog posting when I completed the quilt, because I made it as a gift for my daughter's retirement from the Air Force.  I know she seldom looks at my blog, but she does occasionally, and she looks back aways, so I did not want to chance it. Her twenty years is coming up in December, so I have decided to give it to her now.

It makes me smile when I think she has no idea this amazing thing exists in the universe.  I only took this photo of it last Sunday.  It has been hidden away for a while.  My husband helped me to hang it on the wall in my quilt room, so she can discover it, when she arrives later today.  I must admit, I am excited for that moment.  I am sure she will know it is hers.

I took this photo in February 2017, when I had all six layers pinned together, before cutting it into triangles.  I think this was the second batch, as it took two make that many.  It is not your typical stack-n-whack fabric, but it worked for my purpose.

Design wall photos.  This is the last photo I took (11 Mar 2017), before I put the completed quilt away.  I meant to take a photo a few times, but it just never happened.  Put your mouse on the photo(s) and click to enlarge the photo(s).  The quilt is 67" X 78".

I am so excited she is coming today, and I finally get to make a posting about this amazing quilt.  I did take over a year to make it, because I stopped after I got all the Dalek blocks finished, as I was concerned about making the black/white triangles that go in between.  You have to place them a certain way, so they do not stretch, plus I always want to start a new project before the old ones are complete.  It is the way of creativity!

MY Round Robin Row Quilt

Earlier this month, I wrote about the process of the "round robin row quilt."  Just scroll down a little; it is the next post below this one.  I got my quilt top back from the other quilters, and then I had to square it up, add a little more sashing, and borders.  Then I located a quilt backing, in my stash, that was good to go.  Thank-you, Teresa.  It's been five years.  

Here is my completed quilt, hanging on another old barn in my neighborhood.  I do love it, when I ask permission to photograph a quilt on someone's barn, and they say, "Go right ahead."

These folks have taken a lot of care in keeping this barn in good shape.  It is well painted.  I, too, took a lot of care in getting this quilt top into shape, prior to being able to quilt it.  I quilted it myself.  I do like how it came out. Smile!