Baby Quilt

This quilt is for Aaron (my cousin) and Melissa's baby girl who was born in early February.  I had the blocks done before Spring Break and then sewed the blocks together and added the borders while Lauren and Teri were here.  Here it is with the blocks sewn together and before the borders were on it.  The sock monkeys were treasures that Teri found in the UFO (unfinished objects) drawer.  I finished them - and then we realized that they go perfectly with the quilt and that a baby will surely enjoy these soft monkeys.

  I quilted it yesterday while I was listening to the Purdue Men's Basketball game.  The quilting was MUCH BETTER than the game (which was a disaster).

Birthday Blocks

After I got home from leaving Lauren and Teri at the airport I decided to work on some of the blocks for Nancy's birthday quilt.  Here they are:

Las Vegas (thanks Lauren and Teri for helping me find this great playing card fabric)

Here is the block to represent the fact that Nancy is always the one that makes the lists and keeps all the records to keep us all organized:

Here is the block to represent the fact that Nancy was always the faithful one to record all of our activities with pictures:

Here is the block to represent the restaurant (Jay's) where we had many of our ornament exchange and end of the year celebrations.

Here are some of the blocks that I made before.  First is the Alamo representing our trip to San Antonio

Here is the block representing the Ladies Lunch weekend in Indiana

Here is the block to represent our annual ornament exchange.

End of Spring Break

It was wonderful having Teri and Lauren here for Spring Break.  It is always so quiet around the house after they leave. Teri and I got a lot of great projects done, or well along the way during their stay.  We had fun making Convergence quilts.  Here are instructions if you want to put the Convergence on the point.  I think Teri is going to do that with her's.  I think I am going to finish mine straight up.

1. Square up the Convergence. There are some uneven edges to trim off.  Also, the piece will not be square  (remember we had to cut on either side of the seam half way through - so there is no way it can be the same height and width).  Trim the quilt so that it is square.
2. Add a small border to "seal off" the Convergence.  I used a 1 inch strip so the tiny border will be 1/2 inch. Here you can see the piece with the borders on 2 sides.  See how the small dark border really brings closure to the pattern.

With the dark small border on all sides it really shows off the Convergence.
3. Check the outside measurement of your piece.  The one that I made is now 27 3/4 inches by 27 3/4 inches.   
4. Now you need to determine the size of the pieces (that will be 2 squares cut on the diagonal) to cut for the triangle corners if you are going to put this on the point. Lay your piece on the cutting mat (it is helpful when you have a large mat). I mentally drew an imaginary 45 degree line.  You will see from the picture below that the pieces went from the 20 inch mark to the 20 inch mark. 
5. To calcualte the size of the square you need to cut you need to make it larger than the 20 inches (and every time I do this it seems that the size of square needed is larger that one first thinks - so cut it larger and trim later - believe me it is worth it!)
6. I recommend cutting two 22 inch squares.  When working with a batik (which are usually wider) you  should be able to get two 22 inch squares.  In this case you DO NOT have to trim off the selvage ahead of time because you will be trimming later. This is especially true with most batiks that do not have that ugly white selvage.

7. Once you have cut the two squares, cut them in half on the diagonal so you have 4 triangles.  As you work with these triangle pieces keep in mind that the long side is now the bias and it will "want" to stretch.  The best advice is to handle it carefully - and as you handle it think about "keeping it in its original shape" as opposed to smoothing things out.  Once you have it sewn to the Convergence  you will have straight grain on the edges so the tricky part is just gettting the piece sewn to the Convergence.
8. You definitely want the piece to be larger than you Convergence, as shown below.  You will trim AFTER you get the 4 corners sewn on.

9. When pinning the triangle to the Convergence find the half way point on the trinagle and the Convergence and match those points - so that you center the trinagle on the Convergend.
10. After have sewn all 4 sides, press and then trim.  As you trim be sure that you have left enough so that when you have the seam (that you need when you put on the outside border) the corner of the skinny border comes out nice.
11.  Apply your outer border.
12.  Quilt and bind.

Spring Break 2011

Spring Break has to include LOTS of sewing activities, crafts and other creations. Here is the start of a Pittsburgh Penguins quilt for Lauren.

African Business Woman

I created this from a photo of a woman kossaї vendor in the Haribunda area of Niamey, Niger. This woman sold kossaї faithfully every day to provide passers-by with inexpensive nutritious food. I took this photo in December 2009 when I was working with Miriam Otoo on her PhD research. The photo is printed on 9 fabric sheets (using a tiling technique in Photo Shop Elemnts) and then stitched together). After making the quilt sandwich I then did extensive quilting to enhance the design.  I started this during the Ricky Tims Quilt Retreat in June 2010 and finished it in March 2011. This piece was created to honor all of the woman kossaї vendors who play an integral role in the well-being of their families and in development and poverty alleviation in West Africa.

Convergence Flower Garden

I made this convergence after the June 2010 Ricky Tims retreat. I found 4 fat quarters at the Rossville Quilt shop (in the clearance section which made it even better) and decided to try making the convergence. The resulting effect was very pleasing.

Sunset on the Prairie

I first learned to capture the energy of the prairie sunset, a central part of growing up in Saskatchewan, from Courtney Milne’s photography courses. At the Ricky Tims Quilt Retreat in June 2009 Ricky suggested using curved piecing with multiple fabrics to create the dynamic sky of reds, yellows, oranges and looming storm clouds. The lone grain elevator silhouette, machine appliquéd on the straight horizon line, stands as the sentinel of the prairie. I finished this quilt in January 2010. It was part of the Fibr show at the Tippecanoe Arts Federation show in January - February 2010.  It was also shown a the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show in Bloomington, IN in March 2011.

More completed projects...

For this quilt I practiced my long arm quilting.  Marilyn Popplewell came over in March 2010 and helped me move "to the next level".  Then I took each section of the quilt and practiced a new quilting design.

The pieces in this quilt started as part of a Row by Row project with the Common Threads quilt guild.  The large hearts are ones that Vickie Bajtelsmit and I made.  When I got all the rows back from the Row by Row I decided I would rather have the blocks seperately so pulled the blocks apart and, after adding some other red and purple fabric, ended up with one quilt for me and one for Vickie Bajtelsmit.

This quilt is from the book "Quilts Without Corners".  When you make the bargello circle you end up with 2 quilts - Linda Eales has one and I have the other one.

Sampling of quilts completed in recent years

Applique on Convergence

These quilts use both parts of the pieces cut out using the AccuQuilt and the Ricky Tims dies. The background for the bottom quilt is a Convergence that I made using batiks. With not much contrast in the fabrics it was not interesting on its own, so I put the appliqued pieces on it.

First blog post

This is one of the earlier ones - started in 1997 while still living in Colorado. Quilted in January 2010. Red and gold flower garden.