A painted response

      Besides being a quilter, I paint regularly. I think watercolor suits me. Painting is is a totally different process than quilting. Often, you don't know where it is going. After a good value sketch, it is always interesting to see how the paint flows. I am going to show two fabric related. The first is my granddaughter who works at my treadle doing crafts. I tried to contrast the old vintage machine and parlor cabinet with a young, vibrant child. The second is a laundry display of vintage linens. I tried to show the delicate fabric against the green growth and flowers. I paint landscapes, people, flowers. These are half sheet Arches paper with Winsor Newton watercolors.

More squares exploding

      Another in the series of exploding squares I have made. They make great use of scraps and are wonderful comfort quilts. The last one shown has already gone to comfort. This quilt was started with 2- 4" squares, then 5's and then so one. I did do a tutorial on this pattern a while ago on Confessions of a Fabric Addict. 
      It needed a border. All the quilting is done free hand on my Nolting long arm, although I do use some chalk marks to keep myself on reasonable track. I take all responsibility for the wobbly lines. 

Back detail

Back

Trying it on

     I was looking through Pinterest (huge time sucker) and found a block I liked, but had to do a lot of digging to find out the name and a tutorial. I pulled out some strips and made the block and it was wrong- it needed mirror image blocks- not in the tutorial. Fortunately, I figured out how to mark the strips to get what I needed. I sewed two of them together and left the other pieces to combine with other colors. I do want to make more. They use 2 1/2" strips and the block finishes at 7".  It is called Two strip pinwheel or Double pinwheel.

Yes, I know the center is not perfect.

Inching along

     Not sure why, maybe a cold and neck pain, but I have been just crawling through what I want to do. I added the blue side triangles to the RWB zig zag and sewed the first couple zig columns. The Robert Kaufman app works!

More Exploding Squares- on the fence

     I have made dozens of the exploding squares quilts with all different starting sizes and scraps. This one uses thin sashings- 1 1/2". I thought the squares were so busy that they needed some relief and I think I was right. I bought a large piece of fabric back at our quilt show in the fabric pool and it was perfect for the back. Someone just gave me a hunk of fabric last week that was perfect for the binding. Quilted with Glide on top and Omni in the bobbin.
    First the beauty shot- I draped it over my little rail fence and took advantage of a rare sun moment. Then I went to my neighbor's fence and shot the whole quilt, front and back.

     I have finished all the string blocks for the RWB zig zag lightning quilt. I used the Robert Kaufman app to figure out the size of the setting squares and corner squares and will be cutting them out of a blue mottled fabric.

Guild presentation

     For the next three years, my friend Elizabeth and I are program co-chairs for our guild, Kenmore Quilters. We have put a lot of time in beforehand, and we started our first program last Monday. We decided that people are not sure how to find something they are inspired by and draft a pattern to make it theirs and to figure the yardage. Elizabeth and I combed the internet looking for worksheets to record and help, but what we found, even to buy, was not real helpful. So, we designed a whole set of sheets and copied them for our members. The presentation started with an inspiration photo, then graph paper, then the same block done in three sizes to make 3 quilts. We will be following these up with more design exercises. 
   Next time up is half square triangles in February.