Monthly Archives: February 2012
A Dinosaur Tale…Part 2
Wow, I have to tell you, I am LOVING this quilt. Really.
OK, so the dinosaurs and I went shopping (again and again). We auditioned, we interviewed, we asked opinions….of both people in the stores we went to and via picture messages to people who were not so close. We settled on a background for them. It was this (ignore the quilting lines you see, they kind of give away that there is more to the story…):
We got our YARDS of fabric home that we were in love with (OK, maybe just *I* was in love) I laid out the fabric, I put all 16 dresdens on it…and what?!?! they looked washed out? Seriously? One looked GREAT at the store. together it was (more than) kinda blah. No pops. No love. No end in sight.
So off we went (yet again, clearly I have issues) in search of THE fabric…and we found this (again, ignore quilting lines, and this is reading a little brighter than it is):
This time we bought yards (instead of YARDS) ….got it all laid out. Yeah, well, the print was too busy with all of the dresdens together. Looked kind of like a headache, or a migraine . BIG sigh.
Off we went again (tired of shopping yet?) and this time. Yes, this time we found IT…..
Hopefully today it looks like a deep forest green tonal batik…because that is what it is. LOL. On my computer yesterday it looked green. After posting it really looked more blue.
So, with the fabric found I had a few fabrics around that I liked and kinda went with the whole theme…I decided to piece the back with them. SOMEhow (don’t ask me how, I do NOT have a single clue how. It shall remain one of those scary mysteries.) that turned into quilting individual squares and using a quilt as you go method to put it all together!!
So, here is where I am at…All 16 squares are together and quilted. Now I have to decide what layout to go with…
A checker effect on the back?
Or a strips look?
Yes, there will be more to the adventure, but probably not until the end of the week…but we are all caught up for now 
Hope everyone had a great weekend!
~RACHEL~
A Dinosaur Tale…Part 1
Many moons ago (OK, I don’t remember when, but a long time ago…) my daughter and I went to a quilt show and she saw some dinosaur fabric. She mentioned that she would love to have a dinosaur quilt. She has always loved dinosaurs so this was not a complete surprise. That “I will never see this fabric again moment” hit and I bought what they had. Later the same day we ran into a place selling batik fat quarters that would play well with already purchased fabric. Bought a bunch (like 20ish?). So now I had some fabrics. Time for a plan (yes, I do know it would have been easier to have a plan and then search out fabrics, but apparently I am incapable of rolling like that…)
Every few weeks she would mention a Dino quilt or I would run into the fabric and be reminded. Reminded that I had NO clue what to do with it. Not a single idea. I even took the fabrics on field trips to (multiple) places that sell fabric. Nothing matched. Nothing worked. looked at patterns. I searched out quilts. I looked for quilts done with this focus fabric. I was a little frustrated. To say the least. Inspiration was not happening.
Then one day I saw a dresden quilt online that used a fussy cut at the center. To be honest the one I saw did not have dinosaurs in the center and I do not remember what it did have. This was also before Pinterest, so I have no clue who to give credit to. But, the light bulb went on, the proverbial click into place happened. I was going to use the dinosaurs in the middle of dresdens. The dresdens would be made from the batiks. AWESOME. I had a plan. A major part of the (AHEM) plan include the step where I brush aside the little doubting voice and tell it, “I have a million yards of fabric, I will find a background, backing and binding in my stash, it can’t be that hard.”
So out of the sealed (forever owned) package came the Dresden ruler (SEE, I knew I would need it…someday). I made Dresdens to my hearts content. I fussy cut little dinosaurs into circles.
Suddenly I had 16 large Dresden with cute little circles of dinosaurs in the center. Ahhh. Success. So I turned to me stash to find the perfect background for them. It was going to be amazing. The girl would rave about my creativity. She would be amazed that I hadn’t given up on/forgotten (take your pick) her dinosaur quilt. Let the background auditioning begin…hmmm, nothing worked. Nothing felt right. Nothing clicked.
WHAT? More field trips? really? Yes, so me and my pretty little bag of Dino Dresden’s went shopping. Again. And again.
Stay tuned…There IS more to the story…
Rachel
Going To The Birds…
A while ago I saw this post “One For The Birds” A light bulb went off. I have some fabrics which feature birds (shocker!). I want to make a bird quilt…
I thought, “I may not have enough for a huge quilt, but I am sure with some creativity in piecing them all together I can make something of useable size.” Off I went to pull my “bird” fabrics out. LOL.
I had a few (cough, cough!!) more than I thought…This is what I got started with…
For now I have 19 completed birds, with quite a few more ready to go…
~RACHEL~
REDUCING my stash…
OK, so I can’t be the only person who forms emotional attachments to fabric. Right? Okay, maybe my current readers are not the people to ask about this. Hmmm…Moving on…LOL
At any rate, as you know, around the end of January I decided enough is enough. It was time to (seriously) put my word for this year to use. Time to reduce. This time reducing was going to come to fruition through a major overhaul of my office/sewing/craft room….My first estimate for this project was a week. Then my smartypants brain thought, “Oh, it isn’t THAT bad, 3 days. Tops.” Here we are (alot) more than a week later and I am almost done. Since I did not sew (at ALL!) for an entire week I treated myself to some serious sewing time on Saturday.
Part of my fabric HOARDING collecting problem tendencies is that I form emotional bonds with certain fabrics. Seriously? Who does that? Apparently I do. Not a good thing. LOL. So, I need to find an emotional way to release them…and I have done it!! I found it!!
I contacted Jennifer at Sewhooked (she has a fun Talk To Me Tuesday video segment each week and tons of info and patterns and all kinds of super neat stuff on her blog). Along the way (I think through her TTMT videos) I figured out she is involved with an organization that provides quilts for kids in crisis, mainly foster care situations. We all know I love kids. It also somehow became clear to me that she accepts quilt tops to be made into quilts. WOW. Every local place that I contacted to do this sort of thing wanted a completed quilt and some wanted you to commit to a specific number per month. We all know I don’t roll like that. LOL.
1. I don’t have enough confidence in my finishing (quilting & binding) skills to do that.
2. Life is crazy I did not want to commit to a specific number and not be able to fulfill my promise!
Another bonus/motivation for contacting Jennifer is that she has an UNbelievable number of free patterns. Most of them are super unique (like Harry Potter, X-Men symbol, Dr. Who, The Hobbit and SO much more…). My daughter has used many of them in some great projects, so in my twisted brain sending tops to Jennifer is a small way I can “pay it forward”. Jennifer has also just unveiled an online store (I took a quick look…I think there are some patterns I need)!
With all of that said, in short, I making tops for The Linus Connection and sending them to Jennifer. I am using fabrics that I will probably never use elsewhere yet did not want to just “get rid of”….It is making me very happy. VERY. With that said, I am choosing to match a backing and provide enough fabric for binding if/when I can…
Without further wordiness from me, this is what I mailed off today…(NOTE: The light spots in the pictures are a reflection from the sun bouncing off of a neighbors window…)
(Above, my first Jelly Roll Race Quilt! LOVE the process and will definitely do it again!! I pieced a backing from leftovers and added the rest of the matching fabric which will be more than enough for binding.)
(This is some very sweet fabric I love. Also, a small experiment on a variation of using the jelly roll race technique. I included a pieced backing, but there really wasn’t enough fabric left for binding.)
(This was another experiment with the jelly roll race concept. This one did not work out so well, so I chopped it in 2, added border and made 2 smaller quilts out of it. Backings and bindings added to the package.)
I forgot to take pictures of the last one in the box. It was actually a Noah’s Ark themed top (with a backing and binding fabric) that I have had as a WIP for, um, a really (!) long time.
Hope everyone is having a great day!
~RACHEL~
