Diane's Decorating Diary: February 2012

Monday, February 27, 2012

Flower quilt - Crazy Quilts are Quilts too!

I want to thank all who voted for my quilt in Thearica's Competition and Show on her blog Pigtalesandquilts. I was so pleased, it came in fourth!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

TAST Week 8 Chain Stitch

One of my favourite tools is a scalloped ruler that I used to mark out this simple design.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

TAST Week 7 Detached Chain Stitch

This is week 7's stitch from Take a Stitch Tuesday, Sharon B's challenge on Pintangle.

The daisies are chain stitches filled with beads, and the bud is three chain stitches, one inside the other.

Crazy Quilts ARE Quilts Too - continued

Thearica's dream of having an online quilt show has been a real success. Hop over to her website to browse through some wonderful crazy quilting. Also take time to vote for one of the 19 entries in the competition. Here's the link. For the competition entries, scroll down until you see the word COMPETITION, and click on it. For all the websites with crazy quilting, go further down to where there are 41 blogger's links.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

TAST Week 6 Chevron Stitch

Chevron covering ground. It filled in a corner quite nicely. The thread is velvet.

Friday, February 10, 2012

WIPocalypse February report

My goodness, this month slipped by so quickly. I didn't get as much done as I expected. There's still a lot of UFO's needing attention.

These I did manage to attack:

Baby block tutorial: I made good headway on this tutorial, I'm about half way through that project.

I'm up to this point

Handkerchief Quilt: Got some expert advice on how to begin assembling, which I am seriously scheduling for this coming month. My Seniors group also hand quilts for a fee, and I they will do mine.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Fan Quilt - CQJP2012, Feb. - TAST Herringbone

This is the second of the CQJP2012 completed. I know it's a bit early, but I'm on a roll with these fan blocks. I really love new projects, and I have to admit that my other stuff is suffering a bit because this is so much fun.

I'm trying to make the bottom part of the fan block a bit special and I think this bias silk ribbon works really well with the roses.

I'm also using Carole Samples book for some unusual seam treatments.

I filled this whole patch with herringbone stitches, Week 5 of TAST

Here are four blocks placed the way I will assemble the whole thing when finished. The fan pieces are all silk from ties or silk blouses. I interfaced the silk with the knitted iron-on interfacing that Ali Aller uses on her blocks.

I was always wary of tackling a fan quilt: too much measuring, too many places it could go wrong, but I came up with a little helper.

The top right is a paper pattern I printed off the internet. The pattern measures 8" x 8". The left hand piece is a heavy quilting see-through plastic sheet. I traced the fan pattern and an extra inch all around to make the block 10" x 10". I made holes in this pattern to indicate the top and bottom of the fan pattern, and I use a disappearing pen to mark through the holes. The other two pieces are the sizes of the individual fan pieces with hem allowance added, the larger is for the outside two, the smaller for the inside four.

Basically, I pin the 8" x 8" paper pattern to the 10" square muslin, and then use the paper pattern to place each fan piece, and then sew and flip all the fan pieces in place. Then I place a piece of cream fabric on the top, overlapping the top of the fan, and then mark dots through the holes on to the cream fabric to indicate the turn and hand sew line. Repeat for the bottom.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Crazy Quilts ARE Quilts Too

On Thearica's blog Pigtales and Quilts you can feast your eyes! She has put together a crazy quilt show and competititon that will inspire you. Many of us Crazy Quilters have submitted an item for the competition or for display and it is well worth the visit.

I have entered, but I cannot divulge which piece I chose, but I can tell you it was a joy to make along with many other pieces I have worked on since I discovered crazy quilting by accident in 2008.

I was Googling silk ribbon embroidery and came across photos of SR embroidery on some incredible crazy quilts. From that moment I was hooked! It led me quickly to CQI (Crazy Quilting International) an online group that organizes round robins, swaps, competitions, and retreats held in Colorado. I've been three times, each time renewing friendships, learning lots, sharing expertise and having enormous fun. In four years of CQing, I know I have improved.

When I made my very first block my supplies were only one bag of mixed beads from Wallmart and a small selection of DMC floss. Here is my very first block: [crazy+quilt+post.jpg]

After four years and now a houseful of fabric, beads, embroidery threads, I'm still CQing and loving it. I've found great ways to use crazy quilting: the next three blocks are birth announcements for three of my grandchildren, and after that some other pieces of my crazy quilting.