The Non-Plan

OK, so I settled on a theme - hearts - and colour scheme, pinks, white and cremes. I hope to use every technique I learned including shadow quilting and mola. It will not be a utility quilt but hopefully something worthy of hanging up.

A few more trees

I'm focused more on moving than quilting but I found a little time tonight to make more trees.

I wanted to make some two toned but I'm not sure how well it worked. I don't usually use batiks either but I noticed that these two greens were both batiks - they probably slipped in my stash in fat quarter bundles with other *regular* fabrics.

These are trees I made on Thursday. Hopefully by the time I get moved and put all of these on the design wall they'll play nicely with each other. For now, I'm just making them in sets of 2 or 4.

Juliann's tea words

I had a chance to get back to my tea cups and tea words work this week. I did the three words so far. I am not happy with the W in the word white but welcome any input you all might have about the backgrounds I have chosen for the cups and the words. Right now the black and white really stick out so I think I need to balance that a bit.

So, ideas?

Tea pot; turtles; tech

Yikes, what happened to my photo? I guess using my friend's photoshop on their computer wasn't the way to go. Thanks so much for your comments on my tea cups/tea pot wall hanging. I added a couple things - a really cute vintage button in the center of the flower, plus I re-worked the heart on the tea pot a little and I added a little more steam coming out of the teapot's spout, going up into the border. I'll try to post another picture but it might be awhile. I'm thinking about my turtle quilt now for the 2008 class. I'm wondering... if the turtles are scrappy and wonky, is it too tame to have one background fabric to be the swamp? Or should I push my self to be really wonky and have a riot of backgrounds - I think that's what I really want to do. Meanwhile I have to work out my tech problem. Our computer at home has been sitting for over two years, unusable. I'm thinking we're going to have to break down and do something about it SOON if I'm really going to participate in this class! This week I have my visitors from Norway, and I'm happy to have a little quilt to give to Grete.
Andrea (from Dunn Brothers)

house X5

Thanks for all of the great feedback the other day...I think that I am over the Grrr--argh part right now about the houses (my son is calling the big ones hotels)...I woke up at 5 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep---All I wanted to do was sew, sew, sew....

SO I did, and after listening to my husband go on about how he LOVES my larger quilts that we can actually use--I am going to try to make this one big!!! I am also flirting with the free-hand fans (we just got tivo and I am needing some hand work.)

BUT first things first--I am just sewing and cutting, cutting and sewing. I am leaving the "hotels" at the moment to work on a weird hill and a setting--maybe an inner border around the houses on the hill and then some trees around that---then some stars---WORDS-- the sky is the limit. Maybe my brain will let me sleep tonight???? Can you tell that I am excited??-- and the final project isn't that important to me at this point and that is refreshing--there are parts of what I have that I really like and others, not so much---BUT the "whole" I am quite satisfied with...hooray! (the other houses are not trashed, but I am not looking at them right now--maybe in a few days.) Have a fabulous weekend!!!

This is the finished wall hanging. The fabric colors are brighter in real life. I'm happy with it in general, yet I want to get wonkier! Thanks to my friend's teenage son for tech assistance!

I've got the blue's again

Yet another change of plan - well sort of.

Wonky tree which looks like a cross between a house and a mushroom and the beginning of "Blue, blue my world is blue.


I've finally got my Crumbs project out of the way and can give this project 95% attention. The other 5% is being spent finishing off some hand quilting on a quilt to be sent to the UK by the middle of next week - eeek!

Teapot and teacups

I'm just about to start the handstitching with pearl cotton on the little wall hanging gift for my Norwegian relative, two tea cups and a tea pot. Thanks for giving me the little push I needed to try "drawing" with handstitches! Also, it's funny how a little "goof" made me sweat but I think the solution I came up with makes the quilt more interesting: I noticed that the outer border had a tiny nick in it that needed to be covered up, and after lots of thinking, I decided to cover it with an appliqued modernistic dahlia-ish blossom. I'll handstitch a stem and some leaves in green, and to keep it simple, that means the steam coming out of the tea cups will also be olive green. And that "mistake" also serendipitously leads to what I think will be enough quilting in the background area around the tea cups and pot. Please send me your positive vibes for handstitching! I hope to post a picture, I have to get together with a friend to show me how to do it!
Andrea

jude- full layout

ok, so here is the full layout i think. i am off to do some details to integrate the pieced carrot section into the applique flowers...and possibly still to add a tiny all around border???

Checking in

I don't have anything productive to report, but I just wanted to say that I am enjoying see what everyone else is doing. I did manage to get all my stuff to the CPA today, so I am feeling some sense of relief now. And I found my copy of Collaborative Quiltmaking this morning, so now I can take some time this weekend to play!! I've got a shopping bag full of scraps and hopefully by Monday I'll have some baskets to show.

Love, Learn, Laugh

Hi! I am having to "work" at playing. Luckily, I have a couple more words on which to experiment.

Trees

These are my first attempts. I started very small with a certain plan. I'm quickly abandoning that initial plan and becoming free-er. I will work on letters and words next, and I want to add a house. I'm worried about keeping new units in proportion. I am working on a Tree Everlasting block that is humongous (like Jack's beanstalk to the heavens!) and will need to be cut down. Lots of new possibilities are floating in my head....

Starting...learning...

Not my finest photo--but whatever, I had to get a post up. The small houses were started a few weeks ago--they are OK to me, but REALLY need a larger setting to blend in somewhere. The yellow house was my attempt last week--I was trying to get rid of some scraps and now this house is teaching me all about color value---I don't think that there is enough of a difference between the background fabric and the yellow dotty fabric....but initially it looked fine to me.


I was very inspired by Kristin La Flamme's work on houses and made some taller houses this morning...I also found some blue background that reads as a medium and I like it a lot and I have an amount of it, so maybe I can make a few more and see where this goes... we will see. Glad to finally get a post in---I have been reading what people have been posting and it is just great!! Love all the quilting!

jude-oops

forgot the carrots...

jude- not done yet

a little setback kept me from finishing this easter gift. i am posting where i ended up over the weekend.....and now i am working on free piecing a carrot patch section.

Introducing Dorothee

Hello all, I've just been added to this blog as a new member of the course. This is my first attempt at such a thing and I am quite excited about it.

I "learned how to quilt" when I lived in Manchester, England, and was looking for a sewing class in autumn of 2002. Patchworking and quilting (I am never sure which term to use) quickly became a way to preserve my sanity as a new mum with a hard-and-endlessly-working husband and a shiny new daughter.

Initially, I was taught paper piecing and some very basic hand quilting. My teacher and most of my class mates believed in "all manual labour" and preferrably cotton-only! I have since diverted from that strict school of quilting and taken a first machine quilting class, which was really good fun.

With my projects, I have a tendency to get in way over my head like when I wanted to convert an A4 drawing from a colouring book into the top for my godson's quilt. But I live and learn. And pondering these projects still manages to keep me sane, especially now that I am a working mother of two bubbly daughters with an even-more-hard-working-and-only-there-on-the-weekends husband.

I am currently trying to figure out what to make of the "repetition" scheme and am excited to see what will come of it. Ideally I'd like to have one larger piece at the end of the summer. Because I'm a straightlaced romantic, it might even revolve around "hearts".

quilt dreaming

Hi All
I am not familiar with blogging and I hope I have not confused anyone by deleting my previous entry.I am also a beginner quilter so this method is also new to me. I have been dreaming up a few ideas so once I get going I will let you know. Cheers Jody

Autumn Trees - tree version #2

It's been a long day but I couldn't resist trying a different version today. Tonya suggested I stack 3-4 fabrics so I tried three. My first attempt did NOT work but I still got 2 usable trees from it.

The trunks could be cut down a little but I'm going to wait until I assemble them in case I need to trim the blocks down.

These trees are really quick. I can see a decent size quilt growing pretty fast once I get going.

Dragonfly wings

Finally my SM's are back and in good shape so I could do a little sewing. Of course not after having changed my plans again :-)
I discovered that dragonfly wings are made of star scraps.....Recently I finished a top with stars in cream, white and offwhite. And just for fun I had pieced the tiny remnants together with the intention to make something abstract out of it. But I was wrong .... Seems to be just perfect for wings...

Space to be

I've been floating my b's around the quilt and putting lots of space around the white background b's because, well, they just need space to be. The black ones were happy to be crowded together along the bottom. I'm deciding on borders now: what kind, and how wide. I still have a few b's left, but they may go on the back. Or maybe Tonya wants them?!

Trees

My plan was just to pull fabric today and pack it along with the tools I'd need to make blocks once we moved but I couldn't resist making a few trees.

My quilt will be Autumn Trees and I'm starting with 2 squares or rectangles and then slicing, shuffling and reassembling the blocks. The plan is to try some other trees as I go along too.

I posted some other photos on my blog and if I did it correctly, clicking on the title should take you to that post on my blog.

Late Arrival to Class

Hello all, Sue in western Washington, USA here. I've already made some free style quilts but thought it would be fun to be part of one of Tonya's classes. And I have a friend facing some health issues; I want to make a small quilt for her. So I'm going to do some wonky hearts. At least, I hope they'll be wonky! The last time I tried free pieced hearts they didn't turn out the way I wanted. This will be an opportunity to practice making hearts until I get the look I'm after. I have found that having some form of accountability, like this class, helps to keep me on task.

It may be a little bit before I have anything to show on this new project. I recently made a small improvisational quilt to swap with a fellow blogger. It turned out so well my husband won't let me give it away! I have to quickly make a second quilt to send to her and then I can start on my hearts. In the meantime, if you want to see what else I've been up to my blog is From the Magpie's Nest.

Machine or hand quilting

HI! Ooops, sorry, I'm still learning to post comments and I didn't mean to be "anonymous" on my comment to Carol. I would love some opinions for a wall-hanging, a gift for my Norwegian relative who is arriving for a visit on Saturday. I used a variety of brights including some Kaffe fabrics and made a teapot and two teacups with some fun borders. I really like how it has turned out so far but I'm stumped with how to quilt it. So far I've been finishing my quilts with stitch-in-the-ditch and very simple free motion quilting, but I think this needs more than that & what I wonder is this...what do you think would look better, less-than-perfect free motion machine quilting or less-than-perfect hand quilting? I'm leaning towards trying perle cotton hand stitching, but I've never done done that and this is a gift...the teacups and teapot are on a white background delicately flecked with spring green, and that's the area I'm most worried about.
Merci, thanks! Andrea
(I can't post pictures yet but hope to get geared up technologically for that soon.)

Tonya: A Bit of Admin

Hi guys, so happy to have you all in class. I'm now closing the class to new participants. I think we have plenty of great, creative energy here. I hope you all have either posted your intro or will do so soon. And make sure that you comment like crazy on others' posts. We all need encouragement.

Whenever you post, please stick your name in a label on it. You can find the labels at the bottom of the area where you write your post. I've gone back and added names to several of the older posts, so you may find your name easily by hitting the "show all". If it's not there, just type your name in the field. The labels make it possible for us to find all of an individual's posts.

Um, that's all I can think of at the moment. I've actually got sunshine here after hail on Friday - eek. Any questions? Take care, have fun, and sew!

Look What I Made!

I started out with repetitions of the letter C. That didn't last long... it morphed into an ode to myself! I used all my names, names of my husband and kids and included my birthplace. Also included giraffes - how could I not?? There are a couple of things still just pinned on, so it's not totally done, but it's close.

I am contemplating borders. I think I have an idea, but am not sure I have enough of the fabric I want to use. I'll save that decision for later.

When I started this project, it was going to be a small wall-hanging. Now I've decided it's my lap quilt and can stay with me when I'm in the Alzheimers unit at the nursing home. When someone else walks off with my quilt, it'll be easy to identify that it's really mine.

Finally ready to start

Hi All,
Okay, so I haven't posted yet, but I've been reading and planning (sort of, at least). This is my most hectic time of the year, but in three weeks the craziness will end and I can really get to my quilting stuff.
My plan for this project with the repetition is BASKETS. I've wanted to do wonky baskets for a long time, but just haven't gotten to it yet. The other reason I've chosen to do baskets is because I'm thinking that it might push me to learn a tiny bit of applique. I've never actually done any applique though I've taken several classes. I did fine in the class but couldn't do it once I got home and gave up. One was a machine applique class, the other was hand applique (and both were with REAL pros - Karen Kay Buckley and Didi McElroy, so it wasn't the teacher that was the problem it was me).
I figure that I can do some little appliqued handles on my baskets, and retreat to pieced if I get too freaked out. LOL.
So now I am ready to start sewing, but can someone PLEASE tell me where I put my Collaborative Quilting book? I need to look at Gwen and Freddy's baskets but my book is hiding.

The Bees are buzzing

I've been sewing letters and words together and attaching them to my bees. I've still go another 20 or so to go, and I'm thinking of floating them around the edges. I'm thinking I'm going to tone down the pink with other colours in the borders.

jude- quilting and stitching details

i am at a stage where the focus in mainly on decorative stitching. the squiggles are wind and the yellow quilting lines radiate from the moon in the upper corner. since the next day will be focused on embroidery and not piecing.... you can catch the details on my blog. i will be back with the border which will be more about piecing....and wonkiness.

Small Project

As I said before, unfortunately I won't have any time to work on my Places or FISH quilts until mid April, but in the meantime, I love seeing what everyone else is up to here! Here's a little project I just completed as a birthday gift with a few free-pieced letters on it. Happy Easter to all who are celebrating and Happy Spring to those in the northern hemisphere! (Although, it's -12C here today and snowing! I feel like I should be saying Merry Christmas!)

Singing the Blues

Change of direction here. I decided against the blue mish mash and thought I'd try something else.





The "B" looks more like an eight - I'm better at lowercase letters

The next strip will probably be the blue olive fabric as the letters and the background will be a mixture. We can but wait and see.

jude- moonface rabbits

looks like a plan.... a border of carrots is in order, i think....

Fliegenpilz

Fliegenpilz is the German name for Toadstools. Despite their poisonous nature, they are good luck symbols and populate many gardens and greeting cards. Anyone who's visited my home or blog has probably noticed that I like these pretty little mushrooms and their lore. Hence a Fliegenpilz quilt.

I had originally thought I'd do a big quilt-as-you-go thing sewing green strips directly to my batting/backing and then adding a strip of free pieced mushrooms. But then I woke up this morning with the realization that it needed to be a fairy ring! It will be harder to piece the ring, but I like the design better. I tried out a simple mushroom which i think is on the right track. My daughter saw my sketch and did one of her own. I like the prairie point border she added. I might have to steal that idea! I'm open to any other piecing ideas too.

Turtles

Hi bloggers, my name is Andrea, I'm 58 and I live in Minnesota, USA, about 20 miles outside of Minneapolis/St. Paul. I'm a school nurse and quilting is my sanity! I'm so happy to have found this blog and I love looking at what everyone is posting and I love Tonya's tutorials. For the Lazy Gal 2008 class, I plan to make a quilt with turtles. I'm a pretty new quilter so far (3 years) and my only claim to fame is that I really splurged last summer and took a six-day workshop with Freddy Moran, of Collaborative Quilting and Freddy's Houses, in Ventura, California. I had never taken a trip without my husband, so for me that was bold! I flew with my Pfaff machine as carry-on luggage through five different airports and what an experience that was, believe me! I don't know whether I'd try that again! I had an absolute ball and I made a wild medallion-type quilt, using four of Freddy's chicken blocks off-center as the medallion. Then when I got back home, I went back to using patterns, for security I guess, but I found I was much more free in using my imagination to depart from the pattern as well as be more adventurous with color. I am inspired to find a group like this one here and hope it will motivate me to go further with just letting go and doing my own thing. Bye for now, Andrea

jude- 3 wabbits

i am making this simple. i want to give this to mom for the holiday. the plan is to applique the faces.

jude-seasonal whim

a quick change of direction for me. i need to simplify because of time constraints. i will be traveling soon so i am changing my idea.....

More Work on my Cs

I did a little more work on my C's. Tonya is right about some of them being dull and dark... I'll see about using the dull ones or not as I go on. (Maybe that represents the dull side of my personality!) This is what I have so far. I have a couple more ideas to incorporate. I promise I won't post a picture every day along the way! Just wanted to share this step.

Carol E.

Juliann- finished teacups

Stitched, quilted, bound and ready to mail. I finished this little quilt last night and got it washed up today. I can't wait to get it in the mail to my daughter.

Now I can get back to my other teacups or maybe I will be making some PI symbols for another little quilt.

I really learned a lot doing this. I started out trying to hold on to the design too much and the more I let go, the more fun I had. I especially like doing the free hand fan quilting.

more zinnias

Hope you aren't too tired of my zinnias. I tried Mary's idea out and it seems to have worked well. Thanks again! I ended up using 1 1/4 in. strips for the petals - not too skinny - not too fat.
This isn't the setting I'll use but wanted to see how they would look in the background.
Sarah mentioned that Jan Mullen has something similar called daisiez. She sure does! I found her website (stargazey.com) and sure enough, what we came up with looks a lot like her daisiez.
It's interesting - doesn't bother me - hope it doesn't bother her :)

Checking In

I'm still here. And I'm working. Words aren't working well with the images in my head, so I'll hold off and post some pictures as soon as my camera decides to cooperate or when I give up and purchase a new one. The theme is Working Roots. And I think this wants to be a wearable piece. I'm in way over my head but it does increase my motivation to learn to swim!

Does anyone know how to do the process of soaking muslin in staining agents (coffee, tea, cinnamon, vanilla, etc.) and then baking it? I'm experimenting and the staining part seemed to work alright, but the baking part nearly got me evicted. And the muslin didn't get as stiff as I know it can be. I have no clue about temp or time with the baking. I'd like a better idea of what I'm doing before I start torturing the linen I'm working with or mixing it up with embroidered fabric.

I'm enjoying everyone's posts and really delighted with how much I'm learning from your photographs. Thanks to all for the sharing and inspiration.

Oh, I ccccc!

I think I'll play around with C (the first letter in my name), and also with my whole first name. Here's what I have made so far. I pulled the 4 c's on the bottom from a previous half-baked idea. I just recently bought the sign language fabric. I'm a s.l. interpreter, so it's perfect for me. Not sure where this will lead, but I like the idea better than bird houses which I considered for a while.
Carol E.

Zinnias Pic

Cheryl, here is what I was talking about. By the way, I love the colors! Mary

Zinnias in the snow

I used the asterisk tutorial and Tonya's center square suggestion to make my zinnias. Neither version looks especially like a zinnia, but I do think they have a flowery look and I like them. Any suggestions or other ideas? How do you like the background? I like the color because it has the greens and blues of summer, but am wondering if it will be too dark looking or not enough contrast. The blocks are 4 1/2 inches sq.
These were so much fun to make :)

More love

I have been making more words which say LOVE for my pink quilt. I've only joined one set together so far, as I'm not sure how they will go. I'll have to make some more, and then decide whether they look good all horizontal, in 4s, sashed or whatever. Some of the words look a bit cramped because they need a bit of background as a spacer. I'll sort that out later. So far, so good!

can you read it?

I've been sewing letters for my word project while I think about the 2 bees quilt, and here's a problem I've encountered: the medium coloured, busy prints don't work well for letters. the pink print says Love and Hope with some hearts. anyone have ideas how to fix it? or do I rearrange the letters for another word, like "confuse"?

Still Mulling it Over

I am pondering what to do... I'm not pushing myself to hurry and decide. One idea is to do bird houses and/or birds. I love the bird house motif. But I am loving the BBBs 2b bees quilt.. with just random repetition of B's. Maybe I should branch out a little, too, and not stick with a recognizable object. Still thinking, and am enjoying what the rest of you come up with while I ponder.

Carol E.

Allez les bleus

Two letters made up very quickly last Sunday (notice I said Sunday Ton).



The one on the left is supposed to be a lower case b. I know it doesn't look like one. These letters are, hopefully, not going to be made up of the same fabric and are going to merge into one big splash of blue.

Adjusting "The Plan"

When I posted my initial thoughts, I announced that I would focus on wonky houses. And I will still include a few houses.... BUT I’ve been “pondering” over the past several days rather than jumping right in.

Repetition defined: “The act or an instance of repeating or being repeated”

Here are bits of thoughts that have bouncing about between my brain cells:

I work as a legal administrative assistant/paralegal for three (and sometimes more) corporate/estate planning attorneys. That means I keyboard ALL day long, making edits to an unending flow of documents. “Put the comma in, take the comma out” ~ repetition in its most basic form.

Repetition creates familiarity (and sometimes, irritation).

Repetition can also lead to understanding (and/or frustration).

Repetition is one way of getting things into longer-term memory.

As Pavlov discovered with his dogs, with repetition you can connect a cue or trigger with a selected action.

Music, rhythm and repetition can have a hypnotic effect that often lull us into following a pattern in mindless ways.

Before assisted living, my mother had a dog and a t-shirt with this printed on the front ~
Today’s Agenda: Let the Dog In, Let the Dog Out, Let the Dog In, Let the Dog Out

So, where am I going with this?

I’ve decided to modify my game plan for this quilt. I want to make houses, but I also want to do much more and not get so intense about one particular element.

How? I’m going to use one particular fabric as my repeating element. It will be featured, along with an assortment of companionably scrappy colors, in every block, connecting segments, borders, back, and maybe even the binding.

I really don’t know where this approach will lead ~ which, as Tonya can verify, is a giant leap for me. The goal is not just free piecing, but a free spirit as well.


-----------
"Mistakes are the portals of discovery." (James Joyce)

Juliann - Peace in a cup

This morning I had a moment of inspiration. My daughter's word of the year is Peace. She has made a few paper pieces using this word. I wanted to try and do the word in fabric. I managed to get the word PEACE done before I had to go to work. I couldn't wait to get home and see what would come next. As I looked at the word, I decided she needs some tea cups. When she was in college, she used to have tea parties and one of the things we like to do when se visits is make a pot of tea. So I made some more little teacups - these are about 2 3/4 inches. Then the idea of using the words in a cup came along and before you know it, I had this. It is about 11 1/2" right now. I am thinking just a small border and then it will be ready for quilting. I am looking forward to trying some free hand fans. I hope I can come up with a fun phrase for my own teacup quilt.

ZZZZZZZinnias

Thanks for the input, the zinnias and z's were a clear favorite. Tonya, I like the zzzzzzzinias and will use it maybe as a border. What fun.
I probably will use greens and some blue for the background, with bright, hot colors for the zinnias. Of course I may change my mind once I get going.
For the zinnias, I have a few ideas: the asterisk could work well, especially if I appliqued a circle in the center. I also like Lisajo's flower and will try something like that. But, what I would really like to try is a fan shape. Does anyone have ideas about free-piecing a fan shape?
I will definitely try some z's first though to start getting the feel for things.

Trees

I have been making trees (no pictures yet). I started by using my "wasted corner" triangles for the tree tops. Feels like I'm crumb-piecing! There are so many seams-- Tonya, how in the world do you hand quilt through such bulk??

No letters/words yet, as I can't decide whether to use a dark or light background. That will be my next step. My trees are turning out good, getting better as I make more. I started out with a certain format in mind, a framework in which to "plant" my ideas. ha! That worked to get me started, but I am quickly changing the plans. I trimmed my first blocks to 3.5"-- sorta small! Now I am starting to leave them untrimmed so I can fit different sizes together later. (Should have done that in the first place. I'm learning!)

Just started

I spent a while thinking about this, and have sketched out several ideas - and thrown them in the bin! Then I remembered some free fabric I had taken at my local shop, which was to be used to make a quilt to raise money for a breast cancer charity. It was lovely fabric, but very pink. Maybe I could combine both challenges? What would go with pink?


Well, there was only one answer. A bit sickly maybe, but very important. Love. The quilt is going to consist of repetitions of the word 'love'. Here are the first two. (They'll look better when they're joined together - I hope!)

How many more bees?

I've been churning out the B's and variations of them. Now I'm figuring out how to arrange them. I've got three background colours: white, black, and the pink floral for the bumble bees.

I also made a partner for the first bumble bee. They're a bit cuter than the quilts I usually make, but I'm trying to be open to pushing myself. But now I'm wondering: make more letters, or start sewing them together into words and phrases to arrange them into a quilt top?

Joining In

Hi everyone. After having such a ball in Tonya's winter class I'm joining in for summer too. Even though down here in New Zealand it was summer for Christmas, and we are now heading into Autumn. I have a bit of an idea about making a quilt for our upcoming 10th wedding anniversary but I need to flesh it out a bit. I think it will have lots of orange in it!

You see my winter class quilt on my blog though it is a bit sad and dejected at the moment. My digital camera has crashed and burned, and just when I thought it would be exciting to buy a new one, the washing machine crashed and burned too. Well naturally the washing machine had to take priority so the new camera is going to wait for another couple of weeks. Grrr!!

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's ideas.

Cheers
Lisa

Sarah from house of krom

Hello everyone! I'm Sarah and I'm joining in on the fun!

I enjoy free-piecing and have used Tonya's letter's in another quilt. I watched her winter class, and I couldn't pass up on joining her summer one. I've recently been rereading Liberated Quilting by Gwen Marston. Between this book and Collaborative Quilting by Gwen and Freddy Moran, I've been wanting to make some liberated quilts. I will focus on houses for the majority of the quilt with stars and/or tree or who-knows-what-else for the "filler".

I have a few other projects to finish before I can get started on this one, but my brain in churning over it all!

Thanks Tonya for your tutorials, inspiration and putting these classes together!

Sarah

I have an idea!

Hi everyone! I finally got up the courage and determination to join up...plus I got an idea. I've wanted to do a Green quilt...both the color and to promote recycling. Also, I thought if I joined the group it would give me the "kick-in-the-you-know what" to do it! (notice I did not say finish it...)

I have been quilting for about twenty years. I tend to go towards reproduction fabrics but I also have a stash of batiks, silks, buttons, beads....OK, I have a lot of stuff to play with! I'm going to try and stretch myself on this one. Watch this space for progress!!!!

I'm thinking flowers

Hi all ~ I just joined the group (thank you Tonya) and am looking forward to playing with you. I've quilted for about 30 years but free piecing is new to me and I can't wait. My inspirations are Tonya, Gwen Marston , Gee's Bend Quilters and everybody out there who is trying this. I have a t-shirt quilt that I will be machine quilting in the next few days, so it will give me lots of time to think about my project.
We have about 2 feet of snow here so I am thinking flowers.....maybe zinnias (I could use the asterik tutorial) with the letter z (it's such a great looking and sounding letter) OR sunflowers OR a whole garden full of different flowers. I'll keep you posted :)

Marbles

I've done some more thinking about what the quilt will look like. I am going to work on making marbles (don't know how yet) and then words related to marbles. Since my brother collects them, I'll put then all into a wall hanging. I have collected pictures and then words--shooter, pee-wee, catseye, aggie, steely. I'm going to try to make the words curved--like the marbles. Don't know how, but I'll give it a shot.

I'm at a conference this week--so won't be able to get started until next week. It's good to see all the other ideas so far.

Mary

More bees

So I took Tonya's advice and made one bumble bee and I'm planning on sewing another. I've had fun making the letters so far, but I'm stuck in a couple of styles on how to make the capital B.

I love the enthusiasm on this blog. It seems like everyone is overflowing with ideas. I'm looking forward to watching your progress over the next few weeks.

I want to play too!

I'm Mary in MN (Minneapolis) and I'm a big fan of Gwen Marston's work as well as Tonya's. My quilts tend to be simple, scrappy, and traditional. String quilts have always been a favorite of mine and a particular focus of my quilting this past year with the HeartStrings Quilt Project.

Fall is my favorite season and each year I've quilted I've tried to make a fall quilt. For this project, I plan to work with trees with the goal of having my quilt top finished by Fall. I'll be out of town most of this week and I'm getting ready for a move in a few weeks so my start may lag a little behind but I'm excited about participating.

Hi Everyone

Hi Everyone!

I found this site through Jude's blog, was immediately inspired to participate, and was up most of the night jotting down thoughts and designs. Today I purchased gray linen that has been calling my name for weeks and it is now preshrinking away in the wash.

So now I'm thinking a lot about repetition. Not only in design, but in nature, in culture, in families. What is handed down (repeated through generations) to us and how sometimes it comes intact and sometimes it comes in fragments. How sometimes it is useable in the form in which it comes to us and sometimes it's not, challenging us seek its essence and bring it forth in new forms.

I'm intrigued by ralli, saami, and kantha quilts - traditionally made from old cloth. I love old textiles! I don't have any old textiles that I'm willing to interfere with, so I've decided that will be my first step in this class - create "old" fragments that will be pieced into a new whole.

I am a stitcher and lover of all things fiber related, but I am not a quilter. I do not have a fabric stash from which to draw for this. I live in Switzerland where the cost of fabric can quickly plunge me into financial ruin. How am I going to do this? Well, honestly, I don't have a clue! Yet. It is a good thing I have a sense of humor and am able and willing to laugh at myself!

I'm really looking forward to working with the challenge I've set for myself and to watching each of you develop your quilts. I've visited all of the blogs listed in the sidebar and admit to being amazed and not a little intimidated by the quality and quantity that you all produce! This is going to be a lot of fun!

Paula in Zurich

Pre-Introduction Test

Testing to make sure I am where I think I am!

Mushrooms

This is my very sketchy sketch for my mushroom quilt. I know I won't get to it right away, but I've been stashing green scraps and, of course, I have a good collection of red and white polka dotted fabrics for the 'shrooms themselves!

Fitzy - Sagauro National Park MY INSPIRATION!

Oh my goodness! My inspiration has arrived!

WOO-HOO - I'm doing the happy dance. twirl - twirl - twirl

And geez-louise, all I had to do is look out my window, lol. Note to self: OPEN YOUR EYES WOMAN!

I live just outside Saguaro National Park. Cactusville, USA - Tucson, AZ.

My quilt will reflect the repetition of the cacti, all various sizes, shapes, colors and textures. Cacti absolutely thrill me. My daughter said, "Yeah Mom, I used to feel that way, then I got over it." I haven't gotten over it yet.

I'm so darned excited!

Heidi - another idea

When reading the post about the bugs I had the idea of trying a dragonfly . Every summer we have dragonflies in our garden. And I found a lot of different solid blues in my stash, I'm imagening dragonflies in yellow, orange and turqouise on dark blue background, if ......
well, not one of my 3 sewing machines is working. The 'good' one stopped working yesterday evening ( when DD used her ), my faithful 35year old Pfaff swallowed the 'on' button, when I switched her on 1 month ago, and my new old featherweight doesn't behave very good ( probably my fault )
So wish me luck :-) At least I have time to clean up and go through the stash looking for dragonfly colors. And the first sketch :-)

Blue Blue Blue

This is the blue stash that has been glaring at me. I'm hoping to start cutting soon, but was wondering if I ought to add some more white. What do you think?

Hi from Kristin L

Not that I need any new projects, but I've had an idea with free-pieced mushrooms bouncing around in my head for a while now and this seems like the perfect way to actually get motivated to work on it. Imagine a row of little dancing 'shrooms in a strippy green meadow. That's what I hope to make...

Joining In

Hello everyone! I'm Hedgehog in Finland and I took part in Tonya's first class last fall. I started a few projects then that I'd like to finish in this class. I did finish a few little things for that class - like VOTE and MEOW and XOXO, but the larger ones have been hanging on my sewing room walls for months now. I had to sit out Tonya's winter class because my teaching schedule was too hectic (I'm an American teaching English at the University of Vaasa in western Finland), and it will continue to be until April, but then I plan to dive back into these two projects: FISH and Places I've Lived. I'm sure I won't be able to limit myself to just two, though! Nice to 'meet' all of you and looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

Juliann's teacups

These teacups are so much fun! This morning I tried making some even smaller cups so now I have a few different sizes. I need to begin working on the letters now. I am thinking of naming some of our favorite teas and making some more of the word blocks to just say TEA.

Nancie ask "which one"

I have a few ideas that I'll run past you...
1)I've been working on a heart wallhanging with a zillion appliqued hearts. Even before this class, I was thinking that it would be fun to make a similar wallhanging with a bunch of wonky trees.
2) I love Churn Dash... it would be cool to make a bunch of funky CD's!
3) I also love sailboats and the possibilities are endless.
How do I decide?

Brenda with an existential question

Instead of my first idea of stars or exclamation marks, I decided to take another approach, and make a quilt celebrating the "B"s in my life. My husband's name also starts with B, hence the first attempt: And then there's Hamlet's question:
I'm going to have some fun with this: two bees, 2 Bs, too B, two B, and so on. One could also ask the question about colour: to be pink? or another colour. That's it for now. (Sorry about the blurry pix.)