Violette's Sugar and Spice

"Sugar and Spice, Everything Nice," what could be more "girly" than that?

As soon as those words popped into my head, I knew I had to include them in Violette's quilt. I kept the tones of the word "sugar" close to the color violet. I wanted the word "and" to disappear into the background, so I picked a color that was close to the background. For the word "Spice," I wanted colors with punch.

I didn't like the "R" so I redid it. Then I didn't like that it was sewn so evenly, so I ripped it apart and resewed it together. The word "Everything" had to bend slightly so it would fit on the top of a twin bed. And I wanted the colors to be reminiscent of a rainbow.

The word "Nice" looked a bit boring, so I replaced the dot on the "i" with a little flower.

After that came the name panel, along with some butterflies I designed.

Violette's family has a big tabby cat, and I knew I wanted to include him in the quilt. Hiding him in the flower patch at the bottom was the solution.

Here is the finished quilt.
I was so excited to join Tonya's Summer Class. But I couldn't start posting until after I had delivered this quilt to its recipient, my godchild Violette.

I visited her family in July for the Christening and gave them her quilt. Everybody loved it, and thought it was perfect. Everything -was- perfect.

Ten days after I left, Violette suffered a tragic accident and died. I flew down to Maryland to attend the funeral. The family covered her coffin with the quilt at her funeral. It was beautiful, and perfect in its own way, but that's not the image I had anticipated.

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It's been hard for me to get back into making quilts or being excited about much of anything. I'm not related to Violette's family, but I loved her very much.


Today the quilt is on Violette's big brother's bed. He's 5-1/2.

He placed it there.

Polka Dot Estates

finished!



I changed the name of my quilt from "housing project" to "Polka Dot Estates". I was looking at Tonya's house tutorial recently. Guess what she called it? housing project! No wonder I thought it was a great name. I guess my subconscious held on to that name until I started my quilt. Sorry Tonya! Never meant to use your quilt name. Eek! Please accept my apologies!

I really enjoyed this class and making the quilt. I learned a lot that I wouldn't have learned if I had just followed a pattern of "cut this many of each sized rectangle and triangle listed". It's hard to explain. But I think you know what I mean.

Thanks Tonya!

I offer this photo as evidence that I am still working on my quilt! As you can see (maybe), several trees and the letters ORES are sewn together into a section. This picture represents about 1/10th of my quilt. How did it get so big?! The work of assembling the pieces is slow and requires much thought. The process is so intense that I can't focus on it more than a couple hours at a time.

After seeing some of your quilt tops finished, I am eager to finish mine, but I daresay it won't be any time soon! I am renewing my commitment to it, hoping to make good progress in the next month.

Hi all,
I filled in the blanks & here it is:


It's 24" x 33.5"-- just a small project. I will be embroidering some more words throughout.

Finished Top!

At long last ~ the flying monkeys are off the design wall!!  

The completed top measures 61 x 86 ~ Chris and I have talked about several quilting ideas, but haven't decided on anything yet.  Hope to piece the back tomorrow (single vertical seam) ~ and then the monkeys will be off to Oakland where Chris lives.

Woo Hoo!!

Not crazy about my results

I decided it was time to try and assemble my trees and I'm not really liking the results. I'm going to stop where I am now and quilt the small piece that's already assembled and save the other blocks for another time - maybe I'll come up with a better plan for joining them.

I'd like to try this again in the future but I may need to rethink and limit my color scheme....keep it scrappy but pick just a color or two to work with. I did have a lot of fun making the trees - they may even show up in other projects.

Not pleased with myself

Oh well, things did not progress as well as I'd hoped and I have precious little to show:

.

I'm not sure it I like the non-wonkyness but maybe I have been brain-washed by all your wonky projects. Also I'm bothered by the absense of piecing but then again, I said I wanted to do appliqué and try a few different things and embellishments.

In short, I don't function well on the no-plan plan but promise to plow ahead with this because I am curious where it will take me.

Broken Dishes

Quick update ~ the double row of broken dishes blocks works really well (and if you let your eyes blur out a bit you'll discover a marvelous secondary pinwheel pattern dancing across the top border). Thanks for your suggestions, thoughts, and encouragement!

Still need to piece the left side's zig-zag border and then construction of the top can begin in earnest!

Quiltdivajulie

Monkey Business ~ Help Needed

Here's where the project stands at this moment ~ I'm a bit stuck on what to do with the top border. Contemplating a double row of alternating broken dishes blocks (love the play on words, plus the colors help balance the weight of the 'monkey wrench' blocks at the bottom). What do you see?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! [note added later - please see my post of July 24 to see a rough sketch for my early asymmetrical border ideas]

Quiltdivajulie

Sawtooth tree

I took your advice and added another tall tree in the lower right corner. It looks great there! Thanks for the suggestion. I made 4 more trees last night and moved things around a bit. I'm getting bored seeing the same ol' tree styles, so I've drawn out 2 completley different designs. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Trees...need a critique

Here's the "big picture". I'm not done, of course. I intend to add more trees. Right now, I need a break and I want your opinions. I think it needs more big trees (the size of the tree sitting on top of the 'D')....or should I just flood the piece with tons of smaller trees? Do the trees need to be closer together?

I'm not sure of the positioning of "Deep in the Forest" either. Should I move it to the right, under the tall Tree Everlasting....or should I line it up on the left side of the quilt...or leave it centered?

I'm in a thinking stage, so any ideas about balancing this piece will be welcome.

Kudos to All

No pictures to share, no progress to report, just wanted to drop in and say what a wonderful job everyone is doing with their quilts. Even though my hearts are on the back burner for the moment I really enjoy looking at what everyone else is doing. The colors and the wonkiness never fail to cheer me up! Hurray for free piecing!!!

Tree Everlasting

Just to show you that I've been working on this, here's a couple of pictures.

I am piecing in sections...adding a few trees as I go...and then moving on to another section. When all the words are put together, I'll have to make more trees to fill in the spaces between the phrases. I plan to stagger the trees rather than set them in straight rows, and of course, that means the piecing will be more complicated. I am having fun though! I'm rummaging through my large basket of fabric "strings" for more beige fabrics to use in the skinny spaces between letters. More variety, you know. (I hope the background isn't too busy!)

project k top done

sheesh...I forgot to post a photo here of the finished k top. It's going with me for hand quilting later today as we spend the weekend at the beach. I will toss many threads into the van as I have not decided quite what I want to quilt on it as yet.

Violette

I am to be Violette's godmother on Saturday. I wanted to make her a quilt as a gift. I had not originally planned to include her name, but after toying with Tonya's letters, I decided to give it a try. The tallest letters here are about 8 inches high.

But I thought the letters in the fabric were a bit too washed out; that there wasn't enough contrast. Then I found this dark purple fabric with lines of pink dots in the bargain bin. I liked the contrast with the background fabric.I liked the spacing of the letters in the original and decided to keep it, so I worked on her middle name first. Then I decided to make a wonky heart to dot the "i" in "Violette."As you can see, the new fabric provides a strong contrast with the background fabric. I will use the original panel elsewhere. This is the completed name panel. It's about 20" high by about 24" wide.

After I got this far, I realized this was going to be bigger than a "standard" baby quilt. With what should I fill up the space? What, I wondered, was "girly?" As soon as I posed the question in my mind, this phrase popped in my head...

"Sugar and Spice, Everything Nice"

I knew I was in serious trouble.

More Monkey Business

Here is my not-to-scale sketch showing the direction I'm headed with the borders... gotta love a good eraser!!

Have loads of yellows but am a little concerned about the black background fabric ~ will proceed carefully to fill in the central panel and then re-evaluate the situation. Hope to stitch (a lot) on Saturday.

Ready for the Next Steps ~

All of the letters have been stitched and the words are spelled out on my design wall ~ now it is time to create the top itself. Still playing with multiple border ideas...

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"Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing the monkey bars -- at some point you have to let go in order to move forward." (author unknown)

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Added Later ~

The saying above is paraphrased from a scene in The Wizard of Oz ~ the Wicked Witch calls upon her army of flying monkeys to track down Dorothy & her companions, skyjacking them back to the castle... click here for more info on those monkeys. In my case, the motivation came from a bad day at work...

progress on the k project

I have spent most of today working on my summer class -the k project. Thought I would post a current photo of it's current status. Some of the parts are stitched together, and I have bits and pieces in place around those sections. Still subject to change of course but I am really enjoying the process of putting this top together.

Roses - Quilt top finished!

Well ladies, she's done. The top is finished. Oh, I like her! With a LOT of help from above and from Grandma's machine and quick basting hands back home, there is a possibility she'll be quilted before the wedding. Keep your fingers crossed that all will go well and I can give this to my hermanacita on her wedding day!

(When I am home I'll try to get a picture once she's finished that shows all of the borders. Don't have anywhere big enough in my little apartment!)

Thank you for all your support and encouragement along the way. You are all fabulous!

Hanging my head in shame

Oh my ... despite the best of intentions and lots of ideas zipping around my head I still have not started my repetition project. I might take material on holiday with me, the project would then mainly be handpieced - we're flying and there is no way I can take my sewing machine, obviously.

I will report in August, hoping that I've accomplished something by then.