Amrita's Kaleidoscope

I cannot believe I haven't posted in 3 months.   What can I say?   I have the usual bag of time constraints to blame, chief among them a project at work that is zapping all my energy.    I've had 3 months of 'blog or sew?' moments in the evening, and in every case I've chosen to sew.

This has made for lots of finished quilts, but fewer blog posts.   So, time for a little catch-up on all the stuff I've made.

I made this quilt for one of my oldest friends, Amrita.  I will not go mushy on you, but she is a delight and I wish my children both have friends as great as her one day.

She was here to visit last summer, and I had her pull some inspiration from my stash.

Amrita picked fabrics in a palette I don't usually work with - tans and oranges and darkish reds.   I had a great time jumping out of my comfort zone a bit.
 

 
I wanted a kaleidoscope-ish effect, so I pulled a ton of fabrics, and sewed strips of 3-4 irregular bands in colors that ran from light to dark.   The bands were pieced randomly side by side, with lights all together at one end and darks at the other. I then used a homemade plastic template to cut a wedge shape.   The wedge was finished on the 2 corners with triangles of Free Spirit "Raw Sugar" and cut down to 12" blocks.

After piecing 16 of these, I realized the quilt was way smaller than I wanted.   That's when I remembered a suggestion of Aimee's, and used a bunch of leftover color bands to create a stripey border.

The back was finished with this beautiful Anna Maria Horner print that I found at Marden's in Sanford, Maine after our BMQG retreat last year.  It was like $4 per yard, and I can't deal with how perfectly the colors match.

I used the super-chocolatey flavor of Hope Valley floral to bind, another go-to fabric that I love.

The quilt was delivered to Amrita in NJ back in December, and I'm happy to report she really loves it.  I do kind of miss it, though.

Argh

I've been wanting to post about this finish from a few weeks back, but I cannot find a window of time with both sunshine and a quilt zombie here to assist me with pictures (ie, a headless and torsoless quilt holder-upper). This weekend, I promise.

Gratuitous cuteness

My friend Lela sent me a photo of her baby enjoying his quilt.

slaying me with cheek cuteness

I love seeing my quilts in use, but that beautiful face takes the cake.

My first and last Britney quilt

And now, from the archives....

no, thanks

Last year, my next door neighbor showed me a bag of T-shirts, wondering if any of my guild friends might have interest in taking on a project. Her daughter was our first babysitter when we moved to Massachusetts 6 years ago, and is now a college junior. The shirts represented high school and college memories and were languishing in a dresser.

I should mention that these are the best neighbors we've ever had. They let our children use their backyard and house like it is theirs, invite us over for impromptu dinners, and generally keep an eye on us like we are family. So while I'd heard stories about how awful t-shirt jersey is to work with, I couldn't say no.

My only design direction was that their daughter "likes blue." (I know, right?!)

I squared and interfaced all the shirt content, and raided some unused brights from my stash and scrap bin to fill in. I honestly loved how lively it was when it was done, but it took a long time!

Some of the Ts had hilarious content and were a bit incongruous with the more philanthropic shirts, so I relegated them to the back, alongside a teal print I found at Joann's. If you look closely, you'll spy not just Britney, but also Nick Lachey and (gag) Chris Brown.

There were many snorts when this came in for show and tell at my BMQG meeting.

I used the quilt as a chance to practice my free motion, which was executed in a square stipple pattern. In the end, my neighbors loved it. There were tears, probably the best reaction I've ever had to a quilt I made!

Yahrzeit

I spent some time last weekend cutting up some shirts of my Dad's that my mom gave me.

I'm coming up on his 'yahrzheit', which is the 1-year anniversary of his death.   I've been dreading it, and the shirts have been sitting in a pile in the corner of my sewing room since last November.

My father was an electronics technician, and a solid 'flannel-and-work pants' kind of guy, as you can tell.  He was rocking this look for a solid 30 years before J. Crew picked up on it.

Last weekend, I just looked at the pile and felt like I needed to start.   Taking the cutter to the first shirt was a bit gut-wrenching, but still felt like the right thing to do.  Since I didn't have a real concept in mind, I set the goal of just cutting off odd parts, seams, and squaring things up.

It took about an hour, but I'm happy with the progress.   I have a neat stack that's easier to look at.  Psychically, the pile looks more like the beginnings of something.

The next morning, inspiration finally struck.   I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, as was my father.   He was a complete science guy, who had a deep love for physics in particular.

The Ohio Star block seems like a complete no-brainer, for a jumping off point:

via  EZPiecing

I'm kicking around ideas and have a long way to go, but feel relieved to be started.

Pigs fly!

I never thought I'd be able to do it, but I did - I finally cut some of my beloved Melody Miller yardage!

The bag I made is Michelle Lizcano's Nikki tote, the pattern for which I picked up at Pink Chalk Fabrics, on Laurie's recommendation. I also deployed some never-cut Echino dots for the handles, and love how they look together. I highly recommend this pattern, it was easy and is so dramatic in person.

Thank you, Linda!!

Thanks to my friend Linda and her mad Gammill skills, I just rocked through the quilting of Amrita's kaleidoscope quilt (full size) in 2 hours!! You can add a long-arm machine to my Hanukkah wish list. On to binding...