Friday Night Intersections

Adore when there is time to catch up on amazing quilter's work and ideas via blogs.  Odd for me to be crafting at midnight on a Friday night, but that is the wonderful thing about the computer - it is ready when you are. 

After a hectic week, and an emotional football game, with so many urgent things I need to do instead...I found a solution for a mess I started in January.  

I forgot the pattern I had cut fabric for.  I lost the idea, the form and of course I lost where I wrote anything down about the whole thing.  It was just a box of problem and unresolved issues.

On November 19 Ashley at Film In the Fridge shared Intersection as a tutorial. 

Her work is always vibrant, lovely and inspires my scrap loving heart.
You must go enjoy her work - even if you don't quilt, it is delightful eye candy!

Late on November 21st I'm taking the large blocks, framing them, recutting strips and having a blast.  One can't get all sad and emotional when sewing!

I just adore this print found in a flea market stall.  It is old!  How long has it been since fabric was sold in 36 inch widths?

The colors do not look harmonious here on the computer, 

but they do in the daylight.  

I think?  

Have I a new problem?  

Awe, who cares...it makes me happy!

Throw Back Thursday on Tuesday Night

I've spent far too much time lately rebuilding my iPhoto library.  Crazy thumbnails, missing pics, and every upload moved like molasses in January.  Now that all pics appear back in place, reorganization begins.  

Since I was in Time Machine anyway, thought I would explore what I was sewing back in 

November of Another Year

Flashback 2012! 

 I like purple.  I wanted to play with purple.  

Gray was the color of the 2012 Quiltinternt.  So gray and purple the quilt was to be!

Everyone in Quiltinternt 2012 was quilting on their own home machines while I was only stacking my tops into a huge pile. It was time to learn to quilt! I tried "Quilt As You Go".  Less successfully than the first time I tried it, it is sad to say.  I didn't follow directions...I just made them up as I worked.  

Then I went to Craftsy.   Craftsy and Leah Day was a great/bad place to start.  

Wonderful instruction, convenient, inspiring but overwhelmingly small scale and perfect.  Those last two are just not ME!  I asked questions, explained my problems and GOT ANSWERS!  Happy dance!  Still loving Craftsy for those very reasons. 

In 2012, my best friend from college was back in the South.  I took that first quilted quilt with me for our meet up that November to Appling, GA. as a gift.






We talked about life with 50 peeking around the corner, drank cold beer on the deck in the autumn chill, and I made a new boyfriend named Beau.  Alas, there was no future with Beau.  He is far too tall for me, but remains crazy about me to this day... or just crazy.








Many of my quilts are grief creations.  More on that another day.  This purple quilt was to become a grief quilt after the fact.   Christy died unexpectedly in May 2014.  Her folks still have the quilt (and Beau) to grieve with.   









Veal Girl - My college roommate, my high school running buddy for the glory days of senior year, and my fellow adventurer into Hot'lanta - 1980's style. Challenges of GT, first jobs, loss of identity, rebuilding identities...so much shared, understood and laughter through it all.   And my first quilted quilt.  I hope she felt my hugs to her soul under the purple quilt.   I miss you so much "dah'lin".

Libraries, Books and Quilts

I rarely purchase books - usually out of my fabric budget - but last month a new branch of the public library opened just across from my very own neighborhood.  

Welcome Live Oak Public Library to Garden City!!!

Of course I explored quilting books on my first visit. 

A treasure has made its way onto my Wish List! 

The list that starts with fabric, batting and now contains:

Modern Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman

The book has been out for a while (2012) and 
Oh, Fransson! was one of the first blogs I ever followed. 
it is a lovely layout of inspiring quilting and huge abundance of creativity!

In my life before May 6, 2009, we purchased books - any book that struck our fancy - on a regular basis.  My pendulum swung wildly those first years. I dismissed ideas of purchasing any type of book ...
and hid myself in the public library while not repeatedly checking my 401K to calculate my retirement to see if there was any chance I could stop working the paying job before I was 93....and there is no chance...


Since I do not usually refer to printed patterns or instructions (nor recipes, nor installation manuals...slightly ODD?) and just figure my way with a calculator and graph paper, I've been hesitant to buy quilting books.  

The quilts by Elizabeth Hartman in this book compel me to look more closely, to change things, to use a color and but not the block, to quilt something languishing in the closet with a lovely idea she applies with flair!

I needed a backing for something just completed, and was drawn to the woven Metropolis.

I was going this far, all the way with Elizabeth, but the main man in my life wanted more blue with a larger block look and suggest I stop here:

What does he know?  Something? Nothing?

I'm blogging because I have a 17 year old son whose tastes are limited to his mouth as my only creative sounding board.  Yikes!

I'm still in love with Benartex Dwellings! 

Those patterns keep leaping into so much I do.

This is the second quilting book I've fallen for.  The first was long ago and to be blogged about another day.  

What quilting books or blogs have stirred your brain?  

Hoping someone will share more quilting books and suggestions!

Bloglovin

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/13154497/?claim=nq45bn7h3z9">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Giving this a whirl.  I adore the bloggers I've found through Bloglovin.  Just trying to join in the quilting creativity.  Wish me luck!

Etcetera Fiesta!

Christmas came early for me when my friend Shelia shared years of her Etcetera Fashion fabric swatches!

Pink and Blue and Teal and Green and lovely textures in every shade.

Some are sheer, knit, wobbly.  A huge change from sturdy 100% cotton, but I so want to create something lovely from these for Shelia, a lady with a lovely sense of style.  

So I hauled out the Easy Knit stabilizer I had on hand to use for a T-Shirt memory quilt .

(Note to self:  MUST start on that soon!)

 I placed the tiny lovelies on a small section of pellon and ironed them down. I decided some of the knits needed 2-D support, so they have two layers of backing. 

Pinks were popping at me so I started there.

Auditioned several whites, grays, and taupes to complete the block.

Moda Grunge was the winner.  I seem to be the only person buying off that taupe gray grunge bolt at my fabric store, but I don't care...I like it and that means more for me to play with!

With thanks to the very first blogger I started following, 

I'm reusing a scrap-tacular  block assembly she shared in 2011.

Anyone with experience working with non-cotton fabrics, please share input! 

I know this will be a NO-wash quilt, for sure.

Getting Started at Quilt 45

What do I have to say that would justify me creating this blog?  What is there to say about a quilt?  What do I want to say about sewing to recreate order in a life that changed beyond my understanding?  What is there to say about six years that have passed since the person that completed my heart and soul died?  What is there to say about  being the mom of a son with a heart perhaps even be more compassionate than that of his father.  What do I need to say about another amazing man blazing into my life? 

I don’t know!  There’s the answer!  I don’t know what I need to say, but there are things I want to say!

Mostly about quilting!

45 quilts into my story, the blog starts here!

Number 45 was bound, threads snipped and introduced to the world today.  :-)

Time to start sharing some things about the process that might fall on the eyes and hearts of someone out there stitching through grief and regrowth along with me!

The scraps of sewing, quilting and my heart found  the place they belonged -  in strips.  When it hurt to face a weekend day, or the burden too heavy to do the things Scott and I once loved, I was able to just sew all the blues together  (and I dooo have blue fabric!)  Those strips looked so amazing trimmed to uniform length. Crisp, clean randomness.

The strips joined some lovely Northcott Stonehenge gray/blue.  Which of course ran out before I was ready for it to!  So a visit to the wonderful local fabric store - turned up nothing - so I substituted!  It is scrappy and make do, just like me!

So when time came to make a backing, I pulled out yardage purchased 15 years ago for Da Boy's room in the new house.  It just didn't work into the room, but seemed appropriate to back the scraps!