Wednesday, October 31, 2012

WOW – October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween everyone!  Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love seeing the kids dress up and of course I love to eat candy. My kids had a great time carving pumpkins actually so did my husband (he did the Glock pumpkin). 


Last week Bunny asked me a question about the Art quilt that I shared with you all.  I had the privilege to take an all day workshop with Rosemary Eichorn about a year ago.  She taught her Fabric Collage method that she uses for art quilts and garments.  Her book is called The Art of Fabric Collage and is available on Amazon.  I used this technique for this quilt and a few others that I have made.  The book is easy to understand and I have gone back and referenced it many time since I read it the first time.  It’s well worth purchasing if fabric collage interests you.  This type of quilt is so fun and easy to make, I can see myself making many more. 
The best part of quilting is finishing a project and I have finished another quilt I have been working on for quite some time.  This was a sew-a-long with Clover and Violet and I made the quilt for my nieces 10th birthday.  I’m so happy with my quilting on this one I did a flower design with trailing leaves and vines. 



My daughter asked me to teach her to do embroidery a few months ago so she picked a page from a Disney coloring book that she liked and I tried to teach her a different stich on each part of the design.  (Remember my daughter is nineteen she just really loves all that is Disney and wants to be a costume designer for them some day).  She decided to make it a pillow for her bed and sewed up this cute top.  So of course I had to do the quilting for her so this is our joint effort.  She is really busy with midterms right now so the rest of the pillow will probably not get done until Christmas break.



Lastly a peek at the quilt I started at the workshop I attended a week ago.  

Regards
Lisa

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

WOW – October 24, 2012

Another fast week with lots of sewing.  First thing I want to say is what a great workshop Mukilteo Lighthouse Quilter’s had with Jenny Pedigo at Sew Kind of Wonderful last Saturday.  She is a very innovative quitter and her instruction was great.  I forgot to take photos of what I accomplished on Saturday but I will show you in the upcoming weeks as I continue to work on my quilt.  Jenny is having a sew–a-long on her blog so if you have not seen her wonderful quilts and ruler you should really check it out. 
Monday I finished Ian’s bed quilt.  I still need to wash it but he was ready to start using it so I skipped washing it for now. The lighting in his room is so bad that the photos are not great but you should be able to get a good idea of how it turned out.

I entered the quilt below in a local quilt show about a month ago and it was not done.  I have to drop it off on Friday so I decided to take a vacation day yesterday to get it finished.  I’m so in love with this I will be hanging it in my downstairs power room once I get it back from the quilt show.  I took some close ups so you can see the beading.

 

 










I also put the top together for my Promises & Borders quilt.  I will be putting some applique on this quilt before it’s done and ready to quilt.


Have a great week!
Regards,
Lisa

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

WOW – October 17, 2012

What a week this has been.  I will admit I have been a little overwhelmed by my schedule and I still have so much to do between today and Sunday.  At least I have been having fun but soon my family will run out of clean cloths if I don’t step into the laundry room.
I did make some progress on Ian’s bed quilt I’m about 70% done with the quilting. It’s turning out nice but it’s so big and heavy that my shoulders hurt after a few hours of sewing.  I will work on it tonight for a few hours maybe I will get the quilting done by Saturday and then I can do the binding Sunday. 

Last Thursday I attended a class about reverse raw edge applique.  It was a fun day learning a very easy technique.  I finished the applique in class and now I plane to do additional quilting and some embellishments before I’m done.  I ordered some metallic black thread for some of the quilting I think it should add some interest to the piece.  

Saturday I attended a class on painting with oil paint stick on fabric and applying foil to fabric.  It was also fun and I can really see the potential for art quilts. 
Last night was my Mukilteo Lighthouse Quilters guild meeting that I organized the program and workshop for.  We had Jenny Pedigo from Sew Kind of Wonderful talking about her quilting and curve ruler.  She will be teaching us how to cut and sew the curves in a workshop this Saturday.  I will have lots of prep to do Friday to get ready for the workshop, but I’m excited for it.  Below is the fabric that I will be using at the workshop.

Regards
Lisa

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

WOW - October 10, 2012

It’s Wednesday again and I still don’t have Ian’s quilt done.  I have made forward progress the top is completed and the quilt is sandwiched and ready to be quilted.  I also know what I will be doing with the quilting witch is something that can hang me up.  I will start the quilting hopefully tonight. 

This weekend I went to the La Conner quilt festival and show.  It was a lot of fun and my Affairs of the Heart quilt was entered and I received a second place for tradition applique.  This is my first judged and juried show so I was excited to receive an award.

Well do I dare say I will show you a finished quit next week. Might not be wise considering I will be attending two all day classes between now and then.  I guess we will see what happens. 
Regards
Lisa Mortell

Monday, October 8, 2012

Gina’s Birthday Present

I have been waiting a while now to show everyone how the bag I made for my sister’s birthday turned out.  She does not read my blog all the time but I figured the one time she did it would be when I showed everyone her gift.
I made this really complicated feathered star block to put on the back.  I have never made anything like this before.  It was time consuming but really fun to make. I put little half square triangle all around the embroidery to tie it in to the block on the back.
My sister really liked it.  My cousin was funny she said to me “this is so cute you should sell these” and I had to giggle because I have about 40 hours of hand and machine work in this little bag.  Think anyone would want to pay me for all that time.  My joke is if I would not give you my kidney they I would not make you a quilt. I think most people just think you can make a quilt in a few hours and it cost about $50.   
Regards,
Lisa



Wednesday, October 3, 2012

WOW-October 3, 2012

I was pretty cocky last week talking about showing you a finished quilt.  Needless to say I did not finish Ian’s quilt, but I’m almost done with the top.  I still have to finish the placement of the applique and then do the blanket stich around all of it.  I will be doing it on the machine so it should go pretty fast.  Maybe I can show you a finished quilt next week.  I spent about 32 hours so far on this it’s talking longer then I thought it would.   Overall I like the way it’s turning out and so does my son.




Hope everyone has a great week.
Regards,
Lisa