Friday, March 31, 2023

A Recent find: A Batik I made in 1974

 I recently found this in an old Art Portfolio of mine:  I'm kind of amazed at how good this is / was.  Detail / closer up to follow.



I'm pleased to see the nice color combination, how well balanced it was, how beautifully the Batik effects came out around the brown bubble areas.




Saturday, March 4, 2023

Tesselating Batiks

I hadn't posted in a while as I didn't have a working camera.  Now I do, so here's a very recent finish.  A friend had given me one of the Batiked fabrics & several shades of the Browns.  I had more Batiks of my own with compatible patterns and several of the Greens which I had.  The outer border Green is a linen cotton blend, I really like its texture.



Some of the print details, shown before I attached the Binding.  Pictures are Clickable for details.




Here's the reverse.  




Sunday, September 4, 2022

Baby Quilt for Madeleine & Her Two Fathers

Here's a lovely baby quilt I decided to make an old friend's new daughter.  I got carried away among the Pinks I had in my Fabric Stash.  Don't know a lot of babies or have much novelty fabrics for kids.  During Covid, I haven't been buying fabrics, I'm working with what I already have at home.

    


Hard to imagine I had so many Pinks in my Stash, was kind of surprising to find that.  I have since finished this Quilt, just haven't uploaded its pix yet. 

Monday, January 24, 2022

"Who Knew I Liked Orange?"



Here's a recent finish, to be donated to Charity. I made it for an online auction to be held by my Quilt Guild, Empire Quilters.



I designed this inspired by these strip pieced portions of yellow & orange strips I'd found.  There were two of them, already assembled full Width of Fabric as quilters say (approx 42-44 inches for American fabrics &/or quilting cottons). I needed to figure out what to do with them, as a jumping off point in designing something.

So I chopped them up & I assembled these two types of blocks, deciding to alternate them with solid blocks of the multicolored foliage fabric. 



Added another couple of rows top & bottom in related orange (seemingly bright & happy).


On a Bench in front of my Home.  A very satisfying project, which went together pretty quickly.



Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Quilt to Give, designed by the late, great Nancy Zieman

[Extracted from my original posting at Houzz (fka GardenWeb)]

Quilt to Give, Designed by the late Nancy Ziemen [sic]

Karen S. (7b, NYC)
last year
last modified: last year

I just finished piecing this top & expect to pass on to friend & fellow quilter who does the long-arm quilting for our Guild's larger Charity Quilts.

Most of these fabrics were donated, in particular the bright, multicolored foliage fabric.


A bit closer up, both shots in hallway outside my apmt .

I'll post an update when this is quilted.


But perhaps in honor of Nancy & her & contributions to sewing & quilting, I invite folks to make one of these quilts of hers & donate it to charity in her memory. Or, maybe take the idea back to your own Guild & start a group to make one there. She even has an online diagram for its pattern & it's sure Scrap Friendly. Here's the link.


http://www.nancyzieman.com/blog/quilt-to-give/quilt-to-give%E2%80%94free-quilt-instructions/?print=pdf             

[sorry, I believe this link has recently been deactivated]


Merry Christmas everybody & Happy Quilting!

Comments (4)

  • msmeow
    last year

    Very nice, Karen! It's so bright and cheerful.

    Donna

    Karen S. (7b, NYC) thanked msmeow
  • Larri
    last year

    What a lovely idea, Karen! You are talented, pulling colors from the busiest print, and making all your scraps work together into a fun and lively quilt top. Thanks for sharing the link, too! Happy Quilting!

    Karen S. (7b, NYC) thanked Larri

  • Karen S. (7b, NYC)
    Original Author
    last year
    last modified: last year

    Well I don't have good pix yet, but am finishing turning the binding & can't wait to show the marvelous work of my friend & fellow quilter Janice E.

    Will get better pix in full light, but for now, look how cool. She essentially put different stitching designs in each column, I love it.

    Thanks for the lovely comment Larri, but actually that's Nancy's suggestion to pick a feature fabric & then choose others which coordinate to it. It's a great trick which I learned about almost 20 yrs ago, that if one chooses a multi-colored print, then one can extract out individual colors from the print & it guarantees a harmonious blending.

  • loisflan
    last year
    You and your friend have made a wonderful quilt. It’s so bright and cheerful. Some lucky person will be delighted to receive it. How kind of you. Lois
    Karen S. (7b, NYC) thanked loisflan
  • Following up with more recent pictures in much better light.  I really like it, even though bright isn't usually my thing. 

            Janice found THE perfect backing fabric for it.



Look at the great variety of stitches she used, really remarkable!!


I DO hope this inspires other Quilters to make one of their own &/or with their Guilds.  It'd be a lovely tribute to Nancy. 

Thursday, March 26, 2020

A Sophisticated Shantung Silk Ikat

Look at this lovely fabric, which looks like a print, but is really a woven.  

The blocks of color so subtly done really speak to me.

It all started with a pinwheel design.


Then I got involved with the directionality of the multi-colored fabric and realized how unique that was to this fabric.  So I decided that pinwheels could keep for another project.




Then I decided to add another row up top. Its latest iteration.

(For top 2 pictures, on white background, the photo credit belongs to Justin Stafford of Keaton Quilts, thank you Justin for the favor.)



The subtle interplay of the soft colors in the woven fabric really move me.


This magical fabric, closer up.


I just can't get enough of it.

Sunday, August 11, 2019

Curved Log Cabin: Empire Quilt Guild Raffle Quilt

I hadn't planned to participate in making this Raffle Quilt, thinking I wouldn't have the time. This is for Empire Quilt Guild's 2019 Show coming up on the weekend of March 23-24.
But when I saw the Block, I couldn't resist. Am a blue green lover & this specifically asked for that, brights, emeralds, royal blues, teals, purple, jewel tones, my favorite palette. For this less common take on a log cabin block (which I'd never yet done).
I saw the coloring of the blocks for this Quilt & realized I wanted to make a couple of blocks.  

I was so pleased with how these came out.

The varying widths of the strips are what give it that rounded, ball like effect.


Look at the finished quilt which seen in person is just stunning!


I am delighted to have been part of this effort & especially proud to share the fact that my two blocks ended up in the center.  The first block in the NE quadrant of the center ball.  The second, above & diagonally to the left is my other block!