Dancing Laundry on the Clothesline

This was so much fun, a novelty fabric donated to my Quilter's Guild by Nick & Nora, Crazy, laundry dancing on a clothes line.

I was provided a packet of most of these fabrics & added a few of my own.

The purple print is a Liberty of London fabric, with its lush, marvelous hand & a great variety of purples.



The odd shot of mens' underwear; at first I was a bit embarrassed to feature this in a quilt.

But it also offered such an unusual color palette that I became intrigued.  

The pink & purple (lilac) & yellow, w/shots of white & beige.

  

Then too I had the beautiful lilac/purples print from Liberty, juxtaposed w/ the chalk stripe, a nice, textilian interplay of bold  & brash along side banker-style conservative gave me a chuckle.

More of  the playful colorings:  dancing lilac  trousers ... striped polo shirts are good too!  It brought out a whimsy in me in combining the fabrics & improvising the layout.   

Look, even a pair of birds sitting on the clotheslines taking in the scene, sweet. 

A fitting backing fabric completes the picture.

I believe this quilt  made for charity was given to a shelter for battered women.  Hope it makes someone there smile as it did me.

Baby Quilt for Steven O.

and his Two Fathers

Have been working on organizing my fabric collection (known among Quilters as one’s fabric stash) among other things.  Early this Summer I recall seeing a cute fabric in that stash of little rocketships in Blue on a White ground.  I recall thinking a little boy would love this fabric.  Well a bit later I learned that an old friend had changed his mind about having kids and somewhat later in life has decided to become a Father.  So I made a baby quilt for his new son.  What a happy thing to hear about.  He has no idea, when he sent me a picture of his baby boy and I looked into that little face, the idea of this baby quilt was born.  Turned out so well, I am delighted with it.  

Here's where I started out.

A pattern known among quilters as a Disappearing 9 Patch (D9P).

A sweet print for the back, referring to Buffalo, where the Father and I met and went to College together.  

Snowmen commemorating both Buffalo and Snow Belt, and hopefully soon to be delighting a toddler.

Am pretty pleased with the result, calming, soothing, the reverse charming and cute.

Some pictures when complete; indoors.

More pictures, but from outdoors, different, natural lighting. 

On a park bench near my home. 

My label (from the Quilt Alliance) with small dedication to their son Steven, maybe he grow Happy and Healthy.

I hope to Fedex it to them soon as a total surprise.

Some additional pictures.

Am happy to say the recipients were delightfully surprised, it was as well received as I’d hoped!

Red & Orange Roses: a donated Liberty of London print

The original Liberty of London print that inspired the quilt.

The Quilt Guild to which I belong, Empire 
Quilter's Guild has a strong component of Charity work for which we often have fabrics donated to us.  

I made this Quilt from donated fabrics & it was long arm quilted by friend and Fellow Quilter Janice E. She did a remarkable job with the quilting!

Outdoors, in natural light.

Here are different areas which she quilted differently to emphasize various aspects.  

Lovely variegated thread.

A nice variety of effects.

Look, she even signed it for our Guild, when I saw that I was so proud! 

Thank you Janice for our marvelous collaboration & Liberty of London for your gorgeous fabrics.

Here's the back.

Tropical Mango Teal

This quilt was shown last Spring in a Quilt show put on by my quilt guild, Empire Quilters Guild.  

This Exhibit celebrated our Guild’s 35th Anniversary & was held at Fashion Institute of Technology (in NYC).

This photo is shot outdoors in natural day light; it really shows the color better & more ‘true’.

Really lovely, these patterns.  Most credit & praise go to Hoffman Fabrics, as it's from their Bali Pops & it's also their pattern, even in the same colorway as shown in their offering.

A close of up these exquisite batiks from Hoffman Fabrics.

So it's almost a copy, which is why I only showed it to share & enjoy, didn't have it judged.  I bought them for me, these Bali Pops, as I'd become so smitten with the collection.  

The only difference is they (Hoffman) bordered it in teal, no inner border or outer decorative border as here, which I've added encased in the olive. 

I saw this solid olive fabric & really had to have it for its texture, it's actually 40% linen & I decided not to care about that.   

This is also my first experience with using precut fabrics other than charm squares. It's a huge timesaver since you can just dive directly into piecing. 

It was some time ago, but I recall experimenting with an assembly technique where first one sewed the strips together side by side to about 10" deep, then made a tube of 2 layers of that.  Then using a plastic square ruler on angle, cut triangles of the strips & then combined those triangles into new blocks.

Then later reassembled newly made blocks like this into larger blocks, then rows. Can't say enough about using precuts --- fun, fun, fun!

Plaids & Ginghams & Checks Oh My!

An experiment with a variety of checks & squares.  All yarn dyes (woven patterns) except one print, as opposed to prints, not fabrics most quilters would use.  Shot in outdoor light in front of my home.

I'm quite pleased how it came out.

Hard to see, but upper left & lower right blocks are lime green gingham.

Was designed during a recent Disappearing 9 Patch Obsession over last winter.

Also, older shirting fabrics, the navy & white stripe.

Crazy fun, most of these were home spuns (yarn dyes), except the blue green checkered in above pic lower right.

Pretty rewarding & practically free.