Curated Quilts Triangles Mini challenge

Tada!  Here's my submission for Curated Quilts latest mini challenge.  Sizing up at 11.25 by 11.25 inches - it's much smaller than I usually make but it seemed to be just the right size for this project.   I enjoy their contests because they've been mini's and they have some criteria (color, feature, etc) so it's not an overwhelming endeavor.  Plus - it helps you grow as an artist.

You can find this and many other submissions here:

Curated Quilts


The colors this time were:

Pool blue, lime green, orange, light pink, berry pink and plum purple - descriptors not actual color names, and prints are always welcome. The quilt should use triangles and be square.

I think I'm calling this one Refraction.  I like the quilting lines inside the triangle and it reminds me of a prism a little bit.

I used a pale pink, lime green, mulberry, and orange thread in the quilting.

What are you working on today?

Happy stitching,

Shelley

Sew-cial media friendships....

No quilting on quilts here this week but there was quilting business going on.  I have had the lovely pleasure of the company of friends I met via Flickr and Instagram.  Social media is a weird thing to me.  I see our culture using it to communicate vs. actually speaking to each other.  I LOVE good old fashioned flapping of the jaws and laughing WITH people....  I find it odd that so many people use it to communicate instead of face to face meeting...

My dear fried Mary Menzer (@marymenzerdesigns) hosted some friends from far away places this weekend.  I was fortunate to spend some time with them and host dinner tonight.  We had a blast.  One of the lovely ladies told me how her husband was amazed at how we would all just...meet up ...not ever having met in person before.  But I guess that's the other side of social media - the magic of social media.  I felt like I knew them without ever actually having been in the same room.  Perhaps we were in a virtual room.  Filled with fabric and thread and quilts.

My husband - Grill Master and all around good sport!

So we ate tons of food, drank delicious spirits, and got lots of exercise through laughter.  We heard stories from our husbands (mine and Mary's) about the torture and extents they have to go to while holding our quilts for photography sessions.  We giggled about silly things we've done for quilting.  We talked about bugs we've experienced in different parts of the country.  We were amazed when we got to see the BEAUTIFUL tattoo one of our friends (endured) got which was from a Tula Pink print.  Yes - she got a Tula tattoo...  This was a pretty epic party.  

It was a lovely evening and I'm so honored to call these gals my friends.  We represented both coasts and the middle of the US... I'm telling you - EPIC party!!!!  I didn't see any paparazzi but I'm sure they were there somewhere....

 If you ever have the chance - reach out - plan a trip - meet in person - make a sewcial connection!!!  

Have you met anyone recently that you've met via social media?

Back to some improv quilting....

I probably need to make things people recognize more easily...

I'm hot on a new project and from my perspective - it's coming out beautifully.  When I showed my daughter...she looked a little puzzled.  I got one of those... "um, yeah, I really like the colors" comments with this really puzzled look on her face.

Alas, art is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.  So, let me explain what you are about to see:


I am a fan of @DailyOverview on IG (Instagram).  They post photos with a bird's eye view of subjects.  Two posts got my serious attention:

Oil tanker ships on the ocean

and

Container ships on the ocean

I was fascinated by the color of the water and the variety of color of the ships.  So of course, I had to make a quilt.  I sketched out my design - which incorporated lots of ocean colors.  From greens to blues - they are all found all over the world.

I think we often become desensitized by tv and the internet (and books) and don't realize those gorgeous colored waters really exist.  Living on the east coast of the US, I see the murky grey- greenish- blue up close.  I took a cruise many years back and spent half my time ogling the water.  I simply could not believe how amazing the colors were depending on our location.  So these colors are really out there - and they make me happy.

Thank you graph paper. I love you.

I thought it would be more interesting to use a transparency style layout so I could incorporate lots of ocean colors.   I decided a simple way to create this piece was to use 5 inch blocks.  Normally, I'd crank out my blocks off my Accu-quilt cutter but I was so limited on a couple of these fabric pulls that I couldn't afford the waste - so I carefully cut each out with one of my many, many, overpriced but completely necessary lucite rulers.

For the ships, I felt I wanted to use different scale representations and lots of directions as in which they might be going....  I think this is where I lost my daughter and perhaps the flaw in my design.  We'll find out when I'm finished - and it could even change from this....but it's where I'm headed right now.

I'm not trying to be abstruse...but if you haven't seen those Daily Overview photos...I can see where this quilt might be challenging to understand...  

When I'm done, if it's not completely clear...maybe I'll print a large label for the back - explaining my vision....

What are you up to this week?

And we now return to normally scheduled programming

A wise man I once worked for always use to say "If you have something important to say - please start at the end".  So more about this quilt as you read through today....

Quilting was temporarily put on hold for a couple of weeks for some home updates.  The fruits of my labor:

The Before of these two rooms

The After!!

Actually, the doors and jambs are still in the stain color.  I have to have a special "door painting" day to finish those.  I'm TERRIBLE at remembering to take a good "before" photo.  The room with the cabinets is my laundry room.  The walls were a stark white and I painted them the pale turquoise the week before.  Again...should have remembered to take the before photo....

And I did this...  Transformed these two Goodwill treasures into....

They were $15 each!!!

Lots of spray paint and some cushions from Target and WHAM!!!    Gorgeous sliders for my screened in porch.  

After all that great home updating...I got down to some quilting.  You may remember my Tulip Fields:

One of the many inspiration photos.

Work in progress


And then it became....

But it still wasn't right....

So I made a few more changes....

I like this.... so then it was quilting time....

Quilting didn't go too fast as I got harassed by Ping, a lot...

Who can resist this furry beast!!

Lots and lots of quilting

And then face binding (Thank you Mary Menzer Designs for the excellent  tutorial on Face Binding   Face Binding Tutorial   )

And then finally here it is.  It makes me smile.  I hope to see the fields in person one day.

What have you made lately that makes you smile?

I'll be linking up to some GREAT links parties - check out the bar to the right for the links each day.

Some of the other quilts I've finished....

Thanks for all the great suggestions of flower trails (see my post about tulips ).  A Maidenhair Fern asked me about the quilt in the header of my blog.   I thought I'd share some of the quilts I've made over the last couple of years.  (and check out her blog...she has some beautiful quilts and posts).

I made this one back in 2011

This quilt was my entry (and winner!!) to the 2015 Pantone Color of the Year - Marsala 

So many quilts....

This was made for a dear friend who had a crazy accident...but healed up perfectly (it was probably the gift of the quilt that magically healed her...)

And then babies were born...

This was for my niece who loves giraffes - and her gorgeous new daughter.

This was for a friend who is battling a terrible disease...but she's a warrior!

This was my Riley Blake fabric challenge entry in 2015.

But wait ...there were more...

This was for my daughter - I give her a pillow each year.  Can't you just hear the Christmas carols...

And still more............

This was another challenge.  It has writing on the bright green sashing that is a quote from Salvador Dali'.  "Never fear perfection, you'll never reach it."  What it meant to me was don't sweat the small stuff - enjoy the process and you'll get better at it as you practice.  So I quilt a lot....

This is a really snuggly quilt I made on which I finally attempted matchstick quilting.  I love that type of design for quilting - but it takes f o r e v e r to finish...

 

And I liked the style of applying the fabric to the quilt blocks so much - I made another one.

The blocks are made by appliquéing the tiny fabric bits down WHEN YOU QUILT IT!!!   That's like skipping a whole step!!!

I baste (just barely) the tiny pieces on and then while matchstick quilting - they magically get sewn on permanently.  I love the texture of the quilting and the raw edge of the fabric pieces.

What have you worked on that you haven't shown us?

Urban Planning using quilts.

I'm sure you can all relate.  I've got to sew labels and sleeves on to two quilts by tomorrow morning.  I need to sandwich and quilt 3 quilts in the next week/ week and a half.  I'm drawing up two more creations that I've been pulling fabric for...  Yet.... I was compelled to finish this quilt (which has no deadline nor purpose other than to satisfy my creativity sweet tooth).  

So I found a photo of a city in Sweden from which I could not pry my eyes away.  The colors grabbed me first but then the shapes and patterns completely drug me into the rabbit hole.  It's from IG and t's a site called Daily Overview (here's the link:  Daily Overview).  I am obsessed now.  Seriously - I have so many ideas flowing...I've got to throttle myself back to keep from overdosing on marker fumes.

I felt like this lent itself so well to a quilt...I got out my trusty graph paper and went to town.  Not finding my markers....I had to settle for a highlighter and a pencil and just labeled where I wanted each color.  I decided it use 1.5 inch raw edges to make gridding this out a bit easier.   While it somewhat follows this photo - I took artistic license with it to make it doable for me.

That's right - I own a pen that is... an eraser.  And I use it A LOT...

Of course, as soon as I finished this process, I nearly tripped over my markers.  But I wasn't going back and redoing this - it works fine the way I colored and labeled it.  I used that eraser marker a lot in this process before I colored in the blocks.

Once I got to putting it all together, I was glad I selected the 1.5 inch size.  It made putting everything together much more simple and clean.  I don't usually sweat matching points but this needed that precision.  Once I kept adding to it - I realized I would make some bigger changes to the bottom left quadrant.  I just wasn't feeling the layout on my paper.  Laziness?  Maybe.  I am just dying to get it sandwiched up and quilt it...  I think I will add a border of the darker gray around the quilt to finish it off.  It's approximately 42 inches by 30 inches before anything else.

This was before I used the grid work.  I thought I could improv it but when these went together, I felt the more rigid grid would look better and give it more uniformity.

Building streets and buildings...

I'm really pleased with the results so far....  But...now back to the sweat shop.  Those sleeves are sewing themselves on!!

I'm going to link up to several Linky parties this week - look at my side bar to join in.  Here are some posts from some of those Linky parties that I especially loved:

Rainbow mini swap progress

A gift for a 90 year old

Winning!!!

7200 Hexies

Elna Supermatic

Spell it with Moda

Brown sofa

Gorgeous Eye Quilt

Quilted Lanyard Tutorial