A peek at a finish etc.

I finished the hand stitching on the binding the hanging sleeves on my Black and White plus Red for the Basement Diva challenge. My wrists and my thumbs are still complaining a little today but that will pass (at least I hope it will). I am not going to show the whole thing today because I am going to wait until April 20 when we have our big reveal. I have shown it in progress and here is a peek at the binding. I found this back and white Michael Miller Bar Code Stripe at a LQS and I cut it on the bias.

I am happy with it. I think I should probably print a label with the rules. I should have signed it with free motion stitching in a lower corner on the front. Maybe I can still do that.
I  have not been doing much other sewing this week. I have cleaned cabinets and drawers and have a pile of thing to give to my kids. I have boxes of keepsakes that are never looked at except once in a while when I go through things to declutter.

I found some of my daughters artwork, probably from 3rd grade; there are several  pages fastened together.
Below is a booklet of hers with what appears to be book reports or maybe answers to  questions about something the class read. I have no idea what grade this would be. I am impressed with the neatness of her hand writing.

This is my husbands Cub Scout scrapbook. It is at  67 to 70 years old as Cub Scouts were 7 to 10 years old when he was in Cub Scouts, maybe that is still the age range.

I meant to give this to our son along with his Cub Scout Log book. He was in scouts up through high school and he was a scout leader when his boys were in scouts.
I gave John his book on Wednesday when he has here for dinner along with some artwork and things he had made. There was a book from high school with poetry and essays and other writings of the students from English class as well as a few drawings from students. He appeared to enjoy looking at it.
I have some boxes yet to go through and I will be giving both of my kids some more things from their childhood and also things from their children.

More Blocks and Playing with EQ7

I finished up my Friendship blocks on Tuesday. This pattern is Mississippi Mud, Mary Huey's version of the Mississippi block. These blocks are for Laura who gave us the fabric squares already cut. All we had to do was the construction. My favorite quilts are scrappy quilts with many colors and as many different fabrics as possible but I love this done in batiks. It has a more cohesive look and a much more sophisticated character. I am not sure if the whole quilt is blue or if other people had other colors.I missed the meeting last month so I didn't  see what everyone else had. 

 Mary Huey used to own a local quilt shop and taught this class in her shop. I seem to be the only one of my friends who never made this quilt. I may remedy that in the next year.

I have been playing in EQ7 with ideas for my black and white and red Basement Diva challenge, these are two photos of my computer screen with 2 layouts. None of the fabrics are what I will actually use but rather they represent value and color. You can check my post here on the Basement Divas  blog to see what I have settled on as my challenge.

I play in EQ with every quilt I ever make even the very simplest ones. It helps me understand the cibstruction or work out the construction problems.  I am able to see how changing something, maybe adding a line or eliminating a line might change everything. Maybe changing the value placement will make a difference. EQ helps me estimate yardage which was always a big deal for me. It also sparks my creativity. After I play on the computer for a while and have a pretty good idea of what I want to do, I start working with the fabric and of course everything changes.

None of my ideas are cast in stone and when I am working with the fabrics on my design wall I see new possibilities. I am already thinking that this may lead to another series. We'll see how it goes. Right now I am thinking that constructing this will go smoothly. If it doesn't, I will have to decide if there will be a series .

Bloggers Quilt Festival

This is my entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.
I didn't make it this year and I had a post about it last year. Looking through my photos I realised that this was one of my favorite quilts to make. It has a lot of color, many different fabrics, it has some traditional elements, there was some problem solving in putting it together, I used some printed motifs from the fabric I worked with, and the design of the quilt was my own. This is the kind of quilt I most enjoy making.

This was a group challenge quilt and started with the Sewing Diva fabric. We had to use motifs from the fabric and I think 3 elements from a book or two we were all working through at the time. I chose to make mine a self portrait of sorts and everything I used was something associated with something about me or something I like. The motifs from the Diva fabric are the sewing or thread chandelier in the window, the tomato vine and the white haired Diva. The other elements are the 16 patch blocks, the strippy lawn, the paper pieced sun, the lightning bolt and broken dishes (for sun rays). I appliqued some flowers from a Jane Sassaman fabric to fill  in two corners  where  my 16 patch blocks wouldn't fit the center of the quilt. There is always a way around those problems but it makes you have to think if you haven't planned ahead.

The funniest thing about making this quilt was when I told my husband I had to shop for ring for my belly button. He looked at me and paused a few seconds and said "you know.... you ought to think about it before you go ahead and do anything like that." He seriously thought I was talking about my own real life 75 year old body. He probably didn't have any idea about what I was working on or talking about but really...........