Over and Under A Quilt Design

Like every thing I design, I always start with yellow and orange.  You might just love this crazy color or do I just have issues.  Well that's simple I just have issues.  That and any time I can get my wife to look at something and just sigh at what I have come up with that helps too.

I sat down today while Julia was sleeping, she is still sick and I did not want to go too far away so I could grab her if she woke up so I opened up Electronic Quilt 7 the Quilt design software I bought for Tanya (she never uses it, but her birthday was closer when I had the money to buy it so she got it.  How many times have you gotten a wrench or a new saw just cause it was your B-day).  If you have never tried EQ7 you should, it is a lot of fun.  It has tons and tons of blocks and you can do many things with it.

I have been trying to make more modern designs and as a not so modern person I struggle at it.  My design process for this quilt was a little different than most.  I wanted to make a on point quilt.  So I went though all the blocks in EQ7 (yes it took a while as their are hundreds of them) and I finally settled on about 8 I wanted to play with.  One of them was the block here that on its own is not that impressing, but when I filled the full quilt up with them it gave me a million blocks.  So being modern, I just can't have a full quilt of the same block so I started removing squares one at a time from the designer (squares, not blocks)  this too some time to do.  I first went and colored all of the lines gray of the blocks I wanted to make go away.  In my finished quilt I wanted the blocks to be solid (not the gray on gray lines) so I went and started making blocks to replace the blocks that had pieces cut out.

So I ended up creating 5 new blocks out of my 1 original block and started replacing them in the design (Yes a lack of bars is not a block per say, its just a piece of fabric).  So I have the design done and I invited my son over to help me come up with a name.  His first though is I don't like the colors. (yes he is as bad as Tanya, no one understands my vision).

The left one was the last of James color choices its a purple and dark gray on a light gray back ground.  I added the border, could not decide if I liked it or not.  The first of his color choices was the brown and green on the blue background and the pink and light gray on the obsidian background was his 2nd.

Of course I show the design to Tanya and she hates mine (like she ever likes my choice) she thought the purple one was OK on James choices.  None of them was Tanya.

So yes the blocks should have given it away, we will end up with a brown and green quilt on a tan background.  The blocks by the way are 12 1/2 square and the borders are 3 inches.  It will end up to be a 91 x 108 inch quilt or so EQ7 tells me (well it says 90.853 x 107.823) but the rounding sounds better.

This, That, and the Other Thing

 I have not been so good at blogging the last few weeks, with Julia under the weather. I have been working on a few various projects.  You can see to the left of me I did some quilting, then some more quilting on my plus quilt (Its not named yet, but I will this week pick the name, at some point before I finish it, and I have only binding left). You can see the backing material its a tad bright, its the the color on the top right of that image.

 I did work on more string blocks.  Below is my work in progress and on the right are the 12 finished blocks I did this round.  I think I have around 30 of these blocks not that much  since they only measure 6 1/2 square.  The pattern in the picture is sorta how I plan to finish it.  I still need plenty more blocks and I have plenty of strings to still go though.

 Below is my plus quilt its finished quilting.  We are trying to figure out what to bind it with.  I bought this orange fabric to bind it with and after sitting it there I just don't think its right, who knows.

 I pulled out my batik quilt its one of the largest I have made, I pieced it a long time back and finished making a back for it just yesterday.  So now to see if we (Tanya) can figure out how to baste such a large quilt in our small house.

 Rebecca has been making some taggie toys and bought a bunch of ribbon for it.  Julia has helped some and ran the ribbon all around the room.

My first twister top is done. It's baby size and I made a block to piece into the back and both my wife and daughter, said oh a pillow.  Nope no pillow, just a pieced block (the black twister is the block that will go on a angle on the back.












I guess Julia is serving hard time for messing with the ribbon, here she is in Toy Jail.  The big bear behind her in the picture is a project Rebecca is working on for her sewing class.  Its a bear that is as big or bigger then Julia.

I forgot to blog about this a few weeks ago. I found this on the table, I think Tanya is up to something.

It flew away shortly after I took the pictures, but maybe with some luck it will return one day.

Week or so in Recap

If your looking for today's link a Finish Friday click here.

This past week has involved about anything but sewing. This post is by Tanya, and is intentionally in a list form, with bad grammar due to sleep deprivation. Richard gave me a hard time about not making any posts lately so here it goes.

Thursday 1/24 - Take James to orthodontist for last visit; oops he forgot retainer, return in 6 weeks.

Friday 1/25 - Julia up all Thursday night and running fever of 103.5.  Take her to doctor to find out she has croup.  Get shot of steroids for her.

Saturday 1/26 - Take care of sick baby.  During her nap cut up a rag quilt that is going to one of Rebecca's church teachers next week.  Wash rag quilt.  Clog up washing machine, from said rag quilt. Unclog washing machine filter.  Find out kids clogged downstairs toilet and turned off water, not so easy of a fix.

Sunday 1/27- Skip church, was up 5 or 6 times or was it more with Julia in night.  Dazed all day, just kinda read a few blog posts and aimlessly watched TV in between taking care of sick baby.  Julia down for nap, friends visit to see what is up with us.

Monday 1/28-  Julia is 10 months old today. Pick baby rag quilt out for a coworker of Richard's. Julia starting to feel better. Shovel sidewalk and driveway. Take Rebecca to orthodontist appointment to have wire removed so she can get cavity fixed. Get phone call from James, he missed bus, can I pick him up. Snow plow came by and I got stuck in driveway.  Shoveled more snow and then picked up James.  Drop him off and then go pick up Jared from school. Then time for work.

Tuesday 1/29-  Shovel Sidewalk. Take Rebecca to dentist to fix cavity, they find two more and fill those as well.  Get my teeth cleaned. Make it to work only 15 minutes late. Richard picked up Jared from school.

Wednesday 1/30- Shovel sidewalk. Take Rebecca back to orthodontist to get wire put back on. Pick Jared up from school. Julia started to cough a little again. Make easy chicken enchilada filling in crock pot. Finish making them and then go to work.

Thursday 1/31-  No new snow! No planned Dr, dentist or orthodontist apt that I have to deal with, yeah. Richard has dentist apt, finds out he has abscessed tooth and needs a root canal.  Julia starts coughing really hard, I call and schedule Dr apt.  She is over croup and onto new virus, not RSV or anything in lungs, most likely bad cold. I order a pizza for dinner, they messed it up.  Run to store to buy saline drops and Gatorade for Julia and stuff for my scouts science experiments on Friday, forgot to pick up my Diet Coke. Richard asks why I am in a bad mood? Scarf down pizza and head to work. Buy a Diet Coke from vending machine.

 Friday 2/1-  I'm hoping the extent of it is no sleep for me. Take Jared's cat to school with him for show and tell and pick up a patterns from occupational therapist for weighted lap pads, weighted lap quilts and weighted shoulder snakes. We still have 36 of our 40 volunteer hours to do. Webelos science experiments planned in my scouts, good thing nothing dangerous.

Saturday 2/2- SLEEP IN, wait, Richard scheduled Jared swimming lessons at 9 am.  Attend baby shower for neighbor down street expecting twins, one boy and one girl.  Hope Julia is well enough to leave with kids for long enough to go out dinner with Richard.

Total baby quilts for gift in 1 1/2 weeks = 4

Here are some pictures of new rag quilt I made. I hope it is gender neutral enough.

I hope next week is slower!

Link a Finish Friday #52

It is now time for Link A Finish Friday.  Today I would like to start with a big thank you to Fat Quarter Shop who has offered to Sponsor our Link A Finish Friday with Prizes.  This month's winner (Febuary) will win a $15 gift certificate to spend on Fat Quarter Shop. 

Please remember to thank our sponsor by visiting their store at http://www.fatquartershop.com/ their blog http://www.fatquartershop.blogspot.com/ and Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/FatQuarterShop

Stitchy Kits - Such a Sew and Sew

Repro NinePatch - The Needles Excellency

MLK Weekend - PugMom Quilts

These are 3 of the wonderful quilts linked up last week.  Please share with us what you have done this week.

1) Who likes rules. Toss them out.

2) Add a link to your finish blog or where ever you show off your finishes (Not limited to quilts but I like them the most).
3) Visit a few of the finishes and comment or encourage them on.
4) Monthly random winner picked from all of the months linkups to $15 gift card from Fat Quarter Shop.

Not required but fun to do

1) Follow my blog.
2) Follow the blog of all those that link.
3) Link back to my blog.
4) No finish, go quilt and stop reading the web.

Such a Sew and Sew

I would like to introduce any that does not already know about the wonderful blog "Such a Sew and Sew" hosted by Elizabeth.  This is one of the blogs that has influenced me the most since I have started quilting and one of the first that I followed.  You could say I am a little biased because I have won things from her.  I will explain my newest thing later in this post.  A year ago with in the first few weeks of the year she was celebrating her Birthday and Blog anniversary, She inspired one of the funny posts I have done in the past where I offered as a giveaway my 17 year old son (well 16 at the time) if you have not read it go do so, its funny.

Long story short I won my first prize from her in February of last year, a Jelly roll which you can read on this post.  I am one that loves to talk (if you can't tell from my blog) and if you have ever commented on my blog (which I encourage) you will almost always get a fun response back.  I have had many a fun conversation with Elizabeth.  I think what I enjoy most about her and her blog is that she is friendly and helpful.  Through the early days of my blog when I had no clue what I was doing (Sometimes I still think I have no clue) she would always help and encourage me and later on I though reading her blog was inspired to try many new and exciting quilting techniques.  For example my great desire to learn paper piecing is so that I can do some of the amazing things she has done.

Well she does not know that I am doing this today, but I am sure she will read it as she has read and commented on almost every post I have ever written.  She is a True hero to me.  Take some time today and go visit her blog at http://emsewandsew.blogspot.com/.  You will love her blog, and while you are there tell her hi from me.

So as mentioned above there was incentive to me praising Elizabeth and its not just because she is a wonderful person.  Its that I won a wonderful prize from this months B-Day and Blog Anniversary.

This is a fat quarter from each of the 20 prints in  the Indie from Pat Bravo (Art Gallery Fabrics).  I am sitting here right now looking at all the pretty colors and trying to come up with a project or 2 to use them in. (suggestions welcome). This is not what makes me realize how special and neat Elizabeth is, almost a year I talked about a quilt that my wife Tanya wanted to make.  It is a "Bug Jar" quilt if you have ever seen one I talked about it back in this post. One of the things we realized is it is harder then one thinks to find the proper type of bugs to go in our bug jars.  In our conversations she mentioned that her and her mother were also working on a bug jar quilt.  Well along with what I won above, I received a huge stack of "Bugs" I am so excited Tanya and I can now finally do the bug quilts that we wanted to make.

So again check out Such A Sew and Sew and see why she deserves a post all about her.  Oh and for those interested in giveaways she has a wonderful finish giveaway every month (I won one last year) Go link up your finishes and win something too.