Black Friday Chaos

The word of the "month" for The 12x12 Project was Chaos.  An appropriate word for the months of November and December.  When the word was released my first thoughts were of the hours of shopping still ahead for the holidays and so an image of Chaos formed in my head for the quilt.

I tried to use warm colors to help give the feeling of movement and pandemonium but I'm now wondering if I didn't put too much chaos into the piece. 

Quilt Revealed

I love when I finish a homemade Christmas gift. . .

and there is nothing like finishing a gift just 15 minutes before you are scheduled to give it!  Wahoo!

Such was the case today with a quilt I made for our good friends who happen to also be our neighbors.

Elmo enjoyed his new toy - not handmade but enjoyable all the same.

And Dawn and Marco loved their quilt.

I forgot to get a close up of the quilting.

There are leaves quilted in the white portions.

And the back is a Kaffe print that I love.

When asked what they did to help Mom with the quilt my daughters responded truthfully. . .

"We stayed out of her way."
And now that the sewing is done it's time to bake!

New Sample Quilt

Just finished this little sample quilt for Whimsy Cottage and I really like how it turned out. 

The "pattern" is taken from this book:

The method I used is at the beginning of the book.  She also talks about doing curved piecing. 

I am loving the quilt but I am seriously disappointed with the picture.  No matter how much I try I seem to hold the camera at a slight angle causing the photos of my quilts to make them look crooked.  The top is always more narrow than the bottom and it isn't the quilt.  The quilt is square - This crookedness is all from the lousy photographer.

Banner Challenge

This years Quilt Challenger for Quilters Holladay was based upon this website.  We were to make a quilt that was 50 cm wide by 2 meters long using any fiber or technique we wished to use.  I decided to experiment with soywax to make a batik.  I painted some swirls with thickened Procion Dye and then flicked spots of dye allover.  I then waxed the swirls and all the spots I wanted to keep. 

I did this on my back patio in October.  I really liked how easy it was to melt the soywax in my make-shift double boiler but soon realized why it's really best to use wax in a warm enviroment - the wax was cooling too quicky on the fabric.  Luckily my friend Anne, the fabulous batiker, showed me a little trick in her class this summer that saved me.  Anne likes to keep a knife hot by sitting it under the coils of the hot plate.  This hot knife can then be used to remelt any wax that has refused to pentrate the fabric.  Genius!    After waxing the color I threw the whole piece into a zip lock bag and dumped black dye on it.  I was looking forward to seeing the extreme differences from the bright colors to the black.  As I looked at the black dye in the bag I realized I should have added just a bit more water so it could spread through the fabric easier - and here is where I made my fatal mistake - so I thought "Oh here is some water in the double boiler, no reason to let it go to waste."  I dumped about a cup full of the boiling water into the bag.  As I watched the steam rise from the bag I realized what an idiot I'd been:  WAX MELTS!  After I contemplated this reality for a few minutes I decided I should pull the fabric out and rinse it immediately to prevent myself from having an all black piece of fabric. Some of the red was dulled by the black infusion but the piece wasn't totally wasted.  I could have dried the piece rewaxed it and then dyed it black again but the weather had gone from balmy to freezing during the few hours I had been on the patio.  I decided to stay warm and work with what I had.

I added some petals to the upper swirls as they were looking like flowers to me and then I used Paintstiks to embellish.  The bottom half is quilted in layers of "soil" which are very difficult to see from far away.  Perhaps different colored thread would have been beneficial.  I like the top half much better than the bottom half.  The entire project was an education.

I was truely humbled by the other quilts displayed at this years challenge. 

There were so many beautiful pieces!

(Unfortunately my pictures are a little yellow from the lights in the gym.)

 

The Holiday piece on the left (above) was the overall winner.

The quilting was perfect on front and back. 

There were even little jewel embellishments on the back.

Look at all these beautiful banners!

  There was some pretty tough competition this year.

The piece on the left in the above photo was the second place winner. 

The banner is made from hundreds of small pieces of raw silk. 

My quilt looks very dull next to all those rich colors! 

The silk is so beautiful.

The third place winner was the cats banner on the left.  The edging was so interesting on this piece.  It looked like she had quilted a lot of small swirled pieces and then stitched them on top. They really added an extra dimension to the piece.  The banner in the middle was made by our resident expert hand quilter.  She is 90 something years old and hand quilts lap quilts for soliders in the hospital at Bethesda.

I am so blessed to be able to associated with such talented women!

Modge Podge Frames

I saw a great project on the Mod Podge Rocks website which I thought my two youngest would love to make for friend gifts.  Turns out one thought it was fabulous and the other wanted to be on the computer.

What a surprise.

Those of us who liked the project had a great time.

I found these great little frames for 50% off at the local craft store.

We scraped off the Christmas bit and modge podged cute paper on top.

We really made a big mess.

These are a few of the nine my daughter made (glue still a little wet).

And here are the five I made.

What are you making this Christmas?

Garland

I've been a bit absent in the blogsphere because I've been busy shopping as well as making presents for Christmas and some of those gifts are for people who read my blog.  I wouldn't want to give away any secrets.  However, I just finished one project I can actually share because it's for me and I already gave it to myself so it's no longer a secret!

I think I may have to make more of these for other holidays. 

Perhaps even one to replace the cardboard Happy Birthday sign that has been hanging in my kitchen for the past 5 years.  If anyone is interested in learning how to make one of these I can write up a tutorial and post it here.  They make up very quickly.  Just drop me a line and let me know.