A Year of Finishes....Part One

As my first full year of blogging is coming to an end...I thought I would recap the finishes and some beginnings of 2011....

In the Quilt Category.....

We have one of my favorite quilts of all time and certainly my favorite quilt design. 

Gypsy Kisses is a pickledish design from Kathy Doughty of Material Obsession fame.

This is a multiple techniques quilt....paper foundation piecing, patchwork piecing, hand applique, and hand quilted.

A popular theme this year was the Union Jack....

 

 

And Molly helped with the label.



Another Material Obsession quilt started and finished....although not completely quilted yet....

Strawberry Fields - which I call Tea Party

I love the sweet feminine nature of this quilt, but for some reason quilting it seems like such a chore for me....does this ever happen to you?  Here is the best thing about this quilt....it was while making this quilt that I emailed Susan {I didn't know her at all but I knew she had made this quilt}.  My copy of the book had errors and I wasn't sure why things weren't working out properly.  Enter....Susan to the rescue!!!  What a lucky girl I am :)  Good reason to finish this one, right????  

  

I was so fortunate to be able to do a couple of quilt samples for the shoppe using Suzy Ultman's fabric lines.....Appleville and Critter Community...

  

In May I was in a New York state of mind....a New York Beauty that is....

A whole cloth quilt...

made from flannel on the front and linen on the back....

  

A baby version of my Coin Quilt made from Birch organic....

I love this quilt....with the straight line quilting and then pick stitching...

   

Molly {my oldest daughter} decided to try her hand at quilting.  She does fabulous embroidery and loves crazy quilts.  So I thought she would enjoy a little hand applique and then to quilt in crazy quilt style!!!  Well, she did a marvelous job....

   

Then Lark {from Amy Butler} arrived in the shoppe....

  

Most recently, I have finished the Wonky Little Houses Quilt...again a sample for the shoppe...

It has been a fun year of quilting and making good friends!  I have a few more finishes to share later in the week....

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend :)

mary

Details.....

When I was a teaching Elementary students, I would have a series of activities to accompany the books we were reading.  Activities that took the students back into the literature to re-examine the character, more fully understand the plot and focus on the details.

It was evident that a good author and a well written book would spawn a wealth of opportunities to explore the story further.

I have come to believe that a great fabric designer and a fantastic line of fabric can have the same effect.  Amy Butler is one of those designers.  She gives us fabrics that are complex and have depth.  Not just pretty fabrics, but fabrics with great dimension.

When I began my Lark quilt I knew it should reflect Amy's inspiration for the line, Maxime de la Falaise.  My initial design idea was strong angles along the lines of a Harlequin pattern.  A coexisting inspiration for this quilt was this very bohemian piece.  It seemed to fit the spirit of the fabric and story behind the fabric.


  

Lark is a series of large diamonds comprised of equilateral triangles.

  

The setting triangles are peaks of this rich Berry Couture.  It is hand quilted with perle cotton.  The center is quilted with diamonds to echo the diamonds in the quilt.  The setting triangles and the side {half diamonds} are quilted with a series of lines....pulling your eye downward to my favorite detail.

In the spirit of this bohemian quilt, I added small touches of fabric stuffed and pulled tight with perle cotton. 

They dance along the bottom and top edge....

I think this uniquely reflects the unfettered nature of Lark.

And the back is a plethora of Amy fabrics from my stash....

I must say, it has truly been a pleasure to develop this quilt and to be completely lost in the fabric.....thanks Amy!

       
Happy Monday!
mary :)

Lovely Lark.....

I couldn't wait to find a way to use the new Amy Butler fabric, Lark.  It recently arrived in the shoppe and my brain was in over-drive trying to blend the right quilt design with this fabric. 

At first I thought a pickle-dish quilt would allow me to showcase the beautiful red and white Souvenir.....

And I still think this would be beautiful, but then the other fabrics from the collection would be used in small blades {maybe not showing off their full potential}

 I noticed that the inspiration for the collection was Maxime de la Falaise....who???

So I did a little reading.....

Maxime de la Falaise

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Maxime de la Falaise

Maxime de la Falaise (25 June 1922 – 30 April 2009)^[1] was a 1950s fashionista, model,^[2], and underground movie actress.^[3] She is also remembered as a cookery writer and "food maven"^[4] and, at least occasionally, as a clothing designer^[5] and as an interior designer who decorated the homes of friends.^[6]   

So now I have a time frame....the 1950's.  When I think of art and design from the 1950's, I think of angular forms and lines.  I think of Harlequin....my mom performed with a local group of singers, dancers....real troubadours {heh,heh} in the 1950's.  This was before my time, but I do remember playing with some of her costumes and one had a harlequin pattern....real cool daddy-o!!!

My thoughts about this quilt and fabric then turned from the arcs of a pickle-dish to more angular or triangular designs....

And I have decided on this for the Lark Quilt....

 

The quilt will consist of LARGE pieced diamond shapes....

     

Each diamond consists of 32 equilateral triangles.....

I think this works well with these fabrics....

What do you think?

Happy Monday!

mary

Working in Strawberry Fields....

On Tuesday I pulled the fabrics I have collected so far for my Strawberry Fields quilt....

 

I have a couple of other fabrics I have ordered, but they haven't arrived yet....

It always seem a bit hit or miss ordering fabrics you have not seen in person, but hopefully they will work just fine...if not I am sure I will use them somewhere :)

So things were clicking along just fine....

And then for some reason I could not get the cornerstone square to work....I read and re-read the instructions...trying to figure out if I had left out a step, done something wrong or if the instructions were just incorrect.  I remembered that Suz from PatchworknPlay made a very cute Chubby Star quilt from the same pattern....she was so kind to add technical support to my perplexing issue....and, of course, the issue was all mine.  The instructions are correct and work like a dream when you read them correctly :)  

This is the precious cornerstone square....

So this is how the block will look {without some of the sashing}...

It is not my usual bright, bright....but I am liking it....kind of "Spring like"...

And I must say...I am lovin' the internet, Blogger and Flickr....without it I would not have known Suz and her cute quilt....with it I was able to get much needed support from across the ocean!  THANK YOU Suz!!! 

If you have not visited PatchworknPlay...you really need to check out all that Suz has done...this is one gal who likes a challenge!

On another note....last night, I had the opportunity to meet the talented and gracious Amy Butler {I forgot to take my camera out of my purse so you will just have to take my word for it}  She is a lovely person and it was so fun to meet her!!!  She visited our little shoppe and I was lucky enough to be asked to work...so I got to be a part of the excitement all evening long...it was a super great time!!!

Enjoy!

mary