Buncha photos

First off, I need to thank Ana at A Sew Groovy Chick for her kind words and award. One of these days I will do my own awards. However, as you may have noticed, I've been so busy I've hardly posted at all! I will pay it forward eventually, I promise. Not saying how long it will take, but I'll do it. :-)

Okay, on to photos! I finally finished my pencil roll (sort of like Amy's). It will be a birthday gift for Molly's friend Sarah. It doesn't lie very flat with the pencils in it. Oh well.

I also finished a class sample for the Scrap Sack. It's a Scrap Therapy project. This one will take two classes, I think. The photo is a little blurry.
Finally is a quilt that I was using as a sample for my beginner class. However, we have decided that it's not a good candidate for teaching people how to quilt. So it's going to my new great-nephew.
Here is the back.

Final auction quilt posting

Hey there. I'm tired but I wanted everyone to know that the auction quilt went for $700. This is actually a little low compared to some of the class projects, but I was told by a number of people that the amount things go for often has more to do with which parents are in the class than what the project actually is. I got a lot of really good comments about it. The person who won it isn't even a parent from Molly's class. She just loved it!

Class sample

I finished the top for a new class sample today. It's called Lucky Stars. I think it will be a three session class for people who've taken a beginning class but still want to go kind of slowly. This photo looks a little skewed because it was turned 90 degrees.

Done, and done!

The auction quilt is officially done and turned over to the school. It's still on display in the lobby, along with the other auction projects. I had to take it back to do some final beading because there were two buildings with no beading whatsoever. Also, I needed to put a little dab of glue on each beading knot. This actually took more time than expected. The glue is to make sure the knots don't unravel over time. The beading thread is at once slippery and sticky. It's very fibrous, and feels kind of like dental floss. But at the same time, it's sticky. If my thread knotted unexpectedly while I was drawing it through the quilt, I often couldn't get the knot undone. This was especially true when I didn't have a certain color thread and therefore used a Sharpie to make white thread the desired color. I have many of the cool colors of thread — blue, teals, a couple of shades of purple — but I didn't have orange or red.

This is one of the blocks I beaded last. It's turned sideways here. It's technically beaded fringe, but it stands up off of the quilt. Only the ends of the fringe pieces are sewn down. I can't decide if it looks good or it looks like the building is being attacked by some sort of plant-like aliens. Eh, what's done is done!

Here is the back. Everyone always comments on the back, and since it's often the first thing they see, especially if I'm pulling the quilt out of a bag, they think that's it! Don't tell anyone, but the fabric is 90 degrees off. You can tell if you look at the flowers and their stems. I did a double hanging sleeve because the quilt is wider than one length of fabric and I was feeling stingy. Plus, that's one more place to anchor it on. The label has a map of the quilt which is numbered along with a key telling people which child did which building. There's also an explanation of the ingredients and techniques. And how to care for it. I always feel a little self conscious putting labels on quilts, but not in this case. I also put a copyright on there for my design. I hope that wasn't too obnoxious.

For those who are on facebook, I'll post a bunch of photos, including closeups of most of the buildings. And now I get to take it off of my UFO list!

Class sample

It's been a while since I posted, I know. Part of it was burnout from the auction quilt. The other part was warm weather over the weekend. I have been working on a new class sample. It's a Terry Atkinson pattern called Lucky Stars. I'll be teaching it in a follow-up to my beginner class. I have to say, this pattern is one of the best written patterns I've used. It's very detailed and it's obvious that she's actually made the quilt (as opposed to writing a pattern straight out of EQ6 or the writer's brain). It's also very forgiving. Anyway, there will be scrappy rectangles surrounding each block. I'm hoping to have the sample done by later this week. The spring colors are fun, and it's unusual for me to use a white background (or any neutral, really). I'm just strange that way.

Mid-Atlantic

I went to the Mid-Atlantic quilt show on Friday and did a little shopping. Not much. I bought a necklace made of buttons (which I don't have a photo of at the moment). I also bought some African fabrics:
And a very cute pattern I'm going to make for Molly (along with some fabric for the brick walls):
And if you haven't heard, we had a boatload of snow here. This is by far the most we've had since we've lived here. It's like being home!

First deadline

It occurred to me that some people may not know what I'm talking about when I constantly bring up this auction quilt. Well, here is the story. My wonderful four year old is going to a private school which has an annual fundraiser auction. There is a silent auction with all the typical silent auction type things (I'm donating one of my beginner classes for that). There's also a live auction, and each class is making a project which will be auctioned off. The auction is at the end of March, but they wanted the class projects to be in the lobby for today, which was parent-teacher conference day.

I had everyone in Molly's class (23 total; one has moved away) paint fabric using Dye-Na-Flow. This fabric paint works essentially like dye and is very easy to use. I took the kids' finished fabric and made the auction quilt out of it. The theme of the auction is New York, New York. So, the quilt is of a skyline (not specifically NYC's skyline). Each building represents a child in Molly's class. The design is mine. I have done all the piecing, couching (of yarn), free motion quilting and most of the embellishments. Here, finally, is a crappy photo of it hanging in the lobby for conferences:

And here is a photo of the whole display:

It's not quite done. The tallest building (the blue one on the right) needs embellishing. I also need to glue down some of the knots on the back so the beads don't come loose over time. And I need to label it. And I need to get good photos of it. So far it has about $250 worth of materials in it and countless hours. I have to figure it out, but it wouldn't surprise me if I have 100 hours in it by now. I hope it gets a lot of bids!

In other news, I went to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show today. Lots of eye candy, only some shopping. I'll try to post photos of what I bought later.

I am hoping that whoever wins the quilt will donate it back to the school for display. And I'd love to try to enter it in Mid-Atlantic next year (if it's good enough). Maybe the winner will let me borrow it? We'll see.