Quilty WIP

Confession time!  Remember that fall I took when I was racing to the homespun yarn booth at the Troy, NY Farmer’s Market?   Oops! I re-injured my elbow and lower back.  This has put a bit of a damper on how many hours I can be creative and work in a given day.  Bummer!

Thus said, here is what I am working on, quilting wise.  First up is a new slash therapy quilt in a different color scheme.  Here is a part of my quilt-in-progress:

I also have made some progress on Nancy’s quilt.  Here is the first border:

In case you are curious, the lovely floral part of the border design is a stencil by Hari Walner.  I have added some freehand “a la Carla” to complete the space and give it some visual punch!

Tomorrow, I get to babysit Jack, I can’t wait to spend some quality time with him!  Here he was last weekend, tolerating his stroller:

Keep watching to see my progress!  It is ice to be quilting and piecing again!

Hugs, Carla

Egyptian Border

I’ve almost finished the first border on this quilt.  Check out my motif and the stylized straight feathers:

I still need a bit more quilting in my cornerstone design.  The gold areas have hieroglyphic quilting in them, quilted after this picture was taken.  You can see my chalk markings, I sketch my ideas right on the quilt top.

I’ll keep plugging away on this quilt.  It’s slow going because I quilt part time nowadays.  Plus I have a lot of straight line and stitch-in-the-ditch quilting to do.  This is called “ruler work,” and I like to take my time and do it right.

The motif in the pictures above was hand drawn by me, then  made into a stencil so I can replicate it on this quilt.  I have developed a new and easy technique for making your own stencils for quilting or other projects.   Hmmm…  guess I had better add that one to my book, right?   LOL!

Hugs, Carla

WIP Monday

It’s beginning to look like Christmas here in the Northern California Foothills.  We’ve had snow the last few days, but it has melted.  Right now, it is starting to accumulate, so I’m hoping I can get a good picture tomorrow morning to show you.

Now that I have my batting, I’ve loaded and have started the beautiful Egyptian quilt.  Here is a picture to remind you:

I have one more quilt to do  before Christmas, the next one is for a friend’s daughter.

Then, my favorite (and only) sister, Yvette, is coming for a visit right after Christmas.  She shocked me by asking if I would help create her very first quilt- a baby quilt.  Once I picked my jaw off the floor, I agreed.  I’m still thinking of a easy quilt that would only take one day to piece…  Ideas???

Still haven’t finished my two freeform crochet scarf projects, been sidetracked by online Christmas shopping.  Remember that purple/blue/green one?  Susan Italo had a birthday on Sunday, and this scarf is earmarked for her:

Remember the Bella Bella book that was published last year?  Susan did some quilting for the author, so if you have that book, you can see her work.

So the big question of the day is….

Have you finished your Holiday shopping or not??  Do you procrastinate like me or do you have it wrapped and organized before Thanksgiving?  Something in between?  Do Tell!

Quilt Batting

I have good news to report.  Joe and I were able to recover my missing batting order.  ( FYI for non-quilters, batting is the middle layer of the quilting process, the part that makes a quilt fluffy.)

The company I ordered it from sent it to the wrong address, which I recounted in a post yesterday.  After class got out,  Joe and I went over to see if the tenant was home and knew what happened to my order.  It went smoother than I thought it would, no pit bull to rip our throats out,  no sign of obvious meth activity.

The tenant did talk about opening the box and oops, he lost my invoice.  I have to doublecheck whether I am missing one package of black batt, he mumbled something about opening it and keeping him warm at night.  My large roll, which stands about 5 feet high and weighs 40 lbs., was a bit worse for wear with the plastic torn off at the top.  All in all, I am happy to recover as much as I did.  I will call the batting company and if my order is short, they will have to send me free replacement package.

Life is good.  I have my batting.

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Next month, I am gearing up to teach some more classes at my local quilt store, High Sierra Quilters.  I will be teaching my “Quilt Whisperer” class, which is a class on how to “read” a quilt and what design to quilt.  It is open to all quilters, even for people who send their quilts out to be quilted.

I also will be teaching my fabric crochet purse class.  I have a free tutorial for this project in my Free Tutorial section, but it is fun to teach this class in person.  Here are 2  samples:

Another class will be on the technique I used on my Tropical Poppy quilt.  This will be a therapeutic quilt class, we will take a large print fabric and slash away, then re-attach.  Easy quilt project, but very rewarding!  This quilt won “Viewer’s Choice” in the Gold Bug Quilter’s Show about 2 months ago:

That’s all from frosty California!  Yes, it is cold here and we even received snow in the Foothills.   Hugs, Carla

Kimono Quilt Finished!

This quilt went home today.  I really enjoyed myself on this kimono shaped quilt that belongs to Jerry.

Sit back and enjoy the show.  I used both new and older elements with the quilting:

another closeup:

here is my new koi with quilting around it:

And the cool lighting shot with the sun streaming in through the window.  Notice my favorite asian flower motif, too:

I hope you have enjoyed this quilt.    Jerry did a fabulous job on the quilt construction.  A simple, yet effective use of the focus panel and fabric.

Regards, Carla

Postscript:  This free pattern is no longer available, so I drew this up to assist quilters wanting to make one.  Use the pictures to fine tune my sketched pattern.  Hope this help!

WIP report

Time to share some of my work in progress.

Yesterday, Faith came over to work on our homework.  Of course, we got sidetracked, so we went shopping instead!  One of our stops was to my favorite bead store- the one with the infamous bead box that you can dig through for hours.  I bought silver wire in various gauges, I hope to make a new project after I finish my final class homework, that it.

Faith had a birthday the other day and so I am making a freeform crochet scarf in these colors for her:

Then I have another friend’s birthday coming up, so I’m making her this one, too.  I would say these are my favorite colors at the moment:

Since this is a WIP post, I will show you my last 2 metal art projects to turn in next week- both are from silver:

And here is an asian motif from the kimono quilt I’m currently working on:

The next two pictures are not WIP, but thought I would show them nonetheless.  Check out this delightful mini quilt, it was in the bag from Barb.  I’m hoping that was intentional and I get to keep it- LOL!:

Last up, I bought these outside the store from a charity to support Project Linus, which is a worthy cause:

What are you working on???   Hugs, Carla

Handmade Holiday Gifts

This month, I’ve decided to write some more tutorials to celebrate the season.   These will be gifts you can make yourself to give to friends, family, teachers, etc.  My first one is almost finished, all I have left is to photograph the individual steps for the visuals.  All of them will be geared for beginners.

How’s that for a teaser?  LOL  I’ve decided to make some of my gifts this year.  Not only is it economy friendly,  you are giving of yourself to others: your time, effort, etc.

Speaking of gifts, I did finish my first one yesterday.  It is a freeform crochet scarf for someone, and I love the colors in this one:

For new visitors to my blog, I already have a tutorial on how to make this present.  You can also click on the birdy link on the right side for a list of all my free tutorials.

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Quilting Update:  I just ordered some black batting for a number of quilts I need to do.  Since I can’t start the Egyptian quilt until the batting arrives, I’m starting another kimono quilt that looks like this:

That’s all for now!  Hugs, Carla

Egyptian Quilt

Check out this cool Egyptian quilt, original design by Barb, that i picked up yesterday:

and a close up of her center section:

This quilt is a special gift for her husband, Lewis.  Now to start sketching what i plan to do on it- quilting wise.  Yes, I will workin some Egyptian designs into the quilt,  in case you were wondering.

Jack update:  We babysat Jack last night, he is so blasted adorable- though I might be biased!  Here is a recent picture of him eating out at a restaurant:

He looks just like my son did at this age, but he has his own personality.

Enjoy your autumn/spring day, depending on which side of the globe you live on.  Hugs, Carla

Antique Kimono Quilt

This lovely silk quilt was carefully and painstakingly pieced by Barbara Kiehn for a friend.  It is made from heirloom, antique kimonos and both the images and the silk kimonos are from her friend’s relatives.

The key to quilting a quilt like this one is to not overpower the kimono’s or the silk transfer images with the quilting.  Instead, I intentionally chose the thread to blend with each area, and to provide texture.  The only areas where the quilting shows is the light areas around the images and the kimono.  My intention was to enchnace these areas since i consider these the main focal points of the fiber piece.

Hope you enjoyed this quilt as much as I did!  It is so striking in person, some times the camera doesn’t capture it.  Thanks, Barb!

The next quilt is pretty cool.  I’m picking up a new one by Barb, a very cool Egyptian quilt.  I’ll ask her if she minds me showing it off.

Other news:  Joe and I are babysitting Jack tonight, plus we said farewell to my Dad and Doris, who left this morning for LA.  It was fun having them here.

Hugs, Carla

Japanese Kimono Silk Quilt

I have just started the most beautiful small Japanese Kimono silk quilt that I have ever seen.  It is made from antique kimonos belonging to the recipient’s family.   Included are some wonderful photo transfers by the Pixeladies.   Barb brought it yesterday, and it is one of 3 show quilts that we are working on together.  Here it is on my longarm machine quilting table:

The next quilt after this is a stunning egyptian quilt- one with beautiful colors.  I can’t wait to quilt that one, too.

The third quilt was pieced by Barb for me.   I plan to quilt it with some innovative carla designs.  The working title is “Carla’s Garden,” but I need to come up with one that is better, one without my name in it.  LOL    Hmmm…  I’m sure a new name will happen as I work on it.

More quilty pics and news as I work on them.

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Retail Therapy– Today I visited a discount tool place called Harbour Frieght to pick up more metal working tools.  I found some metal alphabet stamps,

disc cutters, a doming set,

hammers, etc.  of course, the one item they were out of was a polishing/tumbler machine.  While my first love is fiber art, which includes quilting, I find I am really enjoying working with metal.

What are YOU up to creative/art wise????