Distracted

It seems I'm having a little trouble focusing on one project lately. But since there are only three more rows to go on this pioneer braid quilt, I decided to work on it today. This quilt started with a charm pack of Cinnamon Stars by Fig Tree Quilts. I added two more charm packs, and then some fabrics from two more Fig Tree lines, and a couple of pieces from Sandy Gervais. I really love it when designers incorporate a color from a previous line into a new one. The prints are different, and usually a little darker or lighter, so it tends to make my quilts look scrappy.
I've been auditioning some batik 2 1/2" strips for my next project, and thought I'd share a tip about contrast. When contrast is important in a design, I like to take a digital picture of the fabrics, then open the picture in my photo editing software and remove the color (saturation). This gives me a clearer picture of how the light and dark fabrics relate to each other. This probably isn't the best example, but you get the idea. If you don't have a simple-to-use photo editing program, just take a black-and-white picture with your digital camera.

Hope you're all having a great weekend.

Very Pretty Signature Quilt

My friend Karen designed this very striking signature quilt to commemorate the upcoming retirement of her teacher friend, Faye. The three sections of signature blocks represent the three phases of her teaching career. Each section contains signatures of the people she worked with at that time in her career. They're separated by strips of the most beautiful appliqued vines and flowers. Karen machine quilted the signature blocks and borders, but hand quilted the appliqued strips. It's a real shame that I'm not a better photographer -- the quilt was much prettier in person. (And my camera was set on the wrong function!)

Great job, Karen! And Happy Retirement, Faye!

Snippets Honey Bun

My last post included a photo of a Snippets Honey Bun which I've recently cut into tiny little pieces. I really didn't want to cut it, but I was sure it wouldn't turn into a quilt by itself! I added some white background fabric, and here's the beginning of my new quilt.Don't you love these fabrics? The blocks will be rearranged as more are added. I'll post more pictures later as it grows.

Hope you've had a good weekend

The Most Beautiful Mail I Ever Received

Look what was in the mail when I got home! It's a postcard from Ingrid. She painted it, sewed it, wrote a note on the back, and mailed it! Is that cool or what? She's such a sweetheart. By the way, she has a newly-designed blog. You can visit her here.

I've been staring at the cutest little bundle of happy fabric for days now, trying to decide what to do with it. It's a Snippets Honey Bun by American Jane. I thought if I stared at it long enough, something would come to me. But it didn't. Until I unrolled it. Unrolling a Honey Bun is a little like cutting into a new piece of fabric. It's almost painful for a second or two. But when I laid out the strips next to each other, I knew exactly what to do with it. You'll have to come back later to see how it works out -- it's all in my head right now!
Hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day!

Winner of the Blog Give-Away and My Quilting Assistant

Thank you all for participating in the blog give-away. I've enjoyed reading all your comments. I'm still chuckling over Stina's confession that she hides her fabric in the laundry basket because she's the only person who would ever look there, and Shogun's wish to win the cat pictured on my blog header if she didn't win the book. That cat happens to be my sewing assistant. She loves to sit on my sewing table when I'm working. And the quilt that she chooses to sit on is always the one I'm trying to push and pull through the sewing machine. This is an older picture of Maggie trying to help by "pressing" all the neeatly cut and stacked pieces of fabric in my basket. I just didn't have the heart to dump her out. She appeared to be scrunching down so that she'd go unnoticed.
I'm excited about giving away a copy of my book for my first blog give-away. The winner (determined by a random drawing) is Millie! If you'll shoot me an e-mail with your mailing address, I'll be sending your book on its way.

Thank you all so much for participating! If you didn't win, don't worry -- I'll be doing this again!