White and Pink Four-Patch Done

White and Pink Four-Patch -- 55" square

I finished the white and pink four-patch last night.  I'll be donating the quilt to a local high school for a fundraiser.  I'm glad it finally has a home.  I've wondered for a couple of years where it was supposed to go.  I hope it keeps its new owner nice and warm.

Close-up     Tied with embroidery floss

Back

I love the sweet little white-on-white print on the front, but there wasn't enough of it left to cover the back.  I found a couple of other white-on-white prints in my stash and pieced them together.  The picture below shows the intersection of the three prints.

Three prints meet on the back

Now, it's back to work on Papillons de Paris.  I'll start the Quatrefoils blocks by this weekend.

Souvenir Blocks Finished/Four-Patch in Progress

I finished the Souvenir Blocks for Papillons de Paris yesterday.  I'll start the Quatrefoils blocks in a few days.  Meanwhile, I'm finishing a four-patch in white and pink. 

I made the top a couple of years ago, and I've been waiting to see where the quilt wanted to go.  I'll be giving it to a local high school as a fundraiser.  I worked on it today and I should finish it tomorrow night.

Hearts Wallhanging Done

Hearts  19"x29"

Tonight I finished Hearts, a wallhanging I started about a year ago for Valentine's Day.  The heart shapes are all a little different from each other.  I drew lots of hearts on paper, then chose my favorites.  I traced the shapes onto the dark red fabric, which I had previously backed with fusible web.  Once the hearts were arranged I ironed them into place.  That's as far as I got last year.

Since Valentine's Day is tomorrow, I decided I'd go ahead and finish it.  After viewing several tutorials on the Internet about machine applique, I chose a tight zigzag.  For stabilizer I used plain binder paper on the back, sewing through the heart, background and binder paper.  After the applique was done most of the paper came off, but a little remains in the zigzag stitches on the back, which doesn't really bother me.  The paper will never be seen.

Close-up

With the applique done, I made the quilt sandwich with scrap batting and the same green fabric for backing. I machine quilted in a loop-de-loop pattern. Here's a tip I got from Ami Simms' website:  Before attaching binding, I took 4" squares and folded them on the diagonal, forming triangles. I placed a triangle in each corner of the back of the quilt, raw edges to the sides of the quilt. The corners will hold strips of wood for hanging. I attached the binding, and voila!  Another WIP was done.

Close-up showing one of four triangles that will hold strips of wood for hanging

Souvenir Block Done/New Title

Souvenir Block

I finished the first Souvenir block of Paris Brown last night.  I love it!  I need to make nine more of these blocks, then I'll start the Quatrefoils blocks.

By the way, I've given the quilt a new title:  Papillons de Paris (Butterflies of Paris).  Last night I thought of the title Papillons et Paris (Butterflies and Paris).  This morning I ran the title by my co-worker Samantha, who grew up in Spain and is half French and half Spanish.  She is fluent in those languages, as well as English.  She is my go-to person for French.  She said "and" was a little weird, and that "of" was better.  So, "of" it is!  Merci, Samantha!

Half Square Triangles Done

I got 80 half square triangle units sewn, pressed open and dog ears trimmed off.  These will go in the Souvenir blocks of Paris Brown.  I'd do more sewing tonight, but I'm going to watch the two-hour season premiere of Lost...a day late, but I had too much going on last night to watch it in its entirety. Normally I watch TV while I sew, but I don't want to miss a second of the show.  I'll sew again tomorrow or Friday.

Paris Brown Started

My next project is Paris Brown, a quilt based on a Paris-themed print I bought years ago at Poppy Fabric in Oakland (sadly no longer in business).  I'm making the quilt for myself, to go on my bed as an extra blanket.  The colors work well with the store-bought quilt that I have.

Paris theme print

EQ sketch of Paris Brown

The center of the quilt will be the theme print, shown above in beige.  For my design I chose blocks whose names seem to relate to Paris:  Souvenir--with the large center squares, and Quatrefoils--with the four points.

Above are the fabrics I chose for the quilt.  About half are from stash and about half are recent purchases.  The butterfly fabric will fill the large center squares of the Souvenir blocks; the medium dark brown and mottled pink will also be in those blocks.  The Quatrefoils blocks will have the deep chocolate, mottled pink, brown/pink floral and/or caramel.  I'm not settled yet on the last two fabrics; the floral blends really well, but the caramel adds a little punch.  I may use a little of both.  We'll see.

Tonight I layered the medium dark brown and mottled pink on triangle paper to make 80 half-square triangles.  Tomorrow I'll sew them.

You may wonder why I call this quilt Paris Brown.  I bought two Paris prints on the same day at the same store.  The other print has ladies in fifties clothes walking their dogs and eating at sidewalk cafes.  The colors are blues and pinks so I call that project Paris Blue.

Sylvia's Quilt Done!

I finished my niece Sylvia's quilt tonight.  I think she'll like it.  I tied with embroidery floss, as I did for the many quilts I made for relatives years ago.  55" square.

 

Back

Sylvia's Quilt Top Finished

Here is Sylvia's completed quilt top.  I may finish the quilt tomorrow, since I have the day off.  I'll be tying with embroidery floss, as I have done with most of my relatives' quilts, and I figure I'd might as well be consistent.

Backing Fabric for Sylvia's Quilt

I found this fabric at Beverly's today on the half off table (yippee).  It's from Mark Lipinski's Krakow line.  I think it will be great as the back for Sylvia's quilt.  The print has a bit of an edgy feel to it, and I think it suits Sylvia's personality.

Sylvia's Blocks Finished

I finished the last two blocks for Sylvia's quilt.  Below you can see the blocks laid out on the design wall, along with close-ups of a few of my favorite fabrics in the quilt.

I started with the white and black damask in this block.

I absolutely love the tennis shoe fabric I found on vacation last October.

The little blocks with the black dots are cute.

The white tone-on-tone print has what I call Chinese coins as the motif.  I used the coin fabric in another quilt many years ago, and decided this was a great place to use it again.

The  border will be a red tone-on-tone, which I purchased originally for On the Ocean Blue, but didn't use.  The red fabric appears in the bottom left and top right corners of Sylvia's quilt (see the first photo in this post).  I almost forgot to include the fabric in the quilt blocks.  I had cut a couple of strips of another red that I wasn't thrilled about due to its stiffness and waxy feel, when I remembered the border fabric (on the floor in another room).  I was really happy to abandon the "inferior" fabric.  By bringing the border fabric into the quilt blocks, it won't appear as an afterthought.

I'll start assembling the top with borders in the next couple of days.

Sylvia's Quilt Preview

I've made some progress on the quilt for my niece Sylvia.  It is a sort of checkerboard pattern in red, white and black--the same color scheme as She Loves Lucy, which I made for my daughter-in-law Laurie.  Like Laurie, Sylvia also loves white and black damask, and I will include a little of it in Sylvia's quilt.

Below is a sketch of Sylvia's quilt.  The real thing will be scrappier.

As I often do, I'm using my Organized Chaos Grid and System.  Below is my Organized Chaos map.

I've finished almost half of the 16 blocks, which you can see below.

I picked up a couple more black tone-on-tone fat quarters today, to add a little more variety.  I was surprised at how little black there was in my stash that would work with the quilt.  I don't want to do much repeating of solid black, and I think I'll be fine with the addition of the two new fabrics.

Fabric Shopping for Paris Brown

Today I went shopping for Paris Brown, a Paris-themed quilt for myself.  The theme fabric is basically the colors of Neapolitan ice cream:  off-white, pink, brownish-red, tan and dark browns.  I was looking for light pink background, a medium brown and dark red.  I went to Beverly's, which happened to have their fabric 25% off this weekend.  I took quite a bit of time selecting fabrics and auditioning them with my theme fabric and a medium-dark brown print from stash.  I finally chose a deep chocolate brown, a mottled light pink, and a sweet vanilla and pink butterfly print that I fell in love with.
 
Unrelated to the quilt, I also found a black and white Project Runway-themed print; I bought half a yard of that.  I have no idea what I'll do with it yet, but I'm a big fan of Project Runway, and I couldn't let it disappear on me.

I'm happy with my purchases today.  I am still in need of a medium something for the quilt.  I'll check my stash to see if anything wants to join the party.  If not, I'll check Joann's in a few days.  For now I've satisifed the emotional desire to work on this quilt and I can set it aside to work on other more urgent projects.

So I've started working the quilt for my niece Sylvia.  I pulled the bag of mostly new fabrics I'd collected, and shopped my stash for some more.  I worked on the pattern in EQ6--a sort of checkerboard in a medallion type of setting.  Tomorrow I'll wash the new fabrics and begin sewing in a day or two.

Cirque du Soleil Ovo

Yesterday I went to San Francisco to see Cirque du Soleil.  I bought a ticket for a 4:00 show in order to get home at a decent hour.  Leaving much later than I should have, I drove to BART in Pleasanton and just missed a train.  I caught the next one about 20 minutes later and rode to San Francisco, getting off at Embarcadero station.  I found the Muni station and got on the T line.  I had map in hand, needing to get off at 2nd and King Station, just across the street from Giants Ballpark.  I asked a passenger if our car would stop automatically at the station.  He didn't think so.  I told him I wanted to make sure I pulled the string to let the driver know I needed to get off, and I didn't want to miss it and have to walk extra blocks.  He said he'd keep an eye out and let me know when it was time.

A few minutes later I could see what looked like the ballpark across the road.  I asked the guy if this was it.  He said yes.  I reached to pull the string, but someone else had already done so.  No problem.  I said thank you to the guy and got off the streetcar.  I crossed the street and walked along with about a dozen other fellow riders.  I asked one couple if they were going to Cirque du Soleil, and they said yes.  Good.  I followed the crowd.

It was several blocks till we got to the parking lot where Cirque was set up.  I made my way to the entrance, and since it was just a few minutes till the start of the program, I asked the ticket taker if I had time to go to the restroom.  She said I had plenty of time, so I took the time for that.  Thank goodness the line for the restroom was pretty short.

Necessities taken care of, I entered the big tent and found my seat.  Sure enough, there was plenty of time to get situated and relax before the show started.  While I waited I text messaged my daughter-in-law Laurie to ask about a good place to have dinner.  She and my son Robbie have seen lots of baseball games at Giants stadium so I was sure Laurie would know a nice place to eat nearby.  She mentioned Delancey Street Restaurant, about a block away--nice, yet not fancy--and staffed by former criminals.  (I've learned since that Delancey Street is a self-help organization for former drug addicts, felons and homeless.)  I recalled Robbie and Laurie going to the restaurant in the past.  I decided to try to get more information after the show.

The lights went down and the show began.  The show's theme was bugs and the costumes were great.  As usual, there were lots of acrobatics.  One of my favorite parts was a group who used their feet to spin in the air what looked like giant slices of kiwi.  Then half of them lined up like bugs on their backs, and each of them supported another bug on its back, the top bug spinning the giant slice of kiwi.   The top bug would kick the kiwi into the air while the bottom bug tossed her to the bug on her left--the "new" bug continuing to spin the kiwi as it came down.  And so they would continue down the line.  It was amazing.

Another favorite was a rock wall, maybe 20-30 feet high.  The bugs would bounce on trampolines and land on the rock wall.  Some bugs clung to the wall head side down like a spider.  The exciting part was when one bug would jump on the wall, move over a little, while bug number two jumped into the spot where the first bug had been.  Then the first bug would fall to the trampoline.  Bug number two moved over while bug number 3 jumped up.  There were several of these teams across the width of the wall, all of them jumping, moving and falling in succession.  If one person got out of sync, someone was going to get smashed.  I loved it!

I enjoy striking up conversation with strangers when I go to concerts by myself, and during the intermission I talked to a couple of young girls sitting next to me.  They were there with their parents and this was their first time to see Cirque du Soleil.  We had a nice conversation about different Cirque shows.

After the show I followed the crowd back out to the main road.  I called my son to get more details about the restaurant.  Since I was on foot, it was really important to know how far it was, and in which direction.  Robbie told me it was at Embarcadero and Brannan St.  I remembered passing Brannan station on Muni, just one stop before the ballpark.  Easy!  I called to see if I needed reservations, and it wasn't a problem if there weren't more than two in my party.  Wonderful. 

I hopped back on Muni and got off at Brannan.  Delancey Street was directly across the street.  It only took a few minutes to get a seat.  The restaurant was a nice-looking white tablecloth place.  The wait staff was dressed in black pants, white shirts and ties.  I felt a little underdressed with my tennis shoes, but I looked pretty good otherwise.  The prices on the menu were amazingly affordable.  I had delicious rack of lamb, a beverage and dessert--about $30 with tip.  I'll go again.
Delancey Street, San Francisco

After dinner, I got on Muni again and headed back toward the ballpark, where I had spied a Borders bookstore.  At the store I pulled a few books and parked myself in a chair for a half hour or so while I skimmed the books.  When I finished the stack I felt it was time to start heading home.  I caught Muni once again and headed back to Embarcadero Station where I switched over to BART.  The car was very crowded and I had to stand for a while until a seat became available.  I rode to the end of the line in Pleasanton, and drove an hour home.  I got home before midnight, relatively early for me.  I had a great day.

San Francisco and Cirque du Soleil

Today I'm off to San Francisco, about 90 miles away.  I'll be seeing Cirque du Soleil's Ovo in the parking lot of the San Francisco Giants' stadium.  This will be the second time I've seen Cirque du Soleil live.  Four years ago I saw Corteo at the same venue, with my son and daughter-in-law (Christmas present).  They won't be coming this time, and the show is too expensive to ask anyone else to come along, so I'm going by myself. 

As usual, I'll drive to BART in Pleasanton and ride to San Francisco.  At Embarcadero Station I can transfer to Muni's T Line, which will drop me off at Giants' Stadium.  I'm hoping there will be a shortcut for pedestrians like me to get in the gate.  We drove to Cirque du Soleil last time, and the entrance to the parking lot was at the back.  I'm hoping I don't have to walk those extra blocks to get in (and out).  We'll see what happens when I get there.

I'll probably do a couple of other things while I'm in the city.  I chose the 4:00 show so I wouldn't get home too late.  It will be fun!

Link to Cirque du Soleil Ovo:
http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/ovo/default.aspx

Between Quilts

I'm between quilts at the moment.  I haven't quilted since I finished my granddaughter's quilt Blue's Clues (see previous post).  I took some time to get caught up on some bookkeeping, and after I sew a pair of pants, I'll be ready to quilt again.  That is, when I figure out which quilt to work on.  My choices are:  Sylvia, a black/white/red quilt for my niece Sylvia who married into the family not long ago; Paris Brown, a quilt for myself from a Paris themed fabric I bought several years ago; Cathy's Southwest, a quilt inspired by a co-worker's Southwest-design shirt, and which I worked on during last April's seaside quilting trip. 

Here's the deal--I want to work on Paris Brown, but I need to work on the other two.  I have the urge to shop for accompanying fabric for Paris Brown, which is pretty compelling.  Sylvia's quilt has the nearest deadline, and would be a quick quilt.  I could finish it in a week or so.  Cathy's Southwest has the next deadline, late January to mid-February.  It is more involved, and would take 2-3 weeks.  Paris Brown is also more involved, and would take about 3 weeks.  Since it's for me, there's no real deadline.  But I can't stop thinking about it!

Decisions, decisions.  I'm torn between following my heart and my head.  We'll see how I feel over the next few days.  Meanwhile, I'll shop for fabric for Paris Brown.

Blue's Clues Done!

Blue's Clues is done!  My granddaughter Reghan really likes it.  54" x54.5"

Close-up

Free motion quilting in loop-de-loop pattern.

Three different turquoise and two different pink threads were used as I ran out.

Back

Close-up

I found the starfish fabric at Joann's.  I thought the colors went well with the Blue's Clues fabric.

Enjoy your quilt, Reghan!

Blue's Clues Quilted

Last night I free-motion quilted the three columns of Blue's Clues.  Today I'll join the columns, quilt over the joins, attach the binding, and be done!  My granddaughter may be coming over later today, and my goal is to have the quilt finished before she gets here.  The quilt will stay at my house so she has something to cuddle up with when she's here.

Almost finished!

Blue's Clues Top Finished

The Blue's Clues top is in three columns, each column to be quilted separately, then joined together.  Four of the large squares with the Blue's Clues fabric had to be pieced.  To avoid piecing I considered using alternate fabric.  The backing fabric was one choice and would have looked okay, but finally I decided to use the theme fabric.  The pieced squares don't look too bad.

Originally I had planned to use the dark purple for the border, but when I auditioned it, it looked too dark.

I tried the turquoise, and I liked it a lot better.  It's fresher and more kid-friendly, I think.

Tomorrow is Christmas.  I will be having lunch with my daughter-in-law's family, and have minimal responsibility as far as food preparation.  So, I'll have time to work on the quilt some more.  My quilting goals for tomorrow:  Spray-baste the quilt sandwiches, and do some free-motion quilting.  We'll see how far I get.

Blue's Clues Progress

I'm doing well with the Blue's Clues quilt for my granddaughter.  The four-patches and the plain squares are cut out and up on the design wall.  I've divided the quilt top into three large columns for easy quilting.  One and a half columns are done, and I'll finish the other one-and-a-half tonight.  I may also get the quilt sandwiches ready for quilting tonight, as well.  We'll see.  It's going together fast!

Blue's Clues Project

My next quilt project is a quick four-patch for my granddaughter Reghan.  Not that she doesn't have enough quilts.  This will make Number 4, and the girl isn't 4 years old yet!  lol

Earlier this year Reghan saw some (years old) Blue's Clues fabric in one of my charity fabric bags.  She asked, "Is that for me?"  The rest is history.

The four-patches will be in medium-dark turquoise and dark purple solids, with the Blue's Clues fabric as alternate plain squares, and a border in the same dark purple.  My goal is to have the quilt done by the weekend.  Although it's technically a Christmas gift, the quilt will be given to Reghan at my house and will stay here.  Since I don't expect Reghan, my son and daughter-in-law to come over before Friday, that gives me a few days to crank it out.  I have tomorrow off.  Get sewing, Grandma!