Baby Quilts ... gotta love 'em

Ohhh ... there's not much I love more than planning a new baby quilt. Truly ... they just jazz me.

So I've got a new one in the works ... it's based on this:




I'll be using fabrics primarily from Native Arts by Robert Kaufmann ... because they just feel like the right mix for this particular baby, the culture s/he'll be coming from and growing into.

Ready to Quilt

I'm watching the SuperBowl and sandwiching this puppy. I had Ross photograph it. Obviously there have been some design changes. But the basics have remained the same. The title is Paths of Peace.



Here's the preliminary description that I'm using:

This quilt is an interpretation of the Golden Mean. The background is done in browns, greens and blues to represent earth, air, water and plants. The pathway to the center of God's eye is done in hand prints to indicate both travel and working together. The cross is in purple. For me the pathways to happiness lie in some form or other in the journey towards God. I find peace in working with others finding glimpses of His Kingdom. The hands are all different colors to signify racial, sexual, theological and other reconciliation ... the pathways to peace, the journey to God.

Moving On Now

Okay ... now for design number 2. The first was too cluttered. So I took out all the tree bits and put in a sapling. I'm still not entirely happy. But I'm going to start cutting fabric strips today for the background which will be like this this background.

Designing Woman

I've been designing and thinking about my "fortune cookie quilt" that will be entered into the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival.

Here's my preliminary design ... I'm taking the large version of this to Kinko's to print later this afternoon.

Fabric Diet

I supposed to be on a fabric diet. I have so much fabric it's leaking out my ears. Some women buy shoes. Others buy clothes. Others buy jewelry. Someday I will have Ross take photos of my fabric closet and the unseemly amount of fabric I have. I could feed a small Third World nation on my fabric budget alone. And simply using the word budget sounds as though I plan. The very thought is ludicrous. I don't plan, I spend on a whim. Because luscious fabrics like this one come along and speak my name ...



... and then what am I supposed to do?

I can turn down chocolate. I can turn down pie. Even cake. But that? I cannot turn that down. It's simply too tempting ...

We Declared A New Holiday

Today Jenn and I declared a new holiday.

Today is "Wrinkly Ass Fabric Day." In honor of all the stupid wrinkly ass fabric we ironed and do iron and will iron as we make quilts. But in particular ... in honor of all the wrinkly ass fabric Jenn ironed today.

We're designing and prepping our guild's raffle quilt for next year. It's gotten quite complicated. But we're taking it in baby steps. We've had our eye on a big chunk of fabric that's been in the community service stash for a couple of years. It's really beautiful. It's from a line of fabric called Marrakesh Bazaar.

Here's a poor representation of the quilt we're working with. Well, the representation is poor because I lifted it from somewhere I ought not to have. I own the book it's in ... The Creative Pattern Book: Complete Patterns, Intriguing Ideas & Musings on the Creative Process (Paperback) by Judy Martin

And Jenn and I have permission to recreate the quilt for the purposes of the raffle from the author (Judy Martin). So I used this poor quality picture for two reasons. One, I'm lazy and didn't feel like scanning a better quality one from my book. But the second one is if I put a good quality one in, someone might be tempted to copy Ms. Martin's work without buying her book. Now they can find this picture on Amazon, which is where I found it. But knowing what I know about the construction of this puppy ... yeah ... good luck with that.

Anyway ... we're using our beautiful teal Marrakesh Bazaar fabric in the dark swirls and in the light swirls we're moving from pale yellow to dark red in the same swirling motion so that the center of the quilt will be in oranges. Yep, it's complicated. And we're nuts. But this is fun.

Or so we keep telling ourselves.

Back To the Drawing Board

Okay ... we went back to the drawing board, as it were. Really, we re-visited the class list for the Quilt Festival and found a new class to take. I like the title for this ... Crooked Log Cabin Block for the Precision Impaired ... hahahaha ... that's me entirely. Precision-Impaired. Here's a picture of the blocks we'll make:



I love these ... all cattywompus.

That's on Thursday ... on Saturday, we're going to take class on hand quilting. I've never taken a class for that before. I know I do it all wrong. Okay ... it's not "wrong" for me ... but what I mean is that it takes me for-freakin'-ever and my stitches are HUGE and it makes my hand hurt. Do you hear just a hint of frustration there? So here's the class description:

The act of hand quilting should be fairly rapid, completely painless and very rewarding. If it is not all three of these for you, That Perfect Stitch can help!

In between these we'll enjoy the show ... I still have to get my quilt made. It's going to be a small art quilt ... 18" x 24". The theme of these quilts was concocted via fortune cookies. We drew fabric fortune cookies. My fortune is: "May you travel paths to happiness. "

Hmmm ... I have a lot of ideas about that, but nothing solid yet. I also have a box full of fabric ... enough fabric to make about 17 quilts that size. Two containers of beads. A folder on my desktop full of random pictures. Three books full of tabs that have competing ideas. Yeah ... my cup runneth over. Time to get to work.