Spring Recap

 Now that summer is officially here, I thought I should show you what happened around here in May and June.  Here's a recap of the highlights.

Julia graduated from college, so I made her this little gift. The title of the hymn and smiling earth are perfect for my sweet girl who majored in Environmental Studies and minored in Religious Studies. (Pattern by Mollie Johanson of Wild Olive).

The best pictures of any event are the ones with my mom! Julia is happily interning at Disney's Animal Kingdom as a Wilderness Explorer troop leader (environmental educator). If you're headed to Disney before the end of January 2017, look for her and say hi!

 My cousin celebrated his 25th anniversary of priesthood, so I made him a new stole. I decided to use scrappy greens, knowing he'd get a lot of use from the color for "ordinary" time. I didn't know green is also his favorite color.

My husband turned 50 in June, so we went on an epic musical road trip from Nashville, to Memphis, through the Mississippi delta, and finishing up in New Orleans. I only stopped at a few quilt shops along the way: Craft South, Sew Memphis and Ella Rose. We were on a tight schedule, so grabbing fat quarters was a great option. He bought a guitar in Clarksdale, so I came in way under budget!

We picked out the bendy bag pattern at Sew Memphis for Bill's electronics and new reading glasses. He travels a lot for work, and this is a vast improvement on his ziplock baggie. I forgot to include the pull tab, but he doesn't mind.

 

And now for the WIPs. This spinning hexie EPP has become my traveling project. I kitted up some blocks to take on our vacation. Now I'm working on them during work breaks and in front of the TV at night. I've got 2 or 3 more block kits, but I might keep going to use up more scraps. Each hexie finishes at 3" on a side. I have no idea what this will be. I'll just keep going until I get tired of it or a shiny new idea comes along.

In other EPP news, my Lucy Boston-inspired Patchwork of the Crosses top is finished! It measures about 35" square, so I'm trying to decide if I'll add borders or not. It would be a sweet wall hanging as is. I have no clue how I'll quilt it.

I designed and started piecing this ombre mini back in early April. I had intended to participate in the ombre mini swap, but I didn't finish in time. I finally competed the piecing this week. I think the quilting will wait until after a class with Angela Walters in a few weeks. That will be fun!

Since the ombres were out, I wanted to play some more. I pulled an old Simply Color (V and Company) jelly roll off the shelf and went to town.  I found this pattern online that got me started. The jelly roll only had 21 strips, so I cut 3 more from my stash. Each strip set makes 7 equilateral triangles plus 2 ends (1/2 triangles). I cut the first triangle in the center of the strip set, which in this case was the lightest area. The top is about 36 X 45", which is a nice baby quilt size. It would be a striking wall hanging, too. I love how it looks on my front porch!

 Last but not least, Julia and Fred are engaged! Yes, there is a wedding quilt in the works. She really likes the wedding ring quilts I've been making for my nieces and nephews, but mama needs a change! She picked the Geese at My Wedding pattern from Quiltworx. We haven't decided on colors yet, but she likes modern solids. That works for me!

It's time for me to head back to the basement for more sorting and purging and cleaning.

Quilty Catch Up

I'm so sorry that I've been away from the blog for almost two months! November and December do seem to be the busiest months of the year, what with all the holidays and partying. Here's what I've been up to on the quilting front.

 

Two of my quilts were accepted for exhibition at A Quilters' Gathering in New Hampshire at the beginning of November. Engineer's Wife was awarded a codirector's ribbon from Kate Sussman. She liked the Morse Code anniversary quilt, too.  

  

During the same weekend,  the Rhode Island Modern Quilt Guild presented an exhibit during the Fine Furnishings Show in Pawtucket. Three of my quilts were included: Diamond Party, Sugar Wave and Picture Perfect.

 I had an opportunity to meet Mary Fons! 

  I quilted up an old WIP/UFO before to fill out my craft show booth. It was made from a really cute collection of Debbie Mumm lighthouse prints and coordinates. I think I pieced it in 2008. It can be a baby quilt of small lap quilt, perfect for a beach house.

Finished size: 48" X 54" 

 Another pre-craft show finish was the scrappy pyramid quilt. I really like this fun collection of modern scraps. The green binding works because green goes with everything!

Finished size: 48" X 64"

Started 2/22/15

Completed 12/2/15

While I was in a free motion quilting mood, I quilted up a guild quilt for a Habitat home dedication.

 The RIMQG hosted a postcard swap in November and there were the 2 fabric postcards I sent out. I bust out a paper pieced New York Beauty whenever possible!

On December 23rd, I decided I wanted to make a Christmas quilt for our cuddling up on the couch on Christmas Eve. Well, I got the top done that day and haven't taken another stitch since. I hope to quilt it this coming week. I used two charm packs of Flurry by Kate Spain and two yards of solid white Kona. Yummy!

And there you have it!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival - Tangerine and Teal

 Tangerine and Teal is my entry in the small quilts category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival. 

I started piecing this quilt in a class with Marianne Hatton in September 2013. Marianne calls this workshop, "It Takes Two Triangles." Well, it takes two sizes of triangles, but actually 432 pieces! We were asked to bring a gradation of six fabrics in two colors. Each quilter chose her own block design to add to the variety. We then pieced 36 unique blocks from our 12 prints.

I played and rearranged for a couple of days before deciding on the final layout. The top was finished within days of the class, and then it sat for several months. Ripening.

 

I was finally ready to quilt it in July. The spiral quilting was more fun than I expected. This quilt really was a joy to work on from start to finish.

I was happy to rescue the orange DS Quilts print from the clearance rack at JoAnn's for the backing. For the binding, I used two V & Co ombres that were in my stash. If you're new here, orange has become my signature color and turquoise is my daughter's color, so there's plenty of both in my stash.

Tangerine and Teal

by Tina Craig

Rhode Island

September 2013 - July 2014

36" square

Inspired by Marianne Hatton

Enjoy the Blogger's Quilt Festival! Don't forget to nominate your favorites for Viewer's Choice.

WIP Wednesday

 I didn't get a lot of quilting done this week, as I was cleaning for company.

Tangerine and Teal was finished last Wednesday. Read more about it here.

I finally cut out the pieces for the wedding ring arcs. The new Judy Neimeyer pattern has instructions for strip piecing the arcs. I tried  it, but didn't enjoy it. I'd rather piece with rectangles. It took about 2 hours to cut out 1280 rectangles- enough for 160 arcs! I think I'll try working on 20 at a time.

 

I'm not sure what will become of these fussy cut hexies. I think they look like gears.

 

In a never-ending attempt to get organized, my husband helped me hang some decorative shelves in our bedroom. I thought I wanted a ladder in this corner, but I can put a lot more quilts on these shelves. 

 

I had to snap a pic of the dining room table cleared off. It lasted only 3 days and things are piling up already.

 

Have a fun Wednesday!

(Linkup is on vacation today.)

Tangerine and Teal Triangles

Another week, another finish!

This triangle quilt was started in a class with Marianne Hatton last September. I really enjoyed Marianne's process for this class. You can see more about it in this post. Here are the blocks before they were rearranged.

On Tuesday, I was digging through a basket of quilt tops waiting to be quilted and landed on this one. This one looked like the easiest one to finish! My husband calls it low hanging fruit. All the cool kids have been quilting spirals and concentric circles, so I decided to try it. What fun!

Perfect? No. Effective? Yes! I love the texture and the radiating look.

The backing is an orange Denise Schmidt print that I picked up on clearance at JoAnn's.

For the binding, I had some V&Co Simply Color Ombre in Tangerine and Aquatic Blue. I couldn't decide which one to use, so I used both! I wanted to change color at the corners and I couldn't figure out how to do that with a miter, so I just chopped off the orange and added the blue. It's not pretty and I still need to close up the ends, but it's the look I was going for.

Tangerine & Teal

36" square

Started: September 11, 2013

Completed: July 15, 2014

Designed by Marianne Hatton

Strippy Pyramids

 The strippy pyramids top is assembled and added to the dreaded pile of tops.

I rescued two pieces of this orange DSQuilts print from the clearance rack at JoAnn's yesterday. It is just enough for the back. I guess I'm not finished with orange yet.

I'm trying to find a place in my house to photograph quilts when no one else is here to hold them. Can you see the 9-patch peeking through the white?

 

 Using clothespins to clip the 9-patch to the curtain rod worked pretty well. I thought I could just pin the new top to it, but there is too much light shining through.

This window in our bedroom was one of the selling points of this house.

Have a colorful weekend!

WIP Wednesday

I'm still stitching up a storm here. When I have free time, I either eat or sew. Sewing is healthier!

New Project last week: Farmer's Engineer's Wife
I went a little crazy last week and made 24 Farmer's Wife blocks. When I packed it up, I decided to sort the scraps by color and another new project was born.

 

New Project this week: Strippy Sixties

These 60 degree triangles were foundation pieced on paper from my scrap piles. They went together really quickly. The white triangles were added yesterday after a close vote. This was my original vision for this project, so I had to follow through. I think there will be another strippy project soon without the addition of solid white.

It is time to sew this top together, and time for you to vote again. What is your favorite layout?

1. random half drop

2. controlled half drop

3. rainbow

 There was a recent finish that I haven't shared yet. I'll get it photographed soon!

Thirty-six Sixties

I think I'm finished making 60 degree scrappy triangles.

There are thirty-six of them, which is enough for a generous lap quilt if I add white corners to square them up. This was the original plan.

They are really fun all up next to each other like this, though.

What do you think? White or no white?