Grandma Lisa’s baby quilt

This tradition of making a nana quilt started when my sister K2 had her first.  I had found a really cute embroidered quilt to make so I made it and gave it to her when she became a nana.  It was hung on the wall of her club house and I’m pretty sure a grandchild has never been wrapped in it (which is totally 100% ok!).  K4 was given one a few years later when she joined the ranks of grandmotherhood.  Now it’s L1′s turn.

The gals from my quilt group have made some beautiful pinwheel quilts and it would have been so much simpler to just follow the same pattern but NO……I had to do my own thing.

Instead of just choosing some lovely fabric, I MADE fabric with crumb pieces……little bits and pieces of blue and lavender batik’s left over from another project.  I pieced all these little crumbs together into bigger pieces.  Then, instead of using a solid fabric for the alternate pinwheel pieces, I had the brilliant (ha!) idea of painting the fabric I was going to use.  I did however use my peeps idea of using 2 different sizes of blocks but what I didn’t realize until it was too late is that you can piece pinwheel blocks so that they rotate in either direction.  I, of course, didn’t figure this out until I had some done in both ways and I was NOT going to unsew them.

Anyway…..here’s the finished top with a few close-ups of the crumb blocks and the painted fabric.

L1′s request is that the back be soft so I’m either going to back it with flannel or minkie.  The plan is to quilt it while I’m back in the USA at a quilt retreat later this year.

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Elephant Journal article

 

This article is worth reposting and worth the time to read it.

I don’t have daughters but here are 18 life lessons that I wish I had learned earlier in my life – lessons I’m still learning.

Happy Mother’s Day to all!  Love you mom.

Narooma

After the sewing day in Moruya, a girlfriend and I went to Narooma and rented a cabin for 2 nights.  We brought along bikes as there is a gorgeous trail that takes you 7k along the ocean.  Both mornings we did the 15k round-trip trip at daybreak.  It was absolutely stunning.  I hadn’t been on a bike for 15 years so I was a little hesitant but all went well.  I was a little wobbly and had to walk the bike up 2 hills because I messed up on the gear changing – but other than that – all went well.

Our cabin was nothing fancy but it was ocean side so we slept, sewed and awoke to the music of the surf.   Here are the pictures from the beach outside our cabin:

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Jellyroll class

Several members of the local quilt group that I belong to got together Thursday and took a class at Steph’s in Moruya.  It was a fabulous day of laughter, chatter, shopping and sewing.  You start with a jellyroll.  Add an accent fabric for the squares and then sew until you can’t see straight.  Very quick and easy – but quite striking results.  I was amazed at how different they looked depending upon what fabrics you used.

Robyn and I did the two with the cream backgrounds.  We added squares from a charm pack.  I think those two quilts look very contemporary and will really be great for showing off free motion quilting.  My favorite of the day was Robin B’s though…..I love those Malka Dubrawsky fabrics.  She has a new line out called “Simple Marks” that is just so fun and colourful.  I just might need it.

Here are the results:

Artist’s Journal

I don’t have it finished yet – but I’m making pretty good progress on my Artist’s Journal.  I was inspired by Ro Bruhn.  She does amazing things with fabric and paper.  I’ve also been inspired by Judy Wise (who I’m taking a cold wax workshop from in mid-May).

I decided to use my eco-dyed fabrics and papers and to keep with a more neutral palette.  I love the embroidery work and embellishment that I have been doing.  Some of it is just random, freeform shapes.  Other parts are embroidered words reflecting things that are going on in my life.

You make these ‘signatures’ – which are like little booklets of 8-12 papers inside a fabric cover.   After making several of these signatures, you sew them into a book.  I haven’t done that part yet as I plan to make 3-5 signatures and right now I only have one finished.  I’m using my finished signature as an actual journal though.  I started this month (on my birthday!) and have been writing something every day.  If you go to Judy’s blogsite – you can see how she journals and does mixed media work to her journal entries.  I’m not quite that organized – I plan to go back and do some more mixed media work to my journal pages but right now I want to get the actual book finished.

I might not actually sew the signatures into the book until after we return from our holiday later this year.  My thought is to get at least one more signature finished to take with me.  I probably could make this signature pretty basic as I’ll have ephemera from our trip to add into it (similar to my travel journal 2 years ago).

Here’s some of what I have finished so far: