"The Retreat" ~~ Finished!!

Way back in July of 2019, I attended a quilt retreat in Baton Rouge with other members of the BRMQG. After I got home, I finished up the top and added it to the bin. A couple of weeks ago I dug through the bin and chose this top to quilt. 

A little blue thread, feathers in the border, and some improv quilting.

I don't know what I did unless I really look at the individual motifs. In other words, I just had fun.

The back of the quilt is this solid blue linen and, because it was too small for the top, a plaid flannel. They look good together but I'm not real sure what's going to happen when it gets washed. 

I took lots of photos of the back so that I can go back and look at those motifs because some are new-to-me ideas. 

		Quilt Stats
	Name:	The Retreat
	Size:	48" X 60"
	Fabrics:	fabric from stash
	Pattern:	my design
	Backing:	from stash
	Batting:	100% Cotton
	Binding:	fabric from stash
	Quilting:	improv with various motifs
	Completed:	2020

Retreat Finish (the second one)

Before I show you my new finish, I thought I'd show you what is going on in the studio. It is not a happy sight, is it? Ahh, that's how it goes. Chances are that it's never going to embroider again. 

Not that it has embroidered any for me anyway. Firstly, it made horrible stitches. Secondly, as we discovered today, the gizmo that holds the PC card is broken. So I have hundreds of designs that I can't use. 

The news gets worse: I've invested more money in the machine than it's worth. Have you made a bad judgement like this one? What did you do about it? I'll give Richard a bit more time to work on it but if it's done, well, we just made a bad investment.


But there's good news, too. 
I have a finished top to show you! I had a few ideas for quilts before leaving for retreat last week. For this particular quilt top I wanted to just sew at random, very improvisationally, and with no plan or system. Just sew some bits together, stack them until there were plenty in the stack, then start sewing the big bits together. 


It really started at home by pulling some scraps together. I settled on a blue/teal/green colorway with lots of whites to keep it all from becoming too busy and worrisome.

I pulled mostly solids and a very few small prints. Large and small pieces of white went into the Ziploc but I knew I'd be cutting those as needed. After I had some large chunks, I put them on the design wall to let the colors mingle in my mind. (I like that phrase.)

A some point I decided to make a few curves. That "boomerang" block (circled in red) on the very top was the first one. At first I wasn't sure I liked it, but it grew on me. I decided to make one in green next. It's much smaller but I'd already decided that everything would go into the quilt. The only concession would be that I could cut blocks apart if necessary.

This zipper block is the last one. It's my favorite part of the entire quilt. From here I only needed to sew all the big chunks and smaller pieces into a top. I added a six inch border on all four sides to give it a frame and called it done.

What do you think? Does it work in an improv sort of way?

A Touch of Teal ~~ Finished!

I've had this little pink top sitting in the quilt queue for a while now. It had everything needed for a finish: backing, batting, binding. 

"How easy and quick would this be?," I wondered. "Quite easy and especially quick," I answered. 

So I loaded it and thought about quilt motifs. I wanted, as Richard loves to say, "Quick, fast and in a hurry." 

While quilt my last quilt, I stumbled upon a motif I like that is fast and pretty. It has the look and feel of a pantograph, except that it changes at random rather than repeat in a set pattern. It's kind of the best of both worlds: I get to enjoy the randomness but also have a pattern so it doesn't take long to come up with ideas. I can play a little with the motifs as I go along, and the openness of the motif quilts quickly.

I picked out my favorite motifs from One Big Finish, enlarged them and stitched them in in my usual, graffiti manner. All of the motifs have curves and wiggles to contrast with the straight lines of the Chinese coins pattern.

The backing was just a little short but I really wanted to use it since it has a pink, girly look that goes well with the front. It also has these small little teal flowers mixed in with the large pink and peach ones. How perfect is that?

To make it long enough, I just added a strip of hot pink on the top and bottom. Of course, I didn't have the sense to center the quilt top on the bottom, so the strips are not balanced, but I still like the quilt and the back is pretty awesome anyway.

	Quilt Stats
	Name:	A Touch of Teal
	Size:	35" X 46"
	Fabrics:	scrap fabrics from stash
	Backing:	scrap fabrics
	Batting:	100% cotton
	Pattern:	Chinese coins
	Quilting:	graffiti quilting w/ variety of motifs

The entire quilt was made from scraps and yardage from the stash. I made it back when Kaja and Ann had their AHIQ Chinese coins challenge. I can't find the original link to the challenge, but go to this link and scroll down to the labels which you'll find interesting.

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: Sea Glass

my pot of succulents and sea glass

Several weeks ago, I discovered a few 
bags of sea glass in the studio. I used them to decorate a pot of succulents. After doing so, I realized how much I love the colors. 

The light blue/green is my favorite and I've decided to use it in our bedroom and bathroom. We'll be quite some time before getting to the stage of choosing paint and accessories, but I think I have my colors already.

a close up

To that end, sea glass has been on my brain. Of course, I've been thinking about how I could use these particular colors in bedding and such. I will need a new quilt, after all. 

I did a little research on sea glass and found this quote from Wikipedia:

Sea glass and beach glass are similar but come from two different types of water. "Sea glass" is physically and chemically weathered glass found on beaches along bodies of salt water. These weathering processes produce natural frosted glass.^[1]"Genuine sea glass" can be collected as a hobby and is used for decoration, most commonly in jewelry. "Beach glass" comes from fresh water and in most cases has a different pH balance and a less frosted appearance than sea glass. Sea glass takes 30 to 40 years, and sometimes as much as 100 years, to acquire its characteristic texture and shape.^[2] Sometimes also colloquially referred to as "Drift glass" from the long-shore drift process that forms the smooth edges. In practice, the two terms are used interchangeably.

Sea glass, it turns out, comes in all colors, though some colors are quite rare depending on when and where the glass was created. 

The frosted appearance comes from the salt in the sea. Therefore, the glass found on the beaches of the Great Lakes and other fresh water bodies is appropriately called beach glass. Today glass can be tumbled to give it the appearance of sea glass, but it is called tumbled glass.

My use of the term sea glass is interchangeable with all three. I'm mostly interested in the frosted light blues and greens like the one on the left. 

Have a great week!

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: TURQUOISE

(Like my brain can differentiate this beautiful mess) 

Do you find it difficult distinguishing between those blue-green colors that we call turquoise, teal, and aqua? I do. It seems that every time I name a color in this family, my artist friend reminds me that it's actually something else. 


The problem is not being corrected, it's remembering which is which even after the many, many reminders. Kind of like recognizing a face but not being able to put a name to it. Guess what? Google knows the difference! Of course, right. 

Not only did I find an explanation, I found this paint chip photo. The definition may help: aqua-blue water; turquoise-light blue with some greenish; teal-dark blue-green. 

I really need a mnemonic for this sort of memory to stick, so I'm going with a crazy way to remember. aqua is water blue (no brainer); turquoise (light blue with some greenish) is a long word with a long definition; teal a four-letter word has a four-letter definition (dark). I know, it's not the best, but it may help.

Notice that Pinterest doesn't distinguish among the colors. If you search aqua, teal, or turquoise, you'll get all three, so maybe the mnemonic may be of use after all. 

Some of the quilts here have all three colors from this family, but I'm including them because photographs can appear differently. Using the colors as they appear on your device, try to distinguish between them. Did I get it right...are there more quilts with turquoise?