Sunday Quilt Inspiration

Welcome to Sunday Quilt Inspiration!  I've been stitching up some small quilts lately, so it seems fair game to include small projects for today's inspiration. First up, a couple of darling little quilts from www.favecrafts.com I discovered the site this afternoon while reading some of my favorite blogs.  

This rubber ducky quilt is just precious, and the website includes a pattern for the duck. Accuquilt also has dies for the duck applique. The directions for this wall hanging could easily be modified to make a baby quilt for either a boy or girl, so it's a good go-to pattern if you like to have baby quilts ready made for when a new one arrives.  

And last from favecrafts.com is this little blue modern quilt.  I really like the satin binding.  One of my children liked to rub the satin borders of his baby blankets.  Apparently it soothed him quite a bit, so I made sure to add satin edges to his sheets until he got to middle school.  Maybe I should have continued that practice right up to his wedding day.....

A couple of just-for-fun pictures from www.pinterest.com, which has been my favorite website for inspiration for a while now.  Although I have issues with the fact that no one has to give credit for the work, I can't seem to give it up completely.

And finally, quilts with birds on them.  I don't know why--I just realized that there are many pictures that fit the description and created a board for them.  Here are a few of the whimsical quilts that are just so much fun!

Happy Quilting,
Mary

New!!! Winner!

http://quiltinggallery.com/

During our last Blog Hop with Quilters Gallery, I won a packet of Cherrywood Studio fabrics from Marija at http://marijasfabricreations.blogspot.com/.  The package arrived earlier this week, but I've been a bit busy.....at Beta Convention since Wednesday. 

http://marijasfabricreations.blogspot.com/

I was very happy to see this package on Tuesday.  I'd gotten an email from Marija last week, so I knew that it was on the way.  

As soon as I opened the package, I wanted to call in sick and let someone else go to convention!  Well, almost.

What I did instead was to play and fondle and pet the pretties for, oh, an hour at least.  I fanned them out in a pretty rainbow....

but there were too many!


So, I made a second fan of different fabrics.

They certainly were pretty all spread out like that, but I wasn't done.  I found a really quirky way to spread them out.  Isn't this funny?  


The little corners poking out between the layers remind me of tongues--kittens licking up milk or maybe puppy kisses.

The stripes were doing something for me, so I played with stripes a bit more.  Since I'd used gray and brown for the tongue design, I used pink and purples for the simple stripes.



But there were more left, and I figured they'd be upset if they didn't get to play stripes, so they became skinny stripes.

Why not do opposing fans?  I would like this design more if it didn't remind me of the pile of file folders sitting on my desk, waiting for me to grade the papers inside.  No, this one is not a happy design, although it is a pretty one and I love the blue/purple color combination.

I'm not sure what this "V" does for me, but it gives you a close-up of the fabric design.  

A special thank you to Marija for having the giveaway.  These fabrics are gorgeous!  I can't wait to get started with a pretty little AAQI quilt.  I may even get going this weekend, especially since it just happens to be a three-day and I'm about to crawl into bed....at 8:30!  I really need a few extra hours of sleep.  Somehow it's difficult to sleep when 35 teenagers are your responsibility (and there are about 250 more in the building).  My Betas were awesome!  Not a moment's trouble with them and they did every thing I asked (we're in charge of Service Project and Games).  Plus, they were on time, every time!  Teens!  gotta love 'em sometimes!

Thanks again Marija!  I'll be posting my AAQI project as soon as I get something quilted and bound.  These beautiful Cherrywood fabrics will be stunning, no matter what my brain cooks up.  

Everyone else go by and visit at Marija's blog:

http://marijasfabricreations.blogspot.com/

Happy quilting,
Mary

Summer on Black

Because the weather has been so depressing lately, I decided to work on a quick, small project to brighten the studio.   I've also been interested in playing with some flower appliques, so I put the two together and came up with this little flower garden that fits perfectly above my inspiration board, which is above the Accuquilt Studio cutter.

I used the cutter to cut the leaves and some of the flower petals.  To help reduce some of the scraps that are starting to pile up, I focused on using as many of the solids as possible.  In fact, some of the petals were already cut and left over from previous projects.

All of the birds were also cut on the Studio or pulled from the drawer right below it.  Because I wanted a happy little wall hanging, I tossed on lots of birds.

The wall hanging is long from side to side, but only about 14 or so inches tall.  I put stems on most of the flowers but since this was supposed to be a fun project, I refused to stick to any rules.  

Then came the quilting...lots of fun echo quilting.  While I quilted, I noticed a few applique pieces wanting to peel up.  Arugh, what aggravation! But when we're having fun, we may as well have lots of fun.  So I added some thread painting, a few fancy stitches, and some zigzag when I got tired to finish it off.  

How about this stitching to make two photos one?  I'm sure there's an easier way, but Picasa 3 was fairly easy, as far as pictures go anyway.
Happy Quilting,
Mary

Sunday Quilt Inspiration

Isn't it the way.....spend some time gathering material for a post and the servers of the world just don't cooperate?  That's my afternoon, unfortunately.  I found all manner of beautiful photos on Pinterest, organized them on my boards, and made a mental list of the ones I wanted to share.  

Then the kids came in for a visit and stayed for supper.  So, finally, I have a moment to share them.  Well shoot, Pinterest won't work!  How can that be, you ask?  My answer is it can be because I have plans! Of course, I don't really mean that in a shouting red voice.  Red just has a way of telling the universe, "aww, okay."

So today's Sunday Quilt Inspiration is going to be less about quilts and more about this awful weather we're getting.  

Richard and I drove to Ruston on Friday so that I could attend a workshop at La Tech on Saturday.  And these photos are a couple that I took from the car window.  I think it's hilarious that the ones I took while zipping by at 80 mph and those I took at a dead stop look about the same.  In fact, Richard couldn't tell the difference.

You'd think I could figure out how to handle a camera half the size of a slice of bread.  It's looking like I never will, but check out the clouds.  It wasn't raining, but the rain was absolutely brewing.

We weren't home long before it did begin raining, again. I snapped a few photos of the yard.....mostly I snapped photos of gray and gloom and glum.

The pond is full to overflowing.  So any water that goes in, promptly pours out the other side, right over the bank of the levee.  Every step requires boots, even when one stays on the sidewalks.  

  
We do still have some color in the yard.  The red berries of the pyracantha bushes, the yellow leaves of the Jack Frost ligustrum, and the green of the japonica.  But those colors are overwhelmed by the gray of winter.  

Since it's only January, I decided to put together a project of summer colors to brighten the sewing studio.  Here's a preview to inspire you--there's more coming in the next day or so. 

Happy Quilting,
Mary 

School's IN

Absolutely, Bunkie New Tech High School is back in session for me!  I'm so busy and exhausted that I have no idea how I'm managing.  Thank goodness I do not still have small children or teenagers at home because they would be in a bad way. 


I go to work, come home, write lesson plans, make out tests, and prepare for the next day.  Then I do it all over again.  It's astounding how difficult it is.  Since I am now a full time English teacher, my time in the school library is limited to less than an hour a day and that includes my lunch time.  So there's not much happening in the library, but my two clubs make up for it.  

This weekend, a workshop in Ruston; next week, Beta Convention; at the end of the month Explorers Club field trip and La Gear Up Day.  Whew!

Fabric Baskets Revisited

Remember this scrap bucket I made back at the beginning of December?  I wrote about it here.

It sits on the top of my worktable, and I just toss fabric scraps in as I run across them.  It's been very convenient, although I do like to use up scraps as much as possible.  Then a friend called to say she had a few scraps for me.  Yahoo!  Since she tends to overbuy way more than she should, her scraps are sometimes large pieces of fabric.  

Add to that the reason for her scraps: she embellishes tee shirts for college sororities who tend to like really nice matching shirts--Vera is their favorite designer, but they often ask for other fabrics.  Anything loud and bright will work for some.  You can visit her Facebook page here to see more of her work.

AND these scraps already have iron-on adhesive attached, so they are ready for appliqueing!  Yeah, the yahoo is well deserved.  

In no time I had the scraps organized into large pieces without adhesive, solids, prints, greens and reds.  There are too many reds and greens to mix all the solids together.  


The greens are perfect for leaves, vines, and stems, which I used often, so keeping them separated works well for me.  

Of course, sorting through the scraps had me wanting to use them.  I started out thinking I would make a small quilt for the studio or for AAQI but it grew and the next think I knew, I had a quilted piece just the right size for another basket.  Oh well then, another basket would do.  

I've decided that since my friend is an artist, this basket would work quite nicely in her tee shirt business.  I plan to give it to her the next time we're together.

I think she'll like the flowers and birds.  She teaches lots of collage, which this design ended up becoming.  I used the fabric scraps that she gave me cutting out flower shapes based on the flowers in the fabrics and pressed them to the background.  Of course, I added stems and leaves but I didn't worry too much about whether the flowers came from the same fabric or not.

I really like the little basket.  It's a tad smaller than the first one I made, but it's much more creative and fun.  

Check out this black and white bird.  I don't know who the fabric designer is, but I loved the look of the flowers and decided to cut out a bird using the Accuquilt Studio die.  In fact, all the birds were cut using the same die, which has three designs on it.

 This bird is part of a fabric design.  I couldn't stand the thought of wasting such a pretty bird, so I cut it out the same way I did the flowers and ironed it on a flower so that it looks, I hope, natural.

 I'm fairly sure she'll like the fabric basket.  It's meant for the scraps she produces as a result of her tee-shirt business, but she can surely use it for whatever she likes.

Happy Quilting,

Mary

Pin It Wednesday #7

It seems that Pinterest has a flaw.  Yes, I've said it.  There's a flaw.  Although I really like the site, I've often wondered where the photos come from.  Of course, there's no one answer: 

some are uploaded by users -- For example, these two quilts, which I uploaded from my computer to share with followers are on one of my boards and gives me credit.

some come from other websites -- For example, these quilts come from a variety of sources, some of which I know, but many are not credited at all.

This cute quilt photo came from flickr.com,
but I have no idea who posted it there.

This darling little quilt photo says, "uploaded by user."
Now who that is?  We'll likely never know.

This one by Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle gives them credit in the comments.
However, it's easy enough to remove the comment when re-pinning the photograph.  Ouch!

And some are blatantly taken from sites that clearly do not want to share because they are trying to sell something.

From patternspot.com via pinterest.com

So what's the problem, you might ask.  Well, it's quite simple if you visit patternspot.com's copyright page.  

All content and material available via PatternSpot.com is protected by International Copyright Law. The copyrights on individual works are retained by the designer and/or publisher, as noted.

Every file delivered through PatternSpot.com is watermarked with information sufficient to identify the site user. 

No copyrighted material or design may be distributed or reproduced by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without prior written permission of the designer or copyright holder. This includes, but is not limited to: photocopying, emailing, file-sharing, recording, taping, posting to a third-party site, information storage and retrieval systems, etc.

They don't want anyone to take or use the photographs on their site.  Sure, it's free advertising, so that might help to sell the patterns, but there's no way to know that the photo came from their website.  The pinterest.com copy doesn't give credit to patternspot.com unless the person who steals (yes, that's the word) makes the effort to give them credit.

Does anyone else see a problem here?  Please weigh in with a comment.  I don't want to start an argument, but I would like to know how others feel about this issue.  Plagiarism, copyrights and information theft are becoming a major problem as a result of the freedom of the internet.  I'm curious about what other people think.