Pelham Quilters Round Robin #2

Ok... I have to admit that I am cheating here. I wasn't able to make guild meeting this week as I am away on business. But after catching up on my favorite blogs, I saw a picture of Mary Anne's progress on the Round Robin Top #2. It is a really nice applique piece that has been enhanced along the way. Mary Anne looked at it and had the same thought as mine.. wow, what to do next. So she made the only real choice... she needed to give the eye a chance to rest, so she added what I call a rather simple but fitting boarder. What do you think?

(here is where the cheating comes in ... I 'stole' this photo off of Mary Anne's blog)

But, I love how the curve piecing goes nicely with the feeling of motion in the ceter square and with the butterflies.... such a nice complement! and to bring out the yellow... it brings the quilt to life.

I must say.... great choices Mary Anne!

You can check out Mary Anne's blog to see how she ended up with this as her final decision.

Now... I wonder how the first round robin piece is coming together. The last time I saw it, it was hanging on Anne's design wall, attempting to tell Anne what it needed. I sure hope the lines of communication were flowing smoothly :-)!

Running.. but had to share...

I have been quiet the last few days as I have been in bed sick since Friday and although I am still feeling a little out of it, I am running to the airport to catch a plane to California.. so this will be brief.

Just had to give a shout out to the 2 Robins.... First the Robin from SimplyRobin. She had a well deserved vacation last week and while she was gone, she had quest quilter bloggers. Yes, friends of hers from the quilting world who blogged on her site every day. What a wonderful idea. All of Robin's usual followers got to meet new bloggers from around the globe. It was great getting to know them and jumping onto their blogs to see what they do. Don't you agree this is a great idea? I may just have to do this the next time I am away for a long period of time.... hmppphhh...

The second Robin was a guest blogger on the site and she like many of the guest bloggers had give-a-ways, if you posted a comment or visited their site. Which of course I did and quess what??? I won one of Robin's give-a-ways.... I was so surprised when I heard, laying sick in my bed... it was such a wonderful pick me up. (she doesn't have her own blog, or I would give you her link as well)

So thanks to both of them and if you get a chance, why don't you jump over to the SimplyRobin's blogs as well!

Pictures as promised... and finally a name for the Woven Challenge

Teri... beat me up this morning for not posting pictures last night. Ok, well not literally, but you can see her comment on my post from last night. So.... here we go...

The unveiling of 'Sistah Chat'... a.k.a.: Woven Challenge....As I mentioned last night, the piece is not 100 percent finished. I have added the shawls which are actually drapped from behind the sistah's shoulders and will just be tacked down for a 3-D effect. All the quilting is done, but I need to do some more embellishments... earings, rim of the brown vase in the center, beading of their necklines, friz around the masks, etc.... Then I have to decide on how to finish. I don't want a traditional binding. I really want to do some sort of fluffy fiber boarder, although I will probably add a dark fused boarder first to wrap around the edges, so that the batting doesn't show. But that is still up in the air at this point. What do you think?

Next here are the pictures of my trapunto playing... and tonight I did two more with bamboo batting. You can definitely see the difference... oh yeah, you can see where Dancing with the Stars sort of distracted me and I snipped the fabric while cutting out the extra batting... duh....

This was done with 2 layers of cotton batting, Superior vanishing thread and then quilted with variegated Sulky thread. Not enough puff for me and the variegated thread is too overpowering.







This one was done with the same vanishing thread,
but regular weight black cotton thread and 2 layers of cotton batting. It looks better overall, but still not enough puff for me.

So tonight I tried bamboo batting. I like these results better....

This is two layers of bamboo batting and the same thread. Better, but still not great. The picture is bad, but you can definitely see the puffiness is greater.









This is 2 layers of bamboo batting, but with a lighter thread, 60 weight cotton. It looks heavier, but I ran out of scraps of black fabric, so it shows up more. I also was tired of doing an all over stipple, so I played with another quilting pattern, just quite a bit smaller than I have ever done.







I like this one the best.... You can definitely see how puffy the piece is.... but you can also see my snip throughs... oh well, it was only to play.



So, I think my batting choice for trapunto is definitely bamboo over cotton. I hear wool is also nice, but that will have to be for another night.

Night!

A Good Day... woven piece, trapunto and more!

Today was a good day... rainy, so what better to do than play with fabric and thread!

I made great progress on my woven piece that I have been working on since January. It is all quilted, and I am adding the embellishments. But it looks like I will need to take a trip to the store to find the right pieces for earings, etc... so I squared it up and then began playing with the black and white piece I had been working on.

Well, actually it is ready for quilting, so I didn't work on it. Instead since I want to add trapunto to this piece, I decided to practice the various techniques I have been reading up on. I have read Philipa Naylor's book and she adds quite a bit of trapunto to her pieces. I tried her double batting technique and I like the puff, but of course I used my scraps of cotton batting, which didn't make it puffy enough for me. You can see more of her amazing work in her online gallery.

So I began chatting on facebook with my friend Teri and she gave me some tips as she has also started using trapunto in her work lately. So tomorrow night I think I will have to pull out some of my old polyester batting and give it a try. I hear it puffs up much nicer. I also hear the wool is the best, but since I just brought my first package of wool batting and it is quite pricey, I will wait until I perfect my work alittle bit first. Oh yeah... I have some bamboo batting around as well from another project. I will give that a try to see which I like the most. Do you have a favorite trapunto technique or batting you think I should try?

I know, folks have been asking for pictures of the progress on my woven piece and I promise.... I will take pictures tomorrow and post them!

For now, good night!

As promsed...

Well I figured out why I couldn't get photo's to load from my camera on Sunday. It wasn't my camera, it was my laptop. I had it up for many many days... so it was low on memory. Once I shut it down and restarted it, I was fine.... I couldn't get my email system to load either, so I new there was a problem :-)

So as promised, here are a few pictures from last weekends Empire Quilters: Urban Inspiration Quilt Show.

I loved this piece. It was simple, yet eloquent. I am going to redo my stairs and upstairs hallway walls soon and I think I will use this piece as inspiration for pieces to line the stairs.

This NYC / Brooklyn Bridge skyline was done by Anna Faustino, using her woven technique. All the buildings in the city landscape are woven, covered with black netting. The wires on the bridge are made with metallic thread and the quilting in the orange sky/background was truly amazing!

This paper pieced quilt was also quite stunning... don't mind the photo... the colors aren't true! I love the color choices against the black background and while the design was simple the visual impact was high. It won first place in the paper piecing category.

Well that is just a taste. The show is held every two years, so if you are in NYC Spring 2011 make sure you add it to your list of things to do... and The City Quilter shop is only 2 blocks away.

My only sorrow... I didn't win the raffle quilt!... boo hoo....

Give away over at Ginnys Quilts

Hi, to celebrate her 41st B'Day, Ginny is giving away to one lucky quilter, a basket full of HER favorite things.

To find our how you can have a chance at winning, check out her blog Ginnys Quilts.

Entries must be received by midnight pst, Friday, March 27th... so hurry over.

UPDATED: 3/29... Ginny had so many folks respond that she decided to give away TWO baskets full of goodies! I didn't win, but thought it was such a nice thing to do. Each basket was jammed pack with at least 4 yards of fabric, quilting books, cooking books, thread, seam rippers, bobbin buddies, etc.... I think Ginny is an extraordinary women to give away a gift for her B'Day. If you get a chance stop by her blog and wish her a Happy B'Day!

I hit 1,000 visitors!

Hey... I forgot to share... I hit 1,000 visitors this week!!! I have been blogging since last October and just didn't know how many people actually read what I post.... sooooooo...

THANK YOU FOR STOPPING BY!!