It has been about 4 years since I made my first quilt and started blogging and a lot has changed since then.  Simple, modern designs were initially very appealing because they looked good and could be made without much effort.  But, there comes a time to move beyond that and do things that require more thought and time and creativity.

Blogging is a little bit about recording a personal journey.  But an honest reason we all do a public blog is for feedback – hopefully, positive.  There are lots of ways to garner more visitors and comments, but they all take a fair amount of time and seem to be often done more as a quid pro quo than always as a real recognition of brilliance or creative vision.  And what I’ve observed during the discussions about “dumbing down” quilting or things like the bloggers quilt festival is that some of the most detailed, unique work gets little recognition, while other work that has been seen over and over is fawned over because the maker invests more in “marketing” their blog. The desire to invest that kind of energy has passed.  Other things in life are more important to me.

So, the time comes to quilt without expectations of anyone ever knowing/praising/commenting.  A time of making things with just my own satisfaction being enough of a reward. And most of all a time to spend with my family and friends who mean so much to me.

Thank you for your support and encouragement and know that I will still be enjoying peeking in on your latest projects from time to time.

God bless and have a great summer.

ps I will still be participating in the Once ‘Round the Country bee until it finishes.  So, no worries fellow bee members!

Her center block was made of the kind of intricate tiny piecing that she does so well . . .

Zonnah's photo of her tiny piecing

which resulted in a center block that looked like this:

Zonnah's center block

The block went to Adrienne, of Hermione J. Schwartz, who was the first to face the daunting challenge of adding a border that would complement, but not detract from Zonnah’s center block.  Adrienne added a simple border with cool toned fabrics to allow a visual rest between the tiny details and the next rounds to come.

Round 2

Then, the block came to me.  Many options for adding to the borders were considered and then promptly discarded.  Finding the right balance between a scale that worked with the center block but not overpowering it proved difficult.  There were moments when it was tempting to email Zonnah and ask if she wanted to just keep this as a mini art quilt, but then I happened upon Carol Doak’s website and found the solution there.  It was one of her free patterns called Celebration Wreath and it looked like it just might work.

Round 3

It is a paper piecing pattern that consists of 20 blocks with 13 pieces each that were designed to join together around a center block.  The pattern was designed to go around an 8 inch block, so needed to be re-drawn to fit the scale of what Zonnah and Adrienne had done.  Sewing it together led to a bit of insecurity about the end result.  Would the scale be too large?  Would it focus the eye toward Zonnah’s block?  Would too much fabric be used up?

In the end, I think it worked.  The size of the quilt top has increased pretty significantly, but there is still plenty of fabric left.  And now the quilt top will head on it’s way for the next border to be added on.

Or, so I thought.  It was almost noon time.  The top was finished and the quilt was pinned and ready to be quilted.  Quilting had just gotten started when the weather radio and local tornado sirens started blaring and the sky turned black.  I left the machine and headed to the basement with our 13 year old English Setter, Ginger and before we got there, the power went out.  One of the first waves of tornadoes had come close to our local high school and already taken down trees, power lines, and homes.

The next 8 hours were spent in and out of the basement, listening to a battery operated radio that attempted to warn people to go to safe places as approximately 300 tornadoes  hit the northern half of our state including this massive one that hit Tuscaloosa, home of the University of Alabama.

Everything else took second place as we tried to check on family and friends, but cell phones worked only intermittently and land lines went out soon afterwards.  The next day, the extent of the devastation and loss of life became apparent, including 6 students from the University.  The University cancelled finals and postponed graduation until August leaving seniors grateful to be alive, but feeling a little unsettled about the abrupt end to their college experience.

For about 5 days, most of our area had no power.  That meant, no hot water, no refrigeration, no lights, little or no phone service of any kind, no tv news, etc.  But, that was nothing to complain about compared to what others suffered.  For those 5 days, the quilt sat in the machine with the first two inches of quilting stitched.

remembering the tornadoes

And then, the power came back on.  I love making quilt tops, but when it comes to the quilting, I’m a “modern, minimalist, (read lazy)” quilter.  The circumstances around this quilt changed that and I kept quilting and quilting without losing patience.  It is a combination of straight line and free-motion quilting and in a small section of the quilt, there is a tornado-like spiral quilted in as a reminder of the day that changed lives.

backing fabric

Graduation and the party to celebrate were supposed to be last weekend.  Rebecca’s party was going to be a vintage Hollywood themed party, so I originally named this quilt the “Film Noir” quilt since it is primarily black and white.  But, on second thought, it could have been called the “Dark and Stormy Night” quilt, or the “EF-5″ quilt representing the tornado strength.

The party was delayed for a few weeks and graduation for a few months, but Rebecca has her quilt now and I hope it brings her as much joy as it gave me to make it for her.

If you would like to know how I made this 60 x 60 inch quilt, here’s a link to a pdf tutorial:    Film Noir Quilt pattern

It’s time for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival, so click the button below and go see what other quilting bloggers have been making and add a quilt of your own.

The latest Christmas sewing is this reversible laptop sleeve.  It is a really  fun and fast project to make.

There are no fasteners in this cover that can scratch or damage your laptop  and it’s a good way to use some fun fabrics.  Here is a pdf of how I made it:  Reversible Laptop Sleeve .

These fabrics had enough weight to them, so, I did not add any batting, but did use a lightweight interfacing on the inside.  The fabrics came from Gifford Street Fabrics here in Huntsville,  which stocks primarily home dec fabrics.

It’s just as cute turned inside out.

This one was made using Summer at Grandma’s House flower tutorial.

This one is decorated with some ribbon from my stash.

These are so easy to make and here’s how:

1.  Start with a bath towel and turn under 1.5 inches along the long edge.  Stitch it to form a casing.

2.  Make a mark at 8″ or so in from each end along the casing.

4.  Cut a piece of 1″ elastic approximately 20″ long.  Insert it into the casing stitching the ends in place at the 8″ marks.

5.  Attach velcro to opposing sides by sewing it to the casing between the edge and the elastic.

6.  Decorate the front.  Easy peasy!

Edited to add:  These stay up very well even without straps.  The velcro is long enough to allow a lot of adjustment so that it fits snugly.

These are so fast and easy to make and are a great, inexpensive, personalized gift idea.  The basic cozy pattern was inspired by the one on Design*Sponge a year or two ago.  Beside personalizing it to suit the recipient, I recommend fusing a lining of cotton to the inside of the cozy to prevent static electricity or fuzz from getting into any of the ports.

Click here for a pdf on how to make one like this:  world traveler netbook cozy

This is a variation I made a year or so ago using some of my Saffron Craig fabric:

(Sorry if you are getting this as a duplicate in your RSS reader!)

Here’s my attempt at playing along during the Waverunner Quilt Along over at BumbleBeans.  V gave great instructions, including video tutorials, so it wasn’t hard to figure out, but was a good exercise in being free in cutting and piecing.  (I think I felt a little too free as I made some of the strips so wavy that they struggle to lie flat.)

This quilt top is made up of primarily some of my husband’s dress shirts that had gotten put into the discard pile.  There was a moment of temptation to raid his closet to incorporate one or two more, but I restrained that impulse!  The orange/red ombre fabric came from my stash for the “spice” in the quilt top.

I couldn’t think of a name for this quilt, so I asked my husband to help me.  He came up with the name.  The Colonel part is because my husband wore these shirts to work in the defense industry and the Kernel part is because I have experienced a lot of Kernel Panics on my computer as the graphics card was failing.

Now for the hard part . . . how to quilt it?

It’s really pretty simple.

Lay your laptop on a large square of fabric (double thickness of felt or quilted).  Cut into the shape above (for more specific instructions – go to the tutorial on Design*Sponge).  Add velcro and you are basically done.  I topstitched around the edges of the felt.  Bias binding can be used around the edges if you make a quilted cozy.

Here’s how it folds up:

If you are making one as a gift and don’t have their computer available to measure with, get the dimensions online and make a template out of cardboard.  A couple of corks taped to the bottom of the template give it the right height.

After making one for my daughter, I decided to see if I could figure out a different method of sewing it together that would make it easy to put a stiffer bottom in the bag and maybe turn out even easier to sew.

Japanese Knot Bag

By sewing it together in a different way, I was able to put cardboard in the bottom to make it flat.  This method leaves one raw edge on the bottom exposed that I covered with double sided bias tape.

Here’s what the bag reversed looks like:

Japanese Knot Bag- other side

And now, here are the alternate sewing instructions (in a pdf) :

Japanese Knot Bag (alternate sewing instructions)

Travel Album - front cover

Travel album - Inside

Here’s what the finished albums will look like:

Backward Forward – the Tutorial