212:The Big E-asy…

February 28th, 2010

      

Thought I would start off with a pile of fabric to entice you into reading this post….did it work?  I can’t believe I have written in here since the 14th!  What a bad blogger I am ….actually just a very busy one.  In late January,  the Michael Miller Fabric company asked me to make a quilt for their new line the Big E collection  (I would have links here, but it looks like the MMF site is down at the moment…so I will try to come back and add the links when I get the chance)  They wanted it pretty fast, and as usual, I thought I could get it done fast, but couldn’t.   (thanks for being so gracious, Christine at MMF….)  but it is done now, and the pattern should be available on their site soon.  I will let you know when it is actually up. 

Here are just a few pix of the process I usually go through….sketches in my quad composition book…I LOVE these books for sketching quilt designs in.  I don’t know why, I just do…they aren’t often “big” enough, but I like the hard covers and the gridded pages.

And here is some playing, experimenting, etc.

          

 

And  here is the quilt top before quilting.   I am pretty sure that I didn’t get pictures of it quilted.  And after I finished the binding, I needed to send it off straight to New York City to the MMF offices.  So this is all you get until the pattern comes out online.   I will link to it from here too on the Downloads page.

     When I first started it, I thought….oh, this is going to be too busy again, but I think it came out with a nice mix of an old-fashioned, yet tragically hip look to it….oh, and yeah,  I named it the Big E-asy Quilt cause it is pretty easy, and the collection is called the  Big E collection.  .....yeah, kinda Ch-EE-sy I know, but that’s kinda how I roll sometimes.  Ask Linda, she’ll roll her eyes in silent-shaking-her-head-agreement….

Anyway, I even felt compelled to make this runner from the scraps….it still needs binding….but having it quilted makes it that very much closer to being finished.

I am now trying to wrap up a big quilt from a Paula Prass collection for a magazine, and as usual, I bit off more than I could chew with it.  It is a big quilt all in 60 degree triangles, and it is very time-consuming.  I love and hate it at the same time right now.  I know when it is done, I will like it. It is coming along well, but I am already bored with the piecing and there are over 1000 triangles in this baby.  I just want it done.  I think I get that way more when the fabric is all from one collection, but I dunno.  I will show you some sneak peeks at the scraps from that project later.  Since it is magazine bound, I can’t reveal any more about it here…...but it will be pretty nice in my humble opinion.

Lots going on this week too….Dinner with this famous guy on Thursday….and more that I can’t even talk about yet…..but hopefully soon….wish I could stay in Blog land longer tonight, but I gotta get working on a writing up a pattern for a book by above mentioned famous guy that I will tell you more about later too…..so stay tuned…....

Thanks for droppin’ by the Blue Nickel, my friends…...

Keep happy, Keep sewing!

202: Boxing Day 2009

December 26th, 2009

Well, I was supposed to announce the winner of the Grand 200th Post Giveaway yesterday, but I have been having some issues with my computer and printer, and I wanted to read through all of the comments to make my decisions but I read the printed page better than a screen.  So the prize winners will be delayed a few days until I get all my ducks in a row with the time to read through them all.  I must say that I really have enjoyed my first glance-over of the comments.  Some very creative responses that will make it hard for me to choose….good job peeps!! 

I will also say that I was thinking something slightly different than most of you for the word bungalow.  I was thinking woodsy Arts and Crafts style 1900 home, and a whole lot of you were thinking palm trees, coconuts, drinks with little umbrellas, and pool boys….okay only one comment that I remember mentioned a pool boy, and that was actually a cabana boy, but there may be more…..like I said, I haven’t read them all yet.   On the word cottage, we all think pretty similarly it seems.   Thanks for taking part in that little word “survey”...it will be fun to see what everyone thinks.  

For today’s pix (since I really can’t leave you without any pictures)  how about that orange quilt finished up??  This quilt will really make your winter pop!!  orange quilt  orange quilt back  orange quilt detail   orange quilt on rocker  

My friend and one of my long arm quilters, Becky Marshall, did  a fantastic job quilting this…I love the feathers throughout the sashing…becky's quilting  

Well that’s it for now….I am off to the studio for more sewing tonight…so glad to be back at it again!!

195:Quilt Market Presence…pt. 3 Miss Nicey Two Shoes..

October 21st, 2009

The fabric line: Nicey Jane

The designer: Heather Bailey

The goal: Design a quilt of Uber-feminine proportions…..

The story:  I sent some sketches to Free Spirit a couple months ago, but they didn’t like them as they were too “masculine” for this line….I submitted them because I had seen a few snippets of the new line, and thought I would really like to work with Heather’s designs because I liked her past work, and she was so pleasant to talk with at Quilt Market this past spring the few times we ran into each other there.  But each design I submitted was met with “too masculine”...so I just gave up and figured it wasn’t a good “fit” this time….

Then what?  Three weeks before Market as I am finishing up the previous two quilts for Free Spirit…I get an email asking me if I had time to squeeze a third one in….I say sure, which one?...yup, the one that I was nixed on twice…they still wanted to see a design, so I came up with something that pretty much stretched this pointy-angly, straight-stitching designin’ boy…something with lots of Curves to defeat the Angular Masculinity I tend to veer to in my work…..I got it done in time, and I really liked the end result…I may have to make one for us now….

 In the past when I have done quilts for Free Spirit I have picked the prints myself, but this time they chose…and it was all pretty light and frothy…there are some darker prints, but I didn’t get them in this round.  At first I was a bit frustrated with that, but then I started really liking the soft dreamlike palette and worked with it.nicey jane fabs  nicey jane fabs2 

I am so loving this orange print…why am I so attracted to Orange lately? I never really cared for it in the past…and it’s not just for the pumpkinability of it either…just really lovin’ it lately..my faves  the center bit  That’s a lot of half circles…..120 plus 

and here are some finished half circles….half circles 

More half circles…with their backsides showing….half circles in queue 

 The main quilt without all the half circles sewed into the binding.  I really like how these half circles give another dimension to the quilt even before quilting.NiceyJane quilt without binding flaps..

Here is a snap of the finished quilt at Quilt Market courtesy of Jona G.  I forgot to take a picture of it finished  before I rushed it off in the FedEx, so I asked Jona, and she sent this with apologies for the lower quality…I think she snapped it with her iPhone….It’s not the best shot, but it gives you the general idea.   I get the feeling that the lighting wasn’t always the best at this Market….   nicey jane jona

Oh and by the way, Jona has a ton of great posts about Market and links to other great coverage of Quilt Markets present and past…

So that’s it for today folks….This quilt and the Rebel quilt and the Flannel quilt will be on Free Spirit’s Free Downloads page one of these days…as soon as I get the directions finished and Elyse at Free Spirit gets it on their site….

Hope you enjoyed my Post-Pre-Market postings…Keep coming back…I still have to announce winners from my last giveaway….and it looks like the 200th Post is looming on the horizon…and it is promising to be a whopper!

Oh yeah, and sorry that some of the pictures don’t have the best lighting…sometimes I work late at night, and the flash does something wonky….or I forget to change some setting somewhere…you know..there’s always something…

171: Random #1

June 6th, 2009

Today’s post is more clean up…I am wrapping up one overdue project today…and starting 3 more? No, make that 4!

Anyway today for you all some pictures from life here at Shiloah Cottage, home of Blue Nickel Studios and Miss Mabel Studio (Linda has been posting a ton of pictures of our life here…so she has more I bet)

  Building “protector” in Pittsburgh….I liked how it was attention-grabbing, but it seemed unusual to me…maybe it’s an East coast/West coast thing..

  Rockwork from a building in Pittsburgh…not very colorful, but I really liked the rugged, irregular texture of it all.

  chair upholstery from my room in Pittsburgh….hmmm, quilt or base for a new fabric?

 Vintage tablecloth that we used at Easter!  those wavy stripes really aren’t there…don’t exactly know why they came out in the picture.

 Here is a rooster detail from the tablecloth…I love our vintage stuff here at Shiloah Cottage (yes, I named our home…so bourgeois, I know!)  I used to call it Shiloah Estate here, but if you look at our lawn and the plantings around here…Cottage is the best we can aspire too! :)

  papers picked up in Seattle’s International District…...this last February (I told you I had a lot of old pictures waiting to be posted) 

    I couldn’t buy this paper in the Asian bookstore….I had to have everything that I was buying for my family already gift-wrapped in it.  Honestly, they could have saved time and made money, but this was only for thier FREE gift-wrapping service…So there you go..

Oragami doll from same trip     I love some of the packaging that comes out of Asia.  These caramel hearts apparently carried the Olympics theme through supporting great victory.  The little book to the left featuring Rapunzel came with the hearts….What is that about??

  I picked this book up the same day as the Seattle trip above.  It has some of the coolest patterns and textured surfaces I have seen.   I thought it would be great inspiration, and it is!

So for today, one last picture…..one with some poppin’ color so you don’t forget where you are….. This is a vintage quilt, that a firend of a friend commissioned me to repair a little and get it quilted.  Most of the blocks look to be early 1900’s, but I am fairly certain that the orange sashing was added in the 40’s-60’s perhaps.  I will be finishing it up with pink and orange border of a Joel Dewberry print and then having it quilted, then binding it with a scrappy pink/orange combo. This is for the lady’s niece who got married right around Market…..so everyone knew it would be late…that is one of those next projects….

So thanks all for putting up with the lack of posts lately.  I should have Random # 2 coming up soon…and some giveaways as since after Market, more stuff is coming, and I am in great need of cleaning up my side of the studio….like that’s something NEW or something!!

145: #44

February 20th, 2009

Okay,Right now I am not home but at my son’s 16th Bday party in a game/internet “bar” for kids :)   and I found this here. I really want to go home and order this…so don’t you go and buy it out from under me okay?  I saw this horrendous (in my most humble opinion) tablecloth, but this bandana I really like! 

It comes in a groovy green too so if you do buy up all this cool orange then at least save me one of these!

I hope and pray for our President….he has a tough four years ahead….as do we all I think….but I have great hopes for sunny days ahead (at least some springtime sun!)

The party is wrapping up, and I have to get home to the studio….lots of sewing has been going on, and I am looking forward to sharing with you my latest quilt for Free Spirit  as well as a couple giveaways.  Oh and an interview with my new online buddy, Jennifer Paganelli!