Paisley Flowers - My Favorite Quilts

It occurred to me today that I've talked a lot about my studio, and have a gallery of quilts, and I've blogged about my quilts for 2012, but I haven't talked about my individual quilts.

Paisley Flowers was an fun quilt for me, because I was able to do some thread painting and fabric painting on it as well as applique and patchwork. The queen size quilt was a gift for my father.

The center and corner motifs were needle turn applique, adapted from a pattern in the book Art Noveau Quilts by Bea Oglesby.  I followed the pattern for the center, but adapted it to fit two of the corners.

For the borders, I used some pretty floral material in my stash.  The inside borders aren't all the same shape and color, which I found interesting and different.

Then, I thread painted the other two corners with colored thread. Just to add some contrast, I also did a little fabric painting on the flowers.  The quilt was machine quilted with a looping design..

I hope you enjoy seeing my quilt and hearing about it, hopefully it will give you some ideas you can use!

Mary

Paint Chip Challenge

I've been on vacation in Southern California for a week -- visiting my son and daughter.  Beautiful weather!  But I'm glad to be  home, I missed my quilting :)

When I got home, my paint chip was waiting for me, for the Paint Chip Challenge!

My colors are shades of purple, which is great, since purple is my latest favorite color!  Thanks Cindy, I'm looking forward to this challenge.

Mary

Rainbow Scrap Challenge - Pink

I'm trying something new -- the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This looks like fun, and what a good way to use up those scraps!  Go to Scraphappy's page and take a look at the Linky where everyone has posted their projects.

I certainly have plenty of scraps!

My quilt for today is a UFO that I'm determined to finish. I quilted it, and something happened, and the outside border was really crooked :(. So I cut off all of the outside borders, and am starting again from the 20" square center. Since I have already quilted the center, This seems like a great time to use the quilt-as-you-go technique, so we'll see what happens!

Mary

Easy to Make Design Wall

Here's a great idea for an easy and inexpensive Design Wall -- your fabric sticks to the flannel so you rarely need pins!

I made two - here is a picture of one of them.  They are side by side so I have a total of 8' x 8' of design space!  They can be rearranged or I can just use one if I want!

Simple Instructions:

Organizing My Studio - Part 2

Once I got my shelves organized, it was on to the rest of the studio. I've made a lot of progress, and wanted to share some of my storage, display and sewing solutions.

My budget isn't large for my studio, so I've tried to be creative with my storage solutions. It helps to have a handy husband! This is my quilt "ladder". It's made of two 2x4's that were sanded and painted white. Then holes were drilled in the 2x4's about 22" apart, and 1" pvc pipe was put through the holes to make the "rungs". I can lean it against the wall and hang quite a few quilts on it, as well as my purses and bags. With the quilts on it, it's heavy enough to be fairly sturdy. It's also easy to take apart and move and the width is adjustable.

WIP's or UFO's -- there are always lots of projects "in progress" that need a place that is visible, so I'll finish them! This wooden drying rack was very inexpensive, but works great.

Cutting Table, Sewing Table and Quilt Frame:

Organizing My Studio -- Making Progress!

Is this organizing ever finished?  I'm pretty sure the answer is "No!"  I really enjoy organizing my studio, it looks so nice after, and I get to use my creative organizing ideas!

My first project was organizing my shelving where I keep my stash.  I still have some labeling to do, but so far --

• Refolded ALL of my stash, using 6" ruler folding technique
• Sorted the fabric by color and value, and put the smaller pieces (fat quarters) in clear plastic shoe boxes  
• Fabrics that I wanted to stay in a group were put together in the green basket
• Scraps are sorted by color on the upper right side of the shelves, again in plastic shoe boxes
• Fleece and flannel are on the top shelf, with some of my quilts and craft supplies
• Strips are hung on the end of the shelves
• Bolts of white and off-white are stored on the bottom shelf, with smaller pieces of batting
• Rolls of batting are in the corner

Here's a really simple explanation of how I did the folding --