Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Cranberry swap block?


Sue's Star
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.


I whipped this up in EQ about 11:30 last night - of course these fabrics would not be what I'd actually be using, but what do you think of the basic idea? (This would be for the exchange, so the fabrics would be the ones in the entry-before-last.) I think it's fairly promising.



EQLink

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Fabulous fabric of the day


FreeSpirit "Fleurish"
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.


(I'm not promising to post a fabric every day, sorry! Although at the rate I've been going lately, I probably could.)

Cranberry & pink swap


pink & gold batiks
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Here's the fabrics I bought to try out for the swap. (I think I have too many of the lighter pinks, but I mostly was just buying them because I liked them. And at least one of them is already in the zipper quilt!) The scrap of fabric we were sent for a guide is at the top of the picture. I don't have any green here but I may well use some. I think I have a piece of dark green holly batik someplace, although I haven't been able to find it so far. I just added the dull gold, and also the darkest cranberry piece, both of which I really love, so I'm definitely going to be using those. I just have to find a balance that I like.

I think I have found a block in the 9-patch star book that I like - or rather, I made up my own block. It's units 3, 21, and 37, if you have the book or the CD and care to look. I haven't actually tried them all three together yet, but I'm pretty sure they will work well together.

I have three Carol Doak books, but this is the first one that has come with the patterns on a disk so that you can print them out (and print them in different sizes, if you want to). That's a very nice extra.

Monday, May 29, 2006

How pink is too pink?


1/4 of a pink star
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.


Now you have to understand, I do like pink. I wear pink all the time. I love pink roses. I made an entirely pink quilt once (although it was my 2nd quilt, and I have to admit that I don't really think the execution was completely successful). But I don't know, this just goes over the line somehow. This block is definitely too pink. And I am starting over with some other block and some other color arrangement.

(I also have to admit that I couldn't get that damn diagonal seam to match, and that figured somewhat into the decision.)

This is the "Connecticut" block from Carol Doak's 50 Paper-Pieced Stars book. As I said the other day, I ordered her 9-Patch Stars book, and it has now arrived from Amazon, and I think it looks much more doable. I will post the picture of some of my fabric, too. I am going to use gold and possibly dark green as well, to avoid the "too pink" problem.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Friday quilt picture, and comments on comments


Pagoda
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Shown at Lakeview Quilters Guild's Mayfest quilt show. (Names removed in accordance with new quilt guild policy.)

There's a good discussion going on in the comments about kits (here), which makes me happy because I don't really get a whole lot of comments, normally, and I wonder sometimes if I discourage them somehow without meaning to. Or it may just be the nature of this weblog, which tends to take the form of sort of an ongoing quilt show, a lot of the time, and that's not something that really encourages a lot of discussion, I guess. Anyway, I like the discussion! Keep it up!

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Save Web of Thread!


String quilt
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Shown at Lakeview Quilters Guild's Mayfest quilt show 2006.



Apparently Web of Thread is having financial difficulties. From their latest newsletter:
One of the things I've heard from people in the wake of stores and vendors leaving the business is that people wish they had known, that maybe it would have made a difference.

Web of Thread was started by Sharee Dawn Roberts in Paducah, Kentucky in 1991. Sharee Dawn was teaching decorative thread techniques and her students had great difficulty finding sources for the threads they needed. I purchased the business from Sharee Dawn in 2001 and moved it to Seattle, where my daughter and I now run it together.

As much as it pains me to say this, it looks as though we may be yet another casualty. We have a certain financial hurdle to make by the end of May, and if we don't make it, we won't be here in June. How's that for being directand to the point? Summer is typically a slow time of year for our type of business, and we simply cannot survive another moribund summer.

She also says this:
NO MONEY WILL BE TAKEN if we can't fulfil the order. Not only wouldn't I do that, but there's also the part about it being a Class A Felony. If you've paid for a class and we do close, that money will be refunded to you.

I have been dealing with Web of Thread long enough that I trust their basic honesty and want to see them stay in business. If you do too, go and buy something! (All Sulky is on sale! Free shipping on orders over $25!)


(She also mentions, and I had already noticed because I happened to look at their website the other day, that the fabulous St. Theresa Textile Trove is also going out of business. But apparently there's nothing we can do about that one.)

Added: Pam of PaMdora's Box visited St. Theresa's recently (picture at the very bottom of that entry). I have never been there, and now of course I'm sorry I didn't manage it during one of my periodic trips to Ohio. I only know them from their wonderful booth that they always have at Quilt Festival. The website reports that they will be there this fall though!

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Huh?

In the "what planet is this woman living on?" department:
"The quilters who continue to buy fabrics for their stashes have gone by the wayside," she says. "These days, nobody has the time to dig through their stash to find enough of the right fabrics that might work for a certain pattern, and then maybe still have to go out and buy more. Instead, if you can provide them with an attractive kit and nice fabrics, that's what they'll buy."

Now I'm certainly not denying that kits sell well, and from a shop-owner's point of view (at least if it's the kind of shop that sells a lot of kits), certainly they have a vested interest in encouraging that, but still... nobody I know has stopped buying fabric for their stash and is doing kits instead. How about you?

(This is the same person I was talking about in the previous entry, the one who has the shop with no batiks. Obviously she and I just have completely different world-views.)


I guess I have to admit to being a snob about kits, to a certain extent. Not that there's anything wrong with using a kit, there's not - but the quilt you end up with isn't your quilt, exactly. Yeah, you put it together, but you didn't pick the colors or the fabrics - all the things that to me are the joy of quilting. Therefore, I don't really get the appeal. But that's just me.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Primitive Stars


Primitive Stars
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.


Despite these totally not being my colors, I like this quilt. You don't see many quilts with cotton and wool in the same quilt, so that's a little different. (I seem to have the urge to do something in wool, anyway - I may have to make something like a penny rug eventually to get it out of my system.)

(I would also like to point out, though, that the quilt looks considerably darker in this picture than it does in the magazine. I thought for a minute that it might be a different version done in slightly different fabrics, but I think it's the same one and it's just the lighting.)

This quilt is from the new Quilt Sampler magazine (Quilt Sampler itself doesn't seem to have a website, which I think is really strange) and the quilt shop with this pattern is called Primitive Gatherings. It's a moot point, because they're all the way across the country from me and thus I'm not likely to be visiting anyway, but I am blown away by the thought of a quilt shop with no batiks, no brights and no whites. (Seriously, that's what they say in the article. Whites I could probably live without, but batiks and brights? No.) But they do have some cute things, I have to admit.

(I am toying with alternate star blocks to replace the cranberry/pink one that's not working for me, and the one above* would work. I ordered the other Carol Doak star book, though - the nine-patch one - and I'm waiting to see if anything there grabs me more.)






*Which appears to be the same as this one

Lunn Studios Tonga batiks


Timeless Treasures/Lunn Studios Tonga batik
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Ooh, I love this fabric.

(More of the great black & white batiks here, here, here, here and here.) (And on the Timeless Treasures website, of course - look for Tonga Batiks.)

Thursday, May 18, 2006

ATCs, etc.


ATC assemblage
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Artist trading cards, from a swap; shown at the 2005 International Quilt Festival.

Somebody somewhere else was talking about ATCs (that is, artist trading cards, for those who are not already in the know) and I remembered that I have this picture. I thought this piece neatly solved the problem of what you do with the cards once you have them - you make them into a bigger piece of art!


Another "for a good cause" item:
Fiberart for a Cause, which is a reverse auction - meaning the prices go down instead of up! Now that's an auction after my own heart!

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

"All That Jazz" auctions end today!


another "All That Jazz" quilt
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.


There are 9 hours and change left in the auctions - this is All That Jazz #2, which is here. There's a link to all three quilts on Sharon's blog. #1 is currently going for over $800, but #2 is still in the low $300s and #3 is only a little higher. I'd say #2 is the big bargain right now. Somebody go bid on this thing!

Faith, Luck & Life


mayfest 06
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

A Mayfest quilt picture - I think this is by ------- but I never have found my other page of notes, and it's driving me crazy. Sigh.

(Later: The quilt guild has a new official policy about posting names so I am removing the ones I had. So I can quit worrying about giving people credit, I guess!)

Monday, May 15, 2006

Batik Sisters


Batik Sisters
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made for my mother & shown at Lakeview Quilters Guild's Mayfest quilt show.

I may have posted a picture of this one before, but if I did it wasn't recently, and I really love it. (I guess I wasn't the only one; one of the people who contributed to it later made her own miniature version of it.) There are also some closeup photos that show Denise's lovely quilting.

Weekend update:
My mother seemed quite pleased with all her gifts. I was tired and didn't get much quilting done, though - I tried to make some more sections for my star blocks, and messed them up, and then decided it was karma since I didn't like the way the colors were looking anyway. I am going to start over with different color placement - and possibly a completely different block - and see how it goes. (Maybe I will post a picture of the 1/4 of a block that I finished, though, and let y'all critique it!)

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Page 36 - and more on gifts


Kindred Spirits' Page 36
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Shown at the 2006 Lakeview Quilters Guild's Mayfest quilt show.

From a bee challenge where the member was given a random magazine - no quilting magazines allowed! - and told to do their interpretation of what was on page 36 of that magazine.

---------------------------------

Back to Mother's Day gifts - the thing I meant to say and forgot was that I don't get my mother one big gift like some people do. (At least, they do if you believe the commercials. I heard one on the radio this morning saying to buy your mother a Cadillac!) My mother seems to prefer lots of small gifts over one big one. And really, up until the last couple of years I haven't had the money to spend very much on gifts, anyway - for a long time I didn't spend much more than $25 for a gift for anybody for any occasion; we just couldn't afford it. I generally spend more than that for occasions like Mother's Day now, but I still don't spend the kind of money some people seem to. I'm trying to get out of debt, not into more of it.

My mother also doesn't like cut flowers. She thinks they're a waste of money. Is my mother just weird, or are there other mothers who are like that?




(Edited to fix my own very obvious typo. Sigh.)

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Mom: don't read this!


Blue Oregon Trail
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Shown at the 2006 Lakeview Quilters Guild's Mayfest quilt show.


Seriously, Mom, if you happen to be reading, STOP HERE because I'm going to talk about Mother's Day gifts.

(I don't really think my mother reads my blog, even though I've given her the link. I'm just covering my bases. And if you're reading this and you know her, don't tell!)

I don't really talk about my personal life a lot here. It was a deliberate decision I made when I started Quilts Galore, to keep quilts and personal stuff more or less separate. It just seemed a lot less complicated that way. I don't have my real name on this blog - just mostly from general internet paranoia - but on the other hand I've never tried very hard to hide my real identity, either. If I'm going to show my own quilts, that would be virtually impossible.

But I have talked about my mother a good bit here, and some people that know one or both of us in real life read here, so a lot of the people that will read this either know my mother, or at least know a good bit about her, and somehow in my mind that seems to make this a more appropriate place to talk about Mother's Day gifts than my Livejournal, even though only a couple of things I bought this year are quilting-related.

1. Stroller Bag
For those of your who don't know my mother, she has cancer, and although the cancer is more-or-less dormant right now (it's not growing, at least, although the word "remission" has not been heard from any doctor that I know of), still, some combination of the cancer itself and/or the radiation/chemo cocktail of treatments has left her basically disabled. She uses a walker these days, and although she has a walker bag - that is, one that snaps on - it has an open top and I've heard her worrying about things falling out. So I bought her this one. I've bought a number of bags from this eBay seller (Cherry Pie Bags) and they are really well-made. (I have three of the regular tote bags, myself, in various prints, and Mom has one in a pink 30s print, too.)

2. Mother-of-pearl earrings
I'm not really sure the earrings were a good idea, just because she doesn't seem to be as interested in jewelry as she used to be. But I had some birthday money I wanted to spend on something frivolous for myself, and Jennifer Grove was having pretty good sale, and so while I was buying these slightly-flashy ones for me, I bought the nice elegant MOP ones for her.

3. Red Lace China
I've wanted to buy something from P.O.S.H. ever since I've known about them, just because I think they are cool. And my mother collects this kind of red china in various patterns AND she collects butter pats (what that website calls "butter chips" - the little bitty plates you put a slice of butter on) so this seemed perfect. I figured she could find a place for at least a couple of them. I bought one of the little one-ounce creamers, too.

4. big piece of pink backing fabric (no picture, sorry)
My mom uses a lot of pink, so I figured she'd be able to find a use for a couple of yards of pink marbled backing fabric. I bought it on fabric.com but they don't seem to have it any more - not unusual for them, things tend to come and go there.


Oh, and my mother-in-law? Is getting a big box of L'Occitane stuff. I figured I would share the addiction.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

"All That Jazz" fundraiser


"All That Jazz" fundraiser quilt
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

See the entry below for the links, but I figured a picture was probably worth a thousand words, in this case.

Affairs of the Heart


Affairs of the Heart (detail)
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made by Marian Woods, shown at Mayfest 2006.

Remember when I said that the quilt that won Best of Show wasn't my favorite one of Marian's quilts? (Here.) Well, this one may be. (Here is the whole quilt.) I love brights on black, anyway, and the workmanship in this thing is just gorgeous.

----------------------------------

I love to help out worthy causes when I can, and about the only way I'm going to be able to help this one is to give it a plug here, because I sure can't afford to bid on these quilts! The All That Jazz project was started by some Australian quilters, but the quilts are now in the U.S. and up for auction on eBay. They will be there until May 17, and it looks like they will bring in quite a lot of money. They are here:
#1
#2
#3
Proceeds benefit Hurricane Katrina Victims.

Friday, May 05, 2006

The Zipper Quilt, on display

The Zipper Quilt, on display

Funny, I was thinking I had put this picture up already, but I guess not!

Christmas log cabin - and a raffle reminder!

Orange Frog on Purple

I lost my list where I wrote down the quilt numbers on the 2nd group of quilt photos I took last weekend. Hopefully it's around my house someplace and I will be able to match everything up correctly eventually, but as I recall, this one was labeled incorrectly anyway. This was made by the mother of a quilt guild member. I don't think I took a close-up, and I wish I had. It's all batiks, and the colors are really lovely.

Reminder: today is the last day to buy tickets for Dante's raffle. Among the many lovely things there are an original Mary Englebreit print, and a gift certificate for a wallhanging from me! How can you pass that up?

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Autumn star exchange blocks


Fall Trail (detail)
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I have probably mentioned before that I am supposed to be doing a set of blocks for an exchange, which I haven't had time to start yet because I have been working on the quilts for the show. This is not that set; however, I think I am doing this very block, just in different colors. This exchange was two years ago; last year I participated in one where everybody did the same block but you could color it in any combination of autumn colors you wanted. (Those blocks are still waiting to be assembled; I haven't decided what I'm doing with them.) This year we're going with a completely different seasonal colorway - cranberry, pink, and green batiks - and we're back to stars again. And I haven't looked to compare, but I think that this is the block I had picked out. It's the "Connecticut" block from Carol Doaks' 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars. I have until early September, so I'm still okay, but I really have to get to work soon.



Monday, May 01, 2006