Leaving Ireland

Another very nice quilt of the watery persuasion.

Quilt above made by Robin Haller of Carbondale, Illinois; shown in the judged show (category: Art-Naturescapes) at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.


(This picture won't be back, since this is one of the ladies who felt that their copyright had been violated. However, she was very nice about it - unlike some others. I really liked this quilt, though, and I'm sorry you can't see it too.)

Transformation

I know some people are getting more winter weather than they'd like - even here on the South Coast it's pretty darn chilly - but just the same, here is a nice winter landscape to admire.

Quilt above made by Pamela Druhen of Vermont; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Naturescapes) at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.


(Hmm, I seem to have unconsciously had a water theme going the last few days, so maybe I'll continue with that!)

View from House Rock

Quilt above made by Sue Reno; from the exhibit "Small Wonders VIII" at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival. (I had a note on flickr that there was an article about Sue Reno in the September Quilter's Newsletter - I'm guessing that probably means September 2006, but I can't swear to that.)

River Walk

This is a test to see if you've ever been to San Antonio - if you have, you probably don't need to ask where this is!

Quilt above made by Nancy Sterett Martin of Kentucky; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Pictorial) at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Owatatsumi (and friends)

Owatatsumi, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I love Japanese woodcuts, so naturally when I see quilts made using those kind of designs I gravitate towards them - like a bee to honey and all that. :)

Quilt above made by Marie Karickhoff of Michigan; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Naturescapes) at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

This quilt with the same design source was at IQF way back about 2002. I don't know the quilter's name, but clearly it is made a bit differently than the other one. They are both lovely, though. (It's only the picture quality that is lacking in this one!)

Cosmati Stars

Cosmati Stars, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I am not by nature a maker of extremely complicated things, and thus I have trouble understanding the psyche of people who make things like this quilt. However, there's no denying that the results, in this case, are really nice!

Quilt above made by Judy Mathieson of California; winner of second prize in the category Innovative Pieced, Large in the judged show at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Star swap blocks

This is what I've been working on - this picture was taken a week or so ago when I started auditioning sashing fabrics. I posted this on the calicocats LJ group asking for opinions on the two sashing fabrics I was thinking of using. They mostly said, use the cranberry (the slightly darker one) - but the fact was that I didn't have enough of the cranberry to do the whole thing anyway, so I ended up using the more pink one between the blocks and the cranberry on the outside. I did go to Quilts by the Bay and look, first, and they didn't have anything that would do, and I didn't want to wait to get anything from elsewhere, so I went with what I had. The pink(ish) one is the one I really intended to use in the first place, and obviously I spent some time second-guessing myself, but I think it's going to work fine after all.

Swap blocks made by members of Lakeview Quilters Guild, 2006. (There are three more blocks besides these, and they are destined to become a table runner.)

Angels Watching Over Me

Quilt above made by Billie Standley, from a block of the month by Sue Garman. Shown at Lakeview Quilters Guild's Mayfest quilt show.


I'm never quite sure exactly how all the membership stuff works with The Quilt Show, but if you are a "star member" you can get a free block of the month (no, not the one above; it's a new one) from Sue Garman. If you do applique, it's definitely worth taking a look at - it's very pretty. I was amused by this blog post where they were amazed at how quick Sue got her sample done, because I know Sue in real life, and believe me, that's just how she is. She's possibly the most driven person I know, and that's saying something. But that's probably a good quality in a pattern designer! and her designs are beautiful. (In case you can't get to those posts on Ricky and Alex's site, there's also a picture of the quilt here.)


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Sometimes I have to show you interesting crafty things even if they're not quilts, and here's a rather unusual example: a knitted dissected frog (from Boing Boing, of all places).

And on a different note - if you're into sewing clothes, Pattern Review has 2007's Best Patterns.

Papillon

I've been looking at my "interesting" page again, and obviously flickr does not equate interestingness with page hits, because the picture with the most hits - this one - is several pages in. This is a really lovely piece and everything - it's one of my favorites, really - but that still doesn't tell me where all those hits are coming from. I'm curious, and so far flickr is not giving me the answer, darnit. It's a mystery.

Mini-quilt above by Billie Standley; based on a Dierdra McElroy pattern. (Scroll down on that page and you'll see a picture of the pattern.)

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And in unrelated quilty news... my sewing room is taking shape, at least a little bit, and there has been ironing and cutting of fabric taking place there, and I made a visit to Office Depot earlier and now there is a new lamp in it, because it was way too dark in there. There's no overhead light, and I had a couple of lamps (and my mom's small Ott-Light) but it wasn't nearly enough. The new lamp is only 18 watts, but it puts out quite a lot more light than the 13-watt Ott lamp does. I put a better bulb in one of the other lamps, too, and between the two it doesn't look so gloomy in there any more. (Oh, and it was $20 cheaper than on the website, too - I wanted instant gratification and so I didn't figure I was getting the lowest price in the world but it's sort of nice to know it could've been worse!) (And who knew that Office Depot sold Ott Lights, anyway?)

Thread

Lots of thread, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Rayon on the right, cotton on the left!

Organizing time

Between unpacking and then the holidays, and then Vegas and then the flu, I never have gotten around to doing much with the sewing room, much less actually sewing. But I've finally started feeling better this week, and it seems to be time. So I'm organizing - first thread, a whole drawer-ful of it, and now I'm working on the fabric I brought home from Mama's house. There's a lot of that, too, and I only brought home a fraction of it, at that. I'm making piles, by color, and then I'll have to merge it with the fabric I already had. It's messy enough in there already, and it's probably going to get even more messy before it gets better!

There was a lot of rayon thread - especially Robison-Anton, on those big bulky spools - and a few spools of silk, and two spools of invisible thread, which I'm sure I will never use but I hate to throw away, and then a whole rainbow of cotton - mostly Mettler. You can tell the colors Mama liked - there's a lot of green and gold, and then a lot of pastels - pink and purple, especially. And luckily a lot of beige - I really like to use neutrals for most of my piecing, anyway. Well, I sure won't need to buy thread any time soon!

Mosaics and other linky things

Pat Durbin, who makes those great mosaic quilts like the one above, has a book out: Mosaic Picture Quilts: Turn Favorite Photos into Stunning Quilts. I haven't had a chance to check the book out in person yet, but if she can show how she does her quilts, then it sounds like a great idea to me.




Also, here's Martingale's new release page - several of those sound interesting!


Upcoming quilt shows (I always wish I could go to more of these, but my travel budget is limited, and I think what with the trip to Vegas it's pretty much gone for a while.)


There's another Fab Shop Hop going on, which is a good thing - except they send out these weekly newsletters that annoy me. "Don't you just hate it when a friend tells you the ending to a movie you haven't seen yet?" they say. Yeah, like telling where the bunny is is the same as spoiling a book or a movie! It's enough to make me want to post a list of bunny locations. (Don't worry, I won't. I may be rebellious, but I'm also lazy.)

Little Flower Urchins

Another quilt that I remembered the existence of because somebody marked it as a favorite. I think this is as good a use as any of last year's Hoffman Challenge fabric, which I wasn't crazy about. (Next year's looks a bit more promising.) (And I don't mean to imply by that that I don't like this quilt, I do! It looks like something my mother might've made, actually, if she'd taken up crazy quilting. And that's a compliment.)

Quilt above made by Debra Spincic of Montgomery, Texas; from the Hoffman Challenge exhibit at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Kwanzaa Glow

Kwanzaa Glow, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

So I was out of town, and then I came home from Vegas and promptly got sick, so I have fallen down on the job, rather. But here is a Kwanzaa quilt! (Although I frankly thought it was a Hannukah quilt when I saw it.)

Quilt above made by Kit Tossmann of Kentucky; from the exhibit "Sacred Threads" at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.