Insane, or Bewitched?

Compare and contrast:

(Whole thing is here)



I just happened to notice that these two were the same pattern because I was looking at the flickr activity page - but two different people had favorited them, so I'm not sure if one (or both) of them had caught it or if it was just a coincidence!

"Bewitched Bothered & Bewildered" (top) made by V. Wayne Sneath and Jim Sherburne, of Illinois; IQF 2007. "Insane Sampler" (bottom) made by Mary Ellen Zeitz of South Windsor, Connecticut; from IQF 2006.


And another thing: someone posted on one of my Livejournal groups this morning saying that one of these quilts (the one on the left, I believe) was stolen a week or so ago. That's sad, and sort of odd. Is there something particularly valuable about that particular quilt?

Bubble Bath Day

Contemplate this quilt for a little while:


It took me a while to puzzle out how it was made. It's very clever. The basic block seems to actually just be 4 small Dresden Plate-type blocks put together. (Or maybe four Dresden Plate - uh, what do you call them, strips? appliqued onto one backing. Aren't they usually appliqued down rather than pieced, anyway?) Then the blocks are offset just a little, so there's a little set in square once in a while to make that fit. But it comes out looking entirely different. I love it. (Plus these are so my colors.)

Quilt above made by Wendy Hill of Oregon; entered in the category Innovative Pieced, Small at IQF 2007.

What's on my mind

Free Spirit "Freshcut" by Heather Bailey, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

One thing that's (still) on my mind is pink fabric. Somebody linked to this Freshcut fabric - which I've been eyeing for ages, anyway - at On the Farm Quilting for $7.49/yard. Which is, what, about a dollar cheaper than it is most places? So of course I bought several.

Another thing on my mind is jelly rolls:



like this one from the Fat Quarter Shop.

The thing is, I have yet to buy a jelly roll. Thirty dollars seems awfully expensive - that's 75 cents a strip! was what I kept thinking. Then I did the math. 40 strips - I'm assuming they're selvage to selvage, can somebody confirm that that's actually used one? at 2-1/2 inches a strip means you're getting 100 inches of fabric, or a little over 2-3/4 yards. And that comes out to $10.80 a yard, which isn't at all outrageous. (Bearing in mind, for one thing, that the going price for fat quarters comes out to $10 a yard.) I don't know about you, but I can't cut selvage-to-selvage strips with absolutely no waste. And of course you're getting all these different fabrics, too! So I have changed my tune about jelly rolls, a bit.

The other quilting thing that's on my mind is a little sensitive - I'm afraid of hurting the feelings of somebody that's made one of these quilts. But I'm going to say it anyway. I just don't get the popularity of patterns like Yellow Brick Road and Turning 20. They're not all that incredibly cute. And I'm thinking, why spend money on a pattern for something that... random? I would rather just come up with it on my own. But then I'm not really a pattern-oriented (or for that matter, direction-oriented) person anyway, and I know a lot of people are. And some people aren't comfortable coming up with their own pattern. I guess it's just one of those things you have to chalk up to differences in the way people's brains work!

"Fabulous Florals"

Plumples, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

So remember when we were looking at this quilt of my mom's and trying to figure out what the pattern was? Well, apparently this is the pattern - I found it in her stuff. They also have a (Tripod) website - here.