February Donation Blocks

I am really enjoying making these 16 patch/postage stamp blocks for the BAMQG Charity Quilt project.The beneficiary of our quilts is the Lucille Packard NICU. Apparently, they use the quilts (and other kinds of blankets) to cover the incubators and keep out the light. Each baby who leaves receives a quilt or afghan or other kind of blanket to take home.

I take as many kits, which consist of 16 2.5″ squares, as I want and sew them together into 16 patch blocks. Last time I only took one, but this time I took 4, which was all the red kits available.

They made great leaders and enders and I really was able to put the blocks together very quickly.

Definition: A gift or a present is the transfer of something without the expectation of receiving something in return. Although gift-giving might involve an expectation of reciprocity, a gift is meant to be free. In many human societies, the act of mutually exchanging money, goods, etc. may contribute to social cohesion. Economists have elaborated the economics of gift-giving into the notion of a gift economy. By extension the term gift can refer to anything that makes the other happier or less sad, especially as a favor, including forgiveness and kindness.

gift basket

Present

“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.” Eleanor Roosevelt

Birthday gift

gift bag

Christmas gift

“We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it.” – John Lennon

gift wrapping

gift tax

gift registry

Give the Gift of Music – iTunes ad

gift card

“Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.” -Buddha

gift box

“Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.” – Albert Einstein

Please post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog, and how your work relates to the other responses.

The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. Are you already a member? I created that spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses. Please join and look at all of the great artwork that people have posted.

Creative Prompt Response #125: Dark

The angle is off a bit, which put me off adding many more details. I have to ask my mom how to make it better next time. See what you can make of the original prompt.

As usual, I started my Fabric of the Year 2011. I made good progress, but I did not finish.

Before I left for the Retreat, I spent time organizing the patches into color families and then from light to dark. Normally, I figure out the size of the finished piece and do more organizational stuff. No time this year and it was fine.

Once at the Retreat, I spent a lot of time – all day Friday – arranging the color gradations. I got opinions from others about the placement of certain patches. I used my camera to look at the patches in a different way and it was a useful tool in my arsenal of work. Above you can see the progression. The top left is pretty soon after I put all the patches on the wall. The last photo, bottom left, is, basically, what I took home.

I had to pin and wrap the pieces in the portable design wall. I set it up in my workroom and am working on it.

I am glad of the progress I made it on it at the Retreat, but I prefer to work in my workroom. As I started work on Monday, I felt an ease come over me and the work began to go very well. I hope to be done sooner rather than later. Stay tuned.

My spot with Julie

We were in the same location as last year, which has a separate building in which we are able to sew.

Other sewing space

This was my view as I sewed. Reva does wonderful work and it was wonderful to watch her, Sue and Robin’s work evolve.

Reva's Black & White Piece

The black and white piece is made from the fat quarter bundle Reva won from the prizes we got from Fabricworm.

Robin's Blooming 9 Patch

Robin’s Blooming 9 Patch was made from Kaffe Fassett fabrics. I liked looking at it. I like the pink.

Robin's Blooming 9 Patch 2

Robin added some 4 patches on the ends to make the piece a bit longer.

Sue's Scrap Quilt

Sue half square triangle scrap quilt is the kind of project I like to do on the Retreat. Sue had the blocks done and thought to do the rest at home. We encouraged her to use Robin’s design wall to finish the piece. She did so and made good progress. She wanted to use up as many scraps as she could and I think that she did well. Sue is making this quilt for her bed.

Maureen's work

I think the pink fabric in the middle left looks like the leaves a tree with the trunk being the piece right below. I mentioned it and Maureen said that we all see what we want to see.

Julie's work

Julie's Calendar Piece

Julie's Baggo Piece

Julie made a lot of progress on various pieces. She started some and made progress on others. I was very impressed with her progress.

The Baggo piece is from a challenge where each person receives a bag of supplies from another and makes something out of it. I was particularly taken with the Baggo piece’s eye stamps. I was even more impressed when Julie told me she carved them herself. I really like the images and encouraged her to make more and sell them. I would be first in line for a set although I don’t do much stamping.

She quilted and bound this piece. She was irritated at the binding, which tinkled every time she worked on it, because of the bells she had added. I told her to stop and do something else in between. By the end of the weekend, the binding was done and Julie was not gnashing her teeth.

Julie

We went out to dinner on Saturday night together, which was fun. We had the most wonderful waiter who was kind, didn’t complain about any special requests and gave us each individual bills.

Split Rectangle Nine Patch #41

This is similar to a nine patch, but split with rectangles in four of the blocks. You must use two different fabrics in the split patches and they two fabrics should have a lot of contrast.

Rotary cutting directions for the Split Rectangle Nine Patch are posted.

If you have made blocks or a quilt from these patterns, please post a link in the comments section of the relevant block or on the AQ Block-a-Long Flickr group. I would love to see what you have made.

Creative Prompt Response #138

I like to think that I am writing a story with my drawings and, as such, one drawing is sometimes not enough for a scene. This response is related to #131: Hills.

I used the Inktense pencils my mom gave me. I thought about add a bit of water to make the sunrise more watercolor-y, but didn’t want to chance it with the kind of paper in the drawing book.

Read the original prompt and see what comes to your mind.

Creative Prompt Response #137: Baby

When I decided on this word for the week, I was thinking of the New Year and how it is often depicted as a baby. When I went to respond to the prompt, I could only think of the large prams that one sees in London. Mine looks large enough for quintuplets, but perhaps they will bring use a good year.

Definition: Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate (or craniate) animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups. Most fish are ectothermic (“cold-blooded”), allowing their body temperatures to vary as ambient temperatures change, though some of the large active swimmers like white shark and tuna can hold a higher core temperature.^[1][2] Fish are abundant in most bodies of water. They can be found in nearly all aquatic environments, from high mountain streams (e.g., char and gudgeon) to the abyssal and even hadal depths of the deepest oceans (e.g., gulpers and anglerfish). At 32,000 species, fish exhibit greater species diversity than any other class of vertebrates.^[3]

aquarium

fish tank

fish sandwich

freshwater fish

plenty of fish

fishy

fish recipes

fish species

fish games

San Francisco Fish Company

clown fish

Fly fishing

Babelfish

Mary Poppins: Close your mouth, please, Michael. We are not a codfish. (quote)

fish supplies

The Fish

fishing gear

take me fishing

old fishing hole

Big Fish (2003 movie)

fishing

Did you add links to your art? Contributed to the Flickr Group? Have fun and link to your responses! Ask a friend to join, too! You can do the prompts together.

Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog, and how your work relates to the other responses.

The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. Are you already a member? I created that spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses. Please join and look at all of the great artwork that people have posted. Post yours and get kudos!

Creative Prompt Response #133: Green

I think I have started a little mini-series within my series of responses. This image is related to a previous one for CPP #101 : Pink.

Creative Prompt Response #140: Birthday

In responding to this prompt it occurred to me that just drawing something was not the point and that I needed to, in fact yearned to, immerse myself in the drawing. I found that drawing the details of the cake took my mind away from the place I sat.

Front of Show

Road to California is a nice comfy sort of show, but more like a large guild show than “one of the largest quilt events on the West Coast”. Also, there were a lot of vendors. I would say 2/3s of the space was for vendors.

Eleanor Burns

Speaking of vendors, Eleanor Burns was there. I actually saw her doing her demonstrations! I chatted with her a little bit in the course of a humming bird demo she was doing. She is not the stereotypical haughty celebrity. She was very nice, smiled for everyone who wanted to take a photo and chatted amiably. She is obviously well schooled to being ‘on’, because I saw her continue to smile and demonstrate while listening to someone who whispered a question into her ear.

Quiltin' Cousins

The majority of the floor space was given over to vendors and the vendor representation was very good. Not only were there vendors I hadn’t seen before, but the vendors were cheerful. I find the vendors at PIQF to be quite surly, so this was a nice change. I was pleased to see Quiltin’ Cousins from Pismo Beach. Shawn, the owner, was really nice and friendly and we went back to her booth a few times to look at everything. We met her at Long Beach in 2010.

Licorice Allsorts

I saw a 1930s book that included a pattern called Cowboy Stars (on that table with the pastel quilt on it), but I didn’t buy it. I hope to find it at the library or find the pattern in one of the Kansas City Star books or in EQ7. It has some nasty diamonds and triangles, so I don’t plan on starting it anytime soon.

TFQ bought a pattern she called “not a pineapple” that was really called Licorice Allsorts (the black background quilt on the left). It does look like a baby Pineapple and I am eager to see how it is constructed.

The quilts were good. Different types and styles than I normally see. TFQ pointed out to me, quite rightly, that the fabrics being snapped up from the vendors – yards of Kaffe Fassett and Philip Jacobs blooms, Moda charm packs and Jelly Rolls, lines of 1930s fabrics – were not represented in 90% of the quilts we saw. We walked back through the show and found the quilts made from solids, tone-on-tones, and batiks predominantly. See if you agree from the photos I took. Yes, there were a few quilts with prints, but very few. What are you doing with those lines of fabric you buy? Do you buy fabrics to collect? What are you using for your current quilt?

There was virtually no representation of Modern Quiltmakers at the show. I have to say that I have used a couple of ‘modern’ lines lately and those quilts will probably never see a show. I am, frankly, too lazy to do the paperwork to enter quilts into shows. I used to do it all the time, but the things they ask seem to pointless and a recent entry found the sponsoring organization to be so disorganized I had to essentially send my materials in twice. Still, I am not seeing the quilts like I make, so perhaps I should carve out some time to enter shows?

Road 2 Calif. Purchases

I bought a few little trinkets. I don’t buy many patterns, so that cut out a whole shopping niche. There were books in which I was really interested, but want to check out from the Library first to see if I REALLY need to add them to my collection. The fabric was a free gift from Quilt in a Day and I think the ruler will be good for making scrap blocks. TFQ bought me a bottle of buttons to replace those I have been using to embellish card holders and Christmas stockings. She said it was part of my birthday gift.

Now for the sentimental drivel. You can stop reading now if you are only interested in quilting. The show was great. Getting away was great, but I was very pleased to come to my dear DH, who picked us up from the train, had dinner ready and made a birthday cake (yes, my birthday was Friday, in case you missed it). I have been sick on and off for a month and am still hacking up a lung. If the trip hadn’t involved reservations and flights, I probably would have cancelled and stayed home. I enjoyed myself, loved the quilts, enjoyed the vendors but was very pleased to come home to my house and my family.

2012 Gift Bag

In cleaning up the fabric avalanche, I found a piece of marginally Christmas fabric. It is a little pale to be a gift bag, because eager eyes can see through it, but I made a gift bag anyway.

This made me think about my Christmas fabric and after looking through all that I had, I decided I needed to make bags out of it. My ribbon can is also overflowing. I don’t need anymore gift bags and the family is pretty well set, so I decided to try and encourage YOU to start using gift bags for your holidays. To encourage you, I will offer a prize of a variety of gift bags in November for anyone who participates. Most of them will be Christmas bags, because that is the fabric I have.

In order to participate you must:

• sew gift bags. No tape, staples or glue. Any fabric works
• post a photo to your blog or Flickr (or other easily accessible web space) of the gift bags you made
• put a comment with a link to the photo of your bag or bags in this post or a post related to the gift bag challenge. Each gift bag challenge post will say something like gift bag challenge

I will:

• keep track of participants
• post a tutorial and ideas for making gift bags
• on or around November 15, I will draw a name or names (depending on the number of gift bags I have to give away) of the winners

You may:

• enter more than once, but the limit is 10 times, which is about the number of months until November
• embellish, embroider to your heart’s content
• use any pattern you want including my tutorial

Rules subject to change without notice and my discretion.

Rectangle Nine Patch #40

This block could be interesting with as little as four fabrics and as many as eight fabrics.

Rotary cutting directions for Rectangle Nine Patch #40 are posted.

If you have made blocks or a quilt from these patterns, please post a link in the comments section of the relevant block or on the AQ Block-a-Long Flickr group. I would love to see what you have made.

Chocolate Pillowcase

Here is another small project FINISHED!I don’t buy much conversational fabrics, so I knew this was slated for a pillowcase.

I really liked the Sweet Dreams pillowcase I made for my mom. This fabric is from the same line and made me smile every time I looked at it.

The problem for me with pillowcases is finding the cuff and trim fabric. While I was tidying up the fabric avalanche, I sorted fabric and found this chocolate dot. I seem to be buying a few chocolate fabrics (I will not say brown) now and again, but not using them. The dot fabric gave me the idea  for using a strip of one of the Pat Bravo solids for the trim and within a few minutes I was on my way to having a new pillowcase.

Chocolate Pillowcase - detail

I read about a Grandma who made a fun pillowcase for her granddaughter every month during the first year she was at college. I can’t commit to that with all of the nieces and nephews who are in college at the moment. I can come up with a pillowcase or two every now and then, though. I think this will be sent off to one of the nieces as a little treat. I have a couple more fabrics for one of the other nieces and just have to find the cuff and trim fabrics. Soon.