You might need sunglasses...

Hello? Anyone there?

I'm still here. Just haven't had much to talk about. I finished my Carolina Fall (nee Christmas) quilt. It will go off to the quilter this week. I'll put up a picture when it gets back.

The other project (sigh) hit a snag. I wadded it up in a ball and threw it in a corner. I hiss at it when I walk by. We still haven't made up yet. My advice to you...If you're making a quilt with two alternating blocks, make the more complicated one first. I made the easy ones (snowballs) first. The pieced blocks didn't come out quite the right size and the two blocks don't match up. The odds of this happening increase exponentially if you only have just enough fabric to make them.

So, I switched and worked on a couple of easier projects. First off an Amy Butler whirlygig quilt. This was just for fun, and it had the added bonus of using up some of those yards of turquoise I ordered. There's a line of templates to make the block without having to cut wedges. I put this together in a couple of afternoons. And, look! I even mitered the corners. I suppose I could have matched the stripes, but oh well.

Ok, Sunglasses time....

The other quilt I pulled out and finished just yesterday was my Good Gyrations quilt. This is from a class I took from Cara Gulati (www.doodlepress.com). I chose a more extreme color combination, shall we say?

This too, will head to the quilter's this week. This was a really fun pattern to do. Definitely one I would make again.

So, a question for everyone, assuming there's an everyone out there, and you even made it this far...Is there anyone out there actually reading my blog? And if you're related to me, you don't count. If you wouldn't mind, leave a comment. Just a "Hi, I read your blog" is fine. I haven't gotten all those fancy counter things to work yet. I'll have to get my people on that.

Talk to you soon. Sooner than last time, I promise.

Ann

I was going to call this post, "The world's slowest quilter"

...but I realized I can't. I'm slowest when it involved cutting. I've been working on my Carolina Fall quilt. I finished Step 4 earlier this week.

I got to the end of sewing pairs of blocks and realized I was 3 triangles short (sigh), but I cut them out anyway to finish this step. Even though it was around midnight.

Then I moved on to Step 5. I had no reason to believe that it would go any quicker than the previous steps, but it didn't involve cutting soo....

Bam! After sewing just on Friday and Saturday, I flew through Step 5 and am now halfway through Step 6. If I get some good sewing time in today, I should have all the blocks done and the top pieced minus borders.

I realized this quilt is a little like making a suit jacket. When you make a jacket, you do a lot of structural sewing, top stitching, seam finishing etc. You spend a lot of time sewing, but it doesn't look like you're getting anywhere; there's nothing that actually resembles a jacket. Then all of a sudden you finish three seams and everything comes together and you have a jacket. That's how this feels to me.

The best part of this quilt is that it's made entirely out of stash. The bad news it that the pile of oranges doesn't seem any smaller. Hmmm....I wonder if it's breeding in there.

Later!

A

Chicago quilt festival Day 3

Hi Everyone!

My third class at the Chicago quilt festival was by Charlotte Angotti. This year's mystery quilt was called Bliss and it's in dreamy shades of sea and sand. It finishes around 70" square. I didn't purchase her border print. It just didn't do anything for me, so I'll need to find something else. Sewing went quite well til the end of the afternoon. There are two blocks and I switched pieces between them. Ugh. Got them ripped apart, but not sewn back together.

If you ever have a chance to take a mystery class from Charlotte, I really recommend it. Yes, they're expensive because you buy the kit. The class fee for this was $165, but if I were to buy the fabrics for the class I would spend that anyway. She uses blocks and colors in ways that really stretch my skills. I can't wait to get this one done.

Ta!

a

Chicago quilt festival Day 2

Day two dawned bright and early. I was way tired from covering the entire show on Thursday night, and, of course, having to carry all my purchases. :) The class on Friday was Floral Snowball taught by Kaffe Fassett and Liza Prior Lucy. I have a ton of pictures, so be warned. Here's the project we were working on:

First off, we cut squares. Almost everybody had different color schemes. It was fascinating to see what everyone brought. We did that til noon, then we chose the color that would make the snowball block. Just look what everyone came up with.

This lovely specimen below is mine. I probably won't make it bed-sized, but it is fun fabric. I'm planning to use the fabric on the top right as the border. To make it queen size you need 600 some small squares. That's more cutting than i want to do.

A good portion of my fabrics came from Glorious Color which is run by Liza. I ordered on a Wednesday and received my fabric on Saturday. Fabulous service. There's also a neat feature on their website, "created by a math geek out of Berkeley" according to Liza. It's color ribbons. Click on a ribbon and it shows you what fabrics are in that range. Really fantastic for matching fabrics. Go check it out.

I'll update as I work on the quilt, but it's not the top of the list right now. Fun fabrics though. Anyway it was a great class. More later

a

Chicago quilt festival Day 1

Hey All,

Sorry it's been so long since the last post. I'm still on my quest to clean closets and making good progress. I also finished my taxes! Hooray! Since I just finished 2008's in October, getting 2009's in without filing an extension feels really great.

I've been attending the International Quilt Festival in Chicago the last three days. I had some fabulous classes, bought too much fabric, and chatted with many wonderful people. The sad part is that the Festival won't be back next year. After 8 years in Chicago, they're moving to Cincinnati. :( Have to save up to go to Long Beach instead. :)

This year the show felt a lot like their heart just wasn't in it. There were half the quilt show entries there were last year, and about a quarter of the display was antique quilts from their collections which I do love looking at. None of the new quilts really grabbed me. So no pictures there. The vendor area seemed about the same size, but everyone was more spread out. That meant there were fewer vendors, but it was easier to browse.

My first class was Wednesday and it was Glorified Nine Patch taught by John Flynn. This is a 9 patch with curved piecing.

One of the best things about John's classes is that the kits are pre-cut by laser. They are accurate to 1/100th of an inch. Therefore if the pieces don't match up it's your own dang fault. The picture is the sample he brought. My kit is batiks with a light background. There were also kits with a black background.

It was a surprisingly easy block to do, but I'm not overly intimidated by curves. My first block was kind of a mess so I'll take it apart. All the rest I finished laid perfectly flat. /smug

Here's a photo of John ironing. He says he doesn't do shirts, only flat things.

John and his daughter Kate also provide a laser cutting service. You send them your fabric and a pattern and they'll cut it for you. I've had two cut and it's so nice. It's also very reasonable. Cutting isn't my favorite part and quite frankly, I'm not very good at it. It's so nice to open a box and just start sewing. My two kits were $50-60 each. They have a month lead time, so plan ahead. They also cut all the kits for Charlotte Angotti's classes. I took that on Saturday, so you'll have to wait to hear about that. Go check out their website at www.flynnquilt.com. They also have pre-made kits for many of their patterns.

Stay tuned for day 2.

Road trip, Part II

My last stop for the day, well other than dinner, was Bloomington's newest yarn shop In a Yarn Basket. (www.inayarnbasket.com). They are about 10-15 minutes south of downtown in a shopping center on the west side of Walnut. I didn't take a picture of their sign, but it has a really cute chicken on it.

They have a terrific selection of colors and styles of yarn and many fiber blends. They're really nicely arranged, too. All the wools are together; all the cottons are together. The colors are also laid out well too. Each section looks like a rainbow. These two photos are of the main room. There's also a room to the back that has more yarn and functions as a classroom.

I really liked the way they had their patterns displayed. They were in sheet protectors in pockets on the wall facing out. It was very easy to browse. Much nicer than putting them all in 3-ring binders. I'm not going to pick up a binder and page through it especially an overstuffed one, though I do understand that it's easier space-wise. The eye buys, and it worked here.

Here's what I picked up.

I found a couple of patterns that look easy enough for me. Yes, I'm pushing past just doing scarves and other flat items and trying something that requires fitting and gauge, and even (gasp) sleeves. I'm starting with the shell, so sleeves will come along later. The yarn is a very nice cotton that will be perfect for summer.

Now lest you think I'm just burying myself in yarn, I did finish two projects from the yarn I got two weeks ago. I've also started the third one. However I can't find any of my needlepoint needles to weave the ends in, and you don't get picture til they are completely finished. I know I have a half dozen or more of the things, so I refuse to buy any more. It means I need to sort through my knitting box and drawers and project bags which is on the list of things to do anyway.

That's the fun part of the trip. The less fun part was driving back yesterday. It was 70 and sunny when we left and 35 and snowing when we got home. Ick. I don't think it froze enough to zap any shoots or tree buds up here at least.

I hope it isn't snowing where you are and that you, too, got to fondle some fabric for National Quilting Day.

Ta!

A

Road trip, Or What I Did for National Quilting Day. Part I

Mr. Belfry was travelling for work this weekend. I tagged along to play tourist. Our destination: Bloomington, Indiana. I had hoped spring would be further along there, but alas their winter has been much like our own. These are all of the daffodils I saw. All 6 of them or so. If I'd realized sooner that the Indiana quilt show was earlier in March, I would have pressed to go that weekend instead. However it was spring break while we were there. There is no better time to visit a college town than during breaks or summers.

The trees were just starting to bud and it was wonderfully warm and sunny.

The university does do some wonderful landscaping though, so I did get to see a little spring color.

Of course the color you're all really interested in seeing was indoors. :) My first stop was Yarns Unlimited in Fountain Square Mall on the south side of the square. (www.yarnsunlimited.com)

They have a really nice selection of wools and wool blends. They had some great shop samples of felted bags. I always enjoy seeing their selection of specialty yarns, too. They've recently (like in the last few years) added fibers that are locally dyed. Go look at their website for better pictures and a class schedule. The people in the shop are very friendly and willing to help with any project you have questions on. And, of course, I just love a shop that understands that you need to touch every skein in the store before you make up your mind.

They've also rearranged extensively since I was there last. There seems to be a lot fewer weaving supplies and the rest of the yarn has expanded into that space. Everything is better organized and easier to browse. It seems more airy.

I came home with these two skeins:

The one on the left is a hand-dyed rayon blend. The one on the right is a hand-spun silk by Tilli Thomas. It's more dark pink than red. Both of these will become scarves or neck-wraps of some kind.

Stop number 2 for the day was Bloomington's newest quilt shop, Shiisa quilts. They're a little tricky to find if you aren't used to navigating in an area that's not laid out on a grid system. Check Google maps or mapquest before you go. It's well worth the time.

You can see the shopping center from the main highway down and on the west-side. Inside was a wonderful selection of fabrics. It was just a riot of color.

They had a nice selection of Moda and Westminster fabrics (among others), a good selection of notions and thread, and a nicely displayed selection of books. They had a lot of small kits made up and many display samples. They also had some non-traditional quilting fabrics, silks and kimono remnants and some ethnic fabrics. Everything was nicely arranged and not over-stuffed. There was an ok selection of pre-cut rolls, but they added some of their own pre-cuts to the menu, both charm size and rolls.

I purchased most of the fabrics I need for my K. Fassett class next month, plus a charm pack of Oz by Sanae. I also found a really neat pale orange fabric from an Australian designer I've never heard of that I think will go nicely with the Fassett fabrics.

That's all for part I. I found a new yarn shop that I'll tell you about in the next post.

Stay tuned!