"Every Stinkin' Seam"

Yup, I'm stitching in the ditch, "every stinkin' seam."  

While spending about 8 hours unpicking my crummy attempts at fmq this weekend, I watched Cindy Needham's EXCELLENT Craftsy class on free-motion quilting. 

She makes a great case for stitching in the ditch, and you remember it with her mantra,

"every stinkin' seam."  

So, that's what I'll be doing every stinkin' evening this week!

Scrappy Trip!

Here she is, all 64 blocks and 96" square!  She's the largest quilt I've ever made.

It's made from Bonnie Hunter's excellent tutorial.

These blocks are SO much fun to make.

Someone said they're like eating potato chips--addictive!

Since this quilt can include "everything," it's a great way to survey your stash.

I found that I have plenty of dotty fabrics, but I'm short on graphics.  

I'm also short on light lights and dark darks.  So now I've got reasons to shop!

There are plenty of bloopers and things I could change, 

but I'm happy with it and can't wait to get it quilted and on the bed!  

There's a Flickr group where you can see many more of these quilts here.

It's National Polka Dot Day!

According to quilt historian, Barbara Brackman, January 22 is National Polka Dot Day!

So I went digging in the cupboard for a few polka dot flimsies to celebrate the day.  

This one was made a few years ago in a class with Freddy Moran.  

It's the "Liberated Wedding Ring" pattern in the book, Freddy and Gwen Collaborate Again.

This one was made around 2007 in a class with Kaffe Fassett.  

Both of these quilts are made of all dots or dot-like prints.

I'd be hard-pressed to find a quilt in my house that doesn't include a number of dotty fabrics! 

Here's a block from my design wall today.

And here's a sneak peek of Scrappy Trip--half sewn together!

(Excuse the crummy photos.  I took the flimsies outside to photograph.  

It's so cold, my lens fogged up!)

Happy Scrappy Trips

I know, I know, you've seen plenty of these out here in Blogland.   

But these blocks are SO much fun to make with this tutorial from Bonnie Hunter!

I'm going to make about twice this many blocks, and I'm playing around with layout.

I've been making the blocks in batches of four.  A batch takes less than two hours.  

This actually eats up stash!

Next one:  RED!

Tiki Room

"Tiki Room"  70" x 54"

There was a bar called the "Tiki Room" where I grew up in Oregon.  I remember longing to go inside, but I was too young.  Once I became of age, the attraction had faded, and I never entered the place.  It's gone now.  But my childhood fantasy is still alive.  

I imagined it all beaded curtains,

Hula girls,

Tiki statues and surfer boys.

It's made with this "Crumbler" template, which I won in a drawing from Kathy.  She's making a really lovely quilt with the same template and her reproduction fabrics.   

I've been checking out my designs with the black and white function in iPhoto.  It helps me achieve light/dark balance and see where I've got "muddy" places that need to be corrected.  Really helpful!