But, I don’t really chat much with those folks.  And I’ve been missing having a sewing buddy.  To that end, I’ve opted to join some swaps!  Years ago I used to participate in swaps through several lists on yahoogroups.  I’m still on those lists but over the years they have become less and less and less active.  I’ve done a few other swaps, in the mean and in between time, via the Quilt Art mailing list and some ladies on there.  But I think I was missing the connection part, where you get to talk about what you are working on and show them pictures and, well, make friends.

Imagine my shock to discover a booming community of swappers on flickr?  I mean, what a strange place to encounter this kind of activity.  And yet, it’s strangely fitting.  I feel a little like the last one to arrive at a party and they started the games without me.  Inserting myself feels complicated and uncomfortable, but I think I’ve found a few groups where I feel less complicated and uncomfortable.  But anyway…

The first swap I’m taking part is a group that swaps blocks monthly: Nubees.  There’s a website and such coming soon.  I’ve already chosen my fabrics and the block I’ll be making for each of my swap partners:

The block in the center is using my colors (purple, orange, teal & yellow) and the fabrics around the edges are the fabrics I’ve chosen for my partners in their selected color pallets. The block is “Envy” from Modern Blocks, which I received as a Christmas gift this year.

Next up, I’ll be participating in the Doll Quilt Swap cycle 12!.  It’s a blind swap – you make and send a small “doll” quilt to someone  who doesn’t know who you are and you receive the same in return.  I received my name this morning, so now I have to start stalking my partner and find out what they like!    I’m very excited about this one.  My quilt wall could use some serious refreshing.  That one is due to be sent on April 2ndish.  Expect to see some blog posts about it.  I have nothing to show for that one yet, but I’ll get there soon!

Way back in the Spring, I saw on Craft a post about a totally awesome Spock quilt. Event though there was a tutorial on how to design the quilt, I thought, gosh, I wouldn’t know where to start.  I showed it to some co-workers who thought it was awesome and that it would be a great gift for our boss, who is a Trekkie extraordinaire.  But ethics being what they are, it really wasn’t appropriate for me to make it for him.

Fast forward to Octoberish when our boss announced his retirement in early December.  I immediately thought of the quilt and did a search to find the post again. Lo & behold, not only did I find the original post, but I found that Carol, the brains behind the blog Funthreads, had started a really amazing, simple to follow, quilt-a-long!  It made the whole project a lot less daunting.

Carol’s quit-a-long makes a twin-sized quilt in eleven parts. I thought a wall-hanging would be much more appealing to our recipient (and also easier for me to complete!), so I printed out each week of the quilt-a-long and wrote in new measurements for the pieces.  If you want to change the size of a quilt pattern, do not skip this step!  Have you ever tried to halve or double a recipe without re-writing the ingredient measurements? I ended up having to triple a batch of cupcakes just recently because I thought I could do the doubling math in my head as I went!  When halving quilt measurements, be sure to take into account the 1/2 inch for seam allowances. Remove the 1/2 inch from the original measurement, divide the resulting number in half, then add the half inch back in.  This will give you the correct (finished) measurement and your full 1/4 inch seam allowances all around.  Also remember that when you halve both the width and height you are essentially making a quilt a quarter of the size of the original.

I free-motion quilted my version of this pattern only in the black/dark parts to make Spock’s face stand out more.  I also stuck mainly with white/cream and black/grey for the darks and lights.  I have to say I am exceptionally proud of this project. Not only was my boss thrilled with his quilt, but I really enjoyed making it – always key.  I’m looking forward to designing my own quilt next, using the Funthreads tutorial – I’m thinking a Dr. Who quilt in TARDIS blue next?

Check it out! Number and 1 and number 2 of my nanoSEWmo projects!

The pattern for this baby quilt and pillow is a Wonky Rail Fence, using the Stack-and-Whack method. The backing material is a solid light blue that I had on hand.  I also used a white/blue ombre rayon thread for quilting.  It adds some extra sparkle to the quilt, I think. The pillow has a simple ruffle around the edge and an envelope style back.

To be honest, I’ve had this quilt top on hand for a while waiting for the right time, the right baby and the right skill set. My free motion skills are definitely improving.  It’s tough to keep your loop-de-loops even, let me tell you. But it is so worth the effort. The look on the Mommy-to-be’s face made it so.

Congratulations Diana, Stephen & your little Rock Star Monkey! I can’t wait to meet him.

The blocks have been randomly pieced around each monster patch – there will be enough for 2 baby quilts when I’m done.  This kind of piecing goes quickly until the end when you start measuring & trimming.  For me, it also produces a lot of waste, there are lots of little edges that need to be trimmed and they pile up.  Still, I love the look.

Finally, something new and totally without strings attached! It’s not often that I have time to make something purely for the joy of making it. A while back (well over a year), I took a class at our local fabric store, G-street Fabrics, in something I’d been wanting to learn about for a long time: Kaleidoscope quilts.  Most quilt designs I can look at and deconstruct and understand basically how it was done.  But there are tricks to creating a kaleidoscope design that I just did not know.  I was lucky enough to take a class taught by a master of this type of quilt design, Nancy Fève. 

I started on a quilt during the class with this wild Asian style crysanthymums print and it’s still not done.  I think it intimidates me a little because it is SO LARGE.  So I decided to start on a smaller one.  I’ve been buying fabrics for this type of quilt since taking the class and I have quite the stockpile.  You need at least 8 repeats of the pattern on the fabric and that can add up to a lot of yardage!  I decided to start with a smaller, closer print of robins and cherry blossoms on a light blue background.  I got several octagons put together between yesterday and today and I am pleased to report that I remember most of the tricks.

The smaller, closer print gives you instant impact as opposed to the Asian design I was originally working with.  In the larger print with a 24 inch repeat the variation happens a lot more slowy – it will give you amazing impact when the whole (very large) quilt is done, but until then, you’re sort of left in the dark (be sure the check out Nancy’s quilts in the link above to see what I’m talking about).  The smaller print I’m working with now and smaller octogons I’m creating provide instant impact and are much more suited to me and my sewing style. 

I think this one will make a perfect large throw pillow for a couch or a bed once I have it all put together!

Be sure to bring a quilt.

So I have these two friends.  And they are good friends.  And for the last couple years they’ve been living in Frankfurt, Germany.  I missed them. A lot. Last May, I guess it was, we got a call from Frankfurt that they were finally going to get married!  Hip, hip hooray! 

In September, they returned stateside for a short stint and began planning.  May would be the date, California would be the place; in a lavendar field not far from Davis.   My husband and I were asked to do a reading:

i carry your heart with me
by e. e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Fast forward now to January when the bride requested that I make not one, not two, but THREE quilts for the wedding ceremony.  What could I do but oblige?  I mean, these are goooooood friends, after all.

We shopped for fabric, designed, cut and sewed together two lovely, traditional (in pattern only) table runners, but the pièce de résistance was left up to me – the altar decoration. 

I looked at tons and tons and tons of pictures of California and the rolling hills and lavender fields in California and even in France.  I printed out my favorites, cut them apart and pasted them back together again to make what I felt was an interesting, if not quite accurate, representation of the wedding venue.  And then I re-made it in fabric.  And the whole time I was sewing, I was singing … 

“If you’re going to san Francisco/Be sure the wear some flowers in your hair…”

I didn’t, by the way, wear flowers in my hair.  Feathers worked better with my dress.

Wind Moon

Hare Moon, Seed Moon, Moon of budding Trees,
Let fertile magic sprout within me,
Kali, Hathor, Ishtar, Bast,
This abundant, creative cycle now be cast.
-Dallas Jennifer Cobb

Living in the DC Metro area, there is one thing that you just cannot escape from in the early part of April – the Cherry Blossoms.  The delicate, ephemeral quality of these of these blooms attracts me…I don’t know what it is about ephemera, but I love it.  Maybe it’s just the sound of the word itself…I wrote a post a while back in my personal blog all about my love of ephemera…when I have a little time and some patience, I will sort through those posts and link to it here.  But anyway, I digress.  In early April this year, in the DC Metro area, when we were firmly in the grip of the Cherry Blossom frenzy, that is when the full moon fell.  Known as the Wind Moon or the Pink Moon it wasn’t just apropos that the idea for this quilt include cherry blossoms.  They are the herald of spring for us, after a very long spell of cold, dry, brown grass and barren trees and things stirring IN the Earth, but very little on the surface of the Earth that we can see.  The cherry blossoms are an explosion and a celebration of life after the winter has ended.

Wind Moon detail
Originally uploaded by alyson_olander

I quilted this piece with the swoops and swirls and spirals that you would see if wind were visible, then used thread painting techniques to create the tree branch that passes in front of the moon.  I clustered beads together on the branch as they would appear on an actual cherry tree and added swirls of beads flying from the tree as the flower petals get caught up in the wind.  The beads are a combination of small and large seed beads purchased from the craft store; and small & large Swarovski crystals and sequins, purchased from Accessories of Old in Bethesda, MD.

Storm Moon (Working Title)

Seed Moon, Plow Moon, Moon of Winds,
Illusion ends as true growth begins,
Hecate, Athene, Astarte, Morrigan,
In pure inspiration the cycle begins again.
-Dallas Jennifer Cobb

Once again, I was left in the dark; clouds filled the sky on the night of the full moon and there was nothing for me to gaze at in order to find my inspiration.  I had to imagine it all. 

I find that I am generally fascinated by water color quilts & the idea of taking the traditional quilting methods and weaving them into an art piece.  I love that I can create a piece from tiny little squares of fabric that give you the impression of texture.  Have you ever looked at a stormy sky?  At first glance, it seems like it is all one color, but there are shadows and tints and shades hiding in those clouds.  The same goes for the moon, it is not one solid color either.  That is the idea that I am attempting to convey by piecing both the sky and the moon with tiny 1 inch squares, the texture of a stormy sky and the true face of the full moon.

The piece is quilted using three colors of thread in a style usually used to convey the impression of water – here it is also used to convey water, just in a different form.

A close friend of mine found an local interior decorator who was moving offices/going out of business/changing things up (we’re not quite clear exactly what the situation is) and was invited to take a look at the stuff that the interior decorator was getting rid of. She was astonished to find that ”stuff” included ROOMS full of fabric: samples, yardage, upholstery, silk, cottons…

My friend kindly invited me to join her yesterday for some free S.E.X. (if she knew that that is what it is called, I think she would unfriend me immediately) and I happily agreed, though I have to admit I was a touch skeptical. We arrived, and the decorator informed us that we were last on her priority list, first being her staff, second being charity and third, us. This was FINE WITH ME.

The fabric selection was astounding. Being a quilter, I could happily take even the small sample-sized fabric squares. By the time I left, I had 3 trash bags FULL of fabric & even a number of beautiful trims, and they STILL hadn’t finished clearing out the back room. Of course, it turns out that the fabrics I really wanted were in the back of the back room. My wonderfully, amazingly, awesomely fantastic friend volunteered to go back today and pack up even more fabric for me, along with some pillow forms and other wonderful things.

Last night I cut open my garbage bags and sat in my living room sorting fabric.  Quilters cottons, tiny pieces, medium pieces, yardage, shears, other, and trims.  I have ideas for about 50% of it. 

Keep your eyes out for some fabulous carpet bags and vintage style baby quilts to appear in my etsy shop soon!

Quickening Moon: Seedling Ambition

Hunger Moon, Wild Moon, Ice Moon stealth,
in quiet preparation I love my self,
Brigit, Persephone, Diana, Kuan Yin,
Help to cleanse and heal what’s within.
-Dallas Jennifer Cobb

In February, I watched for the moon for days before and days after the after the actual full moon event, to no avail.  The sky, for days, was completely shrouded in clouds; not even a peek at a star could be seen.  I imagine before the modern days of electric lights or even the earlier gas powered lights, these nights would have been very, truely black.

The Quickening is when tree sap begins to flow again and the Earth starts to awaken.  Each year, there are seeds that sprout too early while their brothers and sisters sleep just a little deeper down in the dirt.  This quilt is about those ambitious seeds, dreaming of the coming growing season, and jumping the gun, awakening too early.

Three little seeds (apple) are nestled within their own little full moons, but one has jumped the gun, so excited by his ambitious dreams that he popped out a little bit too early. I machine embroidered the tiny seedling onto its moon first, then attached each of the 3 moons to the quilt.  I free motion quilted the piece being careful not to let the quilting lines touch the seeds that were still ‘sleeping’.  Finally, I attached the seeds and tiny glass seed beads to give the impression of stars in the sky.

This piece will be shown at Artomatic 2009, but will not be offered for sale on Etsy—it has already found a permanent home.