Charity Challenge Quilt #3 “Hot Plate” officially complete!

I finally finished binding this quilt. Hurrah!

Hot Plate quilt

This quilt is made with dresden plates which of course inspired the name “Hot Plate.” The plates were fun to make and I am excited to try something else along those lines – but it was a lot of work. Cutting out the pieces is really tedious. I did buy a special ruler for this purpose and it helped quite a bit.

Hot Plate close up

The plate fabric is Kaffe Fasset – I bought it in a jelly roll (which probably didn’t exactly improve the tedious nature of the cutting) and loved the outer pieces…but when I unrolled it and looked at all the fabrics it was terribly disappointing. I didn’t like the fabrics together at all – it just looked like a bunch of junk! I removed the most offending pieces but there are still a few fabrics in there that I look at and think – pardon my French here, but honestly – WTF? I guess I didn’t have to use the fabrics together but my goal was completion and at the time I was just too lazy to rethink it.

Hot Plate

I can’t remember what the background fabric is. I’ve seen the honeycomb fabric out and about so it must be from a popular line. The plaid is a homespun that I picked up at the LQS for some other purpose that I’ve managed to forget. The loud KF fabrics begged me for a subdued touch so that is why I mixed it in.

Hot Plate

Anyway – I should call this quilt “Hot Plate Mess” because to me the colors and prints are pretty crazy. I do like the overall effect but I think it could have been better with other fabrics. The Husband thinks it looks graphic and bold and he is the artist around here so I guess I will be deferring to his opinion. It is more flattering than my own opinion, so…ya, I think I’ll go with it!

So here’s the current stack:
Hot Plate
Whew!

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pq, January 8th 2012 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Challenge, Charity quilts, Quilting for Charity

Pinwheels Aplenty quilt – complete!

Pinwheels Aplenty

The pinwheel quilt - complete!

So I finished it!  Actually I finished it three or four weeks ago.  I’ve been slow in getting pictures posted.  I have the tutorial mostly written up as well but I haven’t found the time yet to finish.  This quilt actually turned out very frugal for me – I spent less than $25 on new supplies and everything else used was left over from other projects.  Woot!  You can’t beat that.  It is Kaffe Fasset fabric and I love the colors.

Here are a few more pics:

We also just got back from the beach.  Here is The Husband and me living it up in the Outer Banks:

The children were there too, of course.  We had a blast…even when The Husband got the camera wet in the ocean.  Oops.  And when I lost the replacement camera.  Double oops.  But all ended well – the card from the first camera survived and we later found the new camera in the sand near a hamburger stand we went to.  Whew!

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pq, August 21st 2011 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Challenge, Charity quilts, My projects, Quilting for Charity

Bloggers’ Quilt Festival!!

Rainbows from the heart

I’ve already posted about this quilt some but I wanted to include it in the Blogger’s Quilt Festival going on over at Amy’s Creative Side. 

This quilt was made to be donated to an unnamed charitable cause.  Earlier this year I issued myself a challenge to create 6 [correction: the challenge was for 5 quilts to the guild friend - the sixth was sent to Queensland but was included in the total] charity quilts to be given to a member of my guild who had asked for kid quilts…you can read the whole dramatic story here.  Then the horrible events in Japan started to unfold and I just couldn’t stand around and do nothing.  Quilter’s Newsletter put out a call for quilts that they would send to Japan and I decided as soon as I read the post that I would be making two quilts for my April kid-charity-quilt challenge: one for my guild friend and one to send to Japan.  The one pictured here was sent to Japan, though they both look basically the same.

This quilt is special to me for a variety of reasons.  First and foremost – it reminds me of The Husband.  There is a Rolling Stones song about a woman being like a rainbow and The Husband is a huge fan.  So this quilt gives me warm fuzzies for him.  He tried to lay claim to the quilt but he already has a designated rainbowish quilt, and I had already detached myself from this one.  Second, I designed it and made it so from a little sketch I made.  It is super-gratifying to picture it, map it out, and get a result all out of your own head.  I am really proud to have created it.  And third, it means an enormous amount to me that I did something (other than throw money at the Red Cross or someone else – which is important too but sometimes I think that makes it easy to turn a blind eye) to aid people who are having such troubled times. 

I’ll soon be posting a tutorial [correction: the tutorial is posted here] about how I made this quilt.  It isn’t really a pattern, it is more of an improvisation thing.  Actually that doesn’t seem entirely accurate.  Just think of it as “loosely based” quilting.  Making this quilt was a little difficult for me mentally because while I have no problem winging it when sewing a garment I think of quilting as a more structured process. I also had to be somewhat aloof – knowing that I was giving it away meant I couldn’t get so attached that I would keep it.  It is hard sometimes to be generous but I managed to let go and send it off. 

 

Thank you for stopping by my little portion fo the Quilt Festival!!!  Make sure you visit as many quilts on the tour as you can.

Amy's Creative Side

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pq, May 13th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Quilting for Charity

D’oh!

D'oh!Thursday night I went to a guild meeting and…oh no…they are still looking for children’s quilts!  It seems one member, Millie, challenged us last summer to each make one quilt for her to give to a local organization that needs quilts for children.  That is what I started the Owl quilt for.  Then in November or December, another member, Avie, stood up and talked about the children’s quilts she had collected and given to a group.  This is where things break down for me.  If only I had written this stuff down!  After that meeting I thought I had missed Millie’s deadline (I did not remember it was Millie who had issued the challenge) and when I stumbled across the Queensland Flood appeal I re-dedicated the owl quilt to that.  Of course I am not sorry at all to have done that – the situation there was just awful and I am glad that I was able to do something.  But I felt pretty bad that I’d disappointed Millie. 

So.  What to do?  Well, one member of our group, Janice, decided that she was going to challenge herself not to make one quilt a year for Millie’s appeal – she was going to make one quilt a week.  Ho-ly Cow.  There is no way I can run with that pack.  Even though the child’s quilt can be super simple (most of Janice’s – which she delivered a big ‘ol bag of to the meeting – were made up entirely of 5 inch squares) that would take up all of my quilting time in two or three weeks to complete and I’d be behind with the very first quilt.  I should add that Janice has enlisted the help of her nieces and sister and I would not have any of that type of support to spread the work around.  Also Janice is a longarm quilter and can quilt one in about 1/2 an hour.  I’m just not that good.

Last night I woke up at 2 a.m. with a brilliant idea.  Instead of making one a week or even a month, I’ll make a new one every other month.  And I’m going to share them with you, just like I did the Owl Quilt.  I’m going to design a simple childsize quilt, sew it, quilt it, and write it up so that if you want to make a kids’ quilt that is simple and fast but is more than just squares you’ll also have a reference.  Including the Owl quilt that means I’ll create 6 charity quilts and tutorials this year. 

There it is.  My challenge to myself.  That means my next finished quilt and tutorial is due in April.  I already have an idea percolating.  I hope that some of you might find it useful.  Thanks for the challenge, Millie!

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pq, February 19th 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Challenge, Quilting for Charity, Tutorial