The Color Purple

 Are there any purple lovers out there? I am. But my step-daughter M is obsessed. With that in mind, I have been on the hunt for fabric for her. She is also extremely picky. I haven't been able to find anything I thought she would love, so I decided to dye some fabric purple. 

  

I had some left over purple dye from the school Field Day t-shirt tie dying. You can read about that post here. I dyed 4 yards of Kona White with purple dye, and just a little teal. I really loved the color, but I didn't quite think it was purple enough for M, so I tried an over dye with red. 

  

Big mistake. It gave me big red splotches all over the fabric. I wasn't liking it at all.  M came over and I told her that I really tried to dye her some pretty purple fabric and it didn't quite turn out, but Amy, my dye mixer, said she had a pretty plum I could try to over dye it with. M exclaimed " NO, DON'T TOUCH IT. I LOVE IT!" Crisis averted. As long as M loves it, that's all that counts;)

 I am using this fabric for piecing modern quilt tops for Quilt Along Wednesday with Leah Day. I decided to go a different direction then the wonky squares. I am doing wonkified stars. I have been dying to make these, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. I really wanted to do a Sparkle Punch Quilt, but I'm making all the stars the same color. I think the Sparkle Punch Quilt would look better with multi colored stars. On the SPQ the stars touch. Being all one color might not be the best option. So I made 13- 12 1/2 in. star blocks....then...I ran out of the grey background fabric. 

EDIT! I forgot to mention. If any of you decide at some point to try out this block, here is something to think about. You start out with a block the same size your ray block(part of the star block) will be. then you sew on the triangles for your rays.use the bottom square block as a guide for the placement of you rays. Although this is free-form sewing, you still have to be somewhat mindful of you placement. Do NOT do as I did above. You want the ray fabric to extend past the bottom square. This is because the bottom gets chopped off, and you won't end up with a square in the end.

See how I already cut the first side off of the back and pressed open the seams? You will do the same for the other side.

So if you are short on the ray(purple) fabric, you won't be square. I hope this makes sense.

  I can't wait to see this come together.

Question for Leah . This has to do with batting. Have you ever doubled up on batting? I have noticed a few bloggers mentioning that they use 2 layers on quilts. Would this be harder to FMQ and would you need a heavy duty needle? I would think It would make for a warmer quilt, and puffier quilting. Do you have any thoughts on the subject?

Well that's all for now. I have a cool idea coming up for a pincushion that I will try out next week. I hope it turns out. If all goes well I will share. Seriously, I need more hours in the day for all the ideas I want to stitch out;)

Danielle

 

  

FMQ Challenge

Think Zendoodle. SewCalGal's FMQ Challenge for the month of June features FMQ expert Cindy Needham. You can find here tutorial here.

I started out marking my lines with a Clover white marking pen. I marked Large loops for this challenge.

Then, I filled in the loops with random designs.

Then the feathers. I experimented a bit leaving some plain, and adding to a few.I think my over all design ended up looking like ornaments on a christmas tree;)

I spent an amazing amount of time quilting this 15 in. quilt sandwich. I worked all day Saturday(8 hrs. I think)?

Sunday I worked on my Loopy line design for the Quilt Along Wednesday with Leah Day. This design was pretty easy to master. I'm sure I will be using it in future quilts as it is a quick, fun, easy design to do.

Quilt Along Wednesday's: Circuit Board

  First of all, I'm glad we're back at it! Here are my practice pieces for circuit board. I don't think it turned out to bad for a first try. I will be putting it in my QAYG FMQ quilt. I think I will opt to go this route instead of Leah's upcoming project unless the 5 blocks I have so far fit in with it. I have 3 WIP's.This one, the Craftsy BOM, and the Greek Cross quilt I just started. I am not a WIP person. I tend to do one project at a time or I get to stressed out. The last thing I want to do is bite off more than I can chew and get burned out. But, I will still follow along trying to make mine fit in with the Quilt along Wednesdays.

Craftsy BOM & Greek Cross

 I got my Craftsy BOM all caught up. I love the last block, the Greek Cross. So, I decided to make a whole quilt with this block. I am finally cutting into some of my favorite stash fabrics that I have been hording for just the right project. I have made 7 blocks so far!

My solid background fabric had a fade mark in it. In my haste to get started, i forgot to cut it out :P  It showed up in a few of my blocks. I will probably re-do these later.

I'm on the hunt for a new batting. I usually use Warm and White  because it is readily available at JoAnn's. I want to know what YOU use and why! Please, let me know!!!!! :)

New Button/Logo

This week I haven't sewed much. That does not mean my creative juices have stopped. I have been experimenting with vector art.

I have had this idea in my head for a logo. I drew it up. This is the final draft.

I then downloaded a free trial version of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.

Learning these programs was not easy, and I am sure I have more to learn, but I got the jist enough to do what I need to do. And yes, I spent HOURS, 2 whole days to be exact trying to teach myself. But here is my final product.

Here is a few others I thought about.

I really wanted the zig-zag font in this one, but It just didn't show up well enough.

I did this one on PicMonkey.

 I tried color, but decided I liked black and white better.

Sooo, I am thinking tags/labels in the future. What do you all think?

Blogger's Quilt Festival

If you haven't heard of the Blogger's Quilt Festival from Amy's Creative Side, you may very well  be living under a rock. Just in case, you can find it HERE .

This mini quilt is called Good Morning Sunshine. I originally made it to enter Ellison Lane Quilts Modern Mini Quilt Challenge.

This Quilt had a lot of "first's" for me. First Challenge entered. First FMQ quilt. First attempt at improv/curved piecing. First time using dresden ruler. First time using all solids.

It went through many changes from the original design. I live near the Ohio River, so my first draft of this quilt included a barge scene, with the barge as the focal point. I soon realized I was being over ambitious in my design given the time frame and my skills :P Edit, Edit, Edit...a bit of mulling for a few weeks and this is what I came up with.

I love this little quilt. It's a keeper. I usually end up making my quilts for other people, but this one is mine:) Sooooo, here goes again. I'm gonna give it a second chance and enter into the Blogger's Quilt Festival! :D

FMQ Challenge

Here is my May entry for this months FMQ Challenge bySewCalGal. You can find it here. The lesson this month is by my favorite FMQuilter, and teacher extraordinaire, Leah Day. If you haven't checked her out yet, do so!!! You will learn loads!

First I stitched Railroad Tracks.

Then on to Double Stippling. I enjoyed stitching both of these designs. They were just fun to do. They didn't require a lot of thought once you got the foundation stitch down. Now, I have to admit, I did cheat a little bit drawing a chalk line on the initial foundation line. I did this because for one, It's my first time stitching this design, and 2 , I have plans of putting these big 12 1/2 in. blocks in a QAYG quilt. I promise, I will stitch these again without cheating :) Or wait, maybe not. You see, my definition of a Modern Quilter is a quilter of the current times who doesn't follow the rules! ha!

I also finally tried Zippling. I love the way it turned out, but I have to say, I did not enjoy stitching this design as much as the first 2. I think it is because of all of the stopping and starting. Although, you would have that in Railroad Tracks too. Railroad Tracks just seemed to be more fun to stitch:P

Anyway, I am getting smarter. I am cutting all of my practice FMQ designs ALL THE SAME SIZE, so I can use them in a QAYG quilt! I have never made a QAYG quilt, but I really like quilting manageable sizes. I went with the size of 12 1/2 in to have a nice big size to practice on and so I will have a nice size quilt in no time(hopefully).