Saturday, March 17, 2012

I Like Green: Happy St. Patrick's Day

Always one of my favorite holidays, because green is my favorite color!  To celebrate, here are some of the green quilts I've made in the last couple of years.

This was the first "all solids" quilt I made.  It looks kind of blue on my monitor, but really, it's mostly shades of green from darkest to lightest.  Fat Quarter Fun Modern is made from a Kaufman Kona Cotton solids bundle named "Poseidon." 


Here is a particular favorite, "Sparkler."  Made from a kit I purchased at Quilt Colorado 2020, it lives in my friend Janet's "Alaska Room."


This one was a big hit with the teenage recipient.  The daughter of my Tupperware manager in Virginia, she was born after we left Virginia.  Josie had painted her bedroom this wonderful green, and was thrilled when I sent this quilt to complement her new room.  She said, "Mom, does she know me, because this quilt is perfect!"


This green quilt is a a "Sunday is for Scraps" effort.  It's called "Over and Under," and no -- didn't make a dent in the green strips collection!


Here is a recent table topper, a Charm School project at High Country Quilts.  It's a "mini twister," made from 3 1/2" squares.  My first free-motion quilting experiment.

 

 I love love love this fabric collection.  Summerhouse by Lily Asbury, this was my Idaho quilt camp project last October.  I hope I get it quilted before I go back to Idaho for quilt camp in May.


 Oh, and I love this fabric collection, too!  Nicey Jane by Heather Bailey, I scored Randi's scraps from freshsqueezedfabrics.  She mentioned on her blog that she was going to list bags of Nicey Jane scraps on her etsy shop, and I said "why don't you just send them all to me and save yourself the trouble."  My first Schnibbles quilt, I.S.T.H. (Insert Snappy Title Here).


And my most recent green quilt, my own design "Square Foot Gardening."  It reminds me of the raised beds in my sister's garden on the Snake River in Idaho.

Here's a blessing for your St. Patrick's day, my favorite song from my Girl Scout days:

May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and the rain fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again, someday,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
May the memories that we have shared
linger on and on.

For Lori.

Friday, March 16, 2012

2012 Quilt #20 - Square Foot Gardening

Finish it up Friday today is my scrap quilt from Sunday.  I've named it "Square Foot Gardening," after a gardening book I had years ago.  It reminds me of my sister's garden in Idaho, lots of green and many varieties of flowers.

As a flimsy, this quilt is about 40" X 56", just the right size for a lap quilt. I could probably make ten this size without making a dent in the green strip scrap drawer!   I think this will be the first to be quilted on my new long-arm Mega Quilter, Meggie.  If it turns out OK, I am sending it to an elementary school friend in Oregon who is recovering from surgery.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

WIP Wednesday - a very old UFO

It's WIP Wednesday!


The week I have an oldie but a goodie for you.  It's a BOM from the quilt shop in the town across the Snake River from my hometown in Idaho.  I started it in 2004 and lost interest when two of the blocks depicted downtown stores -- not interesting or pretty!

When this quilt came up as the March UFO number, I pulled out all the block kits and decided "I don't have to put those two storefront blocks front and center in my quilt."  (Doh, I AM the boss of my quilting!  Why do we forget that?)

I do think the blocks tell the story of Idaho, though.  The sun shines 204 days a year, so this sunny block is apt:


The Idaho state flower is the Syringa, which is a :white-flowering bush:


I had some fabric that depicted the Idaho state flower, but sadly the designer had shown the syringa vulgaris, or common white lilac -- wrong flower!  So I pieced some blocks that look to me like the Sego lily:

 
which grows wild in the mountain meadows of Idaho.


I am adding a row of conifer trees across the bottom.  That "golden" conifer is a Tamarack, a conifer that turns a beautiful gold color in the fall.  The Tamarack is also known as the Western Larch, and is a deciduous conifer (cone-bearing tree) which loses its needles in the fall.  

Here is my quilt so far:

The large empty space on the right will have an applique block of the Perrine Bridge, the bridge from which Elder Son jumped last summer -- 486 feet to the water!

 

Oh look, the Devil Cat of Death wants to play.  Or bite my camera hand, whichever comes first:


And speaking of WIPs, all Meggie needs is the thread holder and the lamp, then she'll be ready to use!  Woo hoo!

The temperature is supposed to reach 72 degrees today, so I'm thinking it's a better day for yard work than for quilting.