Lazy Gal's Liberated Amish Challenge

I've been intending to play with my solid fabrics for a long time, and I joined Lazy Gal's Liberated Amish Challenge to push me in that direction. The guidelines are to pick a quilt from Amish Abstractions and to liberate it in some way a la Gwen Marston, as well as incorporating some liberated letters by Lazy Gal Tonya on the top. I've chosen to liberate Joseph's coat No. 87 and I've had a little go at it by sewing some strips together.

Then I put them on point like this:
Read more about this challenge here.

In giveaway news, I finished the selvage tea cozy yesterday and quilted it using parallel (sort of) lines of a serpentine stitch, set on its widest width on my machine. I'm going to use that again for future machine quilting projects. Take a look below:

You're all winners!

Thanks for the lovely comments about my spiderweb quilt and about the selvage and scrappy needlecases. I gave away all the ones I brought to the retreat, so I made a few more to give to my blog readers. My random access number generator (aka sick kid home from school) picked Kathy over at Lime Green is a Neutral Color and Pokey at Pokey Dot Quilting to win the little needle books. Pat at A Little of This and a Little of Pat wins the tea cozy, just peeking out in the top of the picture.

Smale scale projects

After completing some big projects at my retreat, this week I've been concentrating on little ones. At left is an Amish style one patch made from one inch squares. It is handquilted in freehand fans and bound and will be donated to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative.
(For anyone interested in the quilts at my retreat, head over to visit Prairie Peasant to see her posts on the retreat. I kept forgetting my camera in my room, three flights up.)

I've had lots of entries for my selvage needle book giveaway (scroll down two posts since you can still enter), but I gave three away at my retreat, so I decided to make some more. As I was looking through my selvages, I found some with lots of words and so I kept sewing the same selvage piece to itself because it just worked.

That Metropolitan Museum of Art selvage had the words repeated continually, so I just kept using it and it provides lots of text on this needlecase cover.
And then I kept going with more the continuous selvage look. I also made one with little bits and pieces of solids in a wonky Amish style. Working with a small 5 by 9 canvas is quite fun, and if you don't like the idea, just move on.

An authentic quilt

Here's my completed spiderweb top, with scrappy red borders. I got this together at my retreat last weekend, and I had fun watching people's reactions to it. I  sewed together lots of bits of red to make the borders and they "match" the various reds surrounding the webs. One woman came up and told me that this quilt was authentic because it was made from scraps and it had a different feel than the quilts made from yardage. That was a great compliment, and I told her that. I used up miles of strings in this project, lots of reds in various shades, and the only "new" fabric was the background neutrals. I'm happy with how it looks, but there are lots of bulky seams at the intersections. I need to cut the backing to size and then it will cover my newly-reticked comforter and keep me warm on these frosty winter nights.

Thanks for all your comments and entries on my giveaway post, one below this. You still have time to leave a comment to win a needlecase or tea cozy since I'll draw a name on Monday, Feb. 8.

Also, my three recent little quilts are up for sale at the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative right now under the quilts for sale button -- quilts # 4751, 4752 and 4753,

Retreat and two year blog anniversary

I'm off to my quilt retreat this weekend, and to prepare, I made a few gifts for some special folks, including you. As regular blog readers will know, I love scraps and string piecing and even selvages, and so I made some needle cases with string pieced covers, based on one Purple Pam sent me. The insides feature some needle and thread fabric and two pages of wool felt from that lovely giveaway I won from the C and T Publishing blog before Christmas. In a week, it's the second anniversary of my blogging adventure, and I'm happy to share some of these needle cases, plus a string pieced tea cozy with you. All I need is a comment on this blog about which you'd prefer(cozy or case) and a way to contact you. No posting on your own blog or becoming a follower unless you really want to. I'll draw for winners on Monday, Feb. 8.

Here's my pile of spiderweb string blocks, all ready to be put together at the retreat. I never found the missing triangles, so I made some more.

Lost in the sewing room?

I need 36 blocks for my spiderweb quilt, and so far I have 35 and a half. Where's the other half? Lost somewhere in my sewing room, although I have looked everywhere. I know I have them since this pattern is first cut in 12.5 inch squares, which are cut corner to corner to make the four triangles, and then sewn back together when the strings are pieced on.
These are the last nine blocks to sew together, and then I'm taking all the blocks to my quilt retreat on Friday and putting the whole top together. That is, if I can find those last two triangles. They've got to be somewhere.....

Blood offering?

This morning I spent an hour repairing a collection bag for my church. The original black velvet bag had worn out, so I took my math skills (diameter times Pi) to make a new bag for this wonderful old oak handle. I decided to be thrifty, since money is always tight in churches, and use a piece of fuchsia velvet gifted to me by someone in my congregation. I like the cheerful colour and I'm thinking a bright bag might get more notice (and therefore more $$). After all, God loves a cheerful giver, and I feel cheerful when I see this colour.

Here is the finished bag after an hour of sewing and hammering the wooden tacks into the bag. I made two bags,because I had enough fabric and I know some of the other bags are wearing thin as well. The sewing went fine, but the hammering not so good. After getting the bag upside down and them inside out, I had a little accident with the screwdriver when taking out the tacks for the second time. Ouch!

Head over to visit Prairie Peasant to see the latest collection of the block challenges from our guild, the Strippiecers. I forgot my camera when we met last week, but Laura got some great pix.
Also, for those of you who were shaking their heads and wondering why I was advocating making blankets last week when all the relief organizations were asking for money, here's an update. Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba is sending 10,000 heavy comforters as well as 10,000 sheets to Haiti on Feb. 28. Check out mcc.org/kits for information on sizes and methods. They 're saying that since so many Haitians are sleeping outside, the comforters/blankets will be used for mattresses or shelter and the sheets for mosquito protection.