Small Quilt Gallery

The long hallway into my new studio has been put to good use.  It is now a gallery of small quilts I've made and been given. This is looking from the studio down the hall.  Interestingly the light over the front section is actually facing the quilts; the rest of the lights are shining down.  We got a hanging system from Ikea, Dignitet.  It has the posts that stick out and a wire that goes the whole length of the wall with supports.  There are little clips on the wire that I've hung the quilts by.  Cool.  Easy to change out the quilts.  But now I have to figure out where I've stashed all of them. I'm not allowed to hang anything over the short door as that leads to attic storage.  

The tumbler quilt was made by Heather Wald in 2010.  Small Quilt Talk group on Yahoo seems to do a small quilt swap every year.  She was my first swap partner.  The little red quilt is my interpretation of the Temecula Quilt Shop's 12 Days of Christmas quilt.  I finished it in 2013.  

This is a quilt I made and hand quilted but I didn't put a label on it.  Oops.  I have no idea when I would have done it.  

This cute little twister was made by Patty Levine for the Small Quilt swap in 2011.  Next to it is a little Amish quilt I made in 2010. 

These last two quilts didn't quite have enough light on them to get a great picture.  The little baskets were made for a class I taught at Seminole Sampler in Catonsville, Maryland.  I'm guessing it was in the late 1990s.  Darn, no label, again.  The blue is from a challenge from the Small Group Chat yahoo group.  This quilt is either in one of Kathy's book or she wrote directions for the group.  Recently she's been selecting one of the quilts from her books and that becomes our monthly challenge.  Except, I hardly ever get them done.  I've got so many other quilts calling my names! But now I have a real incentive to make them.

On the other side of this hallway is my long run of shelves where I store a lot of stuff.  The first few units are my fabric stash and then books, yarn and finally stamping supplies. (Oh why did I decide to buy SO much stamping supplies?)  

That's it for tonight. I'll try to get a picture of my stash in the light one of these days.  

Happy Quilting All!

Mini Anvil

I have been hand quilting another miniature quilt.  The block is anvil and came about because of a challenge on Small Quilt Talk  on Yahoo Groups.  These triangles were all from a quilt Jen and I made for my niece when she got married (Hum, 6 or 8 years ago.) They have been aging nicely and when I read this challenge I sorted through the bag/tin/boxes of triangles I have hanging around and found them ready to be sewn together.  I had bits and pieces of the fabrics left so combined them.  I still have two blocks to quilt and then I'll decide if I want to put something in the sashing or not. I must say they really came out red in this photo. They are more burgundy in person. Squares are 4" -- a very nice size to work with compared to some I refuse to mention!

More color inspiration. Here's another cool pheasant.  He was harder to take a picture of as he kept strutting back and forth on 

his bar.  None the less, he had a magnificent tail feather also.  When I read about a hat with feathers in novels I will now think of these pheasant's tails. 

Time to get up to the studio to play with fabrics! 

Happy quilting all!  Bonnie

What Was I Thinking??

I took a UFO to the Wednesday quilt group along with a block of the year I wanted to do, a few parts of another block and my leaders/enders string quilt blocks.  So, the UFO is a paper pieced miniature.  OH MY GOODNESS!  The darn thing is 2" with 36 pieces.  Now you understand the headline: What Was I Thinking???  I got the block of the year done, I got the few parts of another block done, I did a couple of rows on the string blocks.  But, YUCK that darn little paper piecing thing nearly did me in.  I had one in process and thought I was at round #22.  After I had sewn up to 24 I realized I was really at 19!  Out came miniscule stitches.  I think by the end of the day I was on number 27 on one block and  #4 on the next block I started.  I didn't even finish one block from lunch time on!  

This quilt was a kit I bought from George Siciliano in his class Size Really Does Matter. Here's the info on the class with a picture of what mine will look like in a thousand years, or there about. George's miniature quilt.  And here is George and Virginia's home page. 

George has won various awards at many of the major shows.  His work is meticulous and from looking at his web site he is still doing wonderful things with his log cabins. 

I'm not sure I would recommend these classes unless you really are into  details. (hey, accountants out there -- this is for you!) But George and Virginia are a lot of fun and they do a great job teaching.  The hand outs are wonderful also.  The only reason I can even try to do this is because of the guides included in the handouts. 

Tomorrow I have another sewing day and into the evening.  We've been invited to spend the night but I am just not a sleep-on-the-floor gal if I have a choice.  (Plus, they might throw me out in the middle of the night because of a little log sawing I might do!  Nah, they are too nice to do that but... ) I'll report tomorrow on whether I actually make it through one of the blocks. (Come on it's only 2" how hard can it be??) I have purposely stopped at round 34 because I haven't decided what color I want to do that diagonal line.  In the past I've been able to work for 3 or 4 rounds and then it drives me crazy. Let's see if I can work on it a whole day.  I will be bringing a quilt that I am hand quilting on too.  Happy quilting all.  Bonnie