Black and White

 

I have been playing around with my hand dyes again. If you have been over to visit MamaCJT , you know where my inspiration came from. I went crazy when I saw the one she did over at her blog, and knew I had to sit down and made one just like it for myself. She is the Queen of inspiration to me and uses predominantly white fabrics with her quilts. I have hardly ever gone that route, so I gave it a whirl. As I was stitching together my top, I kept thinking about the black that I normally use. So just to see, I put together another top just like it only with the black. It was really a fun little personal challenge for me. The jury is out as to which I like best. I think the colors pop more on the black background, but then I do like the white.

There were a few ugly moments, when I decided to add a mini 3/4" strip inner border. What was I thinking??? The white one being the first top I made took the brunt of the mistakes, and I gave up and left it alone finally.After all there is only so many times you can rip out something before everything starts to fall apart. Once I got to the black top, I got a little smarter and cut my strip 1 1/2" wide and folded it in half, to stitch it in. Much easier. When you are working with such a small strip it is hard to control it and stitch at the same time. While the second one is nowhere close to perfect, it was a far cry better than the white quilt. I think a few more try's at this and I might actually get something close to pretty good!! :-) That's my highest goal for this technique I think!! Next time it's a piping and call it good! Gotta challenge myself from time to time just to see if I am still able to completely un-nerve "me". LOL

For these guys, I think some kind of camouflage on the corners, will be my only salvation! :-) Or I could just consider them character flaws...
So which of these do you like best????

 

 

Mini's

Thanks to Ariane over at Arianescrafts I have lost a nights sleep. She posted a photo of a wonderful mini quilt she whipped up while keeping awake before starting in on her long work day. I work long days too, so I just decided to hop over and see what she was talking about. Consider me hooked.

The Small Quilt Talk group over at Yahoo groups is now my favorite place to visit. What a great bunch of gals. I got such a warm welcome, and they have some cool challenges. Personal challenges that is. They give you a pattern and you run wild with it. All the past ones are posted and I have downloaded them all to see what I can come up with.

Here is my first little challenge quilt. Now there is a real use for the scraps I have been keeping. I was never a real fan of the red fabric in this quilt, but man did it work here. It is so old that I will never be able to find more, so I will have to settle for enjoying what's done. I love the ability to actually start and complete a quilt in just a few hours. If you are needing a quick fix quilt, check out the group.

Down side of this all, is now I want more books! Oh yeah, clean out my bookshelf  and replace them with more. I guess that's the sickness!  :-)  I was able to find an out of print book on mini quilts in a electronic version and download it into my Color Nook. That was a bonus for me. I am loving having electronic quilt books and my Nook.

If you need more inspiration check out the great mini quilts at Pleasentree.  Now if that doesn't get your blood rushing, I don't know what will. I promise you will be seeing more small quilts here soon.  :-)
                                                                     AND
Just in case you wanted to know, the center of this little quilt is the perfect size for a 12" tile trivet!!!!!
                                                                 HINT HINT  

Trivets-Another great finish

It is a banner week for me this week. Yet another great finish from a blogger who took the challenge. This one comes from Danielle over at http://yetheabidethfaithful.blogspot.com/ 
I just love the old fashioned Valentines center on this beauty. Does it just remind you of all those great Valentines we used to exchange in school? You know the ones you spent hours making the perfect shoe box to contain. My boys have been out of school for so long now that I don't even know if kids these days do that sort of thing anymore. Gheez, did that make me sound old!  :-)

Anyway Danielle, I was thrilled to get this photo, and hope you will follow along the rest of the year for new clothes for your tile!  Can't wait to see what else you come up with.

On that note, if you are working on the tile project with me, please send photos. I would love to post them and show off your work!

Wahoo moment

It's always one of those fabulous  Wahoo moments, when you open your email to find a great photo like this.

These gals are from a quilt group in Sterling Colorado, who took my challenge and made it thru my Trivet tutorial. By the looks on their faces, they had a good time, and all managed to make it thru my directions. Not a hate mail in my inbox, which was a relief. I am thrilled to see the finished projects and smiling faces. Better yet, to see how different every ones are and how fantastic they all look.  Hope they will continue and make more of those special Tux's through out the year with me.

Great job girls, and thank you so much for sharing your photo with me!

Happy Valentines Day! 

Thanks to Embroidery Library I get to show off a little today. It was fun to put away the scraps for awhile and do a little embroidery. It's been way to long since I have played with my machine.

Hope you all have a wonderful day, and don't eat too many of those candy hearts. My favorites are the cinnamon gel hearts. They seem to be hard to find this year, but I managed to grab a couple of bags, which I have devoured. Shame on me, I didn't even share!!!  :-)