Screen test....

Ok, last year I told my sweetie pie that I wanted to try screen printing. Friday he finally got around to making me the screen. Now he is hooked! I wanted to screen print fabric, he wanted to make a t-shirt to wear at the swim meets. Guess what we made!

Screen, pattern, and stencil. Can't see the stencil, it's a clear transparency!

Finished T-shirt. These turned out so well, we will make real ones! These were old worn out t-shirts to test. Maybe this week I will get to try it on quilt fabric!

Happy Quilting
Caren

Meltin' fun...

There are 3 days left of freedom before school is out.  I spent the morning melting plastic bags.  The idea was to make a zippered pouch for the teachers and place a candy bar inside.  Well.....plastic melts really well and sometimes it melts unevenly.  long story short the pouches are not the size I had hoped they would be :)   It's always so hard trying to find something for teacher gifts. How many boxes of chocolate and #1 teacher mugs does one person need?   If I started back in March I wouldn't have a problem, but I started today. 

Each plastic sheet took about 5-6 plastic bags.  I also had to work with keeping the designs as visible as possible.  Oh...I also only had 7 inch zippers, and I wasn't going shopping!

Here are the finished pouches the 2 large ones are for my 2 girls!

The trick is to use pretty bags!

I still have a large shopping bag of unused bags and lots of melted pieces that didn't get used. 
                                                 HMMMMMM.........

Happy Quilting
Caren

Busy Busy...

There are only 2 full days of school left, 2 half days, and 1 honors day.  Then summer officially begins for my group.  Therefore, I have used the last few days to paint fabric.  My sweetie pie also made me a screen so I can learn how to screen print.  (Stop laughing)  I saw a video on youtube of a little girl, about 8 years old, screen printing.  If she can do it, surely I can.

I've joined the ATC swap over at Quilting Gallery.  I've been planning what to make for that.  I have to mail them off in about 3 weeks.  When I do I'll post a picture.  This is my first ATC swap.  I've only made 1 ATC before!



Better run the kids are about to be out of school!
Happy Quilting,
Caren

I'm Seeing...Triangles!

Whoa!  I had originally thought I would make a scrappy triangle quilt for AAQI.  Not so sure about that now.  Have to rethink the design process on that! 

Anyway....I finished the top to the triangle wall hanging.  This is the first quilt, larger than a sheet of paper, I have made for myself in months, maybe even a year or more!  Can you believe that.  I've mostly made small Priority Quilts for AAQI and forgot how much fabric and time one must invest in a larger quilt.  Not that this baby is that big!

(Yes, I know it is crocked.  That's because it is pinned to another quilt.  The little bit of blue peeking through on the bottom is a different quilt :) I don't have a design wall!

I wanted to do a paper pieced spiky points border, but that would require drawing off patterns and careful sewing.  I didn't feel like it so I sewed small strips together using the same colors I used in the triangles.  I tried to space them out so that they didn't have the same colors int he same place on the opposite side.  That didn't always work out ;)

I have pieces of unused binding from other projects....Would it be too scrappy to use that? Or should I use a solid black for binding?

Let me leave you with a photo from the beach at mother's day...I'll spare you the picture of me in a swimsuit!

Happy Quilting
Caren

Remember These....

I started making scrappy triangles last year for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I only got around to making 5 colors.  I started on the yellow, but never finished.

Anyway...I pulled them out of the UFO basket and started playing with the design.

Design idea 1- the white would be replaced with black.

Design idea 2- hmm.... The colors kind of get mixed up, but I like the scrap feeling it has.

Design idea 3- that's a lot of black triangles to make!

Design idea 4- these stars are a little different arrangement.

After playing with the pieces for days and input from my sweetie pie I decided to go in a totally different directions.  The stars were too big for a wall hanging!  This is the biggest quilt I've worked on in over a year!
Happy Quilting
Caren

AAQI Pattern

OK I've heard from many people they don't know what to make for AAQI.  The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative seeks original small art quilts to raise money for Alzheimer's research. They don't feel like an artist and are unsure of where to begin.  OK you can use  a purchased pattern IF you have written permission.  But this one is SO easy, give it a try.

Broken Windows- took me 45 minutes at the exaggerated most.  That's fabric selection, ironing, cutting, and piecing.  It is super easy.

Materials:  (use fabrics you have!)
10 x 8 textured pink for window
2 strips chocolate brown cut 3/4 inch x 27 inches
1 strip  fuchsia 1inch x 36 inches
cherry blossom cut 2 strips 71/2 x 2  and 2 strips 14 x 2 for border

1) Take the 10 x 8 pink and slice it in half diagonally.  That gives you 2 triangles.
    Then make 2 cuts in EACH triangle.  I made 3 in the bottom triangle and that was too much.  The more cuts means the more seams and they can get grumpy.

2) To make life easier, make tick marks in the seam allowance to tell you which seams are sewn together.  It looks like a puzzle, but you don't want to figure out what goes where.  I drew on the photo.  My actual tick marks were in a pink fabric marker and would not show up in the photo.

As you can see there are 2 sections separated by the center cut.  You will sew section A (top section) together then section B ( bottom section) and finally you will sew the two sections together.  Because this is a wonky type block, exactness isn't necessary and bias shouldn't be an issue.  The block will be trimmed later.  Now, on with the directions.

3)Take the strip of chocolate brown and sew it to the top 2 triangles in section A.  Always use a 1/4 in. seam.

Don't laugh at my crazy circle!  When you sew the strip on go all the way down the long edge, past the shorter edge.  Then trim.  Sew the rest of the pieces in section A.  Then sew the seams in Section B.  It should look like this:

4) Iron carefully, get those seams flat.  Then sew the last chocolate strip to section A and then to section B. 

5)  Iron it again and trim the crazy out of it - to about 9 3/4 x 7 3/4.
6) Take the fushia strip and iron in in half lengthwise.  This is for the flange.  I love flange.  It doesn't add to the size of the quilt, but it does add a nice bit of texture and a pop of color.  Sew the flange to the edge of the quilt sides.  Use a 1/8 inch seam.  Trim. Sew the flange to the top and bottom edges of the quilt.  Use the same 1/8 inch seam.  All edges should be even.  trim any little bits off.

7)Time for the border.  Take one 71/2 x 2 inch piece and sew to one side of the quilt.  Then sew the second 7 1/2 x 2 inch piece to the opposite side of the quilt.  Iron and trim.
8)  Take one 14 x 2 inch piece and sew to the top of the quilt.  Take the last piece and sew to the bottom of the quilt.  Iron and trim.

9) Ta Da...you now have a finished top to quilt, embellish, and bind as desired.  It didn't take that long.  If you know how to quilt it won't take as long as it will to read my directions!

Variations:
If I had a piece of landscape fabric (mountains or trees) that would make a nice window.  Use it in place of the pink in the center.
Or if you like to make people laugh- use a piece of fish fabric and black for the 'leading'.  That way it will look like a fish tank with a terrible crack!

It's a fun little quilt and super simple.  If you make one and send it to AAQI let me know and send a picture...I want to see it!  Good luck and sew for a cure.

Happy Quilting
Caren

Gotta get this...

AAQI  are you this person?


If you make quilts for AAQI grab this for your facebook page.
Copy and paste this address in your status update:
http://www.AAQI.org/share.html

then chose the thumbnail icon

Then before you post tell us a little about yourself.

Remember AAQI is a volunteer ran organization that makes quilts to raise money for Alzheimer's research. 

If you don't sew....buy a quilt and help find a cure.

Happy Quilting
Caren

Shhhh....

Don't tell my Sweetie Pie...I went shopping!
I haven't been fabric shopping in nearly 6 months!  Shocking I know.  You've heard me rant before on the lack of good fabric shops in the area.  We have 2 chain stores and that is it.  They don't carry the really cool fabric I drool over on other quilt blogs.  Yes, I know I can buy fabric online, and I have.  But I need to feel the fabric, touch it to make sure it's the quality I like.  I've ordered online before and ended up with 'lower' quality fabric.  It was labeled quilt fabric, but it wasn't my kind of quilt fabric.  Don't even get me started on picking colors online!  I still have a piece of cornflower blue that goes with nothing I have, it was mistakenly bought.  I though it was a powder blue.  It wasn't!

Anyway here is my hoard after 2 days of shopping.

The white will be painted later :)  I don't know what I will do with the fun fish print.  It was just too cute to leave at the store! 

I am thinking about fussy cutting and fusing the flowers onto ....something!  The cherry blossoms an the top left were too cute to pass up, and I am a sucker for red, black, and white.
Can't wait to dig in to them all!

Happy Quilting,
Caren

In the Mail...

I have 3 quilts in the mail to AAQI...

In other news...
Little britches turned 8 this weekend:

No Zebras were harmed in the making of this cake!

My girl has a thing for trains.  Her sister has a thing for Legos.

This is what happens when the two come together!

Happy Quilting

Caren

New Design...

I just changed the look of my blog...incase you didn't notice!  Do you like it?  Let me know.  I like all the pictures.  You can click on one for that post.  I don't like that it takes away my buttons!  I hope they are not lost forever!