100 challenge

I was involved with a mini-group that set monthly challenges for each meeting.  Sometimes we were able to create something for the month, and sometimes not.

This is my response to the "100" challenge for December 2014.

I selected 100 different colors of embroidery floss, and I arranged them in a 10 by 10 grid of color and value

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I cut a length of thread from each color, and pulled them thru this checkerboard fabric scrap, just to keep the colors in order

First I created this stitched piece with each color in its color/value position.  This small piece is about 4 inches square.

  Then I moved on to this next small piece of interlocking circles.  Again, each color in the same color/value position.

Finally, I created this satin stitch grid - its the same 4" square size.  I don't usually work in satin stitch, but I really think this is the strongest piece. 

This just shows that if you are trying new techniques or skills, you really need to try them out multiple times.   This is the color grid I use as the background for my blog banner.

Sophie's Bat Mitzvah Quilt - November 2014

My niece, Sophie, selected this pattern and these colors for her Bat Mitzvah quilt.  I drafted the pattern based on an image I found online, then I selected fabric for the front and back

I had some fun and busy sewing days (when we still lived in California)

Then I took the quilt to Janet Mease's new shop in San Luis Obispo, SLO Creative,  and we all figured out how the long arm machines worked, centering a flower motive in each block.

 

 We traveled to Cleveland for Sophie's big event, and I was so glad to give this to her.  Hand embroidered label:

Love this girl!

 Mazal Tov on your big day, Miss Sophie!  You will always be wrapped in love from your Aunt Paula!

Peace.

Kumba*ya

Our friend Janet opened a new quilting / creating space in San Luis Obispo in September 2014.  Adva and I made a little quilt for her, to celebrate the grand opening.   We are part of a group that calls itself "snowflakes", and the Kumbaya greeting is one of the ways we say how much we care about each other.  Of course, the asterisk, stands for a bit of foul language, which the Snowflakes sprinkle through speech quite liberally.

Here are the paper pieced letters, with the tiny asterisk :

  Here is the label on the back

Adva and Janet at her new, not quite opened, space:  SLO Creative Studio.

Peace.

Got You Covered Emily

Here is a big quilt I made for Emily, completed in January 2014.  Approx 100"x100" 

Neil brought it to her in NYC, and it was c-c-c-cold that day, up on the roof. 

 

here is the embroidered label: 

 

And a closeup of one of the blocks in progress.  There are many many fabrics in this, sorted by color and value.  Emily wanted some non-traditional fabric included  (items she found in thrift shops)  so its fun to find those hidden in among the quilting cottons.  

 

Keep warm little one. 

Peace

Molly's Bat Mitzvah Quilt

Molly and I planned her quilt via traded emails - she wanted something with an optical illusion, modern, green.   We settled on this pattern, and I did some fabric shopping  (Molly lives in Cleveland, so shopping together was not possible,  but would have been very fun!) 

Here she is when I gave it to her during the Friday night dinner before her big day

(I'm writing this post 5 years after the fact, and Molly looks so much older!) 

Here is another view of Molly enjoying her new quilt: 

And here is the special label

We love Molly !
Peace

for Anna: Love and Warm Like Crazy

Anna wanted a crazy quilt, but she wanted it to LOOK like something made in the 1970's -  with giant pieces, and vintage 1950's fabric.  We found some fabric in a vintage shop, I found a bag of hand crochet doilies in an antique mall, and we filled in with contemporary quilting and other fabric (including velvet and corduroy.  I think this is about 80"x80"  - completed in 2011

Here are some closeups of some blocks: 

This has a large bit of doily inserted, the way it was done in the 1970's, and done here so i could cut off some damaged bits

 

This next one also has some added colored embroidery:

 

This one includes a small embroidered bit from my collection, on black velvet.  I would have used more 'crazy' embroidery between the patches, but Anna wanted this sparse style:

 

This next one highlights this vintage fabric

 

Here's the label on the back: 

 and Neil peeking out from behind the quilt:

 

And here it is, on her bed in her Missouri attic apartment

(although it has moved many times since then!) 

Keeping Anna warm, wherever she may roam.

Peace.

Shakespeare Canon

This quilt includes references to all 37 Shakespeare plays plus some sonnets.   I made two of the same quilt, one for Stephen Whelan, the theater teacher at Valencia High School, who brought Shakespeare into our lives,  and one lives with me or Emily.   Its a cathedral window pattern, and includes a little book of all the Shakespeare lines referenced. 

I created this by finding a line from each play that I though I could represent with an image.  For  example, in the lower left corner of the quilt, is an image of strawberries.  That is for the strawberries on Desdemona's handkerchief, in Othello.   There are pies for Tamora's evil deeds in Titus Andronicus,  and colorful tents from Loves Labor's Lost.   There is a pirate from Pericles, and "all the pretty little babes" from Macbeth.
 

 

Finding the images took a very long time, and my quilting friends were quite generous to let me look through their novelty print stash looking for a horse, or a glove.  Finally my friend Barbara machine embroidered a few images for me. Thanks Barb!! 

This I-Spy quilt was truly a labor of love. 

Peace