Baby Feathers

A friend of ours is having a baby ... what better reason to make a quilt!  They had a couple of ultrasounds and after asking them a few times to make sure I was assured that it's a girl.  Ok ...

I saw this gorgeous red/orange/pink/yellow batik and fell in love with it right away.  PERFECT for a girl.  I put it together with a pink patterned background and designed this quilt.  I love love love quilting feathers ... both in applique and quilting ... so I incorporated it into the entire quilt.  The dragonflies add a little bit of fun and extra color to it.  It's all done by hand, with multicolored variegated thread used in the quilting.

It was a big hit at the shower, everyone loved it.  All I can say is, it better be a girl!

a quote from Steve Jobs ....

A friend pointed out this quote to me today, something Steve Jobs said at one time.  Apparently it sounds like he was talking about me when he said it, I have to say I'm flattered.  

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Hou Leng

I was out for a walk a few weeks ago and wandered into a Pier 1 store.  I love looking at all the home accessories and picking out all the things I would buy if I was furnishing my house from scratch ... it's kind of a game I play.  I also watch for things that catch my eye that would make an interesting quilt or part of a quilt and take a picture of them with my phone.  Later I go home and see if I can draft up something cool with it.

This time I saw a pillow with a peacock on it.  I've been wanting to make a quilt in blues, greens, turquoise, and this one fit the bill perfectly.  It's not exactly like the pillow of course, I changed it enough to make it mine and added the chinese character.

 

The peacock is well known as a symbol of pride and beauty, so I've done it here with the chinese character for "beautiful".  The quilt is 24 x 18½" and is named "Hou Leng" which means "very pretty" in Cantonese.  It's all hand appliqued and hand quilted with variegated blue thread.

ok so ... I have very vivid dreams almost every night. Often, unfortunately, they're nightmares of the past (you can find a bit of info on that here), flashback type stuff that wakes me up terrified. But when it's not that sort of dream, I dream about a group of animals, and apparently I talk about them in my sleep. 

It started with Gustave, a snail, and has progressed to quite a few critters now, each with their own personalities. To date we have 8 hedgehogs, an owl, a snail, a chameleon, a turtle and a rabbit.  They call themselves TOMH&R (pronounced tom-har) ... The Order of Mostly Hedgehogs & Raoul.  To find out more about them take a look on their own blog here.

Keep in mind that every post/adventure, including every critter involved, happens in my dreams ... if I didn't dream it I don't write it.  Gord often asks me what about this, or did this happen ... I just tell him if it didn't happen it isn't there, I won't elaborate on them.  Not yet anyhow ....

A quilter's work is never done ....

I finished these wallhangings a few weeks ago, just haven't gotten around to posting them here until now.  This first one is called "4 trees" (duh) ... it's literally just 4 versions of the same tree.  Each background is different with waves quilted in the background in variegated thread.  It's 14½ x 49".

This one  is 27½ x 39½" and is called "Blessings".
The characters top to bottom, left to right are:
row 1: wealth, luck, peace & harmony
row 2: courage, longevity
row 3: love, long life
row 4: happiness, beautiful, virtue

in Chinese calligraphy.  Chinese belief is that by hanging these characters or representations of them near your front door will invite or encourage these things into your home and life. 

Both of these quilts are, of course, hand appliqued and hand quilted.  Now I'm quilting a batik double wedding ring with a floral appliqued batik border, a wallhanging made up of a bunch of various sized circles in greens, blues, and browns, and some Christmas gifts for my nieces and nephews.

Hoffman Challenge 2011

This year the Hoffman Challenge focus fabric was really pretty, and equally as challenging to use as every other year. I had a hard time deciding how to use it, I think I started and changed 4 different designs before finally settling on this one.

I had designed a "Wings" quilt this past winter and decided to use that design for the center of my challenge piece.  This centerpiece is all made of the focus fabric on a pale yellow background.

Then I fussy-cut feather shapes from various sections of the focus fabric to get feathers in purple, pink, dark and light green to use in the border.  Feathers and a 1" grid are hand quilted into the background with light colored variegated thread.

I just heard yesterday that although I didn't win anything, my quilt has once again gotten into the traveling trunk show for the 7th time in a row.

The quilt is named "Serendipity".

I now have a logo!

I decided recently that I needed a logo to represent "ScrappyBlue Quilts".  It took a little while to come up with it, though I knew I wanted to incorporate wings and the yin yang symbol.  I also love hearts.  So this is what I came up with.

The quilt itself is about 20 x 22", with batiks used for the logo on a white tone on tone background. I used variegated green thread to quilt it.

Its meaning, which is written on the label on the back, is: With balance, peace and harmony -  the heart is filled and able to soar with creativity.

Soon I'll have to get it printed on my business cards, once I use up all the ones I already have lol