Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Feathers, Pebbles and McTavishing


I bought the Claudia Pfeil DVD to learn how to do feathers and a Karen McTavish book to learn how to do "Mctavishing".  So here is some practice on a Divas quilt.  I think not too bad for a beginner!  One of these days I'll carve out some time to take lessons!

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Small Projects

Eric and Jessica are getting married in August.  Of course we're all very excited and pleased.  They asked us to attend a "wedding shower" - but not until less that a week before.  Joe thought we should take something and I concurred that would be appropriate.  I remembered some music themed fabric I had in my stash so dug that out and some coordinating colours.  Quickly decided on a simple design and got them finished on time.  Table topper and four place mats.  I quilted them on max - practicing feathers in the centre parts.
 
 




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I started making these things - something to do when we're watching TV.  Essentially small blocks embellished with beads, "jewels" and other things.  Then I put a pin on the back - can be pinned to a coat, scarf, bag, whatever.  I got the idea from two places - 1) a book showing 3" blocks with a charm stitched on to be used as a pin (brooch) and 2) watching the Cate Blanchett movie Elizabeth - the costumes are fabulous in that moving and the Richard Attenborough character had very elaborate hat pin that I thought was pretty cool.  So I decided to try making some baroque looking pins using left over quilt fabric.  I think they are turning out quite well.  Guess what all my special girls will be getting for Christmas this year! 

Brenda's Quilt

 Brenda made this fabulous log cabin quilt for her husband, who has horses and is involved in the rather manly sport of roping.  She asked me to quilt it and while I'm dying to do feathers for practice, didn't dare do them on this quilt!  I noticed that quite a bit of the fabric had little stars and stars are often associated with western manly things (Sheriff badges, etc.) and since he's a roper I decided on rope with the occasional star.  I think it worked out quite well - hope Brenda likes it - and her hubby!