Friday, March 24, 2017

You Are My Sunshine

I was involved in the Sunny Sunflower Block Exchange awhile back.  (Actually, it was 2014!) I finished putting this together last fall, then apple season got in the way and I procrastinated about getting it posted.

This was a super fun block exchange.  I love my quilt!  Thank you to Shannon Linde for hosting and thanks to Kim Lapacek for taking these fabulous pictures.




I gave this quilt to my daughter, Karma, because she told me it belongs with her Sunflowers Make Me Happy quilt.  Works for me. 




Sunday, March 19, 2017

What Happened to My Time?!!????!??

Created for Project Quilting Season 8 Time is Up challenge.


This quilt represents what happens to your time when you have much to do and lack focus.  It's never happened to me, but I'm interpreting it for a friend....

I started by fusing a clock on a cool piece of tie dyed fabric.


Then I cut it up and sewed it back together. This seems to be a favorite technique of mine in the recent past.  I often use it if I have something I'm working on that I don't particularly like or just to make something more interesting.  In this case, I liked the clock I started with, but I still think cutting it up made it more interesting.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.
25" x 25"

Friday, March 3, 2017

A Farmers Life in Denim and Flannel





I had really limited time this week.  Seems like that's been a theme this Season.  I got an early start on my Sun Prairie Heritage Quilters challenge this year, but the challenge was Hexagons!  Lots of hand work.  Lots of hours. It had to be in by March 1 and Kim (yes, that Kim) said she would deliver it if I had it to her by 4 pm Tuesday, February 28.  I sewed madly to the end and was only a minute or two late.

When my husband, Frank, showed up to his bachelor party some 40 years ago, one of his childhood friends had blown up a picture of him as a small child.  He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt in the picture and they said he was still wearing the same shirt. I believe he's still wearing it today.

Fortunately, since it was already Wednesday and I had places to be all day Thursday and Saturday, denim and flannel calls for simple. It happens that I had some squares of denim hanging out on my UFO shelf.  Another time saver.  I cut squares of flannel plaids to match, and went to work. Since just squares was kind of boring, I added a circle to each square and alternated the denim and flannel blocks. The circles have no particular relationship to the theme of the challenge, but I seem to have adopted a go cutter, at least temporarily, and it gave me a chance to try it out since I had a circle die.

In the interest of saving time, I decided to make the quilt rag style with seams exposed on the back of the quilt. This was fun! When I ran out of flannel squares, I decided the size was just right.

Done!  I'll probably clip all those raw edge seams so they fuzz up a bit more when I put it in the washer and dryer.

     
     

Just so you all know, yes, Frank still typically dresses in denim and flannel, but back when I went to my first quilt retreat with a bunch of friends, I came back to my space and found a candy version of my Frankie in his speedo attached to my machine.  Maybe that's a quilt for another day...

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.