A Garden of Diamonds

 Created for Project Quilting 13.4 Mining for Diamonds challenge.

When this challenge came out, I thought, "Trish has been in my brain." I'd been seeing a diamond quilt in my head for days. Of course, the quilt in my head was bed size and this one needs to fit in the arrangement I’m making for the end of my hall and one week of time. So, maybe a diamond background with something on top to make it worthy of my wall.

I started making background diamonds while working it out I my mind. Flowers lodged in my brain and refused to leave. Not “In Silhouette”. I’ve already done that twice. 3D Flowers are one of my things. Haven’t done any in a while and they’ll look great in my hall. But they cannot go on a background of brightly colored diamonds. 

New plan. Diamond flowers. I started with strips of fabric cut with a wavy rotary cutter blade. I ran them through the ruffler attachment on my sewing machine to gather them, and sewed them in layers around diamond shaped bases. Add some beads for flower centers. Pretty fun.  

By now, I’m running out of time, so the background is one piece of fabric quilted in diagonal lines to create a diamond effect. Stems were made of assorted green fibers twisted together. I fused green fabrics together and cut them into diamond shapes for leaves. Finished the binding just as time ran out on my Friday. 

We were on the road at 8am this (Saturday) morning and I got some pictures just before we left.  Our 10 year old granddaughter, Pip, did us proud today in her biggest basketball tournament of the year and I’m so glad we were there. We should be home by about 9 pm and I’ll add in the links and pictures and get this posted. (I’m working on my iPad and need my laptop to do that tricky stuff and, of course, it picked this week to refuse to work unless plugged in.) Tomorrow it’s back to the tournament. Life is good. I’ll get to that other diamond quilt one of these days.

Created by Diane Lapacek in rural Poynette, Wisconsin.

14" x 33"

Peas and Carrots

Created for Project Quilting 13.3 Kitchen Influence challenge.

I'm still looking for a long, skinny quilt for the collection that will go on the wall at the end of my hallway, so my first thought was to go for that. And for some reason, circles were in my brain. Hmmmm. Maybe peas and carrots. They're circles. They're food. I think this works.

So I made some circle foundation pieces and used selvages and super skinny pieces for the peas. Because the carrots were bigger, I used strips and strings for them. (It really had nothing to do with how long it took to make the peas. NOTHING.) I could have made them each from one fabric, but my motto is, "Why would anyone use 5 fabrics when 50 will do." Adds time, but also adds interest to any project.

So, I probably shouldn't go here, but I will. See those diagonal dark lines in the background? I had this together without them, and felt it needed something more, so I looked for embellishments. I tried some different things and decided I needed this burgundy ribbon, but only in the background. Way harder than if I'd added it before the circles.  Also should have quilted it before adding the circles. Oh, well, what was I thinking?

I will admit to waking up today thinking, "You are not going to get this done!" We have had a crazy busy week. Appointments. One vehicle in the body shop and needing picked up. The brand new truck that needed a minor fix when we got it that had to be taken in. A lunch with a couple sibs. My 97 year old mother-in-law who still has her own apartment needed a visit. Lots of basketball for the granddaughters. (10 games total, we saw 7.) All those things that make life worth living. I wouldn't have missed any of them. So, I added those lines this morning and sewed the binding on. Took it to the 10 year old's basketball tournament. Not the best tournament I've sat through, but our Pip did hit 3 3 pointers today. Go, Pip! She is 10 and hit her very first one in a game last weekend. I'm very proud of her. I hand sewed the binding between games and got it all done. Life is good! Very good! 

But, looking at these pictures, I see where some of those background ribbons don't really line up. I'll probably fix that, but not today.  I might add some beads, too, but not sure yet. For now, I'm done. 

Created by Diane Lapacek in rural Poynette, WI.

48" x 12"