Cirque de Shreds

Cirque de Shreds was created for the Project Quilting Focus Through the Prism nine patch challenge.

I need to confess that the inspiration for this piece had nothing to do with nine patches.  I've made several quilts with 3-D flowers in the past and had a mad urge to make them again.  It's apple season here at Lapacek"s Orchard, and quilting time is scarce, so I needed to make my urge fit this challenge.  I started with a background of free form 9 patches using lots of scraps of greens.  Challenge requirements were now satisfied.  I sandwiched it and quilted it and started on the fun.

First, I added shredded flowers.  Shreds are those small pieces of fabric that you cut away whenever you square up a piece of fabric.  Any sane person would just throw them away, but I had an idea I could find a use for them.  So I created shredded flowers.

For Cirque de Shreds, I made lots of flowers and formed them into a circular wreath shape.  This was what was in my vision, but I thought it needed a bit more.  Maybe a bow?  Hmmmm.  Previewed a few things, but this was one of those times when I needed to go to my secret drawer of future quilting embellishments.

AHAAA!!!!!.  Mesh bags.  Probably from oranges or onions or a ham or whatever.  Then a few yoyos and a fabric flower on top.  Done.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.

Meet Me At Infinity

I created Meet Me At Infinity for the Project Quilting Focus Through the Prism flying geese challenge.  

My husband, Frank, was out mowing the future apple orchard.  We're going to plant alot (2700 or so) of apple trees out there next year. But for now, it's just a deer fence around a field.  You can see the long grass on the left and the freshly mowed areas in the front and on the right.  It will look alot different a year from now.  And by 2018 it should have lots of apples!  Fun!!!

I started by sketching the design on a 20 inch square of freezer paper.  The flying geese sections were paper pieced and I put indigo fabrics together randomly to create a more interesting background.  The curved piecing was pretty challenging and I will admit to doing a little hand stitching to make the center work.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI

Whirling Around

I made Whirling Around for the Project Quilting Focus Through the Prism pinwheel challenge.

I started with 3D pinwheel blocks and a scrappy background in lighter blues.  I had one extra pinwheel which for some reason spun the wrong way, so I added it to the middle by setting in a circle.

I intended to do some really simple quilting since it is apple season at Lapacek's Orchard, but I soon decided I was not doing justice to my quilt, so I gave it the tight quilting it needed to make the pinwheels pop.

Created near Poynette, WI.

Cabin Flower

This is my entry for the Project Quilting Focus Through the Prism challenge for July.  The inspiration was the Log Cabin block and I chose yellow for my color this month.

 I've had a circle theme going with all the Focus Through the Prism challenges and wanted to continue it here.  I took a 20" square of paper and folded it into sixteenths.  I used this to create foundation patterns for the 16 wedges needed.  I marked lines across each wedge to indicate approximately where each petal of my sunflower would begin and end, then free form pieced each petal on the foundation using a log cabin style.  I also made small log cabins (again free form) which I cut in half diagonally to create the points for each petal.

After the petals were completed, I added light background fabrics log cabin style to complete each wedge.  

The 3-D sunflower center was added before quilting.  It is made from "shreds" of fabric and miscellaneous fibers formed into loops and stitched in place.  I had previously used this technique for my Sunflowers Make Me Happy quilt and liked the results enough to use it again.

I had this quilt about half done when I realized it had a little of the feel of Kim's Dresden Neighborhood.  As you may or may not know, Kim is my daughter-in-law and I have admired her Dresden Neighborhood since she first made it, so I'm not surprised that inspiration showed up here.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI

Circle of Friends

This is my entry for the Project Quilting Focus Through the Prism challenge for June.  The inspiration was the Friendship Star block and I chose violet for my color this month.

I liked the circular design I made for the first challenge, so I folded up a square and set about designing a friendship star version.  I soon discovered I really didn't like the way the friendship star worked when drafted the same way.  

Time for Plan B. Start with a background of "made" fabric using assorted violet fabrics including the Cherrywood violet.  Add just a few bits of yellow for some sparkle. Quilt it, then add the friendship stars on the top for a 3D wreath effect.

I sewed scraps of pastels together to make fabric for the stars, then drew some friendship star shapes in assorted sizes and cut a few of each size from freezer paper.  My first thought was to face and turn each star.  Bad idea.  Those little points are a pain to turn.  I decided raw edges would look better anyway.  I simply ironed the freezer paper to the right side of the fabrics, added a piece of heavy interfacing in back and stitched just off the edge of the freezer paper.  I removed the freezer paper and cut out each star, then layered them on the background.  A button in the center of each star in the top layer completes the look.

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Created by Diane Lapacek in Poynette, WI.

Monkeys Go Round

The inspiration for the first Project Quilting Focus Through the Prism challenge was the monkey wrench block.  I chose to use the color blue.  The finished project was required to be 20" square and "read" the chosen color.

I woke up dreaming about monkey wrenches in a circle, so I started by making a 20" square out of paper then folded it into 16ths to create sections.  I didn't want the circle to extend all the way to the edge, so I picked a distance that looked good and drew a line parallel to the edge in one of the sections.  (It doesn't look straight here, but trust me it is.)  Then I added 2 more parallel lines, each 1 inch apart.  Why 1 inch?  Because it's a nice round number.  Then I divided the space along each line in thirds and used this grid to draft the rest of the Monkey Wrench block.

Now for the tricky part.  We moved last fall and I threw away my printer.  I didn't replace it.  Lapacek's Orchard is only 2 minutes away and my son and family including Kim of Persimon Dreams  (yes, the one who owns Project Quilting) live there, so if I need to print something, I go there.  But I didn't want to go there at 6 am.  So I stacked up 10 or so papers and put the pattern on top.  I sewed along all the lines with no thread in my sewing machine.  It worked like a charm.  After the first few stitches all the layers stayed neatly together.  I repeated with one more stack.  This gave me a few extra, but, hey, if you don't make extras, you're going to screw up at least one.  Before separating the layers of each stack, I cut them out around the outer edge and on each row to create 3 separate pieces for each monkey wrench.

From there it was just paper piecing and sewing the rows together.  Then I sewed them into a circle and added fabric made from pieces of scraps to form the background.  I added one regular monkey wrench in the center and quilted and bound it.

And I have 2 days to spare before challenge 2 comes out.  Wonder what I can make in 2 days?

Finished size is 20 inches square.

Created in Poynette, WI.

Spontaneous Patriotism

It was the 2nd of April and I was sitting with a friend at the American Legion bar while our husbands were downstairs having their monthly meeting.  Discussion turned to the Armed Forces Day event the Legion is sponsoring at Lakeside Bar on May 16th.  My friend was helping to secure donations for the raffle and I asked what kind of things they were looking for.  She said they really could use a red, white and blue wallhanging.  She had thought about asking her aunt, but she's 90.  OK.  I'm in.

The Project Quilting off season challenge for April had just come out, so I took it as a sign.  The challenge was Spontaneous.  I figured I already had spontaneous covered by the way the inspiration happened, but I still wanted to create the quilt in a spontaneous manner.  No pattern.  No sketches.  Just start sewing.  (I have to confess, this falls in with the way I prefer to quilt, but that's another story.)

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Red, white and blue says stars and stripes to me.  So I dug into my half square triangles.  Most of these are cut offs that I always save.  I took them how they were.  No squaring up all to one size.  I dug some "squares" out of my square drawer.  Yes, I have a square drawer and it includes not only leftover squares, but also rectangular pieces left at the end of a strip that are too small to go in with my regular scraps.

I put the squares and half square triangles together to form friendship stars.

Next step.  Dig into my strips and strings.  I put reds and white together in alternating strips.  I also added one blue strip to each side of my star blocks.  Put it all together in vertical rows. Done.

Finished size is 25" x 34".
Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.