Yoyos and Geese in Rhythm

Created for Project Quilting 13.5 Rhythm and Repetition challenge.

When I saw this challenge, I thought it was perfect for this busy week.  Trish has done a really great job with the challenges year. Of course, she always does, but this year she pretty much hit what I needed to meet my goal of a really great display at the end of my hall. And, as you know, it's all about me.

I had some time Monday and Tuesday, but needed to be ready to leave town early Wednesday morning. Rhythm and Repetition! Easy! I grabbed a sheet of paper and sketched some geese flying across it. Paper pieced them in rainbow on black, then looked for a great background fabric. 

OK. So I'm not into one background fabric. Or one of anything. I'm the, "Why would anyone use 5 fabrics when 50 will do?" type of girl. Or, at this point, old lady. And it's only noon on Monday. I need to make this more interesting.  After all, it's for MY wall. So, I took another piece of paper and drew some lines on it and paper pieced a background. 

OK. I'm not out of time yet. I thought some black circles would add some extra interest. I would make them from black fabric and fuse them on. Of course, my iron picked this moment to die. Wouldn't heat. Thought about giving it up, but then I realized I could make yoyos and they wouldn't require heat. Printed some circle templates and threw some black fabrics and bright buttons in a travel sewing bag. 

Today we drove from Wisconsin to Cincinnati. Cloudy most of the day. Perfect for some hand sewing. I made yoyos in graduated sizes. (You know, rhythm and repetition.) 

I attached them with bright buttons for centers. The criteria here was size and variety because enough is enough and all this structure is getting to me. I really needed something random, so I added that one little car I found in my button collection. 

Obviously, my sewing machine was not available in my car, so I had to attach everything by hand. I don't object to some hand work, but if you put these on by machine, you can hold the yoyo in place, add a few stitches, then put the button on top, hold it straight and stitch it on. By hand, the first stich doesn't hold anything straight and you have to fight with every stitch to keep the button the way you want it. Good thing I had lots of free time in the passenger seat today. By the way, it's really fun to sew these things on in your lap. I only sewed the quilt to my pant leg once, after all. I used my phone as a tray to hold the buttons and yoyos and only had to remake a couple that got lost. When I find them eventually and I'll have a head start on another project. Or the next owner of our car (which is being traded in for one that's supposed to manufactured next week) will get a bonus. Maybe they will inspire the new owner to become a quilter. You never know.

I made one row and decided I needed another on the other side. Kind of wanted to put all the bigger ones on the same end, but they didn't fit right there, so I reversed them. Great rhythm. Very happy with the end result and it's only Wednesday night. I'm here in my hotel room texting with 3 sisters, a brother, and my daughter and finishing this up. (And my oldest granddaughter just chimed in, too.) Life is good. Off for sibling time for a few days. Never enough of that.

So, after all of this, I'm looking at my piece and thinking maybe I should hang it the other way. You know, vertical instead of horizontal. For some reason I think I like that better. Sometimes quilts have a mind of their own. Hmmmm. 

I'm not home and can't check out what this does to the arrangement that is now 5 quilts big to go on the wall in my hall. I had thought this would be the last one and PQ 13.6 would be a stand alone project. When I get home, I'll check that out. Some buttons would need to be shifted, but I think I could just turn them a quarter turn, hold them in place and stitch by machine. And 13.6 would probably need to be added to the wall. We'll see. For now, I'm good.

Created by Diane Lapacek in rural Poynette, Wisconsin, and on the road between Poynette and Cincinnati.

I don't have a tape measure here, but I'm guessing the size is pretty close to 8.5" x 11" since that's the size of the paper I started with.

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"

 

Good Morning, Capri!

 

Created for Project Quilting 13.2 In Silhouette challenge.

I saw this challenge and thought I'd made the perfect quilt a couple of weeks ago. A Tree for Me  would have fit perfectly for this challenge. I walked into my kitchen and told my husband he could take the quilt down from above the sink and I'd photo it and be done. He was willing, but I knew that was cheating. The quilt was On the Road Again which I had created for the Season 7 I need a Vacation challenge. 

Time to quit whining and come up with something new. I thought maybe a tall flower on a long skinny quilt would look good in the grouping I'm planning for the wall at the end of the hallway. I scouted lots of flower pictures and clip art, but nothing felt right. Maybe I could find a picture to use. Looking through my photos I found some pretty cool pics I took as we crossed the Mackinac Bridge. Maybe. Then I came across this one. 

It features my granddaughter, Capri, and Freedom and Froto, the bottle babies Capri and her sister Pip raised. Capri is our crazy animal girl and this picture is really her.  I would name the quilt Good Morning, Capri! 

The photo needed some work. The goat on top was jumping onto her back from the tree stump, but I thought having the goat standing on her back would make a better silhouette. The goat on the ground needed to move over so he looked like he was going to give Capri a kiss. And Capri is faced toward the camera, so she had no face in silhouette. I tried drawing her one, but I have finally learned that I am an artist, but that doesn't mean I can draw. Capri was playing basketball out of state, so I sent her Dad a message and asked him to get me a straight on profile shot of her. 

Perfect! I cropped out her head, made it the right size and it was just what I wanted. A piece of hand dyed fabric became the sunrise. I thought a tree would be a nice add, because I'm into trees and there are pretty good tree silhouettes in the original picture, but anything I tried just took away from the main focus, so I stopped there.

Created by Diane Lapacek in rural Poynette, Wisconsin.

12" x 16"

A Tree for Me

 Created for Project Quilting 13.1 All The Colors challenge.

This is the greatest challenge ever! All the colors! That’s my favorite combination! I decided on a pretty simple squarey quilt. Also one of my favorites. Random sized blocks and free form using fabric from my strips and strings basket. 

Made kind of a cute little quilt, but I challenged myself to make quilts that could go together on the wall at the end of my hallway. I had a pretty cool autumn tree quilt hanging there, but sold it last fall. The quilt was called Confetti Fall and was made for a project quilting confetti challenge back in Season 7. 

So I wanted to add something extra to this one. Trees are also a frequent theme for me, so a tree it is. I built it on a piece of dark fabric. I love texture, so I pulled out brown things from my embellishment collection, which is just a drawer (or 2 or 3) full of things like ribbon and yarn and hand dyed fibers and found items like a plastic mesh bag from a ham or something. 

I cut out the tree and stitched it down on the quilt. Made the time for completing the piece twice as long, but I think it’s wall worthy. 

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.

25”x21”

Ab Intra Garden

Created for Project Quilting 12.6 Ab Intra challenge.

For some reason I forgot to look at what the challenge was this week until the wee hours of Tuesday morning. Of course, I had to look it up right away, then laid awake thinking about what I could do. I had a fairly busy week because I have been planting lots of seeds in my basement.  I have a great space down there that was built as a mother-in-law suite by the previous owners. It's now my quilting studio complete with kitchen, guest room and sunroom. 

I use the oven in the downstairs kitchen as a germination chamber. I replaced the light bulb with a curly florescent and it stays at a pretty steady 72 degrees with high humidity. Perfect for germinating. I germinate lots of things in little cups with damp napkins and it seems they all were ready for planting at once. They need to go back in the warmth of the oven until they pop through the soil before being moved to my sunroom where the temperature is in the 50s most nights. So, I have 3 flats in the oven, 3 on top of my upstairs refrigerator, and 1 on top of the water heater.

So it's no wonder my mind went to gardening. I remembered I had done some quilts using a garden path block back in 2015 when we used it as a project at the Quilts by Barb Quilt Retreat Getaway Weekend where I taught. Project decided. Go back to sleep. Babysit little grandchildren on Tuesday and see my sisters for the first time in many months on Wednesday and the week is slipping away. Especially since all those flats are calling for attention and there are more seeds ready to be put into soil.

So a simple table runner using the garden path block.

I had some border fabric with apple trees a friend had given me, and, since Lapacek's Orchard is part of my family, I stack n whacked some up for the centers of my blocks. I had a fabric with stones in my stash, so that became the paths and assorted greens created the rest of the gardens.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.

14" x 44"

And here are the garden path quilts I made back in 2015.

   

   

Ok, I know the pillows don't match. I didn't have a picture of this one, but wanted to include it and these are the pillows that were on my bed... with a different quilt.

Crazy Pins

 Created for Project Quilting12.5 You're Crazy challenge.

For this challenge I made a pincushion. I had some pieces of hand dyed vintage linens hanging out by my cutting mat. They may have a spot in a future project. Something to do with leaves and hexagons.  We'll see if my vision can come to life...  

Anyway, these pieces looked like they could work for the You're Crazy challenge. There was some hand embroidery involved and assorted lace on the edge of some pieces. Perfect. So I pieced them together. Sometimes I just laid the lace edge over the top and top-stitched it down. I liked the crazy quilt look and made a second piece for the reverse side of my pincushion.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.

4"'x4".