Luscious Lane

Created for Project Quilting 10.2 Red, White and Blue Challenge

I had a crazy busy week planned, so I knew I had no time to procrastinate on the red, white and blue challenge. Strings are an easy go to for me so I made some red, white and blue string blocks and put them together to create a table runner with diagonal lines. I decided it was OK, but would be way more fun if I added some raw edge applique circles. 

I named it Luscious Lane because I thought it had the look of a Drunkard's Path.

14" x 36".
Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.

New Day of Hope

Created for Project Quilting 10.1 Hope Springs Eternal Challenge.

As I pondered the Hope Springs Eternal challenge, 2 themes kept running through my head.  Sunrise and Spring Flowers. Thursday morning I still hadn't made a decision when I saw this view from my deck.

I took it as a sign. Decision made.  Every new day signals a new beginning and new hope. Note the swimming pool in the lower left? I'm hoping for lots of fun swimming there with my grandkids this coming summer. And the other little structure down in the lower right? The orchard goats are hoping to use that as a shelter on their summer vacation at our house.

Enough rambling. Back to the challenge. I found a sunrise fabric that I dyed a couple of years back, added an appliqued sun and black for the horizon. I quilted some rays from the rising sun, then created a tree using fibers.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI. 28"x12".

Shredded Squares Pillow

Created for Project Quilting 9.6 SCRAPtastic challenge.

I had to laugh when this challenge came out.  I have a saying.  "Why would anyone use 5 fabrics when 50 will do."  A challenge for me would by using less than 12 fabrics in a quilt.

However, my week had even more challenges than usual. Big baby shower at my house on Sunday and leaving for a quilt retreat on Wednesday afternoon.

I thought a pillow would fit the bill. I'm still using strings, but wanted them to be skinny, so I decided to use some shreds, which includes selvages and any strip of fabric under about 1 inch. I cut black to use as foundation squares and added shreds, top-stitching them into place and leaving the raw edges. I squared them up and sewed them together for the pillow.

I had made the white one a while back.  Same technique.  I thought it was a little boring when I got done so I appliqued the flower on top.  The raw edges kind of fluff up with use and I occasionally give it a little haircut when it gets too stringy.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI. 16" x 16".

Since I'm here I'm also going to show off the handiwork of my beautiful granddaughters, Cedi, Capri and Pip, ages 11, 10 and 6. They helped host the baby shower for my daughter and made all these amazing cupcakes to match our farm animal theme. Cedi and I baked 5 different kinds of cupcakes and the 3 of them made 5 different fillings, filled them all and did all the decorations. They had to leave for a few hours in the middle of the day Saturday and I was instructed not to touch the cupcakes.  They made a gramma proud...as they always do.

Threads in a Row (Ready to Sew

Created for Project Quilting 9.5 A Stitich in Time challenge.

I'm still working with strings, so my first idea was to make spool blocks with strings for the thread.  As I started, I knew I wanted narrower strings, so I went to my collection of shreds.  Shreds are strips too skinny to be strings, typically less than 3/4" wide. Selvages go in with my shreds.  When I work with them I usually stitch them to a foundation leaving the edges raw. That is the approach I used here, creating spools of different colors and different types.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.

10" x 34".

Sunflansy

Created for Project Quilting 9.4 Mellow Yellow challenge.

When I saw the Mellow Yellow theme for this challenge, I immediately thought of sunflowers.  And I'm still doing string quilts, so I figured some string blocks inspired by sunflowers would fit the ticket.

So I cut 6" x 9" rectangles of foundation fabric and made string blocks using yellows. I cut center squares in brown and added green leaves, then put the squares together to make blocks.

Now I could see my mistake. Sunflowers have petals that come out from the center, but I had oriented my blocks so the petals went around. I could rip them out or I could adjust my concept. If only I'd changed the center squares to purple, I could have said they were pansies. Oh, well.  I'll just call them Sunflansies and we're good to go...

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.

14" x 42".

Home of the Brave

Created for Project Quilting 9.3 Bold and Brave challenge.

For the Bold and Brave challenge, I wanted to honor the service men and women who sacrifice so much for our country.  My husband is a veteran and it's very common for people to thank him for his service. This is much different than when he was coming home from Vietnam and was advised to change into his civilian clothes in Hawaii.

I'm still working with string quilts, so I made red and white string blocks, then added blue triangles to one corner of each to make mini flags.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.

18" x 36"

The Argyle Answer

Created for Project Quilting 9.2 Triangulaton Challenge.  

I'm currently possessed by string quilts. I can't get enough of them. So I knew this needed to be one. This is the first time I have used an equilateral triangle as the basis of a string quilt design. 

I quilted uneven diagonal lines and when I was searching for a name, all I could think is that it looked like argyle, so The Argyle Answer it is. 

Created by Diane Lapacek
near Poynette, WI.
18" x 41"