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".

Table Trails

 Created for Project Quilting 12.4 Snail's Trail challenge.

I figured a simple table runner fit my bill for this week. I started some blocks and soon realized that a snail's trail block is a pineapple block with a different coloration. Why did I never notice that before? I decided to use strips of varying widths because snails never travel an even path, just like many of us. 

Created by Diane Lapacek in rural Poynette, WI.

16" x 32"

Monticello Hexies Bag

 Created for Project Quilting 12.3 Virtual Vacation challenge.

Virtual Vacation was an interesting challenge for me this week.  First of all I was off for a three day road trip to pick up jars for Lapacek's Orchard. We can lots of applesauce, apple pie filling, apple butter and jams and jellies at the end of every season. We were out of jars, so we made a trip to the manufacturer in Arkansas to pick up more. Not the most exciting road trip ever, but better than any other road trip I've been on lately.  I have been making some hexies for a future hexagon quilt and packed them up to work on while in the truck. Great idea! Problem is I forgot to put glue sticks in, so I didn't get alot done. Oh, well. 

Anyway, I decided I could use a better bag to keep my hexie project in while on the road. A bag was quick and easy, so it fit into the rest of my week, which should have included a day babysitting for my littlest grandbabies, but Frank had to spend 5 hours clearing the driveway this morning so we could get out. No grandbabies for me today.

My daughter heard about this challenge and she told me I should use Monticello for my virtual vacation theme.  She lived in Virginia for 10 years and we took road trips to see her 3 times a year. Coming and going we passed close to Monticello and I said it was something I thought would be interesting.  I'm a gardener and we have a family orchard, so I thought it would be my kind of thing.

There is a standing joke in my family that Frank's idea of sightseeing is to drive past. So, we were near Monticello a few years ago and Frank said we could check it out. We pulled into the parking lot and there was half an hour to closing.  Obviously, this would not be worthwhile. But Frank now says we were there. (No wonder I've stuck with this guy for 44 years!)

I found some scraps of upholstery fabric I had dyed for a previous project and made a bag. My hexie supplies fit in it perfectly and I made sure to put in a few glue sticks. It's ready to go when we head for Monticello. Or maybe I'll work on those hexies when we go to watch the granddaughters play basketball or to babysit the little grandbabies or even just to the store. I believe this will be a long term project.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, Wi.

  

Fussy Flowers

 Created for Project Quilting 12.2 - Fussy Cut challenge.

Fussy cut is so not my thing. I guess that's why you do a challenge. To inspire you to do something that you wouldn't otherwise. 

I searched my stash to find anything that was worthy of fussy cutting. Not much. Then, at the bottom of a pile I found a small piece left from some Spoonflower fabric that my daughter-in-law, Kim, had given to me a few years ago.  It was made by manipulating a picture of one of my quilts. 

There were pictures of a shredded flower, so I fussy cut them, then made string pieced triangles to fill in the background.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.
11" x 28"

Illuminated Argyle

 Created for the Project Quilting 12.1 – Illuminating + Ultimate Gray challenge.

Illuminating and Ultimate Gray.  So not my thing. That's only 2 colors and one of them is gray, which is not really a color at all! 

The next day as I passed through my living room, I saw the Argyle Answer hanging on the wall. Hmmmm. I made this one for the PQ9.2 Triangulation challenge.

This could work. So I went looking for grays.  In spite of them not being my thing, but I did have quite a few in my collection. Lots of equilateral triangles in gray and one row of illuminating yellows giving it some life.

Quilted with randomly spaced diagonal lines in various shades of yellows and grays.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI

18"x41"

Vanilla Beauty

Created for QQ2020 Q.5 Trish challenge.

I met Trish when I joined the Lodi Valley Quilters Guild. She and my daughter-in-law, Kim, discovered very quickly that they were meant to be quilt sisters. So, when a group of friends got together to sew in Poymette, Kim and Trish joined us. This must have been early in 2013. At that time, I was teaching every November at the Quilts by Barb Quilt Retreat Getaway Weekend run by my sister, Barb Raisbeck, and our project for 2013 was the Squarey Quilt.

 Trish was working on her Vanilla Quilt that day. As she was laying it out on the floor, I thought, "Hmmmm, that's a Squarey Quilt." I know I took a picture of it, but it must have been lost when my old computer bit the dust. Trish's quilt was made with rectangles instead of squares, but definitely the same idea. So, I decided to make a vanilla quilt for this challenge. This is definitely out of my wheelhouse. I'm into lots of color and lots of fabrics. But a vanilla quilt is made of vanilla fabrics. And it needed to be a New York Beauty because that's what I'm doing right now. So, I put in as many different fabrics as I could find a place for and added one chocolate fabric because Trish did in hers. I would have put it closeer to the center, but I forgot until I was almost done. Oh, well.

This will go to my daughter-in-law, Kim, for her master bedroom even if it was made in honor of Trish.

Created by Diane Lapacek, while looking forward to getting her real life back after quarantining in rural Poynette, WI.
4 1/2" square.

Happy Birthday, Trish!!!