Golden Flowers - "the truth's a moving target"

Here's my quilt for the second challenge of Project Quilting Season 8.

We were asked to be inspired by the classic block "Carolina Lily," which has a few different interpretations, but in general looks like this:

I floated around the idea of just making the block as is, but then decided to get a little funky with it:

I basically improv-pieced the background, added a couple borders, and then raw-edge appliqued the flowers and flowerpot. Here are a few close-ups:

And I chose to use the bright orange/pink fabric for the background. It actually has some lilies on it!

I decided to name it "Golden Flowers" in reference to one of the more interesting stories surrounding our new president.

While I have some pretty strong opinions about it all, I won't go into those here. What I will say is that it amazes me how interesting our politics is right now. It's almost like a reality TV show. We are all arguing over what's true and what's not true, but who benefits from this division? Certainly not us.

Something that I heard recently that impacted me was this: "Agree to disagree, but not to disconnect." Continue talking to folks who's views differ from yours. Don't block them out. Don't disrespect them for believing a different version of the truth than you do. The moment we shut each other out is the moment we all lose. 

The last thing I'll add is something that stuck with me ever since I was in nursing school. One of my favorite professors once told our pharmacology class that "the truth's a moving target." You'd think that learning about pharmaceuticals would be somewhat concrete, but like anything, there is room for interpretation. It's difficult to know what's true when there's so much that goes on behind closed doors. I'll always remember that phrase, because things are never as simple as they seem.

Golden Flowers is 23" X 28" and was made here in Central PA.

Thanks for reading.

Charlotte's Web

I am so grateful for Project Quilting in my life! It gives me the reason I need to actually get a project done from time to time. If you are someone who is interested in quilting in any way, of any skill level, you should check it out!

This is the first challenge for season 8 of Project Quilting, so we were given the task to use the number eight for our inspiration this week. I had a few ideas, but turned to the inter-web to see if I could find anything concrete. That's when I stumbled upon this blog: Life in the Scrapatch. She had previously hosted a spider-web quilt-a-long, and even though it was several years ago I decided to give it a whirl! Big thanks to this nice lady for posting instructions on how to make an amazing spider-web quilt with EIGHT sides that can host a little EIGHT-legged spider!!!

Here are some pictures of my progress:

Instead of piecing this section like the writer of the blog did, I chose to use whole pieces of fabric with a good-size scale to it. It also has tiny spider-web designs in it so I thought it was perfect!

Then I pieced in the curves (which was not altogether easy!)

And put them all together! I forgot to take a picture of the last step in piecing, which is adding sashing to the sides of each web-section. But I did that too :)

After I got it sandwiched and quilted a web pattern on it, I decided to add a little hot-pink spider. Because, really, what is a spider-web quilt without a spider? And in my opinion, a hot-pink spider is the best kind of spider.

As I was quilting, I was listening to a radio program about a local mother who's daughter suffered from medication-resistant seizures. This mother - who happens to be someone I have met - has been fighting very hard to get medical marijuana legalized in our state so that she could help her child. The program mentioned a strain of marijuana known as "Charlotte's Web," which is named after a little girl who's seizures it helped with. I thought that would be a good name for my quilt as well. Right around that time, my six-year-old son came over to look at the spider. He told me it's name should be Charlotte, so that pretty much sealed the deal.

I love it when the name for my project just kind of works itself out :)

Here are pictures of the finished project: 

spiderweb!

Here's Charlotte

I used soft grey corduroy for the backing. You can kind of see the spiderweb-ish detail in the fabric here too!

I'm proud of this one!

My quilt this week measures about 33 inches from point to point, and was made here in snowy Central PA!!!

circle turkey

I am so happy to have been able to complete another Project Quilting Challenge! This one was to be inspired by a piece of children's artwork...what an awesome idea! I have always loved this little turkey that my son Rowan made in pre-school last Thanksgiving:

 So I decided to use it as inspiration, and here is what I came up with:

I am calling it "Circle Turkey." Here they are together:

And here are a few close-ups!

I used one of my favorite "quick-finish" methods for small-ish quilts which I absolutely LOVE! I just found a nice yarn out of my stash and couched it down around the perimeter using a zig-zag stitch. I went around this one three different times, because the yarn is variegated and I love the way it looks next to itself.

For the back, I picked out one of my favorite black/grey/white canvas prints: sea creatures! Thank you to my wonderful sister for donating this beauty to my stash.

The finished quilt is 11"X11" (ish), and was made here in Central PA! Thank you Kim and Diane for another great challenge!

red wing

Hello! I was so happy to be able to complete a challenge for Project Quilting this week. Life has been SOOOOOO busy, but it was nice to come back to my quilting and use it to "quiet" my mind if just for a little while.

Since the inspiration this week was "seasons," I chose a block from the Farmer's Wife quilt with the same name:

I just enlarged the pattern a bit and was good to go!

Lately I've been inspired a lot by the prints on a clothing line I've begun selling (one of the reasons I'm so busy!). They do a lot of funky prints with a random color thrown in here or there. So I threw in a random red "season." I spent a good bit of time wondering which "season" the red one would be. I think it would probably be Autumn. But I'll let that open to viewer interpretation!

My little quilt measures 16" X 16" and it was made here in Central PA. Thanks for reading, and have a large day!

november quilt - purple

Here I come at the last minute with my last Focus Through the Prism quilt. I took a poll on Facebook, and decided to name it Raspberry Beret. Thanks Kristen! I love Prince!


My color this month was purple, and here's what I came up with:

It measures 20"X20" and was made here in lovely Central Pennsylvania.

I had a blast doing this series of challenges. Thanks Kim!

And now I must sleep... goodnight!

star gardener

This month's Project Quilting inspiration was "nine-patch," so I chose one of my very favorite blocks from the Farmer's Wife quilt: Star Gardener...which also happens to be a complicated nine-patch! Here it is on a smaller scale as part of my Farmer's Wife-inspired bed quilt:

It's the one under the (very cute) baby's bottom.

For the 20"X20" Project Quilting quilt, I just enlarged the pattern a bit. It also looks a bit different because the one in the bigger quilt is set on point. Sorry, no baby for scale in these pictures!

I like the name that the Farmer's Wife book gives the block, so I kept it. Star Gardener measures 20"X20" and was pieced and free-motion quilted by yours truly here in Central Pennsylvania. Thanks for another great challenge, and thanks for reading!

trois fleches

here is my September creation for Project Quilting's off-season Focus Through the Prism challenge:

trois fleches

"flying geese" were the inspiration block this month, and they are used to make the arrowheads. I used blue as my focus color, and added touches of purple and indigo for interest. I free-motion quilted the piece with royal blue thread, using stipples on the blue areas and straight(ish) lines on the arrows. the quilt is 20X20 and was made here in Central Pennsylvania. I didn't use a pattern, but based the arrow blocks off of this tutorial from Grace and Favour.

I usually like to get a daylight picture of my quilts, but since there will be no daylight before the deadline, the fluorescent lights in the basement will have to do!

bonus points to anyone who gets the reference in the quilt title: Trois Fleches. leave a comment if you know where I got it!

Thanks for reading!