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Arizona Sunset

Posted on April 24, 2012 by fortquilt

Last week a friend of mine returned from a month-long vacation in Arizona.

She and I belong to a small quilting group in our town and she brought back a fat quarter of this fabric for each of us. She said it reminded her of the Arizona sky at sunset.

When I saw the fabric I thought how cool it would be to make some “stack-n-whack” style blocks from it. It was only a fat quarter, but the stripe was small. In the end, I was able to cut 8 stacks consisting of of 4 identical patches within each stack. I used six of the stacks to make “half fans” and the other two stacks to make the side borders.

I wanted to emphasize the sun aspect, so I quilted a fiery center using multicolored thread and gold metallic thread. This “sun” quilting covers the entire center yellow panel and the purple borders above and below it.

All in all, I was satisfied with the result!

Posted in Arizona Sunset, Quilting | 2 Comments

Garden Table Top Basket

Posted on April 19, 2012 by fortquilt

The pattern for this topper was from the January/February 2012 issue of “Quiltmania” magazine. The design was by Maggie Bonanomi for Blackberry Primitives. The original used wool fabrics, but I used batiks from my fabric stash. I added a border of fabric that matched the basket fabric. For the center of the flowers I sewed on black buttons instead of appliqueing the final smallest circle of fabric. Also, I used beads for the birds eyes instead of French knots.

Close-ups of the two birds. Most of the appliques were outlined with a machine blanket stitch, however, I used a satin stitch on the birds’ wings to give them more definition.

Close-ups of the flowers.

For the background quilting, I scattered a few larger feather fronds and then quilted a smaller paisley shape all over to fill in.

On the sofa.

The border was mitered at the corners and outline quilted with a feather ending in a heart shape at the top and bottom in the middle.

To view a slide-show with more pictures click here.

Posted in Garden Table Top Basket, Quilting | 5 Comments

Snow

Posted on March 30, 2012 by fortquilt

Did we get the deck furniture out too early?

Note droopy daffodils in the background.

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Snow Scenes

Posted on March 2, 2012 by fortquilt

We have not had the snowiest winter so far this season, so when it snowed all February 29th, it was delightful. Next day the temperature promptly rose to the high forties and it was time for a walk in our winter wonderland. Click here to view a nice slide show.

Posted in Photography | 1 Comment

Red and White Robbery

Posted on February 28, 2012 by fortquilt

I really should not be thinking about another quilting project, but I just could not resist trying my hand at a two color quilt design in EQ7. I was inspired by the fabulous display of red and white quilts sponsored by the American Folk Art Museum in New York City during 2011 entitled “Infinite Variety:Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts.” I did not have the opportunity to see it in person, but there was tremendous internet coverage of the event. Anyhow, here is my first stab at a design:

The design uses my variation of the traditional quilt design, “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul.”

Posted in Quilting, Red and White Robbery | 1 Comment

Another Quilt in Progress

Posted on February 23, 2012 by fortquilt

My current big project is from “String Quilt Revival” by Virginia Baker and Barbara Sanders. String quilting is an old technique where strips of fabric are sewn to a fabric foundation. After enough strips are sewn to cover the block, the block is trimmed to some uniform size. In less affluent times, these strips of fabric were leftovers from other sewing projects or even harvested from used clothing. Now, of course, we have lots of fabric. For example, I have an entire drawer full of Thimbleberries fabric to use for this project. Instead of muslin as a base foundation, we can use ultra thin stabilizer.

Here is the first block I completed.

And the first three. Just these would make a lovely table runner with a nice little border added.

But, oh no, I have to make a quilt with 88 blocks. Here are the first three rows of blocks. Only five more rows to go! Wish me luck.

Posted in Quilting, String Quilt I | 4 Comments

Thunder Bay Charm Quilt

Posted on January 28, 2012 by fortquilt

A charm quilt is made up all of one tessellating patch where each patch is a unique fabric. I belonged to the Thunder Bay Quilt Guild when some of the members of the group did a charm exchange. Eighteen of us exchanged 10 squares of fabric in an assigned color range every other month for one year. Using these squares and adding a few from my stash, I ended up with 1089 unique 5 inch squares of fabric used in my charm quilt.

I used a tessellating whirly-gig type shape and arranged them in a Trip-Around-the-World configuration.

Here I am at the 2009 Michigan Quilt Network where the quilt won a 2nd place ribbon in the “Large Machine Quilted” category.

With the whirly-gig shape I used, there were little squares of leftover fabric, so I made this smaller charm quilt of squares using the same 1089 fabrics!

Posted in Quilting, Thunder Bay Charm Quilt | 2 Comments

Purple Pineapple Completed

Posted on January 21, 2012 by fortquilt

I finished the machine quilting and binding for the Purple Pineapple quilt about a week ago.

After quilting and binding, the quilt measured 99 inches by 99 inches.

First, I did a little practice piece of the quilting designs I intended to use. I determined how to quilt across the entire row of pineapple blocks without any additional stops and starts. By quilting just the top half of the “star” design quilting from left to right, and then the bottom half of the “star” quilting right to left, I was able to achieve this, making the whole process much faster and more enjoyable.

Here is a view of the quilt loaded on my relatively new Gammill Vison 26-10 on a nice sunny day.

Close up of star design in the pineapple block……….

……..and in the corner block.

Close up of the border……….

…….and the border going around a corner.

Close up of inside border quilting. I used Superior brand gold metallic thread on the inside borders. I used Fil-Tec Glide thread on all the other quilting.

Some views of the quilting from the back side of the quilt.

Some views of the quilting from the back side of the quilt.

I had some fun with the binding on this quilt, too. Since I was having such good luck with the metallic thread quilting the inner borders, I decided to embellish the binding with machine embroidery using the metallic thread as well.

There are no seams along the entire length of the binding on each side. The seams are actually mitered at the corners.

Posted in Purple Pineapple, Quilting | 11 Comments

2011 A Year in Quilts

Posted on January 2, 2012 by fortquilt

To view as a slideshow click here.

Posted in Quilting | 2 Comments

Books I Read in 2011

Posted on January 1, 2012 by fortquilt

The Appeal by John Grisham
Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh
A Presumptoin of Death by Jill Paton Walsh
The Attenbury Emeralds byJill Paton Walsh
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson by Jerome Charyn
The Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
A River, A Lake, and Another River by Steve Amick
Pearl Buck’s China by Hilary Spurling
The Paris Wife- by Paula McClain
Menonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry
Among the Mad by Winspear, Jacqueline
Follow the River by James Alexander Thom
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maude Montgomery
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Unbroken by Laura Hallenbeck
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Linore Pruitt Stewart
The House on Riverton by Kate Morton
Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovitch
Smokin’ Seventeen by Janet Evanovitch
The Pirate King by Laurie R. King
Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichle
Still Life by Louise Penny
A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny
The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester
“V” is for Vengeance by Sue McGrath
Death Comes to Pemberley by P D James
Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny
The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny

Happy New Year!

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment