I had a nice surprise in the mail last night: a box from the Museum of the American Quilter’s Society with my quilt inside! Paisley Pavane has been on tour or at the Museum since late 2005, so it’s good to have it home again.

(Click on the photo for a larger pic and detail shots.)

I made this quilt for the MAQS New Quilts from an Old Favorites Contest at MAQS; the block theme for the 2006 contest was Dresden Plate. The purpose of the contest is to showcase innovative interpretations of traditional blocks. I’d had two other quilts accepted to the contest in prior years and I really wanted to enter, but couldn’t come up with a design I was happy with until really late in the game.

I’d really sort of given up on entering, and then I was digging through my stacks of in progress work looking for something else entirely, and I came across the pieces for the medallions that were made using a 9° wedge ruler. The idea took shape and I managed to complete the quilt in time for the contest, and the quilt was awarded a Third Place ribbon. Read the rest of this entry »

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After all that paper yesterday, I came home and had to have some HOF (hands on fabric) time. ITMan and I each received a slick new iPod Touch as a late Christmas present. We got them free because I took some programming classes in November and December. Great freebies! Not that we needed new iPods, but we do love our techie gizmos…

So now comes the inevitable search for just the right cases for the things. I’ve really never had cases for my other iPods, because I generally don’t take them out of the house. I connect them to players and speaker systems just to make it easier to have more music at my fingertips in whatever room I’m in without burning cd’s constantly. ITMan has a case for his iPod Video from DLO, but it’s really trash, since the case itself put scratches and permanent marks on the face of the iPod after long term use. Isn’t that what cases are supposed to prevent? Obviously, we won’t be buying cases from them again.

When I decided I had to have some sort of case for my newer iPod nano that I got last Christmas, I made a little quilted sleeve from fabric and thin batting. I just wanted something to protect it when I sling it into my purse on trips or something, and this way, there’s nothing inside the case to scratch the finish on the iPod. Perfect. So when ITMan and I were contemplating cases for the iTouch, he mentioned that some sort of a sleeve would be all that was really needed, so I whipped up two cases with that in mind:

Soft on the inside, cool looking on the outside. I was going to say “pretty,” but ITMan probably doesn’t do “pretty.” He did spend quite a bit of time picking out his own fabric for his case though, finally settling on the red silk dupioni. The purple silk dupioni was a close second, but in the end he liked the way the red silk shimmered. I chose a couple of coordinating cotton fat quarters for mine, and made the front from one fabric and the back (which also acts as the flap to enclose the iTouch with a bit of Velcro) out of the other.

I left the seam allowances on the outside and used the serger to finish, because I didn’t want the seams on the inside causing lumpy bulk. There’s nothing on the inside but batting, and I think it was Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Black, or maybe it was Dream Cotton in black. Either way, it’s the perfect thickness and very soft and didn’t cause any problems with the machine when I quilted it to the top fabric with no backing.

Now I’m looking at mine and thinking how cool it would be to add some embellishments, like beads, embroidery, crystals, buttons, etc., etc.! Or I could make another and embroider and embellish before assembly. Hmmm, I could get totally sidetracked making these. It would be like making fabric postcards, but making something useful (I’ve never done the postcard thing. What do you do with them besides send them away to someone else, and then what do they do with them??) I’m not sure I have time to get involved in making more of these, but I might not be able to resist this temptation…

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Puzzle Quilts,
by Paula Nadelstern

Actually, this book hasn’t even been on the bookshelf yet, since I just got it! I finished devouring it yesterday while I waited for my daughter at her flute lesson. I love it! It’s just so yummy that devouring is the perfect word!

This new book by Paula Nadelstern is the first new quilt book I’ve purchased in a long while, and I’m happy to report that it was a completely satisfying purchase. I have her other two books, Kaleidoscopes & Quilts and Snowflakes & Quilts, and to be honest, while the books are stunning visually, and her methods and techniques are interesting and produce exciting quilts, I’m just not sure I’d ever really make a quilt like that. I’ve looked at those two books a lot, but I’ve never been inspired enough to go there (yet).

Puzzle Quilts, however, may just be a different story altogether. I know I read the other two books (I mean really read them, not just perused them), and they just didn’t strike the same chord of inspiration, the “I want to make something with this method NOW” burn. Read the rest of this entry »

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