52 Photos - Week 36 - Collections

Right up  my alley.  Do you think I have a fabric fetish?  Frank thinks I do!

Most of the people who will come through 52 Photos may not understand why quilters need to have lots and lots and lots of fabric.  Frank is in that crowd as well!  But my quilter friends will understand!

These are just a few of my newest additions.  I can't even begin to tell you how many hundreds of yards of fabric I have.  I really don't want to know.  But I can tell you in 2014 I bought more than I
used. 

Yards used this year	-166
Yards bought this year	218.75
plus or minus	52.75

Yes, I do keep track of it.  It is fun, sometimes, to see the negative numbers grow.  Last year the closure of a local quilt shop did me in.  I  was thrilled to get fabric at 50% and then 60% off regular prices, so I bought a lot!

For those uneducated in the many ways to buy fabric now, these are called Jelly Rolls.  They are forty 2 1/2 inch by width of fabric (generally 41 inches) strips.  Manufacturers do this so you can get a little bit of the entire collection of that designer.    


These are from Moda and originally sold for about $40.  Each one will make a lap or full sized quilt when you add fabric for the background and then of course the backing and binding. 

That is another level of eduction for non-quilters.  When a quilter makes a quilt for you, it can cost $150 to $300 for just the fabric, more for the batting and thread to piece the top.  That doesn't take into account the time of the quilter or the wear and tear on their machines.  Then it costs about $150 to $300 to quilt the entire quilt.  The quilting is the sewing lines you see on the quilt top 

So when someone gifts you a quilt, you are being trusted with a work of art that is worth way more than most people are willing to pay for it. 

One time, a quilt of mine won Best in Show and a viewer got very upset when I turned down her offer of $150 to buy my masterpiece!  To say I was insulted, is an understatement!


Not that I would have sold the Elephants of Sri Lanka anyway!

The Ellies Are Home!

You know, when you sit in your guild meeting during show and tell, and you like the quilts being shown, you are happy.  But then, someone opens up a quilt that makes the audience intake their breath and sigh because it is so stunning.  I wanted that.  Big time.  And I think I got it.

I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for just the right quilt to come along. An as the Old Sicilian Saying goes, all good things come to those who wait.  And, believe you me, good things came to me!

I can't sing the praises of Charlene high enough.  She did a prizewinning job on my quilt.  Too bad my quilt isn't perfectly pieced or it would win the Houston Quilt show!  The quilting is exquisite!

The Elephants of Sri Lanka started out with a story in the Quilters World Magazine from 2007.  Don't fret, you can't get them anymore because the tsunami wiped out Sri Lanka so there are no more elephants.  The women were taught to embroider and create these blocks to sell in the US.  Cost was $10 per block and it was shipped free.  


The Elephants jetted in from
Sri Lanka and were gorgeous.  I was so afraid to cut into them I let them sit for 2 years while I collected fabrics to work the paperpieced blocks with.




Here are all 12 elephants lined up on my design wall.  While I was at a retreat with a group of friends, i began to paperpiece the sashing blocks.  I loved the colors, and of course I love paperpiecing!

Here are two blocks joined.  I have oftne thought they woulld make a wonderful quilt just by themselves.  And after letting them sit for a year or more, I thought about doing just that.  I was still afraid to cut the elephants up!

But when I paired them up with the elephants, they were gorgeous.  I knew I had to complete this quilt-----at least to a top stage.








So here are the ellies and the sashing blocks all put together.  They sat for another year because now I was afraid to ruin the quilt with quilting!  I just can't win, can I?

The elephants were bugging me to get done, so I talked to my friend Charlene Harp, and she agreed to quilt them.  And it was a labor of love for sure.  The elephants are not "delicate" so to speak, but when put on the frame one leg did fray a bit.  And two places in my paperpiecing were not deep enough to hold.  So there are some repairs to do.

Here are Charlene and I displaying the quilt for the first time to the Remember Me Guild.   We got that intake of breath!  YES!

Here are some close up details of the quilting.  Some of the fabrics are so patterned you really can't see the quilting on it.  Which is a terrible shame, she did so much fine work on this quilt.  She should have charged me $1000!

Each of the elephants have the vine in its background.  The border has a leaf, and the circle border had lotus leaves.  The paperpieced sashing is echo quilted.  And the elephants are stitched in the ditch.  There are 5 different colors of thread.  And I can't imagine how many hours she put into this quilt.  

I am so grateful to Charlene for doing this quilt for me.  I love it.

glen

BRRRRR! Inside Quilting Today!

The rain held off yesterday all day and that allowed the canals to drain a bit.  Mind you, the water is still very high.  And with the overcast sky with 100% humidity, nothing is even drying.  We have ponding in our yard when it generally drains exceptionally well due to the efforts of my hydrologist wannabee husband.

The temp right now on my covered and protected back porch is 34.  We did get a chance to take the wild hellions for a walk to the end of the street but it sprinkled on us the entire time.  Now they are anything but like in this picture, bouncing off the walls and needing exercise!

Out of self preservation we took the boys and Chloe to get their nails trimmed.  For short trips, DiNozzo is fine.  If it is much longer than the vet or Petsmart, he tosses his cookies.

I am going to get the borders on Maylee's Quilt in a bit.  I can't wait to see it to that stage.  And it will go to the Guild next week with me for a really wonderfully exciting show and tell.

AND I GET THE ELLIES!

glen

UFO Progress for Judy

I actually do have  the top together, it needs borders and then to be sandwiched.  The quilting will take a long time because it will be intense.

I have just been lazy and over worked and not enough time for myself and quilting.  Those are my excuses and i am sticking to them.
                                                                             glen

Elephants on the March

The elephant top is together!  Yeah!

I need to decide on the color of the borders.  They will be worked tomorrow.  He likes one, I like the other.  His is brighter, mine is more in tone.  Both look good.  See the poor ellie with the cut off tail?  Poor baby.  He looks mad, huh?

Here is the one Frank likes best.












Here is the one I like best.




What do you think?

design Wall 2-27-12

Coming up to the Leap Day.  I had a friend in grammar school who was born on Leap Day.  It was exotic and wonderful to be so different.  I just had Benjamin Franklin to be my birthday partner, and so close to Christmas was awful.  Sigh.

I have the Ellies on my design wall this week.  They are the UFO for February.  I have long put off finishing the Elephants of Sri Lanka, since 2007 to be exact.  I dabbled with them at a retreat about 2 years ago, but put them back into their bag after that.  They have been on the UFO list for a while, always feared.

Now they are out in the open.  But I had misplaced the issue of the magazine to see how they were laid out.  I had to spend one night digging through my mag stash to find it.  Last night I trimmed them down and tore the paper off the backs of the sashing blocks.  There were a few loose areas but I fixed that and we are ready to get a top done.  I finally have ideas for the quilting and I am no longer dreading that part.

The elephant blocks came from Sri Lanka through a dealer in New York.  She was brokering the sale of work village women were doing trying to start a business to generate income.  Their work is exquisite!

Tiny tiny stitches, perfect curves, all hand done.  And the blocks were dirt cheap.  I sent along a donation as well.  The quilt will be a masterpiece when I get it done, but it may be into March before it is totally quilted.  I want the elephants  to be very detailed.

These are the blocks that will go in between the elephants and pull them together.  Strong linear designs compliment the elephant's roundness.  I guess this is the jungle the elephants emerge from as they march along the quilt's path.

I told a friend a few years back, I love it when someone opens a quilt out at meeting show and tell and there is an audible gasp from the audience.  The quilt is spectacular.  I am hoping this will be mine.

glen

Ellies get trimmed

I trimmed the ellies tonight.  I sucked it up and just whacked them but good.  See the dog from my class with Judy Holley up in the left top corner?  He is sitting and watching me!  Waiting for me to make him some friends!


I went to see Stelly bowl in the International Bowling Tournament today.  We had never been to one before and I wanted to see Charlene and Stelly.  But the whole place was amazing!  The Bowling Tourney people bring the entire bowling alley right to your town and set it up in your civic center!  Just like that!  Here is a photo of the entire 56 or 58 lanes there.  Stelly bowled on #1 so we were at the far end of the center.  (It used to be called the Centroplex but now they call it something else.  The New Orleans evacuees from Katrina stayed there and tore up the place so they did a major remodel that finished last year.)  It will always be the Centroplex to me though.  Whatever you call it, it was just amazing to see the transformation.

I had a whole post here but the blog-s-sphere ate it so I am redoing it.

Here are Charlene and I cutting up.  And normal. (yeah, right)  See my new sexy blouse?  With the lace cut out sleeves!  Yes.





Here is Stelly bowling.  It was so wonderful to watch him do what he loves.  Wait, wait, wait......till he turns around..........(but he does have a cute butt!)

Here is the handsome guy!  He is so so sweet, I love him!


I should be heading to Lafayette tomorrow for a class with Sue Nickels.  But I got a call from the nursing home saying I could meet with the doctor before his rounds tomorrow.  I am sure it is about the darned feeding tube.  They keep asking me and I keep saying no.  So I will do so again.  Kenny should be here saying no too, but you know how that is.

Anyway, I shall be there.

And Tuesday I have a sew day with the Traveling Quilter Woman.  She is returned from her journey to the East to vast and exotic quilt stores.  I can't wait to see her treasures!

glen

Whacking off an Elephant's Tail is Not Easy

I spent a goodly amount of time playing with a layout for the Ellies yesterday.  The picture layout in the book has the four red elephants in all four corners.  Well I have only two of the reds.  They have elephants marching a different way on each row and I thought to go a different way with each block.  But they appeared to be butting heads so I decided to march them like the mag layout.

I have two of each design but they are both right facing and left facing.  And I had four large ones.  That left me with a dilemma.  Somewhere, somehow one was going to be close to the wrong one.

So I decided on this layout.  The four large ellies are diagonal down left to right and the reds are far apart and the other two are not next to each other either.  And everyone is marching in the correct direction.  And they all seem to be happy.

My problem now is the pattern.  It says to cut the elephant blocks to 15 1/2 x 15 1/2.  But the paperpiece blocks are 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 and they only reach 14 1/2 when put together.  Major dilemma, because the four large elephant blocks get their tails whacked off.  I find that difficult to do.  I guess I will have to do it today, but it is cerebra-technically tough to do.



glen:  how do you like THAT college word?  Carrie, did you read my blog today?????  LOL, I know the answer to that!