in progress: the Neo-Boho Mango Cheezit Quilt

It started as a love affair between a nouveau-ish vintage paisley and a remnant from a be-ribboned curtain material. They lived together in my stash for a long time, then a friend who was de-stashing her fabrics gifted me with a load of great material (thanks Brooke!) that happened to have some perfect complements to these two, and Voila! a quilt was born.

I loved these so much I used a very simple
checkerboard center to keep the focus on the fabrics.

Modified log-cabin to surround the happy pairing.

A trip to Marden's scored me more yardage of that gorgeous
orange & mango flavored ... er.. patterned fabric.

A row of "stacked coins" on either end, with a different paisley for "end caps."

The top is done, all it needs now is a backing,
batting, quilting, and binding. The binding fabric
is a tiny vintage-repro floral that will bring out
more of those darker reds/oranges in the "stacked
coins" sections and tie the whole thing together.

Finished size will be right around 45" by 60" [correction - finished size is 43" x 63" ) - supposedly "crib quilt" size but goodness, it seems big for a crib; it would work as a coverlet on a twin bed or make a generous lap quilt for cuddling up with some Cheezits and watching LOST. Would also make a lovely wall hanging. If you are interested in using it as a wall hanging please let me know and I can add (at no extra cost) a sleeve into which you can slide a curtain rod for easy, neat hanging. I can put the sleeve on a long side or short, depending on how you'd like it oriented.

april poem-a-day challenge ~ day 12

Notification

So we decided to live our lives according
to the results of our Facebook quizzes, because
it seemed as good a method as any
to hoist ourselves out of the midlife rut of banality.
Never mind that the questions were written by 18 year olds
living in their parents’ basements; polls have shown
that those are the people scoring highest in happiness.
We started by moving to Florida, because we
like the sun but not too much and the “less many monuments,”
we embraced the famous persons we were in past lives --
your Picasso to my Queen Elizabeth, we became Sylvia Plath
and Courtney Love, we sent gifts of Pentagram Pizzas and
Smurfs and Albino Squirrels. We narrowed it down to our five
favorite everythings – five albums, five movies, five
breakfast cereals, all else became extraneous, unworthy
of mention. We joined the Freemasons, we allowed ourselves
to Say Anything. We accepted that our auras were most like
the color blue (or orange. or yellow.) and began to dress
accordingly, in our Blanche Devereaux outfits, with our red
high heels, and Keens, driving our Smart Cars to the
restaurant chains we were the most like, your Tim Horton’s
to my Chili’s. Now I know that Jesus thinks you’re a
sanctimonious prick, and now you know which crazy bitch
I am most like, so let us go forth.
Let us live our lives as though
we had truly been
Superpoked.

[I've been doing the poem-a-day challenge and using the prompts posted on Robert Lee Brewer's blog at Writer's Digest. Today's prompt was to start a poem with the words "So we decided to ..." ]

Plum Basket Quilt

Just finished today and up in the Etsy shop - a 38" x 39.5" quilt, just the right size for a lap quilt or crib quilt or, actually, what I would do with it is use it as a wall hanging. I used a combination of asian fabrics in plummy purples and blues, a lush Japanese kanji batik, and some calicos of aqua and yellows for something on the opposite of the color wheel. The pattern is a sort of basketweave adaptation. It's machine pieced and quilted and then bound using machine plus hand slip-stitching for an invisible bind at the back.

in progress, strips stitched and ready for sashing in between


quilting the "long lines" first

machine quilting around each square

to paraphrase my friend Brooke, here I am making binding my bitch ;-)
I used the binding method shown here in this tutorial: (click)

The back. I like how the quilting came out, with the stitching around each square.
The benefit to using dark thread to contrast
light backing fabric: it's eye-catching!
The drawback to using dark thread to contrast
light backing fabric: it's eye-catching!
(ie: it shows every misplaced stitch or tension glitch. yikes!)

another closeup of the back with
contrasting hand slip-stitched binding.

Available now in my Etsy shop.
[note: this item has sold]