It's Over - The ICAD Challenge Summer 2011

Christmas Through the Year - August

This month I made another name panel for the Christmas Through the Year challenge:



I have now made panels for 5 out of 6 of my nieces and nephews. I just have Harry to go...

This week I also made a little present for a friend who has been poorly. It's a housewife needle case and the pattern is from Kathleen Tracy's book "Remembering Adelia". I didn't make it in civil war repros, as you can see!



Inside:



It may have been a mistake to use a directional print though, as the teapots and cups are upside down on the front (but not the back!) - doh!

I enjoyed making this and my friend loves it, so I'm thinking I might make a bunch of these for sewing friends for Christmas. Watch this space!

Stackin up the ICADS

My cards:



Buddha statue in the garden looking after my cards:



All of our cards:



Gman's cards:



Only 10 more days to go! Eeeek!

Let the Liberation Begin!

Well, I made it to the Festival of Quilts and yes, it was awesome and no, one day wasn't enough. But this year I prioritised seeing the exhibition quilts (I did take photos, but not sure of the copyright issues of putting them on the interwebs) over and above checking out all the stalls, so came home with a relatively modest amount of stuff:



Mostly some delicious Kona solids from the Simply Solids stall, plus a spotty Kaffe layer cake, and a charm pack...and yes, I succumbed to the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt book! I have been studying the blocks and a lot can be liberated by using corner cover triangles for HST and flying geese type units; or cut wonkily by stacking fabrics; and some could be made conventionally but oversized and then wonkified by recutting on the slant. It's going to be a fun project for sure :-)

And I made a start on it today. Here are my first two blocks. First up, Autumn Tints:



As you can maybe tell, I messed up with the placement of my four patches, but ho-hum, this is a liberated version and I like the way they look, so I won't be getting out the seam ripper!!

Second up is Big Dipper:



Love how it turned out :-)

I can't quite believe that I have managed to keep up with the ICAD challenge, although I admit some days it hasn't been easy:



and then the boys show me up with their creativity (first by Gman, second by Waif):



We will definitely keep going until the end of August. But after that, I think we will all be desperate to create something BIG!

Unruly Nephew (and Wife?)

True to my promise to myself, I have made a start on my next present for Allie's Christmas Through the Year challenge. I am making name panels for all my nieces and nephews using Unruly Quilter Tonya's techniques. You can see previous panels here, here, here and here. This one is for my second eldest nephew, Charlie:



As you can see, it's not quilted yet. I think I will have to keep the quilting pretty simple given the crazy nature of the background fabric!

And, then I have this Unruly Farmer's Wife thing going on in my head. You will probably have seen all over blogland, peeps taking part in the Farmers Wife Quiltalong. Now, I don't really *do* making other people's quilt patterns, or following rules and templates but I keep seeing the blocks and thinking "ooh, that could be free pieced". So now I'm thinking "how about a liberated/free pieced/wonky farmers wife quilt?". And I could call it the Unruly Wife, which would be much more up my street!! I'm still thinking about it...but it is growing and growing in my head :-)

And I realised I haven't blogged about the ICAD Challenge for a while. I have still been creating an index card a day, although I admit it is getting harder to know what to do each time! Here's a few recent ones:

Cards inspired by my love of quilts:


Doodley ones:



Favourite poetry:


Cards reflecting my spiritual journey:


But of all the index cards I have made, none of them make me smile as much as this one made by my six year old son, Waif:



I love it!

Gman's Quilt is Finished!

Hooray, I did it! Quilting complete, binding sewn down. It's finished!

Some history for new followers:

My son Gman (11) requested a quilt using only red and black fabrics. I started off intending to make a traditional log cabin using the black and red...but then got bored of that so turned it into the star, and added borders in a liberated medallion style until it was the size I wanted it. And yes, I did stray slightly from the red and black requirement...naughty mama :-)...but lucky Gman is pleased with it and agrees that the bright green goose, square and binding are what gives the quilt its "wow!" factor. I hand quilted with perle cotton using a nice big needle. Lovely :-)

It hasn't been easy getting a good photo - I really could do with a nice wall or barn or something to hang quilts on lol. Hopefully the collection of photos below give a pretty good idea of what it looks like. Waif insisted on cuddling up under there with Gman.

August Already?!?

Phew, I finished ring number nine on my hexagon scrap quilt. As you can see, I am quite pleased with it ;-)



In my pattern of light/medium/light/medium/light/dark, I need a ring of lights next. I will need 60 of these, so time to get basting. But before I start that I must attend to some other stuff, like:

• finishing sewing the binding on George's quilt
• making some Christmas presents ( I shamefully didn't manage to get a thing made in July for Allie's Christmas Through the Year challenge)
• getting Waif's quilt layered and basted ready to quilt

So I am going to be a good girl and do these things before I start on the next round!

I will, of course, be continuing with my good things journal:



And, eek, it's two thirds of the way thru the ICAD Challenge:



And the, on the 13th August, there's the small matter of the Festival of Quilts.Woooooohooooooooo! Excited, me??!  Ooh, no, I am very composed.