Alaska Flowers and Berries Quilt Top

Yikes, it's been awhile since I posted.  I have no excuses.  I have another UFO finish.  This project was #7 on my list of projects to finish here.  It still needs a border but I think that will be the easy part.  My real finish should have been the OMG for November, but I am on vacation and I realize I don't have a photo of it.  Bummer. 

The pattern for this quilt top comes from Wildfire Designs by Alaska quilt designer Dana Michelle.  The pattern uses Hoffman Batiks and specifies the color number for each piece.  I It's a modified rendition of the pattern because I just wanted to do the flowers and berries from the Southeast Panhandle region where I live.  I also used the colors of the plants in our region.  The Indian Paint Brush is yellow in the pattern but ours are orange red.  The columbine in pink in the pattern but ours our orange.  Alaska is a giant state with completely different climates from region to region and different kinds of plants thrive in different areas.  

 I keep pecking away at my weekend finds and feeling very satisfied with my finishes.  I have also made time to work on a few new projects too.  I am having fun with my 10 inch square patterns and will post them as I finish them.  

Linking To:  Midweek Makers, Let's Bee Social, NTT, 

Kory's Forest Quilt

About 10 years ago, my son asked me to make him a quilt out of  jeans.  At the time, I was making bags out of denim and I had a pile of fabric for the job.  I used patterns from Terrie Kralik's quilt book titled, A Forest of Quilts. I grabbed some batiks and and some denim and started cutting.  The animals and birds are done with fusible, which I sewed to the quilt.  My son is an avid outdoorsman and I thought he'd love the animal and bird motifs.  He is a commercial fisherman and this quilt keeps him warm no matter the weather on our frigid Alaska waters.  

Kory's washing machine was broken and he brought some laundry to my house.  I was surprised to see this quilt in the pile of cloths.  It is well worn.  It is always satisfying to know that something you made with love is loved.

Linking to:  Can I Get A Whoop, Whoop, Finish It Up Friday,

Wednesday's UFO - Alaska Flowers and Berries

I'm spending most of my quilting time working on UFO's.  It has been a new challenge to work on one project and put it away at the end of the day and work on a different project the next day.  I like to work on something until it's done and each project is hard to put away for a week.  I am working on this Alaska flower and berry quilt on Wednesdays.  All of the pieces for the unfinished blocks were in a pile in a plastic bag.  Great storage-not!  I had pieces for 5 quilt blocks all piled together, so my first task was to find the pieces for each block.  

Some were labeled like this, what?

It turned out that all of the pieces had the label of the block they were part of, except one group and that group all went to the same block, the blueberry block.  

I separated all of the pieces into block piles.  This is the blueberry pile.  Look at all of those tiny pieces.

My next task was to lay the pieces onto the pattern page to see what I had and what I needed to cut.  They were all cut at one time, but who knows where the lost pieces went.

These pieces are for the lupin pattern.  I put all of my flowers and berries together and pressed them in place on my fusible applique' sheet.

Organizing, tracing, cutting and putting these flowers and berries gave me a bit of neck tension but they're done.  I will iron these onto their squares and they will join the rest of the bunch for top stitching...next Wednesday.

Linking To:  NTT,  Finished Or Not Friday, Can I Get A Whoop, Whoop

Halibut Quilt

In keeping with the halibut theme this week, I thought I'd share a quilt I made for my dad for Father's Day a couple of years ago.  I loved this halibut pattern by Lisa Moore, so I cut one out and made a panel.  When I was finished, I wasn't sure what to do with it.  I thought about it for a few days and decided to make a quilt for my dad.  I wasn't sure how to make it into a quilt though.  

I shopped around and found a fun fabric with an Alaska print.  I decided it would be great for my dad's quilt.  I still wasn't sure how I would put it all together but I got the fabric anyway.  I fussy cut several squares out of the print and made them the centerpiece of a star block.  I used batik scraps for the points of the star.

Since I had sewn squares corner to corner to make my half square triangles, I had lots of smaller half square triangles left.  These I used to make the border around the halibut and around the quilt.  This little strip of green was necessary so to keep my measurements accurate.

 The quilt!  

My dad really seems to like this quilt.  

This is usually my process.  I rarely have a good plan before I start.  Even when I have a good plan I often change it midway.  I think it's a problem.  But, in this case, I think it was okay. 

Linking To:

Inspire Us Thursday Link a Finish Friday Can I Get a Whoop Whoop TGIFF Anything Goes Mondays Sew Cute Linky Tuesday Fabric Tuesday Show and Tell Tuesday Lets Bee Social 

Quilt Retreat

For many years, a group of women and I would meet two times a year at a cabin in the woods for a 3 day quilt retreat.  We picked days in the Spring and in the Fall that would work for all of the participants.  We visited, watched movies, ate good food and QUILTED.  I have since moved away from the community, and although I attended a few more times after moving, it became too cumbersome to get away to travel and attend the retreat.  The lucky thing was, during one of our block exchanges, I asked each of the members of the group to make a house block that represented them.  I wanted to look at the block and know who made it.  I put the blocks together to make a retreat quilt.  

This is the cabin, with it's three big windows that gave us a view of the icy water below.  I put this block in the middle and surrounded it with flying geese, blueberries and evergreen trees.

I can look at these blocks and think about Jeri and her dragonflies, Connie, me, Judy, DJ, Jan.  DJ gave me a little piece of fabric with a airplane like the one my husband flies when she gave me her block.  I incorporated it into my block in the quilt.

 Kathy with a y, Val, Karen, Krissy, Shirley, and Edith Ann.

I will never forget these ladies, or the fun times we had in that little cabin in the woods.

Linking To:
Fabric Frenzy Friday Can I get a Whoop Whoop Link A Finish Friday Weekend Link Party Anything Goes Mondays Craftastic Mondays Sew Cute Tuesday Freemotion By the River Fabric Tuesday Let's Bee Social