quilt | Persimon Dreams

Blogger’s Quilt Festival–Spring 2013–Entry 2

Posted by PersimonDreams on May 17, 2013 in art quilt, Featured, Project QUILTING, quilt gallery | 3 comments

Happy May 17th everyone again! Today is the start of one of my favorite two times of the year – the Spring Edition of the Blogger’s Quilt Festival over at AmysCreativeSide!

If you’ve never been at my blog before – Welcome! and for those who have – Welcome Back!

I had a hard time deciding which ‘second’ quilt I wanted to enter into the Blogger’s Quilt Festival I asked for help – and it seems like most love them all equally…so I’m going with my gut keeping in mind that there will be another Blogger’s Quilt Festival this fall!

I have decided to enter my quilt

“Local Foods Grow Local Communities’ into the art quilt category.

I created this piece based on the Project QUILTING Challenge ‘Print Publications’

Basically – we were challenge to grab a print publication, turn to page 28 and be inspired by what we saw. I choose a publication called ‘Grow’ and when turned to page 28 it happened to be the reason I had that publication in my possession. A friend had brought it by because my family’s apple orchard was mentioned in an article. When I turned to page 28…it was the first page of the article we were featured in. It was destiny…time to be inspired!

When I looked at my page 28 I knew I had an easy page for inspiration. BUT the challenge I made for myself was that I wanted to be ‘inspired’ by the page and not just replicate the page.

The Locavore School is about bringing local foods into the school lunches. My orchard has been providing apples to multiple school districts in the area for many years. I finally knew what I wanted to do!

Upper left: First – I needed a background. Nothing in my stash was what I was looking for so I decided to paint my own. I used a neutral piece of Tula Pink’s ‘Prince Charming’ print and I did a watered down acrylic painting on it. It’s watered down enough so you can still see the images of the original print if you look closely.

Upper Middle: I needed to draw a tree…that was my plan – I wanted to show a tree in it’s entirety – including the roots. So I sketched it out and then traced the sections onto some iron on fusible.

Upper Right: I chose to do the roots mostly with an apple printed fabric. I did mix in other foods such as eggs, peas, corn, and carrots into the roots as well but since we’re an apple orchard I figured that would be a good focus.

Lower Left: I knew I wanted my ‘tree’ to be made of kids. Here I need to let you know that we only have one week to complete a Project QUILTING Challenge. If you nee a certain fabric you need to buy it right away in the week. It took me a few days to come up with my concept and my time was running low. I searched my stash for all the ‘people’ prints I could find, Diane pulled al the ‘people’ from her stash too. It wasn’t what I was envisioning. At this point it was Wednesday and on Wednesday my baby Pip goes to a sitter who also happens to sew. I was explaining my concept to her and asked her if she happened to have any ‘kid’ prints. And what you see in the trees is what she had! She was kind enough to donate a fat quarter of it to my project and it was seriously the PERFECT PIECE! I used kid print for the tree top and then I did a scrappy collection of different prints for the trunk so you can still distinguish between the two.

Lower Middle: I free motion quilted along the roots and around the tree. With the painted fabric it created sort of a ‘puffy’ effect.

Lower RIght: To finish it off I embellished with some Angellina fibers in the roots and the sky. I added a ‘lip’ of pink strawberry printed fabric on the edge and with the binding. I made it too big…so I tacked it back in a few different places around the corner. It’s hard to see in the picture but it created this really awesome wavy effect to the border of the quilt. I will definitely be using this technique again!

Here’s the finished quilt with the inspiration page next to it! I hope you enjoyed reading about my process and inspiration for my piece ‘Local Foods Grow Strong Communities.’

‘The festival starts today, and runs through May 31st. It’s open to anyone who wants to enter, and there will be lots of great prizes. Be sure to check it out NOW! Get your post written and show off your quilt or quilts! You can enter two this year!

Once you’ve had a chance to visit as many of the quilts, as possible you may nominate your very favorite, for a Viewer’s Choice Award! To nominate complete the form at the bottom of the THIS POST with the link to the post and your email address. Nominations without a valid email will be eliminated, and multiple nominations with the same email will be eliminated. One entry per email address please.

If ‘Local Foods Grow Strong Communities’ is your favorite quilt head over to THIS POST and copy the text below:

Blogger’s Quilt Festival–Spring 2013

Posted by PersimonDreams on May 17, 2013 in Featured, home sweet home, quilt, quilt gallery | 5 comments

Happy May 17th everyone! Today is the start of one of my favorite two times of the year – the Spring Edition of the Blogger’s Quilt Festival over at AmysCreativeSide!

If you’ve never been at my blog before – Welcome! and for those who have – Welcome Back!

The first Quilt I would like to enter into the Blogger’s Quilt Festival is my ‘Home Sweet Home’ Quilt Along Quilt in the ‘Group or Bee Quilts’ Category.

This quilt was created with 20 different blocks (17 designers) and 49 different sashings created as a result of the 2012 Home Sweet Home Quilt Along I ran on my blog. Every time you look at this quilt you notice something new which is always one of my goals when I create. This quilt was free motion quilted by Marcia’s Crafty Sewing & Quilting.

I wanted to show a few close ups…

In this block, I fussy cut the fabrics so there are animals in the windows.

When I could make it work, I tried to match the fabrics in the sashing with the fabrics in the blocks. By doing this it made it harder to differentiate between where a block started and where it ended. I loved the transition.

The way the sashing blends into the block above you wouldn’t even know that the tree isn’t part of the house block!

I also personally love the back. It’s pieced from fabrics I used in the front along with the ‘practice’ blocks I made when I was coming up with my block designs. I also printed out a list of the blocks and who designed them onto some fabric to include in the backing of the quilt.

I would love to hear what you think of this quilt!

The festival starts today, and runs through May 31st. It’s open to anyone who wants to enter, and there will be lots of great prizes. Be sure to check it out NOW! Get your post written and show off your quilt!

Once you’ve had a chance to visit as many of the quilts, as possible you may nominate your very favorite, for a Viewer’s Choice Award! To nominate complete the form at the bottom of the THIS POST with the link to the post and your email address. Nominations without a valid email will be eliminated, and multiple nominations with the same email will be eliminated. One entry per email address please.

If ‘Home Sweet Home’ is your favorite quilt head over to THIS POST and copy the text below:

Tomorrow is a BIG Day!

Posted by PersimonDreams on May 16, 2013 in Featured, quilt gallery | 5 comments

Well – it is to me anyway. The Blogger’s Quilt Festival starts tomorrow! I LOVE the Blogger’s Quilt Festival. I know I’m not giving you much time but I need your help deciding on the SECOND quilt that I’m going to enter.

I already know that I’m going to enter my ‘Home Sweet Home’ Quilt for the ‘group/bee quilt’ category…but this year

Each quilter can enter two quilts, in separate posts, and categories.

so I need your help deciding on my second quilt…

Here are the categories for the quilts…

Favorite throw quilt
Favorite bed quilt
Favorite group/bee quilt
Favorite two color quilt
Favorite ROYGBIV (color wheel) quilt
Favorite applique quilt
Favorite hand quilted quilt
Favorite home machine quilted quilt
Favorite professionally quilted quilt
Favorite quilt photographer
Favorite art quilt
Favorite doll/mini quilt
Favorite wall hanging
Favorite scrap quilt

Here are the quilts I was thinking I may enter with their potential categories…

‘Nini’s Granny Squares’ – This is one that I just finished and haven’t even blogged about yet. I’m thinking it would fit in the ‘throw quilt’ category or professional quilted category.

‘Local Foods Grow Strong Communities’ – I love this piece. I think it would fit well into the groups – applique quilt, wall quilt, or art quilt…

‘Celebrate Annie’ – which would also fit into the groups applique quilt, wall quilt or art quilt.

And my final thought would be…

or ‘Make a Wish’ which also fits in the to groups applique quilt, wall quilt, or art quilt.

So…what do you think? Which ONE of the above four should I enter?

- Nini’s Granny Squares

- Local Foods Grow Strong Communities

- Celebrate Annie

OR

- Make a Wish

I sort of need you to leave a comment ASAP since the festival starts tomorrow… Thanks for your help!

Quilted Art Bags

Posted by PersimonDreams on Apr 21, 2013 in Featured, quilt gallery | 0 comments

This Wednesday night – April 21st, I’ll be debuting these new Quilted Art Bags at the RAW Madison: MARVEL show (you can still get your tickets…). I can’t wait to hear what folks think of this more modern take on quilting. I had lots of fun making these nine bags using my favorite quilting styles and techniques from raw edge quilting, regular piecing, crazy quilting, paper piecing, english paper piecing, and simple patchwork.

1. Raw Edge Quilted Art Tote Bag, 2. Project QUILTING Off Season Challenge – What’s Your Sign?, 3. Patchwork Cone Flower Tote Bag, 4. Hexagon Embellished clutch, 5. Raw Edge quilted art tote bag, 6. Pleated Bag, 7. Quilted Dancing Star Tote Bag, 8. Zig Zag Spoonflower Quilted Tote Bag, 9. Crazy Quilt Bag front

Click on the captions below the mosaic to take closer looks at any of the bags I created on flickr. I would love to hear what you think of them too! Do you have a favorite?

I do…

A Ribbon!

Posted by PersimonDreams on Apr 7, 2013 in Featured, quilt, quilt gallery | 10 comments

It has happened! I received my very first ribbon for a quilt I made! Every time I put a quilt in a show I always get that feeling of hope in my stomach. Well – today I finally saw it – a RIBBON on one of my quilts!

I made this quilt for a Project QUILTING Challenge and for the Quilt Show Challenge – Celebrations. I’m proud to say that it took third place! So excited!And – to top it all off Diane’s Quilt took 2nd (the daffodil quilt above mine!)I put a few other quilts in the show too. Here’s Home Sweet Home. This was Cedi’s favorite quilt of the show – Capri picked one with a Fairy. And here is my favorite – the Amazing Technicolor Dream Quilt.

And I also put in my Christmas In July Quilt into the show.

It was great fun walking around and seeing all the amazing quilts and hearing what people had to say about them! If you’re in the Sun Prairie Area I definitely recommend stopping by the show either Monday or Tuesday…it will be well worth your time!

Future Quilter Quilt Finished!

Posted by PersimonDreams on Mar 27, 2013 in Capri, family, Featured, Kids, quilt, quilt gallery | 2 comments

When I dreamed up creating a ‘Future Quilter’s Quilt’ for Capri I never dreamed so many people would want to contribute to make this special gift for my daughter. The past few months while this project has been going on have just been jaw dropping – I am so grateful to you all! This is truly a special piece of art that my daughter will cherish for many many years!

Well – the quilt is finally complete! It’s also been snuggled and slept with many times already too. Last week Capri and I finished the free motion quilting on it and on our trip to Minnesota to see my brother I finished hand sewing the binding on!

I almost forgot to sew the beads on but Capri didn’t! She reminded me when we got home and then told e where she wanted each one! I think they add the perfect final touch to this wonderful quilt!

And – not only did we all make a fabulous quilt – we all made one really, really happy little 5 year old! Thank you to all for helping me do this for my daughter – you are amazing!

I have one more step – so many included some amazing notes, gifts and memento’s for Capri that I want to put together a little scrap book for her. I also took a picture of each block it’s note so we’d always remember where they came from. You are all so amazing! I can’t say it enough!

I’ll be sure to share the scrapbook when it’s done but I’m not very good at scrapbooking so it may end up being a gift for her 6th birthday…wish me luck!

(and THANK YOU THANK YOU again!)