the real sewing studio

A few weeks ago I posted a photo of what my sewing studio looks like when I organize my fabric strips. Remember....I used a flatware tray to sort and hold all of my cut strips in place by color so I could sew my hexagon blocks in a neat and orderly manner.

Last week, when it was only 5° in Atlanta and I was therefore housebound, I made another strip pieced quilt; one of four pieces I have just finished making for a one woman quilt/art show that I will be having at the Paulding Fine Arts Association starting February 1st, ending February 28. http://www.pauldingfinearts.org/calendar.html The show is in Dallas, Georgia (that's Dallas GA not Dallas TX).

Here is how my studio looked when I finished stitching the quilt top. It's a little scary, isn't it! Left over strips look like they have exploded all over the room. You will be glad to know that I have cleaned it all up and organized the strips into color families once more.

Here is the quilt top I made. It is one of four in a series, each depicting one of the four elements. This one represents AIR. I haven't named it yet...the air moving like the wind from one side of the quilt to the other. Any suggestions for a name?

The colors in the photo aren't as true as I would like but it is the best I can do with my ipad camera. The colors are blue, gray, and white with accents of sunny yellow. It is made of 8" improvisational log cabin blocks with narrow color wedgies breaking the straight lines of the strip piecing.

The top isn't quilted yet because when it is 5° it is too cold to leave my warm house and go out back to the garden house to do the longarm quilting. I do have a small reverse air conditioner out there for heat but it doesn't work when the weather hits single digits.

Jigsaw mystery

I love working jigsaw puzzles. Lately I have been working online puzzles on my computer. There is a great website, www.jigsawplanet.com. I recently discovered how I could find quilts as a specific category. What fun! Here is how you do it. Go to the website, in the menu at the top of the page select the drop down menu Explore - then select Popular Tags - Then type "quilts" into the box labeled Jump To.

This will take you directly to pages and pages of quilts to work as jigsaw puzzles. I was skimming through the pages and was surprised...shocked...delighted...mystified?...to find my own quilt titled Roundabout. I did not put it there and I don't know who did, but I am working the puzzle now. It is on page 4 of the quilt puzzles. Here is the quilt image and the direct link to work the jigsaw puzzle:
http://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=34b1e8db0f3e&pieces=289

Roundabout by Jean Ann Wright

Downton Abbey for quilters

Last Spring I was invited to design one of the quilts for the Downton Abbey fabric collection by Andover Fabrics www.andoverfabrics.com. The folk at Andover requested a Crazy Quilt pattern. I designed the quilt designing one block each out of the five different collections named for the women in the series that make up the entire fabric collection. Here is the quilt I designed.

I repeated the blocks in the quilt and turned them this way and that to add to the crazy quilt design effect. The pattern for this quilt and the 11 other Downton Abbey quilts are free and downloadable from the Andover Fabrics website. Here is the direct link for my Crazy Quilt Design.

http://www.andoverfabrics.com/Quilts/Downton%20Abbey-Crazy%20Quilt.pdf

Look for the Downton Abbey fabric collection at your local quilt shop or check out this website for Lady Fingers Sewing Studio to order the fabrics online: http://ladyfingerssewing.com

Let's all watch the first episode of the 4th series in this wonderful Masterpiece Theater presentation this Sunday Night, 5 January, on our local public television station. I can hardly wait! What will Mary do now that she is a widow with a new baby? How will poor deceased Sybil's husband cope with his new job, his new life and his own baby? It looks like Edith is falling in love again...and again with someone who is entirely inappropriate for a young lady of her social station. And...they are going from straight laced Edwardian dress and manners to fast and sassy flapper fashions. This is going to be good.

Joy To All!

As most of you know my youngest daughter, Heidi Eitel, is Exhibits Designer at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington DC. My sister, Janet Houts, sent me this link to watch the United States Air Force Band and Chorus perform as a flash mob at the museum. Here is the link to watch the event or just click on the picture...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIoSga7tZPg

The best thing about the performance was not only the music, starting with Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring and ending with Joy to the World; it was the absolute joy, wonder, rapture, and happiness on the face of all the visitors to the museum who were treated to this wonderful performance. 

Janet emailed Heidi to say: "I hope you were at work on this day!  Looks like it was a magnificent event."

I called Heidi and she said, "yes, I was a work and I was on the main floor in the crowd watching the performance. I looked carefully at the faces in the crowd and didn't see Heidi. She reminded me that she is short and she was at the back of the crowd. She knew it would be happening even though the visitors did not.

My wish is for joy and peace for everyone this holiday season.

Going Hexie

Can you believe that I have been quilting for 50 years and have just now starting making hexagon quilts. Now that I have started I am going hexie crazy. I stayed away from hexagons because the idea of turning fabric over little paper hexagons and then whip stitching them together was quite daunting. Then I discovered the "Y" seam. Sewing this easy set in seam with its gentle angle is a snap. My friend Gyleen Fitzgerald calls it a butterfly seam...nothing more gentle than a butterfly, right? I like to call it a boomerang seam because of its shape. If Aussies can have fun throwing a boomerang, then quilters can have just as much fun sewing them!

Now I just can't stop making hexie quilts. The current December/January issue of Quilt Trends magazine www.quilttrendsmag.com features my newest hexagon quilt.

Here is the quilt as photographed for the magazine. It is made using fabrics from  the Cachet collection from Benartex www.benartex.com. I strip pieced the fabrics for the striped hexagons and before cutting them out. The print fabrics in the collection are large scale so only a big, beautiful hexagon will do for this quilt! The photo makes the quilt look deliciously tempting.

The hexagons are cut using the large 8" size hexagon on my new Creative Grids Hexagon Trim Tool. www.jeanannquilts.com. I made the entire quilt top in just two days. I didn't do much of anything else but then, when I can spend entire days doing nothing but sewing a quilt, I am as content as a cat who has just gotten into the cream. Bet you can't sew just one! 

Getting Organized

Getting organized is always a challenge for me. I love scrap quilts and I am happy to have a heap of scraps on my sewing table and "paw" through them to find the perfect strip to add to my block. I needed to make a second Confetti Hexagon quilt with my new Hexagon Trim Tool (both are available on my website) www.jeanannquilts.com and I needed to make it in a hurry.

I decided to have one orange, one teal, and one green strip to alternate with the pale yellow strips in each round of the strips surrounding my center hexagon. Keeping the strips separated by color seemed a challenge until I got the idea to use a cutlery divider tray to keep my strips divided. The tray fits nicely just to the right of my sewing machine and takes very little space on my sewing table. Each strip is readily available when it is time to add another color. The short space at the front of the tray for spoons actually holds my scissors and seam ripper. Both need to be handy and ready for use.

Here is my sewing area with my new organizer sitting just where I need it as I select the new strip to sew in place.

Here is the Hexie Confetti quilt I made in just three days using the trim tool, my cutlery divider tray and my sewing machine. It is already at the Paw Patch Quilt Shop in Ohio for a weekend trunk show. It is made from batik scraps in a designated color scheme with colors that are in the border fabric. 

Quilts in Space - on the space station

While checking out the dates for the Fall Quilt Festival in Houston, I clicked this link to see the quilt block that astronaut, Karen Nyberg, designed and stitched up while on living on the space station. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgJNcWncs8Y&feature=youtu.be

You really have to go watch Karen in the youtube video, I have seen it a few times and I end up with a great big grin everytime!

The link for Quilts Inc and information about the Fall Quilt Festival 2014 is: www.quilts.com
Scroll down the left side to find the fall show.

The link to find the rules to make a block in Karen's space quilt are under the Breaking News at the top of the menu on the left side. The rules are easy. You can do it! (You have until August 1st to enter).

Now I have to think up a really clever star block....what will it be?

Just so you can have something to see, I am attaching a star quilt I made years ago...this is not my entry, just a starting point while I put my creative thinking cap in place and start dreaming of my star joining a star from outer space.

Here is a lone star quilt I made a few years back. There is a trick to make this quilt using an easy strip piece method.

Here is another star quilt I made. In this one I alternated the simple Sawtooth Star blocks with "X" blocks so it looks like the quilt is set on point but it's set together block to block.

Do you have a star quilt to share? If so, email it to me via my website with your name a a little bit about making the quilt...your pattern source, etc and I will post it.