Friday, January 27, 2012

2nd try




I like these a bit better, I think the problem was lack of texture. my fabrics were too similar. They still need "something", perhaps some sashing. Or maybe some ideas from some AZ retreat friends ;-)

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

first two blocks



well, here are my blocks. I think perhaps I'm not liking only having 3 fabrics in each block? I may redo them. I've cut the fabric for the other two but I'm not going to make them yet. need to think for a bit. I may try a different kind of block.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

tried my first block

Well I tried my first block last night. Honestly not real thrilled with the result. The block is fine, it's the fabrics that kind of left me flat. I think the problem is I'm just not used to these types of colors. they just seem kind of blah, especially the tan background. I think the problem is there isn't enough contrast, so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what the rest of you come up with. I'll post a picture tonight.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Misha's Row - New Twist on My Theme

So I've been following the threads on the quilt forum where people are talking about house blocks...and I started to think how cool it would be to make that the theme of my Row Robin quilt. Then I tried to decide, do I want everyone to use the same pattern, but different fabrics? Or wonky houses? Or....? So I started googling house quilts and found all sorts of neat pictures! I then came across this little cutie:


http://www.quiltersmuse.com/images/billings-winter-friends.jpg

And I'm thinking that all those previous blocks I've received (stars) could be interspersed with other rows of houses, trees, log cabin blocks, etc. So that's my theme! Still blue & white & wintery, and I'll send some fabric around that you can use if you want to, or you can use your own. You can do an entire row of similar items, or it can be a mix of things. Note: the only thing I'm not too crazy about in the above example is the rather plain row of pinwheels. Pinwheels would be fine, but I'd rather the row had more variety in it.

Any questions, feel free to ask!

Monday, January 16, 2012

The Order

Previously, the order was:
Misha  ---> Pat M  
Pat M   --->  Becky 
Becky  --->  Rebecca C   
Rebecca C  --->  Colene  
Colene   --->  Misha

This round I thought maybe we'd go in alphabetical order, but that would have me sending to Pat and Rebecca sending to Colene again...so I swapped Pat and Rebecca:

Colene ---> Dee
Dee ---> Karen
Karen ---> Misha
Misha ---> Rebecca
Rebecca ---> Pat
Pat ---> Colene

We'll exchange mailing addresses at retreat if anyone wants theirs going somewhere other than the address on the retreat attendee list (like me: mine go to my Mum's house).

It's only a month away, ladies!!! I fly into Phoenix on the 16th!!!


Sunday, January 15, 2012

Colenes row

I managed to finish my row last weekend. I used bleached muslin for my background. Fused flowers with satin stitch. I made the baskets the same for a clean simple look. I would like to keep the background crisp white with flower baskets as my theme this year.
Also. Welcome to Dee!!!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

fabric purchase



well, I'm pretty happy with all the fabrics I got except for the eggplant. darn, need to keep looking. it's ok, but not quite what I was wanting.

Monday, January 9, 2012

inspiration fabric





Well here's my inspiration fabric. The eggplant isn't as prevalent as I thought, but maybe the sofa brings it out. I'm trying to do something a little more sedate color wise than what I usually work with (and no black - gasp). I'm not trying to match exactly either colors or pattern, but just something that would look good in the same room. I found the swatch but it's only about 2" square, you can't tell anything so I'll just print this picture when I go fabric shopping for the backgrounds, maybe a couple of coordinating that can be used or just guides for colors.

testing and thinking??

I've been thinking it would be nice to have a quilt that goes with my living room furniture, so I'm going to take a picture of my throwpillows/ottoman fabric and see what you guys think. It's sort of fall colors, eggplant, muted green and tan with some sort of tangerine orange/rust. I think I have a swatch of it tucked somewhere also that I can include. The sofas are eggplant leather, so the only pattern I have is those two throw pillows. If I get some yardage of a purple/eggplant and a tan to include as sugestions, then you guys could add some green and rust batiks. How many yards would be enough to send around? Would 4 be enough?

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Please Welcome....Dee!!!

We have a sixth and final player now in our Row Robin, Dee from Texas! I've sent a Blogger invite to her (and Pat the Cat again). You both need to accept the invitation so you can post images to the blog and create new posts. This will be where we share our photos and progress!!

If you don't know how to work Blogger, we can go over that at the retreat. Or just go in there and play with it, I can always clean it up later if you make a mistake...in fact you can probably edit your own posts to your heart's content I would imagine.

Um...these look so much better with a photo...hmm....So here is Smokey helping me with my own starter block 2 years ago. Apparently this was *before* she learned to squint for the flash ;)


Friday, January 6, 2012

Ladies...Start Your Engines!

I can't believe retreat is only 6 weeks away. Woo hoo!

Be sure to get your first row for your own Row Robin ready. You will be handing off your starter row, notebook and any fabric you may want to provide to the first participant while at retreat. Providing any fabric at all for your own quilt is totally optional.

Remember that as things progress we would like all packages to be mailed with a tracking number. We had great success last time with no lost or delayed packages and I hope we have the same good luck this year! I plan to include a giant Ziploc bag with my name and address printed on the outside for all the contents to go into prior to going in whatever box you will mail my row around in, so that if the contents get separated from the outer box there will still be a way to identify me as the owner. You may wish to do something similar :)

I've heard from Rebecca C that she is going to do a red & white quilt, and will provide the fabric for it. I understand Pat the Cat is doing batiks on black and will provide background fabric. I will most likely be having you ladies continue to make blue and white snowflakes/stars for me, but this time on a smaller scale I have plenty of 12" blocks now, but want some 6" ones so I can put it together like a big puzzle.

If Colene and/or Karen feel like chiming in with what they have in mind please go for it! Either comment on this post or create a new one.

If there are any questions please ask!

I don't have a Row Robin related picture for this entry, so here is photo of my personal assistant slash quilt inspector instead...