A little Quilting

Posted on September 22, 2022 by Jenny

The star in the middle of the geometric block.

I know it has been quite a while since I posted, and the sad news is I have not done much quilting. However, my friend Linda, who has had me do several quilts for her, told me she would be comfortable with me sharing my quilting on a quilt she pieced. It’s a floral appliqué with a more geometric block alternated. I didn’t get a good photo of the whole quilt laid out, but it just alternates those two blocks, and it is SO cute.

I’m happy with how the quilting turned out. It’s a pretty simple pattern, but it was quite a job thinking out how to do it without a ton of starts and stops. I really like how the back turned out, and I hope to do more experimenting in the future with this style of quilting.

Halloween 2021: Owl House, Free Guy, & Cruella

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Jenny

Capelet for an Owl House student costume.

I didn’t spend a ton of time sewing this Halloween because I am in graduate school. Between teaching and studying, I just haven’t make sewing a big priority. However, this young man wanted to be a student from the school in Owl House, so I made him a little capelet. His dad made that snazzy staff topper with him. They sculpted the owl from foam, coated it in some crunchy stuff, and painted it. I thought it turned out amazing.

The only other thing I did was cut the sleeves off of my husband’s blue shirt for a Guy costume from Free Guy and hem them. I thought our costumes turned out well, and they were almost effortless.

This girl, on the other hand, was not interested in “effortless.” She spent a lot of money on materials and a lot of time on construction. She created this Cruella De Vil costume from her own design and imagination based on a costume from the movie. Unfortunately the fabric she really wanted was sold out of every JoAnn in the Rocky Mountains, as well as their online offerings. Nevertheless, she persisted and made this great costume. She took these photos herself, and I was forbidden from posting them until she had them up on her own Instagram account for an acceptable amount of time first. I’m so proud of her. I love watching her create.

Another Try at Landscape

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Jenny

When I made those three little quilts for my nieces last year, I realized that I wanted to make a bigger landscape quilt. One of my longtime friends really liked the purple and blue mountainy one, and I decided to try my hand at designing one from my own pattern.

Last spring I took a portraiture art class, and one of the key things I learned was how to look at shadows, and what colors to use for them. My professor showed us how in flesh tones, a nice dark purple color is the perfect shadow, and sometimes a dark green will work. I decided that I might like to try making one of the photographs I took of the Watchman in Zion National Park into a quilt. However, I’ve never made a more artistic quilt, so I wanted to warm up with something simple to test colors.

My husband and I went to shoot the moonrise because it’s pretty gorgeous around here, and when I got home and saw this picture, I knew it was the perfect inspiration for my next quilt’s colorway.

Okay, I know, the finished quilt looks nothing like this photo. Still, I enjoyed having a muse while I made it. I would love to figure out how to better capture a moonrise sometime.

Quilt #71

Posted on November 22, 2020 by Jenny

I finished this “Corona Quilt” a month or two ago. It is scrappy, and now lives on my bed. It turns out I had forgotten to put my daughter’s plaid quilt in my journal. Thus, the jump from #69 to #71.

Anyway, my friend and quilt mentor Sariah made one of these quilts a few years ago, and I love everything she does. I tucked the pattern in the back of my mind for something to try down the road. When the early quarantine happened, I started hacking away at these scraps. I finished it in August, which made this one of the fastest large quilts I have ever made. Typically a big, small pieced bed quilt will take me over a year. That just goes to show you how much therapy I needed during quarantine.

I am happy with how my feather quilting is coming along, and I liked my little flames on the mountains. You can also lay this quilt out as a Chinese lantern quilt. However, I thought that looked a little too much like a certain virus we are all trying to avoid like the plague. I decided to do a sunrise layout, and the quilt cheers me up every time I make my bed in the morning or climb into it at night.

Jenny’s Daughter Sews

Posted on November 7, 2020 by Jenny

I didn’t really feel the Halloween spirit this year until my daughter emerged wearing the awesome Kyoshi Warrior Costume she made. She was inspired by a group of female warriors in Avatar the Last Airbender. She invoked Suki, and I think she nailed it!

She used an old sweatshirt she had cut up for a shirt pattern, some soft and stable we got from By Annie for the shoulder armor blades. I think part of the skirt pattern was from a library book. I am so proud that all of her practice has lead her here. She made the headdress out of cardboard, and the fans were from a local store called The Gypsy Emporium. She just spray painted them gold with the head piece.

She is getting to be a great seamstress, and I love that she can have a vision and make it come to life.