Latifah Saafir workshop

The weekend before last I had the pleasure of listening to a talk by Latifah Saafir about listening to your inner artist and then attending a workshop where she taught us how to make the Huckleberry quilt. I have to say it was inspiring to see her quilts in person. She couldn't have been any nicer either. I was blown away by the way she approaches quilt construction and the fresh take she has on quilting in general. It really is unique. That girl has a gift! Making the quilt was so much fun and I am excited to have a new technique in my repertoire. Plus, my son is going to have a neat quilt to hang on his wall. I'm about to sit down to quilt it right now. I'm crossing my fingers my son takes a long nap to allow me to make some good headway. Wish me luck. :-)

To Boston With Love

front

back

light shining through

I made a flag for To Boston With Love. I wanted to make it with a patchy, hand crafted, imperfect look so I freehanded my peace sign and heart. (I need to work on my wonky though—it's not nearly wonky enough.) It has an interesting design because when light shines through it you will see the heart through from the back in the middle of the peace sign. I can't wait to see the display with everyone's flag together. It will be amazing.

Finally, A Productive Week

Last week I got so much done. After a crazy March and an April to recoup, it felt really good to get some things checked off the list. In case you want to know, in the past two months I have had to say goodbye to a much loved and missed cat who was pooping and throwing up on the floors daily (poor little guy had a tumor), two bad head colds, painful dental issues resulting in a root canal and crown, kids with colds including my now 6 month old, hubby out of town for work, a trip to see my family for a week, a big presentation to the FRMQG on color theory and did I mention I have an almost 6 month old? The time has flown by.

Anyway, enough of my rambling... here are the projects.

The first is a pillow for my daughter with hand appliqued hearts and wonky improv piecing. It was a lot of fun. She saw me come home with those hearts a few months back and loved them, asking if they were for her. (Of course they were, sweetie!) We had a guest speaker explain a few techniques on hand applique using this heart shape. I'm not sure I'll be doing more of that anytime soon, but it is very useful to know how. I didn't want the pillow to feel too formal or stuffy, so I got improv-y with the rest of the piecing to give it some personality. It was my first time trying that.

Best of all--she loves it! In fact, she loves it so much that she cried because she didn't know which pillow she loved more: her mushroom pillow (which I made her a couple years ago) or the new one. Seriously melts my heart. I love a girl who appreciates handmade things!

the much loved mushroom pillow (left)
 and the new heart pillow

The second set of projects completed are a gift to some friends of ours. Jenny loves batik fabrics so I went out of my comfort zone and used them for this pillow set and table runner. (They are a charm pack of Sunrise Sunset batiks from Moda.) They go perfectly in their earthy/modern house. The table runner is a funny story because I was again being improv-y and didn't like the initial results. I then used a glue stick and randomly stuck on 3/4" strips of fabric on top of what I had pieced. Then I stippled it, leaving the edges raw to fray and weather. I really like the look. It adds a lot of texture. I think both of them really liked it too. It was fun to see how it picked up on so many of the colors that they have in their house.

lots of fun texture with the raw edges