Author: agilejack

Holy cow! Have I been busy! It’s been nearly three months since my last post here and I’ve been creating up a storm.

I just have to start chunking away at it all.

So, what happened after the blue Algorithm quilt? Well, I loved making it so much that I decided to use up another KFC layer cake and make another one. And I like this one even better! The best part? THAT BLACK AND WHITE JUMBLE… OMG! IT JUST MAKES THE QUILT SING!!!

And all the color. it’s so fantastic! I like this quilt even more than the original one that inspired me to make this pattern.

I started with a 2016 KFC Layer cake and added a few more fabrics to get the blocks I needed. It was so much fun to put this together because the fabrics were all just so amazing together!

I happened to find some of the yellow Roller Coaster on sale and bought enough for the back. I’m going to wait to take this to my long arm quilter because I have a couple in line in front of it, and I don’t really have any plans for this quilt so I can afford to wait.

I posted photos of this quilt on the KFC Facebook page and someone contacted me and wanted to buy it, but they wanted it bigger. After consider different options to make it bigger, I decided I loved it too much to mess with it and proposed to the person that I make the same quilt again, but make it the desired size, and they said yes. So there will be another, bigger version coming to this blog soon.

GAH! These fabrics!

I’ve been obsessing over a quilt I saw on Facebook last week. Literally thinking about it all the time. I decided to dig into my stash and found this 2016 Kaffe Fassett layer cake and decided to make up this quick throw size quilt. I used a black and white batik that I got on sale for $4 a yard for the accent strips.

I happened to have the pattern that this variation is based on in a book a friend gave me as a gift a couple of years ago.

This literally went together in three evenings. I sewed the blocks and white strips in assembly line fashion over several nights, then tonight I squared them up, cut them in half, and tossed them up on the design wall.

I wasn’t really crazy about this layer cake, and even at the point in the constuction in the photo below was sort of “meh.” But I just LOVE how it turned out when the blocks were done!!! I can’t stop looking at it!

Then there was some magic that I can’t tell you about. It was some pretty fucking amazing magic!!!

With all the bias edges, the blocks ended up really wonky! So it was critical to square them up.

It’s odd, but I just love squaring up blocks! These were damned easy to do because no seams have to match except the corners so I could basically just eyeball the center line. Makes squaring up very quick.

The quilt that I’ve been obsessing over is a version of this made from a more specific color way of Kaffe Fassett Collective Fabrics. I definitely want to make another version while I’m on vacation. I pulled a bunch of fabrics from my stash and ordered a few more to give ma all I need. I will share photos of my vacation quilt when it’s done.

This quilt was made on a variation of a pattern called Algorithm by Gudrun Erla. It can be found on the inter webs. You might also find one legit and legal video about these blocks.

 

 

 

 

I’ve been chunking away at the twelve batik pouch sets I cut out a few weeks ago. . . one a night a few nights each week and then a few on the weekends. I’ve got 11 of the 12 done.

I just LOVE this blue and red set. The colors are so bold and saturated. I wasn’t sure about it when I selected the fabric, but I love it now.

I’m not typically a pink lover, but this set is really pretty. The batik on the top is somewhat unusual. I’ll probably never see it again.

I also really love this blue set. Blue isn’t my favorite color, but I love this shade of blue. And the fabric on the top is really fun and vibrant.

And I love this black and red set. I love the contrast of the dots on the bottom and the botanical print on the top. It’s bold and I love it!

And of course I love this green set. Green is my favorite color and this has just a hint of aqua to make it sing. It feels very watery to me.

Nothing more cheerful than yellow. I love the sunburst on the top and the jaunty dots in the middle. It makes me feel happy!

And here’s the rest. One more to go to finish all 12.

I have put off finishing this quilt back for several months because I was dreading matching all those paisleys. Then a friend suggested that I add strips of a different fabric for contrast and to avoid having to match prints.

So we dug through my stash and found this red Kaffe Fassett guinea flower. And I love it!!!

With this backing, the quilt will effectively be reversible.

I can’t tell you how much I love this paisley fabric. I’ve loved paisleys since I was a kid. I remember vividly a little paisley dress my mom made for me when I was in kindergarten. It had a little Peter Pan collar and cuffs.  But this is the most amazing paisley fabric ever!

This back is for my KFC hexagon quilt. Three quilts will go off to the long armer this week.

I got a lot done this last weekend. I told myself that I wanted to get three quilt backs done so that I could get them all off to the long arm quilter. And I did it!

The bottom blue and green quilt is made from batiks and is a disappearing nine patch pattern. I made this a couple of years ago anticipating that my nephew would be getting married and I wanted to give them this as a gift. Well, they’ve finally announced a date. I’ve got plenty of time to get it done, but I want to check it off my list.

The middle quilt is the scrappy batik wonky log cabin quilt that I talked about in this post. It’s also the cover photo on this blog. I bought the backing for $4 a yard last summer in Salt Lake City. It’s sort of a small cow print in black and white. It’s really bold and fun and it will make this a wild quilt! It makes me very happy!

The top quilt is my Kaffe Fassett Collective hexagon quilt that I made this spring. You can see it in this blog post. I used my favorite tangerine paisley jungle for the back, and added some red Guinea Flower. I was originally thinking I wanted to use all the paisley, but the thought of matching the pattern on two long seams made me want to cry.

I’ll share photos of these quilts when they’re done. I hope my long armer hasn’t retired!

I also cut out the batiks for 12 three-pouch sets — that’s 36 pouches! Now that they’re cut I can easily sew a set in an hour or two. I plan to take the finished sets on vacation with me as I’ve had people request some to buy for gifts.

I’ve already completed two sets and have two more partially done. I had to stop because I didn’t have the right zippers. 100 new zippers on the way!

I just love these batiks! they are so bright and colorful!

On Sunday my friend Helen came over to spend a few hours and get some lunch. Helen is a maker who deals with knitting, felting, and dyeing and occasional sewing. She brought some lovely cotton fabric with her and we twisted, knotted, rolled and banded it all in preparation of indigo dye. I told her a few months ago that I wanted to cut some of her indigo dyed pieces and make something fun. So she did the right thing and got me involved in the process. She will do the actual dyeing when she has enough pieces to fill the vat. It will be a couple of months before I see the results of my work.

On my trip to Canon Beach last week my friend Linda and I stopped at Center Diamond quilt store on the way into town, like we always do. I bought  a few nice batiks and a couple pieces of Kaffe fabric, and then as I was checking out I saw these adorable Mia Charro panels of dogs and wild animals.

I couldn’t wait to make them into pouches!

These are made with blue chambray and linen as the main body of the pouch, with a batik frame around the panel and batik linings.

I just LOVE working with the linen and chambray! I love the way it looks and I also LOVE the structure and the way it turns out so tailored. I can’t get enough of it.

The panels are adorable! Really not like anything I’ve ever seen. I bought a third yard of each and will be able to get a LOT of pouches out of them.

the facial expression of these dogs just kills me!

The colors in the wild animals are so vibrant. I’ll have fun putting together fabric combos. Lots of colorful options!

I couldn’t wait to dig in and make a pouch from the hippo! She is so adorable. So I started looking through my stash and landed on this muted brassica color way from Philip Jacobs. This pouch is lined with Kaffe’s mille fiore. The frame around the hippo is blue chambray. I love how this turned out!

It’s got a zipper pocket on the back. I made it big enough to hold my iPhone.

Here’s a larger view of the two dog pouches. I love these with the batiks. I’ve got a lot of batik scraps left over from my three-pouch sets that are big enough to do the lining and frames on these. I love the batiks with these panels! And I just love the linen. It’s so nice in person… such a lovely texture. I’m going to be sad when I run out of it.

And of course, I have a real soft spot for terriers and LOVE this one with the blue chambray. I just love that fabric!

I have a friend coming over today to talk about quilting and felting, and then we’re going to go to lunch. I hope to finish the quilt back for my Kaffe hexagon quilt this afternoon. Then I’ll have three quilts ready for the long arm quilter. I’m also cutting the pieces for 12 batik pouch sets

Picked up some blank journals at the craft store a few weeks ago, and had a gorgeous day this weekend so sat outside and did some painting in the shade.

I painted some journals for gifts last Christmas and everyone really loved them. A bunch of women at work take them with them everywhere. So I picked up a stack of them thinking I’d paint a few now and then and have some ready for gifts.

It’s hard to find these blank journals that aren’t really pricey. So when I saw these at Michael’s for a decent price, I picked up a stack.

Got three done. Planning on doing a few more this week.

 

A friend of mine is hosting a friendly dog agility competition later this summer and has asked me to make zipper pouches for the main prizes for winners. It was a great chance to go through all my dog fabrics and put together some fun combos.

I’ll be making 15 pouches overall — 5 each of large, medium and small. I finished the five large over the weekend.

I have way too much dog themed fabric! i have larger pieces of the black and white paw prints and bone prints. I have smaller amounts of the other dog prints. So this is a good opportunity to clean out some of those fabrics.

The small and medium pouches will have some brighter colors in them. I’ll put some work into them this weekend. I want to make sure I have them done and don’t have to scramble at the last minute to get them done.

There are some really fun dog themed fabrics out there. I’m guessing I’ll buy more in the future!

We’ve got building renovations going on at work and we’ve been in a construction zone for many months. My office has been pretty much unscathed with the exception of new carpet, new lights and paint.

Each office got an accent wall… bright blue, darker blue, green, yellow or gray. Guess which color I got. Of course, I got gray. Me who loves vibrant color more than anyone I know.

So I pulled out this unfinished paper pieced wall hanging that I had planned on making for my sewing room, which will now adorn my gray walls at work. I started it nearly two years ago. It’s been sitting unfinished because I needed to make seven more blocks to get it to the size I wanted. It’s made from Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics and some batiks.

This was my first ever paper piecing project. My very generous friend Karin had me up to her place a couple of years ago to give me a lesson on how to paper piece. I learned a lot in that day that will serve me very well in my future paper piecing endeavors. She taught me how to do the actual piecing, how to use the “add a quarter” ruler, and how to manage my fabrics to be as efficient as possible.

I don’t know why, but I always dread sewing circles. But once I sit down and do it, it always works out well and the blocks go together so nicely. I have ambitions to do more circles in the future.

I played with A LOT of different layouts for this wall hanging. The small size really limited what I could do. I typically prefer a less symmetrical arrangement of New York Beauty type blocks, but there weren’t enough blocks in this wall hanging to make a nice random arrangement. It just felt too chaotic.

Here’s some of the many variations I tried. This is a good representation of my obsession with this process!

 

It’s really overkill. But it took a good deal of time to come up with the right arrangement. And when I would move one block to make an area feel right, it would create four other issues I’d have to deal with.

My friend Karin helped me with this process too. I’d make changes, message her a photo, she’d respond, I’d rearrange and take another photo, send her that photo, and on and on.

I got distracted and was snapped back to reality when my smoke alarm went off! I was boiling sugar water for my humming bird feeder and it boiled dry and smoked up the entire house! It’s going to take me a year to clean that pan!

I’ve been playing with some ideas for the border for this wall hanging, but haven’t yet landed on what I’m going to do. So it hangs on my design wall and I’ve been working on some smaller projects as I mull this over.  I’m thinking I’ll go simple with the border to let the blocks shine.

As I was pressing this piece, I held it up to the light and the effect of stained glass was so amazing!

I’ve had this flying geese circle template set for awhile now and wanted to put it in a pouch. The original pattern finished up at 12 inches, which is way too big for a pouch. So I shrunk the templates down to make an 8×8 block.

And it’s still to big for the pouch! I have a smaller version that will finish up as a 6 inch block, which will have much better proportions in a pouch. I’ll work on that some time later this week.

I wasn’t as careful with the quilting as I wish I’d been. Amazing how you can put a lot of work into something and decrease it’s beauty because of a little impatience toward the end. Most people probably wouldn’t see it, but it stands out like a sore thumb to me!

I used Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics for the goose points, and a white on white that I’ve had for a couple years for the background. I like the texture the white on white gives this. And of course, I just LOVE the blue chambray that I used for the body of the bag.

Rather than doing a pieced panel for both sides of the bag, I put a zipper pocket on the back. it should be a really functional little pouch.

I just love how the details on the pouches come out in the chambray. It feels so tailored and structured. I just love it!