Did YOUR WIP Win?

First, I loved reading about all of your projects in process, and it made me feel better about some of mine ;)

My co-worker Sara randomly drew three names from the box top (a hat wasn't handy), and the winners of the postcards are (in alphabetical order):

• Christine in Florida
• Kate
• Sophie

Congrats to all -- and to everyone who's working on and finishing a WIP!

Quick Update on "WIP and WIN"

So far, I've heard about a variety of works in progress, from Denise, Sophie, Dorothy, Sandy, Karen and Christine. That's 6 so far, registered to win. I can't imagine there are too many of you out there without a WIP, but if you're in that crowd, tell me that, too! You've got six more days... heck, you could start at least one project and abandon it to the WIP pile in that time ;)

Edited because I can't add...

Tell Me About Your WIP -- and Win!

You saw I finished the top of the art quilt I've been working on... I had some pieces of the center panel left over after trimming it to fit the outer border, and those pieces were almost exactly postcard sized! So, in honor of my ONE MONTH (!) blog-aversary, I'm giving away these:

I just have to finish the edges, probably just overcasting with blue. A couple of the couched yarns fray a lot, so I dabbed on a little fray check first. Once it's dry, I'll finish these off before moving on to the next thing on my "to-do" list.

Want to win? Comment on this post and tell me a little about a "work-in-progress" in your life (quilting or otherwise) by September 10. Assuming more than three of you care, I'll randomly draw names for the winners.

Sensuous Lines & Curves

At LONG last (I think this class was last fall -- it's been long enough that I can't remember!)... here's MY finished top from Carol Taylor's Sensuous Lines & Curves class. I had to do a little fudging when I cut the length of the center panel too short, but it's barely noticable, so I'm pleased. My "big idea" was the beach, like at home on Lake Michigan -- water, sand, dune grass and sparkles of sunshine.

There's a LOT of work still to do before this piece is finished. The center panel has all the yarns and trims couched onto a "full" quilt already (top fabric, batting and muslin). The entire piece now gets layered with batting and backing, then that panel needs to be quilted to outline each of the couched yarns. In my mind, that was overkill, but I tried it on a sample (I'll show you that in a minute), and it's definitely worth it. Boring, though! I'll do that in invisible thread, I think, and then add in a few strands of copper hologram thread as accents (and to help balance the left, which is a little pale). I'm not sure what I'll do in the outer blocks yet... I guess take it one step at a time!

Class with "Mrs. Mel" -- all the details!

We had such a fun time in class with Melody last week. After a little confusion first thing in the morning about which day it was and what class we were taking, we got to dive into a stack of her absolutely yummy rainbow hand-dyed fabric. Good thing the class was small -- that was a little frenzied! Here are my picks, laid out in all their glory:

We started by fusing Wonder Under to each piece of fabric, covering it completely, then peeling off the release paper. According to Melody, this allows us to cut shapes freely, and the fabric won't fray because we're not picking at the edge of the paper.

Then we cut a long strip, and subcut into segments, keeping them carefully in order so there would be a progression of color in the chevron units. I'll show you my mom's chevrons, since I failed to photograph mine!



Next we made our own new fabric, by cutting strips of fabric two, then cutting them into skinnier pieces with fancy rotary blades and curvy shapes. We shared strips at this point, and fused them into new sections. You can see mom's finished results in the above picture, but here are a couple of process photos:



From there we cut squares into quarters and made these quarter square units:



Cut more strips, and then the real fun begins! All the leftover odds and ends, as well as any other ideas, became fair game as we tackled the most free-form and artistic section. Here's mine:



Then to decide how to put the pieces together... You've seen mine (although I just realized I posted it upside down the other day -- I'm going to try to fix that!). so I'll show you a couple of the ones made by others in class:



Aren't they all fantastic? I wish I had pics of some of the other quilts... hopefully Melody will post the ones she took so you can enjoy them, too! All in all, it was a fun and freeing class. There wasn't too much thinking about the process -- until the third panel, at least for me -- and we got to play with the lovely fabrics and enjoy learning something new.

PS -- click the photos for bigger sizes, or visit my Flickr album for a few more notes...

Merry Melody

Just a quick note -- and a little brag ;)
My mom and are at World Quilt International in New Hampshire this weekend, and took a class with Melody Johnson today. She's a founding member of the Chicago School of Fusing, so this class project didn't even require a sewing machine! Pictured above is my finished quilt top. I'm not sure of the size -- it's in the neighborhood of 20" high by maybe 25" wide. This shot was taken on the floor of our hotel room; it's now fused to batting and ready for some hand embroidery before adding backing and machine quilting.

Pictured below is my mom's finished top -- she's more comfortable with a less abstract approach, so creating the flower in her top panel made a theme for the piece and she's excited about finishing it. She claims it'll hang only in the cats' room, but even so, *I'll* get to enjoy it!


More on the class -- and the show -- later.

EDITED: To rotate the picture of my quilt top, since I posted it upside down last week...