Five Shadows

3 Creative Studios is hosting a quilt challenge all year long. Every other month they will post a word and the challenge is to interpret that word in the form of a quilt. The first word was “Puzzle.”

When reading the word puzzle, my thoughts went immediately to Autism. A puzzle piece is often associated with autism – used as a logo. Several years ago I briefly worked with a local company, Sensory Critters, who create items to help those with autism. The little fellow below is part of Sensory Critters’ logo. I had visions of using him (stitched here in outline form) along with the fabric pictured in my puzzle quilt.

But alas, sometimes things happen in life that take us off our course. That happened to me last week. Instead of happily working on the puzzle quilt, I found myself dealing with a group I belong to with issues I can not discuss here. I found myself puzzling over people’s behavior, dealing with strained and frayed relationships, and looking for answers to money issues. As these are being resolved and now thankfully working towards closure, I found myself thinking of a new Puzzle quilt for the challenge. It is with great joy that I share this little creation! It was so fun to make and very healing after all the stress of the past week and a half!

I have either a very long title for it, or a choice of three titles: Missing Pieces, Too Many People & Not Enough Money, or Where Does All the Money Go?  Notice the frayed edges of the ‘people’ fabric and the striped fabric. I left the raw edges on purpose. If I had the time to shop for fabric, I would have liked to use novelty fabric printed with bills – $5, $10, $20s. But, I happened to have the coin fabric in my stash, so that is what I used!  It was called “Mrs. Nelson’s 2nd Grade.” I loved that!! And had to include the selvage in the quilt!  The quilt is bound with ribbon and tomato bag netting.  This was a great challenge and I look forward to the next word being revealed!  Oh! And I do hope to get back to the Sensory Critters quilt in the near future.

Last week I attended a 5 day quilting retreat. Late nights! Laughs! Good food! And sewing! Here are a few pictures of gals with their projects.

Dody and her quilted bag. Class taught by Twila. Dody used the charm pack/door prize she won to make this bag.

Norma and her quilted bag. She used strips instead of squares.

Cynthia and one of two bunk bed quilts she is piecing for her two sons.

Mary and the table runner she made. Class taught by me! Isn’t it cute how she set it up with the candle she won as a door prize?

Mary and the pillow she made for a friend.

This is a pile of baby quilts Twila made and brought to the quilting retreat that needed tying to finish them. She brought 19 quilts! And I believe other ladies made 3 more while at the retreat! These will be donated to charities.

This is Twila! She taught several classes at the retreat. And she made the 19 baby quilts! This is another quilt she made for her neice while at the retreat.

Here is Marty holding one of the quilts she is tying. Several other ladies worked on the baby quilts too. Sorry I do not have pictures of everyone!  And I did not get pictures of all the other projects ladies worked on! I wish I had! We should have kept count of how many projects were completed in 5 days! It would have been interesting to see!

I worked away on a quilt for my teen daughter. I promise a picture soon.

And here is the group of ladies holding many of the quilts that Twila made. Do you see Mary in the middle holding her dog Molly?

Here are three more totes I’ve created for my quilting friends. That makes 4 down and 4 to go! The first is for my friend Mary. The picture is of Mary with her sister in a red Radio Flyer Wagon from their childhood. Mary loves to travel so that is the theme I aimed for on the journal tote cover. I used two small pieces of fabric printed with maps that I had saved in my scrap pile. I hope Mary has fun on her travels!

Next is a bird house theme for my friend who has her kitchen decorated with birds and birdhouses. I picked up the little bird on the birdbath during a shop hop last summer in Ohio.

This girly version is for a friend who is all things pink, purple and feminine. She recently moved to SC and I hope  this friendship theme suits her.

These three totes make three finishes for OPAM so far for February. I have a quilt that is almost complete. I’m working on hand stitching down the binding. Here is a snick peek. I’ll show the whole quilt once it’s complete!

This weekend I’m off to a quilting retreat! I’ll be teaching a few projects using strip quilting. And a friend will be teaching the above quilt and another version of it. I hope to take pictures to show all the goodness of the weekend – - but I’ll warn you that I usually forget to take pictures while I’m busy sewing!