Here are the two other quilts I made from clothing. This one is a golfing theme with the four patches going diagonally across the quilt. The diagonal from top left to bottom right has theme fabric with golf balls and tees in it.
And this one is the handy-man quilt. Notice the Binford tool shirt logo in the upper left corner. I used a theme fabric of power tools in this quilt.
Last summer I was contacted by a lady who wanted me to make several quilts for her from the clothing of her late husband. She planned on giving the quilts to her children for Christmas. She divided the clothing up by theme – softball, golf, and maintenance. Her husband had been the coach for their youngest daughters softball team. In this bag of clothing was several team t-shirts with team signatures, team sponsor t-shirts. etc. Besides the theme clothing, she also had a bag of shirts, slack, and jackets that she wanted included in each quilt. I initially agonized over just what to do with this rather miscellaneous collection of clothes. After some brain storming I thought I’d see if she would mind if I added a theme fabric for each of the quilts. She agreed, and the search for just the right fabric began. Since my family was planning a trip out of state, we made a day of stopping at several quilt shops in towns as we progressed on our way. I found a great golf fabric, a tool fabric and one that kind of looked like paint splatters. When we returned home, I took to searching the web and found the perfect softball fabric. And here is the first of three quilts, the softball quilt. On the back of the quilt I sashed the large pieces of the t-shirts with team member signatures. I really like how it turned out. And this sweet lady all but cried when she picked the quilts up. She said the quilts were even better than she imaged. Phew, I’m glad I got these quilts right for her!
Drum roll please! Congratulations to Laurie of http://stone-belle.blogspot.com/ Laurie has won my giveaway of the pouch and three fat quarters! I must say I was pleasantly surprised at the number of comments left on my blog in just two days. I came across Lisa’s OWOH event through a link and decided to join that day, Feb 12th! Her invitation did say the 12th was the last day to join! So thank you to all 74 bloggers who made their way over to visit me! I do hope to continue to visit the blogs on the OWOH site while Lisa keeps it active. Thank you Lisa for the wonderful opportunity to meet others through your event.
Today I came across Lisa Oceandreamer’s Event sponsoring a way for bloggers to meet and participate in a art give-a-way/trade. Since I’m kind of new to this world of blogging, I thought I’d join in! Now, what to offer as a trade? I’m starting with this little amulet pouch, and since I do far more quilting than fiber arts at this time in my life, I’ll add some fat quarters. Pictured is the back of the amulet. I’ll hopefully add the fat quarters photo later today.But even without the fat quarters photo, I hope others will want to enter their name in my give-away!
At about 6:10 p.m. my plans for the evening changed. I got a call from the Mayor’s Youth Council – my girls attend the monthly meetings – asking for volunteers to do sand bagging as the rivers are about to flood portions of our city. I made two quick phone calls, to two youth group pastors I know, to see if they could arrange to take their teens to volunteer. (It’s Wednesday night, teens are heading to church for 7 p.m. meetings.) Success! both churches sent their teens! I spent about an hour and a half with my girls, a church youth group, a boy scout troop, and a gentleman who just moved to FW – all of us sand bagging. We got cold, wet, sandy, but had a good time and hopefully our backs will not be too sore tomorrow. I know the sand bags will be put to good use to protect homes in our area. ….maybe tomorrow night I’ll get to do the painting on felt I was planning on doing tonight. (see previous post)
As explained on the Cyber Fyber website: CYBER FYBER is an exhibition of international fiber art scheduled for January 8th through 20th, 2009 at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, 808 Lady Street in downtown Columbia, South Carolina, USA. The brainchild of Susan Lenz, this exhibit will focus on the supportive, global community of fiber artists with whom Susan regularly shares new techniques, contemporary approaches to textiles, and finished work by Internet websites and blogs. The exhibition will include three primary areas: Fiber ATCs (Artist Trading Cards); fiber postcards; and the work of several invited artists. The exhibition will also include FIBER DAY and ATC trading day. From the beginning, Susan Lenz is documenting CYBER FYBER on a blog/journal.
I took the plunge at my daughter’s bidding and have asked to trade for fiber postcard #21. I’ve asked for this one because Susan says it is based on the 6th century mosaics in Italy. The mention of Italian mosaics took me back 35 years !! when I got to spend a month touring Italy, with the exchange student who stayed with my family the previous summer. …
I’m waiting for Susan’s reply. 
I woke up to about 4 inches of snow this morning and it’s still snowing! It’s a pretty welcome to the month of February. And since this is Valentine’s month, I’ll share a little felted heart I did by hand with one felting needle. An embellishing machine is looking more attractive all the time for projects like this. I’m not sure where this little heart will end up – but it will let me know where it belongs.
Sigh, the bobbin tension on my Bernina has been acting up. I did a search to find the closest dealer/repair service, since the shop in my town has closed. Upside of the story is my husband and I took a trip to Shipshewana to the Bernina Dealer today. It’s a fun town to visit. I imagine it was once a quiet Amish community but now caters to tourists, with museums, buggy rides, convention center, lots of shopping, etc. We ate at the Blue Gate Restaurant. Yummy homemade bread and pies! We split a sampler platter and shared a piece of apple crumb pie. We (OK, I tee hee) shopped at several quilting stores, and the B&N bulk food store. And we will have to return next week to pick up the repaired sewing machine. Today I limited myself to just buying items for the white quilties swap I signed up for through Lenna’s swap blog. While at the Bernina shop I learned that they sell attachments to turn a Bernina into an embellishing machine! I’ll have to think about the pros and cons of that over buying a separate machine just for embellishing. Any thoughts anyone?
A while ago, a friend told me about wool bags you can buy for about five bucks from the Army Surplus store. So I took a look and bought two. They look like they could have been made from old wool Navy blankets? My daughters and I have played around with them and here is one so far. It needs lots more embellishing. Anna used the letter tiles for the name – this bag will go to Aunt Jean for her birthday in the fall, so we have lots of time to finish up this project. Janelle added the hearts and stitching. Charis wants to embellish the strap. I did needle felting by hand – and think one of those embellishing/felting machines would move this project along much faster! I’ve actually looked at two machines and might just convince the nice guy I’m married to that it would make a wonderful Birthday gift! :-)
When I saw the amulet pouches by Wendy Coyne in the Dec/Feb issue of Quilting Arts, I thought I’d give the pattern a try. I didn’t paint, but did do some stitching in the swirls of the fabric, couched fibers on the edge and added two charms. Not sure the stitching shows up in the pictures. These could be nice for Valentines with the right fabric and embellishments.
