Deer Heads

A million years ago (or at least it seems that long), I lived with a guy who hunted.  This meant dead "stuff" on my walls.  I could never figure out how to decorate around it: a black tail, a white tail, and a moose shoulder mount; an elk European mount; and a bear rug.  (How the hell do I even remember all these terms?!?)  Luckily, in my new house, there's no dead shit on the walls, and it's not allowed in.  But I think that's why I laughed so hard when I saw the "Wild Animals" pattern from Shannon Brinkley.  This scrappy fabric deer head, made of beautiful leftover fabric pieces, is something I can totally get behind!!

The blue one is quilted and just waiting for binding -- my least favorite part.  The yellow one needs to be quilted...

I didn't do these two in quite the way Shannon Brinkley describes in her pattern, but I plan to make one that way soon.  I made them in the Sunday Morning Quilts slab method -- Shannon's method involves double-sided fusible interfacing, and I didn't have enough of that at home late at night when I decided to make these, so I slabbed it up.  (I have a Scrappy Slab class coming up soon at Running Stitch Fabrics, so I was in slab mode anyway.  They are SO FUN to make, and so fast!  Here are some blocks that were made the last time I taught this class...)

Anyway, this is today's Make it Modern Moment -- I'm turning some of my favorite scraps into deer head wall-hangings, seriously LOLing, and rejoicing in how much my life has changed.  

There's more than just deer heads in Shannon's pattern, and more than just the pattern I used!  There's one with skylines, and giraffes, and bears, and even a unicorn!  I got my copy at Running Stitch Fabrics in Kent, WA.

Happy Sewing!

Christmas Quilt...

I'm making a quilt for a Christmas present, and I'm loving how it is turning out!!  I've combined two ideas from Pinterest, and one idea from Sunday Morning Quilts (again, with my favorite book!  I know I know, I may have an addition...), and created this pattern.

  First, I made some 'slabs' like they make in Sunday Morning Quilts. 

 I made them 15" square, because that was the largest ruler I had to square them up.

 Then, I found this technique on Pinterest, and used it to make 4 HST at one time.

AND THEN, I used this picture and drafted two versions of this green and red quilt...

I'm loving how it looks so far, even with only two rows sewn together...

Here's where I'm headed.

And Gracie even "helped" by covering the blocks with cat hair...She's so funny!

I'll post pictures when I get it done!  :)

I was in a QUILT SHOW!!

Even though I've been a quilter for about 20 years, I have never had a quilt of mine in a quilt show.  Well, I guess there was this one time at the fair when I was a teenager, but it was SUPER STRESSFUL!  I mean, the JUDGEMENT!  Ugh!  I have a large enough anxiety issue without all of that pressure and judgey-ness on my hobby, for heavens sake.  So, over the years, I've decided that my quilts will remain in my house, and only shared with people who, if they have a judgement or criticism, will have the good sense to keep it to themselves so I don't have to throat-punch them.

But then, my friends in the Rubystreet Art Quilters group had a show at a local library recently, and there was no judgement to get into the show, there were no prizes, no juries, no stress of any kind really.  So, not one but TWO of my quilts hung in that!  And, it was amazing; I was very proud of myself, and I didn't have a panic attack over it.  Success and growth right there, people, that's what that is!

Here they are, hanging in the library's rafters:

This quilt is one that I've posted on here before, I think.  I started it a long time ago, and recently got it quilted.  It's from the book Material Obsession by Kathy Doughty and Sarah Filke.  Their version had brown backgrounds behind the flowers, but I was really into white at the time, so that's what I used in my version.



This quilt was totally inspired by the book Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Jean Nyberg & Cheryl Arkinson.  I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE this book, and I've made several projects from it.  I thoroughly enjoy their scrap quilting method called "Slabs" and I used that idea when I made this quilt.  It's called "Blackout", and was a Christmas gift for my husband.  He is a gun collector, and has one called a Blackout 300, which as far as I'm concerned, is Greek for "expensive."  But as he was explaining to me what makes it a Blackout and a 300, and I was trying to listen, I had this quilt idea flash before my eyes, so I got to work.  The cross in it is supposed to look like when you look through a gun's sights, but as I am a Girl, I wasn't really certain what that looked like, so I made up my own interpretation.

Here it is up a little closer so it's easier to see all the separate pieces in the "Slabs."  One thing I did NOT think about with this quilt is that we have a white cat.  White cat + all black quilt = a big ole non-practical mess...

So, there are my OFFICIAL show quilts!  Ha, I was in a show!  A couple more non-judgmental things like this, and I may get up the courage to enter a real, juried quilt show...who knows?!?  Of course, I may need to up my meds before that happens...