Showing posts with label amy butler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amy butler. Show all posts

Monday, June 16, 2014

granny love: show it off


This past week I've been busy getting my website all ready for the world to see. Lots of balancing in awkward poses to get the shot, but it was fun seeing all my finished pieces. I realized that I never showed this quilt, all bound and beautiful on the blog, so here it is!

You can read all about my process with this quilt in this post.


Wednesday, February 5, 2014

little scrappy quilt

Happy Thursday Lovies! First of all, I want to apologize for being so absent lately. If you saw my last post, you already know that my sweet dog, Solomon passed away recently. It has been so incredibly difficult for me. And the only way for me to stay sane is to throw myself into work. So, that makes for a really sweet baby quilt. This is the fastest quilt I've ever made, which is really surprising, because the whole thing is hand quilted. I know. I still can't believe I did it either.

I made this quilt in 18 days. And I think it's safe to say that this is my favorite quilt I've ever made. It has so much personality and I think it really shows a lot of me in it. This quilt began at our Savannah Modern Quilt Guild's "use up your scraps" Retreat. That's the best part- all of these are scraps! And I think in the end it looks like confetti, so that's pretty awesome. 

Alright, get ready for one big scroll party! See the Little Scrappy Quilt from start to finish.


A few days into the hand quilting, my elbow was killing me. I honestly believe I had "quilter's elbow," you know, like tennis elbow! I'm telling you, quilters are hard core. 


It needed a little POP!


All quilted! Each piece is quilted with a white pearl cotton, with about a 1/4 inch border. There are 4 scraps that have a radiant orchid border- gotta love that pantone color of the year!
 


Hand stitched binding, as always!


And it's done!
 

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

granny love


This quilt was started in July and I don't think there are any photos of it on here. It was a quilt that I started and was so excited for and then I got kind of bored with it. I was also having some mental creative blocks which are no fun. I couldn't figure out how to make it work! So in a box it went until about 3 weeks ago, when I found the blocks and was excited for it again.


This part is always the hardest for me. Getting a visually balanced quilt is not an easy task. It's kind of like a rubik's cube for me, but in reverse. I don't want too much of one color clumped together. You can see in the middle picture that there are 3 red centers on the bottom row- not good. Eventually things come together.


The choice of using linen for the background probably wasn't the best. Visually, I love it and that's why I chose it, but sewing linen is so tricky! It has a loose weave so there is a lot of room for stretching. Getting each square to be the same size almost drove me crazy. But now we're through the piecing part and I get to start quilting! I'm doing echo quilting inside and outside each block and inside and outside each center square.


At this point, I wasn't finished quilting it, but I decided to go ahead and bind the quilt because we were going to Virginia and I would be in a car for 6 hours. Gotta use that time wisely!

So, here it is, all bound but still needed 3 squares quilted. It was pretty funny quilting when it already had a binding! But hey, it works!

Update: See the finished quilt in this post!











Sunday, February 10, 2013

bella's bed


Last quarter I was in a class called "Studio Production." I gave you a little info on the class and told you that I would do a post on the dog bed that I made. Well, I lied. Sorry about that. Here is the post, oh only 5 months later! :)

With the project, I was assigned a word. There were 3 words: eating, sleeping, and relaxing. I got "sleeping." I had brainstormed many ideas, such as, a sleeping bag or some curtains that would block out the light. But, I know when my idea is not quite right. It doesn't click. A few days and some heavy thinking later, I decided to make a dog bed. And not just any dog bed. This would be a dog bed for poor Bella, my mom's almost completely blind dog. She was having a lot of trouble finding her bed because the colors closely resembled the color of the floor. She needed her bed to have contrast so that what little vision she had left could find it easily. I chose to do a chevron pattern because it also helped give contrast.


This is how I laid out my stripes. I first grouped colors and then sewed the squares into half square triangles.


All of the half square triangles leaves you with a lot of dogears, but I think it's a beautiful mess. 


     

At this point, I realized that half of the stripes were going to be on the front and half on the back, and this is not what I wanted. So I split the colors and put some on the front and some on the back. Problem solved. Next both the top and bottom were quilted and then sewn together with a side panel and an invisible zipper. I wanted to make this washable, so the zipper was a must.


And here it is! All finished! The best part is that it actually works. Bella can find her bed so easily now. No more wandering aimlessly around the room hoping to stumble upon the bed for this girl.




Thursday, August 30, 2012

this february

 via


That's right! February 21-24 I will be in Austin, Texas for QuiltCon!!! I am super excited!! QuiltCon is the inaugural conference and show of the Modern Quilt Guild. I don't think I've ever planned anything this far in advance. And all thanks go to my amazing mama. Remember this post, where my mom surprised me? Well, she has completely outdone herself now! We are both going, and I wouldn't want to go with anyone else. We both are completely obsessed with quilting, and I just know we are going to have the time of our lives!! There are classes that you can sign up for with some of the top names in the business. Denise Schmidt, anyone? Yep, she'll be there. Along with my other favorite, Anna Maria Horner. We got lecture passes, to hear talks like 'how to get your name out there' and 'how to write a book', etc. I can't even imagine how much I will learn from these 4 days.

I am beyond thrilled! Thanks again mom
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