Author name: Melissa Dunworth

Owner/Operator

February – A Lovely Year of Finishes Participant – Karen at Capitola Quilter

6 Comments / A Lovely Year of Finishes, Fiber of All Sorts / By

ALYoF2014Happy mid-February! Shanna and I hope your finishes are coming along beautifully!  Today we have a wonderful participant highlight for you.  Karen from Capitola Quilter has been participating in A Lovely Year of Finishes since we started just over a year ago. She is very active in our flickr group and always has wonderful words of encouragement for everyone!

Make sure to take a moment and visit our wonderful sponsors who make this whole endeavor a lot more fun!

Fat Quarter Shop
Sew BitterSweet Designs
Persimon Dreams
Quilting Lodge
Aurifil
Green Fairy Quilts
Sew Sweetness
Stitches n’ Giggles

Photos provided from – photo from CapitolaQuilter – thanks for sharing

 

Blog name: CapitolaQuilter – secondhandscraps

Name you’re known by throughout quilting world: CapitolaQuilter (Karen)

What’s your ALYoF goal this month?: The Lotus Tile Pillow made from the quilt block that I started in a needle turn applique workshop with Bobbi Finley.   

 

Lotus Tile Pillow

How do you approach your sewing goals? With complete chaos and plenty of guilt.  I am constantly discovering new projects I want to make but have countless projects already started.

How do you organize/prioritize your projects? Bundled in UFO buckets and some smaller containers. It’s better than before I reorganized my sewing room.  Boarding my fabric and sorting my scraps made a huge difference but there is still a lot of digging and clutter. Prioritizing is almost always deadline based.

 

What is your current favorite project that you are working on? 

 What is your current favorite project that you are working on? Will you share pictures with us? A few months ago I joined a small group the Fabric Hounds and just finished FMQing and binding a quilt to be auctioned at an upcoming quilt show.  This collaborative creation is called “Pup Art”.  We meet in Capitola so I thought it was fitting to take it for a photo shoot with the colorful backdrop of Venetian Court.

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What is your dream project to work on? Something special made with Liberty of London.

What is your favorite time of day to sew? When I can devote a nice chunk of time uninterrupted – I especially love to get that second wind and stay up all night (or at least until 2am) like at a Retreat.  

 What is your favorite quilting/sewing accessory? My Baby Lock Symphony sewing machine.  I have a newfound appreciation for the features that let me be lazy and also the intuitive touchscreen.

What is your number one quilting/sewing goal for 2014? To attend as many local workshops as I can and to sew from stash so I can save up enough to attend QuiltCon 2015.


What is one technique you really want to learn? Straight stitch quilting using my walking foot and eventually work my way to matchstick quilting or what I like to call toothpick quilting (because really – it’s THAT thin!)  I also want to try the FMQ sketched applique technique like theDoodle Dragon made by my friend Anne @ PlayCrafts.

Thank you so much Karen for joining us today!

 Keep up the great work on your one goal for this month – you can do it!

 The finishes link-up starts the last 7 days of the month and will end before the month is over.

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Rainbow Star Burst Quilt

16 Comments / Sew BitterSweet Designs Patterns, The Modern Quilt Guild / By

As a member of The Modern Quilt Guild I got to participate in the Riley Blake Basics Challenge.  I have to say when the fabrics arrived at my door I had absolutely no idea what I was going to make with them. In fact I believe that they were on my design wall, staring me in the face, for 2.5 months before I decided it was time to make something.

What I loved about this challenge is that we were allowed to add in any solids and any other Riley Blake fabrics. It turns out that in my stash I have a HUGE collection of Riley Blake Fabrics. I had no idea just how much Riley Blake I owned.  Below is the quilt I came up with, designed in EQ7.

Rainbow Star Burst Quilt - https://test.sewbittersweetdesigns.comI truly love my quilt. The only fabrics that I had to buy to complete this one were the red chevron and the chevron binding. I had the six fabrics provided (4 of which I used on the front, the other 2 are on the back) and I added in 3 more from my stash plus my solids.

I think I am drawn to rainbows because when I was younger I was in a youth group called Rainbow Girls. Also, Anne loves them too!

Here is the back, it really shows off the quilting. Someone mentioned on Instagram (I’m SewBitterSweetDesigns if you want to follow me) that I could use the back for the Radiant Orchid Challenge.

Back - Rainbow Star Burst - https://test.sewbittersweetdesigns.comI love how the quilting pops on the back of the quilt!

So this is what I came up with!

Quilt Stats:

Measures: 51″ x 51″Designed by: Melissa Dunworth (Me) Sew BitterSweet Designs
Quilted by: Melissa Dunworth
Thread: King Tut by Superior Threads
Fabrics: Riley Blake Basics

I’m contemplating writing a pattern for this quilt, I just haven’t gotten that far yet…

This was one of my goals for the Finish-A-Long Q1 with Katy from The Littlest Thistle. You can see my goals here.

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Color Value Class

10 Comments / Fiber of All Sorts, SSMQG, Value Quilt / By

This past weekend I was very blessed to be able to attend a Color Value Class by Katie from Sew Katie Did. I planned this class for the South Sound Modern Quilt Guild, with the help of my amazing board, that is in the South Puget Sound area of Washington State.   The class was made extra fun because Shanna from Fiber of All Sorts came too! She drove up from Oregon earlier in the week and spent the night on Saturday so we could visit and sew together. It was so much fun!

I learned so much during the class. Below are some of my biggest takeaways:

  • Most of my fabrics tend to be dark and medium values – I have a very limited selection of light value fabrics (except solids)
  • I struggle to work with prints only – turns out I really LOVE solids
  • My blindness can actually be an advantage in  determining color value
  • I need a new cell phone that can switch the photo to black and white – thank goodness Shanna let me use her phone during the class!
  • Everyone NEEDS to have a design wall of some kind!!! This is an absolute MUST HAVE!

With the fabrics that I brought to class (and two donated squares) here is what I have so far for my value quilt:

Value Diamond Quilt - https://test.sewbittersweetdesigns.comHere it is in Black and White – that makes it easier to see the color values:

Black & White Color Value Quilt - https://test.sewbittersweetdesigns.comI have been shopping my stash some more and I plan to add to my quilt. I would like for it to be at least 60″ x 60″ so I have a lot more half square triangles to make.

Have you ever made a Value Quilt? I can’t remember the last time I made a quilt and used all prints…it has been at least 7 years.

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All Framed Up, An Unplanned Finish

6 Comments / All Framed Up / By

Last week I finished up another version of my All Framed Up pattern.  This one is destined to go to a friend who is pregnant. Although, now that I have finished my class with Katie from Sew Katie Did, I’m wondering whether or not there is enough value difference. (More about my class on Thursday.) Oh well, it is what it is and I will apply the things I learned from the class to my future quilts!

All Framed Up Purple & Gray - https://test.sewbittersweetdesigns.comI love this quilt, especially the birdie and butterfly focus prints. They just make me so happy. My favorite thing about this pattern is all the negative space, it gives you so much room to practice your FMQ in. I did an all over swirl design in the gray and in the purple I did a border design from Angela Walters’ book.

I even learned that for the last 2 years I have been threading my machine incorrectly. Turns out you should always thread your machine with the foot up. I don’t always do that and when I don’t do it I have MAJOR tension problems. Thank goodness for the user manual! So there is my unplanned finish for February.

What are you up to?

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