Trial and Error

I had seen a quilt with this block in a magazine and decided I would like it in a baby quilt. I looked for it in the EQ7 block libraries and also in BlockBase, but didn’t find it because I was searching on “pinwheel.” I had to ask around and someone else found it in BlockBase as “turnstile” although the pinwheels turned the other direction. By then I had already drafted it myself, which is the better way to go, because we all need practice with Electric Quilt, don’t we?

I made a 9″ test block, for an adult-size quilt and it came out very nice. I’m always hesitant to work with triangles but this was a breeze:

Although it doesn’t look like it, it is square.

But for a baby/kids quilt, 9″ blocks are too big, because there are not enough of them to make for a good looking layout. So I tried 6″:

What a disaster! When I squared it up to 6.5″, I lost my seam allowances on 2 sides and one side is not a full 1/4″.

So I tried it again:

Much better!

But I also wanted to try paper-piecing:

Holy cow, this is what happens when you don’t print a mirror image of the block. And to think I got the whole thing put together before I figured that out.

So I did that and tried again:

It came out very lovely in the end, but not without some drama. I found that in one of the quadrants I’d switched the positions of the light and printed fabrics and had to take it apart and fix it.

This is why I don’t design many quilts on my own. Too much stress! LOL

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Wordless Wednesday

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Pink Strippie Quilt

I finished another Stippie Quilt, this time for my local charity sewing group, Stitchers. I backed it with Minkee, pillow casing it so that I didn’t have to worry about batting or binding. It was SITD quilted, about the only kind I can do myself.

One more Strippie is in the works, in primary colors. Stay tuned.

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Nik Software Score!

I don’t get on Google+ very often, just don’t get much out of it, although I follow a number of professional photographers and a couple of guys from Scott Kelby’s NAPP group.

But I just happened to fire it up tonight and saw something I had to jump on.

I’ve been lusting after Nik Software’s plugins for Photoshop and Lightroom for a few years now. But they’ve been very expensive, not in my budget. Last year, Google bought Nik and I figured the plugins’ days were numbered, Google would probably just quietly kill them as happens so often with corporate acquisitions. I don’t know why Google bought them, sometimes they do that just to get the employees. But the Nik plugins are very popular so let’s keep our fingers crossed that Google recognizes their value and keeps on developing.

Anyway, I saw a post by Martin Bailey that Google is offering the.whole.Nik.plugin.collection for just $149. And if you use Martin’s coupon code MBP15, you get another 15% off. I don’t know how long this offer will last, but I got mine!

http://www.niksoftware.com/nikcollection/usa/index.php?view=intro%2Fmain.shtml

You can try the collection for free for 15 days and anyone who’s bought any of the plugins is getting upgraded to the whole collection for free!

After I downloaded and installed, I quickly went through my Lightroom library and grabbed a shot to play with.

This is a pretty forgettable shot of the conservatory at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, a building I’ve shot a bazillion times.

I applied a SilverEfexPro preset:

And now it has a dark and stormy night look .

Then I applied a ColorEfexPro preset:

I didn’t expect to find a border effect, so I added that too. I like borders.

Mainly, I’ve wanted SilverEfexPro because I’ve seen some awesome b/w conversions. My little example doesn’t do it justice, but when applied to a set of bracketed shots for HDR, it should be sweet! Note to self: get some bracketed shots to play with.

I’ve wanted ColorEfexPro because I’ve seen some HDR shots that have the Glamour Glow effect and it really looks nice. Note to self: get some more bracketed shots to play with.

If you’ve been wanting Nik plugins too, don’t let this opportunity get away from you.

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How my friends see me

At our church’s Women’s Retreat a few weeks ago, we did an exercise, for lack of a better word, that produced hysterical results.

We sat at round tables, about 8 per table (think wedding reception tables). We each had a blank sheet of paper and a generous supply of colored markers on the table.

We were instructed to look at the woman to our left and draw her nose. Then we passed the paper to the woman on our right. We were then instructed to look at the woman whose nose was on the paper just passed to us and draw her eyes. Pass to the right. Then look at that woman and draw her mouth. Pass, etc. When the papers had gone all around the table, each picture had all our facial features.

What a hoot! There was more to it, I think it was an esteem-builder or something like that. But I kept my portrait as I think it rather resembles me.

 

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2013 Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival

This year the Quilt Festival in Hampton, Virginia fell on the same weekend as my church’s Women’s Retreat in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I haven’t been to every one of the quilt shows since I’ve lived in Virginia, but I wanted to go to this one and visit the Featherweight vendor for some bobbins and maybe other things.

I had two choices: go to the show on Friday and drive to Fredericksburg afterward, or go to Hampton on Sunday after the retreat was over. The latter wasn’t very appealing as it’s a 2 hour drive between the two cities and the retreat wouldn’t end until about 11:00 or 11:30, usually. Some people don’t stay for the Sunday worship but as I was the photographer, I felt I needed to be there. So I opted for the former and it worked out pretty well. Except that I ended up not taking many pictures that morning. Oh well.

The weather Friday morning wasn’t the greatest, freezing rain. I planned to get on the road by 9:30 but decided to wait to see if the weather got any better and by 10:30 it had changed to rain so I headed out. I got there at noon, caught up with the Stitchers group who had gotten there earlier, talked with them a little and then made my rounds of scoping out the quilts and cruising the vendor booths.

By 2:30 I was on my way to Fredericksburg. I have to say, I think this year’s show was disappointing. At least to me. I didn’t see any jaw-dropping quilts, although every quilt is filled with sweat equity and I know about how much work goes into them. I’m not discounting the craftsmanship but the designs didn’t excite me.

I have a developing interest in beading on quilts, so I limited my picture taking to those with beads. Oh, and my friend Margaret (from work and Stitchers) had one of her quilts on display so I got her picture next to hers.

When I texted my husband to let him know I was hitting the road again, he asked me if it was worth going all the way out there just to stay 2.5 hours. It was, of course, I got my bobbins and talked to the Baby Lock dealer about the serger I want (still couldn’t afford the show price) and you never know ahead of time if it’s going to be a good show or not.

So here are the photos I came home with:

 

If you went to this show and got more out of it than I did, that’s great. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t had to get out of there at a certain time. And the show always takes a lot out of me even when I’m not on a time constraint. But the Stitchers were there from 10-4 and they must have a lot more fortitude than I.

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Wordless Wednesday

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