Quilt As You Go, Simply Done

Simply Done

Marguerita’s Blog

Color

by

Quilts are all about texture and color, but so are a lot of other things. I read webs and blogs daily and today Seth Godin posted a link to a web designer who has put up a page of suggested color groupings. These are color themes that the company suggests for web sites but as I looked at them I thought “what great color combinations for quilts!” Take a look.

Dexigner.com shows off “fall women’s colors” according to Pantone. Here’s a link to the Pantone site and you can view Pantone’s 33 pg pdf of the colors there.

Oahu, Hawaii Feb. 2008

by



We are back from 5 luscious days on Oahu! Seward was at about zero degrees and we were thrilled to be able to take a break from the cold and enjoy the beaches of Oahu. We stayed in Honolulu, a block from Waikiki Beach, but our wonderful friend Denise, who lives in Kailua, showed us the island and some of her favorite beaches. We enjoyed some Hawaiian music and a hula show on the beach of Waikiki, and some great food at Buzz’s in Kailua. It was my second time to Oahu but Tom’s first, and he’s never played in the salt water surf – we had a blast! He even went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. The little cupcake on the beach is Denise and the overlook of the big bay is Hanauma, with the reefs showing up as the darker patches in the water. We thawed and had a super time, and because we tossed our lei’s in the waters of Hawaii, I am sure we will be back!

Giggles

by


My daughter uploaded some new photos onto Flickr and I stole this one – I like it. It is of Sarah Raffuse, her husband Ryan (such a nice guy!) and my granddaughter Audrey with a nice clean nose 🙂 hehehehehe I think they were having some fun with the timer option on the camera.

Fabric Postcard from a Friend

by


I did a small favor for the list-owner of Stashbusters on Yahoo! and look what she sent me!!! A fabric postcard! It is sooooooo cool 🙂 I have a stash of Peltex and Timtex and I just might have to try making a few of these. My bin of tiny scraps would be perfect for making small snippet style postcards. I just can’t wait to try it myself! TYVM to Sandra Wucher for the card and the inspiration!

Keepsake Catalog

by

Here’s a scan from the Keepsake Quilting Catalog showing our book! Take a look at the “Going Mod” fabrics on the opposite page – aren’t they great! They would make a great crazy shortcut quilt.

Guess the first thing Sarah said when she saw the catalog……”I see they chose MY quilt to feature on the open page” with a very big grin 🙂

Storage space under the stairs

by


Well, the old 8 foot pool table is *GONE*! I can hardly believe it. Sometimes I go downstairs just to check that it really is gone! The pool room is cleaned up and clear of clutter, with new barstools – nice! Tom is going to build a small table to complement the barstools – we have the design all worked out but we need to wait for the logs to thaw for milling.

Tom had to completely knock out all of the stairs to get the slate out of the basement and when he put them back in he reinforced the treads from the underside. Then I started cleaning, sanding and priming. There used to be a closet door on the tall side (he took it off, frame and all) and the angled side used to be closed in with plywood, making the enclosed space virtually useless.

We are going to store all the canning supplies (about 12 cases of jars) way in the back, on rollers so they can be pulled out easily, and then Tom’s going to build some shelving. I’d like a small office area, just for typical desk clutter. He is happy just to get the jars out of the way!

Quilt Photography

by


I learn so much on the internet, and the tutorial and tips from Holly Knott really helped me a lot. I modified some of her hints, using things I had at home and I continue to work on my quilt photography skills every time I take a pic.

For the book I flew to Wisconsin to work with the staff photographers at Krause and what an experience! Those photographers must have had several hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, excellent professional training and the creative nature to do so many photos justice. I was in awe.

Because I wanted to submit a few of my own photos for the book I tried to learn as much as possible. So, here’s a little tour of my quiltroom/bunny room/photography studio.

The wall has a piece of rough textured fleece stapled to it; there’s a photography grey card pinned to that and all I usually do (for small scale photos – not full sized bed quilts) is smooth the fabric onto the fleece, or put it on with 3-4 pins. The poles that you see are from a rolling closet rack purchased at WalMart for about $11. I like this a lot because I can use it for storage too, when it’s not being used for lighting. Suspended from the ceiling are 2 cheap florescent lamp fixtures with daylight rated bulbs. Clamped to the rolling closet rack are 2 cheap clamp lamps with expensive daylight rated florescent bulbs. All this is connected to a power strip with an on/off switch so it’s only turned on right when I take a photo.

When I’m done with the pic, I unplug the clamp lamps and drape their cords over the top of the rack (remember, this is also the bunny room and bunnies chew cords) and roll it aside. You can see my Quilting Table in there too. The bins against the wall store my threads and the shelves on the wall have a few scrap bins.

Watercolor Quilt in Florals

by


Here’s an older top that I did using Dina Pappas’s method of fusing the fabric squares to a lightweight gridded stabilizer. She loves florals so that’s what we all (in her class) used.

I don’t love florals that much, so I tried Dina’s technique in batiks. This is still a pretty quilt and made even better with the addition of the two great borders (Sarah’s work again – what a great kid!)

Watercolor Quilts in Batiks

by

Watercolor quilts are usually made from floral fabrics, but I hate florals, so I used batiks.
My friend, Dina Pappas, wrote a book about making watercolor quilts using a foundation stabilizer with gridded lines on it. I used her technique to make these quilts and what a breeze!! Even MY seams are straight – and that’s saying something!

I also hate doing borders so my daughter Sarah Raffuse put the fantastic borders on the quilts for me – now I just need to quilt them. What do you think about the batik v. floral?