Morning Glory

I've finished my piece for the 12x12x12 challenge. It's a crazy quilted block that I've also used to incorporate some of the stitches from the Sharon B's Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge. Being that I'm an expert multi-tasker, this is also the last piece in the series on the Madonna that I've been doing with Debra Spincic. We each set out to make four quilts incorporating images of the Madonna roughly based on the seasons. We chonicled a lot of our earlier work on the series on our blog The Madonna Idea. Morning Glory is my Spring quilt in the series.

Some of the stitches I used in this piece include: cross-stitch, fly stitch, eyelet stitch chevron stitch, open cretan stitch, detached chian stitch, buttonhole, and herringbone stitches. The hummingbird and morning glory motifs are transfers from an Aunt Martha package. You can still buy those and I find that Walmart, of all places, has a good selection. The hanging charms are hearts and leaves that were part of a bracelet I bought on clearance at Target.
One of my challenges in this piece was to connect the motifs so that they weren't so isolated from each other. I did this by extending the vine to connect the motifs, even through the floral print in the background. If I had planned ahead, rather than made it up as I went along, I would've used a higher contrast green to make the vine. But live and learn, right? I ripped out and edited a lot as I was making this piece. Perhaps I'll move to working more on paper as part of the process. In the future I might make a photocopy of the block and them play with embellishment options.

My future 12x12x12 pieces are going to incorporate bird images. I feel like I'm not quite done with the Madonna images yet, so I expect to continue to use those as well.

Here are links to my other Madonna quilts in the series:
La Ofrenda (42x43) 2005
House of Gold, Pray for Us (26x16.5) 2005
O Serene Like the Moon, O Resplendent Like the Sun (24") 2006

Another Service Quilt

This is my second one-block quilt from Sew One and You're Done for the 40 Quilt Service Project. All the fabrics were in my stash except for the pink floral. Without it, the quilt was a bit somber, and the pink makes it more cheerful. I'm going to use the same pink fabric for the back. Originally I used more green, but that really made it dark and formal looking, so I substituted the blocks with other colors until I was happy with how it looked. Vicki is going to quilt this one and the one in the last post.

Doing this quilt has really caused me to review my stash. I've bought little fabric in the last year, but before that I bought a lot of remnants and fat quarters in a random fashion, which is good for scrap quilting, but not so good for more coordinated projects. As I make these quilts I'm cutting down any small pieces of fabric I find into uniform sizes for a big scrap quilt. It's a way to clear the stash of stuff that I'm not likely to do much with because the pieces are small. On the other hand, these 1-block quilts are great for using 1 yard pieces. 4-5 one yard cuts make a 60" quilt, so I've been clearing out a few larger miscellaneous pieces as well.
This blue quilt was made completely from stash. I haven't sewn it together yet, but it's waiting patiently for me on the design wall. The black floral is actually from a dress my mother gave me specifically so that I could use the fabric. I think I may have to make this one up for her for Mother's Day.

I'll be making at least one more of these 1-block quilts. Debra sent me a cut of Hawaiian floral fabric from her stash, and I'll use it to make another charity quilt. That one will be a lot of fun since the colors are so vibrant, and nothing says "vacation" like tropical prints.