The Animated Librarian Quilts

The Temecula Outdoor Quilt Show

Posted on October 9, 2013 by animatedlibrarian

Surely you have heard of the outdoor quilt show in Sisters, Oregon. Well, as I was looking for another quilty thing to get me out of the house while on sabbatical (I have been shooting for one adventure a month) I stumbled across the Temecula Outdoor Quilt Show.

I live in San Diego and Temecula is about an hour inland from here so it wasn’t a huge haul and to sweeten the pot it has a bunch of wineries that I had never been to.

I planned a lovely get-a-way with my partner in crime (mom). We got there on a Friday and went wine tasting. Our first stop was a winery called Doffo. I chose them not so much for their wines but their motorcycles!

Note the motorcycles adorning the walls!

That picture is of an outdoor tasting area, there main tasting area is inside and there are a few motorcycles there too but I didn’t take any pictures.

Take a look at that old bicycle on the left! Why motorcycles? Mom and I love them, that is all 🙂 As for the wines we found them okay but not worth buying however I did get a sparkling that will be saved for New Years and we both got this stuff called Chimichuri that goes on top of little pieces of bread. It is Argentinian and hand made by the wife of the winery.

Next stop was right across the street at Chapin Family Vineyards. Heaven I tell you. If you ever go to Temecula and would like a great wine tasting experience go there. First off you get to sit down which is apparently not common when wine tasting…who knew? Second the views are lovely and most importantly the wines are fabulous. It was a little slice of heaven I tell you. I had such a good time I forgot to take pictures….okay, there is one from my phone that I texted to my husband but its not in the computer just yet. We both bought wine here and mom even became a member of their wine club (she partakes a bit more than me). I’m looking forward to returning.

From there we went to the hotel, took a nap and had a lovely dinner at a restaurant called Sorrel which was in a hideous strip mall. The food was fabulous but the atmosphere was…hmmm…noisy and dark…and small…and there was a guy in the kitchen who was screaming a lot…odd. I’d go back though, the food was great.

On to Saturday morning. The quilt show.

It’s really sweet, they have this street the call Old Town and all of the quilts are hung up outside on all of the railings and eaves and anywhere they can figure to hang them. As you can see the weather was great. They even had a little tiny vendor hall for the purchasing of whatnots…you know how the quilters must have more whatnots. Here are some highlights:

Close-up of one of the birds in the last quilt. I was really tickled by this applique quilt. …you get the idea.

All in all it was a great 24 hours. I can’t believe I had never heard of this quilt show before…big fun.

September Modern QAL and Progress

Posted on September 18, 2013 by animatedlibrarian

Here she is

This month’s block was called Escalator. If you look at my compadres blocks at And Sew We Craft you’ll notice, as usual, mine is a bit of a departure. However, it does fit nicely with the rest of my Modern QAL blocks. I got the little owl fabric at a vendor at the San Diego Quilt Show earlier this month. I made swiss cheese of my little fat eighth fussy cutting these guys but I think it was worth it.

Meanwhile the puppies became this

and are currently in this state

I am trying to decide how much quilting it really needs. It has a lofty polyester batting (the Mr. wanted the pupster to have a more pillow like quilt) and it is a really bear to push and pull through the harp in my machine. I had thought I might do an “x” in each non-puppy square and then free motion around each puppy but now I am thinking maybe not. As long as the batting is not going to move around I think maybe I am good with this…not sure yet.

I realize I mentioned that I would tell you about the Long Beach Quilt Festival and I have neglected to do so. For the moment I will tell you I came home having made this

From a great Free Motion Quilting Class. That little masterpiece took me about 3 hours…granted there was a whole lot of teaching going on in there. More on that later.

Additionally, I just came back from the incredibly fabulous Riley Blake Fabric Fest in Vegas with my mom. That is a post in itself that will have to be done soon. Suffice it to say, those folks out did themselves. A peek for now. I did this:

as a bit of a color study in a class with Amy Smart from the blog Diary of a Quilter (she actually did a pretty cool recap of the Fest here), it is becoming a pillow. I bought the very expensive cushy fabric for the back and the piping today.

I’ll also show you one of my “Make and Take” projects

It has batting inside that holds in projects on the go. It is made out of a Riley Blake Chevron laminate and my first attempt at machine binding (no thank you, ugh).

Lastly, on a totally separate note I have started making paper pieced origami cranes

This is going to be an “extra” project. You know, when I feel like piecing but don’t have anything on hand that kind of thing. I fully expect this to to be one that is years in the making (however not the 23 years it took to finish my sisters quilt…which is done by the way but I don’t have any decent pictures of it yet). These blocks are like 4.5 inches each…perhaps I should blow them up a bit…nah.

Posted in Little Sewing Projects, modern Blocks Quilt A Long, Paper Piecing, Riley Blake Fabric Fest, Work-in-Progress | Tagged Paper Piecing, Pieced Origami Cranes, puppy quilt, QAL, Riley Blake Fabric Fest, Work-in-Progress | Leave a comment

August Modern QAL, Sprouts and Puppies

Posted on August 26, 2013 by animatedlibrarian

First things first, I present to you my August Modern Quilt-A-Long block

Don’t you just love the birdies? Last month I used a lion in the middle and this month that center square just seemed to be screaming out for something special and what do you know? I just happened to have these little cuties in my stash.

Although I have not been blogging this month I have been relatively productive on the quilting front. Now that I have basted my sisters quilt I have been quilting and burying many many threads. Not much to show at the moment for that one but take my word for it it’s taken quit a bit of my time. I am learning why people do all over quilting designs, yeesh.

Remember the sprouts

They’ve multiplied! My bee mates added to the pile at the last San Diego Modern Quilt Guild meeting. I have one more month to receive blocks from them, let’s hope they are having fun making them, I’ll need to double the number to make this masterpiece.

The last thing I will show this time around is my puppies

Last post I had one lonely puppy to share. I now have seven. I am currently working on the last one. Each puppy has about 30 pieces so I am a little puppied out. Yes, this is for a quilt for our dog Apollo. Yes, he is well loved. Let’s hope the rest of the quilt top goes together a little quicker than this paper piecing has.

Next post I’ll tell you about my trip to Long Beach for the International Quilt Festival!

Posted in Bee Blocks, modern Blocks Quilt A Long, Paper Piecing | Tagged puppy quilt, QAL, scrappy sprouts | Leave a comment

A Finish! …and progress

Posted on July 22, 2013 by animatedlibrarian

The big news is I finished my first quilt! It’s the bug jar

Here’s a pic of the finished top. Just a stitch in the ditch quilting technique to get my feet wet.

Here’s a nice mitered corner that I did on the binding (yeah me!)

I used a fabric on the back called “Mr. Toad Gets Dressed” from 1996 that I happened to have lying around in my stash

Here’s a close up.

I brought it to quilt guild and shared it and immediately gave it up for charity. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the quilt, so did my husband (he was so proud of me) but I really had no need for this one at this size and I really just wanted some good practice with all the basic techniques.

So what’s next? Well my sisters’ quilt of course! I finally finished the top

and the basting

No really, I finished the basting. Now it is on my sewing machine, I got some initial quilting done this weekend but I have no idea how long it will take because of all of those triangles, I’ll quilt every 3rd about 1/4″ in and stagger them in each row. The real question is how to quilt that blasted braid around the outside? Suggestions are welcome.

In the meantime, it was my turn to pick a block for our guild bee. I picked a scrappy sprout design that I first found out about from Tracey Jay Quilts blog. It’s a great story, people from all over the world sent blocks to her to make a quilt for a friend with cancer. I have wanted to do this block for my bee month ever since I first saw it.

So I made a few to bring to guild for examples. I have been getting great feedback from the guild about the block and people are spitting them out like hotcakes, yahoo! I even had a bee crasher (someone who is not officially in the bee but made blocks for me anyway 🙂 ). The bee members have two months to get blocks in to me so we’ll see how many I end up with and what the colors look like, I’m so excited. Tracey Jay used 55 in her quilt and I would like this to be big enough to use…I’m definitely keeping this one.

Lastly, my husband has requested that I make a quilt for our dog Apollo (the 7 year old puppy). So I chose a paper pieced puppy block pattern on Craftsy

So far I have made one. It is “a bit” time consuming. Perhaps it is the 30 pieces involved, perhaps it is the cloud fabric I chose for the background that must be lined up so the clouds are facing the right direction. It is a 6″ block. I have decided that 6 pieced blocks may be enough and I found another background fabric that I may do half of them in to save my sanity. I’ll stagger those puppy blocks with some great bone and paw fabrics I found…how to quilt those I wonder? Somehow I will make it big enough for the puppy in the end but I fear it may take a while.

Posted in Bee Blocks, Charity Quilt, Finished!, Little Sewing Projects, Paper Piecing, Work-in-Progress | Tagged Bug Jar Quilt, Charity Quilt, Finished Quilts, puppy quilt, scrappy sprouts, Work-in-Progress | Leave a comment

Next Modern QAL Block and Progress

Posted on July 8, 2013 by animatedlibrarian

This month for the Modern Blocks Quilt-A-Long 3rd square we were given a pattern for Megan’s Star.

This is my version. I bought the lion fabric to line a duffle bag I’ll be making as a gift and it just so happens that it matches my colors perfectly and gave it a lovely opportunity to shine.

Meanwhile my new quilt guild (San Diego Modern Quilt Guild) needed more wonky house blocks for a charity quilt.

So I made another, I tried my hand for the first time with one last month. They say they should go together quickly….hmmm this one took me about two hours. I guess I still haven’t settled into the whole wonky aesthetic yet.

In the area of progress I made the back of the quilt I am creating for my sister

My husband teased me that it took 23 years to create the front of the quilt and one day to create the back (which he likes a little bit better…sigh). I had yards and yards of the pink paisley (still do actually) but I had to make a run to my local quilt shop to get the blue since I had virtually none left over from the front. It will work nicely as the binding as well I think.

Lastly, my bug jar quilt is almost complete

just have to finish the binding.

As you can see the long 4th of July weekend and the first week of my sabbatical was very happy.

Posted in Charity Quilt, modern Blocks Quilt A Long, Work-in-Progress | Tagged Bug Jar Quilt, Charity Quilt, QAL, Work-in-Progress | 4 Comments

It Was Buggin’ Me

Posted on June 22, 2013 by animatedlibrarian

Recently I wrote about the quilt I started in 1990 for my sister.

As it turns out the top is almost done which, of course means the quilting comes next….ohhhhhh never done that before and I really don’t want my very first attempt to be on my sisters quilt. Let hers be my second attempt. What to do? What to do?

Welllll, it just so happens I have blocks that I won in 2001 from a guild BOM.

This is how I know the blocks were from 2001. Note the top right corner.

This is the way it worked; if you wanted to participate you made a block…or four…whatever. You got a raffle ticket for every block you gave in and at the end of the guild meeting they would draw for the winner of all of the blocks. It would appear that I won and subsequently put the jars (and additional fabric, some already cut and ready to piece) away safely, not to be seen for 12 years.

Perfect, I pulled these little suckers out and decided I would finish the Bug Jar Quilt, figure out how to quilt the thing and give it to charity. So I began

They were not all my style, they were not all trued up but I carried on

I had to piece some myself because I needed 20 for the quilt and there were not that many completed blocks in the bunch. Next I had to decide what to put between each row. I looked up other bug jar quilts online and the prevailing pattern had them as if they were sitting on a shelf…like in a pantry. Great, I thought, I’ll do that! I high-tailed it to my local fabric/craft store and found this Robert Kaufman gem (Imperial Collection) that I thought could be a fun wood-like compliment

Yeahhh, then I realized that if I did that the jars would appear to be floating above the shelf because in this pattern the jars have a big white strip at the bottom and unless I felt like ripping those off of 20 blocks and messing up the dimensions of my quilt that was not happening. Back to the stash (because I didn’t want to buy more). Low and behold I had this gem

called Backyard Baby by Patty Sloniger for Michael Miller. I must have bought it relatively recently because it is still being sold however I have absolutely no recollection. So I decided that I would fussy cut the rows and put them in between. Which ended up looking like this

Yes, I know. Puppy is in the way. He was, yet again, immovable. But you get the idea.

I also added the border because it needed something

Now to baste and let the party begin!

Posted in Charity Quilt, fabric, Work-in-Progress | Tagged Bug Jar Quilt, Charity Quilt, Work-in-Progress | 3 Comments

Modern Quilt-A-Long Block Two: Spool

Posted on June 11, 2013 by animatedlibrarian

Previously I wrote about my first block in the Modern-Quilt-A-Long that is being hosted by And Sew We Craft. This month we were challenged with a less complicated block called Spool.

This is what I came up with:

It is a pretty literal interpretation but I really felt like playing with that center section. You can see what my fellow Quilt-a-Long companions have come up with here.

The center spooly part was fun to do here is the back so you get an idea of what I did

All the blocks are coming from the same book

which can be purchased from Book Depository (or Amazon…).

I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us next month!

Posted in modern Blocks Quilt A Long | Tagged QAL, Quilting Books | 6 Comments

My Trippy Quilt

Posted on June 7, 2013 by animatedlibrarian

Many many years ago I started a quilt. How many years ago? Well, this is what I have to go on: It came from this book

Which has a copyright of

Now, I was a senior in high school in ’87 so I am not certain if I would have started this quilt before or after I went to college. One thing I know for sure, the lavender fabric was also used in a skirt I made myself in high school (cotton but kind of thin, not quilting cotton). When I look in this book I can clearly see where my inspiration came from (and yes this one page was the entirety of the explanation on how to make the quilt).

because the quilt is shaping up to look like this (not a particularly creative departure), dated I know

Excuse dear Apollo dog, he likes to get in on the action.

Some detail

I added a star that I designed and some appliqué to the center and the corners back in the day

and I even have the out takes

take a look at the back of the flying geese! We didn’t use rotary cutters in those days, it was all templates made from cardboard and scissors

Note the random thread color, I had no idea that it mattered to match the thread to the project…or maybe I was lazy? Too broke to buy new thread?

When I pulled the quilt top out of it’s plastic storage box it needed two sides of braid completed (yes that would be my Hello Kitty slipper at the bottom of the picture) which were being sewn to a muslin foundation piecing backing (pre paper piecing) so I’ve just continued with it. As you can see that part is almost done…thank heaven, mighty time consuming that part. Once complete I will simply put the braid and corner blocks on and commence to sandwiching…I mean basting. Seeing as I have never done that part before I have been checking out you-tube videos and blog tutorials. I might finish up another old charity quilt before I commence to quilting this one so I can get some practice quilting on that one…is that wrong?

Why is it my Trippy Quilt? Well, I started it in North Carolina where I went to college, then it would have gone to Atlanta with me for a job, then to Rancho Cucamonga, CA where I was transferred and then to San Diego where I currently reside. It will end up in Berlin Germany where my sister lives. So it has been on some trips, not to mention I think it is a real trip that this used to be my design aesthetic. The difference 20+ years makes.

Posted in Work-in-Progress | Tagged Work-in-Progress | 3 Comments

Working on Wonky

Posted on June 3, 2013 by animatedlibrarian

I am working on my work, work out, dissertation, sewing balance. Happily I am able to get in a little more sewing than I thought due to the fact that one can only work on the dissertation for so many hours in a row without needing a break. So during one of those said breaks I made this

which is supposed to be a wonky log cabin house…I have learned that I am not so good with the wonk. Understandably as I have never done anything wonky in my life. I am so used to precision I think it will take me some time to loosen up. Here’s a close-up of the little fairy in the house

(yes, I realize my photography skills could be sharpened up as well…working on it). So, what compelled me to make this happy little house? I have decided that since I am off of work all day to do my dissertation on Friday and I have to go to school for a dissertation seminar all day Saturday I should lay off and have some fun on Sunday. It just so happens the San Diego Modern Quilt Guild will be meeting and I’ve decided to go for the first time 🙂 They are making a charity quilt of these blocks and I thought it would be a nice gesture to bring one for the cause. I’m glad I can revisit it on the blog because I have kind of fallen in love with it.

Additionally the next block in the Modern Quilt-A-Long came out with this months block so I have started working on that

it will be a spool block when all is said and done.

Oh! And let me not forget the doggy project

I made our pupster (don’t get me wrong he is seven years old) a new bandana/scarf/handkerchief thingy. I know, you are saying “big deal anyone can cut a triangle”. Let me clarify

Not only did I do a rolled hem all the way around but I made a pocket in the back for his collar to fit through so the blasted thing doesn’t always end up in front of him. It was my husbands idea and I love it. This was the prototype, I’ll be making him more soon on cooler fabric.

Lastly I have been doing a lot of work on this

yes, a prairie braid. It is for a 20+ year old project for my sister. It actually uses the muslin piecing

this is from way back. Do they even sell this stuff anymore? Eventually I will show you the top. Believe me it is no longer my aesthetic but I know my sister will love it just the same.

-Ali

Posted in Little Sewing Projects, modern Blocks Quilt A Long, Work-in-Progress | Tagged QAL, Work-in-Progress | 2 Comments

Following the Leader?

Posted on May 25, 2013 by animatedlibrarian

As I pull out my old quilting projects and get back to work I worry a bit about my rusty skills. Never fear a new Modern Quilt-A-Long is here!

Starting just this month the And Sew We Craft Blog will be posting a block a month from the book Modern Blocks by Susanne Woods.

So I begin by trying to decide what fabric I will use. I decide that I really should be using my old stash so I pull out the tubs. Now I know that this is supposed to be a modern quilt a long but what is my eye drawn toward?

yeah….about as far from modern as you can get. By the way this is by a company called Hollytex that’s all it says on the selvage.

Sooo I decide to use this as an inspiration for color…still not modern but I have a whole lot of different fabric with that indigo blue color and I’d like to use it. So I pull, blue not a problem. The yellow/orange is virtually non-existent save for one fat eighth of hand dye and I decide to add a grey for moderns sake. After a few purchases I have basically ended up with this (there are actually a few more fabrics that didn’t make the picture, no other colors though, that may have to change but what to add?)

Let’s just say the picture does not do the colors justice. I worry a bit about not having enough colors but I soldier on and pull up the post about the first block. It is called Follow the Leader and as I suspect I learn things. For example, I need a new rotary cutter because mine has disappeared. No matter, it allowed me to buy an Olfa which is cool because in my day we were all using Fiskar’s and they don’t seem as popular anymore. I also forgot how much rulers can slip on fabric when trying to rotary cut them.

I also decide to try chain piecing for the first time

It went rather well. The cutting was like riding a bike.

(Note my iPad in the corner carefully guiding me with the instructions from the website) Of course my husband who has never seen the act of quilting decided to try his hand at creating my block and came up with this

hmmm, perhaps not what we were going for but I’ll keep him around for future projects 😉

In the end I did this (note the fabric in the top right with the year 2000 on it, that would be some millennial fabric)

No, it is not really the same as it was shown in the instructions as far as color placement, use of color and amount of colors but, well, I guess this is how I follow the leader.

Posted in modern Blocks Quilt A Long | Tagged QAL | 4 Comments