[ ] aaron & rebecca's wedding quilt
[ ] baby quilt
[ ] bra for breast cancer
[ ] craft show 101
[ ] easy-clean paper-cup candle-making
[ ] McCloud's MCAD comics class
[ ] pink felt squirrel

Cockeyed.com
Craftgrrl
Denyse Schmidt Quilts
Diane Durand
getcrafty
Hable Construction
Hi! Monkey!
Inspiration in a Box
Jill Bliss
KeriSmith.com
little cabbage
ljc
Not Martha
Quilter's Cache
Readymade
Sew Wrong
Unique Projects

*note these pages don't include client work. I don't dish about my clients.You can see selections from my client work in my portfolio.

Friday, January 23, 2004

Finished Baby Quilt!

Here's the final baby quilt all quilted and signed and all pesky threads trimmed.

Working with the fleece wasn't too bad. It can stretch around a bit, so I used lots of safety pins to baste the layers together. I love that the quilt is very soft with the fleece and that's it's not too bulky.

I quilted it along the inside and outside edge of the two black borders (four consecutive squares), and little diamonds in the corners of the blocks. The only futzy part of the whole project was machine sewing the diamonds. Mostly because it was loads of stopping and starting and I tend to scrunch up my shoulders big time. But it went fairly quickly.

I signed the quilt with fabric paint in small letters on the alternating 1/4" black and white stripes:

"MAXWELL DAVID COSTA JACOBSOHN - JANUARY 16 2004 - MADE WITH LOVE BY BRANDY AGERBECK"
I tried to keep it small and worked into the design. Normally, I would have done it on the black, but the fleece was too fuzzy to paint on and I thought it would be a bit off to sew a cotton patch onto the fleece.

Once the paint I used to sign it dries, I'll iron the fabric paint to set it. Tomorrow morning, I'll wash it, dry it and put it in the mail! I'm feeling very, very snazzy considering Dan called me Monday morning to tell me he and Gwen's great news and it's in the mail tomorrow.

Rock on.

Even More Baby Quilt Progress

Here's the finished center of the quilt. 100 snowball blocks, each a different fabric and 30" square right now. Next, a black border, then a black and white striped border, then another, wider black border. Then the top will be done.


posted on 1/23/2004 01:42:21 PM

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

More Baby Quilt Progress

Top: The newly ironed blocks
Bottom: 100 blocks sewn in pairs and lined up in the the final order

Baby Quilt Progress

Left: The 3.5" blocks in 100+ different fabrics. I had to go buy a few 1/8 yards of some oranges, since those were lacking in my fabric stash. Otherwise, I think I had some great fabrics. I chose the boldest fabric I have and cropped some print carefully, to make the final product a sort of "I spy" quilt.
Right: Here's a big bowl of 1.25" squares for the corners, cut out of basic black cotton.


Left: Here's all of the blocks still strung together from chain peicing them. Whenever I do chain piece, I marvel in how little thread I use.
Right: Here's the finished stack of trimmed blocks.

Next step: Ironing. Then the fun!

But first, sweeeet sleeeep.


posted on 1/21/2004 01:47:48 AM

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Great Quilt Book!
I picked up Mary Mashuta's Cotton Candy Quilts: Using Feedsacks, Vintage and Reproduction Fabrics at the library today. I look at dozens of quilt books there, and few stand out enough to check out. Even fewer are ones I want to own. Ms. Mashuta knows her stuff! Not only does she have an fantastic skill with color and pattern, so can explain what works and what doesn't work and why. Anyone can quilt, some know good composition, and few can critique. Granted, that goes for any artform.

The most interesting thing beside good art criticism is learning how quilting has changed. I knew about feedsacks, but reading about them more makes me appreciate what a brilliant idea it was. Companies selling bulk drygoods like flour or feed would print their fabric bags with prints. The Mrs. would save the bags, remove the paper label and make stuff from them. Mashuta says that it took 3 or 4 sacks to make a dress. Quilts in the first half of the twentieth century were mostly made from recycled fabrics. And quite frankly, weren't so anal. If you ran out of one fabric, you found something similar. Things were a little off, not critical, the quilt was still just as useful. And folks didn't make small, decorative quilts - they were all bed-sized.

I can appreciate that.

I've got quilts on the brain b/c I'm making a baby quilt for my friends Dan and Gwen newborn, Maxwell. I had a first idea that I ran past them - an aerial-view type quilts of roads and houses and farms and a lake, that can be a quilt and a playmat. I didn't have the fabrics for it. And between an overflowing fabric cabinet and a tight leash on my wallet, I decided to make something outta what I have.

Thus, a baby-sized snowball quilt. 107 100 3" blocks, each a different, bright patterned fabric. Black background. Three-fourths of the block were cut when I ran out of steam watching Charlie Rose.

Today, I bought the solid black cotton and black fleece to use as both batting and backing! I picked up that idea from Georgia Bonesteel's Easy Does It Quilts . I could just kiss her for that tip! Saves a lot of time, is easy to clean, makes the quilt not so thick and is soft for the bay-bee!

I'll post some picks soon.

Sunday, January 18, 2004

Return of Shiny, Shiny Bracelets
I've finished all of the silver safety pin bracelets, 8 total - and now they're in the store!

Thursday, January 15, 2004

Shiny, Shiny Bracelets
I've joined a snazzy crafting group. The first meeting was tonight and I pondered what craft to bring. I gathered up these semi-forgotten safety pin bracelets that I started when I was working on Burgundy's safety pin napkin rings. In the handful of hours, I used up nearly all of my beaded pins and finished two bracelets completely. Much more fun while chatting with other ladies who craft.

Monday, January 12, 2004

Happy New Year!
If you like the New Year Card image below (1/4) and would like a variation of it on a printable pdf calendar, click here.

Sunday, January 11, 2004

Murgatroit Family Stationary
My friend Pat's birthday was the 7th. His party was last night. Today, I finally struck on a kick tuckus idea for a gift.

Pat's site is Murgatroit.org, whose House of Murgatroit houses Pat's alter ego, Charles Murgatroit. I went to the site, saw the family crest and thought:

"This is a job for Print Gocco!"

So, I found some fantastic clip art crest stuff, modified it with my Illustrator savvy printed it out. With the ridiculous ease of the PG, I made him a set of Murgatroit family cards! The Daniel Smith water based block printing ink (mix of Hansa Yellow and Permanent Red) was still drying by the time of the party, so I had to give Pat just one. But the flash of recognition on his face when he opened the card was priceless!

Sunday, January 04, 2004

Happy Nearly New Year!
I hope I'm not spoiling a mailbox surprise for many, but here are the New Years cards I've finished. I'm pleased as punch. The black line drawing was printed on white cardstock with the Print Gocco machine. Areas were colored in with watercolor and part glued on.

They await their A7 envelope coats that are in transit.

Friday, January 02, 2004

I Pray to the Print Gocco Gods
I am amazed at just how good and how easy this darn Print Gocco is! Over the last two days I printed 60 of the mask/hat woman from the October calendar collage (see 12/26) for New Years cards, and 100+ on Rives BFK paper to make a series of 100 on Decoration and Pattern*.

Above is an official crapload of the BFK prints drying. If you see color, that's where I started coloring a few in when I had extra watercolor leftover from the cards.


* Not sure why I capitalized those.

Thursday, January 01, 2004