My Michael Miller Modern Quilt Guild Challenge Quilt

Wow.  Say that 3 times fast.  My Michael Miller Modern................
Just kidding.

Ok, now for the big reveal.  My very favorite quilt that I've ever made of all time.  My butterfly quilt.  I call it "Butterfly Release" because my intention was for it to look as though the butterflies had just been released from a box and they were flying up.

 In the MQG challenges, the fabric company sponsoring the challenge sends out a fat eighth of about 6 or so fabrics to each guild member who signed up for the challenge.  In this challenge, the fabric line was called Petal Pinwheels and it was very springy and happy.  There was one solid - in my case the dark orange.  This fabric is sweet and happy and reminded me of spring.  What do you see in spring?  Butterflies.  

I love butterflies.  They are beautiful, carefree and whimsical creatures.  They are also the symbol for Fibromyalgia and for Auto-Immune disorders both of which I have.

A butterfly closeup:

The rules of the challenge are that the project has to be quilted, you can use any solid fabrics but if you use prints, they must be Michael Miller.
Since I knew I wanted to do a butterfly, I started looking through all my paper piecing books for a pattern.  I wanted it to be very detailed.  I found this pattern in my favorite paper piecing book.  It's by Linda Causee and is called 365 Foundation Quilt Blocks.  There are 97 pieces of fabric in EACH butterfly.  Each butterfly has 5 sections - 4 wings and the center section.  I loved doing these butterflies.

The background fabric is white in Kona cotton and you can also see an off white looking fabric that I used which is the white on white Mirror Ball Dots fabric from Michael Miller.  I love the Mirror Ball Dot collection.  I still have some of each color and I use it sparingly.  I'm going to look for more at Quilt Festival this fall.

I quilted this quilt on my home machine.  I did an echo stitch around each butterfly in white Aurifil thread 50wt.  Some have two echo shapes.  Then I did a random loopy stitch on the remaining of the quilt with a yellow variegated Aurifil thread # 3910 in 50wt.

I started quilting on my Brother which is the machine that I usually use for FMQ.  It started giving me fits and I couldn't figure out what was wrong.  It straight stitches just fine.  I googled the problem and found many solutions, all of which I tried.  None helped.  Finally, I switched over to my little Janome and it quilted beautifully - or at least as beautifully as it can be when I free motion quilt.

Some of the stitching that I did when I was still trying to use the Brother, needs to be redone.  I want to enter this quilt in our local quilt show next spring, so I'll have to fix that.

This big brown butterfly is my least favorite.  I was trying to match the brown/tan color in one of the prints but this solid just came out too flat. 

The quilt back.  You can see the butterfly outlines on the back if you squint. :)  I used all the fabric that I had left from what I was sent plus I added some solids that coordinated with them.  The bird print by Violet Craft in tangerine was just added because I like it.

And of course my label.  I got my husband to write this one because his handwriting is better than mine. 

More pictures!

Hey, that FMQ looks pretty good!

Last pretty picture.  I'm not a very good picture stager.  I need to take a Craftsy class on that.  
My Butterfly quilt measures approximately 45 x 53.

Nice huh?
Side note:  I did not win the Michael Miller MQG challenge :(  They are already having another one using his solid couture line but it is finishing up around Christmas and I just didn't think I'd make it in time.

Tyler's Modern Quilting Group

That is not our official name.  We haven't decided on a name yet but we have several possibilities.    We have had our second group meeting and it was great!  We are still getting to know one another and there was way more talking going on than sewing - we are suppose to be a sewing group :)

At our second group meeting, we shared the name tags that we had made.  I gave a sneak peek in my previous post, so now I'll show you the whole shebang.

 Here is an up close and personal.  All my points met up!  I was so excited.  That's why I love paper piecing so much.  It's so precise. 

I'm not that great with embroidery, mostly because I don't practice and I only use it when I have to, but I think my name came out fairly well.  I just wrote it on muslin with a pencil until it looked okay and then I used the outline stitch to embroider it.

I put my Modern Quilt Guild pin on my name tag.  We aren't part of the MQG yet but several of the ladies that have been coming are individual members and there is talk amongst the group about joining.  I think we have to have a few meetings first to see who all is going to be able to come on a regular basis and get to know each other.  But by spring, who knows.  There is so much talent in the group of ladies that have been coming - it's astounding.  I'm hoping we can get the word out to people in the surrounding areas because I know there are more Modern quilters out there in East Texas wishing they had a group of sewing friends that they could get together with and have fun!

Last shot, I promise.  I'm proud of our group and I hope we can continue for years and years.

This pattern is from a book by Linda Causee called 365 Foundation Quilt Blocks. 
I used fabrics from my stash for the project in my favorite colors. 
The text print is a great one.  It is from STOF and I bought it at my LQS.
My name tag measures 4 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches.

Thanks for reading!
Have a great day!

**I've linked up with Anything Goes Monday**and Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story**

July Goal for ALYOF - Butterflies

Yes butterflies!  Butterflies and more butterflies!!  I've posted about them here, here, and here.  I have to have it finished by July 25th for the MQG Michael Miller fabric challenge and I'm going to if I have to not do anything but sew for the next 20 days.
 

I'm working on my last butterfly, then I'll piece the top, the back, sandwich and quilt then bind.  That is my goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes - July.  I am going to finish my butterfly quilt because I've worked so hard on it and I really want it entered in the challenge. 

I've checked out some of the quilts entered over on the MQG community forums and they are great.  Really good uses of the fabric.  But I've got my fingers crossed because I'm hoping mine turns out really good too.

And one last thing, we went on vacation last week and I got my very first pedicure ever.  I mean I've done my own and polished my own toes my whole life but having someone else do it was so awesome. 

Thanks for dropping by!
**Linking up to Sew Bittersweet Designs for A Lovely Year of Finishes**

Saturday SewJo - My Big WIP

Hi all!

I mentioned in my last post, 3 WEEKS ago, that I'm doing the Modern Quilt Guild fabric challenge.  I have been diligently working on my project for all of those weeks plus and even though I can see the fruits of my labor it still feels like I'm spinning my wheels.

I'm doing a paper piecing project that involves butterflies.  Butterflies with lots of pieces.  97 to be exact - per butterfly.  Each butterfly has 5 sections.

Anywho, here are some peaks at my finished works and my in progress ones too.  I'm hoping to get some work done this weekend but I don't seem to be able to accurately guess how much sewing time I'm going to have. LOL

I've been working on this project so much that I don't know if I'll finish my goal this month for ALYOF.  Ugg!

**Personal note - My rheumatologist increased the dosage for my chemotherapy drug that I'm taking for my Lupus and it has made me completely exhausted.  I mean sleep all day exhausted, have trouble staying awake on the 7 minute drive to my house after taking my son to school, exhausted.  Hence, my lack of blogging.  I have tons of stuff to share including a couple of tutorials but I just need the time - while I'm awake - to write it all down.  Good news though, I managed to stay awake most of this past week and went to the pool to exercise 3 times - YAY!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend everyone!  And if you are in the military (or married to someone who is) or are a veteran, thank you so much for your service.  That includes military spouses and families who are also serving right along with their soldiers.

**Linking up to SewJo at My Go-Go Life!

Quilty Finish - QR Bar Code Quilt Top

In this post, I talked about some of my classes that I took at the 2013 Houston Quilt Festival including the QR Bar Code quilt with Ebony Love.

What is a QR Bar code?  To be honest, I had no idea when I took the class.  But it was listed under the modern quilting category and it sounded cool plus I read Ebony Love's articles in Quilty magazine so I wanted to take her class.  Anyhoo, this is a QR bar code.

 I always just called those "the little scanny box things".  I mean, I have an Iphone but I can barely use it.  Seriously, I have about 3 apps and they don't include the scanny app for the QR  code.

 But once I got into the class and saw the cool quilt she had made, I got so excited.  I've always just ignored those little things but now I think they're cool.  I also think Ebony is cool for having thought to make this into a quilt.

Our class was great.  It included the above book which had patterns for 4 different bar code quilts.  Each quilt meant something different when you scanned it.  I chose to make the quilt which means "happy" when you scan it.  The fabrics were also included in the class.  Precut Kona cottons in 2.5 inch strips plus about a yard of the background fabric.  All we had to do to get started was cut the strips into 2.5 inch blocks.   There are 9 large blocks per quilt.  Each large block has 49 2.5 inch blocks in it.

I almost finished 1 block in class (just had the last 2 rows to attach) but when I got home and started working on it, I realized my sewing machine and the sewing machine in the classroom had 2 different 1/4 inch seam allowances.  Sigh.  I scrapped that block and started over.

Here is my quilt top all finished.  I'm working on the back now.  I'm using the remainder of the 2.5 inch squares as a stripe and then completing the back with a solid color.  I've promised to have this quilt completed in time to enter it in our local quilt show.  This years theme is modern quilting so it should fit in.  All the colors and the size of the quilt (which is about 43 x 43 ish) make it unable to scan with your phone but I think all the pretty colors still read "happy".  Don't you?

My son held it up outside for me yesterday which was a lovely sunny day.  It makes it look like stained glass doesn't it?  I just love it.

I wish I had time before the quilt show to remake it in a black and white quilt because I think people would recognize what it is better if it were black and white.  My husband says no one will have a clue what it is.  Maybe they'll read the little card on the side.  :)


And one last thing.  Look over to the right!!! I've joined the Modern Quilt Guild as an individual member.  Pretty cool huh?  I'm pretty excited about it.
**Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, and My Quilt Infatuation.**

Houston International Quilt Festival - Part 2

Welcome to the Houston International Quilt Festival 2013.  I'm not going to go over every detail or anything.  Just hit some highlights.

This is Ebony Love.  She was my instructor for the Modern QR code quilt class.  The QR (quick read) code is that little scanny thing that is on everything now.  You scan it with your phone and it gives info about whatever it's advertising.

So in this class, we started making one in quilt form.  Ebony was the most professional quilt instructor I've ever had.  Her instructions were all written down for each of the 4 quilts that we could choose from.  She even had them bound with a spiral.  Just that alone made her class awesome.  
We could choose between a gray or off white background and I got to class too late to nab a gray but that's ok because I probably would have chosen the white anyway.
When our quilts are finished they will look like a QR code.  Because they are in color, they won't be scanable but Ebony said that she will send us a label for our quilts that has the scanable bar code on it when we finish our quilt tops.  I'm working on mine now and hope to have it done in time to enter it in our local quilt show.

I really enjoyed all of the classes I took this year.  Not a stinker in the bunch.  I have pics on my phone of some of the other classes and maybe someday I'll get them loaded to my computer so I can post some.

Here I am in my witches costume for Quiltapalooza.  I loved my tulle skirt.  But out of all the people there, about 80% were dressed as witches.  It occured to me that I could have made mine in pink and gone as a Barbie or something.  Maybe next year.  It was a fun party though.  Lots of great costumes and they gave away tons of prizes.  Unfortunately, no one at our table won any.  :(

This was my favorite quilt from the Modern Quilt quild display in the quilt show.  It is called Fireworks Quilt by Tara Faughnan, an individual MQG member.  To see all of the Modern Quilt Guild display, go here.

One of the classes I took was called Fifty Shades of Groovy By Leslie Tucker Jenison.  Her Fifty Shades quilt is one of the ones on display in the above link.  Her class was fun and she is a great teacher.

One disappointment I had was that the majority of the quilts seemed to be landscape quilts.  I love landscape quilts and art quilts but it seems to me that such a major show could have divided the categories up better.  Maybe have an equal amount of each kind of quilt.  I also wish the Modern Quilt display had been bigger.  It's quite a large movement at this point and I think there should be more recognition.  They did offer Modern quilting classes this year, which was a first.  I took as many of them as I could get into.  I'm hoping for even more next year.