Ramblings from Elf's Quiltorium

On the Way to Charlie’s Bunion

elsielf — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:54:14 +0000

That’s the title of my latest quilt. I went hiking a few years ago with my son and his family. We were in Tennessee for my niece’s wedding, and the next day we hit the trail. From the trailhead, it’s about a 4 1/2 mile hike to Charlie’s Bunion, a rock formation on the Appalachian Trail (and another 4 1/2 miles back!). Somewhere along the way, we encountered this old tree, twisted and gnarled from years of weather, so we stopped for a photo-op. It’s been simmering in my mind for a while, and I finally got around to making a quilt based on the photo.
The techinque I used is freezer paper piecing, which is how I make my pictorial quilts. I didn’t take any photos of the quilt in progress. This method is a class that I teach. That’s my son and grandson posing for the camera.

After I got the quilting done on this scraggly pine tree, I thought it needed a little “something extra” so I free motion embroidered some needles on the branches. I don’t normally do much embellishing, but this quilt just called for a little bit.

Zentangles–Again!

elsielf — Thu, 26 May 2011 11:50:15 +0000

I just recently made this little tree–only 8.5″ x 11″. These little quilts could become addicting.

Tangled

elsielf — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 23:27:41 +0000

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a site called zentangle.com then saw a couple of quilts made in that vein. So I had to try my hand at it. Tangled is constructed by fusing shapes of black and white fabrics onto a base fabric, then satin stitching over the raw edges.

Harmony

elsielf — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 23:22:48 +0000

For my Hoffman Challenge entry for 2011 I used Ricky Tims’ Rhapsody technique. I really intended for it to be much simpler than it turned out. It’s one of those things that once it was started, just kept evolving. I hadn’t planned to do any quilting on the applique, but it looked sort of bland, so I tried just a little bit, and what a difference it made!

Boxy Stars

elsielf — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 23:10:53 +0000

I’ve been downsizing (cleaning out) my stash this winter. One of the patterns I chose to make was Boxy Stars, a block by Bonnie Hunter. It’s an easy block to piece, and makes a wonderful scrap quilt. I added the 6″ border of “piano keys” . Quilted on my Tin Lizzie 18.

Cosmos

elsielf — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 22:07:32 +0000

I’ve been finishing up some ufo’s lately, and came across this block which was started in a class with Debra Danko a couple of years ago. I went into my basket of 2 1/2″ scraps for the border. Of course I had to cut more! I really like the way it turned out. I did a little thread painting in the flowers, and machine appliqued them with a double blanket stitch.

A couple of new quilts

elsielf — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 23:56:44 +0000

I haven’t done a lot of quilting this summer, what with being so busy with the barn quilts and other stuff (like a garden that went wild!) but I did recently complete these two.
The first one is my birthday quilt from blocks that my local quilt guild gave me for my birthday. We had a group of 12 people who each gave all 12 a fat eighth of a focus fabric, and we were to make each other a block on our designated “birthday month”. I set mine with a garden maze setting in order to make the quilt large enough for a queen size bed.

The second one is a commission quilt for my late husband’s cousin in Utah. He wanted a large wall hanging with a barn on it. His grandfather was a barn builder in the 1920′s, so I used one of the barns he built, which is still in the family, owned by another cousin, for the image.

It won first place viewer’s choice for wall hangings in our local quilt guild show last weekend. Now it is off to Utah.

Fruit of the Spirit

elsielf — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:43:49 +0000

A couple of years ago, our church added a new fellowship hall. The walls are off-white, very plain, especially one large wall that was kept open to be able to show pictures on it. Then we realized a problem with noise and needed to do something to absorb sound when large groups use the hall. The solution was to install some sound absorbing 4×8 panels–on the plain wall! They’re not the most beautiful things, and I had already gotten a project started for some hangings which I had planned to “group” in one area on the wall, leaving plenty of space for showing pictures. Now that plan was shot down. What to do? So I purchased some natural colored cotton duck and covered the sound panels. The guy who sold them to us said it was fine to cover them with fabric. Last week we finally hung the 9 “Fruit of the Spirit” hangings on the four large panels, leaving six 2×8′s for other artwork or whatever.

This shows the entire wall with all of the hangings. I’m also posting each panel separately so you can see the detail better. Each has a different pieced background and quilting design. The letters were made from enlarged computer fonts.

Tangled Cobweb

elsielf — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:40:08 +0000

That’s the name of my 2010 Hoffman Challenge quilt. I saw an antique quilt of this pattern and thought it would be good to try it in a small piece. Piecing a large quilt like this would be daunting, to say the least! I’m not a big fan of paper piecing, but that’s the only way to do this one. Background fabric is hand dyed, as is the gold. The light blue is the Hoffman challenge fabric.

Flowers for Spring

elsielf — Sun, 16 May 2010 18:58:55 +0000

We’ve installed two more barn quilts, only this first one is on a house, a 4 foot Tulip Basket.

Yesterday we put this Amaryllis on an old barn. The women who have lived in this place have always had wonderful flower gardens, so this block is in honor of all of them.

Next time, maybe I’ll have some actual fabric quilts to post.