"Ohio Stars" trip

Earlier this month, we four sisters, Kathy, Reenie, Pam and Diane, got together to attend the American Quilt Society's big quilt show in Cincinatti.  We had such a great time!  We shared a hotel room and we all attended classes, enjoyed the quilt show, shopped til we dropped at the vendors, and enjoyed a lot of good meals and drinks together.  Here are a few highlights:

 Diane embraced quilting by diving into a hand-piecing class, where she made a little 9-patch, all by hand.  She also did some hand applique, which I didn't photograph for some reason. 

Meanwhile, Pam took a class the first day and arrived back at the hotel room with this completed quilt top!  It was kind of a mystery quilt - she didn't know what she was making til she got there.  She wins the prize for the biggest accomplishment of the show!  The greens are gorgeous - she is planning to make this quilt a bit bigger by adding another checkerboard border.

 These are the pieces that Kathy and I made at our first classes.  On the top are three house blocks that Kathy made.  I helped her pick the fabrics so I'm biased, but aren't the colors great?  I took a class in the Pineapple block and got the pattern book and ruler to make some variations on the pineapple block.  I made the six blocks shown here on the print background.  I'm not that thrilled with my choice of fabrics for these, so I'm not sure just how I'll finish this.

 This quilt was in the show and was part of an exhibit by the Cincinatti branch of the modern quilt guild, where they made modern interpretations of the classic Ohio Star block.  They had about 20 different quilts in this part of the show, and these quilts were among my favorites.  I think we should all make Ohio Star blocks as souvenirs of the trip!

 One day Diane and I had a free morning while Kathy and Pam were in a class, so we went to the Contemporary Art Museum.  They had a big exhibit on the Art of Music Videos.  It gave us the opportunity to pose with Devo hats, mimicing their album cover!

Back at the quilt show, Kathy and Pam were taking a class to make these stars for a medallion quilt.  These are Pam's.











And these are Kathy's.




The trip was a blast and we're already planning to do it again next year - either return to this show, or maybe go to the big show in Padukah, KY in May.  Anyone want to join us??

Happy Easter!

These bunny finger puppets are from Purl Bee. I used felt and also some light-brown wool that I found in my fabric cupboard.

I ended up with somewhat of a simplified version because I didn't have any white yarn for the tails and when I embroidered the noses on, most of them looked really weird, so I removed almost all of them. The off-white bunny in the back of this picture kept her nose, but the others are gone.

A very cute project and Purl Bee Easter crafts are quickly becoming a tradition.

Baby Gifts

A bunch of my friends are having babies soon and I've been expanding my repertoire of homemade gifts. The Amy Butler changing pad is still a favorite and the taggy blanket is great, but I wanted variety. My latest is embellishing onesies or shirts for the newborn.

(before, after)

These Gerber kimono-style shirts are great for bringing baby home from the hospital because they don't cover the umbilical cord stub. Onesies are out for a few days and shirts are in. Plus, these have the fold-over mitten cuffs so the baby won't cut himself with his razor-sharp nails.

I added some stitching to the edges of the shirt and I really like how it turned out.

My collection of embroidery floss from middle school is really coming in handy lately!

What I'm working on

     I started this quilt about 5 years ago.  I had cleaned up my sewing room and I couldn't close my blue and green fabric drawers.  So I cut up some of the older stuff into strips for a log cabin quilt and worked on it through the years whenever I felt like it.  This is how it turned out.  Considering how ugly the fabrics were, I think it looks kind of nice.  I laid out the blocks asymmetrically hoping for a more modern look, but I'm not sure that was a good idea.

The placemat idea came from Stitch Magazine, which is one of my favorite sources of inspiration. The hexagons are done with paper piecing and appliqued to the linen.

I made the purse for Susan for her birthday.  The fabric is one I bought last year in Cincinnati.  I thought I'd better start using what I bought last year before I go this year!

     The boxes are from Zakka Style, a book by Rashida Coleman-Hale.  I used linen for the boxes and little pieces from my scrap basket for the applique and patchwork.

Stairway update

The quilt with baby Desmond (and dad Ryder).

Baby Quilt: Denise Schmidt stairway

Even with the iPhone, I am bad at documenting the few things I actually get around to making these days. Sorry for the imperfect picture.

This is my latest quilt made for Desmond Henry, the one-month-old son of one of my best and oldest friends, Maya. The pattern is from Quilts, Baby! which I borrowed from my mom. They recommended making every-other row white but I wanted to use all of the DS Quilts patterns that I've bought from JoAnn Fabrics. I know this line is controversial, but I love it. We don't have a good fabric store around here, which I consider a major travesty, so finding great patterns at JoAnn has been wonderful. This is the second quilt I've made with these fabrics, so I'll try to photograph the earlier one.

This pattern was great. It was really fun to get everything cut out and then laid out in piles in order. Putting it together was addictive. I would finish one row and then think, "Ok, just one more." I was working on it while another friend was in labor and I was anxiously awaiting updates, so I was happy to have something to occupy my mind and my time. Anyway, it's a great pattern and I love the way it turned out. I can't wait to send it to Maya.

My Round Robin Blocks

My Wednesday sewing circle recently got together to reveal our round-robin blocks that we made for each other.  We started this project in March.  Each of us put together guidelines for a 12-inch finished block, made one block ourselves to start our quilts, then passed the boxes along.  There were 11 of us in the exchange, so we each ended up with 11 blocks.  We all got our boxes back this week at our holiday get-together, and we all got to see all the block sets.

Everyone had unique guidelines - some people chose a fabric or two, some chose a theme or color scheme, and some chose the same block to be made in different fabrics.

My blocks were designed around this focus fabric, the bird print on the left. I found this in Peapod Fabrics and just fell in love with the colors and designs of the birds. I asked everyone to use at least one piece of the bird fabric in their block. Then I made this simple block, with the birds framed in the black, pink and gray fabrics.

Here are the blocks I got back from my talented and imaginative friends!  Two people made birdhouse blocks, framing the birds, and two used flying geese motifs...

 ...the beautiful Ohio star is from a friend who is also from Ohio and there are blocks with names like "Darting Birds" and "Hovering Hawks", and  one block was an intricate paper-pieced block (upper right).

 Some people used mostly the fabrics I provided, and others incorporated new fabrics, like these Australian fabrics forming the points of this star below.  And the bottom block is a color variation of my original one, to round out the cycle.

Everyone was really pleased with their blocks and we all agreed that it was fun to follow the guidelines for each block and try different things.  Now I will make another block (or maybe more) and figure out how to put them together into a quilt top.  Our goal is to have our quilt tops done by Easter 2012.