Completed Sea Glass Quilts

Sea Glass I & II
9 x 12½
I was concerned that the dense quilting in the white areas would make the “glass” part of the quilt pucker. A heavy interfacing behind the batting seems to have worked well to prevent this.

Swimsuits & Thread

August is NOT a good month to buy a swimsuit. Spent most of yesterday shopping with my daughter to find a swimsuit in the right size that she likes (which isn’t an easy job at the end of summer with them all picked through.) Why did her bathing suit get a hole in it one day before swim lessons were over? But that’s okay, we might do some more swimming this summer, and it should fit next summer too. Now I’m tempted to go see if I can find a new suit for myself since the prices are so good.

I decided on white thread for the Sea Glass quilts, and then couldn’t do any quilting when I realized I was out of white thread. After I finally got out shopping and came home with white thread, I changed my mind and outlined each piece loosely with variegated light blue which I already had.

I’ve only quilted through the top and backing so far, so I could decide whether I want to bind it or do a pillow case finish. After I add the backing, I will do some more quilting with white on the background.

Sea Glass in Progress

Sea glass I and II are arranged and fused onto white fabric. I need to decide what to do about quilting. My original thought was to outline the shapes loosely with dark thread. My thoughts now are that dark thread could overpower the softer colors. The first on especially needs something to add interest, but I am afraid of adding too much.

Sea Glass & More Community Quilts

I’ve got lots more fabric leftover from the bag of fabric that was given to me. I had enough flannel scraps leftover for a tiny quilt. Our guild donates small quilts to hospitals for preemie babies.
I have also started piecing together some of the Christmas fabrics which were in the bag. Christmas quilts often get chosen first by kids even when it’s not Christmas.


This months Fast Friday Fabric Challenge is to make a quilt with the concept of “less is more” by having a relatively small focal point surrounded by lots of negative space. Or by working with the “more is more” concept by having an overall pattern with no prominent focal point.

I like to pick up sea glass when I go walking out to the small rocky beach at the end of a marsh trail in San Leandro. I had in my mind to do a “less is more” quilt with a few shapes inspired by my small beach glass collection. I cut a few more than I needed, so I would have some choices when I was arranging the pieces, and then got carried away a bit. I may decide to make a quilt for each of the options available this month.

Grab Bag CD

I have been enjoying looking at all of the wonderful quilts on the 2008 Grab Bag CD which just came in the mail yesterday.



Here is the quilt that I made for Lyn Wolf Jackson:
and a bowl from the scraps:

And the quilt made for me by Janice Simpson:

These are two of the 59 quilts that are included with detail photos and artist statements on the CD. Instructions for ordering CDs can be found here: http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/NewFiles/ACSFundraiser.html

The Grab Bag CD, Fabric Scraps, and Community Quilts

The Grab Bag CD is now available. For a minimum $10.00 donation to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause, and shipping and handling of $2.00, you can obtain a CD containing 173 inspiring photographs and artists' statements of the 59 wonderful quilts that resulted from the 2008 Quiltart Grab Bag Challenge. Complete details for ordering are here: http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/NewFiles/ACSFundraiser.html. I will be ordering mine in the next day or so, and will be looking forward to seeing all of the quilts which were made this year.

I was given a couple of bags of leftover fabric. I decided there wasn’t anything that I wanted to keep for myself. But there were a lot of nice pieces of fabric which I thoughtmy guild could use for their Community Quilts program. There were flannel pieces cut into strips, all different widths and lengths. I decided to sew the strips together to make a top for Community Quilts, and proceeded without much of a plan except to improvise as I went along. I enjoyed working with the happy bright colors. This will be completed by the guild with either tying or quilting, and will make a small girl very happy. It’s super soft and cozy too, being all flannel.

There are a lot of Christmas prints in the bag too. I might do something similar with them.

Why I Haven’t Been Quilting Lately (and a Sneek Peak at the Grab Bag Quilt I Received)

Well the reason I haven’t posted any of my quilting lately, is because I haven’t done much quilting lately. The day after I finished my Grab Bag quilt, I came down with the flu. There was a week when I had just enough energy to take my daughter to and from school. Then a week trying to catch up on the things I had been neglecting. Another 5 days on a Southern California & Disneyland vacation.

This week has been devoted to talking about what to do with this monstrosity.It had two working burners when we bought it with our current home a few years ago. We tried to get the two non-working burners fixed, but apparently they don’t make them that size anymore. One of the remaining burners decided a couple of weeks ago to only heat halfway, which leaves one useful burner, so we decided it is finally time to do something about it. We don’t want another free-standing range, because we want a place next to the stove to set things. Getting two people with differing ideas about the situation has been a trick. Combined with a data analyst husband who wants me to help him analyze every possible option we have for stoves, cabinets, counters, and possibly redoing the rest of the kitchen counters is making my mind completely frazzled.

To make this post quilting related, I will show a sneak peek at the Grab Bag Quilt I received from Janice Simpson.

We have been asked not to post full photos yet. There will be a CD made available with all of the quilts. I will post more information when it becomes available.