New Pattern: Jingle Bella

My Bella pattern has been very popular and I have used it as the subject of many quilt venues and guild workshops. I have designed a Halloween, a winter and a curly haired version of Bella. At my local quilt shop, Pine Street Quilts in Marinette Wisconsin, and while visiting quilt guilds the request for a Christmas/Santa hat Bella has been vocalized. I designed this quilt based on the requests and I love Santa hats and Christmas colors also! I purchased a Moda Fabrics charm pack and challenged myself to ONLY use the charm pack and not add other fabrics. The blues and turquoise threw me off a bit because they are not traditionally Christmas colors. I treated them as sky colors and the rest was easy. I did not embellish this quilt much because the whimsical prints had enough activity-just some fabric paint on the eye, rhinestones and nail polish on the mouth and eye. If you view the photo you will see a trim hand sewn to the bottom of the quilt to look like Christmas garland that is so cute and sparkly!! This quilt is on display at Pine Street Quilts at 801 Marinette Avenue, Marinette WI as a shop sample and the patterns are for sale there. I also have them for sale on my website www.laurieceesay.com through PayPal. I have been asked to design an Easter hat Bella-would you buy this version if it was available?

 

New Bella Jordana Pattern Sample

I introduced my newest portrait quilt pattern Bella Jordana last week and I am sharing now another sample of this pattern using the Moda charm pack called "Flow." I used a grayish black batik for the raw edged applique-I wanted more of a charcoal gray but I want to use what's currently in my stash! The left over charm squares were cut in half and sewed end to end (I used 20 of them) to create the pieced binding. I used a variegated gray and black thread to quilt and attach the applique to the background. I used a combo of green/blue/yellow/pink variegated thread for quilting the background and a light gray variegated thread for the face and neck quilting. I embellished the quilt with two Hawaiian lei flowers and a flower button for the hair accessory. Glitter nail polish is applied on the lips and eyelid. A few matching color rhinestones in the background and one for a nose piercing adds more bling. White matte fabric paint for the eye reflection. This pattern is now available at Pine Street Quilts in Marinette, WI and on my website www.laurieceesay.com

 This is the original quilt which i gave to Jordana for a Christmas gift in 2015. I used dark olive green for the batik and a fabric yo yo for the hair accessory.

 

 

 

This is the quilt that is on the pattern cover again using a Moda charm pack. I added felt trim and beads to create a necklace and Hawaiian lei flowers for a hair accessory. I blogged about this quilt last week for more details. Check out this pattern at Pine Street Quilts in Marinette, WI or on my website www.laurieceesay.com

 

Halloween Trick & Treats Forum at IQF Houston 2015

I will be part of the Halloween Tricks & Treats Forum at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, TX coincidentally on Halloween. It from 2-5pm and #760 in the events catalog. Go to www.quilts.com to register and view the details. My title is called "Witches-Toil and Trouble in Quilt Making!!" I love witches and lean toward a pretty witch over an old warty ones! The two quilts in these photos are teasers of some of my quilty work! This wall hanging above called Bella Strega is my newest pattern and the only witch quilt I converted into a pattern. I will get feedback at the show and possibly turn other witch quilts into patterns. This pattern is available on my website at www.laurieceesay.com, at Pine Street Quilts in Marinette, WI and will be available at the Houston show.

This is a table runner I designed where I was inspired by silhouettes I saw on Pinterest and I already do a few on these silhouettes with historical hairstyles. I saw the phrase "Black Hat Society" as a spin on the Red Hat Society idea and thought it was a cute saying. I decided to add a wart to the witch's chin for the first time!

 

 

The other women participating in the Halloween forum are in alphabetical order:
1.  Pam Damour   www.pamdamour.com

2.  Nancy Goldsworthy   www.QuiltedDecorativeSttiches.com

3.  Diane Herbort    www.DianeHerbort.com

4.  Margarita Korioth  www.margacrafts.blogspot.com

5.  Cyndi Souder  www.MoonlightQuilting.com

Check us out at Houston on Halloween! Happy Halloween!!

Winter Bella: New Portrait Quilt Pattern

Miss Bella lives in Upper Michigan and I turned her into "Winter Bella" a few years ago when I created the blue snowflake version in the upper photo. I originally titled the quilt "Upper Michigan in January." While being on the teaching/lecturing circuit I would show this quilt as an example of a monochromatic color scheme quilt. I displayed it at Quilting Divas Quilt Shop in Green Bay, WI in 2014 as the "Honorary Quilt Diva Of the Month" and the owner and a few customers asked about a pattern. I was asked again to make it into a pattern in May at the Green Bay WI Evergreen Quilters meeting. I couldn't figure out how to get the applique pieces onto a 11" x 17" piece of paper. When I designed Bella Strega (the Witch pattern) I had an a-ha moment which helped me create this quilt into a pattern and renamed it "Winter Bella." In late summer I constructed a newer version in a gray and red colorway which hangs in Pine Street Quilts in Marinette Wisconsin. The blue version is currently on display in green Bay Wisconsin at Quilting Divas. The quilt is 18"l x 27.5"w and is a raw edged fused qpplique technique. For both color versions I collected as many snowflake themed fabrics as well as anything shiny or "icy" looking. I machine quilted it and embellished it with snowflake sequins, rhinestones, glitter nail polish and loose glitter/glitter glue. It is for sale on my website for $10.00. www.laurieceesay.com

 In the close up photo I used foundation paper, a snowflake motif  and variegated thread and machine quilted on the cheekbone/chin areas to repeat the snowflake theme.

Art Quilts Around The World Snowflake Challenge Reveal Day!

 My Facebook Group Art Quilts Around the World has reveal day today July 31, 2015 and the theme for this two month challenge is "snowflakes." I am experiencing summer in Upper Michigan and winter will be here soon enough so this idea was weird at first. Once I decided on a snow princess I started pulling cool, icy and snowflake themed fabrics from my stash. I found a royal blue and a white piece of hand dyed velvet from Chris Day for the princess's winter coat.  Chris used to be in this group. She is from Western Wisconsin and will vend at the Wisconsin Quilt Expo in Madison WI in September and I will buy some more velvets from her. I love the velvets because they add texture to the quilt that commercial cottons and batiks do not. I had the two great "disco ball" shiny fabrics from Pine Street Quilts in Marinette WI, where I used to work, and they worked nicely for the hair. I used a white batik for the skin tone to keep the cool icy feel to the quilt.

I originally started with finding the sparkly plastic snowflakes from The Dollar Tree in a place where they shouldn't have been! These snowflakes got me thinking of a crown for the princess. While shopping in Green Bay at the local Gordman's store (Awesomeness!!) I found the blue necklace on the clearance rack. I saved it and removed the necklace chains and flipped it upside down and it completed the crown.

I printed a Googled image of a snowflake on foundation paper and pinned a large flake to the chest area and stitched through the paper to get a snowflake image on the princess. I repeated the process in a smaller version on the cheekbones and chin.

I embellished with several iridescent nail polishes to accentuate the stitched snowflakes and the blue eye shadow.  One iridescent snowflake shaped bead hand stitched in the middle of the chest area and the snowflake princess was finished!

The next challenge is due on Sept. 30 and the theme is "uniform." I'm going to take it literally and either do a quilt of my daughter Jordana in her chef UNIFORM or explore a 50s dinner waitress!!

I will continue to not see snowflakes for several months!!

This s a closeup of the necklace and plastic dollar store snowflakes!

I VALUE This Quilt!!

I love the "Swoon" block done scrappy style. The three quilts below are the wall hangings I made last summer as teaching tools for my lectures on the elements/principles of design for quilters. I am teaching a 6 part series of classes called "Design Confidence for Quilters" at Pine Street Quilts in Marinette, WI where I work part-time. The second class is this Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013 and it is about asymmetrical balance and value. I decided to make a scrappy Swoon in 13 values from solid white to dark black prints with a solid black Kona Cotton background. (I love Kona Cottons-the feel of the fabric is wonderful and they press nicely!) I usually choose quilts with lots of color and by the time I was ready to add the binding I "had" to add a bit of color and I was working with reds at the quilt retreat last weekend so red was my binding choice. When the quilt was finished I decided to add an accent of red in the center by adding a large red button to the quilt. I quilted this piece with a variegated black and white thread.  The Swoon block is 24" x 24." When I first looked at the quilt from a distance for the first time there was a secondardy image of whitish tulips in the four corners which wasn't planned but when you consider that whites are prominant it is a great teaching tool for studying value. I learned I had very little gray fabrics in my stash and now I do!!

This was my first Swoon block using the 12 + 1 colors of the color wheel.

This is my example of the same color placement but all the colors have been "tinted" with white or pastels. I would not usually do an all pastel quilt unless a baby quilt or possibly a spring theme quilt.

This example is the same color placement but all the colors have been "shaded" with black. I did brighten the golds a bit to make the quilt prettier. Some people use all darks in their quilts such as Thimbleberies and Kansas City Troubles fabrics. I am a brighter style fabric person and I like the original color wheel quilt the best.

 

At some point I should make a "tone" style quilt but they are my least favorite fabrics. But for educational purposes I NEED to make one!!

Back to Back Quilt Retreats!!!

 I work one day a week at Pine Street Quilts in Marinette WI and the owners treated the staff to a "sleep in your own bed" quilt retreat the weekend of Nov. 11-13. I made this cute hat for Jordana, my daughter, who requested pink, white and black. I had tons to of trouble making this and didn't like the instructions. I said I would never make another one and when I gave Jordana the hat she loved it and when we were in Joann Fabrics she saw the "tacky" Hello Kitty Christmas fabric and Xmas peace sign fabric and asked if I'd make another hat. She picked out red feathers and a lime green sequin flower for embellishments. The next 2 pics are the finished hat. I aplogize for the photography. It was easier to do this hat since I did it MY way not following the instructions

 I will see Jordana on Thanksgiving and she plans to wear it shopping on Black Friday.

 these little purses I made at the first retreat. I made one for myself and love the small size, zippered pockets and long shoulder strap. I made these 2 as Christmas gifts. I added the pattern to the picture in case you want to make one.

 Then there is a boomerang pillow that Jordana bought and it came with a thin white yucky pillowcase. She asked me to sew her one-I did a few quick measurements, since I couldn't find any pattern or universal sizing, and used this great large scale Alexander Henry print. It looks kind of weird and I hope it is the correct size. I made it large and if I have to take it in that's okay.

I made 7 of my favorite postcards using Christmas colors and a bit of red glitter. They will be Christmas cards for my special peeps!!

I also nearly finished the 2012 Hoffman Challenge but that one is a secret until next summer. I am entering a wall hanging in the Milwaukee WI Public TV "Quilting is Art" Art Auction next spring and I started this project as well.

The second retreat was NOv. 18-20 in Door County WI at a beautiful facility that Lawrence University of Appleton WI owns. I get to see quilters from Appleton, where I used to live, sew my brains out and eat awesome food (too much!!) I was able to visit a quilt shop in Sister Bay WI and found some great batiks. It was a great time and now it's back to reality with responsiblities etc. but there's no place like home....

I Went to the Dark Side-Traditional Quilting!!

While working on tuesdays at Pine Street Quilts I kept sharing at the large floral print and loved it. I realized I could not use it in my portrait quilts except in a border and that seemed boring. So I used one of my favorite tradional patterns from www.BlankQuilting.com and is a free download. I have always switched up the design a bit but love the symetrical balanced look of the quilt. I skipped the extra borders and used more of the large floral. I found a fun stripe, which I love to have in my quilts, and the rest of the fabrics are from my stash. I like to buy the dollar store hawaian leis and take them apart and sew them on to quilts-I have some of those in this quilt. I found a large colorful lei at Hobby Lobby and that's where the large hot pink flowers come from. I have three colors/sizes of rhinestones, some flower themed beads, and some purple felt buttons as embellishments. I added a little purple glitter nail polish on the pink flowers for fun. I call the quilt "Fiori de Magenta" which means magenta flowers in Italian. I am fascinated by Italy and things Italian so that how it got the name. The quilt is 48" x 48".The second photo is a detail view of the flowers, glitter and felt buttons. I think I will enter this quilt in the Road to California show in a category I usually I don't enter. Then it's up to the jury people to decide if it's worthy. Back to art quilts!!!

Going Traditional; International Quilt Festival-Chicago

I signed up at Pine Street Quilts in Marinette WI for a 12 month long block-of-the-month called Fair and Square. 12 people sign up and each month each person chooses 4 coordinating fat eighths and the 11 other people make the block for that person.This is my third and last Fair and Square because some people have a different idea of what a 12' block should be sized and the pressing isn't always very good. 6 of the 12 blocks couldn't be used so I decided to make 6 of my own using star blocks from http://www.nancyrinkdesigns.com/. Nancy has a FREE BOM which can be downloaded and I made 6 star blocks using red backgrounds. I added this fun grass green print with yellows and red/orange dragonflys to connect the blocks and add a border. I will quilt the quilt with green thread.

I attended the International Quilt Festival in Chicago last Friday and Saturday. It was so fun to see what quilters are creating nationally, be able to purchase more goodies and visit with new and not so new friends. I was visually overloaded!! And I,like many other quilters from MI, MN, and WI, are sad to see the show move to Cincinnati OH-too far to travel.