Busy Year, lots of Monkey Business

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This was my first quilt of the year, and still my favorite I think.  I have a few things to tweak and then it is ready to trim and quilt.  It was inspired partly by the work of textile artist Melody Johnson and partly with themes from my own life.  The three stars represent my children, the fence and the "brick wall" design are themes from my own life with the hurdles we're working at overcoming for this adoption to go through.  It was fun to create this one!  And then a photo of it turned up on Melody's blog side by side with one of hers that was inspiration. 

Five Point Star, my design

This was my second quilt of the year.  It is shown here before I started any of the quilting so it looks different than this now but it's not done.  Maybe soon.  I created a tutorial of how to make this star and so you can go through a slide show of every step in making this piece if it interests you.  Five pointed stars are pretty unusual in quilt designs.  Most are eight or sometimes six.  I wanted a star that looked more like a star. 

Batik Quilt before the border was added

This was my third quilt top of the year which I didn't really like until...

Sherbet Batik Blend

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Adding the border pretty much saved it.  Now I like it after all.  Not sure who I'll get to quilt this one for me.  (Can you believe how beautifully the wind helped me take that photo?!)  Plus, the company that made the fabric assortment followed my blog and ended up sending me free fabric!  And that fabric is AMAZING! 

Color Therapy

 Since the last quilt was sooo dull, I had to work with some brights and that's how this small one came about.  It's pretty much just me playing with scraps.  I think I may cut it in half and make front and back of a pillow with it.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Who knows.  It's a good size for machine quilting so maybe sometime I'll try quilting it.  That's number four this year

#5  Then a friend of mine sent me two big boxes of fabric, just de-stashing from her treasure trove on me.  And in one box were these blocks that she had sewn but didn't want any more.  After I played with them for a while, trying to figure out a good layout, this is what I made with them.  When someone else makes the blocks putting them together seems to take no time at all.

Melody's Colors

Then I added the polka dot border and that was that.  My next move on this one will be to color in some of those dots depending on what colors are nearby.  I've started that and it looks great but I got sidetracked.  Then this one will be ready to quilt.

I call my sixth quilt "Peace, Joy and Hoppiness."  There are cute little dancing frogs in the fabric.  Plus I hand dyed the fabric and created the lettering, both the hand painted letters and the pieced letters.  No pattern or anything, just making it up as I go along.  This one is still very much in progress.  See close up shots of letters and dyed elements here.   

PEACE, joY and hoppiness

Then I got sidetracked from this one to start quilt number seven.  All the others are pieced and this one is fused instead which turned out to be fun.  It is a little snow scene that is kind of cute.  This one is using some fabric I hand dyed plus some fabric marker details.  I got a little carried away I guess but it was fun. 

Snow Scene Quilt

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The colors on the photo didn't turn out right at all but the general idea is there.  I've worked at machine quilting this one so it looks very different now.  I'm pleased with it.  Very pleased.  Once I get a few more details done and the binding on I'll post photos.  Oh, and I plan to bead this one, it needs falling snow... so the only way I know to do that is add beads.  It's only a matter of time...

And for the fun of it I'm now also working on making three sock monkeys out of ... uh... well... socks!  (saw that coming, did ya?)  I've never tried this before so everything is a learning curve.  They mustly have to be done by hand since there is little about them that works with machine stitches.  I don't have any photos of these yet, my prototype is almost done except he doesn't have ears, eyes, mouth... ya know... details.  And he's buck naked.  Poor monkey.  A friend on facebook wanted to know if she could buy one.  That made me laugh.  Shall I go into the monkey business?