Is the IHG making a comeback?

For the last 3 years, I have been posting ideas of how to turn this carpet…..

…into a quilt.

And, last year, I finally decided to give up on it COMPLETELY and started using the fabrics for other projects.

BUT THEN…..of course there is a “BUT THEN”…..

I have recently been thinking more about Manadala designs, and started wondering if I could use the circle layout, but instead of using fabrics, quilt mandalas to represent the circles.

I put the photo into “ProCreate” and started layering the circles….

Then, I took a bullseye design and placed it inside the circles….

A little bit of thinking about which circles would overlap, and this design was born…

So, now I am back to THINKING about the Holiday Inn Carpet quilt.

It is definitely the project that won’t die!!

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Thank you…….

Practice Quilting – Part 2

Yesterday, I spent a bit of time trying various quilting designs on my practice piece.

Today, I am working specifically on filler ideas for one of the “petal” shapes…..

Please join me!!!

I am happy that I decided to make a practice piece and play because, after LOTS of tries, I think that I know exactly how I am going to quilt the actual piece.

As I said in the video, I have now realized that I didn’t buy enough fabric, so I will be visiting the Cherrywood Fabric booth in Houston to add to my fabrics!!

Now I have to figure out what to work on between now and then!!!

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Practicing for the Holiday Inn

Believe it or not, after two long weeks, we are returning to the IHG (Holiday Inn) carpet quilt!!

When I left you, I had planned out 1/4 of the circle…

I picked a size and enlarged this quarter to be a full circle…..

But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with how I wanted to make it.

My friend Marnie often makes a “practice quilt” when she is unsure of her process so I decided to follow her example!!

I found a piece of solid fabric and traced the design on it…..

Okay…now it is time to get real!!

HOW am I going to do the “cutouts” (teardrops)?

My first thought was to fuse them on……

…even though that would put them on top of the fabric rather than under it (which is what it is supposed to be).

For the second round, I decided to put Misty Fuse on them and then cut them out and fuse to the backing fabric.

That idea did NOT work!!

I tried every type of scissors that I owned…..

….but there was no way that I could make them look good……

I will have to keep thinking about other ways to do this!!

Finally, it was basted and ready to start quilting….

….although, I have NO idea where that one outer teardrop has gone, and one side has ink that leaked from my Sharpie, and just after I took this photo, I spilled my Diet Coke on one side!!

I am so glad that this is just a practice!!!

Alright, for the next two days, we will play with quilting this piece, practicing going around the teardrop shapes, and exploring lots of ideas for quilting.

COME BACK TOMORROW FOR PART ONE!!

When the lights go out…..

Our area of Georgia was so fortunate because Hurricane Helene passed over us quickly and with very little damage.

However, we did lose power for about 12 hours.

This was not unexpected so I had a plan for what I was going to work on when I couldn’t do anything else!! I was going to start building the final pattern for my HI (Holiday Inn) quilt!!

As I thought more about it, I decided that the best thing to do was to design 1/4 of the circle and then enlarge it as needed for each circle.

So, in my studio…..with 4 open windows providing light, I started the drawing process…..

I used the tools that are useful for my mandala preparation….

…..and fairly quickly had 1/4 of a circle done…..

Next, I wanted to draw the arcs on the end of each wedge…..

After trying to freehand it, I pulled out a compass and drew it more mathematically!!

I kept working in the semi-dark until I had a good pattern for the circles…..

Now I need to play with the designs and figure out how to quilt the “mandala” portion of the piece. I took a photo, opened it in Procreate on my i-Pad and started playing with designs….

It was lunchtime, so I headed downstairs to find something to eat. I found my husband sitting in the lighted kitchen fixing his lunch.

WHEN DID THE LIGHTS COME BACK ON??

Michael informed me that they had been on for about 20 minutes, but in my window-lighted room, I had NO idea!!

It was an enjoyable way to spend time in my studio and I have now officially “made a start” on this quilt!!

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Making a Start

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I am ready to make a start on my next Art Quilt based on this photo…..

My original idea was to cut out the circles and teardrop shapes and layer them on top of each other.

When I printed out a full size pattern…..

….. I realized how difficult that would be, especially with the smaller cut-outs.

I was lamenting my dilemma to my friend Deb, and she casually said, “What if you include some of your Mandala quilting designs instead of all of the cut-outs??

OH MY…. I LIKE that idea!!

My first step was to reduce the number of “cut-outs” in each circle by at least half, and make each wedge wider, something like this……