Dupioni Squares

I finally finished this quilt in May after it languished in boxes, closets and suitcases literally for years.   So why did I mistreat this quilt for so long?

I discovered dupioni silk while preparing to make my wedding dress--I was learning all about different silks trying to decide which one would give me the look I wanted.  I went with the traditional satin for my dress, but fell absolutely in love with the texture, the shine, and the body of the dupioni. 

So one day over 10 years ago, my casual "window shopping" in a fabrics store turned into a rather pricy dupioni silk shopping spree.  I decided to make a quilt out of fabric squares--a simple pattern, but one that could take advantage of the fabric's distinct directional shine.   

Unlike silk satin, the dupioni silk is much more forgiving to work with--no need to worry about pin marks or chafing.  So the quilt came together very quickly.  Unfortunately, in my quest to make the quilt extra warm I doubled the batting.  As a result, the quilt turned out to be too thick for the sewing machine I was using then.  This blunder left me with only one way out--hand quilting, which requires significantly more patience than I will ever have.  And thus the quilt has been left virtually untouched for all these years. 

What saved this luscious quilt is my decision is to get a sewing machine for my mother.  While shopping for her, I could not resist replacing my from-craigslist never-quite-working-right machine with a new one.  My almost one-year-old Janome Magnolia 7318 deserves its own blog post.  All I will say here is that this workhorse was more than capable to easily sew through my quilt, allowing me to finally finish this project. 

Now the quilt spends its time in a place much more appropriate for it--my parents' living room couch.  

Butterflies!

Another week--another pattern.  This week's theme on Spoonflower was butterflies with a limited palette.  The following were the only colors allowed, though there was no requirement to use all of them.

As usual, I did not give myself enough time to play around, but here is my butterfly pattern.

Fireworks or Flowers in the Sky

Another pattern for Spoonflower

Musical Whales

Musical Whales is a new pattern I completed last night, just barely in time to submit it to the Black & White "fabric of the week" contest on Spoonflower.


Musical Whales Pattern

When the black & white theme was announced, I immediately thought of the piano keys.  How that evolved into whales, I know not. 

Musical Whales Pattern Detail

Let me know what you would like to see made out of this fabric.

Bird Frenzy - First Peek

I have been working on the birds on and off for a long time.  It is finally starting to converge, and I am so excited that I just cannot keep it to myself. 

Spring Is Almost Here

I first started sketching ducks and ducklings after watching an episode of BBC's Planet Earth depicting baby Mandarin ducks leaping out of their nest in the tree.  I am still working on the ducklings, but the duck led me to create this greeting card.

The bright colors will hopefully make you think of spring, even it is still snowing or sleating outside.

Designing Socks

I decided to participate in the sock design contest, held by Oregon based company, Sock It to Me. Below are the five designs I have submitted.

Here are a few variations that did not quite make the cut—the contest allowed 5 submissions per person.

The finalists are supposed to be announced on Monday on the Sock It to Me Facebook page!