Finished! Little Red House in the Tall Green Grass Under the Gwenny Stars!

First of all, thank you to Tonya for hosting such a great get together! I love seeing all the projects in all the various stages. It took me a long time to get inspired. Life got in the way...I just can't think after a long day at work or too much going on in the family. How about you?



I have been trying to get to this project forever. It took me several months but here is my finished project. I also quilted it on the Handiquilter. Fun times!


Wish the black showed up better. I will be teaching Gwen's star method on September 24th at Morning Star Quilts in Paradise, California. I am excited to share more liberated techniques with other quilters! Hope you are all having a great summer with sewing to keep you happy!

xo Pam in Chico

Tutti Fruitti

Erin here. Yes, my top is done. I should have tried harder to get this posted before I had some house sitting jobs without internet access but I didn't. My mother has declared it to be the ugliest quilt on the planet. [Yes, the woman is a beacon of love and encouragement...] I don't really value her opinion very much any way. My oldest daughter loves it though and has to pet it on the design wall every time she comes in my sewing room. Her opinion I do value and not just because she likes my quilt. LOL I like it and that's all that really matters in the scheme of things I suppose. This is my original design idea based on the photo of my "inspiration quilt."



I think I successfully "liberated" the color palette and the setting. Except for the piano key border, it doesn't even look that much like my original design idea let alone the original quilt. Tee hee. I blogged a bit about the process of deciding on the center setting here and here.



The particulars:
Name: Tutti Fruitti
AKA: The Color of Fruit [from a line in the BBC production of Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South which I have watched w-a-a-a-y too many times of late...]
Finished size: approx. 61" x 61"
Fabric: Krystal by Michael Miller Fabrics
Quilting: I'm going to start hand quilting it with black perle cotton as soon as I make the trek into Las Vegas to buy some.
Batting: I haven't decided whether to stick with cotton or try some wool. I live in the desert. I'm afraid I might melt under wool batting.

No Longer Wordless

Hi, Chris D here. I've been hooked on Tonya's Free Pieced Letters since the first time I saw the idea. When she blogged about this challenge I just had to play.

My quilt top is finally well underway. From the beginning I knew exactly what phase I wanted to use. Deciding on the pattern to use was the hardest part. There were so many gorgeous patterns to choose from in "Amish Abstractions" book!

I love Amish quilt patterns and color pallets. My favorite fabrics to work with are batiks and hand dyes. These fabrics can be so vibrant and allow more flexibility.

I plan to make a few changes to the colors I am using in my blocks but hope to finish this top by the end of this weekend.

Introducing Myself

Hi, my name is Millie! I was so excited to see a Liberated Amish group. I absolutely love Amish quilts. I had leftover scraps from this wave runner quilt so I decided to use them for my first liberated amish quilt. The first pattern that came to mind was this log cabin quilt I made.

Later I decided to make a Roman Stripe quilt. I've made 16 blocks in two days.

Thank you so much for letting me join this group. I can't believe how many wonderful Liberated Amish quilts are on this blog.

Happy Quilting,

Millie

Backside of Triple Nine Patch

This is the backside of Triple Nine Patch. Some people wondered how it was constructed. It measures 22 by 23 inches.........

I hope this helps............Linda

On the Edge

debbi dw here - nothing like a deadline to get me going! I shifted from my planned Global Change (which I will do someday) when I got too close to the deadline to tackle the circles in my other plan. In this layout I have a twist on chinese coins/bars and bricks The coins in this one are on edge, and the stacks are on the edge of the quilt too. I hope to do something fun with the quilting in the big empty space. My words will go on the back and will be "On the Edge" - tricky to put the letters on the back so I could finish, hum? One of my favorite things about this top was running out of the green for the borders and using a similar shade pieced in - just like I've seen in Amish quilts! Tried to show in the photo below (sorry - the lighting at 11:30 isn't great!):

Triple Nine Patch

This is made with my own hand dyed fabrics, machine quilted and mounted on strips of black fabric.........no fancy pieced letters, tho.
It won a ribbon at the 2010 Sauder Village Quilt Fair for Innovative Piecing.

a finish

I wanted to share the finished quilt with you. There's no picture of the whole quilt, but a few more in my post, here.

Thank you, Tonya, for an inspiring challenge! And thank you all for joining in and sharing so many creative and beautiful quilts!!

; )

A perfect storm

I have completed my quilt top! Between the constant meals in the kitchen and the road trips to Maryland and Virginia during the weekend, I managed to sew up last rows of my quilt. 

This quilt top has been screaming hand quilting since last week when I began cutting the pieces. I will take my sweet time and enjoy that process just like I enjoyed puttign it together. 

You can read more about it at "The Root Connection" 

Tonya, I apologize for not putting any words on the quilt. I felt that it says too many things to me and I might restrict the true meaning of it to me by putting few words at this point. Between now and when I start to quilt, I may change my mind and come up with something true! 

Besides,  I am running out of time! REALLY!

 I started out with this layout. I still love this one and plan to make another very soon.

 

But this one drew my attention. I studied calligraphy in art school and this reminded me of strong and powerful brush strokes resembling lightning in the stormy dark skies.

 

It reminded me of  ocean waves once rotated the zigzag..

  The gray background fabric is woven fabric form India called Khadee. It is made from hand spun cotton fibers. The various solids are from my stash which also include scraps of my husband's old shirt.

Tonya, thanks you for this fabulous journey!

Loved every minute of it.

 

Top is done

Here is my top all done - yeah! I couldn't think of any words I wanted on it so I just pieced the year and put that in one of the skinny accent strips. I really like how the little touch of purple looks. I didn't think the hand dyes I had done would look so good together! I am very happy the way this turned out. Now I just need to concentrate on getting it quilted. Sorry about the shadow of my bicycle wheel across the lower right corner.


Here is the pearl cotton I dyed to compliment the colors in the quilt. I want to do both machine and hand quilting on this - I just have not figured out what I want to do yet.

Ocean Waves

Here's a picture of my quilt top. I didn't want to miss the challenge deadline!

I know this may not look very liberated to most of you (it's definitely not very Gwenny), but if you knew me, you'd know this is about as liberated as I get. The top measures 76" square.

Now to get it quilted!

Kathy in FL

Finally getting it together!

The fabric has been pinned to the design wall for several weeks and I have just gotten to piecing the fabric together. I am using my own hand dyed fabrics in neutrals. I am going back and re-reading the "rules" because I think I already broken several! If you would ask my quilting friend, P, she would tell you how I don't follow "rules" in quilting well! This is just a peek at what I am doing and I plan on having the top at least done by Monday to post.

The Eleventh Hour Quilt

It's the eleventh hour quilt! 

I could have started this quilt a while ago but we all know how it goes! Well, I guess you will see couple of more posts during this coming week and I truly hope to complete the top.

I chose to work with " Broken Dishes" pattern. I had a large piece of  a gray Indian woven fabric and added some bright solids to get the contrast.  These days, my primary goal has been to limit buying new fabrics so I am sticking with what's in the sewing room.

I made the blocks with freehand cutting and curved piecing.

Not sure what the words are going to be at this point.  Realistically, it will be something short and simple.

I have been very inspired by all of your quilts.  

It has been really fun watching everyone's quilts evolve and read the stories behind them.

 Definitely a fun experience!

Stay tuned for more pictures soon!

Oh Baby - Quilting Arts

Oh Baby - Quilting Arts

A Flimsy Finish

Snuggle

54" x 68"

I finally got this finished and I love it!!! I'm so happy with this quilt top. It was painful at times, and I sometimes had to force myself to work on it, but I love it now. I can't wait until it's quilted!

I think I'll be putting my intials and the year pieced into the back. Just a last finishing touch.

You can read all about this and see more photos here.

Thank you, Tonya! This was the biggest bit of free-piecing I've ever done, and I learned that it's not as hard or as scary as I thought it would be. As a matter of fact, I think I may have trouble "following the rules" now!