Red Gram Quilts Quilts de 'Abuela Roja'

Hi all!
Lately I've been working on a series of memory quilts made with the fabric from the dresses of my late grandmother, Geraldine Stark  (Red Gram).  Red Gram was always dressed to the nines- often in red, and always with red lipstick.  So when I was a kid, I nicknamed her 'Red Grandma' to set her apart from all of the other grandmas out there, and it just stuck!
It took me a whole year to cut up the dresses, but when I found this pattern by Elizabeth Hartman of 'oh fransson,' I knew I had to get started.  Not only is this a great pattern for feature fabrics, but it reminds me of lava lamps, which Red Gram always kept on her back porch.  What a hip grandma, right?

Hola!
Estos dias estoy haciendo un serie de quilts hecho con telas de los vestidos de mi abuela que fallecio, Geraldine Stark (Abuela Roja).  Mi abuela siempre era muy bien vestido, muchas veces en el color rojo, y siempre con rouge rojo.  Entonces, cuando era chiquita, la di el apodo "Abuela Roja'  para destinguirla de todas las otras abuelas en el mundo.  Se quedo asi!


Me costo un ano en cortar los vestidos para usar, pero cuando encontre este patron de Elizabeth Hartman de 'oh fransson,'  sabia que tenia que arrancar.  No solo es este patron genial para telas que quieres destacar, pero las formas parecen a 'lava lamps' ( ), cosa que mi abuela siempre tenia prendida en su porch.  Que abuela canchera, no?

Winner / Ganadora

Ok, according to my number picker, the official winner of the Kaffe charm pack is:   29!  Cynthia Masa!

Winner, please send your name and postal address to juliecreus@gmail.com

Thanks for participating!  Check back often for new giveaways!


Ok, segun mi 'eligidora de numeros', la ganadora oficial de las telitas de Kaffe es:  29!  Cynthia Masa!


Ganadora, favor mandame tu nombre y direccion postal a juliecreus@gmail.com


Gracias por participar!  Fijate aca seguido  para mas 'regalitos'!

First Giveaway!!

It's time for a giveaway for Todera followers!  Up for grabs is this sweet charm square pack of Kaffe Fasset fabrics!

All you have to do is leave a comment  about what you would do with the charm squares.  

Then, on Friday, June 25th,  I will use my handy dandy random number generator you see there on the left hand side of my blog to pick the winning comment number.  

I will send the fabric anywhere in the world.  Good luck!!

Ya es hora para un regalo para uno de las siguidores de 'Todera!  La ganadora recibe este paquete de charm squares de Kaffe Fasset.  


Solo tenes que dejarme un comentario de que harias con las telitas.  El viernes 25 de junio, uso el 'generador de numeros aleatorios'  (que vean a la esquierda en mi blog)  para elegir el numero del comentario ganador.


Mando las telitas a cualquier parte del mundo.  Suerte!!

Mm. Mm. Mm.

Freshly washed Kaffe fabric hanging out to dry.  Got a smokin deal-, so stocked up for backings.  To some, luxury is a Mercedes, to others it's filet mignon, to me it's an all Kaffe quilt back.....

End of the Year quilts for Teachers

Whew!  The school year here in Orlando has come to a close.  The kids and I decided to make quilts for their teachers for 'end of the year' gifts.  Both kids had very special teachers that deserved very special gifts.

The first quilt was made for Liam's teacher, Mrs. Cheves,  queen of the 'Fantastic Frogs'.  I asked each child to cut out a frog from a fabric that they picked out.  They got fused and satin stitched on a background (cut from an Ikea duvet cover).  I used the new bamboo batting that's out there, which was nice, but i found to be a bit stiff.  Quilting was done in a meandering stitch in the 'water', an a flower design in the border, outlining all those crazy handpainted blooms.

Olivia and I then put together a quilt for Mrs. Krupoff, her fifth grade teacher, whose favorite color is purple.  This is the zigzag quilt again, this time with straight borders.

There are those handpainted flowers again in the top row! I liked how they look like little sunrises againsts the purple zigzag below...

hot glue un-stick trick

Just a short post today.  Had to share this tip- unsticking stuff glued with the glue gun!

I had used hot glue to make some felt flowers.  Afterwards, i wasn't crazy about my color combos, and tried to peel them apart.  Of course, no go.

So i stuck one in the microwave for about 20 seconds, and apart it came!! Woo-hoo!!

Had another flower that had a pin back already attached. 'Course, you can't put metal in the microwave.  So i busted out my heat gun (the scrap-booking type)  and voila!- it came unstuck too.

Then i remembered about a thousand things that i threw away cause i thought hot glue was permanent....

Pass it on, and have a great day.

Good Afternoon, Toderas!

Take a gander at my new quilt top, just finished today.  Here's the story....

  A few weeks ago, I went to Chicago to visit my good friend Todd and to go to the Quilt Festival.  But of course, I took a class from Kaffe (rhymes with 'safe') Fasset.  His classes are the most exhilerating, exhausting, and brain stretching excercises ever for color junkies like me.

The class was based on a pattern from Kaffe's  new book, "Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts".  It's an eight hour class with a lunch break.   Beatles and Abba are blasting on the boom box to keep you from thinking too much.  No sewing involved, we just cut the patches and rearranged them over and over on our flannel sheets pinned to the walls. Kaffe and his co-teacher Liza would walk around and help if it looked like you needed it.  Very little instruction.  It's all about finding your own color sense and discovering for yourself why things work!

The last hour of the class is my favorite.  We all gather round and listen to Kaffe critique our quilt tops.  You really see why arrangements are successful- or not.  There are always surprises!

Here is Kaffe looking at my quilt top:

I ended up making the top bigger- it's now 60" by 72", changing the border, and picking a different stripe for the cornerstone blocks.
This is the third class I've taken with these guys, but the first resulting quilt i've actually stitched together!

So the next day, Todd came with me to the show to see Kaffe's lunch/lecture.  Here we are:

Here we are at the "Bee" (short for 'quilting bee'- Todd's friends teased him mercilessly for agreeing to go... what a good sport!)  And what a good host-  Here is what was waiting when I arrived at Todd's!!!  MMMMMM!!!