Winged Square - Building Blocks Tuesday

I have no new blocks to share today, so I pulled this one out of the archives.  I made this for the Simply Solid Bee back in 2013 and at the time my bee mate was calling it a Winged Square.  I've recently seen a few quilts that have blown up this block to the entire size of the quilt, and they look fabulous.

Have any of you done one of those supersized one-block quilts?  Which block did you use?

What blocks have you working on this week?  I would love to see.  Link up your fabulous blocks.  You put a lot of hard work into them - show them off!  This free linky will stay open until the first Monday of next month, but I will repost it every Tuesday until a new month starts.

Rules:

1) Please link up only to the page in your blog showing your wonderful blocks, not just the blog homepage.  Flickr and Instagram pictures are also OK.
2) Make sure to put your blog name as the description so people know where they are going or the name of your block!
3) Please grab my button and post it in your blog post or sidebar.
4) Visit other linky participants!

Thanks for reading,

Jen

An InLinkz Link-up

Inspirational Sunday (8) - via Road to California 2015

Welcome back to Inspirational Sunday.  I have a few more art quilts to share this week and then we will shift to another genre for a while.

First up is "Cock-a-Doodle-Dandy" by Gigi Kandler of Arroyo Grande, CA.

Gigi says of her quilt, "This quilt is based on a photography I took of a rooster that lives in the Village of Arroyo Grande, CA.  I started the quilt under the wonderful guidance of David Taylor in a workshop at Asilomar.  The background is reminiscent of a whole cloth quilt."

I think that yellow background really makes this rooster stand out, and also think of chickens at the same time.


Here is a close up.

Feathers seem to be a great place to show off some really tight quilting.

Next up is, "Rainbow Bridge" by Renee Gannon of Ukiah, CA.

She says, "Seven years amid the Southwest's natural beauty left invisible yet indelible lifemarks on me, amount them a memorable hike from Navajo Mtn to Rainbow Bridge in 1981.  Its sandstone structure a lifemark of the water, sun & wind that created this natural arch, the streaks of desert varnish further mark the effects of those forces on its surface.  Based on a photo taken by the quilt maker, made for the Mendocino Quilt Artists 2013 theme, "Lifemarks".

Here is a close up so you can see the quilting.

This next quilt won second place in the "Art Critter" category.  It is called, "One Fine Day" by Laurie Britt of Bakersfield, CA.

Laurie says a little about what she used to make this quilt, "I was inspired to make this quilt after seeing these majestic beauties on a road trip to Colorado.  Fussy cut Raw edge Applique, Mistyfuse, inks, pastels, shiva paint sticks, textile paints."

Sometimes it is difficult to get a good close up of these types of quilts....

Last but not least is another fabulous quilt by Joanne Baeth, "The End of the Line?" by Joanne Baeth of Bonanza, OR.

Joanne says of this quilt, "While Salmon Fishing on the Oregon coast, I have become intrigued by the fate of old fishing boats that have been taken to boat yards to be repaired, sold or scrapped. Is it the end of the line?"

As you can see it won first place in the Art Naturescape category.

I really like this one.  I reminds me of several scenes I saw in Prince Edward Island, Canada while visiting my family.  I don't know about you, but I would love to have it hanging somewhere in my house!


Next week, we will shake things up a bit and look at a different genre of quilts.  I hope you will come back.


Thanks for reading today,




Jen

Outlander swap tote - a Finish Friday

Behold!  My finished tote for the Outlander Craft Swap.

It started with a plan....

Then, I got to work on the thistle applique.  I used a fusible to help give me a bit of support for those tiny jagged leaves and keep them in place.  Then I used a small blanket stitch to machine applique them to my white background.

Next, I moved onto the trapunto for the knot portion.  I have not done trapunto before, so I was kind of winging it.  I put a small piece of batting behind the knot, then stitched on the lines of the knot. Then I used my applique scissors to trim the batting away as close to the stitching lines as possible in the areas that I wanted to be shaded.

Then, I added batting to the entire piece, and when to work adding quilting to the shaded area of the knot.  I used Cindy Needham's "Scribbling" technique to do this.  She talks about it a lot in her Craftsy class, Design it, Quilt It - with Cindy Needham (affliate link**).  I highly recommend this class!!!  It is chock full of awesome quilting designs.

When I was all done quilting the knot, I moved on to the background behind the thistles.  Can't not have some swirls!

Next, I turned the whole thing into a tote bag.  I debated making it a pillow.....it would have been a lovely pillow.  But, I thought my partner would never get to show it off if it was just a pillow.  Rarely do I see people walking around town with pillows in their hands.  So, a tote.  A nice, useful, practical tote (with an interior zip pocket and a regular interior pocket too).

I hope my partner likes it!  I used up practically all of my favorite 2 purple fabrics.  I hope she likes purple!


Thanks for reading today,


Jen




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