Medical Tenchologist Quilt Revisited

Finished quilt

In the last week or two, I've had a sudden renewed interest in my Med Tech Quilt from a year ago.  It seems as though a Med Tech/Clinical Laboratory Scientist educator found it on my blog and passed it along on a mass email to educators throughout the country!  I'm thrilled!!  As a result, I may have the opportunity to display it at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science!!!  This is a BIG DEAL!  I feel so honored!!

The stats: 40 x 48 inches, machine appliqued and quilted (or thread painted), quilt as you go method.

I looked back at my old posts, and decided it would be a good idea to put all of the pictures and links to the posts in one blog post.  Here it is!  I'll post them in the order that I made them, and blogged about them, with a link to each post below.  Enjoy!  Thanks to all of those who have expressed interest in this quilt.  It's truly one of my favorites, and I really enjoy all of the other medical professionals and others who have shown their appreciation.

Normal Blood Smear

Normal Lymphocyte and Monocyte

Eosinophils and Basophils

Anemia

Poikilocytosis

Giardia

Gram Stain

Blood Bank

Fungus and KOH Prep

Urine Crystals

Gout or Uric Acid Crystals

Feta Hemoglobin Stain (KLB)

Sperm Count

Malaria

Veterinary Medicine, Heartworm

Bird Blood

Reticulocytes

"Left Shift", or Immature White Blood Cells

 

Mononucleosis and Atypical Lymphocytes

Urine Casts

Antibodies

Spinal Tap and Meningitis

Pelger-Huet

Leukemia

Pneumonia

Steaking Microbiology Plates

Chemistry

Alcohol and Toxicology

Trichomonas

Blood Draws

WIP Wed: More quilt alongs!

With my Solstice Star quilt top done, my scrap attack almost done, and Project Quilting with only one round left, I decided to join a few more quilt alongs.  Have I mentioned how much I love these?  It's so great to see how one pattern can be interpreted so many different ways!  I've also "met" so many wonderful people on these! 

The block above is part of the New York Beauty Quilt Along.  I'm still pretty new to paper-piecing, so I hope to become less of a novice after this series.  The curves thrown into the mix makes it even more of a challenge!  With my Solar Threads Etsy store, and our solar panels that power our house, I just couldn't resist!  My plan is to make them with all of my blue and yellow fabric scraps/stash... yellow suns in a blue sky...

Another QAL that really "hooked" me is the granny square ones that are popping up.  I finished my 2nd block, and hope to use all of the charm squares that I recently got in a local swap.  I'm not sure if they'll make a very big quilt, but I'll just have to play it by ear.

I also just had to show you what I got at a local thrift store yesterday.  I've been really wanting to start quilting with different fabrics other than cotton.  I recently bought some linen with a nice 50% off coupon to try out, and last fall, I found some 100% silk mens' shirts at the same thrift store.  I was going to cut them up and sew with them, but showed them to my husband first, and he liked them so much that they're now in his wardrobe :-).  I keep looking for more, but haven't found any.  Yesterday, I spied these all-silk ties for 50 cents each, and couldn't resist.  I may have to try out a New York Beauty block with them, or a Dresden fan, or ???

As usual, I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced WIP Wed.  Come join us and see what everyone else is up to!!

Simple things

Yes, I've totally caught the granny square bug!  I must admit that I was smitten as soon as I saw my first one! A granny square quilt has been on my short list for the last several months, but I finally seized the opportunity to start making them this week-end.

I participated in a local charm square swap here in town, and we got to pick up our final assortment of charm squares on Friday!  Each person bought a yard of an assigned color, and cut them up into 5 inch charm squares.  We had a picture of a piece of art to base our colors on.  It didn't take me long at all to decide that these were going to become granny squares!  All I had to do is cut the 5 inch squares into 4, 2 1/2 inch squares, and start arranging and sewing!  I already have 2 more in the works!!  I can not believe how such a simple design can be SO MUCH FUN!!!

I also finished the last of my scrap attack quilt blocks.  This is also a simple quilt, but the 3 inch squares I'm using have been taking up precious table space in my house for way too long, so I HAD to get it done!  All I need to do now is to cut and sew in the sashing, and borders, and I'll have another top!!  I couldn't resist making a "bar graph" block as my final block LOL!

Finally, I got a rubber stamp off Etsy to help me make my postcards.  It came in the mail Friday as well.  I found an ink pad at a store I went to yesterday, and used it on my first postcard!  It's another simple thing that makes me very happy, although I'm not sure I like the ink yet.  It smudged, even 15 minutes after stamping, despite the recommendation of the craft store employee.  Do any of you use stamps and ink on your fabric?  What do you use?  Maybe I should have heat set it?  I'd love to hear any ideas or feedback!!

I'm linking up for the first time with "Sew Happy Geek" (love the name!) and her Manic Monday link party.  I've started following her and some other quilts on Twitter, and while it is fun, I must say that I feel more like a slow penguin on twitter, rather than a quick little bird!

I hope you all are busy enjoying the simple things in life, as I have been!!

Project Quilting challenge 5: Where I Live

This round of Project Quilting's theme is "It's where I live".  It is so close to my last postcard challenge, "Where you are", that I was tempted to just copy my postcards and enlarge it for a quilt.

The is also an additional challenge of using only 3 colors, each beginning with the first letter of your state, city, and street..  My "letters" are P, O, and T, so I almost went with tan, or tumbleweed, pine green and onyx.  But those colors were just neutral for me.  Of course purple and orange came to mind, 2 vibrant colors, and the addition of teal of turquoise proved to be irresistible to me.  I brainstormed ways to use these 3 colors to express "where I live", and it suddenly came to me!

We started the hobby of geocaching back in 2006, when my boys were quite young, and when we lived in Southern Oregon.  After moving to rural Michigan, it proved to be a great cheap thing to do with my boys.  As they got older, and as the sport became more popular we slowly became less active.  It's no fun to find a cache that's been trashed, or to have a "travel bug or geocoin" get stolen.  High gas prices has also made it harder to do as well.  But we still occasionally go out geocaching. 

For this quilt, I first quilted 2 batik prints together, then appliqued the GPS co-ordinates for our house on it.  I hope you'll forgive me for not divulging the exact location of our house.  Since it's so simple, I used some fun free-motion quilting ("matrix" from Lea Day's blog).  The lines remind me of latitude and longitude lines!

I found an old "impulse purchase" fat quarter that I've had in my stash for a long time for the back.

I love the way it turned out, and how geeky it is!! I also love any chance to bring science into a quilt!!

Friday Finish: Children's Delight quilt

It's Friday, and once again, I have a finish to share!  Thanks to Amandajean of "Crazy Mom Quilts" for setting up her regular Friday Finish link parties, where I'll be sharing again.  It's been a great motivator for me to get these UFO's done!

I started this quilt over 2 years ago, with one of the first charm square pre-cut fabric packs that I ever bought.  I'm not a big fan of pre-cuts, but the more quilts I make with them, the more they grow on me!

With all of the seams in this quilt, I decided to just use my walking foot and quilt it with "stitch in the ditch".  Now that I'm much better at free-motion quilting, I can finally understand why experienced quilters say it's actually faster to free-motion that to do this.  It took a long time, but I like how it turned out.

I was lucky enough to have a nice 3 yard piece of a fabric I got on clearance when I lived in Michigan (where I also bought the charm pack).  It was just barely enough, and looks great!  I'm pretty sure this is the last big piece of fabric that I had in my stash from Michigan :(.

With these pretty crocuses popping up in our yard, and the weather being so pretty, I'm going to be outside playing the rest of the day!  How about you?

WIP Wed: Stars and Squares

It's Wednesday, so I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced WIP Wed to tell you what I've been up to lately.

I am very happy to say that my "Solstice Star Series" Quilt is almost done!  I still need to trim up the bottom, and do a final iron, but then it's be ready to quilt!

The stars are blocks I made during Faith of Fresh Lemons Quilts' Solstice Star Series.  In her final post, she challenged us to create a quilt with just the 5 blocks, set in a non-traditional way.  I knew quickly that I wanted to do a quilt based on "Prairie-Style" or "Frank Lloyd Wright" designs.  I've been wanting to make a quilt like this since we lived in Michigan, 3-4 years ago.  My husband was raised in Chicago, and still has family there, so we are regular visitor to the windy city.  Not only is my husband from the Chicago metropolis, but more specifically, he grew up in Oak Park, the same suburb where Frank Lloyd Wright had his home and studio.  I've long admired the clean simple prairie style designs and architecture.  I know Faith is also from Chicago-land too, so it just seemed "right" to make this quilt.

I must have changed my design a dozen times, but finally settled on this one.  I think it's pretty funny too that only 5 blocks morphed themselves into a queen sized quilt!  Those star blocks are 12 x 12 inches, making the quilt a final 7 feet by 8 feet!! It took both my husband, and one of my boys to hold it up for the picture! The back of this quilt will be a real stash-buster!

Over the week-end, I quilted my "Children's Delight" quilt.  This is the first quilt I ever made using pre-cuts (charm squares).  It has been waiting to be quilted for 2 years now, and it feels great to have it almost done!  I just need to get the binding cut out and sewn on!

I'm also working on the new Project Quilting challenge, which is "Where I live", very similar to my last postcard challenge "Where you are" LOL  I was about to make a bigger duplicate of my Oregon postcards, but last night I got an idea that I love even better! 

I also have a few more blocks to make for my "Scrap Attack" quilt.

As the weather is getting warmer, days are getting longer, and signs of Spring are popping up all over the place, I have a feeling that I'll be spending less and less time at my sewing machine...  I hope Spring has sprung in your part of the world as well!

Modern Mini Challenge: Cheeseburger in Paradise Quilt

If you count all of my postcards, I've made more mini quilts these last few months than just about any other time.  I've also been able to finish quite a few big quilt tops that have been hiding in my closet for several months to 2 years.  Both of these sewing strategies come out of one big goal, to not spend very much money on fabric. 

I knew I wanted to enter one of these minis into Ellison Lane Quilt's Modern Mini Challenge, but couldn't decide which one.  I finally decided to enter my "Cheeseburger in Paradise" "mug rug".  It was designed both as a challenge to create a quilt based on a song title, and as a birthday present for my husband, a huge Jimmy Buffet fan.  I wanted something small that he could either use on his desk, or hang on his wall at work, so I made it very small, 7 1/2 inches by 10 inches.  I'm not exactly sure it fits the "modern" moniker, but it sure is fun!  I figure I'll let the judges decide.

For the construction, I sewed a few of the larger pieces together, but the majority of it was created by fusible applique,  My free-motion quilting on it really made it "pop".  I have loved batiks since I was a little girl, and am continually drawn back to them again and again, no matter how hard I try to break out of this mold.  I think for these fusible art quilts, it's the best fabric choice, as the colors are so rich and varied, plus the tighter weave keeps the edges nice and clean.  As a final detail, I hand stitched some sesame seeds to the bun using embroidery floss.

I hope you enjoy!