Tammy Gilley Studios

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Finally!  I have been late to the party for the last two Blogger's Quilt Festivals, so I'm tickled pink that I made it for this one.  It has been so much fun blog-hopping to see everyone's quilts.  My, my, my.  So many talented peeps out there!  Which, of course, I knew, but it's so fun to see all of the color, the diverse set of skills and designs.  Eye candy on steroids, I tell you!  Before it's all said and done, I will have quite a quilt hangover.  In such a good, good way.

So.  This quilt.  Mmmmmmm....still one of my faves.

Quiltie Fest Bloggers, meet Urban Garden.  You may have seen this one before, but I don't know that I've shared the story.  If I have (memory schmemory), perhaps you'll indulge me one more time.

I've been quilting for about 10 or 15 years, I suppose.  My very first quilt was created with my mom's tutelage and Alex Anderson's Learn to Quilt book (I'm not sure the title was Learn to Quilt, but it was a very basic learn-to-quilt book.  I made every quilt in it, as I dipped my toes into the quilting pool.)

Anyhoooo....

I quilted with my mom and a group of friends for a number of years.  Once a month we'd meet at my mom's for snacks and drinks and quilting.  (And, depending on the mood, there may have been more wine drinking than quilting.  I know you know what I mean.)  In between those meetings I'd quilt with my mom, or we'd shop for fabric together, or I'd read pages from her own quilt book manuscript.  She had a gazillion quilts designed.  Some more complete and whipped up in EQ5 on her laptop.  Others sketched in her signature black Flair pen on a cocktail napkin or the back of a deposit slip.  It seemed her mind was always designing a quilt.

I moved away from quilting for a few years to do some cutting and pasting.  I played with vintage papers and collage, little bits of ephemera, and had a whole lot of fun. 

Then, as many of you know, I lost my sweet mama to a very unexpected and brutally short battle with ovarian cancer.  Turned my world upside down.  As I lovingly cleaned out her sewing room, my hands caressing her fabric stash, organizing spools of thread, sitting on the floor with her files (oh, and I use that term verrrry loosely...more like manila file folders crammed full of aforementioned cocktail napkins, grocery lists, and other sundry bits of paper with quilt designs sketched upon them) and being blown away by all of the quilt designs, well, you can imagine I felt the pull back to quilts.  Back to my love of brilliant color and fabric.  I finally found my way back to quilting.

In the midst of all this mess, I met Jennifer.  We were friends from the start.  And, because she is who she is, she put a box of her beautiful fabrics in the mail to me.

And this was my first quilt.  A sort of tribute to Mom.  The design is hers.  The fabric is Jennifer's.  All stitched up in a whole bunch of quiltie love. 

So happy to be back. 

Stitched Up

I'm sort of a whirling dervish, right now.  I've got a gazillion projects in the works.  A couple of quilts, a few totes, even a tissue cozy.  (It's ridiculous how adorable it is.  I mean, come on...a tissue cozy?)

But this is one of my faves right now.  I sassy little book bag for summer. 

It's got a big, roomy interior.  (Sheesh...sounds like a Cadillac, doesn't it?)  Anyway, it's perfect for taking that trashy novel to the park for a lazy summer afternoon read.  And lots of pockets for bus fare, lipstick, tootsie rolls...whatever.  A padded strap, so when you cram all of that crap into the bag, you don't ruin your shoulder in the process!

I know.  I think of everything.  haha  Anyway, I love it.  Can't wait to use it.  Think I'll break it in this weekend, since it is, afterall, the official start to summer. 

What's that you say?  You want one, too?  Well, I'll tell you what.  You see that lonely little Google Friends box under the header "Follow me!"?  You put yourself in that little box and be my Google friend.  Then you leave a comment here and let me know you did that.  And then I'm going to draw a winner from those comments and send that person a summer book bag of her (his) very own!  So, come on, don't be shy, let's be Google friends!

Your Whimsical Garden

Shifting gears a little bit from the quiltie love that is Quilt Haiti, I want to remind you about my upcoming class fast approaching at Fibers In Motion.  There are still a few spaces available to stich up your own Whimscal Garden.

I'm excited about this class for lots of reasons, but mostly because I love sharing the day with talented peeps.  I get so much from the people in my classes, it's amazing! 

I'm so excited to share the day with you.  We can sit around the big tables and chatter and stitch and laugh. 

You can click on this teeny, tiny icon in my sidebar, (I'm not sure why the text isn't showing up over there...something went haywire, but you get the picture...sans text) which will take you directly to the FIM website to register.  Can't wait to spend the day with you!

Wrapped Up

Rebecca has posted photos from her recent trip to Haiti.  If you sent quilts for Quilt Haiti, sent money, sent dolls, or have just been following this story, be sure to check out her photos here.  They will do your heart good.  xo

Beautiful. People.

Just a quick post.  Please visit Rebecca.  I don't have the words in me right now. 

Only two. 

Thank you.

Stitched Flowers

With the promise of some sunshine later today, I thought I'd encourage it along with a simple appliqued flower in one of my favorite color combinations, fucshia and apple green. 

This is the featured highlight in a messenger bag I'm working on.

I'm really loving applique and embroidery right now. 

I've got another applique quilt in the works, and am working on the pattern for this one.

I really dig a bit of handwork during the warm spring and summer months.  Something to take out to my chair in the garden, sip on raspberry lemonade with clinky ice in it, listening to the bees buzzing in the lavendar, and watching Kip doing his laps around the flower beds.  What do you like to work on during the summer to keep your creative mojo flowing?

In Stitches

Kip and I love when the UPS truck pulls up.  He barks like crazy, jumping at the front window, his tail just a-wagging.  The doorbell rings, and I race down the stairs, throw open the door, and yell thank you as the truck drives away.

Look what arrived the other day!  Cosmo embroidery threads from Lecien.  Oh. My. Stitching. Nerves!!!!

This floss is a dream, I mean a DREAM to stitch with.  And it has a beautiful silken sheen to it.  It creates wonderfully clear shapes, letters, lines, and stitches.  I'm absolutely a Cosmos Convert!  Drank the Cosmo Kool-aid.  Stitching up everything in sight.

Rather than referring to a book full of stitches, I like seeing them up-close-and-personal.  

So, I've created a few happy little stitchery samplers that show me exactly what a chain stitch looks like. 

Or a split stitch. 

Or a little cotton heart held on to the fabric with just a few straight stitches.  You get the picture. 

They're wonderful to have. 

I just fold them up and put them in my little vintage train case with my stitchery paraphanalia, needles locked and loaded, ready to stitch at any moment, in just about any location. 

Makes. Me. Hap. Py.

I'm teaching a fun little class so you can create your own stitchery sampler. 

Join me next week over at Joggles. 

I'll teach you lots of fun embroidery stitches, as well as embellishment techniques, and other fun little stitchery tidbits. 

I love the Joggles set up. 

If you've never taken a class there, here's how it goes: 

The week before class begins, you receive a supply list so you can gather your goodies. 

On the first day of class, you're given access to the forums, where the instructor (that would be me) is available to the students (that would be you) for the entire day. 

I get everyone started, answer questions, help with problem areas, whatever. 

But the great thing about the forums is that the students share photos of their projects, share their own tips and techniques. 

It's such a great exchange of ideas and encouragement. 

And the forums stay pretty active that way throughout the week between lessons.  I really love it! 

So, if that sounds at all like fun to you, there's still time to sign up over here.

In the meantime, keep calm and stitch something.

My Whimsical Garden

 
It's finished! 

 
I decided to hand-quilt it in what I call a "primitive stitch", using embroidery floss and making really big stitches.  I don't think I coined the term, but that's just what I call it.  It takes some time, but I love the way it looks with applique.

 
This was such a fun quilt to make.  But I have to show you how it started.

I have a sketchbook that I keep.  It's full of photos cut out from magazines that inspire me, sketches from my mom's sketchbook with her writing on them (she's my guardian sewing angel), and then my own sketches and notes for projects I'd like to create.  This is the sketch from which my Whimsical Garden sprouted.  It is easy to tell that the quilt came from this sketch, even though the finished quilt is much different.  That happens a lot in my design process.  I often go off on a different tangent, and things come out differently than I imagined them, for various reasons.  Some of the elements I didn't use in my Whimsical Garden I will use in future projects.  All is not lost. 

 
This was a really fun quilt to make.  Mostly because I love applique, and I've finally found a method that I really like.  It turns out, it's the method my mom originally taught me.  At the time I didn't like it, because I had no patience for the turning under, and pressing, and needleturn nonsense.  So, I tried several other methods.  Only to wind up right back where I started.  But with one difference:  now I love the turning under, and pressing, and needleturn nonsense. 

 
Totally channeling my mom.  

 
Anyway.  Really. Fun. To. Make.  I loved all of the handwork.  And I would intersperse it with machine-piecing the patchwork blocks.  It really was a blissful combination.

 
I created each block separately.  That is to say, I started with two of the large blocks from my sketch.  But then I decided the quilt would be really fun with some birds and other flowers.  So, I designed some additional blocks with birds and other flowers.  It was truly a design-as-I-go (read: fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants)  process.  And literally, when I got a set of blocks that fit together nicely, I stopped.  Then added the pieced blocks to sort of frame in the appliqued blocks.  I sewed it all together and lived with it for a few days, spread out on the floor of the guest room (oh, my queendom for a design wall!) to make sure it was fully baked.  When the egg timer went off in my little pea brain, I sandwiched and bound it and quilted it.

 
No sooner did I snip the last thread when LuAnn said, "Won't you please teach this as a class in June?"  How fun!, I thought, and we agreed on a date.  It will be a really fun class, because I'm going to talk a lot about my design-as-you-go process, we'll work on our applique techniques, and I'll have plenty of my doodled flowers and birds for you to incorporate into your own Whimsical Garden.  You can get more information or register at Fibers in Motion. 

 
If you're in Multnomah Village, you can see my Whimsical Garden quilt hanging over the counter at Fibers in Motion.  (Quite a thrill for me.  I've always thought of that spot as sort of the place-of-honor in LuAnn's shop.  Truly never imagined my own quilt hanging there.  A dream, really.  A really nice, wake-up-happy dream.)

Patchworking

 
Oh, it feels good to be in the studio again!  I've been down with The-Worst-Headcold-On-Record.  I swear to goodness.  This one really knocked me on my fanny!  I still have an obnoxious cough, which makes me sound like I've been a pack-a-day smoker for about a hundred years, and a head full of snot.  But all of that is offset by this raw-ther sexy, Brenda Vaccaro voice I've got going.  Even with the runny nose, I am a hottie.

 
Omigawd, that made me laugh really loud.  Anyhooooo.

 
I'm stitching up little blocks for this quilt top.  You remember this one, don't you?  Started a couple of months ago?  Wonky applique blocks?  Yep!  That's it!

 
So, now I'm adding some wonky pieced blocks, and I'm loving the way it's going.  I'm not measuring anything very precisely, in the manner of Freddy and Gwen.  I'm just sort of letting it happen, which is extremely satisfying.  As I've mentioned before, I'm not a precise quilter.  I like to wing it.  And this is making me very happy right now (she said in her husky smoker's voice).

 
So are these.  From the Quilting Studio First Aid Kit.  Coffee Nips.  And even better, Caramel Nips!  Oh.  My.  Nerves at the yumminess!  What do you have stashed in your studio for emergency sugar-needed-now situations?

 
Stay with me, people.  I think I may actually have a quilt top to show you later this week!

Lunch at the Cutting Table

What else can I say?