Carlene Foster's Gallery : Winter

My first St. Louis Star Quilt

Carlene Foster — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 12:34:00 GMT

This is one totally versatile design and can be done in many different sizes and arrangements. I have done.....4? I saw this first published in a quilting mag and used my own red/green/black and wow fabrics. As it turned out, the original quilt was done in kind of a rusty brownish red and a kind of olive green. I took a class from the designer a couple of years later to learn how to do the glorified 9 patch. It was an experience I won't soon forget. :)

Stonehenge BOM 2012 (full picture)

Carlene Foster — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 16:04:52 GMT

Daylight allows me to take a picture of the entire quilt, as long as it is not raining or the wind is not blowing excessively. A little wind today, but not so bad temp wise, and no additonal snow (yet) I love the full effect of this quilt....more than I liked some of the individual blocks. If you make this one, watch the color combinations. I had a couple of blocks that were brown on brown with the biggest contrast being another shade of brown. I substitued the orange to liven it up a little.

Christmas Place Mats

Carlene Foster — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:18:02 GMT

I had a 20 fq pack of coordinating Christmas fabrics that had been in my stash at least a year (more likely 2 years), that I couldn't get inspired to use. Quilters World December 2012 issue solved that problem for me: Stretched Nine-Patch Place Mats. If I were to do it all over again, I would use the Buggy Barn stack and whack, then reshuffling the order of certain stacks. Sometimes, I don't stop and plan that part so well. LOL I had leftover pieces of batting and backing was from Benartex...the line was called "dreamline" by some vendors. The idea was that the pattern was on the background in water soluable ink, you sew on the lines from the back and then when you wash the piece, the lines disappear. Loved the product, cannot find it on the Benartex website now. I bought mine through fabric.com and Amazon. From 20 fq's, I have a total of 30 placemats. I have actually completed all but 8 (due to lack of extra batting now!) Love the pattern.

Insanity in reds and greens

Carlene Foster — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 15:12:46 GMT

Carpenter's star and filler blocks. This was the third quilt I did........ever. I had a hard time figuring out how to put the rows together because of the fillers, so I did a lot of partial seams as I traveled down each row. Now that I know a little more of what I am doing, I wish I could find this pattern again! You could do this in any color combination you want....I just chose various shades of red and green because that is what the one in the picture looked like. I am kind of a visual person. :)

Applique Poinsettia

Carlene Foster — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 12:13:02 GMT

Raw edge applique done with heat and bond. I used up a lot of red and green small scraps on this quilt. Quitling method is called McTavishing and is thread intensive, but leaves an interesting texture.

Let it Snow!

Carlene Foster — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:01:40 GMT

Coordinating batiks make for a quick quilt.

Strip Therapy Log Cabin

Carlene Foster — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 14:00:28 GMT

This quilt pattern, using an uneven log cabin arrangement, can be found in the Strip Therapy series of books. It used one jelly roll and about 3 yards of border fabric to make it a large queen sized (it only fit the top of the mattress on a king sized bed). Fast and fun and you can use whatever kind of jelly roll fabric you want. This was Moda Marbles in the Warm colorway.

Pinwheels

Carlene Foster — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:52:43 GMT

This pattern used half of a jelly roll (20 strips), and made enough pinwheels that I had two left over to make a throw pillow to go with the lap sized quilt. You can quilt as simply as I did (using my 1956 Singer 301) or more elaborately. I saw one that was done in queen size, using two packages of pinks/purples with a pink background. It was really pretty. I can see a lot of use from this very simple pattern. The pattern comes with directions to make several different sizes.

Black, white and red allover

Carlene Foster — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 15:05:51 GMT

This is a technique using a special ruler called a "Twister'. This particular throw used one fq bundle and some yardage for the outer border. It isn't very large, and I still have a stack of biased red, white and black 4 patches left over from the process. I am not a fan of the waste that you get from this tool. You start with a charm pack, or a bunch of 5 x 5 patches, sew them all together, then use the tool to cut a piece of every intersecting seams. I have cats, so there were many times that I feared my stack of petals would be rearranged until I could get back to them. By the time I had done this throw, I was over the process. Maybe as a one or two item accent......potholders. a cornerstone for a larger quilt that you just want to do something different....but, I'm not a whole quilt fan of this tool.

Iowa Star Scrap Quilt

Carlene Foster — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 14:25:22 GMT

This was a pattern created by a native of Traer, Iowa. This is just up the road from my sister's house, and I didn't even know there was a quilt shop so close to her...guess where I am stopping my next trip? This is the kind of quilt you do when the partiallly used fq's and the scraps outnumber the full pieces. It used a lot of scraps, and a lot of those fq's that I just didn't know how I was going to use them anywhere...ever. Loved the effect....and there will never be another one exactly like this one...ever. Next one I make, I will keep the neutrals very light and not use so much yellow on a focal block.

Orca Bay Mystery Quilt 2011

Carlene Foster — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 13:57:55 GMT

Bonnie K. Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery Quilt ran from Thanksgiving 2011 through January 1, 2012. This is my finished quilt top. Once again, Bonnie walked a group of quilters of various skills through a complex pattern by breaking it into managable steps. For me, the twist came at the end with those black/white border pieces...I never would have guessed that was what those were for. I was trying to put them around the Ohio Star units and thinking that the red string blocks would be around the border somehow. The biggest challenge I had putting the top itself together was those blue string blocks....if they weren't placed properly, the flow of the pattern just died in place. There are some of those that got removed and replaced at least 3 times, some 4. I blame it on quilt dyslexia. :)

Flourishing St. Louis Star

Carlene Foster — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:34:50 GMT

This is my third quilt this season from Robert Kaufman's Flourish fabric. I am hoping there is only enough left to make a table runner or something small. I'm ready to be finished with this fabric, although it is still my favorite so far. The pattern for the stars is from Toby Lisshko's St. Louis Star. The large one is 16 inches, the smaller are 10 inches. If you have a chance to check out her book, you will see how sinfully easy these stars are....there are no Y seams. My biggest challenge was that I ran out of the green fabric and had to really scrimp to make it go as far as it did. That was the beauty of the St. Louis Star pattern. You can make a lot out of a little. The quilt pattern itself is one of my own making.....I'm not certain how much of a design you can call this, but I definitely did not have a pattern beyond the stars themselves.

Flourishing Eclipse

Carlene Foster — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 14:46:52 GMT

When I saw the Robert Kaufman Flourish4 fabric this year, I instantly knew I had to have it and I had to do this quilt with it. The pattern, called Eclipse, was published in Quilter's Newsletter in the October/November 2010 issue. The original design, which was a ToadUSew kit quilt, strangely enough was done from Robert Kaufman fabrics as well (Shades of Season 3, another of my absolute fav's!) Any large medallions, fussy cut, will make a beautiful quilt from this pattern.