Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Q53 – Quilt – Deer Lake

Afternoon,

Our next quilt, Deer Lake, has been completed and will soon find its way to its new home in Highland Grove, Ontario.


Deer Lake is one of our original designs in which we used Deb Strain’s Moda fabric line titled Cherish Nature. Our design is a variation of a quilt block template called Diamond in the Square.

Deer Lake has been made to be a wall-hanging. Its dimensions are: Width – 34” (86.4 cms) and Length – 76” (193 cms). The determination of the organic colors and blending of the shades were made after a series of interviews. In keeping with the requestor’s like for our quilt Harlequin, (see Q9) and the home and neighboring environment, the design was completed keeping in mind its final location purported to be a pine wall in the house.

Here are some close-ups.


And now we are working on a new design – Continuation, which will eventually be headed for Ashville, North Carolina. Two other designs are in the draft stage; a color variation on Rainbow Glass and an abstract modeling of a skyscraper.

We have a number of tops completed and in line to be quilted. These include: Rainbow Glass; Tango 3; Kanzashi; PJ & Packages; Christmas Morning I; Christmas Morning II; and Isle of The Misfit Toys.

To see previously posted quilts, there is a visual grid presentation at the bottom of the Blog page. Move your cursor over any mini-picture found there and click to see an enlargement. Move your cursor to the "Q#" link to see the quilt's details. If the quilt’s title is highlighted in yellow, it has found a home in a collection and is no longer available.

Please let me know if anything on the Blog site does not properly work, or do what it says it is supposed to do. I’m always striving to make sure an ease of use.

If you are interested, and would like some more information of the available quilts, regarding costs, shipping, and insurance, please get in touch with me at our Quilts SB Etsy shop.

Enjoy,

Jim and Andy
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Thursday, June 24, 2010

My Quip - Morning Carmen Miranda - Quilts SB and A Genealogy Hunt

Morning,

This morning I followed a usual routine. I got up a bit earlier than usual and I walked the Pack. I then fed all and got myself some breakfast and coffee. I turned on the PC and checked out all my messages. Stopped in at the regular sites and checked the rankings at Top Listed and found that A Genealogy Hunt was at the number 2 Rank and Quilts SB hit 3rd for the first time. As these are real time numbers Quilts SB is now ranked at 6th.

I checked out Google Analytics for June 23rd. The Bounce Rate for A Genealogy Hunt had reduced to 36.4%. (According to Wikipedia the Bounce Rate “represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.”) This is good news and the Bounce Rate has been slowly decreasing. It means that more readers are checking out and into A Genealogy Hunt. The rate for Quilts SB is 44.0% which is also a relatively good rating. And of course this is the statistician in me… I have to check.

And this morning I found a great piece of correspondence from Dawn who may or may not have some Smith in Grenada connection to my ggg-grandfather James Smith. It’s a lead, and after responding to her queries it was time to get ready for the rest of my day.

I now know what it feels like to wear the market stall of Carmen Miranda. This morning, in the shower I began reading the labels and ingredients of the hair and soap products. First there was an avocado pre-conditioner. Then a mango shampoo followed by hemp conditioner… The body and facial washes were of various citrus, plus one hell of a lot of 25-cent long words that certainly don’t fit into my vocabulary. And all I could think about was boom-chi-chi-boom-chi-chi-boom. Ms. Carmen had all the right ideas on top… I wonder if she ever had stock and shares in J&J…

Oh and last two night suppers: Guyanese Chow Mein and Curry Shrimp, Chicken and Vegetable Stew.

Enjoy,

Jim
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Friday, June 18, 2010

Q52 – Quilt - Bayberry

Good Afternoon,

I’ve been asked as to when we were going to be posting our next quilt. Well here it is. Bayberry, our original design, is the newest addition to our TayTow Series. Our design is a variation on the known Staggered Brick pattern.


The inspiration for Bayberry is the small blue and clustered berries of the Bayberry plant. The dimensions of Bayberry are: Length – 71 ½” (182 cms) and Width – 56 ½” (144 cms).

Bayberry may be considered the size of a Cot or Lap Quilt. It also can be used as a wall hanging. The quilting is of horizontal lines and stippling. The fabrics are all in keeping with our TayTow Series.

Here are some close-ups.


Two other completed quilts of the TayTow Series include Provence (Q50) and Café au Lait (Q51). In the wings are two more companion quilts of this Series: Tango 3 and Kanshasi.

To see previously posted quilts, there is a visual grid presentation at the bottom of the Blog page. Move your cursor over any mini-picture found there and click to see an enlargement. Move your cursor to the "Q#" link to see the quilt's details. If the quilt’s title is highlighted in yellow, it has found a home in a collection and is no longer available.

Please let me know if anything on the Blog site does not properly work, or do what it says it is supposed to do. I’m always striving to make sure an ease of use.

If you are interested, and would like some more information of the available quilts, regarding costs, shipping, and insurance, please get in touch with me at our Quilts SB Etsy shop.

Enjoy,

Jim and Andy
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Friday, June 4, 2010

My Quip – Quilts In Progress – Another Peek – Rainbow Glass Quilt

Morning,

The top of six panels and border of our new quilt, Rainbow Glass, has now been completed.


Each panel is 14” (36 cms) in length by 70” (178 cms) wide. The border is 2” (5 cms). All-things-being-equal the final quilt top will be 84” (213 cms) long and 74” (188 cms) wide . Or if you would prefer 74” (188 cms) long and 84” (213 cms) wide.

This is just a sneak peek. We have decided on the quilting but as yet have to determine the backing fabric.

Thank you to Glass By Design for allowing and giving us permission to use your design.

Stay-tuned.

Enjoy,

Jim
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Tuesday, June 1, 2010

My Quip – Quilts In Progress – New Rainbow Glass Quilt - Preview

Evening,

I thought that I would introduce you to a portion of our newest quilt design and effort. The final quilt will be one that we will title “Rainbow Glass”.

Most recently we have been working on a couple of new series, one of which has been based on Frank Lloyd Wright’s work and stained glass designs and elements. I peruse the Internet at times and in one search I came upon the web site “Glass By Design”. In a review of the work, I was very taken by one of their stained and leaded glass panels, “Abstract 33”. I immediately thought that I would like to reproduce the similar concept in fabric and create a quilt.

I contacted Marian Eide at Glass by Design, in Bryan, Texas, and asked if I could use the design of “Abstract 33”. Marian was very considerate and has allowed us to use their design to create our quilt. You can link to their website by clicking on Glass by Design.

I am thrilled with our new quilt and it will include, excluding the backing, 34 different fabrics. You can count 28 fabrics in the sample image. There will be six panels and the final quilt will be somewhere in the vicinity of 84” long and 70” wide.

We are very excited about this quilt and we have progressed along at a very quick rate. Stay tuned.

Enjoy,

Jim
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My Quip - Disappearing Quilt Images

Morning,

animations


I have received written requests and calls that some people are having a problem with the images of the quilts at my blog site. The images that I am referring to are specifically the ones that I have set up in a table or grid at the bottom on my home page.

The issue is that the images in the grid/table appear and then they almost immediately disappear.

I have discovered that this seems to be only an issue at IE - Internet Explorer. It does not appear to happen in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, or Safari.

Believing that this is a IE security function I have performed the following. I am using the latest version of IE 8.07600.16385.

Here are the suggested steps:
  1. Go to "Tools".
  2. Go to "Internet Options".
  3. Go to "Privacy".
  4. Go to "Pop-up Blocker Settings".
  5. Add the "Address of website to allow." - http://quiltsb.blogspot.com
  6. Change "Blocking level:" to "Low: Allow pop-ups from secure sites"
  7. Apply and save.
  8. Exit from IE Browser.
  9. Reopen IE Browser.
I then went back to Quilts SB. Initially the images didn't come up. I then doubled clicked on on an empty space on the Grid. The images came up. It looks like this works.

I rebooted my system and when I opened IE and went to Quilts SB. The Grid images did not exist. I repeated where I doubled clicked on an empty space on the Grid and then the images appeared. I repeated all this on my Notebook and it seems to address the issue as far as I have described.

If any one has any idea on how to set a better fix which will automatically allow for the images in the Grid to appear, please contact me.

Hope this helps?

Enjoy,

Jim
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