I saw this image at a restaurant and surreptitiously took the photo. I thought it looked like a Mariner’s Compass with a twist and kept thinking about how to piece it.
Inspiration Thursday
Author: JayeL
Quiltmaker who enjoys writing and frozen chocolate covered bananas.
Gifts from Friends
The BAMQG Winter Extravaganza-palooza was the weekend of the 9th. I had a great time.
I also got the most amazing gift. Sue S made me a casserole carrier. In the carrier was a casserole dish with a wine cake in it! This is the most amazingly generous gift I could ever imagine. I was shocked (in a good way) and thrilled. It was just what I wanted.
The spoons act as handles and servers. My DH thought this was hilarious, but I am determined to use it sometime soon and show him how fabulous it is.
The carrier opens up and becomes a hotpad. It is perfect.
I also love the red casserole dish. The colors of the carrier and the dish go well in my kitchen.
The best part of the gift was the card that Sue wrote. She said that I was the first person she met in the guild and that I took her around the first time she came to the meeting. I showed her where everything was: the food, the charity project, the free table and introduced her around. I am ashamed to say that I don’t even remember. I do that so often so automatically. I am thrilled that she remembered that kindness. She is a good member of the guild and I am glad I started her off on the right foot.
As a bonus fire victims in the Wine Country also win, because we wrapped all the gifts in pillowcases, which will be donated to an organization that will distribute them to Wine Country fire victims.
Planned Improv Block n.2
I decided to start on a new Planned Improv (from the Sarah Goer class) block to work on in between the gifts and Christmas stuff I had to make. I put the first block on the design wall and started with the same idea.
My first iteration was ok.
As I worked on it, I looked at the balance of shape, size of blocks and color of red.
Some problems I am running into are:
- not enough choices of squares. The solution is that I need to cut more squares in different sizes.
- Impatience. I need to slow down and look at my piece and add squares until I get something good.
- Running out of background options. I don’t mean I don’t have enough squares cut; i mean that I don’t have very much dark grey yardage. I don’t think I really want to buy more, but I also want some variety, so I may need to buy more.
I am sewing my final design together and I am pleased with it. The only thing that I need to worry about are partial seams. There are a lot of them in this block. I am not scared of partial seams and have a tutorial for those of you who haven’t done them, but they make me sigh. I just wasn’t thinking when I decided on the final layout. Oh well.
FOTY 2017 Oh Dear
After photographing the rectangles for yesterday’s post, I took a photo of my almost empty design wall. In doing so, I realized that FOTY 2017 might be another giant unless I did something about the size.
My design wall is 73×46.5 and not big enough, however the FOTY pieces on the wall are 24×36. The pieces shown is just the most recent, small selection of all of the patches I have cut. I am kind of scared at how big this thing could be if I don’t cut some of the patches down. Now I have to figure that out.
Finally FOTY 2017 Again
Now that the En Provence top is finished, I had some design wall space to show the rectangles I have been cutting.
There were quite a few: some from PIQF purchases, some from the Sarah Goer Class, some from gifts that are in process, some are from the pillowcases I made for the YM and friends – a whole variety. I really do enjoy seeing the fabrics and thinking about what I made or what I will make.
En Provence Top: Finished
Nobody died.
I have just been really busy and haven’t taken the time to post. It is that time of year and my evenings have been spent writing Christmas cards.
The En Provence Mystery Quilt top is finished. I finished it last weekend, I think, and I am pleased with the way it turned out.
You can only see part of it as I only had one quilt holder available. I hope to get a better shot before I send it off to its new home.
Various & Sundry 2017 #16
Doing Good
Quilters in Petaluma are seeking blocks 6×6, 9×9 and 12×12 to be made into bed sized quilts. They can be sent to:
Sonoma Strong
C/O NorCal Sew & Vac
909 D Street
San Rafael, CA 94901
The requests I told you about last month are still valid. Check them out at: Various & Sundry 2017 #15
Projects
Tim posted a picture of the pincushion I made for him in use!
I like the Trail Mix pattern, though not the colors, from AllPeopleQuilt.com. I’d like to see it in brighter, fresher colors. I wish they would make a few so people with different tastes can see the variations. It is free, so go download it for use when you have a lot of scraps.
Several clues for Bonnie Hunter’s Holiday Mystery quilt project have already been posted. Part One, all about making 9 patches, came out on Black Friday. Part Two came out recently. In it you make a bunch of Flying Geese. As usual, I am not doing it during the time of the mystery. I may do it later, but I am still working on En Provence, the mystery quilt from last year, so I don’t really see the point of starting a new mystery quilt. I also need to get some of my own projects off my plate.
City Quilter has a good deal on their Grand Central Pillowcase Kit: the kit makes two pillowcases for $28.
Tools, Supplies & Notions
Creative Grids has a full listing of all of its rulers. They suggest printing it and taking it with you when you go ruler shopping. I find this hilarious, but it is an excellent, comprehensive list to keep on your computer.
Techniques
My Self-bordering essay has gotten a lot of traction, about which I am inordinately pleased. Have you read it? What do you think?
I have heard a lot about wall basting. Anything to get me off my knees and the floor. The fabulous Christa Watson has a tutorial. The tutorial includes a link to her free Modern Puzzle quilt pattern,
Donation Block Prep
At the meeting on Saturday, Michelle reported that the guild had donated 175 quilts to various organizations. I can’t tell you how amazing that is. That is about 2 1/3 quilts per member! It is really a great team effort.
After my last post about donation blocks, I had to do some prep to be able to make more. The first thing I did was cut up some charm squares of white. At first, I just cut a few, then on a recent Craft Night, I cut up the entire pack and now have a ton of backgrounds.
I have not yet cut more foreground fabrics. I really want to use the dregs. I know I am not a fan of them, but they are perfectly fine fabrics that need to be used.
I made one more block before the meeting, bringing my total since the last meeting to 21.
I also checked out my bin to see what was still left. I have some plaids that I will put into a block together. I also have those sunset kind of fabrics. I cut many, many squares from them and will have to just suck it up and make a bunch of blocks from them. They will look good together and I might have enough for a whole quilt.
My little bin of donation patches is pretty empty. The top fabric is the sunset fabric. We’ll see what I can make from this weird assortment.
Anchor Quilt
Tim and I worked on the Anchor quilt on Saturday. This is a true group project. Gerre organized it. Christina did the piecing. I appliqued on the anchor and Tim will do the quilting. The last time I talked about this quilt was back in June and it has been languishing. Now we are back on track!
Saturday, he did everything and I just stood there and helped him pin and gave my opinion.
We had to work on the back a little bit. The back was two large pieces and the big area of white was bugging Tim. We talked about different things we could do and finally decided on adding a piece that Christina had started sort of 1/3 of the way down the quilt. I think it broke up the white enough for comfort.
We also looked at quilting ideas. Tim had some ideas in mind and they were good. We found a couple that we thought would reflect the them and he will do the quilting soon.
Gift Post #1 – 2017
One of the reasons I didn’t make more progress on En Provence over the Thanksgiving Weekend was that I needed to make a gift. The BAM Winter Extravaganza Palooza Party and Swap was yesterday. I had decided to participate, but sewing time was short, so I picked a pattern I knew well and devoted a day to it.
Mary C wanted a grocery bag, so I got out the Jane Market Tote pattern and made it using some Carrie Bloomston fabrics that I have had for awhile. Her request was that the bag be made in green. The fabric is green, but tending towards teal/turquoise so I hoped it would be ok. I made an effort to do a really nice job sewing. For once, I paid attention to the top stitching and did all that the pattern suggests.
I sew my straps on differently than the pattern suggests, so I also did some top stitching with a decorative stitch at the top of the bag. I made a note to myself on the pattern to leave a little more of the strap in the seam allowance next time. I hope that the decorative stitching will keep the handles from pulling out.
When I looked at the outside, I was shocked to see some of the amazing piecing. I can’t take much credit, though, because I couldn’t really have lined up the fabric any better, if I had tried. And I didn’t try!
I don’t know how I did it, but was very pleased when I saw the way the joins had come together.
This amazing piecing happened in a couple of places. I knew that Mary would notice eventually so I showed her after she opened the gift and she was pleased. She appreciates stuff like that.
The inside is plain. No pockets. I have to figure out where would be appropriate to add an inside pocket sometime. I didn’t do it for this iteration.
Donation Pillowcase
We are wrapping gifts for today’s party in pillowcases, which will be donated to Wine Country Fire victims. Mine is the opposite of the one I made for Maria, the YM’s roommate.
CQFA December 2017 Meeting
CQFA was last Saturday, as I mentioned in the ATC post, and was held in our new space. Andrea at A Work of Heart is allowing us to use the space on Saturdays when the shop is closed. Marie and Maureen worked really hard to arrange for us to use the space. It is a gorgeous space and I HAVE to look at the calendar and pick out a class to take soon. The artwork in the space really reflects Andrea’s style. It is bright and cheerful and I would want it all in my house.
Some of us exchanged ATCs. We each presented some work and our thoughts about our work of the year. I talked about how few quilts I had made and how they were really complicated and had a lot of piecing. I brought part of En Provence, the scarves I have knitted, my Triple Star blocks and a few other things.
Dolores brought her 3D pieces and also her fabulous galaxy project. The Galaxy has bits of Cherrywood lint needle-felted into the background. There are also little sparkles. This is a wonderful project.
She also brought her 3D cube and we discussed that awhile.
Gladys, a potential new member, brought a book she made. I like the book aspects, but I also really like the botanical drawings (?not sure about this). Every time I go to CQFA, I want to make the book Maureen and I discussed. After seeing this one, I know I have to make it soon.
Sonja showed her fabulous sketchbooks and talked about her new and fancy Brother machine. Diane showed her silk paintings and talked about working smaller. Maureen showed her finished hashtag quilt. We worked on it with her at the October meeting and she was able to move forward after our discussion. The piece is great.
The meeting was great and I enjoyed it.
En Provence Almost the end
I made a lot of progress on the En Provence quilt and it is nearing the conclusion.
I started out Saturday afternoon sewing the two halves of the top together. Then I laid out the quilt to see where I was. It was really great to see almost the whole quilt laid out. I think it looks really great.
After seeing the quilt so close to completion, I was on fire to sew the last 4 rows. I took everything back upstairs and laid on that bottom corner on my design wall. I didn’t have much more time to do that on Saturday and no time to sew.
Laying out the last corner was huge, though. I found I was missing a couple of Peaky & Spike blocks, so I had to cut some fabric to finish those. It was good, though, because I could switch out some of the Peaky & Spike blocks that I hadn’t yet sewn.
After we came back from a NSGW event on Sunday afternoon, I put the pedal to the metal on my sewing machine and sewed 3 rows. I know there are only 3 blocks left in each row, but there is still a lot of piecing. I also have to add the border and that makes some of the blocks larger, thus more time consuming to sew.
I ended up with what I thought was 3 good rows.
Standing back really helps and I found a mistake. I stopped after the mistake block. It was really too late for me to be sewing anyway and I’d already had to rip out two sections of that block.
Except for the two pieces, I am pleased with how this quilt came out. It is not insane like Grand Illusion, but it was complex enough to keep me interested and interesting enough to want to continue to look at it.
I’ll fix it next time….whenever that is.
Mostly Manor Lozenge Quilt
Colleen has been working on the Lozenge quilt on and off for a few weeks. Today she sent me a photo showing that my binding was too short -WAY too short.
duh.
Clearly I have too much on my mind. I knew how big the quilt was. I made the binding what I thought was the right size. Clearly, it wasn’t.
The quilt is coming back to me. I will finish the binding (another thing to add to my to do list) and then I will be able to send it off. From what I can see of the quilting, it looks good.
Even More Donation Blocks
You must be getting sick of my donation block craze. I really do want to add more blocks and quilt tops to my 2017 list, so I made 5 more blocks on Sunday.
I worked on them while I was piecing the last quarter of En Provence. The blocks seemed to fly out of my machine despite the fact that I was really struggling to find backgrounds.
I have been working through my little bin of donation patches since I started on this binge. After 20 blocks, I have few backgrounds and a lot of fabrics that I am tired of using. Still, I was determined not to cut more backgrounds until I absolutely had to. I decided, after I made the Cal block (blue and yellow) that I needed to see if I had some charm packs.
The blue and yellow block as well as some of the others will be difficult to use with the standard blocks others make. There is some thing about using up as much as you can before you have to cut more background.
Eventually, I went to my tote of charm packs and found two of white fabric. I started cutting up one of them, so my next batch of donation blocks will be pretty standard.