I was pleased to see my color round robin in use in Austria.
It is being used as a rug, but I am told it is used as a road for cars and a hospital for dolls as well. I love it when my quilts are well used.
BAM Color Round Robin in the Wild
Tag: BAMQG
BAM Retreat My Projects
This will be a multi-part post on the recent Retreat I attended. I have to split it up, because I don’t have enough time to write a big long post right now.
I had a couple of specific goals in mind. I wanted to finish a Mother’s Day gift and I wanted to finish some gifts I am taking to my work colleagues later this week. Then, if time permitted, I planned to start a new quilt.
First, I was able to finish the Mother’s Day gift. It is small and you’ll have to read the post on May 14th to see what it is.
Second I finished the three I Spy pouches I started. I had some of the fabric cut, but not all. I cut the cork, yes cork, at the Retreat and sewed the pouches together. I cut quite a number of strips wrong, so will have to make some pouches out of odd sized strips.
In between, the top two projects, I worked on donation blocks. You saw some of these in the post a few days ago about donation blocks for April. I don’t think I mentioned that I used kits the guild team had prepared. The squares frayed a lot and made me quite crazy.
After these, except the donation blocks, were finished, I started a new quilt. I had a fabric pull from a couple of years ago that I wanted to use. I had some options and finally decided on a plan. This quilt is from the American Patchwork and Quilting Sew-a-Long. It is designed by Lissa Alexander. Because I seem to be incapable of following directions as written, I resized the EQ8 project to include 12 inch blocks rather than 6 inch blocks. The straight nine patches are quite large, but they provide some space for viewers to rest their eyes. Also, the small squares in some of the blocks above are much easier to sew when the entire block is 12 inches finished.
I missed the Sew-a-Long, which started in February, but this project is super easy. The pieces are, mostly, standard sizes and easy to cut. I think even beginners looking for a second or third project could do it.
One of the things I wanted to do to start was to use all the fabrics I selected to see how they worked together. I didn’t quite succeed, but I was able to use a lot of them. So far, so good.
April 2023 Donation Blocks
I only have a few blocks this month as I was working, mostly on the newest Spiky 16 Patch. However, I got a little boost by attending the retreat and using the materials available for leaders and enders. I tried to choose fabrics that went together so the Community Quilt people could make a kit, but I was only able to finish 5. Maybe someone will start on a Spiky 16 patch.
BAM Retreat Location
My guild went on retreat over the weekend. It was held at a somewhat revamped Franciscan monastery. I say somewhat because the building with the sewing room was new, modern, spacious and nice. The building with the sleeping rooms was old. The rooms were small, the furniture clean and well maintained, but a mishmash and the bathrooms were super tiny.
The rain for the past 3-4 months has been difficult for a lot of people, but the result now that it has stopped is amazing.
SIL #2 told me this was a Redbud. I really enjoy these flowering trees. It was great to see this gorgeous tree whenever I walked to the ironing board.
Out another window, by Alison‘s workstation, was a field of purple and yellow flowers. I think lupin was one of them. I am sure if you check Friend Julie’s blog she will be able to tell you exactly what all the plants were.
The workroom was really nice. It was very modern and there were plenty of outlets and large tables. In this view, you can see Julie’s workstation in the front and the bulk of the other workstations towards the back.
You can see how many large windows there are. I had no problem seeing even late in the evening.
I felt like my workstation was large enough. You can see all the tools and supplies I brought. You also get a peek of the Ultimate Carry All Bag I made and ended up giving to Julie. I like sitting next to her. We kept borrowing supplies and tools from each other so it worked out pretty well.
All in all it was a great retreat. I got enough done – more on projects later – and got some time off from life. The Retreat was really well organized and had the right amount of activities.
Amethyst Bag Winner
Short post as I just got back from the Retreat. We had a great time. More later on that!
Alison, the Retreat Chairperson, won the Amethyst Project bag, which I thought was fitting.
She and her committee did a great job on the Retreat. I kind of wish it was a day longer, but I got plenty done. Not enough, but plenty
Rainbow Strip #2 Donation Top Started
I started, sort of, the next Rainbow Strip donation top. I finished the first one in September of last year. Mostly what this means is that when I am delving into a scrap bin and come up with strips, I make a Color Strip block from it.
Recently I have been making blue strip blocks and I have a lot of them. I think I will have to make a blue Color Strip donation top.
I don’t know if I will use all of these since 6 is a lot of any one color. We’ll see.
This group adds to the yellow, green, grey and pink blocks I already have.
Finished: Pink Strip Donation Top
Hooray! I finished the Pink Strip donation top and back. It is a serious pink explosion. It is very fun, though and I do like it.
It looks like Alison might quilt it then donate to an organization in her area. I am thrilled that she has taken an interest. We’ll see.
I used up some pink on the back as well. It didn’t make a dent in my collection of pink, of course, but every little bit helps.
On to a Spiky 16 patch.
Amethyst Bag – More Progress
I have made good progress on this bag and am in the last stages of putting it together. I am amazed since I really didn’t think I would have time to work on it when I last talked about it.
First, this ‘fussy cutting’ came out pretty well. I didn’t really fussy cut it, I just took the opportunity to put it together in a way that looked like I had fussy cut. It’s a happy accident.
You can also see how this bag is starting to shape up. I have the front cover and inside pocket assembled and the gusset installed.
So far, the bag goes together in a fairly straightforward manner. The prep of all the various parts is making the assembly go relatively quickly.
I know this should come as no surprise, but I am always surprised. Perhaps I have come to terms with making handles and sewing bits and bobs together before the actual bag assembly? Who knows.
In this photo, you can really see the dimension of the bag. The picture shows the exterior top and the exterior gusset. The top is pushed down and not the way it will end up when finished. It was like that for top stitching.
The elastic I bought that came the other day looks really good with the Tula fabric.
I used a blue zipper instead of green, because I only had one 40″ zipper and that was it. I think it looks pretty good, though a green would have been better.
The other side of the piece in the photo (right, above) looks better than I expected. It is the inside front cover. I thought it would be a bit wonky, but it isn’t. Hooray!
The vinyl isn’t difficult to work with, but it does add layers. Thickness can be difficult to work with.
I put in a new needle and held my breath. Everything was fine.
I am waiting on a parachute buckle to finish. I didn’t want to use a black one, so I got one off Etsy and I think it is coming from Siberia or somewhere. That wasn’t my intention, but sometimes I miss the location from where things ship. 🙁
Another Blue Spiky 16 Patch
I wanted to try the HuRTy, so I grabbed some scraps and started working on another Spiky 16 Patch.
I I have to admit that I mostly ended up using my Split Rects ruler. The HuRTy isn’t bad; I just haven’t gotten the hang of it yet.
I got inspired, partially, because of the blocks with the solid fabrics and the dots. They look really good and I decided I wanted to make something good with them.
Will this be good? I hope so, but if it isn’t great, I know someone will like it.
My current problem is that I am running out of background. I am not running out of ALL backgrounds – just the particular background I chose for this project. I’ll have to select something else to use to finish the quilt. I have time.
Amethyst Bag in Process
A long time ago, I promised Alison a bag to give away as a prize at the retreat. I thought I would finish the Brocade Peony Ultimate Carry All Bag and give that to her, but I ended up not doing that.
Finally, I decided to make an Amethyst Project Bag. This is a bag you can put pieces of a project into and keep them all together. It isn’t huge, so you can’t put yards and yards of fabric in there, but templates, most rulers and cut pieces would fit very well.
It is not a Minikins project, but it is a Sew Sweetness pattern.
This is one of the projects I talked about cutting out at Sew Day. It is pretty amazing, to me, at least, that a project can move from a pile of cut pieces to something that is starting to look like a bag in a few hours.
I haven’t finished. In fact, I have only made a start. I hope that I will have enough time to finish it before the retreat. Yes, I waited until the last minute, but I have had deadline after deadline I have been trying to meet. I know they are self imposed deadlines, but they are still deadlines for bags I wanted to give as gifts.
The bag is not exactly square. It is 14.5 x 13.5 x 3.5 (depth). I could only orient those giant peonies in two ways. I chose the other main panel for the top because one of the peonies was close to the center.
I wanted to make a bag that would be appealing to the guild members. I hope this Tula Pink fabric appeals to many of them. I had planned to put some piping around the edge, but decided I needed to make one first before I started really messing around with the design.
Speaking of messing around with the design, I did make this inside front pocket instead of the short mesh pocket and the two pouches called for in the pattern. I like to see what is in my pockets. I am not sure this came out 100% perfectly, but I think it will work. I used the directions for the pages from the A Place for Everything v.2 bag as guidelines for this pocket.
I normally like to make the bag at least once first, but I don’t have the time.
A Little Sew Day
It took two of us to be Mary at Sew Day. She was out of town and we had to fill in. Good thing I have done it a few times otherwise I would have been lost.
Of course, I spent the time cutting out the pieces for bags. I am making the Amethyst Project Bag by Sew Sweetness and the Kit Supply Tote by Aneela Hoey. I cut out all of the pieces for both so I can start sewing.
Sara from the Social Justice Sewing Academy was there with more blocks to make into a quilt. Members of the guild had done the embellishment on a lot of the blocks. It was really a group effort.
The first part was deciding how the blocks would go together. They usually go together in a 4 x 6 grid with sashing, which is what happened this time. Still the blocks have to be placed in the right location. In this case, there were some strong designs that had to be dispersed.
As usual, I didn’t participate. I kept an ear open and chatted with Sara and the others who were working on the project. I brought the Pink Strip Donation quilt, so I felt like I had been doing good. I also brought several donation blocks. I am doing my part.
I found out that the quilts are given to schools and libraries where they are displayed. I think they are given to the places where the artists come from. What I mean is that if an event was held at a school, then the quilt goes back to that school for display. A good idea, I think.
The fabric used for sashing had an interesting texture, but it was difficult to use and shredded easily. Still, the sashing strips they made look really nice.
You know I am not a fan of beige and brown, but these strips are very appealing.
They didn’t have time to finish putting the quilt together, though several people worked really hard for most of the day. I am not sure what happens if the quilt isn’t finished. Maybe some others will finish it?
Julie has a great post with more information about the SJSA quilt.
I also saw Melinda’s finished block – or the block that Melinda embellished. It looks really great! It also got a great position in the quilt.
She added some gold metallic thread around the hands. She also added the stars and the words. It looks really good! The design is also very appealing.
Joelle brought the thin strips quilt as well. She did a FANTASTIC job! The quilt is wonderful. I looked for mine and thought she hadn’t included them, but I saw them scattered across the bottom of the quilt. See the one in the bottom right hand corner?
Sara saw this quilt and wants to incorporate the idea into the sashing of the next SJSA quilt. Interesting idea! I am so thrilled when synergies like this happen.
March Donation Blocks
I was really pleased to see a bunch of quilts that Peggy made for donations at the meeting the other day. She called them her “Jaye collection”, which I thought was very kind. I was confused until she talked about how she made them out of bits and pieces I sent to her. I sent her a couple of stacks of HSTs during the pandemic as well as many 16 patch blocks and she turned all of them into great quilts.
I made a bunch of donation blocks this month. Some are 16 patches and some are the pink strip blocks. As a result I am feeling better about my contributions to the guild.
Pink Strips Together
I moved all the blocks to my larger design wall after Who Am I? went into the ‘to be quilted’ bag. While I was little lazy about walking across the room to use the donation blocks for leaders and enders, I finally put the quilt top together and put the borders on.
I got inspiration from the Red Strip donation top I made a few years ago. I really liked the cornerstones and the way the white sashing separated the blocks so viewers could see each one distinctly.
This one is larger than the Red version. I did end up adding a column to the quilt, but I still think it is a weird shape. I didn’t do any of the ratio math I suggest my students do to make their quilts the right shape. I plan to put more borders on, so maybe I will make the vertical borders a little wider than the top and bottom borders.
So far so good and I am on track to bring it to Sew Day or the next meeting.
More Pink Strips
I am making good progress on the Pink Strip Donation top. It is VERY pink. I am enjoying working on it. It doesn’t feel like a must do project. I do want to get it done, however the pink is so cheerful that it is a joy to work on. This one will definitely not be gender neutral.
I did a big clean out and organization of the scraps in my pink bin, which was required to finish enough blocks to make a reasonable sized quilt. It looks a little skinny, so I am debating adding another row.
Finished: 2-in-1 Case #2
I finished the second 2-in-1 Case pretty quickly and this one looks good enough to give as a door prize. The first one was a good learning experience.
Yes, I am using a lot of that coneflower fabric lately. I like it despite the brown in the print. I am not sure what is so appealing about it to me.
This time, you can see that I was much more careful and attentive to the closure. I thought about using one with a pointy tip, but decided against it in the end. There is a pattern for a project with the pointy tip closure in the book**, but I thought I would try it a different time. I was on a bit of a deadline and didn’t want to mix up the process until I had gotten it right.
I used the same interior fabric, as mentioned. I thought it looked nice and it was on my cutting table, so why not?
I used longer zippers this time, as I said I would. I know I said I might use even longer zipper next time. I don’t think the project needs the zipper stop. also, I like to being able to get the zipper head as close as possible to the binding. I think it looks better.
As before, I used some foam to give it a little more heft. I wonder if that makes the pouch less useful? I wonder if the recipient can put in fewer items, because the pouch has more structure?
I am pleased with the binding. I think less contrast looks better.
So, another project finished and this one has been sent off to Carrie for the door prize assembly for the guild.