After seeing one of the donation quilts quilted by Lee Ann last month (? or maybe the month before?), I decided to make another of the Plus quilts with a charm pack I have had for a long time.
The piecing is done with a charm pack from American Jane. I am working through charm packs I don’t think I will use in other work.
I like American Jane, but the colors are just dull enough that they don’t go with other fabrics I use. This charm pack has been hanging around my workroom for too long. It is time for it to go.
Because it is a charm pack and I am not using a pattern, I am missing 3 5inch squares needed for one more 9 patch. The sticking point for moving on with this quilt is finding fabrics that will do with the others so I can finish the last 9 patch.
My goal for this weekend is to find 3 charms (or 5inch squares) that won’t look out of place with the other fabrics. I am sure I have a red I can use, and probably a cream, but will have to look for a third fabric.
I took some time to choose fabric for my Mom’s piece and was able to finish on Saturday. It is ready to hand in for quilting.
The batik is not an obvious choice, but I think it works. I chose it because of the bits of gold included in the surface. I also didn’t want an exact match to any of the other fabrics because they would blend into the border.
Purple & Gold Donation Back
That particular batik, and its sister on the back, have been hanging around my fabric closet for a long time. It was time to use them up.
I don’t get a lot of fabric usage bang for my work, because the main part of the quilt was Mom’s fabric and work. Still, every little bit helps and the point is to make something beautiful so someone knows I (or someone) cares.
Remember when I talked about Sew Day? I mentioned a future donation quilt (no progress yet). I talked about some Sew Day Improv I worked on with Tim and Mary to create a quilt that would keep someone warm and comfy. I also talked about basting La Pass Month 10. What I didn’t talk about -yet- was Amy’s amazing rainbow quilt.
The first thing I saw was the line of strip stacks laid out on two long tables.
Rainbow – first draft
As the day progressed, I began to see the piece take shape. Amy struggled with not having a complete set of colors/shades/tones to make a smooth transition between colors. She was determined to make it work. I could sympathize after working with the various Fabric of the Year quilts. Unlike painting, generally we work with certain fabric prints and can’t alter them (yes, I know there is fabric painting and dyeing, but you know what I mean) like painters can on the fly.
Amy’s Rainbow – 2d draft
The piece progressed well, I think. There was a lot of moving around of strips and a lot of people got involved.
Amy wasn’t super picky that everything flowed into one another. I think the rest of us were more invested in the outcome than she was.
Amy is cleaning out her workroom and I think this was a set of Allison Glass strips she wanted to use. I didn’t hear what her plans were for the final piece.
Amy’s Rainbow – near final
I did not get a picture of the final piece. This is close, though, to the final layout.
Maria helped Amy sew, so the piece could get finished by the end of Sew Day.
In the course of looking at the other pieces, we decided that we (meaning me) would put a border on this one and call it done. The pieced rows that are not joined to the larger piece will not be used for this quilt. There is something wonky about the piecing and we will repurpose them in the yellow and blue piece I talked about yesterday.
The hardest part will be deciding which fabric I should use for the border.
At the last Sew Day Mary and I decided we would make another donation quilt in an hour. Neither of us brought a sewing machine, so we just played around with some blocks and shards that Mom donated.
Mom is clearing out stuff she doesn’t want and quilt projects she won’t finished.
Mom’s donation blocks-2
These are not really my style and they are all odd sizes, but we can make them fit together in some way.
We started out by just putting them on the design wall and looking at them. Tim stopped by Sew Day and helped us play around with them. Three brains are definitely better than one.
We got rid of one block that was the same pattern, but just much busier than the others (bottom center block). It didn’t really go. The butterfly was not sewn by my Mom and that one was out, too. I really wanted to put all the blocks in so there were none left, but that isn’t always possible.
Mom’s donation blocks-3
We tried spreading out the blocks and imagining other fabrics or blocks in between.
I think it is harder to imagine what could between blocks when you don’t have any extra fabric with which to work. When we did the Improve charity tops, Maria and Cyndi both brought big bins of solids we could use.
Still, we thought we had a good selection of blocks and some possibilities.
Mom’s donation blocks-4
We automatically put the largest block in the center, but started talking about not having it in the center. What could we do if we put it somewhere else in the top?
Moving the largest block down and the Ying/Yang blocks (those with the crazy circle fabric prominently placed) to the center made the piece a weird shape, but we liked the location of the blocks better. We will probably cut off the yellow square on the bottom and use the yellow in some other location. We finally started to feel like we were getting somewhere.
Part of the issue is that none of use these types of fabrics. My Mom has a unique fabric selection style that people love and is hard to imitate.
Mom’s donation blocks-6
We finally ended up adding some of the leftover purple and lilac squares from the Celestial Squares quilt to bring out the purples in the batik. Those fabrics are unconventional choices, but I think they work.
We have plans to sew it together next time, but we will see.
I know its May, but I didn’t have a chance to post the donation blocks for April yet. I didn’t have a lot of time to sew donation blocks this month, but my commitment is still to the guild’s community quilt project.
As mentioned the other day, I missed the March Guild meeting, but Joelle’s kindness and effort in posting the show and tell PDF allowed me to find a few quilt tops I made that were finished. I mentioned the 16 Patch Plus quilt the other day. I also saw that Joelle quilted the Charming Donation Quilt. It shows up in my 2020 donation quilts and blocks post as well.
I feel so happy when I see the finished quilts which were my tops and backs. Thanks to Joelle for quilting it! She used really intricate and interesting quilting motifs.
I missed the March Guild meeting, but Joelle was kind enough to post the PDF of show and tell. There I found a finished donation top I made in 2020, the 16 patch Plus quilt. It shows up in my 2020 donation quilts and blocks post as well.
I feel so happy when I see the finished quilts which were my tops and backs. Thanks to Lee Ann for quilting it!
Mary and I did finish the top at Sew Day. I brought it home to make a back and will be handing it in today at the meeting.
I am pleased with how this came out. The ugly bits we started with turned into a really great quilt. It isn’t made from the colors I would normally use, but I am pleased with the result.
I am also pleased with how many of the orphan blocks and chunks we were able to use up overall during Sew Day. Sadly, none of the shards I brought were used. There is always next time.
Mary wants to do another with me next time, which I think will be great fun.
Cathy went straight to work almost as soon as we arrived. She brought some of her Pointillist Palette chunks to work with.
I keep looking at this one and seeing different things.
It is great to see other people’s work in the quilts. Two of my donation blocks were included. Cathy also used Joelle’s word chunk from a previous swap.
I finished cutting out the Friesan pouch at Sew Day and had an hour until it was over. I could have left, but instead Mary C and I decided to work together to make another donation quilt top in an hour. It was a charity Sew Day after all and both of us had been working on our own projects.
Sew Day Donation Top start
We used some fabric from one of the first retreats that had been sewn together into a block of rectangles. It was not very attractive.
The first thing we did was to cut it in half and they cut the halves on the diagonal so we could insert some strips and break up the parts that were unattractive.
Sew Day Donation top 1st steps
Mary C had some strips and strips sets leftover from a quilt she had just finished that we ransacked to make the improvements.
I selected some grey from the abundance of solids that Peggy has and we used that color to fill in other places.
Adding the seafoam green strips REALLY helped that rectangle go from unattractive to attractive. The addition also lightened up the piece.
To make the two halves large enough, we added the strip set and sewed the pieces together.
Green ‘bird’ block
Brown ‘bird’ block
We decided we wanted to use the ‘bird’ blocks as well. They were mostly made from the same fabrics, so they fit in well. I had to build up the green block, which was not nearly square.
Brown ‘bird’ chunk
Mary sewed the brown bird into a large-ish chunk with the intention of putting on the bottom of the piece. I thought it came out well.
Green bird block built-up
While she did that, I built up the green bird block into a shape we could use. The green strip along the bottom allows that darker green and orange section to float a bit which was a happy accident.
Sew Day Donation Top in process
Eventually we ended up with several large chunks. We wanted to add those half circle pieces, which took a bit of time to work out.
In this endeavor, Mary did the sewing and some ironing while I trimmed, pressed, matched fabrics, cut strips and brought her stuff to sew. We had to make little bits to allow us to fit the chunks together. There is a freedom in this kind of improv quilt. I happily hacked off pieces of the blocks and chunks to make them fit.
We had a charity Sew Day on 4/2. Often Peggy will provide a pattern, but this time the activity centered around orphan blocks and chunks.
April 2022 Sew Day Design Wall
Maria had been collecting orphan blocks and chunks for awhile. The first thing she did when she arrived was start pinning them to the design wall.
Maria put up a random assortment of blocks and chunks and people took what they wanted and worked on donation tops.
As mentioned, I didn’t really want to do the activity, but others got right into it. Since I made the Missouri Star donation top and brought it, I didn’t feel guilty about it. Nobody said anything to me either.
Sew Day Donation Top in process
After I finished cutting out the Friesan Pouch, I ended up working on a quilt with Mary C and found that it was a fun activity. I prefer to do these types of quilts with someone else.
I finished the Missouri Star donation top and back on Friday night before Sew Day last week. I wanted to make sure I could give it to Peggy and I just didn’t have time to work on it during the week, even though I thought I would.
Adding the top and back to my Fabric Usage Report put me slightly back into the black, which makes me happy.
Missouri Star donation quilt back
I am pretty pleased with how it came out. Making a top like this was a good use of that block.
The fabrics I used for the back have been around for a long time. The middle piece is a Moda and I never cut into it. I was thinking that I would use it for something, but since I hadn’t up until now, I went ahead and used it for the back. There’s always more fabric, right?
