Somehow I didn’t get to working on any of my other projects on Sunday. I did do some random sewing as well as tidying up. My cutting table was a wreck. It was getting to the point where I had about six square inches in which to cut. Very difficult, I assure you. I started chopping up the scraps that were making the mess into pieces for future use.
Stars #3 Donation Top
One task I did accomplish was finish the third Stars donation top on Sunday.The BAM meeting is next Saturday and I wanted to get that done, so I was pleased. I had been rummaging around in my fabric the day before and was reminded how much backing fabric I have one hand. I made a back from some of the fabric even though it made the quilt more girly than boyish. It was quicker to use a large piece than to piece a bunch of smaller pieces together.
I am pleased with the asymmetrical layout of the top. It isn’t quite ideal, but it is much more interesting than the first version of this design. I don’t know that I will make more of these blocks right at the moment. I have some blue and white 16 patches that have been hanging around waiting for their turn on the design wall that I think I will work on next for a donation quilt. We’ll see.
I went back and forth on what to bring to Sew Day. I thought for sure I would bring my machine. We are having a heat wave, which means record temperatures. I was hot and not really in the mood to be dragging a ton of stuff around, so in the end, I just brought projects to prep/cut out.
Sew Day Prep Completed
This focus was a good move. I was able to cut out or prepare 5.25 projects, which means it is time to sew again – HA! Not that it is ever time NOT to sew:
Finished trimming Dots & Stripes HSTs
Prepped En Provence HSTs
Cut out Napkin fronts
Cut out gift bags
Cut out 2 more Little Cell Phone Wallet bag parts
Started prepping more Sew Together Bags
Sew Day Projects
I found another stash of HSTs that go with the Dots & Stripes HSTs I mentioned last week. They will make the piece larger, which is always good. I trimmed the last few I didn’t have time to trim at Craft Night and trimmed this new stash. Some progress.
I had cut the squares for the En Provence HSTs on Friday night, so I had sixteen less things (fabrics) to haul to sew day. I pinned the squares together and drew the lines in preparation for sewing using my Triangle Technique at home.
I grabbed the coffee fabric, which had been hanging around for awhile. I always intended it to be napkins, but I get tired of making them after a few. I had never gotten to cutting this fabric. I did on Saturday and yesterday I had an idea of what backing to use and who they will go to as a gift. I need to get to work.
It is hard to know whether to count cutting out gift bags as one project or one per fabric. I counted using a hybrid method. There were three different fabrics and I will end up with probably 7 bags total.
I also found the fabrics for my last two cell phone wallets. Now all of the pieces out of all the fabrics are cut. I need to start sewing, because I really miss not having the matching bags when I wear my tunics and dresses.
Finally, I started three more Sew Together Bags. One will be for me. I will use it for embroidery. The other two will be gifts. I only got one step of pieces cut, but it is a start. After making three at a time last winter, I think it takes almost the same amount of time to make three at once as it does to make one at a time. As you know the cutting of the pieces is the worst part. The weird thing is that the fabrics I want to use for the exterior have disappeared. I can’t move on to sewing until I find those.
Anna and Nicole, who I had never met came and showed off their projects. Anna is making a table runner with a Lone Star block in the center. She is using nice soft colors. Nicole is hand quilting a beautiful log cabin quilt made from a lovely combination of blues and greens. The fabrics looked like batiks, but I didn’t look that closely.
Mary had surgery on her elbow so mostly chatted with me, but did a little bit of handstitching. She also met with the Retreat committee.
Bonnie was making nametags for the Retreat with help from Nancy.
Marti was making round mug rugs. I have been thinking of making a couple of mug rugs for the Puzzle Guys at work, so she inspired me.
Lynette was working on zipper pouches she will donate to a holiday boutique to raise money for the Belmont Senior Center.
Others were there as well. We tried to keep cool and had some fans to help. It was a fun day and I am glad I went. I feel like I accomplished stuff.
If you want the full, official minutes of the meeting, check the BAMaQG blog. This will just be some impressions of things I liked or inspired me.
Informal Pedicure Challenge
Three of us were chatting and admiring each other’s pedicures. I took a picture and posted a photo/joke up on IG about the latest BAM challenge. I wasn’t 100% joking though I don’t know if I have time to make something. We’ll see what people say.
I was invited to do a trunk show next month. Gerre had spoken to me about it several months ago and I had completely forgotten, so I was a little stunned when she announced it. Of course, I am extremely flattered. Since the meeting, I have been thinking about which quilts to bring. I can’t bring them all, because I don’t have them all. Also, there are too many even of the ones I still own. I am going to focus on my older quilts. I haven’t, for the most part, showed them at guild and I think they will be the most interesting. In preparation for this exercise, I am preparing some Throwback Thursday posts. Look for those.
Gerre is starting to talk about projects that can be made out of all of our merit hexies. She has started to collect ideas on a Pinterest board and there are some fun ones there. I am not sure what I will make. I don’t want to sew them all together like a Grandmother’s Flower Garden. I have enough EPP with the Half Hexie Star project.
BAMaQG Charity Monkey Wrench Blocks
The Charity Girls have some interesting blocks. I have never really been interested in the Monkey Wrench block. Of course, all blocks have beauty in their own way blah blah blah.
I think I must have missed the call for these blocks. I saw them laying on the table as I was wandering around and found them to be the most exciting Monkey Wrench blocks I have ever seen. I particularly liked the top one. I took pictures of it in detail in case I want to make some like it – for the charity project, of course.
Monkey Wrench – charity
I think all of the MW blocks use fabric cleverly and that makes them much more interesting than just using two colors/fabrics. My favorite is particularly interesting, not just because of the fabric, but also because of the reversal of foreground and background. I am not an eye researcher so I don’t know the particulars of how the eye sends information to the brain, but I think that I was looking at it more. My eye was moving around the block more because of the foreground/background switch. My brain was trying to make sense of the information the eye was sending to it. I am VERY tempted to try making a few of these.
August 2017: Charity Quilts Available to Quilt
The Charity Girls still have a lot of quilts available to quilt. This makes me nervous because I always bring quilt tops. I barely quilt for myself and quilting for charity might send me over the edge. I was pleased that someone had taken the Stars #2 Quilt right away to quilt. Another thing I don’t have to worry about.
Most of my info seems to be about Charity. There is a lot of interesting work going on with Charity right now. A lot of people stayed until the bitter end, but not a lot of people sewed. There wasn’t a lot I could photograph, as a result.
Reminds me of Renewed Jelly Roll Race Quilt
The last Charity effort I saw reminded me of my Renewed Jelly Roll Race Quilt. The colors in the fabrics are little bit dustier than my quilt, but this is still a very cheerful and attractive quilt.
It was a great meeting, as usual. The Board is doing a great job.
After hearing Karen talk about her quilt, I decided that I would do more of a strip piece for Amy, so she would have some pieces she could use to connect other pieces. I tried to keep the pieces long and thin-ish.
Amy’s Color My Quilt piece in process
Partway through the process, as I mentioned, I took out the piece and took a look at it.
I was trying very hard to adhere to the spirit of the words, but color balance kept creeping in to my work. In the case of color balance, left, of the in process piece, I thought it needed more blue towards the top.
After working through all of my thoughts and feelings, I am pleased with the way this came out. I worked on it over the course of several weeks in between other things until I ran out of time. I also focused on the placement of the color rather than the width of the strips, etc. I did try to keep the strips from getting to wide, though I really wanted it to be long, so some are quite wide.
Amy’s Color My Quilt piece
I wanted to make it about a foot longer, but ran out of time. I am pleased and hope Amy will be, too.
Rhonda brought my BAMQG Round Robin back to me when we met at the CQFA meeting. I had to hunt around the blog for which challenge it came as I couldn’t remember. I also wanted to see the changes. I remembered that Kathleen worked on it and Kelly had it, but I couldn’t remember anything else about it. 🙁 Kelly had it for a long time and since she is much more into quilting than piecing, I wasn’t surprised to see no changes.
BAMaQG Round Robin
I remember Kathleen and I talking about ways to make the piece more horizontal as it started out very vertical. As it is now, it is very traditional in layout. It is turning into a medallion quilt, which I don’t find that interesting.
Round Robin detail
The piecing is really good. I have asked for some other volunteers to work on the piece. We’ll see if anyone volunteers. If not, I will finish it and give it to a kid I know, I think. I don’t think I am really interested in working on it anymore.
I needed a break from quilting to do some piecing.
I had the Star blocks on the wall and had figured out how I wanted to put them together. I also wanted to get them done since the guild meeting is coming up and I’d like to having something to turn in. Since my design wall is overrun those blocks seemed to be the most logical project.
Stars #2 top
I put the blocks together in, basically, the arrangement I showed in the previous post.
I didn’t put the blocks together completely. I omitted some of the corner blocks in order to make the arrangement a little off balance. Some of the blocks share corner blocks. I think this adds movement to the quilt.
I think this quilt really shows what can happen if you keep the blocks on the design wall for awhile and look at them.
I have four more of these blocks and will make another quilt in a similar, but slightly different arrangement. I am not quite done playing with the arrangement.
I made a back for Stars #2 as well and will give both to the guild at the next meeting.
I wrote about the Tula quilt we were making for our friend Kelly who was moving to Scotland. We got together a few weeks ago to present the quilt. We had breakfast, chatted and made Kelly cry.
Kelly’s Good-bye quilt 2017
Rhonda hosted the party and did the most work on finishing the quilt. Amanda and Gerre did the amazing job with the letters on the borders. Some of those pieces are tiny!
The rest of us made 2 blocks or the equivalent and did some of the quilting. The whole process was pretty fun and went smoothly.
I decided that I would start work on Amy’s Color My Quilt piece right away. I used it as leaders and enders while I sewed fabric pieces that didn’t require a 1/4″ foot. It was a good plan as I have made enough progress to hand it in today even if I do nothing else.
Don’t get the idea that I was doing a shoddy job. I was eyeballing a seam allowance rather than using the 1/4″ foot guide so I could make progress, but not being shoddy. If anything most of the seam allowances are larger than 1/4″.
Of course, I want to do more. I think it needs more blue. If I don’t do anymore, I’ll be happy and not embarrassed to give what I have to Amy.
The BAMQG meeting was….sometime in the recent past. I have a lot going on and can’t quite remember.
Karen M. Color My Quilt
Anyway, one fabulous thing that happened was that Karen M brought her finished ‘Color My Quilt’ piece. I thought it looked fabulous. She talked quite a bit about how she put it together and where she added strips and bits and pieces.
Keeping the colors in the same family with a bit of spark really made this quilt come together.
Karen was asked to do a workshop on teaching people to put their own pieces together. She may do a hands on tutorial at the next meeting.
The Color My Quilt project reared it’s lovely head again and I got busy making something for Michelle. My goal was to use my scraps, though I was determined not to skimp and paw through the fabric closet if there were no appropriate scraps.
One of Michelle’s words was shiny and I found some fabric that had a lot of shine, so I grabbed that. I also found some perfect purples. I was embroiled very hard in another project and this little piece allowed me to play a bit.
This project makes me feel like I am beating a dead horse.
Finalizing Stars #2 Design
I kept making Flying Geese to turn the 16 patches into stars and putting them up sort of higgeldy piggeldy on the design wall. Suddenly, I saw I design that was better than the straight set I had been planning.
I am not sure about the fifth block. If I keep it, where will it go? If I chuck it out, will there be too much white space? The white space will be background fabric – plain white.
I am slowly working on the Stars donation quilt. I have a few full stars made and am working on the others.
I am working on these as a leaders and enders project in between another project. The other project has a lot of applique’ so I don’t always get to piece the stars. Still, the stars are appearing.
Stars Donation Quilt #2 – in process
Due to the fact that I still have not set my large design wall back up, I am using an inadequately sized design wall. This means that pieces get overlapped and crammed together, which can be annoying, but can also be inspiring.
I was determined to do a 9 block baby / small child quilt for donation. Upon seeing the stars partially made and crammed together, it occurs to me that there are other design options. I think I will make more of a free form layout rather than a straight set. It will be more interesting and have a bit more negative space for someone to express their quilting artistry.
I have been able to come up with a few donation blocks, despite the many leaders and enders opportunities.
I am particularly fond of the block in the upper left hand corner. Something about the combination of bright blue, turquoise and pink is very appealing.
I liked the previous Star Donation top so much that I decided to make another one. As I have mentioned, I have a lot of leaders and enders opportunities, so I am not making as much progress on donation tops and blocks right at the moment. Still, slow progress is better than no progress.
Sawtooth Stars to be – Donation Blocks
At the moment, I have the blocks done. I will make Flying Geese to add to make them into Sawtooth Stars.
Not all of the blocks have black background patches, but I did try to keep the background patches dark so as to continue to explore that look.
I also decided to make this one larger – 9 blocks instead of 4. Still, looking at it makes me think I could make two donation tops with these blocks for the NICU, if I wanted to make them smaller. I will see what I think when I finish making the blocks into stars.
As I implied yesterday, I was part of a group making the Tula quilt. The group, I think, really struggled with what blocks to make. I don’t think people were reluctant to make the blocks. I think we were just having a hard time getting inspired. If there had been a theme, like stars or Flying Geese or something, it might have been easier. Still we all came through with flying colors! There was some cohesion in the blocks that were contributed, which was fabulous. Of course, the Tula fabric help make them all hang together.
Jaime’s block for Kelly
Gerre’s block for Kelly
Rhonda’s block for Kelly n.1
Rhonda’s block for Kelly n.2
Cheryl’s block for Kelly
Ruth’s block for Kelly
Jaye’s Deer Face Improv Log Cabin for Kelly
Both Tula Blocks
Angela’s Blocks for Kelly
Amanda and Gerre worked on the layout, but I think the block makers feeding off of each other made it easier. The large Flying Geese type panels can certainly bookend any other layout. Cheryl’s castle is a great center.
