BAMQG – Page 57 – Artquiltmaker Blog

Round Robin

I didn’t know what category to put this post in, so I hope it works for those of you who are category-crazed.

The last time I really thought about this piece was back in June and I really wasn’t thinking about this particular piece, but the Round Robin in general and my piece specifically.

Where did you say July went?

I haven’t been to a BAM meeting in forever, sadly, but Kelly has been a great sherpa for me. Yesterday, I sent off my round robin work along with some cat beds and she will, once again, kindly, sherpa them to the meeting this Saturday. Someday I will see the BAMQGers again.

I wasn’t able to finish the orange and grey donation quilt yet. I didn’t really work on it last weekend. I’ll get back to that as soon as I pick out a blue for the sashing. Apparently, that is the hold up in my brain.

I did make some time last weekend, in the midst of the quantity to do some quality.

This is Chris’ piece and when I first saw it, my impression was that it needed some space. I used the white to give it some space, but didn’t want to just put white strips on, thus the corners.

I also varied the width of strips a little bit so it would have a bit of movement, or viewer’s eyes would move around.

Now that I look at it, it kind of looks like a tulip.

I tried to make the white the same white as in the flowery black/white/yellow print so neither would look dirty. The black on white I added is pretty bright. I think it works. I hope it works, at least. Chris makes art quilts, so she can paint over the white, if she doesn’t like it.

This project definitely involves muscles that are atrophied in me. I am committed to working through all of the pieces, but I am not sure about the project. I am anxious about doing a good. My technique will be good. I hope the design will be, too. I am not sure if my design work fits the piece. It certainly isn’t terrible.

Bill Kerr Workshop

The Bill Kerr Workshop was awesome. It came hard on the heels of the Sew Day held on Thursday and there were 35 people there! We didn’t get to see Weeks Ringle or the famous Sophie, who has recently published her first book, A Kid’s Guide to Sewing, but I’ll suffer through.

I said somewhere that I want to crawl inside Bill Kerr’s head and suck out all the information he has in there. It sounds gross, but that is how I feel. This is the second lecture/workshop I have taken from him and this was all new information. Or I wasn’t really paying attention last time and he just got a gimme in me.

He is a very good lecturer, regardless, because even if he said the same things over again, they resonated with me and I want to incorporate them into my work.

The last time I heard him speak was at the Peninsula Quilter’s Guild in 2008. At that time I wrote “I am hopeful that I will get to work with them, because he mentioned that they teach a week long, intensive design course. It is now on my list of things to do when the work situation simmers down.” I remember that a month after i wrote this statement, my work troubles were put firmly on the back burner, because my husband was laid off and it was a year and half before we could even consider something like this workshop. I still want to take the design course, and will still have to inquire, though he said they are still busy, but Weeks has created a Craftsy class with a lot of information and that class has 6,000 students in it. I can’t even imagine having that many students. I know they are not all in a classroom at once, but still that is a lot of potential questions.

My ideal would be to have a once per week class with them where the students, including me, went away, did some work and came back the following week to work with them some more. Since they live in Chicago and I live a few thousand miles from them, I will have to put that on my list of things to do when I win $100,000,000,000 in the lottery.

If you don’t know Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle, they are the owners of the Modern Quilt Studio (formerly FunQuilts). Weeks is the author of the popular Craft Nectar blog. They are the authors of several books:

Workshop

The workshop was scheduled to last from 6:30-9:30, but we really went until about 10:00pm. At 6:30, Bill bounded, literally, into the room and just started talking to us about color and design and I was, immediately, riveted. I think he really did chat with Rhonda for a minute before he started, but being in the way back of the room, that was my impression. He is energetic and full of life and I know I would gain so much by truly studying with him and Weeks.

He said something that I truly believe. When I looked back at the208 blog post from the last lecture I attended. He said a version of “He suggested that people think you are born Picasso or doomed to mediocrity. He believes this to be wrong and that visual arts take work, like anything else, and that you can be successful if you work at it.” He really emphasized that everyone has an artistic spark and that the owner of the spark has to practice and practice. For us that means making many, many quilts and failing at some of them.

A lot of what I write below is from my notes, so some of the sentences may be just fragments.

Definitions:
Hue – what we call color. When I say my favorite color is turquoise, I really should be saying my favorite hue is turquoise.

Value – relative lightness or darkness of a hue

Saturation – in-tenseness of the hue – hue in purest form – middle of Itten color wheel. e.g. Pure saturated yellow can never be dark.

Black is the most desaturated “hue”.

The other thing he said that I need to remember for my own work is that it is never, ever solely about the color; it is about the role that the color plays in the quilt. THE ROLE. Fabric is fabric; you can use all types and styles together. There is no quilt police who will look at your quilt and tell you to take some fabrics out. Who cares if it is modern or civil war, etc? If hte fabric has the right role int he quilt and it is a modern fabric next to a Civil War reproduction next to a feedsack, and the piece works, you have succeeded.

Isolate one concept, express one idea:

showcase 1 fabric
showcase 1 pattern
etc.

Above is one of the quilts Bill Kerr brought as an example. It is a perfect example of the above statement. It is a combination of David Butler’s first collection and Jo Morton fabrics. David Butler is Amy Butler’s husband and his quilt fabrics are more ‘modern’. Jo Morton designs Civil War reproduction fabrics. The fabrics work together despite their different styles and, thus, the quilt works. Don’t limit yourself because you think “I don’t do Civil War.”

Drabs work really well with brights. “Drabs” are taupe, putty, some greys, olive green, some browns, etc. Drabs are forgettable. Drabs allow other fabrics to shine. He didn’t have a chance to go into this very much, but he said that a lot of times a drab version of the complementary hue can really spark up another color. Drabs can add some relief, <Jaye editorializing> I think that what Kerr discussed was what is sometimes referred to as “buying ugly colors” or “using ugly colors”. I don’t like to think that there is a hue that does not have a role to play in some quilt (see above in David Butler/Jo Morton quilt). I also like the idea of calling these types of hues “drab” rather than “ugly.”

He also said, and I really like this metaphor, that putting fabrics together for a quilt is like creating the perfect guest list for a party. Think about hue, scale, pattern (like polka dots). Think about eliminating the ‘loud obnoxious guest.’ Think about how the scale, pattern and hues work together as a harmonious whole. I keep thinking back on his comments comparing quilts to a party.

Figure Ground and Illustration Style
Choosing fabrics for a quilt is not just about looking at the circles on the selvedge and picking colors. Figure Ground and Illustration Style are two things to consider.

In simplest terms the figure is what you notice and the ground is everything else…The figure always defines the ground and the ground defines the figure. They are inseparable — you can not have one without the other. If you draw the figure in a composition, you are drawing the ground at the same time… (Daphne)

Illustration Style is the style in which motifs are drawn. Are there light objects on dark field? Are there dark objects on light field? Are the motifs are outlined in black? Are the motifs not outlined? The type/style of drawing, such as the way I draw my CPP responses or a watercolor color style are all examples of illustration style and they are another tool that you can use to choose fabrics.

Bill likes RJR Linen White as a great background. He likes it better than Kona Snow and there was a suggestion that Kona, while dominating the market, ravels too much. The RJR Linen White is very warm.

Other

Every quilt is an opportunity to learn.

Weeks Ringle wrote an article in the June 2013 American Patchwork and Quilting called Stash RX

I’ll write another post about the Fabric Smackdown exercise we did.

BAMQG Sew Day

I took the day off of work Thursday and went to a BAMQG Sew Day and Workshop. After some personal drama (locked myself out of the house), I got there at 12:30 only to be faced with more personal drama (I forgot the bag that includes my rulers, rotary cutters, mat, pins, etc). Fortunately, I sat down across from Peggy and next to Amanda. Between them and Claire, I was set up to rock and roll the sewing machine.

I WAY overestimated what I could get done. I brought a Chubby Charmer filled with fabric and batting for journal covers, fabric for napkins, flannel for receiving blankets. I brought enough to survive some kind of siege that included sewing.

I really only got to the journal covers and I made the parts of two and finished 3-4.

My problem with Sew Days is that I want to just walk around and talk to people and not sew. If i bring my sewing stuff (and why wouldn’t I since there I have a gene that makes me physically unable to bring sewing stuff with me to a Sew Day). I really should be quite ok with socializing. Socializing is good!

A number of people had just arrived when I got there, so, despite the lock problem, I wasn’t terribly late, but I am sure I could have gotten all of my projects done had I arrived at 10am. 😉

Still, it was great to be there. I hadn’t been to a Sew Day before and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t enjoy hauling all of my stuff, but once set up, I just plowed through [spoiler alert] journal covers. I am glad I got them done and I am well set up for journal covers now.

In the work photo, you can see my stuff bottom right, Peggy top right and several other sewing machines and people towards the back of the photo. It was a great little group in our area. Big bonus? We were right near the iron!

The first thing I did was make a cat bed. I figured that anything I made after would contain schnibbles and I could use the cat bed to contain them.

Also, I have four I need to make for Amanda and the homeless cats. I thought about bringing them all as they are quick to make, but decided on other projects.

Jennifer's Round Robin — Jennifer’s Round Robin

Jennifer, who usually photographs the projects at the BAMQG meetings, showed us this hexagon piece. It is a round robin for one of the BAMQG groups. I love the shape! Who would have thought of creating a hexagon?!? Obviously someone did, but it is fabulous. The whole piece looks like a mosaic floor to me.

I am lukewarm on round robins and this makes me rethink that.

Also, I have to give a tiny bit of credit to ‘modern sensibilities’ as I don’t think this would have shown up in other kinds of round robins. I think that if you don’t know you can’t or shouldn’t do something you just try it and there is a lot of that going on in BAMQG.

Yes, Journal Covers

What I really wanted to do with journal covers was use up the pieces trimmed from quilts that I made and had quilted. My quilter diligently saves the batting and the sides for me and one day (I talked about it in the last week or so) it occurred to me that I could use those pieces to make journal covers. This is a great use, actually, because the trimmings are often long enough so I don’t have to cut part of a 1/2 yard and then cut some more, so that I only have a large scrap left.

When I went to Sew Day, I had in mind that I would whip up several of them. What the exercise turned into, even though I did make 3 or 4 was an exercise in design. I learned a couple of things:

I don’t like just having strips of fabric for the journal covers. In the Yellow and Pink journal cover, that strip of pink that reads as a solid really bugs me. Not enough to rip apart the journal cover, but enough to put it on a journal I have already used and not carry it around for 2 months. The remedy is to cut those strips into a few pieces and pieces and piece them back together in a sort of checkerboard.
Batting doesn’t work for me. I took all the small pieces apart and they will go to Amanda’s cat bed project. I need to find something else that gives the cover a bit of body.
Green & Letters Journal

Either I need to do a moderate amount of piecing or just cut a piece of fabric, like my recent Philip Jacobs journal cover and make a cover out of one piece of fabric. I do think patterned fabric, like the green and letters journal cover works. I think it works because there are blocks of color. The blocks of color combined with a bit of piece make the piece interesting. I am not a big fan of that chocolate (though it is chocolate) brown and green and yellow, but I like the letters and thinking about writing letters, or just writing, in general.
Leaders and enders are great. This is old news, I know. I am a big fan of leaders and enders, as my faithful readers know and using leaders and enders in the middle of the journal covers project meant that I had most of a journal cover top done by the time I got home.

The last journal cover I made wasn’t finished at the retreat. I began using the leaders & enders technique to sew bits together as I made the other journal covers, but I only ended up with the piece you see in the photo by the time I left. I don’t need to make sure that the family is warm when I make pieced items, nor is there a shortage of fabric at my house, but I still can’t seem to throw fabric away.

We ended the day with pizza. Usually, not a good choice for me, but there are 5 people in the guild who eat GF diets, so we had the option of 3 gluten free pizzas! The Awesome Amanda went to Red Brick over in San Mateo and picked up pizza for us.

The crowning glory, though the Sew Day was pretty awesome, was participating in the Bill Kerr workshop. Stayed tuned for the notes on that.

All in all it was a good day.

Monkey Dot Cat Bed

I might be back in the blogging saddle. I spared you my Special Whine that I intended to post on Thursday when my frustration level was over the top in terms of computers. I rethought and reworked what I had available to post and now I have my new computer and, so far, so good. It stays connected to my network (yes, first world problem), which is awesome.

I spent the afternoon and evening with BAMQG yesterday at a special event. The day was a Sew Day, then starting at 6:30 Bill Kerr of the Modern Quilt Workshop gave a class. More on that later, but I’ll tantalize you with this: I want everything that man has to sell and then I want to crawl inside his head and suck all the design theory out.

The very first project I worked on was a cat bed for Amanda. I sewed that baby up and then we all used it to stuff our schnibbles in. It wasn’t nearly full enough when Amanda took it home, but she has a lot of schnibbles with which to work, so I am not worried. Stay tuned for more Sew Day fun!

Orange and Grey Donation Top

I have been working on these blocks as leaders and enders for the past month or so. I finally finished sewing enough of the two-squares-sewn-together basic unit for a large lap quilt. I pressed all the pieces and put them up on the small design wall, which had been, mostly, empty since the end of the Star Sampler.

Most of the orange fabrics are leftovers from Fresh Fruit. The grey background is an old half yard (or so) I had laying around. I am trying to use up my bin of neutrals for donation quilts since I don’t use them that much.

In using up pieces, I am trying to use greys that are too beige and other beige fabrics. I worked at making sure this piece did not look too depressing.

While doing my Qi Gong exercises yesterday, I stared at the piece and moved patches here and there and exchanged placement of certain bits as well.

Pam gave me the idea of adding a blue square when she posted her Rainbow Baby quilt with the white square. I like the illusion of looking through the block to the wall (or whatever) behind. In mine, I went for adding some punch. I love that blue and orange combination, though, I think it would have had a greater effect if I had used no background fabric. Next time I might try making monochromatic blocks and punch it up with a dash of a complimentary color.

Clearly, I am not done with this pattern yet.

Nota bene: My computer is still giving me fits so some of the next posts and photos will be via cell phone. Bear with me while I get used to the new platform.

Dark Blue Cat Bed

After trimming all the t-shirts for the Young Man’s t-shirt quilt, my scrap bag was overflowing. The cat beds don’t take long to put together, so I sewed the pieces up and stuffed the bed with shards of t-shirt material and cotton scraps. My scrap bag is nice and clear now and the cat bed only needs a bit more stuffing.

I can’t make the next meeting either, so Kelly and I may meet downtown to exchange stuff for the meeting. The cat bed is heavy, however and I don’t want her to have to haul it around while at the Exploratorium with her daughter, so I may just mail it to Amanda.

Look for the pattern and information in this previous post.

Round Robin Ready?

Fabric choices for a round robin quilt.

As I mentioned in my last BAMQG post, my Color Group decided to throw our colors out the window and do a round robin. I am going to participate, but part of me is on the fence. My last experience with group projects left me with blocks filled with inept sewing, poor cutting, ugly fabrics and a bad taste in my mouth.

I brought this point up a bit tentatively at the group and, not wanting to insinuate anything. Kelly and Kathleen suggested that it would be different because we know each other. They may be right as the round robin I did, back in the Dark Ages (1999), with my quilt group worked out really well. The piece I got back, Carousel, is really nice. I decided to do it, if for no other reason than to get to know my group better and, perhaps, create a small group that can meet for a long time into the future.

First things first. Fabric.

I have several groups of fabric put aside for a future project. I dug the most attractive and appealing out.

Option 1: Dots. Dots. Dots.

I love these fabrics. As you might remember, they were in my birthday box from TFQ. They have been sitting on my cutting table waiting for inspiration to strike while I plow through Sawtooth Stars. The lightning has not yet struck.

If I use these, I will need a background fabric. I think it would either have to be the Michael Miller TaDot in Stone to be in keeping with the all of those dots or a smaller dot. A stripe might work as well. These are strong fabrics and the background will have to be a real background.

Option 2: Pretty in Pink

I am not over the pink thing yet, despite Sparkle Pink. I also like the idea of calling a quilt ‘Pretty in Pink’. The group on the right is a group of fabrics I bought at FabricWorm/Birch, probably on my first trip to Birch. The Victorian style large print on the left is recent and I added it in to give some interesting design options to those working in the group. Besides who doesn’t need a little turquoise and a few birds in a quilt?

Option 3: Rainbow Modern

These have been languishing since my first trip to Birch. I have been waiting, again, for inspiration to strike. The fabrics are all probably old news and nobody likes them anymore, but I still like the group of them. This is my favorite group, actually, although some of the colors are a bit greyed. I think I would need a larger piece for background and would have to try out different fabrics to see what would work best. I would love to include one of the many dots I have, but I wouldn’t want to overshadow the other great fabrics.

Option 4: Pop Parade by Metro for P&B

I bought these fabrics via mail from Quilting Adventures after having great fun using the previous P&B line for Serendipity Puzzle. That was 2.5 years ago. This group was actually the first group of fabrics that came to mind. There are dots. There area lot of interesting design elements in the fabrics. I would need a background and I am not sure what that would be.

Of the 4 options, which is your favorite? I won’t promise to use your favorite, but I am interested in your opinions.

Next up: instructions, guidelines and suggestions.

We also need to include an instruction sheet or list of dos and don’ts. There is some information on the Indianapolis Modern Quilt Guild site about round robins, which is helpful. I think I will use one of the journals Maureen gave me for this project. I could also use one of the journals I bought as party favors for my birthday. I don’t want to just include a piece of paper. It would be nice to have a little keepsake. Emphasis on ‘little’, as it has to go in the project folder. Also, I don’t think people will write a lot.

Decisions. Decisions.

May BAMQG Meeting

Description of May Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild meeting

The meeting was great. I had fun, people were nice, leadership is getting in the groove of really hard jobs. I got see my pals, pick up a new cat bed and BEST of all, be relieved of my blog duties. Everything seems to be slipping into place. I took several pages of notes even though I don’t have to write up the meeting for the blog.

The blog part is great news. I decided, for various reasons, that I didn’t want to do it anymore about two months ago. The President was finally able to get someone to volunteer for Social Media Chair and, though, I could have stayed on as Blog Manager, I decided a year was a good run and took the opportunity to step down. It is kind of sad that the blog will be used only for meeting notices, especially since I worked pretty hard at putting up good content and trying to build a readership. The new social media chair told me only 10 people were reading, which I find hard to believe, but have no other figures with which to argue. I can, now, spend more time here, if I need to. Lucky you! 😉

All good things have a dark side and the dark side of this is that I have to figure out why I am not getting the Ning notices. All the guild information will be posted there and I would like to keep up.

I really like the banner Kelly made, which is why I put it up again. This time she added to it by buying materials at OSH to make a stand. I love the quilt and library signs int he same photo. I may just photograph it at every meeting from different angles and put it up for you to admire. 😉 Perhaps I’ll sweet talk Kelly into making me one.

There was a lot of interesting discussion about the plan for local modern guilds to join the mothership. The MQG is proposing at $15 per person fee for guilds to be part of the MQG. The mothership will offer some technology solutions and hire staff. I can see the pros and cons of joining and not. I don’t think the value of what they are offering is convincing guilds to join, though. Guilds have until December 2014 to decide whether to join or not. The BAM group will wait until October or November to vote on the decision.

Color group

In the last notes on the April meeting, I talked about my Color group. That turned out to be one of the funnest parts of the month between the April and May meetings. I like the idea of a small group and am, kind of hoping, it will turn into something more than just a guild group. While I enjoyed thinking about about the possibilities, I ended up making the blocks at the last minute and I felt terrible while I was doing them (stomach issues). I am not sure they are my best work, but they were ready. I plowed through and really like the way they turned out.

I used the pattern I really liked, Chisholm Trail, from the blocks I made for Week 13 of the Star Sampler blocks. The bonus about that block was that I had everything I needed handy and the construction was fresh in my mind. I wasn’t so thrilled with the color choices I made. I don’t hate the blocks or anything, but I liked my blue version better.

Only Chris and I brought blocks for the charity quilt and 3 people from our group weren’t even there. Other members will bring them next time and we will still do the charity quilt. We decided that we would diverge from the color project and do a round robin. I haven’t done a joint project in an age, except with TFQ, so I am a little anxious. I stopped doing them, because I didn’t appreciate bad technique. I am willing to try again with people that I know. I am going to get a set group of fabrics and make a nice center. I need to figure that out soon, since I have very little time to sew and won’t be at the next meeting, so have to get it to someone in the group before the meeting. Eeeekkk!!!

Donations

I have to admit that I did the bulk of the work for the meeting on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. I couldn’t get to it sooner, apparently and felt I just had to get my charity projects done.

Friday night, I pinned the first bits of the Cat Bed together so I would be ready to sew first thing Saturday morning. I was able to sew it together relatively quickly. I stuffed it about 1/4 full of my scraps and that was done. It looks very similar to the one I made in April.

I had also FINALLY started to sew the Patchwork Wheel blocks together as leaders and enders. Before this last week, I hadn’t worked on them since January.

I wasn’t very organized about it and hadn’t made much progress. Yesterday morning I decided that there was no time like the present and whipped those babies into a top.

Because I was in a big rush, I didn’t put borders on the top and I didn’t make a back. I think it needs to be contained, so some borders would be helpful. I kind of wanted the piece out of my life.

It wasn’t all peaches and roses, though and I think the blocks look more like Sawtooth Stars than Patchwork Wheels. I think that there is too little organization in the fabric choices. Still, I like the idea of the pattern and I think this particular top will be very interesting to the Muggle, as Frances says, that will receive it.

I also think that the pattern has possibilities for future donation tops. I didn’t take another kit, because I think i will make this pattern again out of my own fabrics. If I make this pattern out of solids, it will look modern and viewers will be able to see the wheels better. I am thinking of making cool wheels – purples, blues and greens – and warm wheels – reds, pinks, yellows and oranges – and putting them all in the same quilt. I could even use prints, but make each wheel monochromatic or warm or cool so there was some organization. I would also like to try the Triangle Technique to make triangle squares. I know it means there wouldn’t be as much fabric variety overall, but I think it would be ok. Regardless it would be worth a try. If it isn’t perfect, I can try again.

Workshop

The most exciting news is that Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr are coming BAM! I signed up for their workshop, which is on creating palettes. I would sign up for almost anything they did.

Other Work

Leona's Angela Walters Challenge — Leona’s Angela Walters Challenge

Show and Tell is not as exciting as it was now that we have to bring finished pieces. I try to look around and see what people might be working on during the meeting.

One of the reason I enjoy the BAM meetings is that I hear about new things. Leona did show this quilt, which she made in response to Angela Walter’s panel challenge, Make It Right. I hadn’t heard of this challenge. I noticed her project because of the quilting. Leona has a longarm and she programs it using patterns she purchases. I love the combination of pebbles and spirals.

Leona's Star Block Quilt — Leona’s Star Block Quilt

Leona brought another quilt, which I noticed first. The spiral with the sun design within the spiral is very appealing for an all over design. I really like it and may show it to Colleen.

Various & Sundry 2013 #5

Housekeeping

I finally fixed one problem I was having with the email subscription tool. If you subscribe via email, you will now be receiving the email from AQ Admin, poste [at] artquiltmaker [dot] com. Hooray! I can’t tell you how long it has taken me to fix that AND how many stupid questions I had to ask. Oh well, that is how we learn, I suppose. On to the next stupid problem.

Just a reminder that if your comment looks like spam to my super duper spam filter, it will be sent straight to the spam anniliation tool, never seen by any human and deleted. As I said earlier, I no longer look through the piles of comments asking me to buy their fake C-o-a-c-h and L-o-u-i-s V-u-i–t-t-o-n bags. So sorry. I just don’t have the time and would rather spending it writing here or sewing stuff to write about here. Of course you can always email me at poste [at] artquiltmaker [dot] com. I always love to hear from you, my fabulous readers.

And thank you for the comments. I appreciate hearing what you think.

Creativity and the Creative Prompt

iTunes is giving me fits, which manifests in not being able to download new episodes of podcasts, so I have been listening to a lot of back episodes of Notes from the VooDoo Lounge. These were not episodes I had already listened to, but episodes I had not yet listened to, because I was busy with Pam, Frances, Sandy, Susan, etc. This is a really good podcast. It is not a quilty podcast, but more of a creativity podcast. Rice (rhymes with Lisa) talks with artists who create in a variety of media and they discuss a lot about creativity and inspiration.

I think it was in one of these episodes where index cards were mentioned.

Source: fineartamerica.com via Jaye on Pinterest

A light bulb went on in my head!

People could do their creative prompt responses on index cards! This would:

Make them less precious
Provide a smaller space to fill
Not use precious materials
Easy to fill in 5 minutes or less

Go do a creative prompt on an index card!

Jill, of the Quilt Rat blog, one of the original CPP participants has taken her responses to a whole new level. The new Janome machine has several of her designs included as stitches in the MC 9900! She writes about it in a blog post and shows in progress and completed pictures. I take full credit. 😉 Truly, Jill is extremely talented.

Listen to episode 171 of the Creative Mom Podcast. It is on iTunes and there are quite a few gems of creativity and life inspiration there. I love that podcast for Amy’s great voice and well put together episodes.

I have also been on a Notes from the VooDoo Lounge binge recently. There is a lot about creativity in some of her recent episodes. She gives a good description on iTunes, so branch out and take a listen.

Shows and Exhibits

BAMQG was included in a special exhibit at the recent Santa Clara Valley Quilt Show. The Quilt Show had a blog post about the show as well. the banner for the BAMQG Modern Exhibit is photo #55 and the Renewed Jelly Roll Race quilt is included in that photo. YAY! Tons of people will see it, though they won’t know who I am! 😉 Kelly promised me photos, but I haven’t seen them yet. I’ll share when I get them.

Take some time to make some flags for Boston in the “To Boston with Love” Project. Check out the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild blog for more details and the palette.

Techniques

Is my triangle technique not working for you? Need more half square triangle tips? Triangle square tips? Check out a recent post by Camille Roskelley. While you are at it, buy one of her new books.

Kati has some tips from Jackie Kunkel on her blog about paper piecing.

Other Artists

I Quilt so I Won't Kill People — I Quilt so I Won’t Kill People by Susan of Canadian Abroad

My mom was plowing through blog posts about quilting with Perle cotton (when did she get so smart? I would have just threaded a needle and dived in!?!) while we were sitting with Grama. She came across a post by Susan of Canadian Abroad about quilting with Perle cotton, which had a picture of the embroidery to the left included. I would say that the sentiment is true for many of us.

Thanks to Susan for allowing me to post the picture.

There are a lot of quilts with letters right now and I have never felt the urge to make one until I saw this saying, which rings so true with me.

Mark Lipinski had his kidney transplant and is doing well. You can follow along with his updates at his Facebook Fan Page.

Sadly Libby Lehman suffered a brain aneurysm yesterday. She underwent surgery and is recovering in a Houston hospital. The Quilt Show put up a basic post about the situation. Keep her in your thoughts. She is a great teacher and I really enjoyed the class I took from her and have always wanted to take another one.

Projects

Torie told me about a BOM a long time ago, but reminded me again recently. I took a look and really like the look. Torie is encouraging me to do the BOM in brights, but my excuse is that the Star quilt is taking all my time. 😉

Like Camille Roskelley? Having trouble focusing on a project? Jana is hosting a Quilt-a-Long with Camille’s new book, Simply Retro, and this might just be the project for you. Buy the book and go sew! It doesn’t come out until June 5, so you have plenty of time to clear your decks. You should preorder, though, so you are ready. From the blog post, it looks like Jana has a lot of features that will make the camaraderie factor high in this QAL.

NQR

Being to think about life in a serious way lately has made me think about things like my own mortality, if I will be affected by the same things my grandmother is experiencing now, my parenting — essentially my entire life. I am questioning and examining my entire life and how I have lived it and how I will live it going forward. I came across two blog posts that relate to topics on my mind: parenting and body image.

BAMQG Meeting Notes – April

I know it has been a week or so since the meeting, but I have had a couple of crazy weeks. At this moment, I am enjoying the benefits of a laptop by getting this post done while out of town.

We were back at our old location this time, which was a relief. I enjoyed the location of the last meeting. I thought it was a beautiful space, but felt like I was coming home this time. Everyone else was more relaxed and happy at this meeting, as well, for some reason. Or so it seemed.

BAMQG Banner

Last summer, the Modern Quilt Guild had a block challenge where they were making blocks for charity and for a banner that would be displayed at various events (I guess. Frankly, I don’t remember the details, but I wrote about it). At the same time the BAMQG leadership asked for blocks in the guild’s colors. Kelly has been working diligently on the banner and she revealed what she had so far. She has a bit more quilting to go, but the idea is to display it at the SCVQA show, which is this coming weekend.

Show & Tell

Everything that was shown was great. There wasn’t a lot, though. I showed the A-B-C Challenge. Jennifer has already posted the photos, so here is a slideshow from Flickr:

Color Group

One of the funnest parts of the meeting was the color group meeting. My group had Patti, Kelly, Suzi, Chris and Jennifer. This time Joan and Kathleen joined us, so our group is quite large and also enthusiastic.

At the last meeting, we met with our group and selected a group of colors from items that people brought. Our colors (see right) are purple, pink and chartreuse. This time we were to bring fabric scraps in these colors (I forgot) and decide what project we wanted to do. Others forgot, too, so we decided we would each make 2-8″ finished blocks from our own fabrics and bring them to the next meeting. One of the members, Jennifer, brought a large piece of a green wheel print and we will all use a piece of that in each of our blocks to help with continuity.We will create a charity quilt out of the resulting blocks.

I suppose the blocks have to be ‘modern’. Since I am in the groove of Sawtooth Stars, I may just make some Sawtooth Stars while work on the Star Sampler. I don’t know yet. The fabric is really stiff and I need to wash it before I do anything with it. I don’t think I have any of the fabric in my own fabric closet.

Another group is doing a round robin. Another group is making zipper pouches to exchange. It is an interesting exercise.

Destash Party

I didn’t bring anything to get rid of, but there was no shortage of stuff. I helped get everything out of bags and sort of organized before the contributors were let loose. “Organized” is a lot more generous a term than what we really did. We emptied the bags by dumping them on a big table in a giant mound. I couldn’t really believe how much stuff there was.

I was all for organizing things neatly, but was soundly vetoed. We did put all the patterns together, all the notions together, etc.

They made short work of most of the good stuff and the rest went to charity.

Someone brought 3 spools of Aurifil thread. I was tempted to slip one into my pocket before the frenzy started, but restrained myself.

There were patterns and tons and tons of fabric. Cynthia brought a box she had packed a year ago to send to a friend’s daughter in Japan. The cost turned out to be prohibitive, so she just had the box sitting on a shelf. She brought it sealed and everything. Jennifer A took a chance and got the premium fabric, charm packs and fat quarter bundles. I looked through it and it was a great haul.

San Mateo County Fair

Rhonda brought the applications for the fair for our group entry for the A-B-C Challenge. She was very organized, which was great. I helped her while she was a destashing/restashing by hunting down some of the members and getting their entry fee. I have to get my other entries in as well. I also have to finish the sleeve.

Cat Beds Again

As you saw in a previous post, I am back on the Cat Bed wagon. Some people had some good questions, so I thought I would gather up the information and put it in one place, to the best of my ability.

Kati asked “How large are the scraps you’re stuffing? They look pretty big to me.” These are the size that I put in the cat beds. the little triangles are the ears off 2.5″ and smaller half square triangles, so you can get an idea of how big the shards are. I might be a bit crazy, but I really only throw away tiny schnibbles that really can’t be used at all. For the longest time I worried about tossing even these tiny shards away. They seemed like they could be used for something. I just didn’t know what. As I read some Victorian novels and ‘rag & bone’ men were mentioned, I kept trying to figure out what could be done with these shreds of fabric. Amanda saved me when she asked for these cat beds.

One reader said “It’s easy until I come to the stuffing the tube…do you have any secrets to make it easier than having to put my arm into the tube up to my elbow to push the stuffing around? I am going to have to redo the second one because it is too stuffed/firm.” My answer was “I just dump it in and then once it is as full as I want it (about 3/4s full) I just kind of mush it around until it is ok. I think the cat will knead it to the cat’s liking, so I don’t worry too much about it except not making it too firm.” Amanda confirmed when she said “For the scrap pieces, I try to use nothing larger than an approximately 3×3? square. If it is too big a scrap, then they are hard to dry thoroughly in the dryer. You can also you the strippy castoff pieces that are thin but long – those are okay and don’t necessarily need to be cut down as long as they are thin. I think the best stuffing to use is leftover batting scraps – they dry really well, and make the bed nice and soft. But of course, cotton fabric pieces are always good too.

For the issue about the tube – just cut it shorter! When you are sewing the “side” part of the bed onto the base, if it overlaps more than 5 inches, just cut the extra off. You don’t want to have a big overlap because this does make it a pain in the booty to stuff.”

For the short version of the Simplified Cat Bed Tutorial, I am posting it again.

Finished: A-B-C Challenge

Ta! Da!

The A-B-C Challenge is finished. I hope the others in the group will finish theirs so we can enter the County Fair as a group. It was fun to do that last year.

The quilting is magnificent, though I have to say using the Art Gallery Fabric as binding was not magnificent. It is very fine fabric, which I think is why there was a lot of pulling as I stitched the binding down to the back. I found it was very hard to hide the stitches. I love Art Gallery Fabrics, because they are so soft and fine, but will have to remember not to use it for binding.

The quilting is extremely magnificent. I was thrilled when I got the quilt back from my quilter. She has had a tough time in the past year or so and when I saw this quilt, I realized that she was back. I have to show you a few details of quilt’s fabulosity.

I wasn’t sure about the thread when I saw the quilted quilt. I don’t like beige, remember?After looking at this quilt for awhile, I think it works. It doesn’t take away anything yet the viewer can see the quilting if s/he walks up and looks closely.

You have to click on the blocks to see the awesomeness.

Lincoln turned from kind of pale, restful, background block into a ‘reward block’. That isn’t a real term; I just made it up. Remember how I talked about quilts that reward you if you look closer? Well, this block is completely like that. It is a nice block with which you could do some great things if you pieced a lot of them. In this quilt, it is the reward block. If you look at it closely you see the really great quilting that my quilter did.

See those great leaves?

The spirals? Sigh. I am over the moon with the quilting of this quilt. As you can see, this is much more than a drive by “Hey, I’m done! See you later post”

I decided to take photos of the various corners and sections of the quilt so you see, more closely, how nicely these blocks play together. I am really glad I used a limited palette.

And I have included a few more blocks for their detail

A-B-C challenge: Eva's Delight — A-B-C challenge: Eva’s Delight

There is also a photo of the back.

Bay Area Modern March Meeting

I hadn’t been to a BAMQG meeting since the meeting at the beginning of December. It felt like a thousand years ago. I was actually a little reluctant to go because it has been so long and I can’t decide if I am having a relapse of the dread illness. This was, pretty much, my first weekend outing since our trip to the North Coast. I promised I would do a sleeve demo, so that motivated me to go.

I was glad I did. I talked to a few people who were glad to see me, which was very nice. It is a different crowd than CQFA and there are different quiltmakers there I like. Ruth of Pippin Sequim is now the president and due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, sometimes we meet at a new location. I love the new location. the light and colors are gorgeous! There is a little space around with waving grasses and the Bay Trails are nearby. It is also a gorgeous branch library (YAY! Libraries!) with elements of the Monterey Bay Aquarium embedded in the decor. There are lots of rounded corners, sea colors and an overall feeling of calm. Loved it.

I was a little late today, so I sat in the back, but that was ok, because I felt safer (from being away) and Chris sat next to me. BTW, she showed the top from her 2/3 blog post at the meeting and it is great.

The meeting was jam packed.

Charity

Kits were available for the new blocks. There are two: scrappy Trip Around the World and postage stamp. April 20 is the Charity Sew Day. 10-5 will be charity sewing and after 5 people can work on their own projects. It will be held at the Los Altos Public Library.

Cat Bed kits were also available. Amanda had some with some really soft (and slippery and shed-y!) fabric. I had a big bag of scraps from the past 3 months of sewing, so I took two. Look for a post about the one I finished soon.

April Meeting

The April meeting will be back at the Main library and there will be a destash party. the information will be posted on the BAMQG blog closer to the meeting date. Everyone participating is supposed to bring stuff they don’t want and there will be a race to get the good stuff. People should bring fabric, notions, patterns, magazines, scraps (organized in ziplocs only). I have never seen it done quite like this, but people who are not participating will organize all of the bags of stuff, then people will line up at the starting line. The starting judge will yell “Ready Set Go!” and there will be a big scramble to get to the stuff first. People are not to bring stuff they would throw out (no stains, stuff beyond repair). Upholstery fabric is ok. I don’t know if I will participate. I can’t think of anything off hand that I have to get rid of. I don’t want to bring used stuff into the studio really.

Klippies

The group is doing Klippies in a new way. There are teams. I didn’t really collect the Klippies last year and have already missed too many meetings this year to really understand what is going on. I did notice that there were a lot of opportunities to collect Klippies this time, so that was good.

Modern Quilt Guild Membership

Apparently, the MQG has opened up memberships to chapters. The Board is going to review the materials sent out. They will do a cost benefit analysis and prepare a presentation for the June or July meeting so the group can vote. Ruth didn’t want to start a discussion before all of the information was in and the Board had a chance to review it, so she didn’t provide a link to the original presentation. All she said was that the cost would be a significant part of our budget for the year, which sounds a little ominous. I immediately wanted to see the link and see what was up, but then I decided I had enough on my plate and it really didn’t matter to me. If the cost of membership goes up enough to make it untenable, then I won’t rejoin. I might be gone at both those meetings as they are around the time I travel for work. I need to sync up my calendar. I have to trust that the group will make the right decision. Are any of your guilds discussing this?

Retreat

The retreat is coming up. I am not going, as of this moment. Again, I have to sync up my calendar. I think that may be the weekend I get to go and be political wife with DH. If not, perhaps I will commute there. They don’t have any single rooms left and I don’t know anyone well enough to want to share.

Activities

Swap: Joy-Lily organized a fabric swap and people exchanged bags of fabric. I am not sure what that was about (again, I was gone, so missed the detail), but people seemed to enjoy it.

Color Group: Ruth had asked people to bring colors to the meeting. I wasn’t sure what she meant when I read it in the blog so I didn’t bring anything, expecting not to participate. Ruth organized it so that everyone could participate, which was great. I am in a group with Suzy, Kelly, Patti, Jennifer, Chris. I wasn’t really in the mood for any agonizing, so I suggested a couple of the colors from the group that people brought. Nobody objected, so we are using purple, pink and bright yellow. Next month we need to bring fabric scraps. I meant to get mine in order yesterday, but really didn’t have a lot of time, so need to get that I my agenda. I don’t want to be doing it at the last second before the next meeting. Then we will decide what we will make next. We have a tentative plan to make blocks and make them into a charity quilt and also a plan to make tote bags. We will see.

Madrona Road Challenge: I missed this, but I thought the fabric was ugly anyway. I was mightily impressed with the bags that people came up with for this challenge. Really great work and a good use of the fabric. People took the best parts of it. Apparently, Ruth did a great zipper tutorial at one of the recent meetings and people really used that tutorial to enhance their bags.

BOM: The Block of the month is still going strong. Joy-Lily (who must have taken over as BOM coordinator (?), swap coordinator (?) or something) did a demo on this month’s block, which is Snail Trail. I started to watch the demo, but drifted away when I saw how she was doing it. It isn’t a hard block. Joy-Lily doesn’t do matching of points, so she showed a method of putting on a larger piece and then lopping off part of it. I know how to make a Snail Trail and I wanted to talk with Rhonda.

SCVQA: Kelly has done an awesome job of organizing the exhibit of Modern quilts within the SCVQA show. I should enter. I meant to talk with her about it, but forgot. I guess I will send her an email.

Sleeve demo: I did the sleeve demo using the method from Robbi Joy Eklow’s book Free Expression. [<– If you buy from that link, I get a small amount of money.] I had made the step outs that were coded to a very detailed handout, but when I went to look for the handout, it was nowhere to be found. I probably saved it in some weird location on my computer and it will show up in 3 years. People had a few questions, but they told me that they liked the demo and I think I convinced them that the double-sided sleeve was the best idea. I hope I made sense.

Show & Tell

Show & Tell was a little paltry IMO. The new policy is to only show finished things. That made it a lot shorter and fewer people participated. I had 3 quilts to show, but a few other things in progress I didn’t bring. I showed Calm, which is finally finished and I have posted the Finish post here yet, FOTY 2011 and the Stepping Stones quilt. Calm and Stepping Stones now need to be sent off. I don’t think the new policy is good for encouraging quiltmaking. I was really inspired by Mallory’s top and made Sparkle Pink as a result. I am not in charge, though, nor do I want to be in charge, so I am keeping my mouth shut.

San Mateo County Fair

It is coming up. You can enter online; no photos required. There is a big reward for entering even if you don’t get a prize: free passes to get in and a parking pass. That is at least $35 for entering. Rhonda will coordinate entries.

If you are not local, look into entering in your local county fair. You do great work and people want to see stuff like you make. Trust me.

I was glad to see some people that I hadn’t seen in awhile. It looked like a smaller group than the December meeting. I didn’t see Kathleen and I missed her. I had a little chance to talk to Adrianne about her studio reorganization. It was great to hear that Alison sold her house in LA and now will be looking for a place here.

I [tried to convince] told Kelly about the Petrillo Bag-a-Long that Pam from Hip to Be a Square Podcast and I are doing. It will be starting on about March 23. You need to buy the pattern now, because there are some specialty supplies you need to probably get online. It is only $8 and downloadable. Pam talks about the Petrillo bag challenge in episode 121. I’ll write a blog post about it soon.

JayeL on Triumphant StitchingWednesday, December 17, 2025
I am really happy with the progress so far.
JulieZS on Triumphant StitchingWednesday, December 17, 2025
Ooh that's looking so good! Thanks for the in-process long arm pictures, so fun to see the progress.
JayeL on Fabric etc Advent CalendarSunday, December 14, 2025
I was pleased to see a few notions, but surprised as well. I look forward to comparing our fabrics.
JayeL on Fabric etc Advent CalendarSunday, December 14, 2025
Julie is really good at finding such things!
JayeL on All of Patchwork PaloozaSunday, December 14, 2025
Good to know. I didn't receive it, so I'd love it if you would send it along, though I have…