Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I am back on the donation quilt bandwagon with the Black/Grey Donation Quilt. I was afraid this would be a little depressing, but I think it will be great for a teenager.
I used the patches as a leaders and enders as I was working on Scrapitude.
It isn’t turning out exactly the way I thought, but I like it. I have four other blocks around somewhere, but they are misplaced. They’ll turn up.
We give bags of gifts to the officers of the guild. Some of us make tote bags and then all the guild members bring a gift for each officer. It is a lot easier than making a quilt. It also allows people to contribute in a way that makes them comfortable.
We encourage people to bring small gifts, such as spools of thread, packs of pins, needles, Pigma pens and WonderClips. We also encourage people to make small gifts, like zipper pouches. Some just write heartfelt cards and I know that is appreciated.
This time I made needle cases. As I mentioned in previous posts, I found the needle case pattern in a magazine and modified it to suit my needs.
I used, mostly, scraps for these needle cases. I like this project and am pleased with the modifications I made to the pattern. It is something I can make quickly as a gift.
I wasn’t able to make the meeting yesterday as I just returned from a work trip. I hope the officers liked them.
I spent some time with Kelly’s Round Robin over the past week. I finished my portion on January 1 and was pleased to be able to move on to the Attack of the Hexies.
I saw Camille Roskelley’s Round and Round quilt and liked the basic block so much that I wanted to make it. The version from Around the Blocks blog really inspired me. I love the way the triangles seem to flutter or twirl on the background. The basic component is a Friendship Star, a block that I always thought had potential, but never quite liked. Now I know that making it smaller and combining it with others like it was the ticket. Camille Roskelley is a genius.
I didn’t think the block was the right size for the piece, but I decided the piece could use something bold. I resized the block and worked on the whole piece in EQ7. I could only get an idea of the outcome. The piece has special fabric and I didn’t feel like scanning and uploading it. From what I could see, I thought it would work.
The block has 85 pieces. I reworked the piecing as well as resizing it, because some of the pieces didn’t need to be small squares. Also, I didn’t want, for example, to piece 4 squares together to make a larger square.
This made the final piecing of the block a little different than just piecing the block together in rows. I was able to chunk it. Once I was able to see how to chunk the piece, the piecing was no problem. I used the Triangle Technique to make all of the triangle squares (half square triangles).
SIL suggested that I fussy cut the special fabric and use that for the center rectangle in order to echo the original focal point of the piece. I thought that was a good idea and fussy cut different portions of the special fabric for the centers.
I think it came out well and I hope that Kelly is happy with my work. I was really pleased with the block. I can’t make it to the meeting in January, so I sent it off to Kelly.
Related Round Robin Posts
As I mentioned earlier in the week, the BAMQG meeting was on Saturday. I can’t tell you how happy I was to attend the meeting. It was a surprise, because I thought the meeting was on the 8th. Angela told me that it was on the 14th and when I checked, I realized I could attend! I declined the invitations of several Christmas parties this year, because, as a friend aptly described, mustering merriment just wasn’t in me. I didn’t feel like I had to muster merriment to attend the quilt party. There were quilts! What more did a person need?
One of the show and tells was Cheryl’s quilt (above). She won the blocks and added the aqua/greeny-blue. I love the way this quilt looks. It isn’t stark like all-black and white quilts can be. The gold isn’t depressing. There is a lot of movement, which made my eyes move around the quilt and every time I looked at it, I saw something interesting. This is a fabulous quilt and one that makes me think, again, about the ratio of black to white in a black and white print.
See the full quilt on Flickr in the BAMQG pool.
One of the small groups that the president created this year were meeting with their round robin quilts.
This is a great shot – I wasn’t being diligent about taking photos.
Trust me when I say that their round robins LOOK fabulous. The one that really caught my attention has the pinky-red and green. the contrast of the two colors is wonderful.
This group has done a great job. Their centers started out interesting and a strong start clearly set them all off to do their best work.
Cheryl also finished a quilt for her nephew who will receive it as a Christmas gift. I took a close-up, because I missed my chance to take a full photo. Fortunately, there is a full photo on Flickr (say that 3 times really fast!).
She did a great job using mostly the same darks, but interspersing a few others in to add interest. I also liked the background.
Yesterday was the BAMQG Holiday Party and Meeting. The meeting part was relatively short, then we had the gift exchange and Show & Tell.
I mentioned that I had made a gift for my Secret Santa and showed it a week early, which led to the realization that I was able to make the meeting. The recipient, Laura was really pleased with the tote bag and needle case I made. I really should have put pins and needles in it as I think she was a little confused about what should go where. I showed her and I think it ended up okay.
Jen was my Secret Santa and she made me this Iron Caddy. Didn’t she do a great job?
Jen said used a free pattern she found somewhere on Ning. She said she made two of them alongside each other so she could test the pattern. I thought that was really sweet; it made me feel like she really cared about the gift to me
The pattern she used didn’t sound like the same one Julie told me about that so frustrated her.
Jen did say that there was one measurement off — the 7″ measurement in the middle should be 6-1/2″. I haven’t tried it so, pay attention if you make this pattern.
I still have not yet made the Iron Caddy pattern I bought at Quiltin’ Cousins, so perhaps I am off the hook?
Thanks to Jen!
I hopped back on the Doing Good bandwagon this past weekend and I feel great about that.
I had some Cat Bed kits from the last BAMQG meeting I attended and I decided that sewing them would be a great way to get back on the sewing bandwagon.
These cat beds were using the same fabric Amanda used in the last round of Cat Beds – regular quilting cotton. I thought they were a lot easier to sew, but wondered about durability? I will sew whatever she gives me. It was just a thought.
I only had two and really had to force myself to sew at all and I worked very slowly. It took me much longer to pin these than it has in the past and I think my mind just kept wandering off somewhere.
This color scheme reminds me of the green and pink donation quilt I made last year. It is a fun combination that I don’t think gets used as often as it should.
It was also fun to see that green speckle fabric again. I had some of that at one point, but thought it was long since out of print. I wonder if it has been reprinted?
Both of the cat beds used a fun French cat fabric for the gusset. Again, this a fabric that I wouldn’t normally use, but this is a perfect application for it and it was fun to look at while I worked. As an added bonus, I forgot how much I liked the word “parapluie”.
Amanda did a good job choosing the fabrics as the greens she chose go together very well.
The cats are engaged in a number of different activities, which I found amusing. I hope the cats will as well, though I suppose they won’t care.
I was able to stuff both with a small amount of scraps, but Amanda will be able to use up more of the scraps she has as I didn’t have anywhere near enough. I haven’t been sewing and that is the outcome.
I have to say that doing these wasn’t enough, so I cut up some grey and black squares and have started to work on another donation quilt. I know it sounds a little depressing for a donation quilt, but my grey/black scrap drawer is overflowing. There will be little sparks of color that I will scatter throughout the quilt as some of the prints are mostly black, or have a black background, then have a colorful motif on top. Perhaps I will make it large enough for a teenaged boy. All teenaged boys like black and grey, right?
I don’t have many more scraps that will make a whole quilt from 2.5″ squares, so I may need to go down to 2″ to clear out more. I’ll finish this one and then we’ll see.
When I was down at Grama’s I had a stack of quilt magazines with me. I hadn’t brought a lot to do, because I was supposed to be at a conference and didn’t want to feel like it was a waste to have lugged a bunch of stuff down with me only to lug it straight back home.
As you know, I ended up at Grama’s, racing around like a crazy person before dropping into bed exhausted, looking at two pages of quilt magazines and falling asleep with the magazine on my face. Two pages, however, is progress. While looking through the magazines, I found a needle case pattern in Modern Patchwork. I decided to add it to the shopping bag for my BAMQG Secret Santa. As soon as I finished the machine part of the shopping bag (I still have a bit of hand stitching to do), I started in on the needlecase.
The pattern is by Rashida Coleman-Hale of the I Heart Linen blog and I, initially, had a hard time with the way the pattern was laid out in the magazine. Remember, I am much better at being shown how to make something than I am reading directions and following them. I began reading the directions and couldn’t figure out what to do first. The pattern started with “Create the Pocket.”
Huh? What pocket?
Finally, I realized I needed to cut all the pieces out first, even though the pattern says nothing about that. Step 1 should be “Cut out pieces (see Sidebar)”, but it wasn’t. Also, the list of pieces of fabric that need to be cut is on the right hand side of the page and I was looking on the left (we read from left to right), which happened to be instruction #1 of the pattern.
My heart sank. I didn’t want to do a project that was so hard to understand that it wouldn’t come out well. The project is small enough to use scraps, so I decided to cut out the pattern pieces and try one more time. Miraculously, as soon as I cut the pieces, step #1 of the directions made complete sense.
I am skeptical of magazine instructions, but these were ok, after my initial confusion, for a not very complex project. I am not quite done with the project, but the one thing I would do differently is sew the cording (I am using a ribbon) on before I sew on the binding. I think it would look neater and be stronger. I might also figure out some other closure, but I haven’t thought that far ahead. Live and learn.
I used fabric scraps from the shopping bag and also a few others. The the two Secret Santa pieces will match, but not be matchy-matchy. Cute, huh? I did not use the linen. I used regular quilting cotton.
If I made this project again, I would give the outside pieces some body by lining them with ShapeFlex (LOVE that stuff!).
I didn’t have any Fiberfill to fill the pincushion, but if I had been thinking I would have used the roving I bought for the other pin cushions I have been making on and off. I just wasn’t thinking so I cutting up some batting scraps to fill the pincushion. It is small, so I think the batting will be ok.
My Secret Santa likes pink, so I am going all out on the pink. I really hope she likes what I have made. This needle case really did not take me very long and I think I might make a few more for friends. We will see.
As I mentioned in the last post about this project, Kathleen and I got together at the last Sew Day and worked out what we were going to do with these blocks.
I saw somewhere that Kathleen had finished sewing her donation top, so the project was nagging at me. I had the blocks and decided after working on the needle cases that I would put the top together, then I decided to put the back together. As I write this, I am about to think about a binding, but it might be too late and I might be too tired.
____________________________________________________
Vital statistics:
I went back and forth about whether or not I should post this on my blog before the BAMQG party, but I have so little to post these that I decided to go for it. I don’t know all of you as well as I would like, but I don’t think the recipient is a reader. Perhaps she will be after receiving the gift.
I agreed to make a Secret Santa gift for the BAMQG Holiday Exchange. It was hanging over my head, so I decided that Saturday would be the day to start. I actually cut out all of the pieces on Friday night and put most of the interfacing on as well, so the sewing went pretty easily.
I decided to make another Jane Market Tote for the gift. It is a good pattern – useful and nicely shaped. I am also familiar with it since I made over a dozen of them since I bought the pattern. The other bonus was that a shopping bag was on the giftee’s list.
Perfect.
As I said, I cut out the pieces on Friday night. I also decided to try adding some ShapeFlex stabilizer to see if that would give it some body.
As an aside: Have I said how much I like ShapeFlex? I love it. It is so easy to work with. It is not thick. Now, I am almost out again and am now thinking of buying a bolt. Crazy?
Anyway, I was able to put ShapeFlex over all the pieces except one, so I was really ready to sew on Saturday morning. So, Saturday morning, which was really about 11am since I slept so much, I sewed. The bag went together really well. I tried very hard to make it look nice. I used a star pattern on my machine to finish the top of the bag. I also put the handles inside rather than outside after the bag is finished, as the pattern suggests.
It is a nice bag, but I also decided to make a little needlecase and put that in the bag as well. I know it is not necessary, but I have some leftover scraps from the bag. I also found a pattern in Modern Patchwork for a needlecase that doesn’t look too difficult. Stay tuned for that.
I missed the BAMQG November meeting. I wasn’t really up for it after my family emergency. I think I will miss the December meeting as well. Bleah, but we’ll see.
HOWEVER
I looked at the photos and two of the quilt tops I made were turned into quilts. I was thrilled to see them.
This is the pink one I finished in August 2012. If you click on the photo and make it bigger, you can see the circle quilting, which looks great.
Looking at the piece finished makes me re-evaluate the design again. I think I would take out the dark sashing pieces if I could have see it finished as I was piecing.
Impossible, of course, but a lesson for another day. still I hope that someone really enjoys it and I am so glad that a BAMQGer collaborated with me on this piece.
I haven’t made as many donation tops this year, but I can always try again next year.
Someone also finished the Orange and Grey donation quilt. Again the circle quilting is awesome. I am so pleased to see how well this quilt turned out. It is so great to see my tops turned into something I really love the collaboration!
Thanks to the BAMQGers who finished up these quilts.
I also have Kelly’s piece and it is time for me to work on it. As soon as I tidied Kathleen’s piece out of the way. I need to keep Kathleen’s piece for a little while as Kelly is still working on setting up her studio.
I put her piece up on the wall so it has a chance to speak to me. Nothing yet. I thought Chris’ piece needed space. I wanted to retain the freshness of Kathleen’s piece and Kelly’s piece…..
I don’t know. There is definitely personality. There is definitely movement. Kathleen’s Flying Geese really add a lot to this piece. This is a rich piece as in it has a rich look. The idea of a Persian rug comes to mind, though it doesn’t look like a Persian rug, and that isn’t quite right, but I think the closest I can describe is that it just has the feel of a Persian rug.
There is also an element of a royal banner. i can see this piece on a long pole being carried in front of a large group of men on horseback wearing the royal colors.
I don’t think it needs space. I think the richness needs to be continued, and perhaps some more points. I am just not sure how. I’ll keep looking at it and see what I think about.
What do you see?
After recent events keeping me away from my machine and last weekend’s fiasco of sewing and ripping, I decided that I would make progress this past weekend. I decided I would sew and make progress.
I did make progress. Small progress, but we have to rejoice in the small successes, right? I finished my part of Kathleen’s Round Robin piece. I am really pleased with how it looks. For one, I am pleased I was actually able to do something. Two, I think I did a good job echoing the shapes from the center.
I hung the piece I got from Chris up on my design wall so I could look at it. It spent a few weeks up there and as I was looking at it, the Kaleidoscope shape in the center stood out, especially those long thin triangles. Also, the fabric with that jade green in the Kaleidoscope in the very middle caught my attention. From those two thoughts, I worked on my design and fabric choices.
I used foundation piecing for the blocks for the corners in my round. I designed the corner blocks using EQ7 and then printed the foundations out. The Carol Doak paper I got some time ago is great. I printed right on to it and it worked like a charm. I was able to rip out paper with a minimum of torn stitches. It might not be the most cost effective (I don’t know) but for the limited foundation piecing I do, it worked great.
You can see from the ‘in progress’ photo that I used three blocks to make up the corners and then filled the middles of each side in with white. I had a hard time figuring out the measurements. They weren’t standard so the center white piece is different than the blocks. Not everything lines up nicely either, but I think that can be the nature of round robins. I think it will look fine once finished and quilted. I don’t think Kathleen will mind. At least I hope she won’t
The detail shows the fussy cutting of the green, gold and white fabric very well. After I finished, I thought that replacing the green (closest to the white) with white might have kept it fresher, but I think it would have had the problems I mentioned above.
After doing all the piecing, I decided I like the way, viewed from some angles, the center piece looks like it is on top of the part that I added. I also think the corners look a bit like stylized flowers.
I think that the next person will need to get back to the orange – well, I should say that if I were doing the next round, I would use some more orange. I can’t tell you how tempted I am to add some orange.
It didn’t turn out exactly as I imagined and I am thinking that that green makes it look a lot more 1930’s than anticipated. I also think that more white might have been better, but I paid special attention to fussy cutting the alternate fabric in my corners and I wanted it to show. If I had added some white to the corners, that gold, green & white fabric would not have stood out as much as it does. I am pleased with the way it came out.
Now on to the brown one.
The Round Robin isn’t going exactly as planned and I have two at my house while Chris has none. I am not sure what Kathleen has. Fortunately, we are flexible and working through it.
This is a pretty and fresh piece. That white is very stark and helps the other piecing float. As I stared at the piece, I knew I wanted to maintain that bright freshness.
Finally, I came up with an idea. I plan to add some Kaleidoscope-esque bits to the corners.
That was rolling around in my mind from the beginning, but I couldn’t figure out exactly how I wanted to do it. I was finally struck with a technical plan over the weekend and began the process of foundation piecing.
As I mentioned on Twitter, I sewed the same seam 3 times and ripped it out 3 times, then quit. I think I was trying to use a piece of fabric that was too small and my stubbornness (work, dammit!) got in the way. That one foundation is shredded, so, hopefully, I have learned my lesson.
Stay tuned for more details.
Back in April, we started the Color Group. Finally, we got enough blocks together to put a quilt together.
Kathleen and I were at the BAMQG Sew Day/Meeting, so we took all the blocks and laid them out and tried to figure out a way to put the quilt together.
The row layout was the best of the way to use all the blocks at once.
We didn’t think it was great, but it was almost the best of all of the layouts we tried.
One of the trial layouts was also a row quilt layout, but, in this version, we offset the blocks a little bit.
We were trying to make it a little more modern while making it look good.
It just looked messy to me. Kathleen didn’t like it either.
We also tried out an on point layout. I did like the extra whitespace, but the problem was that block patterns didn’t work with the on point layout.
So, we went full on modern. We split the blocks up and used 5 in a row for two quilts. Two blocks will be on the back of one of the quilts.
We will use a lot of the Kona White to make the quilts ~48×60. These will go to a women’s shelter, we think, which is why we are making them the size we decided on.
We might put one column of blocks closer to the edge and on the other quilt closer to the center.
I am in charge of one of the quilts and Kathleen is making the other. I haven’t started yet, but plan on doing so as soon as I remember how to sew. 😉
The BAMQG Meeting was yesterday. I turned in some cat beds to Amanda and was very happy I did. Amanda was having a bad week, so I was glad I made the effort.
These two cat beds were different, because they were both made of cotton rather than Polartec/Polarfleece. I like working with the Polartec/Polarfleece, but it is a little more difficult to work with than cotton. It was a relief to work with the cotton. I made the cotton cat beds pretty fast compared to the Polartec, but I still don’t mind working with the Polartec.
These were interesting fabrics with which to work. They are fabrics which remind me of fabrics that were very popular when I started making quilts.
I wasn’t the one who brought the most cat beds. Someone brought a whole shopping full of really cute cat beds. Someone had made about 30 and appliqued (using blanket stitch) one adorable heart on each cat bed.
All of these cat beds made Amanda really happy. It was great to see her smiling again.