Tag: Doing Good

As mentioned last week, I am working on the yellow donation quilt and it is going well. I made several more blocks while I was off over the Fourth of July holiday.

I was spurred on by seeing the finished blue donation quilt. Jennifer finished it on her longarm machine and did the binding as well. It looks so great to see it done.

It made me think that this Yellow quilt is an even better exercise for me, because the yellows are really different than what I have done with yellow before.

The brown-y yellows are a challenge, but I like the prints, so I am working with them.

I still have a few more blocks to make, but already have cut some pieces for sashing in hopes that I will get this top done before the next BAMQG meeting.

I am back on the donation block bandwagon, though I don’t think I ever really got off. 😉 I am using all of the Art Gallery scraps, but I had to add some additional scraps otherwise there would not have been enough different fabrics. At least, in my mind, there would not have been enough different fabrics.

I started working with the yellows using a different method than I used with the pinks. I sewed squares together and then started stacking them up. I am not sure I like this method, because it is confusing and may yet switch. I was trying to vary, not only the yellows, but also the backgrounds. It made the process a bit more challenging and I thought the variation in method would work better. The blocks definitely go together quickly when the pairs are already sewn together.

I was able to make 3 more blocks yesterday, in between making the backs.

I have an idea in my mind that I want to complete another donation top by the meeting on Saturday. The rational side of me knows that is madness, but the driven crazy person knows she can do it and doesn’t care.

I was able to add a couple of more fabrics as I worked on the yellow back yesterday. As I mentioned, I thought there was too much brown. In general, though, I think the blocks are coming together nicely.

We’ll see what the rest of the week brings for my sewing and see if we can get a quilt top finished. I have a lot of other stuff to do.

I am working steadily on the pink donation blocks. I have all 16 finished, though I just had 12 finished when I started writing this post.

I have the Corner Store on the portable design wall, so as soon as I finished the last donation block, I started to cut sashing. I haven’t cut all the sashing, but started to sew sashing onto donation blocks anyway in between sewing Corner Store blocks together.

I can’t see the blocks all together yet, because, as implied, both design walls are covered (could I, possibly, do fewer projects at once?) with other projects (A-B-C Challenge, Swoon, FOTY 2012, Corner Store).

I have about 6 blocks sashed and need to cut a bit more sashing.

In between sewing, I also cut some ~8″ pieces to make additional pink 2.5″ squares for a future donation quilt. I used the ~8″ pieces to cut 2.5″ squares using the Accuquilt. I have a big stack waiting for me to sort.

The blocks are all a bit different, but I used many of the same fabrics, as I did in the Blue Donation quilt.

I intended to make the top and back and give it in to the Charity girls at the BAMQG, but since my sewing machine seems so happy, I wonder if I could practice some free motion machine quilting on this piece? The last time I did free motion quilting, it was such a disaster that I might have developed a phobia. I have to see if I can do it…physically, too.

And there are more pink quilts to make as Mrs. K sent me more pink fabric. Just what I needed. 😉

I am going to use the large piece on the left as backing. It is a very soft lawn, I think, and a bit thin, but I think it will be fine. Most of the fabrics Mrs. K sent were shards and strips. I washed them all and am preparing to cut them up into squares. A couple of the pieces, in addition to the lawn, are larger – FQ sized or so. Perhaps they will go on the back as well. We will see.

I am still having an inordinate amount of fun making these simple blocks. What is it about them?

I brought out the Accuquilt Go! cutter over the long weekend and cut a bunch of larger squares I had been saving into 2.5″ squares. All pink all the time. Yes, I am going to make a pink top for some wonderful child. I hope s/he likes pink, because none of my nieces or nephews do and I have a lot of pink.

As you can see, I did cut up some slightly larger squares to make 2.5″ plain background squares. I’ll have to see if that block fits in with the other blocks that have black on white fabrics.

The Charity Girls at BAMQG have put out a new block design. I know they want to keep people interested, but I am still interested in this block. They said they would keep taking these blocks, so I will keep making them. I am doing to keep these pink ones and put the top together myself.

I am still cutting 2.5″ squares when I do my normal “new fabric” cutting, so I have other colors besides pink as well. I will give these non-pink blocks in so someone else can work on them.

I found a few different blues, so I cut some squares out of them to work with.

One of the fun things about this project is putting the squares together in different ways. In the blue block, I probably should not have put the two solids in the same row. Fortunately, in the grand scheme, it probably won’t matter much. This blue blocks looks rather cheerful, I think.

I have a lot of the same fabrics for the pink blocks, because I cut up large enough pieces of fabric to make 9 2.5″ squares.

I did dig out some scraps that were large enough to make some 2.5″ squares out of. I was surprised since TFQ cannibalized my scrap bins quite efficiently. The few different fabrics will add interest and the similar fabrics will provide cohesion. That is what I am telling myself anyway. 😉

In the back of my mind I am planning to use all of the black on white fabric I bought for the Flower Snowball. It is a lot, because I will never learn just how little fabric a quilt really needs, especially if I use the fabric for one piece in the quilt. We’ll see if I actually use it all. I like the black and white as background. It prevents me from going to buy more background fabric.

Enjoy!

This is a block made partially from a kit that the BAMQG Charity Girls provided. I wasn’t that thrilled with the choices left when I went to look in the basket, but these postage stamp type blocks are very popular and the kits are arduous to make up. And beggars can’t be choosers, so I took the kit.

The other thing about taking kits is that I get to use fabrics that are out of my comfort zone. I know I have some browns and beiges that have languished for a long time. I have started to use them as quilting borders and other temporary parts of quiltmaking. While I don’t want to depress some poor child with a brown quilt, perhaps I could use some of the beiges and browns for donation blocks? We will see.

I made the brown block up before the May meeting and Angela took it to the meeting for me. I was mostly working on the Blue Donation Quilt, so I only made a few blocks. I have a lot of backgrounds cut and, as I mentioned, I want to work with pink, so I am cutting some pinks to use for pink donation blocks.

I am cutting 8″ squares so I can cut a bunch of 2.5″ squares all at once using the Accuquilt. That means that I don’t actually have any pink patches cut yet, but soon, hopefully.

In the meantime, when I ran out of Corner Store backgrounds (because I was making them using the leaders and enders technique), so I switched to making a blue donation block. I have plenty of backgrounds for those.

I had a few pieces of fabric waiting to be cut on the Accuquilt, so when Julie was over the other day, I cut those up using the pieces for the donation blocks as a demo. That means I have a few pieces ready to sew.

The sad part is that I am using leaders and enders to move forward in other projects, so I haven’t done nearly as many blocks for the charity girls as I would have liked. I am trying to rest on my laurels a bit, since I did make an entire quilt and back. I’ll get back in the saddle.

The Super Secret project is ready to go to the quilter, so I am back to my 26 Projects list. Before I start the Corner Store, I plan to put together the blue donation blocks into a baby quilt. I am going to put it together with sashing rather than just putting the blocks together. I think it will look nice. Hopefully, it won’t take long.

What do you think of the fish heads?

I hope that the black on white background fabrics will be considered fun and different rather than a poor choice. I don’t have much plain white, and I have plenty of the black on white.

One of the reasons I wanted to put this quilt top (not planning on quilting it, but you never know) together was so that people wouldn’t feel obligated to go out and buy fabric so they make blocks with the black on white designs to match mine.

I did put some of the earlier blocks in the donation basket at the last meeting.

I know it is silly to call this (3rd image from the top) block the Joel Dewberry block, but that one square of his print really stands out (2d row, 2d from the left). I like the graphic nature of that patch, so I always think of this block as the Joel Dewberry block.

The blocks I am showing today are all new. I already have enough blocks to make a small baby quilt top, so I guess these blocks will be for the next top!

I know the 4th image from the top is a bit of a repeat, but it is nice to see the blocks together. I was thinking of using black on white for the sashing, but looking at this image makes me wonder if I shouldn’t just sew the blocks together next to each other?

TFQ cut a lot of these squares as we were working on the Super Secret project. I really couldn’t have made all of these blocks without her.

I am also really like the Accuquilt Go!. I cut many of the background fabrics using the 2.5″ square die, which made cutting a breeze.

Look for a donation top from these blocks soon.