Tag: Group project

Bullseyes – Major Progress

The last update I gave you on the Bullseyes was on September 8 and I was slowly working through the trimming and sewing the patches together to make blocks.
I went through this process kind of slowly because I was enjoying the fiddliness and taking my time. Above shows the quilt top as it was sometime in the last week or so. You can see that patches are sewn together to make blocks and some blocks are sewn together to make. During the past week I have been sewing chunks together and this morning I had only seven seams left. I finished this morning after wrestling with those last seams.

Finished top!! Hooray.

I hope to be able to finish the back today as well. I already made one piece of it with some leftover quarter circle/triangle patches.

One of the things I tried on this quilt was sewing the seams open. I saw in the Kerr/Ringle color book that they press the seams, on all of their quilts, open. I thought this would be a good project to try it. I was pleased with how easy it was to deal with several seams meeting at one central point. Because of the layers of applique’, it was a little tricky to get all the little bits to lay flat. I also found it easier to press from the back when pressing the seams open. My points matched up pretty well (at least no worse than normal). I did use pins to help that process. All in all, I liked pressing the seams open. I’ll have to read a little more of what Kerr/Ringle say about their reasons and report back.

Progress on Bullseyes- YES!!

Last week I noted that I wanted to get moving on the Bullseye, because I wanted to get it off the design wall and to the quilter. Yesterday, I got busy and began sewing blocks together. This is a project, because I need – well, want – to keep the patches in the order I have laid them out. As TFQ pointed out, in the future nobody will notice and I won’t remember, but there is no sense in laying them out and not, at least, trying to keep them in order.

I spent several hours yesterday sewing blocks together, trimming applique and squaring up the blocks. I decided that it would be a lot easier to square the blocks as I went along rather than waiting. It did take longer, but I am happy that I am trimming and squaring now since it will be a lot easier to put the blocks together later.

The sewing part is a little tricky, because, while I was sewing blocks, the blocks I was sewing together have nothing to do with the design on the quilt. Groups of blocks make up the design.

You can see from the photo, above, how much the piece will shrink once all of the sewing is completed. Right now there is about a 2″ gap between the sewn block (left) and the unsewn blocks (right). It never ceases to amaze me how much fabric seam allowances take up. There will be more once I start sewing blocks together.

Towards Final Bullseye Arrangement

After magnificiently struggling with the layout for the Bullseye, I believe I have settled on a shape I can live with and one that is successful. The difference between this and the others I have done is that the ‘knots’ I have created are self contained. I keep thinking of them as Lovers’ Knots, but I know that term may confuse people who know the actual Lovers’ Knot quilt pattern.

I have more patches on the wall and am finalizing fabric placement now. I hope to get to sewing today as I would like to have this piece ready to take to the quilter with the Chocolate Box. I am itching to get back to the Pineapple (amazing, but true). I need to move a couple of projects forward first.

Bullseye Progress?

I can’t really decide if I am making progress on this project. It has been on my wall for awhile and all the ways I have tried to arrange the pieces have not been successful or satisfactory. I want to finish it and get it off my wall, because it is a dark quilt and doesn’t make me feel happy when I look at it. I like the quilt, it is just the wrong time of year to have a dark quilt on the wall.

Until yesterday, the above photo shows the most recent design. It had been on the wall for awhile and I knew it wasn’t working, but was considering sewing it together just to be done with it.

Sadly, this layout looks like two separate quilts, which is not good. I suppose I could put one on the front and one on the back. Not happening. I want a cohesive/unified design. I seriously like the snaky bit highlighted with the warm colored (red and pink) fabrics, but I couldn’t figure out how to include it and all the other patches. I like the half block wedges (see photo below) that end up, often, in the corners, s, in this iteration, I tried to replicate those on the left side of this layout. It doesn’t solve the problem of two quilts in one and the wedges don’t show up very well in the overall piece.

Wedge detail.
Detail showing my attempt at the wedge design.

I saw a quilt of Kerr/Ringle’s called XO in the Modern Quilt Workshop book. The blocks had patches the same shape as my bullseye wedges, but Bill and Weeks had added a thin strip of fabric in between. Above shows my attempt at using their idea. I considered trying a purple/violet fabric, but ultimately didn’t choose this option, because I was too lazy to find the right fabric and think I came up with a better idea.


Yesterday morning, I had a brainwave and the above layout is it. Is isn’t finished and there are still a couple of problems to work out, but so far I like this layout the best of all. The red/pink snake is gone, but so is the two quilts in one problem. Some of the problems I have to work out are:

  • fabric placement
  • how to work with the many more pieces I have than are shown with a small design wall.
  • getting the whole piece to be cohesive while using all (or most of the blocks)
  • Making the piece fit in a square or rectangular format without adding blank pieces of fabric. I added blank pieces in Feelin’ Blue and don’t want to do that again.

None of these are as insurmountable as the layout. I think I have a good one here and will move forward with until such time as it is finished or I decide it was a bad idea.

Bullseye Arrangement

I have a sinking feeling I already posted this picture, but I can’t find it in the blog, so either I am losing my mind or imagining things. Either one could be positive. 😉

This is the first arrangement. It will work, areas I want to stand out stand out. With a few more blocks the self bordering will work as well.

I know I rearranged the pieces after I took this photo, but, once again, my camera is upstairs, so it will have to be a post for tomorrow.

Projects Calling

I couldn’t stay away from my workroom on yesterday. I found a playmate for the child and left them to their own devices (except for an occasional admonishment to go outside away from the screens) while I sat and sewed. I sent Aja’s Bullseyes off to her, as I may have mentioned, last week. She received them Thurs or Fri, so I only had my blocks to work on.

This calling business was a bit disconcerting, because it seemed like my mind had a mind of its own. Normally, I will sew a bit, do the laundry a bit, sew a bit more, make my weekly phone calls, sew a bit, change the laundry and do the dishes and sew a bit more. Yesterday my body and mind were united and they were having none of it. I went to the workroom and basically stayed there. No dishes, no laundry and the dinner didn’t get started until almost 7pm. IT WAS FABULOUS!!!
This is one of the blocks and I really liked it. I fussy cut the last circle and was sad to slice it up, because the flower is so perfectly displayed.

These are my blocks after I have added the last circle. The blocks in the upper right hand corner are blocks that weren’t in the photo I posted the other day. My design wall isn’t big enough to accommodate all of the blocks.

These are details of the blocks from the upper right hand corner.

Now my Bullseye blocks are nearly complete. I have sewed the last circles on and trimmed all the blocks down to 9.5″.
This is how the back of a block looks after I have sewn the last circle and before I have cut the back of the second circle out. You can see that Julie and Aja have cut out the backs of the background and the first circle.

Here is how the above block looks after I have cut out the back of the second circle. This reduces bulk and provides lots of lovely circles for another project.

I finished the process of cutting out the backs of the second circles, and I have sliced the blocks into quarters. I am preparing them to be sent off to Julie and Aja.

Here is how I set up the blocks to slice them. I love the Creative Grid rulers, because they have a lot of different markings that allow you to line up the ruler so the block is sliced very precisely.

I keep two quarters of the block and send one quarter each to Julie and Aja.

Here are my slices. I just slapped them up on the wall, but I like the internal maze surrounded by a larger maze and may go with that type of design for the final design. I think I will have to put some of the stronger colors, perhaps red, in that internal maze so that it stands out. I will also want the self bordering technique to give the piece a finished look You can see it in Seeing Red.

Bullseyes – Another Round

Friend Julie sent me a second package of Bullseyes sometime last week and I decided I needed to get my act together and sew them up.

Adrienne’s blocks detail.
The rest of Adrienne’s blocks after I put the circles on.
Adrienne’s blocks after Julie put the first circle and I sewed the second circle.
The rest of Adrienne’s blocks after Julie put the first circle and I sewed the second circle.


The rest of my blocks. I was surprised at how much non-purple the other girls used, but then I remembered that that is the fun. DUH! I have cut all the squares for the last round and hope to sew them on this weekend. I recut a lot of them so that most, if not all are purple. I want to cut them up and send them off before I start off on my travels.

On a Tear (Sharon’s Quilt)

I thought I would feel some kind of high and float around for a few days afer finishing the back of the Nosegay, but it is not to be. All I can think about is Sharon’s quilt, so I got the blocks out and put them up on the design wall. I had made a design while I was out and about yesterday, which I used to lay the blocks out.

P=plain block (printed fabric cut out) D=block with a drawing on it.

Sigh! There are just too many blocks to make it work. I, then, put them all up so I could see what I was dealing with.

There are three blocks that aren’t up on the wall and with those I have my entire design wall filled.

I am tempted to be artistic, but the practical side of me is telling me just to sew the piece together and be done with it.

What Could Be Better Than Red?*

From the inspiration department:
Big Chill Fridge. They come in a number of different colors, much more interesting than stainless.

The above are two blocks I made for group quilts. I sent them off today as well as made them! I know it is Friday and I never sew on Friday, but I was hitting the deadline wall and just had to do it and send them.

*Blue is always better than red during football season, but we are not talking about football season here.

No Progress on Feelin’ Blue, Too

I am worried about the quilting. My quilter is gone until the end of the month and I am anxious that I won’t get the two quilts back in time to bind and sleeve them for the show. I am so worried that I have been contemplating quilting it myself. Not sure the body can handle it, though, so I haven’t actually committed to the quilting process. And before I decide, I have to doodle my quilting idea for awhile to see if it will actually work.

My mom assured me that she would help me finish the quilts no matter what time it got back. Why can’t I have faith? This is a theme lately and it tells me that I am in the wrong space.

Sitting down and doodling the quilt design, working on the sleeve and the binding would all help me move forward. I need to break the process into baby steps and JUST DO IT. I could also decide to forget the whole thing.

Feelin’ Blue, Too 2 halves

Feelin' Blue Two Halves
Feelin’ Blue Two Halves

This is one of the blocks that are scheduled to be sewn together. At the moment only the two halves are sewn together. I do like the way the four patch in the middle looks now that the halves are each sewn together. I think it will look great when the whole block is sewn together.

This is also one block that I thought had too little blue and too much other color in it. It has changed since parts were sewn together. As I mentioned, I think that all the different colors will work out.

I guess I had better get to it.