Mary and I did finish the top at Sew Day. I brought it home to make a back and will be handing it in today at the meeting.
I am pleased with how this came out. The ugly bits we started with turned into a really great quilt. It isn’t made from the colors I would normally use, but I am pleased with the result.
I am also pleased with how many of the orphan blocks and chunks we were able to use up overall during Sew Day. Sadly, none of the shards I brought were used. There is always next time.
Mary wants to do another with me next time, which I think will be great fun.
Cathy went straight to work almost as soon as we arrived. She brought some of her Pointillist Palette chunks to work with.
I keep looking at this one and seeing different things.
It is great to see other people’s work in the quilts. Two of my donation blocks were included. Cathy also used Joelle’s word chunk from a previous swap.
I finished cutting out the Friesan pouch at Sew Day and had an hour until it was over. I could have left, but instead Mary C and I decided to work together to make another donation quilt top in an hour. It was a charity Sew Day after all and both of us had been working on our own projects.
Sew Day Donation Top start
We used some fabric from one of the first retreats that had been sewn together into a block of rectangles. It was not very attractive.
The first thing we did was to cut it in half and they cut the halves on the diagonal so we could insert some strips and break up the parts that were unattractive.
Sew Day Donation top 1st steps
Mary C had some strips and strips sets leftover from a quilt she had just finished that we ransacked to make the improvements.
I selected some grey from the abundance of solids that Peggy has and we used that color to fill in other places.
Adding the seafoam green strips REALLY helped that rectangle go from unattractive to attractive. The addition also lightened up the piece.
To make the two halves large enough, we added the strip set and sewed the pieces together.
Green ‘bird’ block
Brown ‘bird’ block
We decided we wanted to use the ‘bird’ blocks as well. They were mostly made from the same fabrics, so they fit in well. I had to build up the green block, which was not nearly square.
Brown ‘bird’ chunk
Mary sewed the brown bird into a large-ish chunk with the intention of putting on the bottom of the piece. I thought it came out well.
Green bird block built-up
While she did that, I built up the green bird block into a shape we could use. The green strip along the bottom allows that darker green and orange section to float a bit which was a happy accident.
Sew Day Donation Top in process
Eventually we ended up with several large chunks. We wanted to add those half circle pieces, which took a bit of time to work out.
In this endeavor, Mary did the sewing and some ironing while I trimmed, pressed, matched fabrics, cut strips and brought her stuff to sew. We had to make little bits to allow us to fit the chunks together. There is a freedom in this kind of improv quilt. I happily hacked off pieces of the blocks and chunks to make them fit.
We had a charity Sew Day on 4/2. Often Peggy will provide a pattern, but this time the activity centered around orphan blocks and chunks.
April 2022 Sew Day Design Wall
Maria had been collecting orphan blocks and chunks for awhile. The first thing she did when she arrived was start pinning them to the design wall.
Maria put up a random assortment of blocks and chunks and people took what they wanted and worked on donation tops.
As mentioned, I didn’t really want to do the activity, but others got right into it. Since I made the Missouri Star donation top and brought it, I didn’t feel guilty about it. Nobody said anything to me either.
Sew Day Donation Top in process
After I finished cutting out the Friesan Pouch, I ended up working on a quilt with Mary C and found that it was a fun activity. I prefer to do these types of quilts with someone else.
I decided I needed to get this one finished. All the projects left on my design walls when I put them away were a lot less interesting when I saw them again. I didn’t want to toss them, but I did want them finished.
I started it last year sometime. The first time I talked about it was July, which was right before we dismantled my workroom. I was concerned at that time that I wouldn’t have enough scraps to make a decent sized baby quilt. It’s still a concern as I am piecing tiny scraps together and expect to have no yellow scraps left.
I spent time over the weekend making good progress.
Saturday turned out to be a kind of topsy turvy day. Once I finally got to the machine, I wasn’t really up for working on the A Place for Everything Bag. I felt defeated by it and wanted to just finish something.
I needed some new journal covers and they are relatively easy to make. I found some already ‘made fabric’ in my blue scrap bin and stitched up a couple of journal covers.
2022 Blue Journal Cover #1 (left inside)
2022 Blue Journal Cover #1 (right inside)
It is pretty easy to make these when the fabric is already sewn together, so this one when together really fast. The hard part was dealing with the flannel, which I have been using for the other side instead of regular fabric. I was running out of the yard I have had for awhile and had to piece bits together. After these two I will need to go back to interfacing a regular piece of fabric. Why buy more flannel when I have plenty of fabric?
2022 Blue Journal Cover #1 (back)
I probably should have used the made fabric for another blue donation quilt. I’m not really worried, though. There are always more scraps.
I took some of the made fabric I had assembled for the Yellow Improv donation quilt and made a journal cover.
I felt like I was taking away from the donation quilt, but I’ll be needing a new journal cover soon, so needs must. I figure I have a lot of scraps, so more donation quilts are on the agenda.
This one turned out to be just a smidge small, so I had to stretch it to get it on the journal (Miquelrius 6.5 in. x 8 in**).
Yellow Journal Cover – front and back
I kind of used what I had rather than arranged the scraps because I didn’t think of using the pieces I was working on for a journal cover until I had already made most of the pieces.
I still have quite a few equilateral triangles from the Flower Sugar Hexagon quilt I made a long time ago. I am trying to use them up, but there seems to be a never-ending supply.
Yellow Journal Cover – inside front cover
I am not very enamored with the inside. That corn fabric doesn’t look great outside of the Food quilts. At least it reminds me of the three food quilts I made and the people who received them.
As I may have mentioned, I have stopped adding fabric to the inside and just let the flannel be the other side of the cover. It makes the project go more quickly and makes the cover flatter. Of course, it doesn’t use as much fabric.
Yellow Journal Cover – inside back cover
I think I have one more Miquelrius journal to use after this one, then I will switch completely to the Leuchtturm journals.
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I am still tidying up after all the work in my workroom. One of the things I found was a piece of ‘made’ fabric (improv piecing) that was just the right size for a journal cover. I sat down and made one!
I am still not completely up and running, so it was good to make something that involved, at least, a little piecing.
I just used flannel for the inside. I didn’t add an inside cover. I did that once before and it seems to work fine.
Joelle quilted and bound this second of the Pop Parade donation quilts. I finished it in July, so the finish was relatively quick. Thanks, Joelle!!!
As you may remember, I added the large dark red batik fabric (left) with the yellow dots to round the variety of fabrics I had for the X Quilt. I am pleased the quilt is done, but I am also pleased that I finally used this bundle of fabrics. This is a great example of why a person should use the fabrics when they buy them. I loved these fabrics when I bought them and loved them a lot less when I finally used them. I don’t dislike them and I am very pleased with the quilts I finished.
I continue to work on the Yellow Improv. As I work on other projects, I sew bits and pieces together. The piece is almost 20 inches square now. Not big enough yet, but getting there.
Slowly but surely this piece is growing. The top section, which I think of as the main piece, is about 20×20 now. I am working on growing the bottom piece to fit on to the top piece. At the moment the bottom piece is made up of 3 different pieces.
I find that I need triangles in these pieces to add interest. The additional, non-yellow, colors add interest, but I find that if I have too many squares and rectangles the eye doesn’t move around as much. In this piece, however, there isn’t much contrast and that helps the eye not linger on the squares and rectangles.
I learned this from the Green Thing, the first top in this series. Those bars, which aren’t even really green, provide a focal point, but I find that the focal point takes away from the rest of the quilt. Good thing I’ll have enough green scraps to make another!
I don’t think this is my best work. there are a lot of disparate elements. Somehow it works. It kind of looks like buildings surrounding a park to me.
I struggled with this piece, because of the green and orange. I don’t sincerely dislike green, but I don’t make it a main color in any of my quilts except the Improv Color quilts. I also like orange, but somehow this was a struggle on which to work.
Tim’s Improv Donation Back
The back went relatively fast. I took both pieces to Sew Day and gave them to Peggy and the team for quilting.
I am working hard on my Yellow Improv donation top. I am trying to use smaller pieces so I use up ALL of my yellow scraps. It isn’t working 100% of the time, but I’ll keep trying. Perhaps my default will be to make this top as big as the scraps I have?
This top came about because I cleaned off every horizontal surface in my workroom holding fabric or projects. I found some random pieces sewn together as well as some Pop Parade yardage. I wanted it all gone except a blue (not shown). I started sewing pieces together randomly, using already pieced sections where I could. I had only two unused blocks from the X quilt, which was a shame, design-wise, but ok. I know that someone will like this quilt once it is finished and off to its new owner.
Pop Parade Improv Donation quilt back
My bonus is that I don’t have any random pieces of Pop Parade laying around. I did like the motifs, but didn’t like the colors chosen. I’d love it if they would reprint this fabric in clearer colors. I often think that.
We are now handing in donation quilts at Sew Days, so I will give this to Peggy the next time we meet.
