Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
Today is the day where we give the officers their gifts.
Carrie, Sue and I spent last Saturday at The Granary, a local quilt store that has a great restaurant nearby.
We bought gift cards for the officers and spent time, in between eating, looking at quilt supplies and wrapping the gifts. It was another fun time with Carrie and Sue.
Julie handed over a couple more blocks at Sew Day. These give the impression of primary colors to me, though I can clearly see they aren’t.
I went to Cyndi’s house and sewed the other day.
We planned to make the Enigma Bag (Sew Sweetness, Minikins Season 4) together back in November, but life happened, so we didn’t get to it until last week.
I have to admit that the Enigma Bag might be my new Hackney Bag – that is a bag I make for gifts for various people. I like it a lot. I especially like the diagonal zipper and how it opens flat. I haven’t given them to enough people to have feedback.
I didn’t feel like lugging my machine along, so Cyndi kindly let me use her machine. She has a Janome Skyline and I have to say that it was really nice to use for sewing. The bobbin loading was amazing. I might need to look into getting a new machine. That’s a story for another day.
As you can see, I moved in quite completely. My pattern and pieces are on the right and my go bag is on the left.
I had done all the cutting and prep for my bag, so I worked on cutting out the Goldenrod book cover, which I decided to make at the last minute, while Cyndi finished her prep. I started a bit before and was able to get to the point in the pattern where I installed the main zipper. I wasn’t happy with it, though and stopped, because I needed to contemplate the zipper in the overall scheme of making the bag.
It was a great day and I enjoyed sewing with someone else very much.
This quilt was returned to the guild’s community quilts project at last month’s meeting by Lee Ann. She named it ‘Leftovers’ after I told her the story of the three food quilts and how I make the Ends quilts.
I am really pleased that a number of my quilt tops have been finished recently.
Carrie is having fun making door prize collections.
This one has a picnic theme, which I think is very clever. She is using some contributions from other team members, such as an interesting pouch that Tim made. The basket is from Amazon**, but there free patterns* for rope baskets, too. They are a good project for using up fabric scraps.
*N.B. I haven’t tried this pattern so your mileage may vary.
**N. B. : Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops and small businesses. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need there, I use Amazon affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this blog.
On my way home from Portland, we, again, stopped at our friends in Ashland. In addition to visiting, we were able to see how the turning tool came out. Mike did a great job. It isn’t exactly like my tool from Modern American Vintage (top), but I think it will be useful for Mary’s bagmaking. Like me when I am trying a new quiltmaking technique, Mike says he wants to try again. The tool didn’t come out exactly how he expected. As mentioned before, he isn’t going to compete with MAV, but making a couple to get it right seems reasonable.
While I was visiting Mary, she finished piecing a donation quilt and then basted it. This quilt is in the same style as my Ends quilt series, which thrilled me.
The fabrics are from Me and My Sister Designs. I don’t know how old they are, so it is possible you won’t be able to find the fabrics in shops. She picked them up at the guild meeting. This is such a cheerful quilt.
I took my Mom to Portland for her birthday last week. We spent a day in Ashland sewing with a friend. Mom worked on her hand quilting project, which is almost done.
She works on this at Craft Night. Isn’t it cheerful?
I have touted the fabulousness of the Modern American Vintage tools. Since I was sewing with Mary, I brought my travel tool bag. In it was my fabulous turning tool. This was partially because I keep it in my travel bag, but I also wanted to show Mary.
We had a long talk about it, then we showed it to Mary’s husband, who has a wonderful wood shop and is a great woodworker (carpenter?). He immediately said to just buy from Modern American Vintage (which you should do!), that he couldn’t make it as well or as inexpensively as MAV. As the day wore on, he got more intrigued with the idea of the tool. By the end of the day he had started to try making one of the tools.
This is the same as deciding you want to try and make a certain complicated bag or a difficult quilt block. I loaned him the tool so we’ll see what he comes up with.
He will not be selling these, so you should get yours from Modern American Vintage.
I couldn’t go to Sew Day, because I was driving my mom to Portland. Instead we had a Sew Day with Mary M on the way and that was a great substitute for the guild Sew Day I missed.
She has a large and fabulous workroom. We both sewed there and Mom worked on her hand project with no issues and we didn’t trip over each other.
This is only half the room. To my left is a small office area where Mom sat near the window to hand quilt.
You can see that she has two very nice machine, a Bernina 570 and a Crescendo by Baby Lock.
Berninas were out of favor, sort of, for awhile, but I know 3 people who have purchased one in the past year or so. Mary bought this machine, the embroidery module and the table from a friend who decided to go back to baking. She was still getting used to it when I was there.
I sewed on her Crescendo. I never tried a Baby Lock before, but really liked the machine. I was quilting some parts for bags and the machine helped me speed through the work.
I have seen the ad on the YouTube video I watch for the invisible join tutorial. This is a very helpful video on how to join the ends of binding that you may have missed when I posted it the first time.
I used the automatic cutting feature, which I have never used before, the laser and the button for foot up and down. All of these features worked together to make quilting some bag parts much more palatable. It is also fun to try a different machine.
We had a good time.
Amy belongs to another modern guild. That guild does block exchanges. People design or select a block and others make them, so the recipient can make a quilt. Amy has been talking for a few months about selecting a block. At Sew Day, she finally showed the blocks she received.
She had people make two and was working on them at Sew Day.I think the blocks look good together, though not 100% matchy-matchy.
She plans to give it to the Community Quilt team as a donation quilt.
I was stunned to see Rhonda pin this amazing quilt to the design wall. I really love the design and the colors.
I went and chatted with her about it. It turns out that it is a round robin with Amanda’s center. I believe those are Swoon blocks, like I used in my quilt, Swoon.
Rhonda has had the quilt for awhile and brought it to get started on her border.
I was really pleased to be able to see it. It is gorgeous.
A month or so ago Gerre asked me to help her think through the construction of a velvet quilt similar to one in the Rosie Lee Tompkins exhibit. We talked about foundation paper piecing the long strips that would make a quilt to look like the Rosie Lee Tompkins exhibit entry way quilt.
I don’t remember how this quilt was constructed, but I am pretty sure Ms. Tompkins didn’t use FPP. I could tell Gerre wasn’t 100% on board with the idea. At the time, I couldn’t think of anything else.
Therefore I was pleased to see that she and Mary had come up with a plan to make the quilt in blocks using the quilt-as-you-go (QAYG) method. What a great idea! They are sewing strips of velvet on to batting, then will sew them together. This technique really helps keep the velvet under control as it is sewn.
At the beginning of the day they had a few blocks already done. I really like the blocks 2d from the right with the white squares. I also like that Gerre is not copying the Rosie Lee Tompkins quilt. I think it is great that she is making it her own.
By the end of the day, they had most of the blocks made. The photo (left) may not show all of them. In this case I really like the black with the silver. I prefer the blocks that use the color as an accent. They are all really beautiful. The sheen of the velvet gives them an amazing lustre.
Sew Day was Saturday and it was great! There is a lot to tell you, but I’ll probably have to spread it over a few posts.
First up, community quilts.
Friend Julie finished the Ends n.17 (Plaid). She even did the binding! What a star!
I am so thrilled that this will soon go to a good home. I really hope that it will provide comfort and nice snuggles for someone who needs a hug.
Julie worked on a second quilt, which I did not make. My first comment, upon seeing it was that it was a weird shape. I quickly realized that it will be a great crib quilt. It is just the right size and shape for a crib, or a toddler bed for a slightly older child.
One reason I am making so much progress, aside from taking the time to select the fabrics, is that I don’t mind the (almost) paperless foundation piecing as much as I mind regular foundation piecing.
You can see also that the fabrics are relatively bright and cheerful.