I’m In, But…

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The “My Favorite Color is Moda Sampler” came to my attention because Studio Stitch is offering it as a block of the month this year.

At the same time, I decided to abandon my temperature quilt, which left a lot of solid color yardage to be re-purposed.

Voila!  I went to Studio Stitch and got the pattern booklet to re-purpose the temperature quilt fabrics!   Of course I don’t follow directions, so I re-drafted Block 1 to change the color scheme and construction methods.

My re-drafted block is constructed as a medallion rather than as the complex 9-patch construction in the Moda booklet.  It’s neither better nor worse, but presents different challenges.  Here are a few tips for having all those points “come out right”:

  1.  Of course you already have cut carefully and obtained a uniform scant 1/4″ seam allowance.  Alas, that isn’t enough!
  2. Where points come together, lay the blocks right sides together (RST) as they will be stitched and stick a pin straight through at the point where two fabrics interesect on block 1 and into the point where fabrics intersect in block 2 in order to match up these points.  Keep the pin vertical while you insert pins on either side of it to hold the blocks in place.  Then remove the vertical pin.
  3. Baste part of the seam, starting about 1″ before the intersection and ending about 1″ after the intersection.  I just use the longest stitch on my machine for this.  Gently open the seam and check the points.  If the match is perfect, return to regular stitch length and stitch the whole seam.  If it’s not perfect, just remove the basting and try again.
  4. When joining rows where multiple points need to match up, do steps 2 and 3 for each of the points!  If one side is a little too long between points, stitch with that side down and the feed dogs will take up the slack.
  5. Set your own standard for what constitutes a perfect match!  If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for anybody else!

    My personal standard is “if it’s less than 1/16th inch off, leave it alone! I can see the slight mis-match in the upper left, but really, who cares?

Have fun!

And a big THANK YOU to folks who made suggestions for how I can re-purpose the strips I’ve already made for the temperature quilt.  I almost threw them out!  Now I have some nice ideas on what to do with them.  To be continued.

Design Floor/Exercise Tool

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Sitting quietly,
doing nothing, spring comes
and the grass grows by itself.
–Basho

OK, it’s not exactly quilting, but this is one of my favorite haiku, and we certainly need spring. Enough said.

On to quilting…

We’re presently in transitional housing while our new home is being built, and I’m putting nothing on the walls. Here are a couple of improvised design wall alternatives as well as a report on the progress of a couple of quilts.

The Temperature Quilt

I love the idea of a temperature quilt and started this one early in 2020.  Then we got going on the new house and my attention was elsewhere for several months.  Finally I got back to the temperature quilt and hung the first 6 strips (January-June) on my improvised design wall.  FYI, this beige flannel backing fabric (108″ wide) makes a great design wall when hung over the stair rail.

Unfortunately, I found it tedious and not every interesting to carefully transcribe temperatures to colors and arrange them in order.  Therefore, this quilt has been abandoned.  I have no idea what I’ll do with these strips, but the remaining yardage has been repurposed already 😀

The 9″ Swap Blocks

One of my quilt groups has been exchanging swap blocks each month and we now have more than enough for a quilt or two.  Here’s a layout for my first quilt, shown on the design floor.

The design floor has been a feature of several of our houses.  As long as there’s a loft  on the second floor that overlooks the first floor (usually the living room) I can get both a design floor and an exercise plan.  Here’s how it works:

Lay out blocks on floor

Run up the stairs and look down to evaluate the layout

Run down and move some blocks

Run up and re-evaluate

Run down and move some blocks

Repeat, repeat, repeat…

So you see, having a design floor is a great exercise tool 😀

And here’s the quilt top sewn together:

Anyone else have quilting exercise programs to suggest? 😀

Bad*ss Women!

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One of the fun books I’ve received from C&T recently contains transfers to be used for either embroidery or painting.  The title is Bad*ss Women and it includes a variety of prominent women both contemporary and historical.  Here are a few of them (photos courtesy of C&T).  You can click on each one to see it better.

A friend and her granddaughter are making a quilt from these transfers, painting the pictures with fabric pens. I love this idea and would be doing the same if I had a granddaughter.  I was very pleased to see Nancy Pelosi included.  I would have included Mother Theresa, but perhaps the author (or editor) thought calling her a Badass Woman would have been disrespectful.  Anyway, I just love the idea of traditionally female fiber arts celebrating prominent women.

C&T has similar books with transfers of pets (Domestic Divas) and plants (Urban Jungle) as well, but the Bad*ss Women are my favorite!

More Donation Quilts

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Before I show the latest group of donation quilts, I want to say how happy I am that my long-time blogging friend Melanie has started posting again.  She’s an expert in medallion quilts and does beautiful work, so you may want to check her out here.

These quilts are going to Ronald McDonald House, so here’s a last look at them before they go.  

improvisationally pieced quilt

“In Fairyland”, original design, 2013.  53″ x 67″.  I like it, but it’s never been used, so off it goes.

 

“Serendipity I”, 2020, 51″ x 61″. Pattern is from Love Jelly Roll Quilts.

 

Black and floral quilt

Unnamed, 55″ x 69″, 2011.  Made to use some of my huge stash of florals, but never used.

Kaffe Leftovers, 48″ x 60″, 2020.

I designed “Spring Sun” using piecing papers from a Judy Niemeyer pattern, 2012-2014.   It was juried into an AQS show but has never been used, so it’s time to donate it.

“Elizabeth’s Village”, 40″ x 40″.  Center design is by my friend Elizabeth and pattern is available in her Payhip store. I added borders so it would finish crib size, 2020.

“Baby Stars”, 45″ x 45″, 2019.  Pattern is “Lucky Stars” by Atkinson Designs.

Star Swap Quilt, original design, 2019. 40″ x 40″.

I hope the families at Ronald McDonald House get enjoyment and comfort from these quilts.  They were just stored in a closet here, so they need to be used.

2020 Review, Part II

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Here are the rest of my 2020 project completions.  As previously mentioned, shelter-in-place was an opportunity!

I designed and made Fiddlesticks after seeing a number of similar quilts on the internet.

Pineapple Fabrics requested pineapple blocks for a children’s hospital donation project, and my friend Chela and I each made several.

I finally finished this little art quilt, which was started several years ago

This quilt used up a lot of scraps!

I made numerous projects inspired by books I reviewed for C&T.  The quilt on the left is a modification of a pattern that appears in New Patchwork and Quilting Basics, by Jo Avery.  The block on the right is one of my favorites of the year; the pattern is in Quilt: Modern Curves and Bold Stripes.

The quilt above is modified from my friend Elizabeth’s Merrion Square pattern.  The pattern is available in her Payhip shop and includes several variations.

This quilt was made with a jelly roll I won in a contest!  The pattern is in Love Jelly Roll Quilts.

Who can resist the colorful fabrics by Kaffe Fasset? I made two quilts with them. This pattern is available free from Free Spirit Fabrics, here.

And here’s the quilt made with leftover blocks:

Above is another Scrap Quilt, 64″ x 64″. I was planning to teach it in January, but the COVID numbers have gotten too high here for that to be safe right now.

This is the quilt in crib size

The quilt above is another I developed for Studio Stitch.  I think they still have some kits left if you’re interested.  My friend Mary just sent me a picture of her completed quilt from the kit!

This next quilt, 12″ x 12″, was just a block for years after I took a leaf pounding class.  I finally quilted it, and I’m happy with the result.

Here are 3 that I know you’ve seen before, but they were completed in 2020, so gotta show them:

It’s always a great idea to offset the intersecting seams!
I finally bound this quilt, which was a practice piece for a pattern I developed last fall

And finally, here’s my end-of-year art quilt.  I’ve had this idea in mind for some time so I was glad to finally get it out on fabric.  I think the tree topper needs a golden starburst around it, so I’ll be adding that before the next holiday season, but at least the quilt is mostly done.

Xmas, 25.5″ x 31.5″

Whew!  2020 had some redeeming accomplishments despite all the “challenges”, as we like to call them!  I hope you find that the year had some good points for you, as well.

2020 Quilt Review, Part I

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Every problem being an opportunity, I think we’ll review the projects completed in 2020 because of the opportunity to spend much more time at home 😀  In fact, I got so much done that I’m splitting it into two posts so my head doesn’t spin.  Here’s part I:

Plaidish was made from a free pattern available from Kitchen Table Quilts

I designed the quilt above based on a barn quilt I saw every time I drove to town.  The design was created in EQ8 and Eileen Fowler at McCall’s Quilting transformed it into a design of her own, giving me credit for inspiration.

The above quilt was designed in EQ8 and made with scraps.  Studio Stitch offered the pattern free with purchase.  I loved using all my colorful scrap strips.

I made this after reading Happy Villages by Karen Eckmeier
This wonky house was inspired by a class I took with Laura Wasilowski several years ago
And this one gave me a chance to use one of my little antelope charms
This dragonfly has sparkly wings and a rhinestone, too
Finally, I couldn’t help making a card with this cow, who has been in my stash for some time!
This pine tree has green flannel for foliage and lots of free motion quilting for texture

I made a bunch of postcard-sized art quilts as samples for a class I plan to teach on making landscape quilts.  COVID happened, so the class hasn’t been offered yet.

I designed and made this little neighborhood after seeing similar projects online. Isn’t the internet a great source of inspiration?

Orphan Blocks
Orphan Blocks

I made a bunch of donation quilts, including the two above constructed from orphan blocks.  Several quilts went to a local at-risk infant project, and there’s another pile waiting to go to Ronald McDonald House.

I took a class with friends at A Stitch in Time and made this fall quilt.  They still have the pattern if you want to make one, too.

I made this orphan block up into a little quilt for the SAQA auction.

Like everyone else, I made a zillion of these. At least my model is cute 🙂

I enjoyed making this quilt and the templates from Elisa’s Backporch made it easy.

That is surely enough for one post!  To be continued…

Catching Up

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Catching up on a few things that happened over the holidays:

First, Julie contacted me about an error in a pattern I did for McCall’s Quick Quilts back in 2006.  It was nice to know somebody was still using the pattern!  The magazine probably published a correction in the next issue, but I was out of town so didn’t have access to either my original article or the magazine.  Julie figured it out on her own, however, and I think she did a great job.  She was kind enough to send me pictures of her finished placemats:

Second, I got 3 quilts bound.  Oh yes, I blogged about the first two before the binding was complete, taking care to hide the edges!  Here they are:

Little Jewels, from a pattern by The Quilt Police

Quilt from Pat Sloan’s “Going on a Picnic” quilt along

I finally bound this quilt, which was a practice piece for a pattern I developed last fall

Third, Studio Stitch is now offering the pattern I developed to make this quilt:

The pattern is free with purchase of enough FQs to make the smallest size, but you don’t have to buy the same fabrics I used.  Since I’m always looking for an excuse to buy more FQs, this seems perfect to me 😀

On to 2021!

The Tula Quilt: Better Late Than Never!

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A friend and I decided to work together on Tula Pink’s City Sampler quilt. We liked the variety of the blocks and the tiny pieces in some of them. Since I really prefer not to make the same block twice, 100 different blocks were appealing.

And yes, I know everybody else made this quilt years ago. I’ve seen several beautiful examples.

Anyway, here are a few of my blocks so far. If some of them don’t look right, that’s because I made a substitute for any block I didn’t care for 😀And finally, my favorite block so far:
What have you been up to?

Avoiding Half Square Triangles

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Half square triangles are an important design element in many quilts. The split value and diagonal line allow a variety of dynamic designs.

This is a Half Square Triangle (HST)

One of my quilt groups has been discussing HSTs because some of us love them and some have limited tolerance for them. It matters because we regularly do block exchanges.

One member recently sent a picture of a beautiful depression block quilt, and that got the discussion going again. A depression block quilt is made entirely of HSTs!

This is a typical block from a Depression Quilt

 

This is a traditional Depression Block Quilt made entirely with HSTs

Not being much of a rule-follower, I got to speculating about how we might make this quilt using strips instead of HSTs. (Yes, I get that the original idea was to use up small scraps, but what if you just wanted the overall effect without all those HSTs?) My friend Mary B encouraged me to develop this idea, so here we go.

I did a number of experiments with Electric Quilt 8 (EQ8), which produced all the illustrations for this post.  I learned that the most important element in the success of this quilt is contrast between the values (rather than the colors) of the fabrics. (All the illustrations use Fossil Fern fabrics from the EQ8 fabric library.)

I first tried drawing a block that used strips of lights and darks in place of the rows of triangles. This would simplify construction significantly.

Here’s the block:

Depression block effect without the HSTs

And here’s the quilt:

Then I tried a traditional Courthouse Steps block set on point to mimic the depression block effect.

Here’s the block:

And here’s the quilt:

Finally, I changed up the color arrangement in the traditional Courthouse Steps block to provide more variation.

Here’s the block:

And the quilt:

So! I’m not sure my variations are a good substitute for the traditional Depression Block quilt, but it was fun and I do like the quilts. What do you think, Mary B?