QuiltCon Charity Quilt

Posted on January 29, 2017 by zippyquilts

The Modern Quilt Guild of Franklin (NC) has been working on this quilt designed by Sarah Overton of My Crowded Nest. It is paper-pieced octagons,and the paper piecing certainly has helped it go together more smoothly with so many different people working on it.

Several people took papers and fabric home to do a row at first, then we all met several times to put the rows together.

We were working from a plan, but color placement was still a challenge!

Of course the colors were chosen by the national MQG, but we added a few prints to liven things up.

And finally, the top is done!

It’s going to be quilted by Andrea Walker, so I’ll be sure to show a picture of the final quilt when it’s done. After QuiltCon, it will be donated to our local hospice.

Guild Challenges, Part I

Posted on January 22, 2017 by zippyquilts

When I volunteered to arrange programs for one of my modern guilds this year, I didn’t realize the job included coming up with a challenge each month. Luckily, there were lots of ideas for guild challenges in internet-world, so the challenges weren’t too much of a challenge. (Sorry, that just slipped in!)

I thought it might be helpful to other modern guilds if I posted our proposed challenges, since I’m sure other folks are in need of ideas, too. So here’s the first one: slabs. If you don’t know what a slab quilt block is, Canadian quilter Cheryl Arkison published the idea in her book Sunday Morning Quilts. You can see a picture and instructions here.

Slabs can be addictive! And a quilt of many colors is fun.

In January, each member received brief instructions on how to make a “slab” of a single color of the rainbow. Sort of. While trying to figure out how to set up the rainbow challenge, I found this quote from Isaac Asimov (one of my heroes):

It is customary to list indigo as a color lying between blue and violet, but it has never seemed to me that indigo is worth the dignity of being considered a separate color. To my eyes it seems merely deep blue.

So our colors for the challenge are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. Seems like the main value of indigo and violet is that they let us spell out ROY G BIV. Huh.

Our slabs are 15-1/2 inches square, to be 15 inch finished blocks. Each person makes one in her assigned color, then can make as many others as she wants in as many of the six basic colors as she wants. At the next meeting, we’ll put all our slabs in a pile and each person’s name will go in a basket once for each block she turns in. Then we’ll draw a name and somebody gets all the blocks. Of course she’s expected to make something wonderful with those blocks before the next meeting!

I e-mailed examples of slab quilts to guild members as part of the challenge and also took some of my quilts to show.

Jerri Szlizewski combined her purple slabs with neutral slabs, then appliqued purple dots on the neutral backgrounds

I cut up the yellow-orange slabs I got in a swap and inserted blue

Does your modern guild have some great challenge ideas? Let me know! I’ll be posting about our other challenges as we go along so you can use them, too.

QuiltCon, Anyone?

Posted on January 15, 2017 by zippyquilts

QuiltCon, the Modern Quilt Guild’s annual gathering, will be in Savannah in February 2017, and I am going!

I recently read an interesting blog by Becca Fenstermaker about how to deal with a convention when you’re an introvert. Believe it or not, that would be me, so I plan to use her idea.

Becca’s main suggestion was to start ahead of time and try to find people who will be attending, so you’ll have somebody to visit with when you get there.

Fortunately, there will be several people from at least two of my guilds, but of course the point is meeting new people as well as visiting with old friends. So if you’re going, please leave me a note in the comments–I’d like to met you!

Meanwhile, I’ve made two more clusters of sweet pea pods. The pattern is well illustrated and the directions easy to follow 🙂

Hope you have a good week!

A Cute Apron and a Pattern Review

Posted on January 8, 2017 by zippyquilts

Photo courtesy of Indygo Junction

My husband recently discarded some shirts, so I was interested to see this “Kitchen Shirt Tales” pattern from Indygo Junction.

It looked pretty simple, and I’ve made dozens of aprons over the years, but I decided it was worth the money to buy the pattern rather than having to figure it out on my own. The pattern was downloadable, which added to the appeal–instant gratification!

I was pleased with the way the apron came out, but only because I abandoned the instructions part way through construction.

The instructions were MUCH too complex for a simple garment like this. For example, rather than providing a pattern for the garment in different sizes (if, indeed, one needs a choice of sizes for an apron), the instructions were to measure yourself and then derive the cutting lines through a rather complex formula. After figuring out these measurements, you were instructed to draw the curve for cutting out the top by connecting the measurements.. I did get it drawn just fine, but it would have been so much simpler to just have a pattern piece for cutting out the main body of the apron!

As you can see below, the apron looked just fine on two of my colleagues who are different sizes.

Indygo Junction kitchen shirt tales pattern review

At this point, the instructions became confusing and there were VERY few illustrations. I usually do pretty well with verbal instructions, but the most commercial patterns have a drawing for each step for a reason.

This pattern would need many, many more drawings to be clear. I quit the instructions at that point and made the rest up as I went along.

I still think it is a great idea to recycle a shirt into an apron, and this is cute the way it came out. The pattern, however, could be greatly improved by the addition of a pattern piece for cutting and many additional illustrations.

Finished! In 2016

Posted on January 1, 2017 by zippyquilts

First, the Christmas tree picture with fireplace was at the Grove Park Inn, in Asheville, N.C. That fireplace is big enough for a man to stand up in. Hopefully when there’s no fire.

And now, the 2016 finishes.