Can anyone identify the location? Or just comment with your guess 🙂
Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All
9
Slabs, Round 2
Cheryl Arkison is one of several people to suggest putting together scraps of the same color to make a quilt block (or fabric from which to cut quilt pieces). Cheryl calls hers “slabs” and makes them big–15 inches square finished.
Above is the quilt I made from a slab swap with one of my quilt groups a couple of years ago. I had asked for slabs made from the yellow/orange family, and I loved what I got. But I’m not one to leave well enough alone, so I cut them up and made the quilt shown above.
A relative-who-will-remain-nameless looked through my quilts online and asked for something similar, but in a larger size.
I’ve had fun collecting orange and yellow fabrics. My friend Linda donated a large bag of orange “scraps”; I felt free to ask her since she claims to hate orange 😀 Then she brought me a big cut of solid orange to go with the scraps!
Linda even found an orange patterned bag to put her scraps in!
The rest came from my stash and from a few things I bought while travelling. I improvised the squares, featuring a few funky fabrics in each one from the fabrics I bought especially for this quilt.
Then I used Moda Bella Amelia Blue to sash each square and cut the sashing so they are all wonky. Each will finish 18″ square with sashing.
This one will be big enough that it will need to go to the long-arm quilter. I’ll have more pictures when it’s finished.
Meanwhile, how are those holiday projects coming along?
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Two Quilts, 3 Reviews, 4 “Learning Experiences”
“Wow!” my husband said, as he watched me taking quilting stitches out with my new 
electric seam ripper. And his is an informed opinion, since he has seen PLENTY of seam ripping over the years between my adventures and those of his 3 sisters.
So here’s the story: I designed a quilt made of all equilateral triangles, in all solid colors, several years ago. It was one of those projects that looked better in my head than in reality, so I backed up and started again. (Learning experience #1: this design stinks.)
The Lombard Street pattern by Sassafras Lane caught my eye, so I ordered it, thinking I probably could re-cut my blocks to work. When the pattern arrived, it was just as beautiful as it looked online, and the block size was such that I could, indeed, salvage my fabric. But it is paper pieced–not my favorite technique. (Learning experience #2: check the construction method before ordering!)
In any case, I got the top made and was pleased with the result
The pattern is Lombard Street, by Sassafras Lane Designs. The blocks are on my design wall.
Review #1: the Lombard Street pattern had excellent instructions, and came out just as great in person as it looked on the pattern.
I layered the quilt with Quilter’s Dream bamboo batting. Review #2: The batting felt just wonderful, soft and with a good drape. But OH MY did it make a mess of the black fabric! I don’t know how, but it kept giving off lint that completely covered the quilt top. I LOVE Quilter’s Dream batting and use both the poly or the cotton request loft almost exclusively. But this bamboo! Yikes! My trusty lint roller fixed that. Several times. (Learning experience #3: I won’t use bamboo batting again.)
It’s a long story, but after several trials, I decided to use Metrosene poly quilting thread in dark grey, thinking it would blend in with all the fabrics. This strategy has worked well on several other quilts, but not so much this time. I didn’t like the way it looked–when I had the quilting 80% done!!! (Learning experience #4: stubbornness isn’t always a virtue. Sometimes sticking with the task is not the best option 😀
Enter the electric seam ripper. I went online and researched just HOW other people had gotten the quilt stitches out of quilts in similar situations. I read about 3 different electric seam rippers and watched demos on You Tube. I purchased one, put in a AA battery, and got to work.
By the way, removing the backing from a quilt this way, in order to remove the quilting stitches, is called “skinning the quilt” according to my online research.
Review #3: The electric seam ripper worked amazingly well!!! I had the entire top un-quilted by 1 p.m., and I did two loads of laundry, made breakfast and lunch, and put dinner in the crock pot besides! I had to use a traditional seam ripper where I had made tiny stitches at the sharp corners, but otherwise it went very fast. The only holes created were a tiny hole in the batting made with my traditional seam ripper, and a tiny hole in the backing made by the electric seam ripper when I tried to insist that it cut through those very close stitches (it just said no).
The discussions online reported being able to lift the top quilting thread off in one long piece. As you see, that didn’t work for me–maybe when I’ve had more practice? (Oh please, no more practice!) Anyway, the trusty lint roller saved me again.
And this top is going to a long-arm quilter. Done!
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Next Scrap Project
I mentioned I’m doing a Lego Quilt, based on instructions from Tonya Ricucci. I am lucky to have changed to a 4-day-a-week job, so I spent my first Friday off getting all the strips done. I put them up on the design wall as I pieced them to be sure I was getting a good balance of colors and values.
Strips on my design wall
Tonya’s instructions say to cut 1-1/2″ strips and join them to make the rows in each block. I have a lot of strips, sorted by width, so I tried the 1-1/2″ strips first, joining them end-to-end and cutting into the lengths I needed.
That was tedious, to say the least. I switched to using wider strips, joining them lengthwise, and cutting 1-1/2″ strips from the sets.
Now I have 420 strips, enough to make my 42 blocks (finishing 10″ each) for a 60″ x 70″ quilt. This will be my next leaders-and-enders project. Here are all the strips laid out ready to go! 
Stay tuned! I think it will be fun to see it come together!
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One UFO Makes 3 Quilts!
I made these “prepared fabric” squares some months ago with John Cage’s “prepared piano” in mind. Then they sat in a box while I wondered what to do with them.
At a quilt retreat, I got some of them out and put them together into a 40″ x 44″ quilt top for Ronald McDonald House.
So the November UFO (UnFinished Object) project was to do something with the rest of those squares. I modified them further and made 2 more Ronald McDonald quilt tops, each 40 inches square.
That UFO box is empty! There were a few scraps for the scrap bin, and 3 blocks for the orphan block bin, but that project is DONE!
Sort of like that turkey…how was your Thanksgiving?
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Quilting Thanksgiving
Gratitude is always a good practice, so it’s especially nice to have a holiday specifically dedicated to thanksgiving. Here are 10 reasons I’m thankful for quilting:
- Every project is a new learning experience. Even if it is, sometimes, “another *%@!! learning experience” 🙂
A learning experience!
- There is no failure. Projects that don’t turn out as planned can be recycled into something. (It may take a while to figure out what.)
This one had to be cut up and made into placemats!
- Friends. Quilting is a great way to meet interesting people and make new friends. I love making friends online, too, even though I may never meet them in person. It’s such fun that people from 3000 miles away follow my blog and I follow theirs.
A new friend holding up one of my quilts at a recent guild talk
- Quilting is a great creative outlet, whether or not I choose to be an “artist”.
Quilt made for a class with Gwen Marston
- Gifts. I’ve made quilts, placemats, table runners, potholders, and bags to give to friends.
Divided basket made from pattern by Noodlehead
- Opportunity to give to the community. I make quilts for Ronald McDonald house.
One of my quilts for Ronald McDonald House
- Color! Who doesn’t love playing with all the beautiful fabrics?
Yummy fabrics at Studio Stitch, where I sometimes teach
- Socializing: it’s great to get together and work on a project with friends.
An especially quilty friend at a sewing group
- Being alone: it’s equally great to spend a quiet day alone in my studio
View from my home
- Problem solving: Many projects present problems that need to be solved, and I love the challenge.
I enjoyed the challenge of designing and making this quilt
What are you thankful for?
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Review: Karen Combs Teaching Tumbling Blocks
Karen Combs‘ Tumbling Blocks class, which I took at AQS-Chattanooga in September, was one of the best quilt classes I’ve ever taken. Of course, “tumbling blocks” is a traditional design, but I always like a challenge.
Tumbling Blocks, made in class with Karen Combs
Karen is so well organized and clear that I had 4 blocks made by the end of class and had started on the background! Her method for the Y-seams was so well explained that there is no need to even consider the “cheater” tumbling blocks made with half square triangles.
One of the “secrets” to making this block easy is to buy ombre fabric that varies from dark to light in the same color, so you don’t have to hunt down 3 values of the same color individually! Of particular note, Karen showed us how to use a standard quilting ruler to cut the blocks–NO SPECIAL RULER REQUIRED! I think this is notable in a field where so many teachers are selling their own rulers, which are then needed for the way they teach a class.
Karen’s class sample is a table runner, which probably does show off the blocks a little better than placemats. But I have more table runners than I can use, so placemats it is.
The quilting is done to emphasize the 3-dimensional aspect of the blocks, so I imitated what Karen had done. The background is quilted with random loops.
I’m pleased with this project, and I certainly recommend you take Karen’s class if you have the chance!
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A Nice Surprise and a New Scrap Project
First, the surprise: One of my quilts, Cherrywood Toss, won first place in the Modern category at my local show! Needless to say, I was thrilled!
Cherrywood Toss. Read about it here.
And then it was on to a new scrap project! I’ve been wanting to make a scrap quilt with a zillion pieces ever since my friend Jerri made her postage stamp quilt.
I came across the “lego quilt” on Pinterest and followed the links to this post by Tonya Ricucci of Lazy Gal Quilting, which gives specific directions. Go visit her post–there’s a cool picture of an antique quilt that gave her the idea.
Strips on my design wall
Tonya made her 10″ (finished size) blocks using 1-1/2″ strips composed of scraps of various sizes. She mentioned that there was some difficulty getting them to come out the right size. Because of that, I am making my strips 11″ long unfinished so I can trim the blocks to 10-1/2″ wide after they are assembled. Also, I’m making the first strip in each block 2″ wide unfinished so I can trim in that direction as well. 
So far I’m just making strips and putting them on the design wall to be sure I have a balance of values throughout the quilt. I’ll let you know how it goes. This takes a LOT of time! And like most scrap quilts, it doesn’t seem to use up even 10% of the available scraps! So far I’ve used only one drawer of the scrap cabinet!!!!
This might be a good leaders-and-enders project, since it seems like it could take forever. I’ll let you know how it turns out 🙂
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Smoky Mountain Quilt Guild Show, Part 2
There has been so much going on (that’s good!) I haven’t had a chance to post the rest of my favorites from my local guild show. Here are a few more of them.
Please note that this is a local show, so most of the quilts were made from patterns or workshops. I’ll list the source where I have it.
Jen Kingwell design beautifully done by Susan Roper
Traditional design made “to use up scraps”
Our guild has a very active group making Quilts of Valor for men and women who have served in the military. The next two were made for that program.
Inspired by a design on the Alycia Quilts blog
Design by Jenny Doan for Missouri Star Quilt Company
Design from the book Modern Paper Piecing was both pieced and quilted by Linda
Debby designed and made this quilt after a study of Amish quilts
Quilt is based on a Mind the Gap design by Moda. Karen cleverly named it after her “mistake” in placing the green strips!
Christeen designed this quilt herself, and I think the name should get a humor award!
Betty designed and made this quilt for a log cabin challenge
From a pattern by Kathy Wells
I’m lucky to live near so many talented quilters!
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Trees All Around at Studio Stitch
In November I’m scheduled to teach a cute Christmas pattern at Studio Stitch in Greensboro (North Carolina).
“Trees All Around”, class sample made from the pattern by Quilted Garden Designs
The design makes either a tree skirt or a round table topper. The pattern is by Jenice Belling of Quilted Garden Designs.
I made two of these several years ago because, as soon as my daughter saw mine, she had to have one!
The class is Saturdaay, November 5, 1-4 p.m. It’s a great way to make a quick project while learning about BOTH fused applique and quilt-as-you-go. There’s an opportunity for fancy embellishment, too! This class will be lots of fun!
Finally, here is another view, this one from the pattern cover. I hope you can join us!
Trees All Around table topper, photo from Quilted Garden Designs
Zippy Quilts 