One Big Improvement

Posted on July 5, 2015 by zippyquilts

Here’s the donation quilt that resulted from following one of Sherri Lynn Wood’s “scores” as it originally turned out. I didn’t much like it. As several friends pointed out, there wasn’t anywhere for the eye to rest!

This came from following one of Sherri Lynn Wood’s “scores”

I got some great suggestions from readers and other friends. I considered them all and finally used EQ7 (the Electric Quilt design program) to draft a layout. I removed the borders and cut the center into 9 equal blocks, each 10″ square. I loved Wanda’s idea to make the blocks different sizes with frames, but I was afraid the design already suffered from too much “creativity” so I didn’t do it.

10″ x 10″ blocks cut from the quilt center

Checking my stash, I came up with these options for sashing. I guess if I’d wanted a “really” modern quilt I’d have chosen the gray 😉

Sashing options for the revised quilt

I chose the marine blue because it calmed things down without making them dull. I’m pleased with the result.

The “New! Improved!” quilt top

Thanks to everyone who provided input about what to do with this!

What To Do x 2?

Posted on June 28, 2015 by zippyquilts

Here are two projects I need to “fix”, and I’m open to suggestions.

“Swim” is about 50′ x 50″

This first one, shown above, is an improvisation I did about 2 years ago. I haven’t finished it because the lines between the layers are more distinct than I intended. I joined the layers with curved seams cut freehand, and I changed the fabrics I used in each layer gradually, but the layers still aren’t blended as well as I’d like.

My “UFO finish” for June is to do SOMETHING with this top. (Mother used to say, “Do something, even if it’s wrong!” when we got stuck on a task.)

My current thought is to cut some freehand diamonds and applique them intermittently along the seams I want to blend. Any other ideas?

And here’s the second one that needs “fixing”:

This is to be the June donation quilt, 40″ x 40″

This is my second attempt to follow a Sherri Lynn Wood “score”. I followed her instructions more closely than last time, and I like it a lot less!

I chose a focus fabric from my novelties because this is a quilt for a child. I followed Sherri Lynn’s directions to make some “rules” and cut up 3 fabrics for the quilt, etc, etc. When I finished, I thought it needed something to “pull it together”, so I added a border of the focus fabric.

BUT, my friend who coordinates our donation quilts looked worried when she saw it. (PLEASE don’t tell me you think that’s a donation quilt?)

So help me out here! What should I do with this?

1. Leave it as it is and quilt it, already!

2. Cut it into blocks to be joined by solid color sashing to calm things down.

Option 2

3. Dye it black and use it to back something else (kidding!)

4. Another idea?

Option X

Hope you have a good week 🙂

From Orphans to Donation

Posted on June 14, 2015 by zippyquilts

One of my UFO (UnFinished Object) goals for the year is to do something with some of my orphan blocks. (Those are miscellaneous blocks left from various projects; you can read about them here). I’ve already turned a bunch of them into quilts, but I hauled them out again last month to give it another shot.

These star blocks are orphans left over from several projects, so they are different sizes

These are left from various projects, but I just love star blocks so they probably won’t be the last of the breed 🙂 And you can probably see that one of them even has a piece turned wrong, which I did NOT see until just now 😀

After fooling around with various options for them, I selected 5 and made this quilt:

Donation quilt made from orphan star blocks

It actually worked out just fine to simply add a partial border to the smallest one. And the purple fabric is left from yet another project, so win-win!

What do you do with your orphan blocks?

8 Projects for April and May!

Posted on May 31, 2015 by zippyquilts

In keeping with the plan to finish a UFO a month during 2015, here is the April finish. Since this fabric has been waiting for about 5 years, I’m calling this a significant finish!

Flower Fairies, A Donation Quilt

The second April finish is not only finished but delivered to the Quilt Alliance for their 2015 challenge. This one is called Cat Circus. The Laurel Burch fabrics reminded me of how just one cat can be a complete circus (polite word for disaster) in just a matter of minutes in any room in the house. I love cats, so that’s OK by me.

Cat Circus, my 2015 Quilt Alliance challenge quilt

And here is the May finish, along with two other donation quilts I made in April and May. This means 6 so far this year–I’m caught up through June! I’ll have more information on some of these in a later post. They are an improvisational quilt, an orphan block quilt, and a quilt using Cuddle charms and cat fabric.

Donation quilt made from orphan star blocks

I made two more blocks for My Modern Sampler this month. You can read about the improvisational one here, and I will blog about the Humbug Star at a later date. For now, here’s a preview:

The finished block, which will be 12-1/2 inches square

Finally, I bound the Charley Harper quilt that came back from the quilter a while ago. These organic cottons from Birch are stiffer and less silky than my usual quilting cottons, so I washed the quilt when it was finished. That helped some with the stiffness and also made the quilting stand out more.

Turning Twenty Again pattern in Charley Harper fabrics

On to the June projects–I’ll have much more news coming up!

March News x 3

Posted on March 29, 2015 by zippyquilts

First, here’s the stack of quilts my group made for Ronald McDonald House:

Second, here are some other projects along the way:

Gwen Marston Style Improvisational Blocks (made by me)

One of the blocks from our group block swap (24 inches square!)

Jerri’s start on a BIG Bonnie Hunter quilt

Improvised “slabs” for our next group block swap!

Finally, the March finish (as in, I am DONE with this one!)

Paper Piecing Gone WAY Wrong!

I bought this paper-piecing pattern for Storm at Sea in 2006 and cut the pieces over a (long) period of time with the intention of making it of scraps from other quilts. What I FAILED to do was to make a sample block before cutting the whole thing!!!

I wanted to paper piece this design so the points would be perfect. Instead, carefully piecing along the lines on the paper produced what you see above. The pattern and paper went into the trash, and the thousands of pieces I cut will be re-purposed!

I almost always make a test block, and now I expect it will be always-always instead of almost-always 😉

2015 Donation Quilt #1

Posted on February 22, 2015 by zippyquilts

A couple of my quilty friends try to make a quilt a month for various charities, so I thought I’d try that this year. The group with which I make donation quilts sends them to a Ronald McDonald House to be given to sick children. The House wants all quilts to be 40″ x 40″, which doesn’t seem too big to do one a month. Here goes….

For January I took some of my orphan blocks and related fabrics and made this quilt. The blocks also happen to be on my UFO list for 2015, so there’s TWO projects accomplished at once 🙂

February finish and January donation quilt

The blocks finish 12″ square, which means that with a 2″ border the quilt comes out 40″ x 40″ as planned. The 9-patch blocks were made using the stack and shuffle method I learned years ago from Karla Alexander’s books. It’s easy and fun. To end up with blocks this size, I started with 15″ x 15″ squares of fabric (since they’re cut wonky on purpose it takes a bigger starting square than you might think).

The center block has little inset strips using a technique I modified from one of Judy Niemeyer’s ideas. To make a quarter inch inset that doesn’t “wobble”, do this:

Block pieces, including yellow insert

Cut a 1″ strip of fabric and lay one edge along the raw edge of the piece where you want a narrow inset. Stitch through both the strip and the quilt piece 1/2″ away from the edge, either by using the 1/2″ mark on your machine’s throat plate or by marking the center of the strip.

The center pieces of the block have been jointed and the insert laid along the side

Fold and press along the seam-line so that you now have 3 raw edges, all lined up.

Strips have been added to all sides of the center pieces and pressed along the seam

I don’t usually trim away the extra fabric because I like the stability, but it DOES make for some weighty intersections if you choose not to trim away the bottom 1 or 2 layers. Then assemble the block as you normally would, using 1/4″ seams. The strip you added will show up as a 1/4″ inset.

Let me know if you try either of these blocks. I thought they were fun!

A Toddler Quilt and a “Finish”

Posted on January 18, 2015 by zippyquilts

One of the things I like about Aunt Marti’s UFO challenge is that I get to decide what constitutes a “finish”. With that in mind, my January “finish” consisted of sending my Charley Harper quilt off to the longarm quilter. Lest you think that just means handing it over, I had to select backing and make binding so that when it comes back I’ll be all ready to bind it. So here it is ready to go:

Turning Twenty Again, Charley Harper fabric

Binding is ready for when the Charley Harper quilt is returned to me

I started making the binding when I finish the quilt top for two reasons: I already have the fabric right there, so it saves time later. And I don’t accidentally use that binding fabric for something else before the quilt is ready for it 😉

My other finish this week (and this one is really, really finished) is a toddler quilt. It is 42″ x 52″ and is backed with Minkee Dot fabric. It has no batting. (Yeah, I know, that means it’s “not a quilt”. Right.) This makes it both soft and light, so a toddler can carry it around with him. He can use it to make a fort, take a nap, have a picnic, or whatever else. Here it is, from start to finish:

Toddler Quilt

I think this simple design would be good for a donation quilt, as well. It was quick and easy to make, and I think it shows the cute fabric to advantage.

2015 UFO Challenge

Posted on January 11, 2015 by zippyquilts

Last year I participated in Aunt Marti’s UFO (Unfinished Object) challenge over at 52 Quilts and found it helpful. I did NOT succeed in finishing a UFO every month, but there were several months when I wouldn’t have gotten even one done if it weren’t for the challenge.
So this year I’m not only taking the challenge, I’m (gasp!) publishing my list here so it’s public! And I’ll post about the finishes as I do them. Here’s the list, some of it in picture form: If you hover over the picture you can see its caption.

I made this quilt years ago in a class at Tennessee Quiltfest

Charley Harper top needs to sent to quilter

Pink and green orphan blocks need to be made into a donation quilt

Storm at Sea needs to be paper pieced

Need to finish piecing Triangle Quilt

Will need to bind Charley Harper quilt when it comes back

Maple Leaf donation quilt

Need to design a quilt for this wonderful fabric

Flower fairies need to be made into a quilt

Need to either make Amazon Star or not!

There are two more to be done, but no pictures yet:

11. Rework the Under the Sea top

12. Quilt a practice piece I made for a magazine project.

Aunt Marti’s UFO challenge goes like this: You gather up 12 of your (many) UFOs and number them. Then, each month Aunt Marti posts the number of the UFO to be done for that month. (By the way, the project for January is #2).

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. If you want to play along, here’s the link to the “rules” at Aunt Marti’s site.

Hope you have a good week at get at least one UFO finished even if you aren’t doing the challenge!

Year End Review

Posted on December 28, 2014 by zippyquilts

For better or worse, I published goals at the beginning of the year, so here’s the review of my progress:
I met all the goals! (Does that mean I didn’t set them high enough?) I retreated with my buddies THREE times instead of just two! I attended 3 big national shows as well as 2 local ones (all were excellent). I took a couple of fun and useful classes, one of which I still need to write up here so you’ll know about it. I submitted several quilts to shows/contests and 3 were accepted. The one I donated to the Quilt Alliance even won something, and sold for $300 to benefit the Quilt Alliance! And I had lots of fun, which was really the point of it all.

Here are pictures of a few of my projects from the second half of the year. The pix of projects from the first half of the year are in this post.

Spring Sun, a design by me, using blocks paper pieced from a totally different Judy Niemeyer pattern! It took about 2 years, but it’s now DONE.

Zippy Star Quilt and Pillow as shown in Modern Quilts Unlimited, Summer 2014

Packet of Posy Seeds, done for the Michael Miller spring challenge

Zippy Star I, which sold at the Asheville Quilt Show in September. This was my “practice piece” for the MQU quilt shown above.

Donation quilt for Ronald McDonald House. I’m going to work more on using up orphan blocks next year.

And, despite the risk, here’s what I plan for the coming year:

1. I’ll retreat with my buddies at least twice, probably 3 times again!

2. I’ll attend one big national quilt show, maybe two. I’ll attend at least one local show.

3. I will limit much more strictly the shows and challenges I enter. It takes too much time and effort that could be spent on making what I want to make 🙂

4. I’ll continue to make donation quilts, including one for the Quilt Alliance. Please consider making one for the Quilt Alliance yourself. You can read about their mission here. Click on “2015 Quilt Contest” to learn about this year’s challenge.

5. I’ll continue my blog, and I think I’ll put up instructions for a few easy donation quilts just in case somebody is looking for ideas.

What’s coming up for you?

Tidbits: One may be for you

Posted on October 26, 2014 by zippyquilts

1. Here is some beautiful fabric that just arrived from the Michael Miller company! It’s for my next magazine project (for Modern Quilts Unlimited). I love to use batiks for the “solids” in my quilts because of the texture and highlights they give to the design.

Michael Miller Batiks

2. Who wants these selvages I’ve been saving? I know the author of one of the blogs I read commented that there is a selvage quilt in her future, and I’m pretty sure there’s none in mine. Comment or e-mail me if you want them.

Melanie, whose blog is Catbirdquilts.wordpress.com

3. For those who may want more traditional lessons on color than the ones I’ve provided in my design series, my friend Melanie in Iowa has some nice posts. You can find them here and here. I think you’ll like them!

Zippy Star I, which was sold at the Asheville Quilt Show

4. Woo! I recently sold a quilt at the Asheville Quilt show! And it’s a good thing, because–

5. My digital camera somehow got a little piece of lint inside (at a quilt show, of course) and I can’t get it out! Any recommendations for a good replacement?

6. I aim for a blog length of around 350 words. I figure my attention span is short, so yours may be too 😀

7. And the more pictures in the blog, the better. So here’s my October finish, another quilt for Ronald McDonald House. I quilted it on my new Bernina 530QE. There’s definitely a learning curve to that BSR, but I’m pleased with the result.

Free motion quilting with my new Bernina

Zippy Quilts

Modern Quilts With A Twist

Tag Archives: donation quilt

One Big Improvement

What To Do x 2?

From Orphans to Donation

8 Projects for April and May!

2015 Donation Quilt #1

A Toddler Quilt and a “Finish”

2015 UFO Challenge

Year End Review

Tidbits: One may be for you

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