SAHRR - Round One

After realizing that Gail's post was where I was supposed to share my center block, I realized that Kathleen's post was Round One.   (I was late to start and got confused. I posted my center block on Kathleen's linky - mea culpa!)  I did blog that center block - hopefully you saw it. 

Kathleen offered the option of using a block that starts with your initial.  For me that would be a G.  So I Googled "quilt blocks that start with G"  and found the Geometry Block - along with a lot of others.  
But, I thought "quilting is really a lot of geometry so I will use it."   

Confession: I hated geometry in high school, even though I loved spatial/3D puzzles. 

I looked at my starting block and said "I think I want to use similar colors and for now anyway, I will stick with batiks."    I also thought "I can die cut those pieces!"  I cut them all using my Go! cutter and created this block:

Then I made three more of them. I will need to use fabric "spacers" to make it all fit, but it will work. 

Are this blocks perfect?  No way!  But they are Finished and that is better. 

Here are the four blocks laid over the central block so you can see that the colors are similar.

I am excited to see how this quilt comes together.  Yes, I am eagerly awaiting the post that 

tells us what to do for the next round. 

I really like having choices within the framework of the round robin. 

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

UFO - Moving Forward

Most quilters have UFOs (UnFinished Objects.)  This quilter is no different.  For a weekend at a friend's house, I grabbed a bag with what I thought was one particular unfinished project. When I arrived and opened the bag, it was a different project.  But I am happy that I grabbed the "wrong" bag.  This one is a quilt that was in five sections that needed joining together.  All the necessary fabrics were also in the bag (yaaay!)

You can read some of the backstory on this quilt here. 

One of the five sections

The reason that I did this in sections is that it makes quilting much easier on a domestic machine.  I have to say that I think this may be some of the best quilting I have ever done. I join these using the method in Maguerita McManus' book "Quilt As You Go -reimagined"   It is my favorite 'quilt as you go' technique.

I have a lot of quilting designs in this one quilt.   

When I got it all joined together, I realized why it had become a UFO.  You see it is an odd size - long and narrow.

So I said to myself,  "Okay fellow, you know you can come up with a solution to this. Think!"  Adding side borders seemed pretty obvious at this point. So I took leftover pieces of the blue, red, yellow and lavender and made 3" borders for each side.  "Hmmm..." I said,   "Fellow, those are going to be a royal pain in the patootie to quilt at that size. Back to the drawing board."  I looked at the leftover fabric, and did some calculating and decided the blue would look nice added to it.
So I sewed 2 1/2" strips of blue to the sides of the piano key borders. Here is what it will look like eventually.

I will probably bind it in red or yellow - depending on what I have enough of in my stash.  I think this quilt looks like it belongs in a circus - because of the bright red, blue and yellow colors.  But that is okay, I like it that way.

If you missed my September Post "The Absurd Bird" please go to see it.

Linking up with The Inquiring Quilter.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

A little Bit of Improv

Improv piecing is always fun for me.  I was surprised to learn that improv piecing is one of the elements of modern quilting.  Why? you may be asking.  You see, I have never thought of myself as a modern quilter.
The following comes for the Modern Quilt Guild "What is Modern Quilting" pdf.  There is a lot more information there about modern quilting.

MQ Design Elements 

• Use of negative space 

• No borders 

• Minimal 

• Bright and graphic color palettes       

• Improvisational piecing 

• Grid work 

• Asymmetry 

• Modern traditionalism 

• Exaggerated scale •

 Pixelization 

• Texture 

• Less is more

At least some of these are the usual hallmarks of what I like to do, although I do tend to add borders. I love bright and graphic color palettes AND improv piecing.  Here is what I have been working on.

Two improv "blocks" and an improv strip.
Aren't those bits of "snakeskin" batik a fun addition?

 I hope you are noticing the gray fabric in these pieces.  It is an Island Batik solid made from the same fabric used for the batiks. It is more densely woven which results in less fraying.  It also comes in a black and a white version.  I absolutely love using it.

On this section of the improv strip you can see that some of the pieces are not cut straight.

Here is a close-up showing some of the tiny pieces that I rescued and added to the piecing.

The pennies are there for scale.

And finally, here are the Island Batik Moroccan Bazaar strips that I am using as part of this.

The fabrics used in this were all provided to me as an Island Batik Ambassador to use in projects and challenges.  However, I do buy Island Batik fabrics for other projects because I love working with it.


Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

I'll Tumble for ya'

No, this post is not about the eighties band Culture Club.  Ha ha. If you missed yesterday's post about a surprise for my mom you can read it HERE.   Last weekend I showed you the beginnings of a tumbler quilt.  This weekend, between all the other things I have to do, I plan to work on it some more. Last night (Friday) I cut out a stack of tumbler shapes (bottom of photo.)

The other part,  the part of a top I did last week top right,)  is already quilted and waiting for some friends to join it.  I also had some left over sections from last weekend (top left.)

Hopefully, I will have time to at least piece one more section of the top.  If I am really really lucky, I will get it layered and quilted.  Then I will join the pieces using the "Finish Almost Any Quilt" method.

Quiting close-ups

Eye-llusion - Take 2

or -from concept to execution.
After playing in EQ, I had to get my hands on some real fabric and put my foot on the pedal of the sewing machine.  I just had to!
I got out my GO! and cut enough 'triangle in a square' and 'half square triangles' to make three blocks.  Ahh, then I started sewing. I got those sewn pretty fast. Then I had to cut all the other squares. That involved ironing some yardage of fabric. ***I love my Velocity iron that I got for Christmas***
I cut the squares with my rotary cutter on the new mat.  WOW a new mat and a fresh blade work wonders for rotary cutting!

Laying out one of those whomping big 15" blocks  sounded like a good idea just to get an idea -and make sure I put it together according to plan!

Oh my goodness! that is a total of 25 pieces to sew together.  The center 9 patch doesn't freak me out at all...but then I have to sew the outer rows on. First a set of three on each end, then a set of five on each side.  Arrgh..and try to make all those corners match neatly???   Now I have scared myself!  And to top it off, it doesn't seem to have that magic optical illusion just yet.

Suggestions anyone?
P.S.  I hate pinning, but that may be the only way to make it work out.

Eye-llusion - part of an EQ weekend

I suppose that this is an Electric Quilt or EQ weekend for me.  I have done a lot of sitting at the computer drafting blocks in EQ.
Over at Frog Quilter I have been watching as eye fooler  blocks have been made.  I love an optical illusion but I didn't love all the piecing that she has in one block.  So, open EQ and see if we can simplify.  (Thoreau said "Simplify, simplify" - and sometimes simple is better! or at least easier, heehee.)
I took out the flying geese, the four patches AND  the corner half square triangles.

I made this a whomping big 15" finished block. Each section is 3" finished.  (I did this because I have the "triangle in a square" die for my GO! cutter and the 3"  half square triangle die)

Thus, the digital sample shown here would make a 60" by 75" top not counting the borders. With borders as shown (1" inner, 2" outer) it would come to 66" by 81".   I am sure I won't be making one that big anytime soon unless it is a commission!

Eye-llusion

I call this quilt Eye-llusion. If you make one, I would love to see it.
If anyone from the Electric Quilt company sees this and feels generous, I would love a copy of EQ7 to replace my old EQ5.

Chinese Coins -Finito

Sorry, I am the "shadow" in the pictures.  While it is very cold here this morning, the sun is shining.

Chinese Coins - Front

Chinese Coins Quilt- Wonky Pieced Back

Finished is always a good feeling.

Back Again!!!

Today was excellent. I woke up with far less pain.  I was able to move much more freely.   My stitches have been removed and I got good news from the lab work. I am feeling great. 


So great, in fact, that I got in the groove again. Yes! I cut some fabric pieces and worked on my seriously delayed commission project. The back of the second half of the quilt is pieced.  Here is a not so great photograph of it. 

It is wider that this looks, but the rest is just the yellow fabric. I used some leftover pieces from the front of the quilt in this. It will go with this half:

to make a very colorful, non-traditional backing for this quilt:

I can hardly wait to get it finished. Of course I have no idea what I will be binding it with.  
Do you have some color suggestions for the binding?  Please feel free to speak up.  I need to be ready so I can get this baby shipped to the one who placed the commission - hopefully in time for her granddaughter's birthday. 

Scrap Busting

It is amazing how scraps build up when you are a quilter.  Some, rare quilters, are able to throw them away. I am not that type of quilter. Some quilters have bags of scraps hidden away for the "someday" when they will use them to make a scrap quilt. 
Of course they keep buying fabric and collecting yet more scraps. I have been that type of quilter lately.  Early in my quilting I used scraps. People gave me scraps.  Now I have bags of scraps. 


Don't get me wrong, scraps are good.Keep your scraps, but don't SAVE them, bust them!  When I realized that I had to cut extra pieces for the quilt along blocks that I made too short, I made a decision.  I decided to cut some scraps while I had my AccuQuilt GO! set up and the value die was working anyway. 


So, I ironed a couple of scraps and cut some 2.5" squares while I was cutting the half square triangles.  Then, while sewing the pieces for the quilt along block, I used the square to sew on, sew off.  I normally have been using little scraps as "Thread Rats" to keep the points from clogging up when I start a triangle.  


I finished the extra parts of the quilt along block. The iron was still set up, ready to go. The bag of scraps was right beside it.  I decided to iron the entire bag of scraps then cut them up. 


I was surprised at some of the sizes of the "scrap" pieces as I was ironing.  I got my GO! cutter and some dies and put them out. I set up a scrap busting shop.


I started cutting. I cut 2.5" squares and half square triangles.  I cut more half square triangles in 3.5", 4.5" and 6.5".   I cut some quarter square triangles that will make a 4" finished block.  I even cut a few 4.5" squares. 


Here are the finished stacks:

I sat watching a movie and sorted them by lights and darks. There are a LOT of pieces there.  I still have more bags of scraps that need busting.  I will sew the half and quarter square triangles into square blocks.  I will sew the squares into four patches or nine patches.  Eventually I will have a truly scrappy quilt made as "extras" that were sewed in between pieces of other projects.  I won't have to cut the thread, or use a thread rat when I need to take pieces to be ironed, I will just sew a couple of these together and leave it under the presser foot while I go iron.  Then when each one comes out it goes into a stack for that scrappy quilt.  

As an added bonus, those scrap bags will start to diminish. 

How fun is that?

Ginger Jar Madness

There is a madness sweeping the land. It started (this round anyway) in American Samoa. The person known as "Quilter Zero" (as we would say in epidemiological terms "the index case") is none other than Barb at BEJEWELED QUILTS BY BARB. One case was spread directly to Pat at A Little of This and a Little of Pat when she (and I ) won Barb's giveaway. However, there are other cases that possibly spread by visual exposure like Barbara at Pinelands Patches

Ginger Jars everywhere!

As you can see this is becoming epidemic! It is possible that it is a pandemic! My case is starting to develop. The first signs were today. Somehow, I became compelled to make a template and cut pieces with scissors (shock! not a rotary cutter!) This required possibly infecting my friend Serena (thanks Serena!) as she gave me info on templates. ---

---now you all probably have done templates for years and maybe even learned that way. This was a FIRST for me. I nearly freaked over it - honest truth. ----

As you can see I am definitely showing the symptoms of Ginger Jar Madness.

Now a word to Barb and Pat - because they may be wondering. I chose a background fabric that is a pale yellow. One of the pre-cut pieces blended in and would not make a jar that shows well. So I used this blue paisley to replace it. All my other jars will be from the pieces in the kit.

Special thanks to Barb, Pat and Serena. Ladies you are fantastic!

Bright Idea - Conception to Execution

Yeah I woke up slowly this morning. The temperature had dropped overnight and I slept in for a bit. But once I got awake, I thought "I will do something bright today.
So after breakfast, I started on a quilt top. I was going to do it "quilt as you go" but after I got all the blocks made and laid out, I didn't want to add the joining strips. SO!!! I just sewed them together and added a border.
There is no pattern, just a general idea to make these. I stacked up four pieces of fabric (size -about 14 inches square, so I could trim to 12.5 inches square later)
I made one cut across it with the rotary cutter and my long ruler. Shuffled it and sewed them together again. Repeat a couple of times. For part of them I did 8 pieces, cut sewed, split into two stacks and the shuffled the stacks and repeated. Get the idea? I needed a couple of extra squares so I made them with whatever was left over. I call that "granny piecing." Because that is something my Grandmother would have done.

I added a border to make it a bit larger. Now all I have to do is piece a backing, quilt it and bind it. I wonder if I will finish it this weekend. Wish me luck!



One other question- "Is it loud enough?"