Making Lists and chargeing camera batteries

Having  just been to Vernon for the provincial Arts Council conference where I ran out of battery juice at a bad moment…….I am making sure that I have top battery power for the trip to Penticton.

Barb and I head out on our road trip on Wednesday, hoping to be able to attend the awards ceremonies for the National Juried Show on Wed eve. We’re curious to find which award has included the guild’s donation. We hope to see the winner of the award and perhaps take her picture, and find out more about her for the guild’s blog and website.

I hear that a number of guild members are taking the road trip as well, so there will be lots of comparing notes on the fav quilt, newest technique or the best bargain at the vendors.

I too will hit the vendors as I’d like one of those new bendable lamps for the sewing machine.

I am in a 2 day class with Margie Davidson. There will be block printing and hand embroidery in the Indian style which has interested Margie and prompted a trip to the East. This has become my favorite type of class-relaxed-short supply list-historical-cultural and slides and videos to illustrate design ideas. Everything I need will fit in a ziplock baggie. This is so much better than a ton of stuff hauled along and never used in other typical classes that I’ve taken over the years.

Denise has been kind enough to send me links that I plan to share later on indian designs, particularly the henna designs that are gorgeous and swirly.

 

How many days until the quilt show??

Note to self……. remember cash for guild boutique, vendors and lunch. Find the most comfortable shoes. Opps, forgot that I promised to make a poster for the guild challenge. Guess I better rearrange plans for tomorrow.

I am happy with the latest scrap project. I had started these 4.5 inch building units from my scraps, but had stopped until I was able to find the small prints on white. It is very hard to find white vs offwhite/cream backgrounds, and it’s hard to find the small prints. I did not want endless polkadots, and I used every scrap in my bins down to the last 3 inch square. if you are looking for similar prints, try to search for 30′s reproductions, civil war repros and victorian shirtings.

This building unit goes by many names. I’ve found it as Birds in Air , and Mary’s Triangles as well as 2-3 other names. What ever it’s called, it certainly can be set in a large number of arrangements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a few evenings of rearranging my collection of units, I’ve decided on the last setting  of zigzags and find that I’ve got about 2/3′s of the number for a decent lap quilt size.

I love pre-cuts

Well I love my own precuts that I’ve created myself. I’ve got shoe boxes of all shapes and width of strips, so when a block was demo’ed at the guild last month, I had all the parts and pieces to try a few blocks. The few blocks grew to 36 scrappy blocks and I have a community quilt top ready for our 2 day workbee in May.

You just need: a 6.5 inch square, 4 rectangles or bricks cut at 3.5X6.5, and 4 squares cut at 3.5 inches. As usual I have lots of strong medium to dark values, but had to look around and find small pieces in the drawers to cut up into the lights required.

The block was here at quilter’s cache:

http://www.quilterscache.com/S/SquareswithinSquares2Block.html

and here is my version:

I will be adding a red border of calico that was gifted to me from a estate clear-out. I do love to use these orphan fabrics that need a good home.

One month into the new year.

On the first day of the year, I always take down the christmas tree, put away all the decorations, and tidy up the christmas gifts.

This year I washed all the christmas quilts, freshened them up, checked for sticky candy on the lap quilts, folded them neatly and put them back on the shelf for another year.

I decided to take all the other quilts off the shelf and check them over. I like to keep all the challenges and the series together, and I wanted to make sure that the gift quilts were near the top of the stacks.

Turns out that I discovered 3 different categories. There was one stack that just needed freshening or refolding, a second stack that lacked proper labeling.I may have sewn a label that gave the name of the quilt, my name and date , but other facts like purpose of the quilt and the design were lacking, so I have a lot of secondary labels to make.

The 3rd stack was of quite early quilts that I may give away , but I am displeased with the quality of the quilting or the amount of  stitching.I’ve decided to add more machine quilting, and use them for practice to try out some new patterns. If I’m not happy with the stitching when I’m done – then they can be camping blankets or dog beds. In my early quilts, I find that there are lots of fairly wide borders that have only stitch in the ditch and could use some stitches.

The fiberspeak theme for December was “about face”. I have wanted to do some experimenting with windows in a piece and this was a perfect time for the first idea.

This piece is about 10X10 inches. It was 2 sides sewn together and the swivel in the middle is simply held by some beading thread and some beads to act like washers at the pivot points. I think this will be a series of a few pieces as I work out the bugs.

 

The theme for January was to pick your favorite flavor, and I picked citrus. Here’s what I made one evening.

 

Our theme for February is “out on a limb” and I am stumped for an original idea.

Archival Diving-Found the Brown Bag Challenge

I am doing an early purge way before New year’s and I am going thru some papers. Decide to try and cram some of these into the file drawer instead of the cardboard box under the sewing table , but first need to glean the file drawer.

 

What do I find ??…. not only an article by Sharyn Craig on Triangulation , but a Triangulation Revisted article- unfortunately both are undated, just issues #17 &  30 of Traditional Quiltworks.AND there attached as well are my class handouts – also not dated!

 

A lesson to be learned is never throw anything out AND always document the class, where it was taught and the date.

But now do not have to reinvent the wheel if we ever want to do this class again.

 

Shirley and I were reminiscing, and brainstorming over the “rules” of this Brown Bag Challenge. Everyone brought a pile of squares, sliced them diagonally in half and share 1/2 in a community brown bag of lights and darks. Then you picked an equal number out of the light bag and the dark bag, intermingled them with the 1/2 square triangles that you kept and proceeded to make one large 1/2 Square (bias ) block and 5 smaller ones. Then you designed your own blocks and constructed some rather nice scrap quilts.

 

Neither of us could remember the size of the squares to bring or the exact formula of making the smaller units out of the left over strip. Now we’ve got the info!!

By golly, and I think I still have at least 3 of the class samples that I made for that class. Should get those out again and take some photos.

Date wise I know it was while we were still over at the Fine Arts building – so that is at least 15 years ago- way before computer notes and saved files.

Zero Waste Audit

So I signed up to be part of the study in zero waste for Powell River. I already compost , and we recycle all paper, plastic,styrofoam,glass,metal. The cardboard goes down in the garden as mulch. Now this is quilty related, because anything that I can’t repurpose,reuse or recycle is going to the dump AFTER I weigh it and report what I was not able to recycle. I have always felt sad about all the little bits of fuzz and fiber that I toss out each month from blocking and trimming quilt blocks. Well for the next 2 months , i am gathering this and then weighing it to see what i am throwing away. I’ll let you know what happens.

 

Quilt tops by the dozen.

These first 2 photos show my progress through the strings over 5 months this summer.It felt good to actually put them all out and have a overview.

Then I changed my mind and  I decided to take the rectangle units, chop off the corners and add the setting triangles now instead of just stock piling them in a bin.

For the bright multicoloured rectangles with the peach setting triangles, I decided to divide them in half and make 2 smaller quilts. Made them exactly alike except for borders so that they could go to siblings, but each child would still be able to tell which was which. This is the String-X pattern from Bonnie Hunter. It makes good use of short strings ( 5 inches)

I liked the fall toned rectangles all together- so this will be a large twin size. I do love the golds and bronze setting triangles. I’ve found batting and backing to match the fall tones and I hope to get that sandwiched next tues at the guild.

This owl quilt is for the soon to be grandchild. His/Her mom wanted to do as much of the sewing as she could. This is Meg’s first attempt at piecing patchwork and she did a fine job of  matching seams. I did the cutting and pressing , while Megs did all the sewing on tues evenings. We’re now ready for machine quilting. And the closeup is for a certain someone who wanted to match a gift to the owl print.

As you can imagine, I sometimes have gotten bored with strings all summer. I tried to use up some of the 2 inch “worms” with another Bonnie Hunter pattern called Pineapple Blossoms. First it used up very few of the strips,so there’s lots left!! and second it is much easier to build that a real pineapple block. This is really a log cabin of 2 rounds with diagonal corners cut off with a flying geese wedge. I’m definately going to be making more of these blocks.

Finally ! a border to finish.

Last year when Shirley and I did the presentation on scrap organization, most of the audience got quite excited about taming their scrap bins.

Some were still overwhelmed by the enormous job ahead of them. Kathy O. brought a different drawer each week to Tues Bee and I offered to help sort. Lots of her friends dived in too and found bits and pieces that went with their projects. I found lots of creams that I was short on for a log cabin project. I cut 2.5 inch strips and had enough to completed these blocks in the photo below.

All of the blocks and the first border of blue came out of Kathy and my scrap bins. The only purchased fabric was the colonial red stripped outer border, and I finally found what I was looking for at Fabricland(Courtney) last week. It’s been many years since I mitered a traditional border, but I took it slow and all 4 corners came out great. The piecing to match up the strip in the middle of each border was another matter- but the joints don’t stand out a mile.

Now to find a perfect quilt design and a person to gift .

 

September progress

Well, the weather has been unbelievable, and the yard is looking great. The sewing projects have been a little neglected.

I had sent these blocks to the states last month for a friend’s comfort quilt that is being assembled. We all met online and continue to be friends over 10 years.

This group of 3 items was completed for our living room. The longer table runner will protect the coffee table from rough pottery scratches and the 2 squares will protect the end tables from the metal lamp bases. All of these came out of bits and pieces that had been left from the last 2 raffle quilts I had a hand in completeing.

This brown and green string quilt is 1/4 made up of the class sample I showed you last month and 3/4′s made up of the new blocks I completed. I used some very fine lawn weight cotton , given to me by Shirley for the foundations. I made the blocks behave with brute force and lots of steam,but they still had a bit of wonkiness to their squareness. I am not planning to add a border- busy enough without adding too much more.

I have started on a new October project of ninepatch blocks with a new setting that I found online. Unfortunately, I do not like how the strip sets are going together with lots of re-pressing of seams to get them to lay in a different direction. So I think that I will be constructing this differently from my usual methods. But this will take care of plenty of the 2.5″ strips .

Labour Day Week-end*** all work and no play

The weather is just too nice to spend it indoors at a sewing machine. But I did get lots of yard work completed. Now it’s time to sit and cool off with a tall glass of lemonade. I need to find all my photos of summer projects to share with you.

First off, I started this challenge of strings and scrap reduction on April 15th. My goal was to just make string blocks and stockpile them for several different community projects. But I also made 2 wonky log cabin projects and cut lots of precuts for future projects. I have a number of patterns in mind for the winter including a scrappy pineapple quilt (Bonnie Hunter), more bricks and stepping stones designs(also Bonnie’s influence), and several more zig zag quilts inspired by Wanda Hanson.

I have gone from 22 assorted scrap bins to just 8 bins and most of the remainder in those bins  are crumbs, only suitable for mile a minute style mini blocks.

Last night I did find enough in the remainder of the red strings to do another 12 blocks without cutting any new red strips. I have quite a large bin to take to the guild meeting show and tell on Thurs night.

I started with my Christmas bin and made this wonky log cabin that awaits the best decision on a border.

Then I made these red and green string blocks that await inspiration for use as table runners or as a border on a larger medallion quilt.

Then I grabbed a bin of class samples . I had taught the string piecing workshop over a year ago and this blue one came to the surface. Too small for a lap quilt – so what do ya know…. there’s 3-4 bins of blues- not surprising, so picutre #1 is the resulting new blocks and Pic #2 is the original class sample.

Then I grabbed the reds and the greens for 2 separate weeks.

and there is another 12 blocks added to the original 25 as of last night.

 Then I remembered Bonnie Hunter’s design here: http://quiltville.blogspot.ca/2005/06/string-x.html

I’ve made 2 of the String-X patterns and loved how they used up lots of little short strings. So now I have 2 sets of rectangular blocks ready for trimming and setting with triangles

Sometime on the middle of the heat and to escape the heat of the garden in the mid afternoon, I started on the pink and green bins . Sorry that this is the best photo because there is much more colour that this seems to indicate.

 I decided to tackle the purples and teals next, but see that there was pinks and greens sneaking into this one too. It just seems more zingy  and I was happier with this second batch.

Along about that time I was getting somewhat bored with strings so decided that a wonky log cabin may go faster with bigger pieces of fabric, but I did not include the time it takes to compose and move the blocks around to please the eye and then make filler blocks for the odd shaped gaps.

 

I next pulled this class sample , knowing that it was much too small for a lap quilt, but wondering if I would still have the same colour tones to make blocks that remotely matched the colour scheme. Below are the 2 piles of strings and scraps that I was able to work with. and the photo of the blocks on the design wall combined with  the class sample and the new blocks. Bet you won’t be able to tell which is which when they’re jumbled and arranged.

 

 

My last project for the month of August was to pull one of my fav string samples.

 

And since there were still large bins of beige, green and browns, even after having done Bonnie’s 96 rectangles in autumn tones, I decided to expand this from 16 blocks to  64 blocks. Here below is the group of  24 blocks that have been made oversized, and will now be sliced diagonally across the strings to make half of the block.  The next batch will have to wait until I find my black and gold batiks to make the wide dark string thru the middle.

Or I could go and do some more shopping?