Thursday, August 6, 2015

Award Ribbons, Raffle Quilt, and Quilt Love


 One of the guilds that I belong to makes their own ribbons for their biennial quilt show. This is a quilt show year and for the month of October, the show will hang in the local public library. I volunteered to make two this year - one of the first place ribbons and the Viewer's Choice ribbon. Both were paper pieced from silk scraps gleaned from a friend's dress shop.  Blue ribbons are required to have a ruffle and there are prairie points made of folded ribbon inside the ruffle. The green ribbon has a paper-pieced basket filled with embroidered flowers and a little bling in the form of iridescent sequins. These are really fun to do and the sky's the limit; each maker comes up with their own idea for the ribbons.

I have also been plodding away on the background for another guild's 2017 raffle quilt. It consists of hexagons with contrasting edges to give the subtle appearance of a honeycomb. This is beyond tedious even though the directions call for arranging the pieces as half hexies and sewing them together in rows. This is a popular option that is popping up all over the internet. To my way of thinking, it's not easier because when sewing the rows together the places where six pieces come together still have to be precisely lined up. It ain't easy is all I'm saying. It looks particularly hideous right now due to all the blue masking tape pieces which number each individual patch. The tape has been a lifesaver in keeping everything organized.


The background will be overlaid with colorful English paper pieced flowers. The mock up is quite nice looking and no one will ever know of the sweat, tears, and reverse sewing that went into piecing the background.


Last year I was fortunate enough to attend a workshop with Bonnie Hunter in Champagne/Urbana, IL. I blogged about it here and here. Finally I got tired enough of moving those little blocks from here to there and back again to make something out of them. This is the small wall hanging that resulted and which now hangs on the door to my sewing room.

I am looking forward to getting to an endpoint with the beige raffle quilt hexies this weekend. There are several other things calling my name.



4 comments:

  1. Wonderful job on the ribbons ME! WOW! Aren't you a busy little worker bee making that honeycomb background! I am intrigued to see the finalized quilt. Great job on the BH wall hanging! Soon we will get to see her again!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am SO looking forward to seeing Bonnie again. I am her designated driver while she is here, too!

      Delete
  2. your ribbons are beautiful, maybe you will be taking one home with you after the show. Hexies look interesting have only done them by hand with papers but they do say half ones are much easier to do on a machine but as you say there are still lots of points to match

    ReplyDelete
  3. OMG I covet one of those ribbons! The winners will be doubly lucky.

    Your Bonnie Hunter mash up is really good, I hope it is motivating you every time you see it!

    ReplyDelete