Rail Fences #1 and #2

Earlier this year, after the book, "Cultural Fusion" by Sujata Shah was published, I made this smaller version of her Rail Fence quilt. Being smack in the middle of finishing things to hang in our guild quilt show, I nonetheless was compelled to break away for long enough to make these twelve blocks.

Fast forward to this month, and our guild hosted Sujata as our August speaker. Wow! She gave us a wonderful evening with a PowerPoint presentation which included many photos of inspiration showing life in her native country of India. Following the slide show, was a trunk show of the quilts that are featured in "Cultural Fusion." It doesn't get much better than that!

But wait! There's more! The next day there was a workshop with Sujata and we all learned how to free form cut blocks for Rail Fence. Here's my progress so far:

I intend to make the full sized quilt this time - 30 blocks! I asked Sujata to pick fabric combos for two blocks, so this quilt will carry a bit of her own "hand". She selected the fabrics for the blocks in the top row, center and second row, right. The layout will also be different, maybe with the blocks radiating out from the center, rather than stair steps as shown here.

These blocks are being cut with a gentler curve than #1.  After hearing Sujata's presentation, I realized that the idea is to show the human hand in the making rather than just to go all wonky and wild. That said, the wonky and wild Rail Fences that have appeared on the web are uber-cool, too. Sujata is a humble person; her warmth and humanity are apparent to all who come into contact with her. If you have the opportunity to hear her speak, or better yet take a workshop with her, do not hesitate. I hope that we see more from this talented designer in the future.

To see more about Sujata, here is a link to her blog, Root Connections , and to the Rail Fence Quilt-Along.

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.

Borders

I finished most of this top a couple of weeks back. It has been hanging around on the design wall ever since. I have been pondering borders for it. Black was too heavy and there is no more of the black on white polka dotted fabric to be had. I like the orange stripe with flowers; it's Regency Daisy and although that little piece is all I have, there is more available. After that, I will try out some black and white prints for the final border.

I have been busy making cream and oatmeal and off-white half hexies by the zillions it seems. They will be the background of our guild's 2017 raffle quilt. I am up to 144 now and hope that will be enough.

Next up is a narrow Roman shade for a friend. Her front door has a small sidelight that she would like to be able to cover at night. The space is 43" x 14" - an odd and small enough size that nothing it available commercially. I have finally worked out in my head how to approach this. Now all that remains is the execution of said plan. I am hoping that there will be enough of the nylon cording left over from the Roman shade to make some piping for the Disappearing Dresden piece that I made in a class with Susan Cleveland a couple of weeks back. If not for the desire to sneak in a bit of piping, that piece would already have been finished.

Olé!

Wednesday I was able to take a workshop with Susan K. Cleveland. First off, let me just say, she is so much fun! A fabulous, engaged teacher. The lecture the evening before was great, with tons of quilts to show her various techniques and patterns.

The workshop was to make her pattern, "Disappearing Dresdens." I have named my project "Olé." It reminds me of the swirl of a Flamenco dancer's skirt or a matador's cape, hence the name.

The Dresdens are pointed at both ends of the wedges. It's a bit of a fiddly process, but Susan's techniques, tips, and tricks make it manageable. Eliminating the traditional appliqued center circle frees up the design possibilities.

Folk Art Flag

Yesterday Jim Gatling held a workshop for our guild, "Folk Art Flags.' This is mine. I used tumbler shapes to make the stripes because I have tumblers on the brain thanks to Bonnie Hunter (see sidebar on right). Also the most recent copy of Block magazine published by Missouri Star Quilt Co. has a patriotic quilt on the cover made from tumblers. I used a technique learned in a Bonnie Hunter workshop last year to make the wonky star. Jim's technique for making fabric from strips was put to good use to make the blue background for the star.

I consider myself to be an intermediate piecer, with over nearly two decades of quilting under my belt. Nonetheless, I take almost every class that my guild offers, plus ones from other guilds when they have room and the subject matter appeals to me. It is a good thing to have as many tools in your tool belt as possible. I have learned something in every single one, Even if it's things I will never do!

Irons in the Fire

As in "many" irons in the fire. I have lately been on a tear with piecing. After a bit of a hiatus (I had several compelling books on my Nook), I am back to sewing every day. Last year, after a visit to our guild from Cindy Felts of Piece 'n Plenty Quilt Guild in Rolla, MO, I have been inspired to make small "doll" quilts. Cindy has a nice collection of vintage small and doll quilts, plus a number that she has made herself. She gave us a very interesting trunk show on the topic last spring. These small quilts are kind of like potato chips - it's hard to stop after just one. The first one I made is so far my favorite:

It's a Jacob's Ladder with some of my favorite cheddar fabric. The fabric is Prairie Cloth and I order it from Mary Jo's Cloth Store in Gastonia, NC. My supply was running low, and yesterday Mary Jo's was able to ship me a bolt of it - 15 yards. Ought to last a while. Prairie cloth is a nice fabric and is relatively inexpensive at $3.99 per yard. Order a bolt and get a 20 cents per yard discount! I love a bargain.

Doll Quilt #2 is a Little House quilt. made entirely from stash, including the batting and backing. After ditch quilting the border and sashing, I hand quilted it. It is a steep learning curve with hand quilting and me, that's for sure. Half of the battle is accurate marking, where I fell down mightily on this project. In places I didn't even use the same template to mark and didn't discover the error until the top was finished. Oh, well. Live and learn. Moving on.....

Doll quilt #3 made use of the cut offs from the Cultural Fusion Rail Fence quilt top I made a few months back. Again, the cheddar fabric made an appearance. I couldn't help it; it was made for the colors in these little wonky four-patches. The quilt is sandwiched, but not yet quilted. I am toying with the idea of hand quilting this as well. I certainly need the practice. The idea of quilting through all those seams is daunting, however. The four-patches finished at 2". There is a seam nearly every place you would place your needle. We will see. Maybe machine ditch quilting with some big stitch perle cotton hand quilting.

This is the latest - Doll Quilt #4; the broken dishes blocks finish at 2" and are going to be made from my small stash of Japanese "taupe" fabrics. Taupe is in quotation marks because as you can see, they are not all actually taupe. Daiwabo has quite a range of colors, albeit all are fairly subdued (for me) in tone.If your local quilt shop doesn't stock these, One World Fabrics has an excellent selection. One local store here in St. Louis has a nice selection of them, but I have ordered from One World Fabrics to add more variety to what I have. Their customer service is quite good.

Next up is this baby quilt, made in the lavender/purple with gray colors requested by the mother-to-be. It is an adaptation of a Kaffe Fassett pattern in his "Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts" book. The baby is due in September and my thought is to hold this one back until the baby has arrived. I have already made and gifted a more utilitarian flannel quilt to the mother at her recent shower. It is free motion quilted with spirals in the snowball blocks. I quite like the soft colors in this one, made for a baby girl.

This last quilt top was a several-years old UFO. With my recent experience making triangles and hexagons with Gyleen Fitzgerald, I felt I could again tackle this one. However, laying the blocks out in rows of half hexagons does not necessarily make this easier to sew together. There is still a big technical issue in getting the points to match up. It looks okay from a distance but there are several places where the the joins could have been more elegant, to say the least. Without Gyleen's "dog ears" to help point the way to precision piecing, it becomes quite a slog to get those points to match up. Again, live and learn. 

The top was started with a different technique and so it was finished following the pattern directions. It is "Jelly Roll" by Fig Tree & Co. The black borders are being auditioned. I thought the small black border would look good and contain the exuberant center. It is too heavy, though, even in this reduced scale. The pattern calls for a 4" inner border. What is showing is a 2" strip to finish at 1.5". The large white on black polka dots I really like, but maybe not here. This one is going to have to tell me what it needs. Right now it's not talking. It will stay up on the design wall for a bit while the old wheels are turning in my head.

What's under my needle today? More of these:

Yes, more of those darned half hexie blocks in beige, beige, and yet more beige. They are about 5" in diameter and will be the background of a raffle quilt being designed by one of my quilting friends. The border "gold" fabric is in reality not anywhere near that dark. My photo editing software changed it, otherwise it is practically invisible. It will make a very subtle overall honeycomb pattern. They will be be overlaid with small colorful hexies forming some sort of floral arrangement. The completed idea is in my friend's head; the rest of us are simply executing it. Blindly, I might add.

I volunteered to sew up the background pieces in the interest of consistency. These require concentration and precision in cutting and sewing to get them to all be alike. I dread sewing them together, but fortunately that will be someone else's headache. 49 full hexies or 98 half hexies are needed for the central field of background. I have 54 already complete. My goal is to get the rest done by Sunday when we are meeting for our Stitch and Bitch social. Not sure I can get there by then as all day Saturday our guild has a workshop and I am taking it.

My neighbors directly across the street are in the process of selling their house, which is now under contract. Now begins the trail of carpenters, lawn people, and radon detectors. Today the workmen are jack hammering the concrete front porch steps into chunks. The steps looked fine to me. It will be semi-interesting to see what will replace the old steps. The noise is a nuisance and as my sewing room faces the street, if I want to sew I am going to have to endure it. Actually it's not much quieter anywhere else in the house as all the windows are open. We are experiencing unseasonably cool weather in the 60s in July! In the Midwest no less. 

Long post, - time to quit procrastinating and get down to sewing those beige blocks.

Happy Fourth of July!

Searching through the folders of photos on my computer, I found three quilts that are Fourth of July appropriate. The one above is still a flimsy and not yet quilted. it is destined to be donated later this year as part of my guild's QOV project.

This quilt is also not quilted in the photo, but has been quilted since the photo was taken. It was gifted to a WWII veteran last September when Kevin the Quilter was on hand to do the honors. The pattern, "Strip Twist", is one of Bonnie Hunter's free patterns.

The LeMoyne Star is my favorite. It is completely finished after waiting in the time out box for several years. It is a pattern by Alex Anderson and it had to wait for completion until my piecing skills advanced to the level that I could tackle Y seams without embarrassing myself.

I hope that you can find a brass band concert, fireworks display, or just a group of friends to hang out with this holiday weekend. At some point, I hope you take a few minutes to reflect on the freedoms we enjoy as citizens of this great country. Happy Fourth, everyone!