100 Quilts for Kids

Hey there! Welcome to my first blog post (here) for 2015!  I've been busy as the DC Modern Quilt Guild president this year and have been blogging over there.  But now I'm back for a post about 100 Quilts for Kids.

I made four quilts for the quilt drive this year.  My guild is donating all that we collect to kids at the DC General Homeless Shelter.  That shelter has about 600 children on average.  After reading that, I've had those kids and charity quilts on the brain for two months straight. 

The first collaborative quilt has blocks made at the Denyse Schmidt workshop that the DCMQG hosted in June.  Attendees gave me two blocks each, I added a few more from my stash and Cathy added a bunch more.  My guild friend, Jamie, did the quilting and another friend, Anjeanette, stitched the binding down.  I adore the colors and movement in this quilt and it will be missed the most.

Next up is another quilt made from blocks from the DS workshop.  Again, I added a few more from my stash and Cathy's friend, Stella, added all of the blocks she made at a similar workshop.  Jamie did the quilting and Cassandra stitched the binding down.  This quilt has a Cotton + Steel metallic Netorious print as binding and that extra bit of bling was a perfect addition.

When my friend, Alyson, was over for a sewing day in August she helped me arrange some guild orphan blocks into a quilt top.  Three of these blocks were ones I received back in my days in the 3x6 Bee.  The rest were blocks donated by other members.  I love how they all fit perfectly with the other blocks in this quilt.  Again, Jamie did the beautiful quilting and guild friend, Cindy, stitched the binding down.

This last quilt was made entirely by me, but the quilting was made possible by Anjeanette.  She has a midarm machine and she let me come over and play last month.  The "back" of this quilt is a zoo print, so I quilted the "front" with names of zoo animals done in cursive across the quilt.  I've always wanted to do word quilting, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it out. This quilt was SUPER hard to photograph so you'll have to trust me that the print and the yellow solid are much prettier in person. 

So that's what is up with me lately.  What is happening with you?  Or what have you been up to in the past nine or ten months since I blogged?  Do you belong to a guild?  Do you make any charity quilts?  I'd love to read about it.

Hard to give away

Henry went off to his first day of school for this year, so I thought I'd try blogging again.  I'm behind on everything around the house, but why not procrastinate a little bit longer?

I have drastically cut back on my sewing bees and swaps--because I'm low on sewing time, my WIP's keep piling up, but mostly because it is stressful to sew for other people and equally stressful to send it away in the mail after working so hard on it.  Recently I saw the ice cream swap on instagram and I thought I'd give swaps another try.

The ice cream block comes from the 318 Patchwork Patterns book by Kumiko Fujita.  This book was recently release again in English and is for sale at the link (and I have no ties with the vendor).  I have loved that ice cream block since I first saw Penny's block (back in 2010!) and now I've finally made one.


 

I used a bag construction technique found in a Suzuko Koseki book but then changed the dimensions to suit the pencil bag I wanted to make.  You quilt the front and back panels but use a separate lining and then you quilt a zipper gusset with the lining fabric.  Then when the gusset is sewn into the bag there are exposed seam allowances. 

 

Then you stitch binding tape above the seam allowance by hand and then stitch it by hand again below the seam allowance but without wrapping the seam allowance.  This way the seam allowance is tucked down and that gives the bag more shape while making the inside cleaner. 




Here is a picture of the quilted gusset.




The finished zipper gusset,




and the finished bag.  Yet again, I love the finished product so much that I really didn't want to send it off in the mail.  I'll probably be taking another break from swaps.  Call me selfish, but I don't seem to find time to make cute ice cream bags to stay here at home and I'll never will if I keep signing up for more swaps.

Patchwork Death Star Pattern

I was hoping to post this a couple of days ago, but it turns out that I'm not very tech savvy.  Thank goodness I finally pulled it together.  Here is the link for the pdf file for the free pattern and some instructions.

I have a couple of pictures that I took along the way that I'll post here.  If you do make a patchwork Death Star please please please post a link for me to see.  If you are on IG, please tag it #patchworkdeathstar.  Thanks!  I can't wait to see different versions.  I originally dreamed of this all in tiny Libery florals.  Wouldn't that be cool?

Well anyway, here is a shot of a few of my pieces after glue basting.



And here is a picture of the top half pieced and sitting on top of my first drawing of it. 


The final pattern will make an 11x12" block.  The perimeter fabric can easily be made larger by extending the paper pattern.  The Death Star itself could be made bigger by bringing the pdf printouts to a copy store and enlarging them.

May the force be with you. 

Confirmation that I'm a geek

(As if you needed it.)

I sent this mini quilt off to a friend last week.  It is a Patchwork Death Star.




The inspiration for it started when my friend, Blair, sent me this most fabulous embroidery hoop.




Perhaps, more accurately, it started much earlier when we started talking about how smooth Lando Calrissian is.  Once it was determined that we were both Star Wars fans, the pins and tags just kept flying.  She is super sweet and talented so she made me that hoop of awesomeness up above.

It is really, really hard to craft for awesome crafters.  It took me a l-o-n-g time to decide what my theme would be.  And then I was stuck on making the Death Star all in florals.  It turns out that I didn't have enough small scale florals for my idea and getting the right value changes was going to be impossible.  But I have gray fabric up the wazoo.  Once I decided to do the pattern with English paper piecing things went pretty smoothly.  Some advice from Melissa and Jessie helped, too.

I really didn't think that there would be many people who would want to make a Patchwork Death Star of their very own.  But the requests for a pattern have been pretty insistent.  I still need to finalize how to print the pattern out, but I hope to have it up tomorrow. 

Have you ever shown your geeky side in your quilting?

Number 5

Yup.  This is blog post number five for 2014.  (Henry likes counting in Spanish so he would say, cinco).
I could apologize for my absence, but I won't.  This is a place I come to with things that have inspired me and stories that I want to share.  And I have no regrets for how I've spent my time so far this year.

But how do I catch up to the current inspiration?  Thankfully flickr and IG remind me.

I wove a scarf on my loom.  I'm delighted that I found a good place for two of my favorite stash yarns and super duper glad that a good friend was willing to give this scarf a home.




I gave up knitting one sweater.  But selling the yarn and some hoarded fabric allowed me to buy...




...some Madelinetosh yarn to knit another sweater.




I had to rip that sweater, too.  But when I love a yarn that much, I don't mind knitting it all over again.




We took a road trip with the boy...to Wisconsin...in February...with the added fun of a polar vortex. We had a great time on our trip, but I swear that we should meet up with my family in a warmer locale next time.




While in Green Bay, I helped my mom quilt her Farmer's Wife quilt.  It was a huge job but definitely satisfying.




Lastly, I finished some ancient bee blocks.  I feel like ancient is the primary adjective I use when describing bee blocks here.  I think I need to keep up on my bee block calendar a wee bit more for the rest of 2014.  Do you agree?





Whew!  That was all January and February.

Stay tuned for my next update.
I'm totally serious.  I will be back very soon.

Baby Quilt 4

Well, I planned on posting this on Saturday or Sunday, but I got sucked into a good book and was too lazy to blog.  Does that ever happen to anyone else?

Anyway, this is the last baby quilt I have to show and it was the only one I worked on in the last week.  I don't try to save up quilts to show here, but I seem to go through spurts of quilting and binding as well as reading :)

Every once in awhile (when I have a cutting spurt) I put a sharp new blade in my rotary cutter and I tackle a huge pile of scraps until they fit nicely in this bin.  I have 2.5", 3" and 4" squares, 1.5", 2" and 2.5" strips in here.

One day I was cutting scraps while my husband just sat at the table watching me.  So, I gave him a stack of squares and asked him to pick through them and choose some for a baby quilt.  Then I took his choices and the remaining pile and sorted a little bit more, added some white squares and this is the quilt that came out of it.

I'll be sending it to a dear friend of mine who is pregnant with her first.  They don't know the sex of the baby yet, but blue is my second favorite color next to green, so I think this will work for a boy or a girl.

On Thursday I'll be thread basting my Farmer's Wife quilt. I am so excited! My friend, Jessie, is letting me use her quilting frame. So if you follow me on instagram or flickr, you'll see some basting pictures pop up! 

Baby Quilt 3

As I mentioned yesterday, I have another strip quilt to show today.  I've heard that charities get lots and lots of girl-themed baby quilts and not many boy-themed ones.   I have a TON of blue and green and gray fabric, but many of them are still floral or cutesy in a way that doesn't work. 

But I had this Tula Pink fabric that was just itching to be made into a quiet boy quilt.

Both today's quilt and yesterday's will be sent to Bundles of Joy.  BOJ is a group of knitters and crocheters on ravelry that send out new baby items to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  Pine Ridge spans the two poorest counties in the United States.  The blankets and quilts sent by Bundles of Joy are first used by the babies born on the OB ward, then they are used by the elders as lap blankets or wherever they are needed to provide a little extra warmth and brightness.  I know that these quilts will be used and reused and that makes me very happy. 

...
I have one last baby quilt to show in this series of potst but I have to finish up the binding.  So maybe I'll post tomorrow, or maybe the next day.  After that, I think there will be a long baby quilt lull over here.

Baby Quilt 2

Two months ago I had a day when I just wanted to whip out a quilt top all at once.  The very easiest way to do that is to make a strip quilt in baby size.  I grabbed some fabric that I needed to use up and then grabbed a few more wacky options from my stash and this came together in no time.  The straightline quilting was quick and easy and I've been working on my machine binding, too.



This quilt is for 100 Quilts for Kids.  Katie of SwimBikeQuilt is a friend and member of the DC Modern Quilt Guild and she started the 100 Quilts for Kids drive.  Katie is hosting a local charity sewing day on September 28th (details on her blog) to sew quilts and the DC MQG will be there stitching away.

I have another strip quilt to show tomorrow and I'll tell you then about the charity that I'll send both of them to. 

Baby Quilt 1

I have a huge backlog of finished baby quilts.  I really miss my backyard in Wisconsin for many reasons, but especially when it comes to quilt photography.  I love a good clothesline for quilt pictures.  The deck would work in a pinch and the grass was lovely for laying out a quilt.  But here I have a low pine branch that works okay.

There is too much shade and not enough grass, so I have to wait for just the right amount of light to do any photo attempts. 

This particular baby quilt is going to a friend.  Once I cut up the red and cornflower blue squares for the giveaway last month, I grabbed a little bit of white fabric and whipped my pile of squares into a quilt in an evening. 

The pink dots on the back are one of my favorite DS Quilts prints.  The red and white striped fabric was going to be the binding on my Christmas quilt, but I really like how it livens up this simple patchwork piece.

And then I put a grid or two on it for the quilting.  Simple, but just right for patchwork.

I'll be back tomorrow (and a few more days) with another baby quilt(s)...

I am the slowest quilt along sewist EVER.

In March of 2011, Lynne of Lily's Quilts started the Dresden Quilt Along.  At that point, I had never sewn any curves and I liked the big bold design.  I decided that I wanted to break up the design of the dresden a little and make a up few of the petals with scraps.



And then I put the project down for over two years.  I knew that I didn't want the center or the background to be just one piece of fabric, but I decided that I didn't have enough gray fabric choices to match the design in my head. 



Well, I've had plenty of grays for a long time now and my collection of low volume and text fabrics has improved drastically also.  I just needed to make the time to do it.  Over the retreat weekend I made the background but there was a huge bubble in the dresden and the background.  On good advice from Jessie Aller, I made a dart along the join of two petals and the join of two quarters of the background.  I did not record that in pictures because it wasn't my proudest quilting moment, however I am pleased with the result now. 



I quilted this in concentric circles with my machine for the plate and the background and by hand for the center.  The finished quilt is 31" square and will hang in my sewing space.



As much as I hate having so many unfinished projects hanging over me, I think this one was well worth the wait.

My other work from retreat

These photos aren't great since I'm in process on both of these today.  But I did promise to show you what else I worked on over my retreat weekend. 

I hope to have some finished tops to show very very soon.

Sparkling Pond

Over the weekend, I had a wonderful opportunity to sew with some friends from the DC Modern Quilt Guild.  We had a retreat at Mary's Quilt Shop in Bedford, Pennsylvania.  Bedford is the cutest town and Mary is a wonderful hostess.  Her retreat space is gorgeous!

I love an unscripted retreat.  I brought along three unfinished projects and all were made better with great company, amazing food and ample uninterrupted sewing time.

Mari, Jessie, Linda, myself and Anjeanette of the DC Modern Quilt Guild

I'm showing just one project today because I finished my Sparkling Pond quilt!!  I cut the fabrics for this in December 2010 and the last of the binding was stitched on August 2013.  That is a long, long time---but so worth it.

As usual, it is hard to capture the colors of a quilt in photographs. 

This photo was taken on the side of the Espy House in Bedford.  The building is notable for having been the headquarters of George Washington and his forces in 1794.  I like the texture of the stone wall and the texture of the quilting in one photo.

The brick wall is just on the other side of the alley and it makes a pretty great backdrop, too. 

I made a selvages string block for the bottom corner of the quilt.  I want to make a label to include all of the sewists that contributed a block to this quilt from the It's Sew Easy Bee-ing Green Bee.  I'm debating between printing fabric with a computer, stamping or making a screen print.  I definitely don't want to embroider that many names.

Tomorrow I'll post some progress photos of the other two projects I worked on during the retreat. 

Sad sad quilter

I was doing more fan quilting this morning and I just love the loft from the wool batting.
 

But then I took a few steps back from the quilt and realized that the fan quilting was messing with the lines of the block piecing.  The loft of the batting and the shape of the fans were distracting.  It kind of reminded me of funhouse mirrors.  That is not a look I go for in my quilting.

As most of you know, string blocks involve a lot of piecing and a lot of love.  When some strings finish at ¼ or ½", it takes a long time to finish a 12" block.  It just didn't seem respectful of the time put in by my bee mates to quilt them in a way that took away from the strings.

So, I'm ripping out all of the fan quilting.  It is almost halfway done, so that is a lot of stitches to rip.  But I quilted some varied width diagonal lines on the other half of the quilt and I think that this plan is going to work better.

Just send me some extra patience with my seam ripper for the next two or three days.

Americana

I don't think I've ever been so deeply in love with a traditional patchwork quilt before.

Most of these fabrics are Suzuko Koseki, Lecien, Anna Maria Horner, Denyse Schmidt, a little Moda Hometown and some Lakehouse seed packet fabric.  I challenged myself by using red, white and blue and muted tones while trying to make this traditional palette look modern.  So, I named this one Americana.

I think the perle cotton big stitches and x's in black really make this quilt.

Here is the back.

The part that took the longest was burying the diagonal stitches of the x's in between the layers of the quilt so you can only see horizontal and vertical lines on the back. 

Here is a shot after washing the quilt.  The binding is from Moda's Mama Said Sew line.  I love that charcoal dictionary print.

Right now this quilt is neatly tucked next to the couch, but I'm certain that soon it will be dragged into service for Henry.  His favorite books seem to need a lot of naps in my bed lately.  "Buzz book sleeping...shhhh...Wake UP!"