Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Charity Sew Day


      Today was spent working on charity quilts at guild and at home.  It was the charity sew day for GCQ and I worked on scrappy blocks made of squares and rectangles.   In the cabinet I found a bag full of pieces already cut and some strips. I chose ones I liked together, counted out bunches that I would need and started chain piecing sets.  I got a lot of components pieced. The drawing shows how the pieces fit in a 12” block.  

 
I also collected a pile of scraps for crumb piecing.  For the the guild monthly challenge I chose the oxymoron "good garbage" and used crumbs of fabric. I like that name so much to describe crumbs that I now use it.  Today when someone had small scraps they were thinking of throwing away, they gave me their "good garbage".  

      When I came home I pulled out the charity quilt project I was working on last Wednesday for my church quilt group.  The pattern is called “the Woodpile” and is made from strip sets that are mostly browns.  I spent the afternoon working on those blocks and got a good many finished or mostly finished.  I am not sure what size this quilt should be.  



Sunday, February 26, 2012

Shandon Quilt Group


       Two Wednesdays each month our small quilt group meeting at church to work on variety of comfort and charity quilts.  Our focus recently has been to make twin size quilts to cover the beds in the Warriors Walk Hospice unit at the VA Hospital.  We also make small lap quilts for the VA and Columbia Presbyterian Community members.  Occasionally we have had need for a child’s quilt.
These photos are from last Wednesday sew day.  Jan is working on her first bargello quilt.


Beverley finished this small quilt with pig fabric. 

At home I did free-motion meandering to quilt a child’s quilt for GCQ.  Someone else had done the piecing. 

      Family members and I spent Friday and Saturday packing my mother’s things for storage while she continues in rehab.  We hope she will progress enough to move back to assisted living in a few months. 

Saturday, February 18, 2012

One Block Wonder with Purple Tree Finished

    The GCQ guild challenge for 2011 was to finish our UFOs.  I finished about 9 from my list and the one I pulled out in December was a One Block Wonder top. One Block Wonders are created using the Stack N’ Whack method with equilateral triangle pieces ( the one block ).  Because you stack 6 identical layers of fabric, the 6 triangles form a hexagon with a swirl effect.  My top was pieced and left unfinished for about 2 years.  Then I was inspired by a lecture at the NC Quilt Symposium by fiber artist, Cynthia Corbin.  I drafted slices on a photo of the pieced panel, used my rotary cutter and sewed in purple tree branches.
Here is the BEFORE photo:

and here it is now - FINISHED !

Here is a close-up of the free-motion quilting in the borders.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Piecing Flying Geese Units

Last night in crumb piecing class, a couple of ladies were interested in making flying geese.  I did not give a good demo so I decided to write some instructions out. 

Flying Geese units have many uses.  Four can form an Evening star or a pinwheel and 8 form a Dutch Puzzle block. 

There are various ways to make the flying geese.  I like using a rectangle and 2 squares. 
Usually the side of the square including ½” seam allowance is the same length as the short side of the rectangle with the long side of the rectangle 2 times the finished size of the square plus ½” seam allowance.   For example: a 2” square finishes at 1 ½” times 2 = 3” plus ½” seam allowance = 3 ½” so the rectangle would be cut at 2” by 3 ½” and 2 squares at 2”. 

 Sew on the diagonal of the square, flip and trim back layers.  Then add a square on the other corner, sew the diagonal and follow the same steps.  To use them in a pinwheel block, sew the geese to plan rectangles as below.


Four together make a 6" finished pinwheel block.


Thursday, February 16, 2012

Crumb Piecing Class

    Tonight was the last crumb piecing class and I think the ladies had fun trying the improvisational piecing techniques.  Several ladies had worked at home during the week and brought many blocks to show. 



I am looking forward to seeing their crumb quilts.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Fun Day Bee Morning and Afternoon of Quilting


       We had a great crowd for Day Bee meeting today and lots of fun.  Many members brought handwork projects to work on.  Several brought quilt projects for show and tell. 
     This afternoon I practiced the free-motion echo short cut ( from Leah Day - http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/ ) and started quilting the purple tree background using gold thread.  It blends in so it is hard to see but I like it because you can still see the design developed by the piecing.  I still have much more background quilting to do.  


Playing with More Crumbs

   I always save leftover pieces from quilts in hopes of using them in a new quilt.  The other day I pulled out many of my leftover pieces that are red, white and blue.  I also sorted through my crumbs (scraps) for red, white and blue.  Here is the result. 

I'm still playing with red, white and blue crumbs so there will be many more to become parts of a red, white and blue quilt.

    I also spent a few hours quilting on the purple tree quilt.  All the leaves are quilted and the borders are stabilized with quilting in the ditch. More today.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

District 4 Meeting

   This morning 3 friends and I journeyed to St. Matthews for the District 4 meeting.  The day was beautiful as long as we were in doors out of the wind.  As usual it was enjoyable to see show and tell of other quilters’ work. 

The speaker shared her love of hand quilting and lovely examples of her work. 


It ALMOST inspired me to pull out my unfinished project from my hand quilting class of about 8 years ago. 

Instead I came home and pieced on a few crumb blocks.   I have not done any recent machine quilting on the purple tree quilt . . . maybe tomorrow after church. 

 Yesterday I made a special pillowcase for Valentine Day’s and put it in the mail.  Would it be fun to have a special pillowcase for every holiday?

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Crumb Piecing Class Night

   Tonight was the first crumb piecing class.  I spent another hour this morning organizing scraps and getting supplies ready for the class.  I demonstrated and they worked on crazy patch and log cabin blocks.

Right before we ran out of time I demonstrated a heart.

I hope they will enjoy improvisational crumb piecing as much as I do.   They seemed to enjoy tonight.



Licia brought her finished sampler quilt from the fall class for show and tell.  It looks terrific!  She did a great job. 


Sunday, February 5, 2012

Still Quilting Leaves

     Just as an update the purple limbs are all quilted and I have been quilting leaves for days and days. All the fused leaves are quilted but I am still adding the quilted skeleton leaves.   I struggle with placement, then iron a freezer paper leaf in place.  I quilt around it then remove paper and quilt the veins.  After working on several, I need a break so I don't get much done each day.

There is still lots of quilting to be done such as the area between leaves and the borders.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Started Quilting On One Block Tree


    Last night I sandwiched the One Block with the tree and today I started quilting.   I was nervous to start so I practiced on paper and a sample sandwich to try out leaf veins and tree bark lines.   I am using a deep purple Premium Sulky 30 wt. as the top thread to free-motion the tree limbs and leaves.  Can you see the leaf skeleton quilted on the left of the branch?

I have not decided what I will do for the rest of the background quilting.   It is a process.