My Quilt Show entries

Tomorrow I deliver my entries for the quilt show our guild is having in Lewes Delaware on Friday and Saturday; July 17 & 18 2015.  Click this link for more information: Ocean Waves Quilt Guild Show information .  There are over 250 quilts entered, and about 20 vendors to satisfy the shopping urge.  If you are inspired to visit, you won’t be disappointed.

I have 6 projects that I entered for the show.  If you have read my blog for any length of time, then you have seen these all before, though not all were in finished state when I showed them last.  All of these projects were pieced and quilted on my Janome 8900.  I have spent most of June and early July finishing up with quilting and binding 2 quilts; and getting show hanging pockets and show labels made and hand-stitched on.  I had to make myself a spreadsheet so I was able to keep track of where I was at with each of these quilts.  The last one pictured I asked my friend for permission to enter it in the show, and she mailed it back to me.

The show theme is  Paying it Forward, the challenge was to create a red/white/blue quilt to show, and if willing, to donate it to Quilts of Valor.

So, here is the one I decided to make using Moda Primitive Gatherings fabrics and a Bonnie Hunter pattern called Ohio Stars and Rails. This pattern is from – Bonnie Hunter blog  free pattern tab.  I changed the center of the stars and borders to gold, and added the piano key border.  The back is made with the leftover fabrics.

Ohio Stars & Rails QOV

close up of the borders and binding

a peak at the back

My next entry is the second Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt that I made.  Again a pattern by Bonnie Hunter – I modified the setting again with this GIMQ#2. I added solid borders around the blocks and solid sashing; and moved the green checkerboard sashing out to make a border.  I eliminated one row of the final border. Note; the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt ran from November to January, and is no longer available on Bonnie’s blog.  It will be published at a later date in a book.

Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt # 2

My third entry is a log cabin, in a barn raising layout. There were lots of stories about this quilt on my blog during the winter and spring if you take a look.  My favorite part about this quilt is the scrappy border.

Finished twin size purple log cabin 12″ blocks Barn Raising pattern

Quilt # 4 & 5 are projects from classes I took with the Guild last spring —

Flowers in the Snow; pattern by Weeks Ringle / Bill Kerr titled SNOWDRIFT

Barn Raising in Silk
27 x 39″

and my last entry is the oldest of the projects – a piece done as a memory quilt –

T-shirt quilt made in honor of Edward J. Mahoney

So, my quilts are each bundled in a labeled pillowcase, ready to drop off at the guild meeting tomorrow.

I invite you to click the link to the quilt show information, http://oceanwavesquiltguild.org/qs15.html   and find out a little bit more about the show, and the projects we support as a guild.

Happy stitching.

 

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A peak at October

Well; you know I have been off the mark working on my blog for a few months.  If you read my blog on a regular basis you know life has been a little busy. My daughter and her family were here at the beginning of the month.  I started a new quilt project in October, that I will show you a glimpse of. The month flew by!

The title of this post is a PEAK AT OCTOBER – this is what it was looking like last week at my house.

Fall sky Oct 2014

Fall colors inspired me

I had a wonderful time in October, with my quilt bee friends.  We meet once a month at a members home, and have a lot of fun, sharing projects, enjoying lovely food, and working on something worthy. In September and October we worked on “heart pillows” for breast cancer patients.  Stuffing the pillows and stitching them closed kept our hands busy while we visited in October. When I arrive at my friend Gayle’s house, I was a bit late, and was told to”wait at the door and close my eyes”.  I heard a lot of giggling and silliness and when given permission to turn around – this is what I saw!

Material Girls

The Material Girls Quilt Bee does know how to have fun!

We participated at the end of the month in a “multi-bee” sit & sew for 3 days.  Three “bees” from Ocean Waves Quilt Guild get together for fun!  Everyone brought their own projects and worked on them, and we had wonderful conversations and meals.  It is always interesting to me to see what people are working on, and what the manage to get accomplished in 3 days of sewing.  I’m sure I could get more done, on my own at home, but it would not be as much fun!

The lovely thing about these gatherings is the opportunity to ask a question to a more experienced quilter, and learn from their experience.  Everyone seems to wander around the room visiting, catching up, and ooohing and aaahing at the variety of projects underway. There were people doing foundation piecing of Christmas trees, and Storm at Sea; there was a lady working on a block that required about 7 or 8 different templates. There were projects being completed from our guild retreat in February, and there were several new projects just getting started.   Enjoy the photo’s.

Linda Gabriel project

Dana Mason worked on her project from a class in June

Cindy Jones using beautiful musical fabrics.

Barbara Hoffman with her “STACKS” quilt

Dana showing her One Block Wonder

Gayle – Lost Sock

Melissa and her modern quilt

My quilting project, using the pretty stitches for quilting on my Janome

The project I have “under the needle” is what I worked on.  I did some quilting extra blocks to make them into throw pillows for a day and 1/2; then started quilting a log cabin twin sized quilt. I love using the pretty stitches built-in the machine. The pillows were a great practice time for me. The quilt under the needle is for my “great-great niece” who just turned a year old. I had intended to make her a baby quilt last fall but never got to that point on my list. So, she gets a twin sized quilt which will last her a bit longer in life any way. I made it in my sister Cathi’s favorite colors, because she is the great-great Grandma!!!

Last post I chatted about a “SECRET” project…well…I still can’t share it, because it has not been delivered yet.  More later in the month I hope.  I did my part, and now my co-conspirator is working her end of the arrangement.  Shhhh….don’t tell.  I have to say, it is NO FUN keeping the secret, but the delivery will be awesome I am sure.  My special long arm quilting buddy thought up the project and is going to border, quilt and bind the project.

So, did you spy the Modern Quilt Studio patterns by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr in the photos?  There were 2….and I have made one of them myself back in June.

Enjoy this beautiful Sunday and happy stitching!

 

Flowers in the Snow

A FRIDAY FINISH !!   My friend Judy told me recently she could not think of working on anything with SNOW in the name after the long winter she had!  I think of all the spring  gardens that were dreamt about while the snow was drifting everywhere.

I think I will call my finished project Flowers in the Snow!

The project is called Snowdrift; from Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr of Modern quilt Studio; Modern Quilts Illustrated # 5

Bill Kerr taught a class at Ocean Waves Quilt Guild in Lewes Delaware on June 3rd, 2014. And yes…I finished it before the month was over….(I know, I can’t believe it!)

The quandary is how do I use this???

Snowdrift (UPSIDE DOWN) on the rocker….the drifts are supposed to be in the lower right corner of each block…right now it looks like fans!

Finished dimension is 28 1/2 ” wide by 72″ long.

Snow drift on the porch rail

The dining room table is 79″ x  40″ and as you can see, it FILLS  the space!

On the dining room table…again, viewed f rom the “wrong end”…but then, won’t somebody always be looking at it the “wrong way”?

Thinking about putting a hanging sleeve on the back.  I would have to hang it at the same level as the living room window frame , so it just “skims” the top of one of the tables.  It is really long.  (Not Bill Kerr’s fault, mine alone!)

This is what happens when you sew with no purpose I guess!  I signed up for the class, took 20 fat quarters with me, and Bill Kerr helped me pick the ones that looked best together.  I was limited on blocks because of the amount you could get from 1 fat quarter.  So, this is what I ended up with after playing with it on the design wall for 2 weeks.  It did shrink down a little with the quilting and the washing, but now, I don’t know what to think. Throw a set of candlesticks on and leave it be, or sew the hanging sleeve on and have a wall hanging.  I have picked a place so wondering what you think!

Had some fun with the quilting and binding.  Used quilting stitch # 132 on my Janome 8900. It is a bit of loop squiggle loop.

close up of the stitch I used for quilting.

 

I love playing with the stitches my machine makes

 

The back. Used the same white fabric with tone on tone flower. Bobbin thread was white. Top thread was a variegated thread from Superior; Fantastico # 5021 – green purple and aqua.  It does peak thru on the back a bit.

The thread I quilted with on top is Superior Thread Fantastico # 5021 – Batik Blue.  (Fantastico #40 Premium High Strength Variegated Trilobal Polyester. ) Officially it is Purple-Green-Aqua. ( http://www.superiorthreads.com/shop/product/fantastico-5021-batik-blue-500-yds-polyester-thread/ )

My bobbin thread is by Thread Art, 60 wt weight.  I use this in my embroidery machine but I love quilting with it. Less times of filling the bobbin!!

Did you notice my scrappy binding?  Not much left of those fat quarters when I got finished cutting 2.5″ strips from them. I think I managed 2 strips from each fat quarter of left over fabric. I have 1 strip left over after attaching the binding and HAND SEWING to the back. I know Bill Kerr, you machine it on. Well….I spent two evenings stitching it down.  It will not get a lot of wear, and the hand stitching looks pretty good.  I am more of a machine binding girl …especially with my achy fingers. But I figured, since it might end up on the table, and somebody might “check” …it would be better hand stitched.

Learned a lot about curved piecing from Bill Kerr in his class, and templates etc. Back to squares and rectangles for me for a while !!!

So, what would you do with it, hang it or table ?  (Not like we use the dining room table very often anyway…)

Happy sewing.

 

 

 

 

Snow Drift

Managed to get 10 blocks finished during class

Another project is up on the design wall! At our guild on Monday we had Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr speak, and Tuesdays class was taught by Bill Kerr. (http://oceanwavesquiltguild.org/june_class.html)
We had fun with templates and curves and fabric selections.  I chose florals.  My white fabric has a floral in it as well.  Bill Kerr was so interesting to listen to, and was a great help picking out the fabrics. (I took about 25 choices with me.)  The brown fabric has little flowers and the brown is picked up in almost every other fabric.
I had chosen the “wall hanging” option….but think I am going for table runner. Have too few blocks for the wall hanging, and too many for the table runner, but I am still at that point in the design where I could go either way.

playing with the blocks and the layout

Decided I need to add more fabric choices in my blocks…..

a touch of blue….and a whole lot of pins

Do you like curved piecing?   I bought a special foot at my sister in laws recommendation for curved piecing, but could not bring myself to use it “in the middle” of this project. I made some of the blocks on my Brother 6000ci in class and the rest on my Janome 8900 at home this afternoon/evening. (Note to self….Try that foot you bought from http://www.curvemaster.biz/ )

So, anyway; I have 7 different fabrics, and I just CAN’T do random……so, I am breaking the rules I learned at the class and doing it my own way.  I finally have a layout that pleases my eye.  I will follow the “sleep on it” rule from class and look again tomorrow to see if I love it or hate it.  The blocks are currently 8.5″, so if I use the configuration below (3×9) it will finish somewhere around 24 x 72.  We decided 4 wide (32″) is too wide. 3 wide is “just right”.  May have to dump a row or two because the table is only 78″ long and it ‘s feeling a bit “LONG”.  I have 30 blocks made…..maybe they will be placemats! Never know what direction this is going to head in.    All said, I have mastered the “pinning” of the curved pieces and they look fairly decent!

7 fabrics in this version

Lots of curves in the last two days……more tomorrow!!

 

 

Barn Raising completed

Phew…that was a lot of work….all that wood and such………..

Kidding…..last post I let off with a peak of a couple of potential layouts for my “silk” project. Last week I posted about playing with them on the design wall.  I had 96 half square triangles  (3.5″) from our May class – Cheryl Lynch “Sewing with Silk” .

I had settled on the Barn Raising pattern.  By Wednesday afternoon it was ready to layer and quilt after trying  out some backing fabrics.  We settled (with hubby’s help) on the fabric for the border, back and binding.

I got them cut and attached, and ready to layer….  OOOPS….need to get batting A trip to Hancock Fabric was in store for the evening, and I managed to get 40% off of some nice warm and white batting.

I got it all put together and quilted by Thursday evening.  Now, I have Quilt guild on June 2 and I wanted to take it for “show & tell”, but I hated the way the thread I had used looked when it went across the blue and the magenta.  I had used a varigated seafoam green, and quilted in the ditch along all the squares. So, you know the seam ripper had to come out.  The seafoam green disappeared into the greens and pale purples…but not so much on the blue and the magenta/cranberry color.

On Friday I took a bus trip to the Quilter’s Unlimited Quilt Show in Chantilly VA, and selected some threads at the Superior Thread booth.  Saturday I spent picking out the stitches on some of my quilting. (Listened to an audio book, Simple Genius – David Baldacci while picking…)  Well….the threads I picked at the quilt show were great…at least 1 was. Since I failed to take a fabric sample with me, I ended up with a red tone, not a cranberry/magenta that I needed.  The blue I got was fabulous….you can not even see it on the finished top.  By the time I picked out all the threads that crossed the blue and magenta, I realized I could just pull from my embroidery thread rack…..and I did.

So, all the ripping out, quilting and binding were the effort this weekend. I am much happier with the end result.  I added a hanging sleeve just before I put the binding on, and actually HAND FINISHED the binding, the sleeve and my Stitching Grandma label.  So…here it is….the Barn Raising, in Silk.

 

Adding the label

All of the colors are represented in this batik

 

Putting on the binding

Barn Raising in Silk
27 x 39″

First finish for JUNE !!! (Hey it IS June….and I spent about 4 hours today hand stitching that binding down and getting that hanging sleeve on…….)

Quilt show….spent too much money of course, but picked up some fun fat quarters. We play a game at our Quilt Bee that involves trading, and the them this month is BEACH. I had a lot of fun to pick out fabrics that fit the theme.  Also I tripped over some reproduction fabrics that will become a table runner in the near future.  And, I bought a pattern to make a quilting tool book tote for going to classes. I have all the supplies on hand except a 2 1/8″ metal ring. (Either the quilt store or the hardware store tomorrow for that!). (It will be a race with my friend Barbara to see who gets it finished first!!)

Let’s see…oh, 2 new pounce pads. One for white and one for pink.  (Somebody….me… put blue in with the white, forever making it a blue pad……). Had interesting discussion with the “Pounce” man about application and got out of there without buying any more stencils.  Got  big spools of thread from Superior (you know, buy 3 and they are ONLY $15)….and….found a product that will make applique a bit more high tech….8 1/2 x 11″ run thru your printer paper, similar to wonder-under.  Transfer your design right to the paper via the magic of your computer. (You know I will spend as much time trying to cram as many designs on a page as I would tracing them free hand.) 🙂

We saw some great quilts and these all caught my eye.  The last one is a Bonnie Hunter design. It is called Celtic Solstice and was a mystery quilt last winter. (On my “to do” list too!)  The USAF Logo is also on my list…but first I need to find the design somewhere or buy design software.  There are two that look like optical illusions, and I loved them both.  And how about those feet….that was a paper piecing challenge at one of the chapters of Quilter’s Unlimited. Too cute!

Air Force

June begins with a busy week starting tomorrow with Quilt Guild meeting on Monday and a class with the Guild on Tuesday.

Our speaker will be Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr “The Luminous Quilt” lecture and trunk show. The class on Tuesday will be Snowdrift Quilt taught by Bill Kerr, and is a Graphic Curves class.  (I have not mastered curved piecing yet…..). Have my fabric chosen for that project; as well as for 2 other projects in line.  (Did you notice I skipped right over “That Shoulder Bag”pattern I downloaded from Gourmet Quilter….no, I have not forgotten…it is on my list….).    Meanwhile….the weeds in the garden grow ever taller…but the Peonies are outshining them anyway!

Happy stitching everyone!