Monday Meanderings 5 - 10 - 2021

Happy Mother's Day  

I spent the day happily working playing in the studio.  Both of my children called so we had great chats.  It's always fun to catch up.  

Friday afternoon I drove down to the Richmond area and made a stop at Quilter's Corner. I got there just as a huge cloud unloaded rain for at least an hour and included some lightning and thunder.  I was happily searching the store for some fabric to make a new wall hanging. I found some great batik and made the purchase.  The rain had slowed quite a bit so no big deal driving out to my friend's house.  Dorothy is a certified Studio 180 teacher.  She has the most beautiful quilts hanging around her house.  It was like a personal quilt show to see what she's been making over the last few years. 

Early the next morning we went to our guild meeting (Country Piecemakers in Powhatan.)  It was a lot of fun to catch up with friends I hadn't seen since July. After the meeting Dorothy got started on giving us lots of hints and help to make a LeMoyne Star block using Deb Tucker's Rapid Fire LeMoyne Star tool.  

I should have finished one star in the appx 3 hours we were working on it but I made a major mistake -- I forgot to trim the points before I tried to sew them together.  Out came Jack to do his thing.  I did succeed in getting half a star finished.  We didn't have lunch and I was getting hangry so decided I would finish at home.  A quick fast food lunch and back on the road to home. 

Here's my finished star.  If you look carefully you'll notice the center doesn't come together as well as it should.  It's very close.  But, I'm not redoing it.  I think the next one I make will finish at 12". The one shown is 8". The previous one I made was 6.  I'm thinking of using the colors of the polka dots to make more stars.  There is a pattern that comes with the tool that uses a bunch of different size stars together. I suppose I should keep making some so I get better at matching the points. 

On to my goals this week.  Um, not quite successful there.  I really didn't count in the fact that I would be gone for a day and a half when I set these goals.  Oh well.  Here's last weeks: 

5/3/2021

Border doggy tumbler ✅

Quilt ✅and bind one of my quilts 

Start cutting-table clean up ✔️ — started but a little more to do

Put together green scrap basket ✅

Pull a UFO to work on — nothing done  

Here's a sneak peek of the bunny quilt I finished quilting.  Binding will go on this  coming week I hope. 

I finally finished the green basket for my fabric scraps.

Would someone please tell me how come the green scraps are overflowing but the others aren't?  Maybe because I use more of the other scraps. (Odd note -- I have very few green quilts.) 

I'm looking forward to my friend Sharon coming up on Friday.  We will be knee deep in talking, quilting and having fun.  Here are some of the things I hope to work on this week. 

5/10/2021

Begin red table runner 

Pull a UFO to work on

Quilt daughter Jenny’s quilt

Bind a bunny quilt 

I'm worn out so will end here with my favorite Monday linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, and To Do Tuesday. I'll try again to hit up To Do Tuesday. Shame on me for forgetting!  Done!  Join the parties and let's start surfing. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Design Wall Monday 5 - 11 - 2015

A very busy week has passed.  I'm hoping I can start having some more "boring" weeks soon.  Hum, probably not happening for a while.  But you can be assured I will be having fun!

Aimee was out of town so I stayed with Kevin for a couple of days to help get Ellie to daycare and a little meal help.  They just moved into a new home the week end before I went up.  It's a bit closer if the traffic on 95 cooperates.   I was impressed with how much they had gotten unpacked in 4 days. They are both still figuring out commute times.  Kevin's should be shorter while Aimee's should be the same.  

The full day I spent with Kevin I spent sewing off and on.  I finished the blocks for the table runner. And once home I got them together and added the triangles and border.  The runner has been balled up and stuffed in various containers over the last few days so looks very wrinkled.  I hope to get it quilted in the next week.  The block is Quatrefoil and the directions are here -- a video  by Missouri Star Quilt Company on You Tube.  I need to figure out a better way of doing the triangles on the ends.  

Sharon and I got to my house about the same time Thursday afternoon after we met at Crazy Cousins in Fredericksburg.  We had another sewing weekend with a class on Saturday. As usual Sharon got lots done and I got my fabrics cut for Saturday, got the borders on the table runner and got organized for the guild meeting.  

At the class we learned to use The V Block Trimmer by Deb Tucker from Studio 180 Design.  I'de used it before as I bought it at one of the shows. But, WOW! This works like a charm to make accurate blocks. You cut the center V using one of the lines.  Then with fabric strips right sides together you cut the two side pieces at the same time.  Sewing it together is incredibly easy because there isn't any guessing where to line the pieces up.  AMAZING.  The final trim up makes sure that the 1/4" seam is always there.  No cut off points.  I'm betting I'll get this to top stage fairly soon because I like it so much.  The pattern is Galaxy designed by Deb also. 

As usual, Sharon got more done than I did. Here's hers. Love that secondary pattern that looks like a circle with no curved piecing! 

And mine. (Our blocks are the same size but mine appears larger probably due to the cropping of the photo.) 

I spent part of last evening cutting more pieces and marking the half square triangles.  I have time for sewing today -- looking forward to finishing some more of these blocks.  Surprisingly they sew up quite fast.  And, can I just add here?  I LOVE my colors.  Wait until you see the border I picked for it. Can I just mention I did not choose anything that looked like the cover picture on the pattern! 

Here's the goal list for last week.  What you don't see is "make the table runner" shown above.  It took time away from Love Shack. 

Week of May 4, 2015

Finish customer’s baby quilt on Ruthie√

Cut out Galaxy quilt and attend class√

Spend time helping Kevin√

Get Love Shack to top worked on but not a top yet... 

Have fun with Sharon visiting this weekend√

And, for this coming week -- 

Week of May 11, 2015

Trim antique quilt

Make and apply binding to antique quilt

Work on Galaxy blocks

Work on Love Shack

Have fun at the beach

I'll be linking up with Patchwork Times and Love Laugh Quilt. Enjoy browsing the web for lots of quilty ideas. 

Happy Quilting All! 

  

Scrap Squad 5 Revealed

My #5 scrap squad quilt was revealed Thursday on Quiltmaker's Quilty Pleasures blog.   It seems like a long time since I finished it.  There have been all sorts of things happening at Quilty Pleasures including a treasure hunt.  

When we received Bella Amore (aka #5)  I started browsing my stash right away.  I wanted to use as much from my stash as I could.  It is so easy to see what I have in yardage as it is stored on open book shelves in the studio.  I picked a piece I had purchased in a local quilt store when I lived in Pa.  I liked the whole look of the fabric:  the color, the design, even the background color.  With that fabric in hand I started grabbing "go withs."  I looked at the yardage area of the studio and in the boxes of fat quarters and odd pieces I have on top of the book cases.  Heck, I even looked in the old plastic containers where I used to keep my fabric. Really, only the dregs are in them.  In the end I didn't need to buy all that much.  I did add the luscious dark gold used for the inner border and some greens because I ran out of them.  That brighter turquoise got thrown out and a darker one took its place and was used for the backing. 

Although this looks complicated it really is only 3 blocks: a square, a half square triangle and a quarter square triangle.  That's it.  Amazing once you figure that out.  I really love Deb Tucker's Tucker Trimmer especially for doing quarter square triangle. You can find her videos for her various rulers here. Here are some of the units. 

I didn't like the large, light setting triangles in the original quilt that was in the November/December Quiltmaker magazine.  I tried to use some of the extra units and, gee whiz!  They all fit. Notice the turquoise half square triangle. Those are some of the extra units I used in place of setting triangles.  I played around with coloration and placement on the design wall and then started putting the quilt together.  I tried to have all seams abut however that was difficult.  In some places there are 8 seams coming together.  It was not a pretty scene when I got to the long arming.  


One thing I try hard to do is use long pieces for my borders.  Yes, I'll piece my borders if I have to but if I can I'll use a length.  To make sure I have all the length I need I often refold and then cut strips off the length of fabric to use in piecing my blocks.  See the main fabric up above?  Yep, I'd already taken off a strip to use in the center of the top.  

Because I was trying to finish this in a hurry, I decided to do an open stipple on it.  It worked well except where I tried to go "over" the bumps rather than around the bumps.  Oh well, live and learn. And, honestly, you can't really tell unless you look up close.  

 The quilt traveled with me during Thanksgiving so I could do a photo shoot someplace other than my own house and yard.  My son lives next to Bristoe Station Battlefield so we took the dogs, the quilts and cameras for a walk. It was fun to stage quilt pictures in a different location. In the photo above you can hardly tell there is a big road just beyond the fence. Hum, a quilt on a cannon?  It was hard to keep the quilt on the cannon and out of the bird residue! 

Just for fun I tried to get a picture of the 4 dogs, the quilt and the cannon. If you think it is hard to get a bunch of people to all look at you, keep their eyes open and snap a picture -- try dogs and a breeze!  Three out of four isn't bad. 

Kona, Homer and Raggs watching me take the picture, Cassie staring off in a different direction. 

This quilt now resides on the wall in my dining room.  I really love the colors in this one. And, it definitely is a scrappy quilt. 

Happy Quilting All!