FCQ Retreat Photos

The Faithful Circle Quilters' retreat is over but the photos linger on.  Here's what was going on in the gymnasium that was set up for us to quilt in.  We did a swap of batik rail fence blocks in hot and cold colors.  What's this ?  It looks like a line up to me. Evidently two out of three quilters don't know their left from their right.  After that is a pic of the blocks ready to be swapped out.  We got in a line and walked around the table picking up blocks.  Then the line turned around and we picked some more.  And... well, you get the idea.

 Some folks worked on their batiks the rest of the weekend.  Some luscious looking tops came about.

Jane was working on her thank you blocks for being a guild officer.  

Here's one of 2 1600 Jelly roll quilts.  This one's in progress. And here's Irma's finished one. 

 Alka was working on her flamingo quilt.  I really like this design she came up with.  It featured a large print fabric and some go-with strips.  I'm going to search the stash to see if I have any fabrics that would  work in this layout.

Sharon brought a couple of groups of blocks to start making more so she'd have enough for a quilt.  These Jacob's Ladder blocks will be a baby quilt when done.

We had a great time.  Nothing like not having to cook, answer phones, let the dogs in and out -- just sew until time for a meal that someone else cooks.  Then back to more sewing.  I was tickled with getting my two tops done.  I'm looking forward to next year's retreat.  Have you treated yourself to a quilting retreat? 

Happy Quilting All! 

Design Wall Monday 6-4-2012

I'm away from home but I had a lot of quilting action over the weekend at the retreat.   No design wall today, but here are two finished tops.  Both are older projects with new finishes! 

I've been working (more realistically not working) on this for over a year.  The center applique was done by Beth.  I added everything from the half square triangles out.  I felt badly that I kept it so long so decided I would do the squares also.  My big goal for this retreat weekend was to put it together.  I had a lot of help with how to lay out the squares as they are quite different in terms of how much color is in them.   I will be really happy to mail this on to Pam to decide if it needs anything else before she quilts it. It will be donated to Komen in Baltimore.   


At the retreat with Country Piecemakers in October last year I started this quilt.  If you read the blog I wasn't happy how the stars worked with the stripes.  So, I made more stars, found a different stripe and finished this top this weekend.   Ok, even though I say it is from the previous quilt -- there is only one star used from the October batch.  Sigh... so I made a different quilt with the same colors and more striped fabric. The best news is everything is from my stash.  This is ready to be quilted. 

I still have a ton of the red and yellow stars and I found a go-with fabric.  I just ran out of time during the weekend. I might start on it while I'm here visiting Jenny and family.  But, I didn't put that on my goals for this week.  How'd I do last week? 

Week of May 28

Finish Heidi’s quilt√

Remove everything from cabinets√

Pack up 3 projects for FCQ retreat√

Make block for 1800 block of the month

Trim twin charity quilt

Trim baby charity quilt√

Not bad but not much listed on the goals either. 

Week of June 4

Make 1800’s block and write directions

Drive home safely from Maryland

Pick Up sewing machine @ Cottonwood Quilt Shop

Load and quilt a baby quilt on Ruthie

Clean house

Play with dogs

Work on Scrap Squad #3

Not all that much on my goal list this week.  The kitchen is being worked on.  Some new cabinets are being put in this week.  Sophia and her mom and dad will be visiting with us this weekend.  Not much sewing is going to be going on. And, I bet the dogs really want some attention.  

Don't forget to visit Judy's Patchwork Times to connect with design walls around the internet.

Sophie and I got to play on the swings yesterday afternoon.  She sees a camera and immediately says picture.  Such a smart girl!

Happy quilting all!  

May Stash Busting 2012

Not a bad month for fabric being used!  It helps to make a bigger quilt than what I normally do.  Plus, I pushed to get the Winnie the Pooh book panel quilt done.  I'll have to post pictures later. The best part is I bought some fabric at a store on the way to Maryland yesterday... so it is included here.  

	Month	Year to Date
In	7.42  yards	44.67 yards
Out	14.68  yards	49.18 yards
Total	7.26  yards	4.51 yards

Of course, it doesn't include what I bought today -- but that will be used this month, honest!

Oops, I may need to do a correction once I get home.  I'll have to see if I have the fabric I bought at the quilt show included last month.  The show dates straddled the end of the month.  But for now I'm really happy I'm using more than buying.  And, even if I go in the "red" again it won't be by very much.

I'm off to the retreat.  Happy Quilting All! 

Wonky Log Cabin

I just have to share this great quilt I just finished quilting.  Heidi, the queen bee of a group of 12 quilters who are making blocks for each other started our group with these large, wonky log cabins.  She finished the top within a month or two of getting all of her blocks back.  Many of these gals are not quilters (yet) but all like the idea of quilting.  Some have been sewing clothes and household items for years.  We've gone through three months and I just love working with the fabrics the gals are picking.  (Anything new is a great joy to me!) 


Here is Heidi's quilt on my bed so that I can show it off.  

 I used a spiral groovy board.  Makes nearly perfect spirals one large, one small.  I now know that the table of my long arm is not flat.  It also doesn't have the same amount of space from the rails to table on the front of the machine.

 This close up shows off the quilting quite well.  

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that you can't see the quilting on the back very well?  


Thanks Heidi for letting me quilt this one.  I really enjoyed it! 


Happy Quilting All! 

Design Wall Monday 5.28.12

Another week zoomed by and I didn't get a lot of quilting/piecing done.  We are about to embark on a kitchen remodel (starts Wednesday) and everything has to be out of cabinets in the kitchen, hallway, and laundry room and a bathroom.  

The piecing I got done or at least a start on is a set of batik rail fence blocks.  These will be swapped at the FCQ Retreat I am going on starting this Friday.  We are to make blocks that have only cool colors in them or only warm colors in them.  I've finished more of the cool colors than the warm colors at this point. I did buy fabric for this swap as I have some batiks but not a whole lot of them.


I've gotten some things done on Ruthie also.  I finished one baby quilt that I will be donating to Country Piecemaker's charity.  No pictures to show you of that.  Then I loaded Heidi's quilt made by the Bee Quilters.  She went first and had us make big wacky log cabin blocks.  With 12 people in the group and large blocks she ended up with a nearly queen size quilt.  I am hoping to finish it and take it up when I leave Thursday. I'm using my spiral groovy boards and it is looking great with that pattern.  This is going to be a fun, colorful quilt.  

Week of May 21, 2012

Finish quilting twin charity quilt for FCQ√

Start quilting Heidi’s quilt√

Pick up old Bernina from spa week… not happening for a couple of weeks.

Take dogs in for check ups√

Cut out projects for retreat at beginning of June √some done

Cut Scrap Squad #3… not started at all…

Get baby quilts done on Ruthie if possible√ one done, one to go

Not too bad especially since I didn't mention empty kitchen... 

Week of May 28

Finish Heidi’s quilt

Remove everything from kitchen cabinets

Pack up 3 projects for FCQ retreat

Make block for 1800 block of the month

Trim twin charity quilt and bind

Trim baby charity quilt and bind

Travel north safely

Finish one of the stars tops, hopefully both 

I will be up in Maryland a few days beyond the retreat helping Jenny.  Brian will be down in Virginia most weeks for about 4 weeks for work.  Bummer.

I'm off to take some more things out of the kitchen and stash somewhere else.  I'll be posting pictures during the remodel but not a lot at the first.  And, just to add to the chaos around here we are having our floors redone while we are on vacation in mid June.  FUN! 

Don't forget to stop by Patchwork Times to see what is showing up on design walls around the internet.

Happy Quilting All! 

  

My Second Scrap Squad Quilt

Here it is ... the big secret quilt I've been working on for quite a while.  This is from the May/June issue of Quiltmaker.  And, if you don't have it run right over to Quilty Pleasure blog for a chance to win the issue and some of the Dritz Quilting Row Marking Safety Pins that I show in the blog.  Well, perhaps you should finish my blog, make a comment and then run over to Quilty Pleasure and read the blog and sign up for the giveaway. 


Ladder of Success was designed by Judy Martin who just happened to be editor of Quiltmaker magazine at one time.  We receive the quilt design about 2 months before the magazine comes out.  We don't always get all the pictures or I just didn't pay attention when I printed out the instructions.  I always print them in black and white and put in a sheet protector so I can keep all the pages together.  Can you guess that I am prone to misplacing things? 

This is one quilt where you really need to pay attention to the layout and the blocks.  Here's a mistake in the sashing block. RIP!  Notice the sticky note there?  Yep, I make copious notes about things.  Originally I was going to make it as a baby quilt or lap quilt. Once I decided to go for the twin size I had to go back and figure out how many of each of the pieces I needed to make.

I chain pieced a lot of units -- it goes so much faster.  And, I try to keep just little dabs of thread between each unit so all I have to do is snip the units apart.  Have I mentioned I am a loose thread freak?  Yep, if there is a 1/2" or more thread hanging off of a seam, I trim it.  No wonder I am a fairly slow sewer!  But, I have learned to bring the chain to the ironing board, position, iron and then quickly clip.  It does save time for me. 

Did I mention this was a fairly big quilt?  Yea, it went right off the design wall.  My design bed option is downstairs which I try hard not to use unless absolutely forced to.  Hum, would that count for aerobic exercise?  


Here I am auditioning some alternate ideas for the 2nd border.  I wanted to repeat the colors of the 9 patches in that border but they just didn't look right to me.  I finally settled on the small four patches that were in the sashing.  (Yes, what was I thinking to use the small four patches??) 


After a field trip to Sharon's house I was able to decide on the borders which are a bit different from the pattern.  The wonderful swirly print is very old and I had a limited amount so my measurements really took that into account and what looked balanced. All I have left of it partial strips.  


Once the top was done I had to evaluate the stash for backing.  I honestly thought I would have more than enough of the purple to use for the back. NOT.  I decided to use a wide back.  It turns out it is cheaper than buying yards and yards of regular width quilt fabric and much easier to not have to seam. 


Next up was loading it on Ruthie, the long arm, and quilting.  I used the Baptist fan groovy boards.  I think it adds a nice curve to counteract all the squares.

While I was at Sharon's she was working on binding a quilt.  She mentioned she uses up her bits of leftover bobbins while sewing the binding on.  I tried it and it works.  The thread colors don't seem to show to me.  Of course, I did sew it down to a colorful print.  I also roll my finished binding on a cardboard tube to keep the end from getting tangled in my rolly quilting chair. This time I cut my binding 2 1/4" like it called for in the pattern.  Normally I use 2 1/2" for my binding width.  I really like the slightly smaller size.  It made the binding a nice, full binding with approximately the same amount of fabric on both sides of the quilt.  Excellent! 


It took me a few days before I could get a picture of the finished quilt -- too cloudy and rainy.  Finally on a bright sunny morning I took the quilt outside to photograph.  Hum, it wouldn't stay on the fence so I could show all of it.  So after the fence pictures I took pics on the ground from the deck which was slightly higher.  Kona is guarding it from squirrels. 

I'm excited to start on the next Scrap Squad quilt.  I've even bought fabric for it.  It shouldn't take long and I am already in love with it.  Hopefully it will make up as quickly as I think it will. Stay tuned! 


Happy Quilting All! 

Design Wall Monday 5-21-2012

Here's a finished top to share today. This was a Pooh fabric book panel.  I wanted to make a baby quilt out of it so I picked yellow, green, blue and purples to frame the blocks.  Yes, I think the purple (actually 2 different fabrics) are all wrong for it. Once I get it quilted it will go to a charity and someone will be pleased to have it. 

Now that that is done one of my design walls is (was) empty.  This morning I pulled out the FCQ Equilter's Komen quilt to finally finish off.  As I've made blocks for the 1800's Quilt I've also made some of the blocks for this quilt.  I only need one more block to start to put this together.  I sure hope I have my math right and everything actually goes together nicely. This is NOT the true color.  This looks - yucko! But it will look great once done. I've put in the golden  coping fabric that I will need a small bit of to make all the 9" blocks go together.  Anyone have some opinions on how (what order)  I should put this together?  I'm thinking sew the side blocks together and then figure out how big the coping strip needs to be and do both sides the same.  Then sew the top and bottom rows into strips and see what size strip would then be needed? 

Here's what I got done on my weekly goals last week.  Not bad considering my motivation was, um, zero! 

Week of May 13, 2012

Finish stitching binding on SS #2√

Photograph and write blog entry for both Quilty Pleasures and my blog√ need to upload one or two pictures and still write my own blog about it... 

Sew Winnie the Pooh rows together√

Start quilting twin charity quilt for FCQ√ at least the backing was on the frame yesterday.

Back up EQ projects from the restored netbook.  Phew! Computer guru came through like a champ. 

Start Scrap Squad #3... I'm so excited about this one!!!  I can't wait to get going on it... 

Figure out backing for my flamingo quilt√

Clean up the cutting table...well, it'll be a start at least No way did this happen. 

Week of May 21, 2012

Finish quilting twin charity quilt for FCQ

Start quilting Heidi’s quilt

Pick up old Bernina from spa week…

Take dogs in for check ups

Cut out projects for retreat at beginning of June

Cut Scrap Squad #3…

Get baby quilts done on Ruthie if possible

This is actually a short list or so it seems to me but I need to focus on finishing the quilting on a few things.  Will see how I do.  

My computer is giving me a little grief trying to get on the internet so I wasn't able to post this earlier today.  One of these days I'll figure out if I need to replace something or other on it. 

Don't forget to visit Patchwork Times to visit blogs across the internet. 

Happy Quilting All!