Blogger's Quilt Festival

As many of you know, I am not always on top of the blogging and often come late to the party.

Last spring some time I checked in on my blog feed and noticed a whole bunch of the blogs that I follow had posts titled "Blogger's Quilt Festival" followed by some beautiful stories written about even more beautiful quilts they had done recently.

But this time, I'm just under the wire for Amy's link up at her blog, Amy's Creative Side.

I didn't have to think too hard about what quilt I want to share here. It's the Jewel of Friendship, a collaborative quilt done with the members of the Friends + Fabric {a modern stash bee} through Flickr.

This bee is kind of special to me, in that it represents a group of very talented women whom I've never actually met, but feel quite close to. The organizer of the group, Jenn {SunnyInCal}, is a member of the LAMQG and first brought together an online quilting bee via flickr at the beginning of 2011, of which I was fortunate enough to become a part. As that bee was wrapping up for the year, she extended an invitation to continue in a new year with a new group of quilters (and a fair amount of overlap). Our group for 2012 is an inspired, creative, adventuresome crew, which made me want to challenge them with an inspired, creative, adventuresome block!

Last fall or winter I spotted a group of bee blocks done by Jill Stemple {fallingforpieces} that I just fell in love with, pictured here. When I was revving up for my month with the F+F bee, I asked her if she had any problem with my using her blocks as a jumping off point, and was thrilled to hear back that she had no problem at all and had not used a specific pattern, just improvised it. PERFECT.

I played around for a bit, using a specific Alexander Henry print as my inspiration piece and came up with a few sample blocks.

As I was working on these I put together a little online tutorial, which can be found here, and made it available to the other bee members through my blog. And boy did they run with it!!

Once I got the last of the blocks and worked out a pleasing layout I ended up having to scurry to finish the quilt, having committed it to be entered at the annual Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in July. I auditioned a number of different fabrics for the backing:

and ended up choosing a Kaffe Fassett shot cotton in Bluejeans, with a strip of stripe going through it. Have I mentioned how much I love using these shot cottons on the backs of quilts - they show off the quilting beautifully!

I quilted on my home machine, mimicking the wonky diamonds in the blocks, but trying not to match too closely as to seem off on any one of the blocks and bound the quilt in another great stripe fabric.

I truly would not and could not have completed this quilt without the help of the following talents (and certainly wouldn't have had such a wonderful variety of fabrics and styles and personalities to the blocks even if I had tried):
Jennifer (sunnyincal)
Maria (mpress studio)
Karen (capitolaquilter)
Lee (Mimi Lee2)
Eileen (bluebirdluxe)
Nicole R. (idreaminfabric)
Brianna (bribaby2007)
Petra (Petra Rosa)
Emily (CanyonGurl {Emily})
Nico B. (woodbines creep)
Nichole R. (n.ramirez)
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart, and this quilt deserves its title Jewel of Friendship.

Photo taken just this evening, with this quilt bringing me warmth and comfort while I await a replacement furnace!!

Quilt Measurements: approx. 55" x 65"
Special Techniques used: improv log cabin
Quilted by: me, myself and I on my Viking Lily.
Best category: Group or Bee Quilt, Scrap Quilt, Throw Quilt
Entry #500

do. Good FINALLY finished!

The journey started over 4 months ago. A request went out last fall for a substitute quilter in the Bliss circle of do. Good Stitches. I volunteered. I posted a tutorial with my inspiration, and blocks filtered in over the following 2 months.

until I could see where I needed to fill in...

But, it being me... well, I procrastinated on quilting it.

And took my own... sweet... time.

But, once the quilting happened, the rest was in the bag! (Okay, I still have yet to deal with a label for it!)

I'll certainly be happy to send this little guy in his way to the proper recipient, through Wrap Them in Love.

A Month of Drunk Love?

I think that most of us in the current Modern quilting world hear the phrase "drunk love" and rather than picturing a torrid bar scene or even a romantic dinner at a fancy white table cloth restaurant will automatically conjure images of bright, improv-style wonky log cabin blocks, inspired by modern quilting icon Denyse Schmidt.

And sure enough, that is what I'm talking about. This month not one, but TWO of the bees in which I'm participating have selected the DS drunk love block. No complaints here!

For Design Camp [think outside the block] Swap, Yolanda sent us a beautiful selection of tan and taupe neutrals with a snippet of a red and cream fabric to use. She did invite us to add bits from our own stashes, if they blended, and I couldn't resist taking her up on that. I hope she's not off-put by the bits of Rouenneries by French General.

(Oh, and that little bit of Lush woodgrain I found hiding in my scraps!)

This really is such a classy, beautiful palette, don't you think?? And she included some gorgeous fabrics, including a linen and a crossweave - I do love that crossweave!

And then for our circle of do. Good Stitches Amanda requested the same block design, but a completely different palette, and therefore look. Pinks and oranges. A color combination my stash is not currently lacking! And I loved the opportunity to pull almost entirely from the scrap baskets!!

So, though I don't see any more of these blocks in my immediate future, it's always fun to play in an intuitive way and see such effective results so quickly.

Two birds, One stone

For Design Camp [think outside the block] 2, Michelle, the wonderful organizer and a fellow PMQG member, started our group off with a dry run this month. For a few of us this is our first improv quilting bee, and I think it just worked out that January was still open after the schedule was put together, so Michelle gave us some scraps of fabric (left over from our guild's Jay McCarroll challenge quilts last fall/winter, seen here and here) and a suggestion for a first exercise.

At the same time I have been trying to come up with 2 more blocks to make to work into my quilt from the 1-month Nubees block swap I participated in several months ago. I realized that by taking out the warmer colors of scraps, and using a grey as the "sashing" this block would fit in perfectly with the others I received back in September or October.

Now, to play around with that last block - getting much inspiration from a couple of books I just received for the holidays... more on that another time.

Return to the bee blocks

November and December ended up being a kind of break for me from the online bees. And I have to admit, a rather welcome one... and I'm sure I'm not alone in that opinion! But, that break is over and I'm ready to get back to it! Thankfully the new bee I'm going to be doing with a great selection of women, with Jennifer at the helm again, got started a little early.

Jennifer directed us to this tutorial from Aneela Hoey, which she calls "Crazy Scrappy Block." She's planning to do this color box style, so we each got to choose a color for our blocks.

I chose to go with black - a great way to use up some of these B/W prints I've collected over the years (mostly several years ago, to be honest!) and a fun challenge.

Happy January (almost)!

Spiderweb blocks received!

So, in mid-November I finally received all of the spiderweb blocks for my Seams Perfect Scrap Bee quilt (originally posted about here)! I actually ended up with a few more blocks than I had expected, due to some remakes for size issues as well as Jenn, our awesome fearless leader, stepping in and making angel blocks for a couple of the members.

So, yesterday I played around and arranged them on my design wall:

and I have about 3 or 4 orphans which will end up pieced into the back... but for now, I'm happy to have the top ready to put together. Yay!

And in addition, I FINALLY have a "new" quilt finished! The quotation marks indicate that the quilt top itself has been hanging around for, oh, I don't know, 2 years or so... but I just quilted it last week before heading up to the holiday bazaar so that I had some binding to work on while hanging out there last Saturday.

Step by step...

I got to spend my Thursday working in the sewing studio, but again feel like I was less productive than I'd have hoped. However, I did manage to finish 4 out of 8 of my 6.5" blocks for October's Seams Perfect Bee.

which when things get pieced together, will look more like this:

Becky pointed us toward a quilt from Karen Griska, highlighted on her blog, Selvage Blog. Without a doubt it is an extremely effective and eye-catching quilt, but I have to admit I did not have fun trimming all of the strips down to 1.25" and fussying the seam allowances (though, I wasn't really TOO fussy, honestly). However, I am sure that some folks didn't love the technique that I chose for my month, so I was happy to do this for Becky!!

I managed to get the strips cut for the next 4 blocks (hopefully enough of them), but have put off the piecing until another day. Unfortunately that's not all that I put off as of yesterday. I had been planning to go to the guild meeting for the Portland Modern Quilt Guild (PMQG), but by 5:30 I was going through my new box of tissue at a rapid rate, and my energy plummeted, so the idea of hanging around an hour just to go downtown for a 2 hour meeting didn't jibe with me. Which is really too bad since I missed last month's meeting, and I'll be out of town next month. This also means I won't be participating in the holiday swap, but that's how life is sometimes, no?

November BLISS block

At some point over the summer Michelle - a.k.a I Like Orange, Too, the host for the Bliss circle of do.Good Stitches, put out an entreaty for someone in our circle to step in as quilter for the month of November. For those of you not familiar with how this Flickr group operates, each of the circles in this charity bee has a combination of "quilters" and "stitchers." The quilters are each responsible for choosing the design for the group's quilt 2-3 months during the year, communicating during that month with the rest of their circle, and piecing together the blocks he/she receives, then quilting and binding the piece before sending it to that circle's designated charity. Stitchers, on the other hand, are simply responsible for putting together (generally) 2 blocks each month and sending them off to that month's quilter. I joined the group as a stitcher, knowing my dislike for actually quilting things! However, after several weeks passed and no one else had expressed an ability to step in for November, I decided to challenge myself and commit a little bit more to this group. And that is how I have come to be next month's quilter for the Bliss circle.

I've decided to go with a relatively easy block to piece, leaving size and details flexible, but with specific colors and general style.

I'm looking for the equivalent of two 12" blocks (in the photo above I have one 12" block, one 8" block and two 4" blocks... or, say, four 6" blocks = one 12" block, but no need to be too precise). Please use a solid in any shade of orange, blue or aqua as the background, and prints in the opposite color PLUS black and white prints for the pieced strip going through your block.

Here's a quick little tute on how I did these guys:

I started by selecting a group of background color options, and scraps in blues, oranges and B/W.

Cut your backgrounds into squares or rectangles that are approximately the desired size of your finished block

Selecting from your scraps, start piecing a strip using a single color story mixed with your B/W. Your strip can be anywhere from 1" to about 3" wide, depending on the finished size of the block. Don't worry about being exact as you'll be trimming the edges once you have the strip to the appropriate length.

(I find it easiest to chain piece, so I was working on all 4 strips at the same time, but you can see that each one stays with being EITHER orange OR blue.)
Continue piecing your scrappy strip until it reaches about 1/2" to 1" longer than your background piece. If you are going to piece it in at an angle, make sure you allow for the extra length for that.

As I was approaching the lengths of my background pieces, I simply held the strips up against them to "measure." Oh, and I don't think I have yet mentioned - please pair the pieced strip with a background of its complimentary color (blue with orange and vice-versa). When you have that complete, press your seams in one direction. Trim up the edges of the strip so they are even.

Next, make a slice through your background, where you plan to add the strip.

Piece them together, press seam allowances toward the background and trim.

And if the finished product ends up a little bit off from the dimensions you were aiming for, no worries. I'm figuring that I'll be putting some filler in to make up for gaps in irregular sizes - I only ask that you trim to square or rectangular, with 90-degree corners, not wonky.

I hope everyone has fun with these guys! If you have any questions at all, or need clarification, just let me know. And thanks to the ladies of the Bliss circle for bearing with me on my first venture as a quilter (in this context!). I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!