First of many

Lately I have been so concentrated on trying to bust out these smaller items that it has actually been ages since I have completed a quilt. When I moved into the studio space, it gave me an opportunity to reorganize, and pull focus to some of my UFOs, including finished quilt tops that have been hanging around for years waiting to be quilted. Some of them are so simple, and ones that I hope to be able to show at craft fairs, or at least to be samples of patterns/formulas that I work with.

Yesterday I basted my first quilt in many months.

An alternate color way to another that I have up on my etsy page

Today, another will get basted. The backing and batting are already spread out on the floor just a-waitin' for me to return...

Pot holder and place mats

There is nothing like having a specific goal (read "deadline") to compel me to get s*** done.

I quilted and bound that pot holder for our PMQG / KCMQG swap...

(like those little martini glasses??)

And really, the theme of the week has been binding. I have 3 sets of place mats on which I have sewn bindings, one of which is the long-overdue commission, the other two are new additions to hopefully have a decent inventory when Saskia and I have our tables at a holiday bazaar next month. (more info to come soon...)

My thimble finger is about to get quite the workout!

a little log cabin love

One of the very many talented fellow Portland Modern Quilt Guild members is Susan Beal, author of the inspiring new book, Modern Log Cabin Quilting. A couple of months ago she was getting ready to head to Kansas City, and would be attending the KCMQG meeting while there. Susan approached our guild about doing a log cabin pot holder swap with the other guild over the next couple of months, and from what I gather got an enthusiastic response.

For reasons I am really not sure of, my focus has been anywhere but on getting things done in the sewing studio for the last month. However, I am making a concerted effort to change that, and part of the effort is attacking specific commitments, including this pot holder. So, yesterday, once I finished my Seams Perfect blocks, it was log cabin time! I only did two blocks, one for this swap and one for my little shadow box outside my studio door (all of the studios have one!), but it was fun for me, and reminded me of what I enjoy in patchwork. I think I had gotten off track for a while, honestly.

So, now I have a fun block to be quilted with some Insul Bright and cotton batting before the November meeting of PMQG:

And a simple piece of patchwork to introduce the visitors of 1121 N. Loring St. Studios to Surrounded by Scraps:

completing October Bee blocks

A week (or two?!?) ago I started a little post about some Karen Griska blocks that one of my online bee-mates chose for her October blocks. I FINALLY got around to finishing the last 4 blocks yesterday.

I am not quite sure how this happened, but for some reason my first set seemed to come together with straighter seams than the second grouping I did. Harumph! On the first group I went from using the 1/2" seam to a 1/4" seam, while yesterday's group went from 1/4" to 1/2" - and for some reason my machine was not wanting to keep straight.

(the newer blocks are on top, the one's from the other week are on the bottom)

Hopefully, once mixed in with the dozens of other blocks Becky will be receiving, the flaws in mine won't be so noticeable. In the future, though, I prefer my strip piecing to be a little less regulated. Just sayin'.

Limited Palette I-Spy

It's been several years since I have made an I-Spy quilt. The fact that my stash of novelty fabrics doesn't seem to have diminished at all recently confirms this. Over the years I've enjoyed putting these guys together, keeping the parents of the recipients in mind as best I can. Here's a little evolution of some of the I-Spys I've done:

(original design by Ami Simms, in her book Picture Play Quilts)

(please excuse the picture quality.... these were done long before I took much care in documenting)

and then a couple of years after that one:

and most recently (for a little tike who is about to turn 2 in just a couple of weeks!):

(another design from the Ami Simms Picture Play Quilts book)

Now, I'm about to start a new quilt, and I've decided I really want to do another log-cabin style I-Spy, but instead of using the whole spectrum of brights out there, I am leaning toward a limited (and rather subdued) palette for this family. I started pulling some focus patches the other day and decided to just get started on a few of the blocks to see if I like where it's going. This is all I have so far, but I think it will work...

I'll be posting more as it develops. Happy Saturday!

Nubees blocks from Sept.

For a few weeks now I have had all 6 of my blocks from the September round of Nubees block swap, but realized that I hadn't taken a photo of all of them to post.

I have some ideas on how I want to set the blocks (maybe adding 1-3 more), but not sure what colors I am going to choose for the background of the quilt. I keep leaning toward grey, but am afraid that that's almost overdone at this point. Maybe the soft blue? I'm open to suggestions...

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?