This is becoming a definite habit, the need to catch up the blog. I think since I've figured out how to attach photos to my excel spreadsheet, I don't feel the urgency to document here as much as I used to. But it is still a good exercise to document my quilting, so here is goes. Since it's mid August and I have 21 projects to discuss, I'm splitting them into General & novelty posts.
A few months ago the Quilters Guild of Parker County had Marci Baker as a speaker. I was intrigued with her book ABC3-D as I've always loved optical illusions. I decided to make Honeycomb Waffle first. The instructions at first seemed involved, but I focused on step by step. And once I picked out the fabrics, it was amazingly easy and fun. All but the dark piece for the yellow blocks came from my stash. My daughter has claimed this one to add to her collection.
The church sewing group I meet with monthly has a contact with a fabric rep who donates samples regularly. This quilt was made from an interesting collection of mottled greens, browns and blues, supplemented with a few similar fabrics from my stash. I used the Sisterhood pattern by Villa Rosa Designs again. It is such a great pattern to piece from scraps. When done I had four extra blocks and the quilt felt too small. Rather than putting slab-O-borders, I decided to clean out the black triangle scraps. I think the border took as long to piece as the rest of the quilt. I will probably finish this one as a donation quilt for our guild.
This quilt uses some more of those fabric samples; these were a line of polyester flannels in baby prints. I couldn't think of a way to use the precut rectangles, so I just put them in columns. The gray fabric was the last of some old JoAnn's fabric. I didn't have quite enough so had to substitute something similar in the center. It made a nice baby size quilt to donate to the local pregnancy center that our church group supports.
And another quilt from fabric samples, another line of flannel polyester. Sometimes the challenge of figuring out what do make with what's on hand is fun.
For the bi-annual quilt show one of our guild members asked for donations of flags to hang outside the venue to attack visitors. She challenged us to look through our orphan baskets and make flags approx. 18" square from orphan blocks and leftovers. I had forgotten how many orphans I had tossed in the basket. I had left over sample blocks, class blocks, string & nine patch blocks. In putting together flags to try and empty the basket, I had over 20 blocks. As I was admiring some of the ones I liked the best on my design wall, I decided to make a scrappy quilt and this is the result. It made a lovely heavy utility quilt.
Here are some more orphan blocks left over from the hand pieced blue & green batik quilt made over 15 year ago. I had completely forgotten about these. Not sure how I feel about the layout at this point. Somehow it looks too much like a scout badge in the center. So this one will hang in the closet for a while to age just a bit more.
This pattern is called Mirror Mirror by Donna Jordan. I've made it before in patriotic colors. It goes together quickly using strip piecing and used up a bit of the blues from my stash drawer.
The next three quilt patterns are all designed by Krista Moser. She has spoken at our guild twice now and is a wonderful presenter. Her patterns are so well written. This is a fun table runner pattern that went together in an afternoon. I need to remember to get it quilted before Christmas this year but I'm thinking about exactly how I should quilt it to make it special.
I purchased this next pattern from Krista Moser a couple of years ago when she first presented at our guild. Initially thought I would make it with novelties. But after thinking about it decided tone on tone would work better. It is supposed to have contrast moving from left (dark) to right (light) but I don't think I had enough difference in my fabrics.
This last pattern was from the workshop Krista did for our guild, called Fan Faire sampler. I didn't want to make the large quilt so I only did one of each diamond and finished as a baby quilt.
Using one of my favorite patterns by Kim Bracket called off course, I was working on using some of my blue scraps. I love how much movement the quilt has despite just being pieced from strips.
I originally pieced this strip pieced Texas star several years ago, so long ago that I can't find the pattern any longer, so I can't give credit. I finally added the setting pieces and borders. I still have no idea how I want to quilt it, so it is hanging in the closet for now. At least it's a top now, so I can take it out of the UFO basket.
