Design Wall Monday--including Squirrel

Some sewing has been happening here in rainy SoCalif but some of it I cannot show because I completely misplaced it.  We had a sew-in for guild on Saturday and I did a demo of the Tri-Recs ruler set and also the V-Block Trimmer.  I made it home with those tools, which some members had borrowed to try out at the sew in, but for the life of me cannot locate the plastic grocery store bag that held all the parts, samples and premade blocks.  An APB to the guild Facebook page might help.  Anyway, at guild, one of the members was making philanthropy placemats and I remembered a bunch of precut tumblers I had and laid some out yesterday. 

I think they'll sew up to a nice size and will be donated to a Seniors meal program here in the city.  The main oriental print is at least 10 years old. I also received the latest APQ magazine and got bitten by a Squirrel--despite my already staggering number of projects in the works--and just had to play with fabric.  

I was intrigued by the single color use of the cover quilt with the cross blocks and pulled blue fabrics and scraps.  There were not enough and I pulled oranges and rusts to play too.  My plan is to make a smaller version of the cover quilt (which is 80" square"), probably with different backgrounds from stash. Currently my yardage bins, fat-quarter drawers, and scrap system is overwhelming me and definitely needs thinning--despite my large Konmari purge last year!  Concentrating on creating quilted projects will remain a theme the rest of the year.  Many more placemats, perhaps potholders, mug rugs, runners and anything else I can think of to play with is the object.  

The backyard is green again with all this rain we've had, and the weeds are sure invading the flowerbeds.  Downed trees and a few mudslides nearby but no lengthy power outages so far.  My daughter had a leak in the baby's room but her husband was able to fix it.  She dragged Hunter's crib mattress to another room for his nap, lol!  Our local lake is gradually filling but still far below capacity after all these drought years.  Despite rising 6 feet with the last storm it is still at about 40%.  Fingers crossed that reservoirs and groundwater will be replenished enough to call the drought broken--though not over.  

Friday morning I put on a pair of street shoes to navigate the wet walk from car to office, grabbing a pair of tennies from the closet floor and stuffing them in a plastic bag.  

Unfortunately, the shoes didn't match. I wore them anyway, to the entertainment of the office staff and my doctor boss and roommate PA.  At least they were both mostly black.  It was interesting to wear one of each and notice how much my heel hurt from the right shoe!

See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Design Wall Monday--2/13/17

A few things on--and off--the design wall:

 

 Our Guild is 5 years old this month.  The challenge was to create a block with five things in it.  I chose Tri-Recs blocks.  I used my new V-Block ruler to trim them to perfect size. 

 DD Erica sent this pic of the Star-Crossed quilt in use. She wrote of her cat, "Lucy likes it" :)

Yesterday I finished the quilting on the Baby Flying Geese quilt.  I like it so far.  I've also prepared the binding so it will go on soon.

Another Guild project--gone wrong.  I sewed the smaller colored squares to the wrong size background.  I suppose this will give me "design opportunities" to finish the top!

A few minutes of stitching late Saturday afternoon produced another finish--Poinsettias and Pomegranates is finally done.  Only 6 years in the making!

See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Progress on UFOs, etc

Over the weekend I got through prepping the backings and tops for two quilts, the UFO picks for January and this month.  I set up a table on risers in the garage and both were spray basted, a process that involved a great deal of walking around the table, pulling and clamping, and smoothing, as every quilter knows.  There was also some swearing, as I once again proved my advanced ability to bungle MATH for quilts by shorting the batting, and also drifting one layer crookedly despite multiple measuring tape checks.  Sigh. I'll just show the one that came out well, lol.

Thank goodness my sister Kathy had brought over another can of 505 spray the day before, as I ran out of my can on the very LAST section I needed to spray of the second quilt.  Isn't that typical?  No quilting has begun as yet, but soon!

The last stitches were taken for the border of this cross-stitch UFO.  There are some small pomegranate motifs to add to each corner and very few detail stitches to the center and this will be finished.  I did struggle a little with the border as the number of stitches in the side borders is different from the top and bottom.  Nothing a little unpicking and restitching couldn't fix.  Love it!

 DD Erica sent this photo of the finished Star-Crossed quilt in its new home.  She included the rug that inspired the colorway, and I think it looks great with the pillows I made her several years ago.  I've asked for full length quilt photos when she gets a chance. 

And now, some grand-baby spam.

Hunter and big brother Cove playing in Hunter's crib a few weeks ago.  They will have their shared birthday later this month.  Can't stop time from making them older, but love spending any minute we can with these darling grandsons. Hunter is not yet walking, but may in the next few weeks.  He's a really fast crawler, though :)

Finally, I must apologize for doubling the photo of the Venice scene art quilt in nearly consecutive posts.   #mindlikeasteeltrap  I do really admire that quilt a lot!

The Rest from Road to CA

There were many other photos from Road to CA, which I meant to post earlier as a slide show.  However, it soon came to my attention that the feature is no longer available in Picasa, and indeed, Picasa is no longer available as a download and will eventually cease to be supported by Google.  Sigh.  So now I probably might move to Google Photos, which I am not at all sure about.  Anyone else familiar with Google Photo for blogging who has tips for me, please do tell!  Anyway here are some of the quilts that caught my eye at Road 2017. 

First, three more mini quilts by quilt designers for the 2016 Kona color of the year, Highlight. 

Loved the hand quilting on this one.  Monica Solorio-Snow offered a larger free pattern of this Love Quilt design following the Orlando Pulse nightclub attack, on her blog, Happy Zombie. 

 I don't know this designer but loved her little sticky note tabs in her mini.

Wonderful rainbow of square in squares from Amy Smart.  Love her blog.

 What a great two color quilt in a new take on Drunkard's Path quilts.  Very intriguing shapes.

 Gorgeous applique in a Christmas themed large quilt. The Poinsettias are so pretty.

 Saturated colors and random placement drew me in to this modern version of Orange Peel blocks. And the maker said she made it in a weekend!!

 Stunning art quilt that I could have studied for an hour--so many details wonderfully wrought.

 

 

 This prize winner had a lot of machine quilting enhancing the modern design.  I liked the large shapes in yummy colors.

 Here's another modern quilt of varied shapes that was fun to study.  Lots and lots of negative space with dense quilting.

Another prizewinner with interesting repeated motifs and colors but an unusual setting, and hand quilting densely in the negative space.

Before reading the description of this quilt, I was reeled in by the dancing shapes, and was surprised to find the quilt was another version of Drunkard's Path.  Now I want to get the book!

Hope you enjoyed seeing a few more quilts from the show.  I could have taken another 100 photos, easily!

Memory Loss

Not that I'm particularly old, but it is surprising what can slip the brain...

My last post mentioned that for the UFO Challenge pick of the month, first thing I needed to do was pick out a backing as the one I had previously purchased didn't match the unfinished top that is my #9, my Flying Geese Baby Quilt.  This morning I pulled out my bins of folded yardage and could not locate said non-matching fabric. Hmmm.  I turned to the Hoosier cabinet where all my project bins live and hunted down the missing UFO.  

I loved this warm gray modern print, "Comma" for Zen Chic, but felt it looked green next to the cool grays in the quilt top.

However, sitting on top of the bin contents was this aqua print I had completely forgotten having purchased--only a month or two ago at that!  The leaf print is from the same line as the fishy and wood texture prints, "S'mores Love", and I bought all at Superbuzzy.  The yardage was washed and ironed and I set about piecing the remaining scraps into a strip to make the backing wide enough.

So happy to get scraps out of the bin and into a quilt--and many of these prints were leftovers from my grandson Cove's quilt!  My sister Kathy will help me spray baste this one, as well as last month's UFO.  I can do them myself but it's so much better --and more fun--with her helping me.

UFO Challenge 2017 monthly update

Today is the day we report on our progress for Judy's UFO challenge.  The pick was #3 on the list for January, which was my modern Row Robin quilt. I started with an unfinished quilt top and aimed for a finished quilt by month end.  I posted the finished top and backing HERE.  Alas, I didn't get a full finish.  However...

...I did construct a Frankenbatt for the quilt and it is ready to be spray basted.  That will probably take place before this weekend, along with the pick for February, which is #9. On my list #9 is this Flying Geese baby quilt top.  It needs a backing, quilting, and binding.  I last worked on it in October 2016 so it's a pretty young UFO, lol. I got stalled at the backing because the intended yardage I purchased,  without bringing the top, did not match--so annoying.  So first step will be to choose a new backing.  The white background is an Architextures print so I may find a coordinate in that line.

I'll probably quilt this with my walking foot in some sort of straight line design.

Meanwhile, I had put aside the Row Robin to finish another quilt, my version of Star-Crossed from APQ April 2016 issue.  I finished the quilting and binding Sunday and delivered it to DD Erica on Monday night.

 So happy to have this crossed of the list! I didn't get a photo of the whole quilt because we met to celebrate the 98th birthday of my mother in law at her senior home.

Here she is smiling up at her grandson Nick.  She's shrunk a bit but he's 6'4".  We had a lovely time surprising her with cake and ice cream and my husband read her all the birthday cards.  Nearly 100 and doesn't use a walker or cane, amazing.