Round Up of the Round Robin VMQG

For the past four months, I have been participating in a Round Robin with my Modern Quilt Guild.  We had our final reveal on Monday.  Here is what I did for the four rounds:
Round 1:  Scott's block.

Scott made this beautifully pieced and dynamic block and included only solids in his preferences.  My idea was to keep the movement of the center block moving.

I made some border blocks I remembered from one of Judy Laquidara's books, Nine Patch Extravaganza.  I liked the easy construction using HSTs and all the angles.  First attempt was a bit blah.

Hmm, maybe an HST in the corner with the border blocks?  No, a little too cluttered, I thought.

OK, now we're talking!  I was very intimidated at first but it sure turned out to be fun to work this way, with no commitment to finish a quilt top entirely :)

For Round 2, I was passed on a block center that Scott had added his own fabrics to.  The quilt block owner, Ellen, had included wonderful Indian and Indonesian prints, with a batik center piece that was directional. I was at a loss at first as to how to incorporate the modern aesthetic but sketched and sketched until I hit on this design.

 

I wanted to make additional rounds easier to add by "neutralizing" the colorful center a bit. 

My finish didn't quite match my sketch (MATH) but I again liked the movement created by the offset wedges.  I hoped it was modern enough!

Round 3 I think was my favorite to work on.  Adele, the owner, had some wonderful prints and lots of colors to play with, including a good length of her text and illustration focus print. 

I wanted to add a lot more of the focus print and lighten up the overall feel with lots of color, since Scott had chosen the black solid for his sharp flying geese round. 

 I made a bunch of hourglass blocks and fussy cut from the focus print.

I kept the black and white theme going with the two color hourglass blocks in the corners.I don't know how modern my round was but I liked it a lot!

The Round 4 quilt was a bigger challenge for me, as Sarah's center block was improvisational piecing, which is hard for me to do. 

 Sarah found it hard too, which is why her block had been on her design wall for several years!  She included a lot of really yummy solids in her box of fabrics.  I picked out some neutrals and a lot of pretty jewel tones.

Scott had added these wonderful cross blocks and I didn't want to interrupt their effect, so I only added to two sides.  I repeated the soft dove gray solid used in an earlier round, with improv piecing.  But I added what I call a "free radical" with the deep gray background and orange cross, just to kick things up a bit :)

There were 14 participants and we all had such a great time with this challenge.  So glad I joined.  And here is my block's Round Robin reveal:

Isn't it pretty?  Center is my star block; Round 1 is the plain border by Barbara; Round 2 is the flying geese by Georganna, Round 3 is the beautiful feathers by Kim, and Round 4 is the improv piecing by Judy.  I love it and have it hanging in my dining room to enjoy until I decide how to finish it.

Design Wall Monday--June 8, 2015

On my design surface today are some disparate projects.   It seems when I am playing leader-ender, my two projects are the most clashing.  Perhaps this is subconscious so that I don't mix them up :)

I cannot show the main project I was working on yet--our guild Round Robin.  Tonight is the reveal after four months and I really am looking forward to see what mine looks like, and what others did with the rounds I added.  We each got to work on four quilts.  But another guild project did get worked on. Our challenge this month was to use Neon fabric.  Not my favorite sort of colors, but I did find a very very bright orange to use.  I have been wanting to work with my Quick Curve Ruler again, and use a pattern I purchased at the Road To California Show back in January, Metro Twist. 

I gathered some leftovers from other projects, a remnant polka dot, and used one of the purple fat quarters I bought in Livermore.  The QCR has you make oversized pieces and then square them up to a consistent size after sewing. The first time I tried this several months ago, my results were not as pleasing, but having had that session under my belt, it was easier this time to manage the curved piecing (that, and the fact that in between I sewed all those curved Winding Ways block sections for months!).

I'm not certain this really qualifies as a neon, but it is certainly very bright.  I'm going to piece another bunch of blocks, throwing in some other modern prints and probably end up with a tablerunner eventually. 

The leader-ender I used while working on the two guild projects was from a baggie of leftover corner triangle cutoffs from Kitchen Sink, a Kim Brackett design in her book Scrap-Basket Surprises.

 I first tried a random layout mixing the RWB HSTs.  Meh.

I separated the colors and ended with a flag layout.  If you know Kim's designs, they are all based on 2 1/2" strips, so these cutoffs are tiny--I trimmed the HSTs to 1 3/4 inch squares.

A mini flag quilt.  I'm not sure where I'll go next with this, but am pleased to have that baggie empty at last.  This is the third project I've gotten from leftover pieces of the original quilt, which I made for my Aunt's husband Tommy when he was recovering from cancer.  He again thanked me for the quilt when we were at a family wedding last weekend.  So sweet!

See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Travels with Kathy

Last weekend my sister and I went up to the San Francisco area to attend a family wedding.  Kathy and I had not had an overnight road trip in quite a while.  On the way up north, I wanted to stop and put flowers on our relatives' graves in Bakersfield.  We had a little trouble with Siri and GPS but did find the cemetery location on the bluff. Then, at Siri's direction, we made a large roundabout trip in a huge circle to buy flowers and then have lunch before returning to the cemetery.  Much ridiculousness and laughter during this portion of the day, but we did complete our visit to the gravesites, honoring our grandfathers, grandmother, and great grandfather.  Two hours later (!), we continued our journey north to the East Bay town of Livermore.

 There is still some water in California...

...at least in the aqueduct!  On our trip up Interstate 5 through the San Joaquin Valley, we saw lots and lots of farmland full of dead trees and fallow fields, many with signs posted saying that "agriculture equals jobs" and that the government is "creating a dust bowl".  To be sure, we are now under 25% mandatory water reduction restrictions statewide.   A possible El Nino effect bringing significant storms this winter has yet to be confirmed by experts.  Pretty grim!

Kathy and I checked into a Marriott and then met our brother and family at a PF Chang's for dinner.  I ordered Moo Goo Gai Pan, if only to say the name for fun, but all the food was excellent and we had a great time sampling tons of different dishes.  We got back to the hotel room and just after Kathy settled happily onto the bed with her iPad and jammies, I ruined her party by reminding her that she'd said she was going to dye her hair that night.  Her naughty-worded reaction to my reminder sent me into a prolonged attack including clutching my stomach while bent over laughing until I cried. That was fun too. (Kathy decided she'd bought the wrong color dye anyway!)

The next morning after another hilarious interlude with Siri to get a manicure/pedicure at a nearby shop, we got ready for the wedding--a Hindu ceremony, as our cousin was marrying an Indian gentleman.  The Hindu ceremony is very structured and takes many many hours.  We arrived, again guided by Siri/GPS, to the Hindu temple.  Not having any more direction than the address, we were pointed by an Indian lady to a shoe room in a separate Hall to leave our shoes, and then walked back to the temple, accompanied by another single girlfriend of the bride, also at a loss.  We three entered the temple in bare feet and saw many unusual and interesting sights of worship; however, not a single other person did we recognize from our family.  Quickly becoming embarrassed and awkward, we exited at once and went back to the Hall and shoe room.  Someone directed us to the real location in the Hall and we happily met our family members and greeted the bride and groom. 

We were not in time to witness the above portion of the ceremony, where the couple were throwing rice on each other.  Our cousin's sari was gorgeous, as were those of all the guests and wedding party.  We sampled Indian dishes and visited with relatives we hadn't seen in a while, and met others we'd only heard of.  

Kathy then managed to break her pinky toe rather badly on a chair leg during the luncheon portion, and I had to take her back to the hotel.  She was disappointed that our planned quilt shop trip would leave her behind, but she really couldn't walk.  Our sister-in-law, Laura, and I headed to the quaint old downtown Livermore area to the quilt shop, In Between Stitches.  What a nice shop it was, too.  We pottered about for a good half hour, picked out some batiks for Kathy, and generally breathed the scent of fabric, patterns, notions, and quilt displays. I signed up for email notices, which came in handy when we inadvertently left the shop without a 1/2 yard of fabric that was on the cutting table.  They are mailing it to me :)  Here's my loot: 

After Siri took us on a rather grand back-roads tour of the neighborhoods, I dropped off my SIL at their hotel in Pleasanton and then went to Target to pick up some flat flip flops for Kathy and some tape for her toes.  Luckily we had traveled the same stretch of highway so many times by then that I didn't need Siri to get back to the hotel.  After trying to tape her toes and causing more pain, Kathy and I fortified ourselves with chocolate, rested a bit, and then put our finery back on for the reception.

The reception location was luckily only moments away from our hotel and we got there faster than at any other effort so far on the trip!  We had a good time at the reception, visiting, dancing, and eating more unusual Indian dishes, while being introduced to many new family members and listening to some very funny best man and maid of honor speeches.  The next morning we again met many family members at their hotel across the street (free breakfast!), though we drove since we were dropping off a piece of family furniture the bride wanted.  

This Victorian-looking rocking chair belonged to our maternal great-grandmother, and to her mother before her.  My grandmother gave it to me when I was pregnant with our son, 30 years ago.  It has been languishing in the corner of my bedroom for far too long and I wanted another family member to enjoy it.  An uncle transferred it to his truck for delivery later, and we enjoyed a happy hour eating and visiting a final time before packing up and checking out of the hotel.  We took the coast route down the 101, a much prettier drive, IMHO.  For one thing, we were much closer to my beloved hills and coastal mountains. 

Mile upon mile of rolling hills covered with Coast Live Oak trees.  Not much green grass to be found, sadly.  We stopped in San Luis Obispo to visit some old neighborhood friends and had a good time swapping stories and memories before undertaking the last 2 1/2 hours of the journey.  What a great trip.  Then, yesterday, Kathy called me to say she had finally emptied her suitcase and discovered she was missing a brand new expensive bra with the store tags still attached, and a nightgown.  She thought she must have left them in the dresser of the hotel.  I told her to call the hotel, it couldn't hurt to have them check for it.  She let me know later that she actually did call the hotel and, while there was nothing in lost and found, they would check with housekeeping.  Lo and behold, she got a call back saying housekeeping did find the bra, now tagless, and the nightgown, but they were found in a different ROOM.  Very curious.  Anyway, they are mailing them to her and she has yet another funny story to tell. Travels with Kathy are always an adventure to remember!

Doll Quilt Received

I received a doll quilt from my partner in the swap hosted by Lori of Humble Quilts.  It sure ticked some favorite boxes:

Cheddar--check, scrappy--check, four patches--check, repro--check!  It is perfectly sewn and quilted.  I wish I were this accurate in my stitching!

 

On the reverse, a beautiful hand-embroidered label to go along with a fun backing fabric.  Thank you Liz Hinze, I love it.

I finished my doll quilt with hours to spare--and mailed it on my way out of town.  It hopefully has made it to Virginia by now.  My swap partner, Linda, is traveling and won't see it until she gets back.

Lori has formed a Facebook group to share photos of quilts from her various swaps, and other quilts.  I've joined up and am enjoying seeing all the wonderful quilts posted so far.  I'll be linking up on Lori's blog when my partner lets me know she has seen her quilt.

Design Wall Monday

Happy Memorial Day!  On my design surface is the doll quilt swap project from last week.  I survived assembly, with the paper piecing messy aftermath :)

I had considered reducing the project to only two blocks since it was looking rather busy, but in the end I just rearranged the blocks to a different layout and felt that calmed it down a bit.

The quilting design is always a bit of a roadblock to me.  However, I knew I wanted to avoid the very thick intersection in the center and chose a motif to use in each of the blocks. 

This is "Friendship Blossom", from a book I just bought called 501 Quilting Motifs, by Quiltmaker magazine.  Lots of great designs of every sort, with helpful illustrations of the different ways the motif can be used for either hand or machine quilting.  Time being short, and my hand-quilting skills not being great, I opted for machine quilting.  For marking the light fabrics I used my water soluble blue marker, and for the dark fabrics a yellow chalk pencil.  I've now quilted all the motifs and am doing some straight line quilting in each block.  Next decision is what to use for binding, and what to put on the label. This project needs to get in the mail by Thursday, so decisions need to turn into action quickly! 

Also completed this week was the stitching closed all the the pillow butts for my outdoor patio set.  I love how they turned out and they sure brighten up the plain brown cushions. 

My daughter and I even found an umbrella that matched pretty well with the blue background--it is really more of a teal blue, very richly saturated.  See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.

This will be a busy week--mainly due to starting training for my new job.  Yep, I took a part-time job as a scribe for a family practice group and will be working with a single doctor.  That will be a welcome change. And when I called a doctor I worked for to let him know I was using him as a reference, he wanted to hire me back as his office manager.  I'll start that in several weeks once my training is complete.  So I'll have two part-time jobs, both local.  No more commuting for me.  I felt like I hadn't lived in my own town for two years with my prior job, and with this one, I can even come home for lunch, yay! 

Design Wall Monday

On my design surface today is a project that finally is using a special gift.  Four years ago I won a giveaway on Kate Spain's blog.  She sent me a personal note along with two mini charm packs and I have hoarded them for all this time.

Finally I have broken open the pack of Central Park mini charms and used them!  I found a really fast and easy project at Moda Bake Shop, a pillow designed by Corey Yoder called Scattered Squares, which used only one mini charm pack and some background fabric. 

I'm liking it so far, nice and bright and cheerful.  I stopped at this point, however, because I thought this might also be a great table runner, using some wider strips of white between each row.  So now I am pondering that idea. 

I'm also working on blocks for a Doll Quilt Swap I'm participating in again, from Lori of Humble Quilts, using reproduction fabrics.
  

A guild member gifted me these 1/4 yard cuts that she got in a block of the month kit and did not want. Her daughter, another guild member, says she will give me hers too. Yay for me!  I love all of these.  I'm curious why there was only one green print...my favorite color. 

I picked these prints from the stack and added the red from my stash.  The pattern I'm using is from an old Quiltmaker magazine from 2006, called Simple Simon.  It is a take on Robbing Peter to Pay Paul, using straight lines. 

Foundation piecing is not my favorite but with only three pieces, it is doable.  I still  have to be really careful when placing the fabrics on the paper copy.

I'll make 16 block units and then decide whether to set them all scrappy or with coordinating edges. 

See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Design Wall Monday

On and off my design surface are a couple of projects that have been awaiting their turn to leave the WIP list.  First, I completed two additional placemats for a full set of 6 for our dining room table.  They were promptly used last night and got christened with BBQ sauce from our rib dinner :)

 The colors are a bit off in the photo but they are nice and bright for spring and summer.  I again used my three-step zig zag stitch for some modern quilting.

I bought this beautiful botanical print of outdoor fabric at JoAnn's a few months ago to make small pillows for the patio set.  Although it probably ended up costing me about the same per pillow as buying some ready-made on sale, no one else will have these!  My sister helped by cutting out all the pillow pieces while I was working on the placemats.

 I finished all the edges and backstitched all the corners to hopefully extend the life of the pillow.
 

Then I spent an amusing 10 minutes trying to stuff the first pillow form into the side opening.  Eventually I got it in there but it was a wrestling match. These are 12x16" pillow forms from JoAnn's--also bought on a good sale.

I switched to a slightly larger opening on the end for the remaining pillows and even ended up taking out some of the stuffing from the forms to keep the wrestling to a tolerable amount.  Hindsight was that I should have allowed a seam allowance of at least 1/4".  That's a pile of pillow butts awaiting needle and thread :)

Our guild is making placemats for homebound seniors as one of our charity outreach projects, and at the last meeting I picked up a kit to sew and quilt.  There is a pocket for the silverware, a fun addition. The polka dot binding was my contribution.   I also have a quilt kit to baste, quilt and bind before next week's meeting, as well as a Round Robin assignment, and another challenge placemat to design and sew.  Finally, I joined Lori's Doll Quilt Swap again and have picked out a pattern from a very old Quiltmaker magazine.  This one is foundation pieced but only has three pieces.   Hopefully by the end of this week I'll get the job I'm interviewing for.  In the meantime, there is plenty to do in the sewing room!

 See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.