Tacoma Quilt Show

My problems with Blogger have apparently been resolved, and thanks to those who wrote to me about the email forwarding issue. I learned a few things I didn't know before.

I spent the latter half of September and the first half of October scrambling to get some quilts finished for our chapter quilt show, which was the weekend of October 15. Not only did I have three quilts to finish, to include two big ones, but I was also on a couple of committees for the show itself, so lots to do.

We do a quilt show every other year, and our theme this year was Log Cabin. Log cabin quilts abounded in the show--nearly a quarter of all the quilts in the show were log cabins. 

I put seven quilts in the show, including two log cabins. One was a 24" mini hourglass log cabin, which appeared on my blog here, and this was the other one, Crooked Cabins. 196 six-inch blocks and all paper pieced from a pattern with crooked logs in the Sew Precise software  (Electric Quilt Co). It started as a block swap between four online friends, and then I spent the next 15 years making additional blocks here and there. Truthfully, I never thought I would get this done. Gave it away just yesterday to a dear friend who needed a proper quilt for her bed.

 The setting for the quilt came from a quilt I saw at the Heritage Quilt Museum in Lancaster, PA some years back. That particular quilt used squares instead of logs and had fewer blocks than mine, so I played around with the corner blocks in EQ7 until I came up with a setting I liked.

I started Indian Summer last fall; and when the trees were finally bare, I lost interest in the quilt and back into the closet it went. Decided to get it finished this year for quilt show, and my husband claimed it right after the show ended.

The pattern was "Fall, Leaves, Fall" from Cozy Quilts.

Someone gave me this pantograph, with loops and leaves, and I love it!

Thanksgiving Dinner, measuring 22" x 28", was another longtime UFO that I finished in time for quilt show. It was a pattern from Pine Tree Lodge Designs (which may not exist anymore), called "Turkey Time". Love that turkey! I enjoy paper piecing; but if I remember correctly, templates were used for all of the piecing. Although you can't see it, the stems on the apples are three-dimensional.

Another mini that went into the show was Cascadia, from a quiltalong on humblequilts.blogspot.com. I discovered it quite a while after the quiltalong ended, but the directions are still on Lori's blog. She does these mini quiltalongs from time to time, and they all seem to be based on antique quilts that she's seen one place or another. She's just finished another quiltalong called Quilters Madder, and I cut out the pieces for that one yesterday. The Cascadia quilt measures roughly 16" x 17".

The other two quilts I put in the show were my Dakota Farmer, from the last post, and It's Not Plaid, which was on the blog here.

You can see more of the quilts from our quilt show, including the quilt that won Viewer's Choice, here.

Champagne and Roses

September has really been a lost month for me. Most of the things I wanted to accomplish just didn't get done. Maybe I needed a little change from my routine. On Monday I go back to work for several months, so it's unlikely I'll catch up now; but in the grand scheme of things, I guess it doesn't really matter so much.

I haven't had the time to be on the computer either, so I haven't posted for a little while, nor have I been able to keep up with my reading. There are only so many hours in the day. I swear I don't know how other people get it all done.

I finished the Champagne quilt this morning, quilted, bound, labeled, boxed, and gift wrapped, ready for the trip southward. The quilt finished at 99" square and used about 20 yards of fabric. What a great scrap buster this was. All of the fabric for the top and the binding came from the scrap bag, except for three fat quarters, and I didn't really need to add those.

When I finished the quilt, I seriously thought about keeping it because I liked it so much. Ever do that, make a quilt for someone and then change your mind? So I've started cutting for another one to keep, but it won't be done anytime soon.

Progress on the Champagne Quilt

I finished up the rest of the Champagne blocks yesterday, right on schedule. I made 49 blocks so I'll be setting them in a 7 x 7 format. In the afternoon I sewed the first three sets of blocks into rows but haven't sewn the rows together yet. I want to get all the blocks sewn together by mid week so I can start on the borders. This quilt must be ready for quilting no later than September 15!

It was beastly hot here in Maine yesterday, 88 in the shade; and we are in for more hot weather the next three or four days. The leaves have already started changing color, so I'm hoping this is summer's last gasp.

The 6-Quilt Stashbuster Challenge

Hey, how about a new challenge?

My good friend Koleen has already drafted her list of quilts for 2011 and 2012 that she wants to make. Each list contains about 25 quilts. She made a list for this year too, and she's just about halfway through it. She's very ambitious and very determined; and trust me, she'll get it done. In fact she'll probably have them all finished before the end of the year.

So wouldn't you think that's enough quilts for the year? No! In April Koleen told me she was challenging herself to make six nickel quilts, from the book Nickel Quilts by Pat Speth. The plan is to choose six quilts and then make one block a month for each quilt for 12 months. If the quilt has more than 12 blocks, then you divide the total number of blocks by 12 and make that many each month. So for example, if a quilt had 36 blocks, you'd make 3 every month for a year.

Koleen is the one that came up with the September Sun challenge, and I enjoyed it; so I said, I'll do this with you! Then we challenged Barb and Sherry to do it with us, and poof! a new Challenge was born. Now a few more girls in our quilt group might do it too but on a smaller scale.

The 6Q Stashbuster Challenge was scheduled to start June 1, so I spent most of May choosing the quilts and cutting as much fabric ahead of time as I could. All my quilts are scrappy, so most of the fabrics I'll pick and choose as I go along. Here are the six quilts I chose.

The first one, above, is "Dutchman's Puzzle", from More Nickel Quilts by Pat Speth. These are 8" blocks, and I'll need 61 blocks to complete a queen-sized quilt, so I'll make 5 blocks a month.

This one is "King's Crown", also from More Nickel Quilts. These are also 8" blocks, and I want a queen-sized quilt, so I'll make 5 blocks a month for this one too.

Next is "Conestoga Star", from an old issue of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilts. Several years ago I bought this gorgeous kit for it, all batiks, and it's been sitting around ever since. Time to do it! These are 12" blocks, and I'll need 25 full sized blocks and 20 half blocks for the borders for a queen-sized quilt. So I'll make 2 full blocks and 2 half blocks each month. I like big quilts.

The foundations for these blocks were not included in the kit, and I wasn't about to trace them all out from the magazine, so I'm using a block called Dusty Miller from the EQ6 block library. The proportions are slightly different, but the block is the same. I printed out my foundations on freezer paper, so they'll be reusable too.

I like this pattern a lot, so I might make another scrappy one for next year's Challenge, only not in batiks.

I've wanted to make "Bali Sea Star" from the cover of Kim Brackett's Scrap-Basket Surprises since I got the book. More of the quilts from this book are already on my list for next year. These are 12" blocks and I need 20 blocks, so I'll make 1 block a month, and some months I'll have to make 2.

The Crazy Log Cabin blocks were part of a block exchange from about 10 years ago. Four of us from across the country exchanged one block a month. See how the logs are crooked? It's a foundation pattern we printed out from EQ's Sew Precise program.

I want to make this as a queen-sized quilt and set the blocks together like the quilt on this postcard. These are 6" blocks, so I need a total of 225 blocks for my quilt. I already had about 40 blocks done, so I'll need to make 16 blocks a month to get them all finished in a year.

The last one is a mystery quilt that McCall's did last year. It was presented in 6 parts, so the number of blocks required every month is variable. It finishes to something like 86" x 101", probably a king-sized quilt. If you have the magazines, then you already know what it looks like. For everybody else, I guess you'll have to wait and see.

Part 1 of the mystery is comprised of 20 Friendship Star blocks and 12 Diamond blocks. I had planned to make the 12 diamond blocks for June, but I got a late start and haven't got any of them done yet.

All together I should have made 43 blocks for the month of June, and here's what I actually finished. And I still have the Star Crazy BOM blocks to do every month. Am I nuts? Probably. Think I can do it? Maybe. I might have to scale back a little, maybe drop a quilt or something, but I'll make a valiant effort. Am I having fun? You bet!

Imagine how much stash I'll bust when they're all done. Heck, maybe I should make all my quilts this way. Start your own 6-Quilt Stashbuster Challenge today!

Second Finish for May

I put the last stitch into the binding of my Hourglass Log Cabin this morning. The top sat unfinished for nearly a year while I tried to decide how I wanted to quilt it. The quilt measures only 24" x 24", so it seemed a little silly to load it on the long arm, nor did I want to stitch in the ditch or hand quilt. I'm no good at free motion quilting either, so there weren't a lot of other options.

I considered trying to machine embroider a quilt design in each set of four blocks but decided there might be too much of a learning curve. I'd still like to try that at some point, just not right now.

I finally decided to try stitching a design through the Golden Threads paper. Golden Threads quilting paper is a thin, translucent, gold-colored paper that is used as a no-mark method of creating a quilt stencil. It's available on a 20-yard roll in three different widths, and I'd guess it's available in most quilt shops. It's like tracing paper, but it seems to be more durable. I pinned and repinned the paper, stuck tape on it, rolled it and rerolled it, and generally abused it in the quilting process, and it never tore. However when I was ready to remove it, it tore off very easily and cleanly. It even came off pretty easily in those tight places where there was a concentration of stitches.

Here's how I did it. I chose a design from Electric Quilt's Quilting Designs series. After I drafted the log cabin into my EQ program, I imported the quilt design and sized it to fit my blocks. Then I printed out the design and traced several sequences of the pattern to create a small continuous-line pantograph. Next I pinned it to my quilt ready for quilting. Because the paper is translucent, I could see exactly where I wanted to position it. The pins poked me too many times, so I switched to double sided tape which worked just as well.

I used a walking foot to quilt the design, which meant I had to pivot the quilt round and round to stitch on my line. It might have been tedious except that I got pretty engrossed in it. I suppose you could do this on a larger quilt too, but if the quilt were too big it would more difficult to roll it up and maneuver around the needle. Free motion quilting would probably make it much faster.

This method worked so well for me that I'm excited to try it again, so I dug out the Pineapple Blossom quilt to work on, which will also measure 24" x 24".

Hourglass Log Cabin

Last night I finished sewing all the blocks together for the little log cabin quilt. I think I will be happy enough with a 3/8" binding to frame the quilt, so no border on this.

Several people wanted to know how big these blocks were, and I'm sorry I didn't think to include that information. Each of these little blocks finishes to 4" square, so each little log finishes to 1/2" wide. Because the pieces were small, I cut strips or rectangles from my scraps that measured at least 1-1/8" wide. Then I paper pieced the blocks, trimming any excess fabric off as I went.

Playing With Scraps

I haven't spent much time sewing in the last couple weeks, but that is not to say I haven't been busy in my sewing room. I finally finished the last of the mini log cabin blocks, 36 in all. I enjoyed making these so much that I'm going to start on an offset log cabin block next or maybe a pineapple blossom.

I played around with all the traditional arrangements for these blocks and finally settled on this hourglass arrangement. I haven't decided yet whether or not I'll add borders to it. As it is, it will finish to 24" x 24", which is just right for its appointed space in my hallway.

Next I started rooting through several bags and a couple of boxes of scraps I've acquired over the last year and a half. Quite a few of them were channeled into ziploc bags for several scrap projects I have lined up. The rest were consolidated into two medium-sized shopping bags and stored under the longarm. Only a very few of the scraps were actually cut up, but I sure feel good about getting this all cleared out.

Since I was on a roll and felt like cleaning out more stash, I spent several more days going through my cabinets pulling fabrics I thought might be suitable for pillowcases. Some of these fabrics I bought when the kids were younger, intending to make some project for them that never got made. Others constituted a what-was-I-thinking-when-I-bought-this moment and went into the pile too. Everything got washed, and I kitted up enough for 29 pillowcases. I really like some of these fabric combinations, so I'll save several of them for the grandchildren I may never have, and the rest will be donated to the Conkerr Cancer project.

I also cut up about a yard and a half for a small tablerunner. All total, I busted 32 yards of fabric that week and didn't buy a thing. Too bad I'm not still doing stash reports!