Getting things done

Since I returned from Quiltcon, I have been in a wonderful sewing mood. I have finished several items and made some new. The first item shown is a top I call 3D20. It is the result of a challenge from the Facebook group, Improve Handbook for Modern Quilters. Each month the group comes up with it's own score ( ala Sherri Lynn Woods ) and we go for it.

I took a piece I made a little over a year ago when I first got Sherri's book. I was attempting the strip sets score and pulled leftover strips from my scraps and made a very dismal piece. I was not very happy with it at all. Then came these challenges and the second one was to take orphan blocks, leftovers or even a full piece and cut it up and remake it using only scraps you had on hand. You were allowed to purchase 2 additional fabrics but solids only.

The result is 3D20 and I love this piece. Not only the reworking of something I didn't like into something cheerful and happy, I love that it brought me back to fun days with friends.

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This next item now has a name, Rogue One, due to a comment made on Facebook about the "little rogue diagonal piece". This is the final result of a class I took at Quiltcon Savannah from Heather Jones called Improvisational Line and Design. Loved the class and loved the technique. I want to try it again but with larger strips ( these are between 1" and 2-1/2" ) resulting in 4-1/2" blocks, 16 of which make up one "block". Heather told us how she had done a larger scale piece with 20" blocks of which there were only 4. I also was to do more striking color combo's. While I like this softer palette, I want to go a teeny bit crazy on the next one.

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This little guy was an orphan. I had an idea for a piece and got this much done and the plan was to add a small silhouette of a bird in red standing on one of the grasses I was going to call the piece Sentinels. I had seen this while driving along the highway in Northern California. Well I couldn't get the bird to look just right so I set it aside. Guess that was a good idea because my chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild has approached the Int'l Quilt Study Center and Museum for a small show of modern quilts and the president of the guild asked if I had anything minimal. I showed her two pieces and she choose this one so I quilted it up and got it ready. I really like the finished product. The piece is still going to be titled Sentinels.

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On National Quilt Day, I was sewing selvages together at the local celebration and it got me to thinking about all the selvages I had saved and so I took a look at what I had and made this bag. Just for fun!

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I was also able to do a challenge piece for the LMQG this month on Curves!

National Quilting Day

So, March 18th was National Quilting Day and my chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild sponsored an event at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln Nebraska. The theme was Upcycling, a new term coined for reusing cloth items to make new items instead of dumping them or donating them. 

"Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value"

I volunteered in the Upcycling room, where we displayed several items made with upcycled items, where I sewed selvages together.

Many of you know a selvage is the edge of a piece of fabric that most of us would clip away and toss. In recent years, these have been cut, sometimes up to 2 inches wide, and saved.

With the addition of more modern prints on the market, these selvages have become bright and cheery and when sewn together in strips make a sturdy fabric with a huge range of uses such as pillows, pot holders, bags and even full size quilts.

Now there are several ways you can sew them together. As I said earlier, I like to cut a wider swath, about 2 inches. This allows me the choice to sew the strips close together, showing just the selvage edge, or to separate them a bit allowing the fabric print to show through and creating a wider stripe. 

You can also sew them down to create a kind of ruffle effect that is quite pretty.

You can sew them onto a piece of muslin or scrap fabric as in foundation piecing or just sew them directly on to each other. There are just so many uses for what used to be toss away fabric. 

Tired of being sick

So, as the title says, so tired of being sick. Hubs and I both got a head cold in Jan. Got over it eventually, me in time for QuiltCon, which was a good thing. I get home and 2 days later, tada..sick again but with a wheezing cough this time. Oh joy. I'm half way through my misery when the poor hubs gets it again, with a cough for him as well. I'm done with my meds but still wheezy and still with a runny nose. Lets hope it all works out.

But, there is a very small silver lining about all this, you go no where! You stay home and sew.
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This first piece I call 3D20. It is the result of a challenge on the FB group, The Improve Handbook for Modern Quilters. As shown in a previous post. Well I looked at the stacked circles and thought..boring. What are other aspects of a modern quilt..alternate grid, asymetrical, minimal..so I thought ok, this is good. I had circles and I wanted a random setting..marbles..I searched for images of piles of marbles. You know, piles like when you toss 8 or 10 on a floor. Then I thought of my old gaming dice. The 20 sided dice is the roundest yet has the flat edges where the numbers are printed. Toss 3 on your roll...3D20.

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This pretty piece ( I am really loving it ) Is a very late take on a challenge by the QDAD group of Facebook. It will be done when it tells me it is. I am having too much fun making city blocks right now to stop.

Here is the original inspiration photo. 

So many really stunning quilts were done and the group was given a special exhibit at the 2017 Quiltcon. I am finally working on mine and I'm ok with that.

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This little piece I'm just going to call Graple, for all the purples and the circles. It is my attempt at the Sherri Lynn Wood score Rythmic Grid. It is a kind of hard concept to grasp, but also quite simple. You make the block borders zig zag throughout but you do it with random cut squares and strips. It is really fun once you get a handle on it.

Improvisation

Spent the entire day in the sewing room and it fells great. Got some things further along, some finished, and some others started.

Below is the finished top I started at QuiltCon in Heather Jones class Improvisational Line & Design. It was so much fun. Love the technique and really want to try and super-size one. There are actually 4 blocks made up of 16 4-1/2 inch blocks each. Heather had done one with far fewer 20" inch blocks and it was amazing. So bold and graphic.

Another project I started on today was a Challenge given in the FB group The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters. We are setting our own scores to follow and score #2 for 2017 is as follows:

Here is the "final" outline for our next group score, #2017score2, THE SCRAP STASH ELIMINATOR!!

LIMIT 1: Pull orphan blocks, never pieced blocks, or a pieced top (or all 3!) that you just never loved enough to finish. Chop it up, slash it, separate it, reconfigure it, overdye it, etc…manipulate it in any way you like to form the foundation of your new piece.

LIMIT 2: Use any of the fabrics from your scrap bin to develop out the rest of your design. 
Any prints you use should ONLY come from your scraps.

LIMIT 3: You have the option to purchase TWO SOLIDS specifically for this project to help balance it/fill it out. THIS IS NOT REQUIRED — your scrap stash might have plenty of multiple solids to work with — just remember: if its in your scrap bin, then its fair game!
(Solids can be new yardage, thrifted garments, fabric you bartered for…whatever your own definition of “purchase” is!)

LIMIT 4: Utilize contrast “grouting” to join the more randomly shaped, or unevenly sized sections.

I took a piece I made about a year ago when I first got Sherri Lynn Woods book, The Improv Handbook For Modern Quilters ( hence the FB group name ) and tried the strip sets score. Needless to say, a big fail as you can see below

Total fail. So I decided to chop it up and using only scraps on hand made strippy snwoball blocks pairing the yellow half hexes with other colors. Liking the new piece much more.