The challenge quilt for our guild this year is to create a small quilt using at least one 9 patch design and based on page 9 of a book. I wanted to use scraps from previous baby quilts and choose a book from our nursery. Turns out, I already had squares in my stash that look great together and remind me of the play mat baby loves, with it’s bright colors and patterns. Then, page 9 of Sylvester and the Magic Pebble references a red pebble and I noticed that there are red dots in some of the fabrics. Perfect!
Each month, the guild hosts a Sewing Saturday where we come together to work on projects. Once a year, the projects are all to make charity quilts. This year, we teamed up in pairs to complete a Scrabble Patch pattern with the help of designer Karla Alexander. She gave each of us help with our Scrabble Patch and also a copy of any pattern we wanted for later. I picked the tumbling blocks (seen below).
sample of finished quilt
another easy pattern
our workspace
My teammate, Ruth, met up with me at Sharon’s Attic Quilt Shop to cut up our pieces (mostly from Ruth’s stash) ahead of time, so when we arrived that morning, we started right away designing our quilt.
our fabric
starting points
blocks to try
one version
rearranged a little
ready for borders
Other people used sports fabric, Hawaiian, floral, and many other color palettes. I took some pictures in black and white to see the contrast and how it helped with designing.
ours in BW
darker fabrics
florals
Hawaiian print
Karla’s tumbling blocks
ready for quilting
At the end of the day, we had finished our top except for adding the borders, which Ruth did at home and then together we sandwiched the quilt (using spray adhesive) while enjoying the company of others in my Piece and Quiet group. I used a straight line quilting pattern on it and Ruth completed the binding. It looks great and is ready to donate to a community organization!
In the quilting community, UFO’s are “unfinished objects” or projects that are in varying degrees of needing to be completed. The guild issues a challenge each fall to members to complete their UFO’s. At the November 2014 meeting, we can pay $3 into the challenge to submit our list of projects, and at the August 2015 meeting, we’ll reveal the results.
Here’s my list with pictures:
Heart Quilt Pinned, ready for quilting
Finished “Cross my Heart”
done in time for Valentine’s Day 2015
collection of blocks I won at a BOM
Modern BOM needs quilting
Karla Alexander charity quilt
this modern one needs quilting
I bought these baskets at a garage sale, maybe table runners or a charity quilt?
I’ve never done a mystery quilt before, so I’m excited to try this one designed by Joyce Geiszler from our quilt guild http://www.quilterchickdesigns.com/. I found these fabrics at Joann’s that are different colors than the pattern but match the light/medium/dark requirements:
The first “clue” is to make about 40 triangles using a new ruler (thanks to coupons and teacher discount). The birds are a directional fabric, but since I don’t know what the final project will look like, I’m not too concerned…in fact I think it will look great, like they’re flying all over the place!
Speaking of birds flying around, the second “clue” is to make flying geese blocks. A whole flock of geese actually. Thanks to Marta, I borrowed her BlocLoc ruler to square up the final blocks, which made it much easier.
At the November Sewing Saturday, Joyce gave us the next two clues (four square patches and square in a square blocks). She helped me with some color choice ideas and techniques for making accurate blocks with cutting/ironing techniques.
Sewing Saturday November 2014
lesson on square in square
finished work for today
Here’s what Marta’s looks like as she finishes sewing the pieces together!
One of the guild activities each year is a Challenge Quilt. This year, it was the theme “Initially Yours”. We were to use either fabrics or styles or images reminiscent of our initials. For me, this was a chance to make a quilt I’ve been thinking about for awhile, a landscape beach scene.
I used the “A”pplique technique of using “F”usible “F”abric and decorative “S”titches. Included are fabrics that imitate “A”qua water, trees in a “F”orest, and “S”andy beaches. There’s even a tidepool and kites flying since those are two of my favorite parts of visiting the ocean.
layout of kites and sun
tree detail stitching
final product
It was fun to see what other people came up with, and many of us used this opportunity to try a new technique. Here are a few that I liked, which turned out to be the three most popular as voted on by the guild members.
3D Lily
Sashiko Hexagons
Blooming Sunflower
(2015) This year’s challenge quilt was to use “neutral + 1 color family + zinger”. It was again interesting to see how people interpreted those “directions”. This was one of my favorites.
(January 2015) This month, Portland quilt maker and artist Sam Hunter brought a trunk show and words of wisdom to inspire our guild members. I bought one of her patterns and enjoyed the variety of her quilts (colors, types of quilting, “crap backs”)
Sam Hunter explaining her quilt
sample of Faster Fourteen
(Fall 2014) This month, Karla Alexander visited the Westside Quilt Guild. Her studio is in Salem, so I’ve seen her work over the years. She is known to be a good teacher, so I’m really excited to sign up for her class in September. At the meeting, she showed many quilts from her new book Stack, Shuffle, and Slide as well as some other quilts from previous patterns/books. I choose two that I like most to buy a pattern for the upcoming class (and borrow the rulers needed). I hope to choose some charity fabrics and donate the quilt when it’s completed.
Marco Polo
I really liked a few other of her quilts, and appreciated hearing how she decided colors/rulers to use plus pointing out the shape of the “block”.
Churn Dash
She included a bunch of wise quilting advice in her presentation:
“I am the boss of my quilts.” meaning that you get to decide the colors, shapes, techniques to include. If you don’t like something, it’s okay to change from the pattern to make it yours.
WRAP “wonder, reflect, appreciate what you’ve done, pause/plan/ponder your next project”
Modern quilts include techniques like “upsetting the grid” meaning that things could be set on their side or at angles that are unexpected. Floating blocks and using the background as a design element also create a more modern look.
Also at this guild meeting during show and tell, I showed my ladybug quilt! There was also a presentation to the previous board president of a collaborative quilt (my block is one of the yellow ones). Also, I made two of the star blocks for the free BOM this time in hopes of winning the stack (someone else won this time though).
Ladybugs finished
July Stars from the guild members
Barn Quilt
I also visited the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. A woman I met at a garage sale encouraged me to attend and a friend who quilts came with me. Turned out there are quite a few women from the Westside guild who go there too, so many of the show and tell quilts were familiar. Here’s a few others that I liked (sorry for poor photo quality):
looks like the Marco Polo quilt
creative use of strips and focus fabric
like the setting of pinwheels and color
from selvages
medallion quilts
I was impressed by the projects by this group, but the organization of the meeting wasn’t comfortable for me. I didn’t feel welcomed as a guest and the updates about things focused on website updates and/or key things that only members would know. There were some quilts donated to an organization but no description given so I had to google them to figure it out (Camp Erin serves kids/teens who are grieving). I was surprised that some of the donated quilts were dreary colors and/or patterns that didn’t look like teenagers to me. Again, maybe working in middle school I’m more tapped into their style. Overall, I think I’ll look online at the PMQG blog for pictures of projects but not make the long drive over to their meetings.
The Westside Quilter’s Guild includes a group of members who get together to work on Charity Quilt projects. They donate to three or so agencies that provide the quilts to kids in crisis, cancer patients, or foster kids. I’ve been wanting to participate but hadn’t been able to make the day time meeting during the school year. July was the perfect month and it was great to spend a few hours with this kind group of women. They encouraged me to pick out 5″ squares and a bag of binding/sashing strips to put together a quilt using the reconstructed 9 patch pattern used for the spring Charity Quilt Olympics. All the fabrics were donated, and they’re not the usual colors I like to work with, but a good practice experience for me and rewarding to think about giving it away to someone who needs a warm cozy quilt.
I made some progress on creating the 9 patch blocks. I’ll use 12 different fabrics combined in pairs to create some organization, but still a scrappy look. It’s hard to tell from this picture, but most of the blocks are brown/pink/green colors and the sashing will be green.
When visiting mom in Arizona at spring break, her quilt guild hosted a “Trash to Treasures” sale. It was fun to look through the goodies and I found quite a few treasures, including 12 Amish style blocks ready to put together into a project.
Then, at Powells in here Portland, I found a funny chocolate recipe quilt book for only $1!
At this month’s quilt guild meeting, they had their annual Brown Bag Sale. Some items were available to “ticket and take it” for one or two 25c tickets, other items were a raffle, put your ticket in and hope to win, and a few bigger things were listed on a silent auction. I helped out with the process and came away with a few goodies, mostly patterns and quilt magazines, but also some Christmas fabric, a bilingual panel to give mom for a charity quilt, and a few templates and rules. Great additions to my stash for only $10! I even won the raffle for 3yds of marching band fabric to donate to a friend’s stash (she and her husband are both band directors).
I received patterns for a modern quilt block of the month from our Sewing Saturday group. They got permission to distribute this collection of patterns from the Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild. The other women have already started, which leads me to think about what color palette I want to use.
I decided on my fabric collection for this modern BOM. I’m intrigued by Amish style quilts with the contrast of black and solid color, so I’ve taken that up a notch to become more modern. Bright, saturated colors and a black/gray print background are going to pop! Thanks again to Deb at the Quilter’s Corner Store in Beaverton for her advice about fabric selection.
The January Block created an illusion of woven strips. Making the February Block was my first time making chevrons, using paper piecing for precision. Then for the March Block, the center block wonky star is from another online tutorial. I like how the colors I chose turned out looking like the sun.
Janurary Woven Strips
February Chevrons
March Star with Filmstrip
(3/15) Last night at the Sewing Friday in North Plains, I cut up the fabric for a few more blocks, and today finished sewing three of them! A paper piecing block is also started. I decided to color on the paper pattern to make sure I get the colors in the position I want (so it doesn’t look like a rainbow but includes all 6 colorful fabrics).
Two on the left are newest
And tonight, a third new one is complete
Paper Piecing beginnings
(3/16) The flying geese around in a circle block is complete now. I think this is my favorite block so far. Hopefully I have enough fabric at the end to make another one like it for a table runner project. I’ve started planning the next paper piecing block and asked Aaron to color in the pattern. It’s a helpful way to see how the block will look and plan out where to put all the pieces.
Flying Geese in a Circle
Coloring the paper pattern
The Color Wheel
The next block is made with 25 2″ squares, then I need to figure out how to cut out a circle and then set the circle on top of another circle (red fabric) and then both on top of black. To make the grid, lining things up carefully and strip piecing made it a quicker easier process.
Chain piecing and careful ironing
Center Grid
Raw Edge Block
(5/25) The final few blocks are now complete! Next step is to decide about how to connect them into a quilt top. The challenge from the guild is to have it ready to show in September.
Geese as the pattern described
My interpretation of the block
Diamond Block
Pixel Block
Now that all the blocks are finished, time to put it all together and create a back. At the September Sewing Saturday, I finished placing the 12 blocks, 11 on the front and one on the back with some scrap pieces. At the October Sewing Saturday, it all sandwiched together with black batting (purchased off the roll at Sharon’s Quilt Attic). I used a technique my mom showed me on youtube that uses two boards to provide the tension to flatten it out and not need pins. Instead, it’s basted with black pearl cotton and ready to machine quilt, perhaps I’ll practice free motion quilting.
Each month at the Westside Quilt Guild meeting, there’s a free BOM (block of the month) pattern you can pick up to try. If you make a block (or two or three) using the pattern and bring it back the next month, there’s a drawing and one person walks away with all the blocks. I like participating when it’s either something I would like to win, would teach me a new technique or block style, or is a color scheme I already have in my stash. My goal is to only use stash fabrics to complete these blocks.
At the Feb 2014 meeting, I picked up the Rocky Road to Dublin block, published by The Quilter’s Cache by Marcia Hohn. Her website offers lots of free blocks that guilds and others can use to learn traditional block designs. We were asked to use dark green, light green, and white on white fabrics. Here’s how my block turned out:
Next up is an Amish quilt block. Amish style quilts remind me of visiting my grandparents in Ohio who live near enough to an Amish community that we often visit the shops and restaurants there. The plain bright colors contrasted with black background is a very traditional look. We were asked to use black background, bright yellow star, and another bright solid for the other parts. Thanks to Deb at Quilter’s Corner Store for the fabrics. I like the puzzle piece part…make the components and then line them up like in the picture before sewing into rows and rows together into the block.
For the June 2014 guild meeting, we’re making Scrappy Mountain Majesty blocks in white/cream/tan and blue/green/brown color palette. Here’s how mine turned out (second try after a mistake measuring on the last step). I like how easy the block was and only one matching seam. Also, it’s fun to be able to find pieces from my stash to use for these blocks. Wonder how they’d all look placed together in a quilt? Looking at the pattern maker’s explanation, maybe I wasn’t supposed to sew the halves together. I suppose whoever wins the batch can decide how they want to arrange all the blocks.
For July, it’s a 4th of July Star block in red white and blue (the photo doesn’t show well the tone on tone but the polka dots pop!) This one would be fun to put into a patriotic quilt or table-topper. I ended up making two of them to add to the stack at the guild meeting (but I didn’t win yet.)
July Star
July Stars from the guild members
Here’s the one for October’s meeting and check it out included in a charity quilt that the winner of all the blocks that month created:
In April, I made this block — first time trying a log cabin!
Here’s the block for May. Not my favorite color combo, but using all fabrics from my stash.
And the pattern for the one for June is at this link http://www.azpatch.com/bom/bom2002/08aug02/bom02aug.htm. We’re to use white on white and a bunch of bright colors, so I’ll see if I can get that done in time for the June meeting.
