Update on Gundrun's Mystery Quilt (Feb.3 post)

Gundrun's Mystery quilt pile of blocks turned into this quilt.

      

To remind you, my pile of blocks looks like this:

Not even an official pile!  I counted. Gundrun has 23 rows with 15 in a column, so 445 blocks!  I have enough for 1 column!  This may take awhile, especially since I have other more immediate projects.  Another UFO on my shelf!

Kira Quilt

You may remember I mentioned a quilt designer from GE Designs, Gundrun Erla.  She designed a quilt called Kira, and I loved how it looked. It also has large sections, so it would be a very good design to showcase beautiful fabrics.  I have a lot of beautiful batiks in my stash, and I hate to cut batiks into small pieces!  You just lose so much of the design in the fabrics.  I thought this would be a great design to use with my batiks!

I don't have the  pattern, but Grundun posted a 30 second video on YouTube showing how to make the block, so I was able to figure it out.  Here is the link to that video:  Kira video .

Here s Gundrun's version of Kira:                                          Here is my version.

  

These blocks are made in pairs, and it goes very fast.  I made all 48 blocks in less than a week.  They finish off at 9", so this inner part of my quilt will measure 72" x 56".  I will add a couple of borders to make it slightly larger, maybe 3 or 4 inches on each side.  I might make a couple more blocks and switch out a couple that don't seem to have enough contrast.  This picture isn't all that great and the colors are way more vibrant than this picture shows. I'll have to study it in better light!

I am pleased with this quilt.  :)

Graduation Banner

I have a grandson (Bailey) who will be graduating from High School in May. There is a very good chance that he will be Valedictorian of his class.  Yes, he's a special person in my life! My stepson, Luke, has asked me to make Bailey a Graduation quilt or banner that they can give him and hang up at his graduation party in June.  We have decided a banner (wall hanging) would be more appropriate. 

I have been searching out options and ideas, and have come up with this banner.  It'll be around 30 x 40". This is all in the very early stages, so I'm sure this will morph into something else by the time it's all said and done.  My ideas almost always do!

Since we don't know if he will be valedictorian or not for awhile, my plan is to wait, and add his name and "Validictorian" to the banner at the end.  In white letters, his name at the top, curving between the football and the baseball and Valedictorian on the bottom, curving between the Academic Excellence torch and the basketball.  If he is not the valedictorian, I can use "Salutatorian"  if they have that in their school, or put the Class of 2018 on the bottom instead.  We'll play that by ear.

The football, baseball, basketball and Academics Torch will be appliqued on.  Not hard.  The Redbird symbol in the center will also be an exercise in applique.  I have a great gif of that, and I copied it into MS Word, and then enlarged it by 150%.  I traced it on white freezer paper, using my computer screen as a light box.  I may have to redo this, because what I really need is a reverse image so I can iron each section to fusible web which is always a mirrored image in the final result.  Either that, or flip and retrace each section as I go along.  The big white square in the center will be about 17" tall and wide, a 12" square set on point.  I want it to fill up as much of that space as possible.

Soo!  Another year, another project!  Whoooo hooooo!

Sewslip

I saw a new (new for me) product advertised on Facebook, and I went to  Sewslip's website to take a look at it. It looked and sounded like a handy thing to have, if it worked the way they said.  I decided to invest $30+ and give it a try.  It came last Thursday, and today I opened it up and put it on my sewing machine.  I didn't know what to expect exactly, but it fit perfectly, and snuggly too.  There a tacky backing on the sheet, and you can peel it off and re-position it as many times as you want.  In fact, you'll HAVE to re-position it many times in the course of quilting a quilt because the mat covers up the drop-in bobbin case.  To rewind a bobbin, or change bobbin threads, you have to take off the quilt, take off the Sew slip mat, then change the bobbin.  Then put everything back and start sewing again.  It's much more of a hassle  then just lifting up the quilt and pulling out the bobbin.  But hopefully, it'll be worth it.  I did notice today that my stitches were a lot smoother, so that's something positive.

There are so many cool quilting gizmos out there, but this is one that I already like and I'm glad I invested in it.

Gudrun's Mystery Quilt-Along

I belong to a number of Facebook Quilting Groups, one of which is Gudrun's Quilt Crew.  Gudrun is a quilt pattern and fabric designer, teacher and world traveler, and has written several books and created the Stripology Rulers.  Her quilt patterns are usually interesting and different, and I enjoy her stuff.  I check into the group to see what's new every few days.

One of the"challenges"  in progress is a Mystery quilt of sorts.  We don't know what the finished quilt will look like, we just received instructions for sewing very simple smaller blocks, but we'll need a lot of them.  How many you ask?  That's a mystery too!  When the pile of finished blocks gets about 12 or 13" high, then it's probably enough!  It might take me awhile to make that many blocks!

Here is my "start":

 

This is my blue section (eventually there should be many sections of different colors--we need to keep the same colors in each block.)  I arranged them like this, but I don't know what the final layout will be.  This looks pretty nice like this, I think!

I am using JUST my scraps for this project.  Lordy! do I have scraps!  I don't think this will make much of a dent in my blue scraps.  I could probably make 5 or 6 quilts with just my blues!

One of the "fun" things about digging into my scrap bins is the lovely mess it makes!  I am not making strip sets and subcuts as the directions say.  I am mostly cutting my scraps to size individually.  I think I can get more variation that way, and chose scraps that fit the best.  Some of my smaller scraps are "one of a kind."  When it's gone, it's REALLY gone!  I am NOT keeping the scraps from the scraps!!  LOL !  It will take longer, doing it this way, no  doubt, but I'm happy doing things in my sewing room.  No hurry for me!  Just having fun and being peaceful.  Nothing better than that!

I'll keep posting my progress as I go along.  I'm loving the results so far, so this may go faster than I think!