Quilt Guild 2017 Raffle Quilt

I am taking a break from my Something Blue...

I belong to a quilt guild, the Lafayette County Sew 'n Sews.  We meet the second Monday of every month.  Every two years, we have a quilt show in September.  Last time, I was one of 6 ladies on the quilt committee to make, promote, and raffle off a quilt as a fund raiser for our guild.  Time flies when you're having fun, and September is sneaking up on us.  We've been talking since January in the Guild about getting a committee together to get started on this year's quilt, but talk is all that's taken place.  Now it's getting closer, and time is more important.  A few of us started the committee ourselves.  We made a Facebook Committee page, posted our meetings, and invited the committee members from last time.

We decided on some kind of a log cabin quilt.  We chose this picture as a model for our quilt.  It's a version of the Broken Star quilt pattern.  We only had this picture to go on, no pattern. I have EQ7, so it became my job (somehow) to make up the pattern.  We had some fabric already that we wanted to use, fall colors, beautiful golds and creams and rusts.  Most of it with metallic gold flecks or specks.

 

The first thing I did was make a grid after studying the the picture, and discovered that there were 4 types of blocks, which I labeled A, B, C, and D.  "A" blocks were dark/dark, "B" blocks were light/light, "C" blocks were medium/light, and "D" blocks were dark/light.  From this, I made a block in EQ7, and after much experimentation, colored it with the appropriate colors:

The 4 center A blocks are slightly different form the rest, so that our beautiful black and gold paisley could take center stage.  This paisley will also be the borders all around, so we needed the black to separate that in the corners, so the paisley in the blocks wouldn't fade into the paisley in the borders.

Next, I made a pattern for each block. We then decided which fabrics would go where.  This step was actually done at a committee meeting at the local quilt store where we could pull other fabrics that looked good together and would complement our other chosen fabrics.  

I then made 5 sample blocks, one of each kind.

  

   

4 "Center A" blocks form a star.

One of the last things we did was calculate how much of each kind of fabric we needed, and cut our strips and pieces.  Whew!  What a process!  Sixty-four zip log bags now hold the directions and pieces for our blocks.  We will pass these out to the quilt guild ladies next week at our April meeting, so that everyone who wants to can help with this project.

 We made our outer strips of each block an inch wider than necessary so that we will have a built-in "fudge factor" when trimming the blocks to 12.5 inches.  We have learned from experience that 12.5" can mean anything from 11.5 to 13" or more!  Not everyone sews with the same accurate quarter inch seam!  After trimming the blocks,  the committee will meet again and sew the finished blocks into rows, and rows into the top.  Hopefully, all will be finished by June so we can promote the quilt and sell raffle tickets in advance.  We don't even know what it will look like yet.  This is a TRUE MYSTERY QUILT!!!!  I hope it turns out ok.  It's a lot of wasted effort if it turns out to be an ugly quilt and no one wants to buy a ticket for it!

The Fan Quilt

Dianne and I had long talked about doing a quilt together.  We found a paper pieced pattern we liked and decided to do it.  I went to Colorado to visit her recently, and we each had some of the blocks done individually (about 20 or so for each of us.)  We spent some time sewing together, making more blocks, and were thinking we'd be sewing it into rows before then end of my 5-day visit.  Turns out that we have 6 in. blocks,  so we're gonna need a LOT more of them than originally anticipated! We only had a picture to go by, no pattern, Probably the original was made with 10 or 12" blocks. By the end of the visit, we were 44 blocks short of our goal of 120 (a quilt of 10 across and 12 down) so we each have to make 22 more before our July visit!  "The best laid plans go afoul!"

Here is the start of our fan quilt:

Something Blue Progress

I have been working on the Something Blue quilt pretty much exclusively these days.  I have all 13 stars done, and most of the spiky "footballs" that fit between.  The stars are precision point perfect, even if I do say so myself!  They're beautiful.  I love paper piecing just for that reason.  Sewing the curves isn't as hard as I thought, so this quilt is going together nicely.  All these tiny pieces make the quilt labor intensive though, I've been spending a lot of time with it.   Here it is so far:

Something Blue

I couldn't wait to get started on my new  Christmas quilt kit, Something Blue.  I cut ALL the fabric already, which is something I don't normally do. But since this is a paper piecing quilt, and the directions were so detailed, I went ahead and did it.  I labeled all the sections and put them in zip lock baggies, and it's all neatly organized.  I am going to a quilt retreat on Saturday, and I will take this project along with me to work on it for 10 hours!!  I hope to get a lot accomplished.  However, since it was all cut out and just ... sitting there in a box... I just HAD to make one of the blocks!  I HAD to!

 

And once that first block was finished, I was hooked...  I continued making arches:

Not to worry, I need like 60 of them, and 12 more stars, so there will be plenty to do on Saturday! And if perchance I finish all of that, I still have to assemble the blocks, add the sashing and cornerstones, etc, etc.  I won't finish on Saturday!!!  

Gallery of Quilts

Here are all the quilts that I have made, in chronological order (more or less.)

Bob's Cowboy Quilt  (Winter, 2012)

Linda's Sampler Quilt, (Spring, 2012)

Jeff's Star Quilt, July 2012

Snowball Quilt (April, 2012)

Alayna's Rosebud Quilt (All the fabrics had roses in them)
(Winter, 2012)

Kaylyn's Hexagon Kaleidoscope Quilt (Summer, 2012)

Mya's Pink Strip Quilt (Fall, 2012)

Joe and Braden's  "X Marks the Spot " Wedding Quilt
(Summer, 2012)

Brady's Dinosaur Quilt  (Summer, 2012)

Luke's Flannel Deer Quilt  (Fall, 2012)

Kathy's Around the World Quilt (Summer, 2012)

Dianne's Moon Glow Quilt (Winter, 2012)

Anna's Painted Lady Quilt (Spring, 2013)

The Prize-Winning Harry Potter Bookcase Quilt
(Summer, 2013)

 

Baby Quilts for the Baker Twins (Fall, 2013)

Callie's Graduation Quilt (Spring, 2014)

Erin's Road Map Baby Quilt (Spring, 2014)

Jen's Indigo and Lace Quilt  (Summer 2014)

Doug and Gina's Four Winds Quilt (Fall, 2014))

Maggie's Mom's Memory Quilt (Fall, 2014)

Becky's  Mom's Memory Quilt (Fall, 2014)

Bailey's Deer Quilt (Winter, 2014)

Audrey's Baby Quilt (Spring, 2015)

My Bottled Rainbow Quilt (Summer, 2015)

My Kaleidoscope Star Quilt (Summer, 2015)

Andy's Bucky Badger Quilt (Fall, 2015)

Elly's Medallion Sampler Quilt (Winter, 2015)

Ryan's Turkey Feathers Quilt (Winter 2015)

Isaac's Baby Quilt (Jan., 2016)

Drew's Asteroid Quilt (Spring, 2016)

The "Mystery" Quilt (Spring, 2015)

My Rainbow Medallion (Spring, 2016)

Georgia's Baby Quilt (Fall, 2016)

Author Quilt (Summer, 2016)

Aidan's Argyle quilt (Winter, 2016)

New Year's Agenda

Happy 2017!  As with any New Year, we are always making "resolutions" to make ourselves better in the upcoming year.  So  I made this list of things I'd like to accomplish in 2017, as far as quilting is concerned.

1.  Finish the Gravity quilt.
     This quilt has all the quilt blocks sewn together and half of the blocks are sewn into "rows."  (wedges, actually.)  So it is half finished in the assembly department.  The quilting will be the highlight of this quilt, I think, as all the fabrics are solids.  It's pretty as it is, but fancy quilting will really be showcased in this quilt.  I have decided to do half the quilt at a time, so as not to have so much quilt "stuffed" through the machine.  It'll be easier to free motion this way.  I might use this to make a free-motion stitching sampler.  This is a UFO I'd like to finish in 2017.  Best of all, by September, because there is a quilt show again this year.

2.  Finish the Whirligig quilt.
     The Whirligig quilt is finished, pinned, and ready to quilt.  It's just a matter of getting "around-to-it."

3.  The Something Blue quilt.
     This is the beautiful quilt Bob got me for Christmas as a kit.  So pretty!!  I can't wait for the "first cut"!  That's always scary though!

4.  The Fan quilt.
     The Fan quilt is a quilt that will be done in collaboration with Dianne. We wanted to do a quilt together, and found this Fan quilt which we both liked.

We will each make some of the blocks.  I made a block paper-pieced pattern in EQ7, and I have made 4 fans so far.  I still have to mail the pattern to Dianne so she can make some too.

5.  The Three-Dudes quilt.

     This will be (hopefully) a Christmas present for Max.  He has been asking for a quilt for a few years now.  Aidan got his quilt this year at Christmas, and we had this joke about what color underwear he wanted for Christmas (so I could get an idea of colors he might like in his quilt.)  He actually opened a present with blue and red boxers in it and he was so confused (disappointed?) because he was so sure he was getting a blue and red quilt!  It was great!  Anyway, after that, he DID open a box with his quilt in it.   There was a discussion about who would get the next "Christmas quilt."  Max promptly told me that he would like Blue-and-Magenta "underwear" next Christmas!!  I chose the 3-Dudes quilt  pattern for Max  because I think it is a beautiful pattern, and have wanted to make it for awhile now.  I had chosen this pattern for Aidan, originally.  But then found the Argyle pattern, which seemed to suit Aidan better.  So the 3-Dudes quilt went back into the "think-tank" and I will persue this quilt pattern later on this year for Max. In blues and "magenta" which Max said was a deep dark purple.  So, blues and purples!  Two of my favorite colors!

This should keep me busy for the upcoming year.  If I finish all these projects, there is still the Brilliant Beauties of Joy quilt kit in the drawer, as well as the Jenny Beyer "Shenandoah Baskets" quilt kit.  And no doubt, the Quilt Guild will come up with some yearly project, as usual, AND since I was on the quilt committee for the donated raffle quilt for the last quilt show a couple years ago, I will probably be on that same committee again.  So there will be some divergences from my list, I'm afraid.  Next December, we'll revisit this list and see how much actually got done!

Vicki's Gallery of Quilts

Merry Christmas

I received a marvelous present from my husband.  It's a Something Blue quilt kit! I can't wait to dig into this one!  Here's what it will look like:

I already have a couple of quilt kits waiting for me to do, but I think I will tackle this one next. It's not as complicated as Beauties of Joy, but still a lot of paper-piecing and directions to follow.  I think it looks way more complicated than it is.  I haven't done this many curves yet, but I can sew sleeves, and collars and necklines, and those are curves too, so it can't be any more complicated than those!

I have a few things to finish up before I start, but it's always exciting to get new quilt kits and fabrics!