Tag: BAMQG

I finished cutting out the Friesan pouch at Sew Day and had an hour until it was over. I could have left, but instead Mary C and I decided to work together to make another donation quilt top in an hour. It was a charity Sew Day after all and both of us had been working on our own projects.

We used some fabric from one of the first retreats that had been sewn together into a block of rectangles. It was not very attractive.

The first thing we did was to cut it in half and they cut the halves on the diagonal so we could insert some strips and break up the parts that were unattractive.

Mary C had some strips and strips sets leftover from a quilt she had just finished that we ransacked to make the improvements.

I selected some grey from the abundance of solids that Peggy has and we used that color to fill in other places.

Adding the seafoam green strips REALLY helped that rectangle go from unattractive to attractive. The addition also lightened up the piece.

To make the two halves large enough, we added the strip set and sewed the pieces together.

We decided we wanted to use the ‘bird’ blocks as well. They were mostly made from the same fabrics, so they fit in well. I had to build up the green block, which was not nearly square.

Mary sewed the brown bird into a large-ish chunk with the intention of putting on the bottom of the piece. I thought it came out well.

While she did that, I built up the green bird block into a shape we could use. The green strip along the bottom allows that darker green and orange section to float a bit which was a happy accident.

Eventually we ended up with several large chunks. We wanted to add those half circle pieces, which took a bit of time to work out.

In this endeavor, Mary did the sewing and some ironing while I trimmed, pressed, matched fabrics, cut strips and brought her stuff to sew. We had to make little bits to allow us to fit the chunks together. There is a freedom in this kind of improv quilt. I happily hacked off pieces of the blocks and chunks to make them fit.

We had a charity Sew Day on 4/2. Often Peggy will provide a pattern, but this time the activity centered around orphan blocks and chunks.

Maria had been collecting orphan blocks and chunks for awhile. The first thing she did when she arrived was start pinning them to the design wall.

Maria put up a random assortment of blocks and chunks and people took what they wanted and worked on donation tops.

As mentioned, I didn’t really want to do the activity, but others got right into it. Since I made the Missouri Star donation top and brought it, I didn’t feel guilty about it. Nobody said anything to me either.

After I finished cutting out the Friesan Pouch, I ended up working on a quilt with Mary C and found that it was a fun activity. I prefer to do these types of quilts with someone else.