Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I finished the HST Star quilt in time to give it to the community quilts team.
I am pretty pleased with the way it came. A sort of dull charm pack (why did I buy it??) turned into a cheerful quilt top.
The quilt isn’t very girly and I wanted it to be suitable for boys as well, so I chose an Italian restaurant print I have had for years. It is time to use it and this is a good use of it.
I made good progress over the weekend on the current donation quilt. I talked about it the other day. Talking about it really made me want to get it done so I could hand it in at the meeting next weekend. It has been a long time since I have made a quilt.
I didn’t know how this was going to shape up as the picture I saw was small and not very attractively styled. I knew that it wouldn’t look hideous regardless, so I stayed the course.
I had sewn a bunch of HSTs from the charm pack I had. To make the legs, I needed to rip off some of the white triangles in order to make the legs. I decided I didn’t want to make giant Flying Geese and would make the legs into giant HSTs.
I was able to get the foreground part of the quilt done on Saturday, which was great.
The white brightens up the slightly subdued colors of the charm pack.
I am working on a donation top. I saw a picture in Today’s Quilter and thought it would give some relief to poor Peggy who has been the recipient of a 100 or so HSTs recently.
I started going through my charm packs after Peggy asked for HSTs for donation quilts. I used up 4 charm packs (2 of background) and sent the HSTs to her without making a quilt.
Finally, I decided that was a little mean and I was inspired by a Sawtooth Star quilt made from HSTs. One day last week on my lunch hour I started sewing the center blocks together. I made three HST 9 patches in about half an hour, which made me very happy on a lot of levels.
Stay tuned for the finish (or another in progress shot.
Everything has slowed down in my workroom, but I am still eeeking out some works. I have, again, made a few donation blocks in the last week or so.
I haven’t gotten my act together for the BAM door prizes yet. I have a tote bag full of stuff ready to be sorted and nothing sorted. Part of the problem is that I only have canvas bags from a shop. I don’t have any handmade bags. I have several of the canvas bags and they are nice – thick and sturdy and great for something like the Farmer’s Market. I prefer not to give the same bag every month.
At the guild meeting the other week, Maria tempted me to take some canvas. The motif is a kind of Paris theme. I got out my Jane Market Tote pattern and this fabric and made some totes.
I didn’t use the exact pattern; mostly I just used the dimensions from the pattern. I didn’t want to line the tote, because the canvas was thick enough without a lining. That meant that I needed to sew French seams to make sure all of the raw edges were enclosed.
With the first one, I enclosed all the seams on the inside of the bag. Enclosing the seams on the inside when very smoothly and the bag went together really fast.The bag came out a little smaller than the already small Jane Market Tote, but I think it is a cute size and different from many bags.
After making the first one, I thought I would enclose the seams on the outside for the second one. I thought it would be an interesting design feature. This version also went together pretty well, but I had more trouble with the seams on the outside. I am not sure why. In this version, there is also a big lumpy seam on the outside of the bottom, which is not ideal.
So far I have made two and I think I have enough fabric to make at least one more. My sister might like one. The motif is up her alley. I think the size will work well for the door prizes.
I spent a lot of sewing time making gift bags with fabric I unearthed from my fabric closet. I finished about 10 bags and was able to get back to using donation squares as leaders and enders.
Some of these blocks are from last year – as in a few weeks ago.
I definitely didn’t make as many donation blocks in 2021 as I did in 2020. Still, I have a few to share and I am a firm believer in the old adage ‘ every little bit helps’.
I started making the guild 16 patches in May. Even though I cut tons of squares, I just didn’t get to it. I was using other projects for leaders and enders. Then I started the workroom upgrade. It has all conspired to make me not as productive in the donation area than last year.
This is still an important part of my quiltmaking and I’ll get back to making more blocks again.
I received a small shipment of various items for the BAM 2022 door prize bags. Sue chose the In Color Order Drawstring bag pattern I have mentioned a few times and made some bags. We can use them for the door prize main bag or for holding smaller items.
I love the way Sue pieced some of the bags and also her fussy cutting. She said she will work on other projects for the door prizes in January.
I have to get myself together to organize the bags for the year. At the moment I have very few items to give away, but I can scrape together a bag for January. Then I’ll have plenty of time to worry about the rest of 2022.
I totally forgot to post about the wonderful swap gift I got from Joelle at the BAM party the other day. This pouch looks like the Persimmon Dumpling pouch from Sew Sweetness, but it is actually the Dome pattern from Minkee Kim.I suppose there are only so many pouch shapes in the world.
Joelle described the construction and it seems a little different from the Persimmon Dumpling Pouches I made. This pouch has little shield in the bottom to keep things from falling out, I guess, which is clever.
Joelle said she didn’t like the way the zipper was put in. The technique leaves part of the zipper exposed. I can see what she means, but Joelle did a great job being precise about inserting the zipper so it looks nice and even.
Also, you can see in the interior view that the exposed zipper is not that noticeable.
I haven’t decided how I will use this pouch, but I have some hardware that might need a home.
I haven’t been spending time on donation blocks lately, but I have made a couple lately. Mostly, I haven’t been piecing, which means I haven’t been making blocks.
I found my box of squares destined to be donation blocks, which had been buried. When I have needed a leader and ender lately, I have been able to grab a couple of them. Suddenly I have two blocks. It’s not a lot, but every little bit helps.
I forgot how much I enjoy seeing different fabrics put together. Aren’t the blue and pink Philip Jacobs flowers a great combo?
You know its a party when the wagon parking lot appears! This was only, but people had gone off with others to move more items. There is a lot of moving of heavy sewing machines and things for Sew Day.
Yes, we had Sew Day AND a party yesterday. It was such a happy and cheerful time. I think everyone really needed a boost and this was it.
Most of my favorite people were there, though a couple couldn’t make it for various COVID (blech!!) related reasons.
My workspace was pretty barren, because I forgot my Brocade Peony STB, which had all of my La Pass sewing supplies in it! I just had to walk over to the couch where I have been working each night, pick it up and toss it in my Go-To-Meeting bag. Did I do it? No.
Fortunately, I did have my La Pass Inside Outside pouch, my fabric and my rotating cutting mat. The pouch had my templates so, after borrowing a rotary cutter I was able to do something. Cutting out my shapes for M5 was a good use of my time, too. I was able to get all of the shapes cut out. I thought I would do more sewing on M3, but every little bit helps get the La Pass project done.
There was a nice table set up. Someone brought a garland and the buffet table felt very festive. We really did a number on the food. It was quite delicious so a lot of it was gone. Bonnie made some fabulous roasted vegetables (vegees at lunch???!!??). People said Gerre’s scalloped potatoes were good. They had flour so I couldn’t try them. They make me want to try making them. I love scalloped potatoes and usually can’t eat them.
Sue brought a baked Brie, for which she bought special gluten free crackers. She realized that I couldn’t eat the baked Brie because of the pastry. We had a good laugh. She is really nice and usually thinks about bringing a GF portion for me.
People did sew quite a bit, so there was a lot of fun sewing mess around. There was a lot of handwork happening, including 3 people doing needlepoint!
Our new officers were introduced, most of them we know and love.
All in all, it was a lot of fun and I am glad I went.
I finished Ends n.11 on Sunday, or maybe late Saturday. It isn’t amazing or anything, but it is finished and I will get some more scraps out of my workroom.
I was feeling like a slacker especially after seeing how many donation quilts were brought to our in person (!!!) guild meeting last week.When I went back and looked, it had really only been since July that I made a donation quilt, Ends. n.10 with the rest of the Pop Parade scraps.
On Saturday, I started working on another Ends donation top. This is Ends n.11 and I will hand it in to Peggy soon.
I found a whole bunch of edges of old quilts when I rearranged some stuff that was going back into my workroom*. Sigh. I thought I was doing so well keeping up with making stuff with the edges of the quilts I finish. This is an old stash, stashed before I thought of these ends quilts.
*N.B. I have three weeks to get all of my stuff back into my room before the Y.M. comes home for Thanksgiving.
My guild had their first in person meeting over the weekend. Maria organized a swap as a fun thing to welcome everyone back. I joined and was assigned Maria who wanted potholders.
Potholders are almost the last thing I would consider making. When I use potholders I want them to protect my hands from the heat and I have not found that homemade potholders do that. Still, Maria wanted potholders, so I made potholders.
I had some Insulbright on hand, so I used that in addition to two layers of batting. The sandwich was super fat. I didn’t want to do very much thread sinking, so I didn’t quilt it as much as I could have, but they turned out pretty thin in the end. I hope all the layers will protect Maria’s hands.
She also wanted lime green. Since I made her a pillow before, I decided to stick with that theme and use the same block. I had to redraw the block in EQ8, because I couldn’t find my block from the swap. The proportions came out a little different in this piece, but I think they still look good.
I didn’t think about a hanging loop until it was too late to put one on. Oh well.
I added in pink because I like pink and it made the potholders look cheerful and celebratory. The theme of the swap is Celebration! so the colors fit. I made a gift bag in the same fabric as the binding. The gift is ready to go.
While this is Mom’s UCAB, I tested it on my travel sewing machine bag to see if it would work for me. The key is to adjust the back sleeve to fit over your rolly bag handle. I have no idea if there are standard sizes for those, so make sure you check before you sew everything to the exterior.
I plan to put my smaller items in the UCAB. I am not sure how I am going to reconcile this bag with the Tupperware box.
The picture below shows the bag empty, but trust me when I say I filled it up. It isn’t completely filled.
I need mine to contain all my to go items – notions and rulers, etc. I put them in the various pockets of the sewing machine bag, which has a lot of pockets, but it makes some of the zippers hard to open.