Group project – Page 58 – Artquiltmaker Blog

Stars for San Bruno #1 Design Process

You want to know my biggest problem with this quilt? I don’t have enough dark blue fabric. I have used EVERY scrap, except the tiniest (I mean, really, why bother?), for this project and I haven’t even gotten through the first quilt. I kid you not. Now I know that I never buy dark blue. No big loss, but, yes, I went to the fabric store to see what would work.

I tossed all the blocks out like this to see what inspiration I would get. It actually worked pretty well, because I could see some patterns start to emerge.

DH really liked the layout above and thought I should applique’ everything down like this. In an ideal world, with a fleet of sewing ladies, i would have done this, but I am still waiting for my fleet.

Once some patterns started to form, I began editing. Above is what is left after the first edit. The edited blocks will go into one of the other quilts. All the blocks will be used, don’t worry.

Sue’s blocks really wanted to be the border, so I tried them out in different ways. Tossing is a lot easier than sewing, so they won’t be as wonky as they seem here.

The editing is done, though I haven’t worked much on the bottom left hand corner and will need to pay some attention down there, so I started to line up the blocks and start filling in with pieces of fabric. I added some triangles to get some movement.

This is the top of SfSB#1. I have the border put together and am starting to sew rows together. It is harder to chunk with improvisational piecing, but I will do some chunking.

I really like how well the blocks fit together in terms of color.

You can see some chunking going on above. You can also see the neglected stepchild that is the lower left corner. I’ll get to it. The ultimate goal is to have a square or rectangle that is not to big, but will be big enough to snuggle with.

I thought of putting some coping strips in, but then I looked through the blocks again and found some smallish blocks (thanks, Diane!) that would fit and add interest to the bottom.

The piece is coming together.

Looks a little unfinished.

A little bit of breathing room around the edge should do the trick.

Do you like it?

BAMQG

The Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild met on Saturday and I had a great time. That is just a fun group. One of the things we did was show off all of the blocks we made for the Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow block swap. these are the final blocks I ended up making. I thought I made a lot, but almost everyone made at least four and several people made 6-8! There were a total of 42 blocks, so the leadership did two drawings for blocks, which meant two winners. I didn’t win, but that was ok. I have plenty of projects to work on.

The challenge was to make blocks using squares. I described some of my process in other posts. Nobody else really talked about struggling against the desire to use triangles or other shapes.

I thought the blocks made a relatively cohesive group. there were a number of off center log cabins (which I think might be called quarter square log cabins). There were a few prints that were conducive to fussy cutting, and people took advantage of those prints to highlight certain motifs. People described their process and I really enjoyed hearing how people worked through the constraints of the challenge.

Robert Kaufman donated charm packs to our group. We received 5″ charm squares of the Kona Solids in the Bright Palette. The challenge is to make a quilt top or something (I asked about a bag and was enthusiastically told that that would be ok) by the June meeting. My immediate thought was to make the quilt I saw at the Manteca show. I could easily make a Chubby Charmer, but my mind is working through the math on the Fun with Scraps quilt. I wouldn’t do the border, just the center. I like the way the hourglass block adds to the postage stamp block. I wonder how many Postage stamp blocks I could make with the charm pack?

We also got a group gift together for Ruth who started the guild. I made her a Jane Market tote, which I forgot to photograph. 🙁 and people brought treats to put in it (thread, FQs, etc). It is a nice way to thank someone.

Kathleen did a demo on how to make the Oh Fransson! Crazy 9patch blocks. She is doing a swap via Flickr of these blocks, so she used the opportunity of making extra blocks to show everyone how to do the technique. Kathleen is a very good teacher.

Julie opened her shop, which was exciting!

Fabricworm Custom Bundle Starling Cherry/Aqua/Black 12 Total

I did, mostly, socializing, but cut a few patches for a quilt I want to make from a group of fabric I bought from the Fabricworm. The pack I am using is a Fabricworm Custom Bundle and is called Starling Cherry/Aqua/Black.

It was a fun meeting. I left wanting more and feeling good about spending time away from the sewing machine at a meeting.

Thanks to Adrianne for letting use the Kona charm pack photo and the group photo of the Be Square block challenge.