Hippy Dippy Dotty collage

 In May our guild hosted a fun workshop with Carol Morrissey to learn her Hippy Dippy Dotty collage method. I had great fun making my own small version....

This is the pile of fabric and die cut circles that went into my quilt

It was fun to play with color and design for a day and I love my finished project. I straight line quilted it on my domestic machine, added a faced binding and hung it in my dining room. It's 23"x19".  It was fun to see how different everyone's quilts turned out!

Panel challenge

 A couple of months ago our guild issued a quilt panel challenge. You could choose a panel from the guild's community service stash or use one you already had...... and do something modern  with it. I'm not a huge quilt panel person to be honest. So I grabbed this one from the community service fabric and set to work.

The panel is called The Dress, by Laura Heine. I looked at it for a long time and finally came up with a plan.

I sliced both pictures into 2 inch columns, identically. Turned one set upside down, then alternated the slices creating a funky reversible version of the original photo. Added some more of the panel as borders and some fabric from my stash, and this is where it landed...

once quilted and bound, this is the perfect size for either a wheelchair/lap quilt for the nursing home or a baby in the foster care program. I kind of love it! 

Inspiration Mini

Recently my guild, McKinney Modern Quilt Guild, issued a mini quilt challenge. The prompt was "Inspiration". After thinking about it a bit, I knew exactly what my inspiration for this mini would be!

A few years ago hubby and I had our master bath remodeled. One of my favorite parts of the new bath is the tile we chose for a decorative column in our shower. This tile runs in a ventricle strip from the floor to the ceiling. As soon as I saw it I thought "this needs to be a quilt". 

         

Now was the time to make this happen! I really wanted a hand stitching project to take along on my trip to quilt con and English Paper Piecing seemed to be the perfect way to make this design happen. The only problem was, I didn't have the EPP pieces I needed  and my trip was just a couple days away! So I pulled out a piece of cardstock and started drawing!

8 point diamonds were the main pieces in the quilt. The triangles are just those diamonds cut in half. Add four squares and I'm all set.

I chose 3 shades of aqua solid from my stash (the bathroom is silver gray/white and I use aqua accents.)

Simple grid quilting (after I got home) and big stitch hand binding were the perfect finish for my mini.

The minis will be auctioned off in a guild fundraiser in the fall, so of course I had to make a second one to hang in our bathroom!

What a fun challenge!

 

Fall Leaves

 

I love when challenges collide and I am able to use one project to fill multiple challenge spots! That was the case with Fall Leaves. As you can see, I used my Through Ellyn's Eyes colors, Kona black, red, orange, tangerine and glacier. I used the maple leaf tutorial here,  which was a challenge put forth by my guild, McKinney Modern Quilt Guild. The finished quilt is 18" square.

I quilted a diagonal grid on my domestic machine and big stitch hand stitched the binding down. Quilt #10 in my series is done and #11 and #12 are both underway! 

Color of the Year 2021

 I always look forward to the announcement of Pantone's color of the year. This year's colors really resonated with me...

Illuminating and Ultimate Gray. Both beautiful, separately and together. In fact, I have decorated my guest bedroom and bath in these colors. So it felt good to dive in and use them together in a small quilt. Small because the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild will be displaying them in the display case at the library again this year, as we did in 2019.

I actually made my quilt several months ago. After I pattern tested my friend Jane (Twiggy and Opal)'s Sparkle quilt, I decided to make a much tinier, two color version as a personal challenge. I used Kona Bright Idea (Illuminating) and Kona Overcast (Ultimate Gray) and made this 12" version of Sparkle...

Today it heads off to the library display. I hope to get up there sometime this month to see all of the quilts from our guild.

Have you made anything with this year's colors of the year?

MCKMQG Scrap Jar

 My guild, the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild started a fun tradition a year or so ago. We have a big jar full of scraps. Every meeting, one attendees name is drawn and that person gets to take the jar the next month. They make a fun small item from some of the scraps, refill it to the top and then pass both the jar and the item on to the next person drawn the following month. It's been fun to see the cute little items everyone has made.

Finally, in May, my name was chosen! I won a darling tiny flying geese magnet made by Stephanie. When I picked up the jar from her, I went home and immediately dumped it upside down on my floor. I had so much fun digging through the scraps and finding colors that spoke to me.

I'll bet you're wondering what I made. Potholders! I added some insulbright that I had on hand and pieced a couple of improv log cabins with the scraps. 

The other day I dropped them off with my friend Chris who is going to make something fun for June. Scrappy is her jam so I'm sure whatever she makes will be lots of fun.

Improv Round Robin

 My fantastic Improv small group (we call ourselves the Comedy Club Quilters) has done speedy improv round robins at the retreat center twice before. You can read about those here, and here. It's a fun event we always look forward to. But, like it has done to so many things, the global pandemic caused us to rethink our process this year. In the end, we pulled off our round robin with car swaps, porch drops, and maybe more than one quilt shop meet up (fully masked of course!).

I started out with this fun block, made up of a bunch of improv orphan blocks I had been ignoring for a long time...

I had a blast working on everyone's quilts (we swapped them out once a week) and never saw mine again once it hit the road. A couple of sneak peeks that I posted along the way....

The ladybugs were my signature fabric that I added to each quilt.

On Friday, the five of us who participated met up at the park (our first in person meeting in months! thank you vaccines) to reveal our finished quilt tops. 

They did not disappoint! I think having a week to work on each one really paid off. We all said that we would spend a couple of days looking over the week's project as it hung on our design wall. We have all gotten to know each other's styles and really played to each other's strengths.

Here is my finished top. I couldn't be happier!

I am thinking about how I want to quilt it now. And here's a photo of all 5 of our tops together.... I love them all!

Before we left the park today we had an idea brewing for our next collaborative adventure! Stay tuned!

Mod Flower Quilt

 Earth day seems like the perfect day to finish up this quilt and share it with you. Even though it is a small quilt (36"x38") it has been in the works for many months. It all began last September, on National Jelly Roll day. My guild,  McKinney Modern Quilt Guild, was holding a zoom mystery jelly roll sew along day and because I love to "do all the things" I was eager to be a part of it. Mind you, I am not a jelly roll person (not a precut person at all, truth be told) and being on a tight fabric budget I wasn't eager to spend money on a jelly roll. So, I decided to make my own. Due to the generosity of another quilter, I had a large stack of low volume yardage on my shelf. I pulled the needed number of fabrics (20) and cut a 2 1/2" strip from each. 

The day was great fun, with a large number of guild members participating. At the end of the day, I had this finished, and quite boring in my eyes, quilt top. 

Rather than let it go to waste, I decided I wanted to appliqué a large, modern flower to the front. Never mind that hand appliqué was not a skill I had in my current toolbox! I had a vision and was willing to do whatever I needed to do to accomplish it. I set about designing templates for the appliqué I desired, then recruited a friend who is very skilled at needle turn appliqué to teach me. In fact, I also recruited a group of friends to learn alongside me because everything is more fun with friends, right? Martha graciously gave us a free zoom class and I was off and running (with more than a few anxious texts and additional tips and tricks.)

Because I was having fun doing handwork (I usually do), I decided to teach myself big stitch quilting. You Tube to the rescue! I hand stitched the whole quilt using size 8 perle cotton, a neutral variegated in straight rows across and accent stitches on the flower and stem using matching colors.

I even added a few Xs here and there just for fun.

And just for fun, I machine stitched the binding to the back then big stitched it down on the front of the quilt in pink, to match the flower. These stitches don't show on the back of the binding but are firmly stitched through the batting to secure it. Oh, and a few Xs snuck into the binding as well, because, why not?

I'm so happy with this little finish! Very few of my quilts are inspired by nature (weird, I know) and I guess this proves, even when they are, they are modern and not terribly realistic! But it was fun to learn new things.

Quiltcon Together 2021

 I had so much fun going through the Quiltcon Together virtual quilt show this weekend. As always, there was a huge array of stunning quilts in all of the categories. I found the community service quilts to be especially beautiful this year, and I was so proud of my guild, the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild for our contribution. Together in Turbulence was spearheaded by my friend Chris and many many quilters had a hand in the assembly. I was thrilled to contribute some blocks to the quilt.

I had no idea that receiving a first place ribbon for my Urban Emergence quilt was only the beginning of the weekend's fun. I received invites to visit with different guilds throughout the weekend and even did an interview with Steph and Isabelle, the hosts of Scant Quarter Hour in Instagram TV. It was fun to chat with lots of other quilters about my quilt and about their experiences with the online format. All in all, Quiltcon Together was really well done and lots of fun, despite the challenges. I missed the hugs and can't wait to gather with friends in Phoenix next year. Urban Emergence will get to hang at Quiltcon 2022 in Phoenix with the other winners from this year!

ornament swap

Every year the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild has a great ornament swap during our December meeting which is a fun Holiday party. Of course, this year looked much different. Our party was on Zoom, so there was no stealing of ornaments. boo. that part is always fun! Instead, swappers signed up ahead of time. The Saturday before our meeting, swap fairies flew all around the city and swapped out the packages that had been left by the front door of each member's home. Then we waited until our meeting on Tuesday to open up our packages.

I ended up swapping ornaments with Kacey, a fun new member of our guild. I found this cute squirrel ornament pattern in a recent quilting magazine and had everything I needed to make him. Kacey seemed to like him!

Meanwhile, I received this beautiful hand embroidered holiday hoop from her. I just love it! Such beautiful handwork.

This meeting also marked the end of my two year term as president of our guild. The time really flew by! I had so much fun leading our guild with incredible board members alongside me. Now I get to be a regular member and be surprised every month by the fun activities. 

another quilt finish

I will say, sheltering in place has given me the time to finish up a bunch of UFOs! Last fall, my beemates from the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild made me pink and orange x & + blocks using this tutorial.

I added a giant version of the block. I sent my finished top over to my friend Diann so she could work her long arm magic. I even pieced the back, something I don't often do.

I love the fun modern floral Diann chose for my quilt.

Checking this one off my list!

gifted quilts

There have been lots of happy occasions to gift my quilts lately! In December, friends of ours got married. We gifted them the improv string plus quilt I had begun in Sherri Lynn Wood's workshop in 2018. My pal, Diann, of Happy Quilts quilted it for me.

Then the babies began to arrive! Dear friends welcomed their first grandchild, a girl, in January. Knowing she was coming, I had made my final 2019 fifth Saturday challenge especially for her....

I assure you the quilt is square! Apparently I had my phone at an angle and this is the best photo I got of the quilt.

Another baby arrived in January, this one a boy, a great nephew for us. I hadn't made a Line Dance quilt (pattern by Kathy Mack) in years. This one came entirely from my stash...

Another great nephew will arrive in March. This quilt is ready to head off to his family for a baby shower this month...

These were block lotto blocks I won at a McKinney Modern Quilt Guild meeting last year. I knew they would make a bright and happy baby quilt.

I love gifting my quilts and knowing they are being loved and used.

MCKMQG basket swap

A little catch up post here! In the fall, the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild had a basket scrap swap. We've done these scrap swaps before, with baskets and pillows (twice!) and they are fun! Each participant brings a ziploc bag full of her own scraps. Then we fill out information sheets, how you'd like to use your basket etc. and we swap bags. You take home the bag you receive and make a basket for the original scrap owner. FUN! This time I got Alice's scraps. Let me tell you, she gave me enough scraps to make a dozen baskets!

Here's the basket I brought her at our December meeting. It's quite large. I filled it with some smaller baskets and some of her favorite snacks.

Catherine had my scraps. I had put all Christmas scraps in my bag and requested a basket to put our Christmas cards in. She nailed it!

She filled it up with goodies too. The same night we had a handmade ornament swap. I received the sweet spool ornament... from Alice! It was a full circle kind of night. Here are the ornaments I brought...

We each brought one ornament to swap and one to donate to Meals on Wheels. It was a really fun night of swapping!

McKinney Modern Quilt Guild QuiltCon charity quilt

Hi again! Leave it to me to disappear for 3 months and then post 2 days in a row. I just wanted to let you know I have a blog post up on the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild blog with the story behind our charity quilt for QuiltCon next month. I'm super proud of this quilt and the guild members who had a hand in creating it.

I encourage you to hop on over here and read the full story! Happy Tuesday friends.

Mugrug swap

McKinney Modern Quilt guild just finished a Mugrug Swap with the North West Arkansas Modern guild. What fun! We were each assigned a partner so we knew who was making for us. I was assigned Elizabeth  and I was so excited when I saw how fun her work it. Earlier in the month, at our October meeting I received this beautiful mug rug....

I had told her about my love of red & aqua/teal and that I also love music. The dresden love? Either she got that by snooping on my feed or she guessed, but it's all spot on! I really love love love it!

Elizabeth said she loves teal, rainbows & cats. Here's the mug rug I sent to her (which she received this past week)...

She seems to like it, so I'm happy! It was such a fun swap.

Color of the Year quilts on display

You might remember my color of the year quilts I shared earlier in the year, "mirror image". They were made with the Kona color of the year, Splash, and the Pantone color of the year, Living Coral. I made them as part of a challenge with the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild. Here are most of the other quilts and their makers...

This month the quilts are all hanging in a display case at The Roy and Helen Hall Memorial Public Library in McKinney, TX. Hubby and I went to check it out the other day...

Alice and Catherine, guild members who happen to be sisters, did an extraordinary job putting this display together! In a small space, they included a definition of Modern Quilting, labels that identified the makers and the modern elements displayed, and information about our guild. 

If you're in the area, do stop by and see our display. It will be featured until the end of October.