Planning requires paper

I do love making calculations for quilts and planning them out.  I found out on Sunday that writing things down on paper is much better for me than laying out different size blocks on the table/floor/design space and thinking I have the dimensions correct especially toward the middle to end of the day.  Two attempts at laying things out and then sewing without the math ended up with two failures in terms of sizing and no easy way of fixing it.

 This idea changed into string hourglasses.

 Which then changed back to an hourglass sampler of various sizes (2,4 or 6" finished).

The top part ended up two inches too big in one direction for the #DSTTchallenge as it should have been 20" in all directions, and then the bottom part ended up 2 inches shorter than I thought when I put it out on the floor.  But now I don't have to try to rush and finish it before the end of Wednesday.

Lesson learned.  Do the math and planning on paper before committing to a design in fabric.  This one was planned on paper and it was wonderful.  To make this a more reasonable size, I have a bit more piecing and planning to do.  Perhaps next weekend....

St. Louis finished pictures

I never did snap pictures of the finished St.  Louis 16 patch quilts from January.  Here they are in all their glory.  Thank you Melissa for the pictures from the guild meeting!

These were donated through Katie's Comforters Guild at Seattle Children's Hospital.  Thank you to my sister for taking them there for me!  

Two challenges

     This weekend I finished quilting my Modern Metallic Challenge quilt.  I quilted pebbles of various sizes in the middle of the rings, attempted to quilt "figure 8" in the rings, and densely stippled the negative space.  In fact it is so densely stippled that I think it is more dense than the pebbles.  I chose to machine bind it because it is not super fun to hand bind a quilt which is densely quilted.  Now I have a little more than a week to take "proper" photographs and submit it for possible display in Portland in August.  

     Instead of working on the three skorts that I have cut out and waiting to finish, I chose to try the Modern Traditional Mini Quilt challenge by Timeless Treasures and Dear Stella.  I do tend to like Modern Traditional quilts best.  I started with an intricate plan of a "do it yourself sampler" and changed plans to string HST.

     On a smaller scale, I could like it, but it wasn't a small enough scale.  To redeem some of it, I switched to making hourglass blocks with the HST.  And here is where it will stay for a few days.  This is randomly put together in an alternating pattern.  I need to do something more but I have not decided what that will be.  At the very least, I need a few more inches of "something".  And I'm nearly out of my white fabric.  I probably will not have a winning design, but I did manage to post a WIP picture so I could be entered into the random winner drawing of a charm pack or two.  I could live with that...

     I may go back to the random sampler idea again.

And so they ran without a plan

with a flippity flap and a flutter...... (from one version of Chicken Little).  I originally started with a  plan to use the flying darts block for the Modern Quilt Guild Michael Miller Fabric Challenge, but when I helped make the Riley Blake Challenge fabrics into a quilt using the block, I changed my mind.  

And entering my mind was the report card comment, "Good application of newly learned concepts."  I sacrificed and chose my fat eighths from the wacky end pieces that didn't quite make the cut and applied my newly learned knowledge from the crazy piecing class without a final plan in mind.

One day later, here are the blocks that I have so far.  I think I am going to add a white ring around each one and then use a light gray for the rest.  I'm debating whether I want to add another ring of solid after the white before the gray.  We'll see.  And the layout on the wall is just how I put them up there although I may go with that.  

After a very productive few days, the next few days should be pretty quiet again and back to the regular programming...

An older finish: Salt Water

     My son likes green and I like Tula Pink fabric.  After receiving a gift certificate two years ago, I splurged on a Salt Water FQ bundle.  Using Free Spirit Okra, I started making Road to Tennessee blocks to make a green quilt for my son.
    The quilt was somewhat irritating to make because it reinforced my inability to cut straight, draw straight lines across the diagonals of squares or sew straight across the drawn lines on squares.  Whatever it happened to be, I chose not to trim the little squares before assembling them into blocks (and I can't really tell that I didn't trim them in this picture!).

     With the three colors, I attempted to alternate and keep a consistent pattern with the blocks.  I made up A blocks and B blocks and did manage to keep them straight until I started putting them all together.  A few of them got twisted around but I don't really notice when I look at the whole quilt and a 3 year old doesn't notice.

     The quilt is backed in a green minky.  Now there are two minky quilts in the house, one for each kid, which reduces the arguing.  I need to make one for myself.  The dimensions of the minky determined the quilt dimensions.  I didn't want to piece a backing of minky so I kept it less than 56 x 72.  It is bound in Free Spirit Manatee.
 

Fabrics:  Salt Water by Tula Pink, Free Spirit Okra
Backing: Cuddle 3 in green
Binding: Free Spirit Manatee
Quilting: by me with a meandering stitch
Size: 56 x 72" unwashed.

And just so you know, this was finished awhile ago but either weather or the absence of a quilt holder during daylight hours has kept me from snapping a picture until today.  I do more sewing during time off from work but this would be ridiculous.

Modern Metallic quilt top

My MQG is participating in the Modern Metallic Challenge.  We received four fat quarters of Quilter's Linen Metallics to incorporate into our design.  The idea was that the fabric, thread or theme was inspired by metallic design details.  My original idea was to use a picture of the side of a train for the design but I changed my mind.

 

Instead I used the Icky Thump block by 627 Handworks.  The block is intended to be put together differently, but I liked the circles instead.  Luckily I had just enough Kona Snow (6 inches to spare), enough wide backing leftover from another project and a lovely batting scrap that left just two inches extra.  At about 36 x 48, it was a wonderful size to use up what I already had.

And what do I do when I wake up at an obnoxiously early hour in the morning and can't manage to get back to sleep?  I get up and baste the quilt.  I'll try to save the quilting for tomorrow when the weather is not supposed to be quite as nice as today.

Flying Darts Quilt

Melissa and I have been tag teaming to finish up this quilt as part of our guild BOM program.  Many members made blocks and then we made a few more to make a complete top with the leftover Riley Blake Challenge fabrics.  It is a bit of a stormy day so the quilt is remaining on the floor rather than being held up.  Actually the outside photos are with me as the holder and the 6 year old as the photographer.

 I quilted it with straight lines in a chevron design.

 Two extra blocks were added to the back.  One block had green in it and the other 15 didn't so I put it on the back.  Then I could have one blank white one in every row.  It also helped me use up nearly all of that type of flannel for the back.

 In person I don't notice the pulling between the lines as much as in the pictures.  Some day I might enjoy straight line quilting but I think I will stick to free motion more often.  It was worth a shot to see if I could make it look lovely.

  Those outside pictures make it look like it might be sunny and nice, but it isn't.  Now it is time to finalize my idea for the Modern Metallic challenge.

Eiffel mug rug

In between helping the oldest with her science fair project, I managed to finish the mug rug that needs to be done before Wednesday.  Two of the fabrics my partner chose had the Eiffel Tower on them.  Both were fairly large scale prints and I wasn't sure how to use them if I went with the paper pieced Eiffel Tower.  I ended up including one of them on the back, because the oldest thought it would look wonderful.  

I mostly did swirls in the quilting until I decided to have a disturbance over on the left side of the tower.  The science fair project involves weather so perhaps I felt the need to have some slightly different winds.  Mostly I changed to do a little variety in the quilting.  I used white for the top thread and a very light blue for the bobbin.  When I didn't quite change directions fast enough, you can see a bit of the blue, so I decided that there were raindrops.  Even if you can see a star in the sky, there still can be rain.

Eiffel Tower paper piecing pattern was found here as part of the Big City Girl QAL.