Mini Round Robin--Last Round

It's hard to believe but, Cindy, Julie, Sandra and I have entered the last rounds of our Mini Round Robin.  I have mixed feelings about this day.  On one hand I'm super sad.  It has been exciting to see what each of these other artists have created, poof! out of thin air. (I have to say I'm a humbled to be included in this group of amazing quilters).  On the other hand, I'm kind of glad it's over, because, each round the bar was set higher and higher and with it the anxiety level of creating also rose.  At least for me.

Not to sound cocky, but as I was finishing up Cindy's block, I kind of had what I was going to do for Julie's block in the back of my mind and didn't feel panicked at all.  Then on the first day of August we did our big reveals for the July round.

Photo courtesy of mmm!quilts

I had to laugh like a mad woman (on the verge of tears) when I saw a wonky width piano key border...almost the same thing I was thinking.  (Sandra and I laugh and say we share a brain cell, I'm beginning to think it's true)  I loved everything she did in her round.  She started off by making the block "spin" by adding a border of white Moda Grunge then cutting it to off set the block.  Then she framed the block with the multi colored and width piano key border.  Looks like it's perfect and finished to me!  Oh, wait, I still have to add to it...this is where the panic started.

So it was back to the drawing board.  Julie mentioned a wonderful book by Joen Wolfrom called The Visual Dance in her last round robin post.  I decided to take her advice and purchased a copy of the book.  I've only read the small section on round robins as of right now but it has been incredibly helpful even with this last round.  According to Joen, the duty of the last round is to try to tie everything together.  So before I started designing or picking out fabric, I spent some time truly thinking about what has made the block up to this point.

I loved how both Cindy and Sandra added the "spinning" effect with the whitish fabric in their rounds.  It has given the block nice movement.  And the over all theme of the block was a scrapiness of bright colors with a feeling of improve piecing.  Julie started us off with an improv log cabin and Sandra continued the improv with her wonky width piano keys.  Now to decide how to tie these elements together.

So what where my thoughts?  First, to spin the block again using white grunge and again creating some sort of border.  But let's remember technically we had to stay within the rule of only adding 3" to each side.  Three inches sounds like a lot, until you are actually working with it.  When I was working on Cindy's block in EQ7, I ran across a section of Crazy paper pieced blocks.

I thought these blocks had great potential for a border for this mini.  They still had an improv log cabin feel, but with angles instead of vertical and horizontal lines.  So feeling pretty confident about my choices I moved forward and started off by adding a 3.5" border of the white to the block and played with spinning the block.

So to spin or not spin was the question?  I'll be honest, trying to figure out the measurements was starting to hurt my head.  So I regrouped.  What if I just did a small plain border of the white?  This sounded promicing as well, but I felt I needed to justify it and prove to myself I wan't just taking the easy way out.  Since it was the last round, just doing a simple border of the white would help to let the eye know things where starting to level out.  I could still have movement with my improv block border.  This was sounding better.

And so this, is where Tish decides to go rogue and break the 3" to each side rule.  We all knew I was going to do this at some point and quite frankly I'm impressed I waited until the last round.

I trimmed the border to 1.75" which would bring the block to 21.5" and allow me to paper piece my blocks at 3.5" for a nice even number.  I would need a total of 32 blocks.  This sounded easy...until I actually started on it.

I think I used a total of 7-8 different Crazy blocks found in EQ7 to create my border.  I sorted through my stash (and ended up purchasing a few more) for fabrics that would work with the block. One thing I noticed is there was not much blue fabric (actually none) in the block so far.  When I did my fabric pull I made sure I steered clear of this color.  I think introducing a new color at this point would have stuck out a bit.

With 32 blocks each made up of 7 to 11 pieces of fabric, I needed variety to pull off the look I was going for.   So I sorted my fabric into piles and tried to grab randomly as I pieced the blocks.

So a day of on and off sewing found me with only half of the blocks I needed.  I completely underestimated how long piecing these tiny blocks would take.  The next evening I spent cutting out fabrics for the other 18 blocks.  Then the next evening, I sewed the rest together.

Knowing that the clock was ticking down on time, I started chain piecing and not paying attention to what I was doing.

It only took two sessions of picking out these tiny 1.0 stitches to slow my butt down and make sure fabrics where not folded over.  That's a mistake you do not want to repeat.  Yikes!

Several hours later, I've never been so happy to see a pile of blocks in my life!!

The next step was to sew the blocks into rows.  They contained so many bias edges, for stability, I decided to leave the paper on the blocks until the rows were attached to the block itself.

As soon as a row was sewed together it was time to say a prayer and see if indeed it was the correct length.

And it was!!!  After a crazy happy dance with a dog it was time to attach the rows to the block and pick all of the paper off.  

And I could not be happier with the the result of my round.  It turned out just as I imagined.

I can't wait to hear what Julie thinks of my round.  I have much respect for her as a designer and  I've always enjoyed reading about her design process.  I tried very hard to channel my "inner Julie" when working with this block.  Improv is not something that comes easily to me (heck I still used a paper pieced block), but I wanted to do her block justice and try to make everything come together in this round.  I don't feel bad in saying, I think I got it right.  The lesson:  don't be afraid to challenge yourself, you just might be surprised at what you can do.  If you get a chance to participate in a project of this type, go for it!  Don't be afraid to trust your instincts and try new things.  And don't be afraid to allow yourself to feel good about the work you've done.

Please take a moment to check out my fellow bloggers and see how they have wrapped up the minis for their rounds.

Julie @Pink Doxies--Cindy's block

Cindy @Stitchin at Home--Sandra's block

Sandra @mmmquilts---My block

Today I'm linking up with Finish It Up Friday, Midweek Makers, TGIFF,  Let's Bee Social, Can I Get A Whoop! Whoop!

Round Robin--Round 2

It's hard to believe that June is already over, but that also means that round one of the mini round robin between myself, Sandra at mmmquilts, Julie at Pink Doxies and Cindy at Stitchin at Home is also over too.  At the end of May I mailed my block, The Attraction block to Julie for her to work her magic on.

In return, Sandra shipped the center for her mini quilt to me.

This block was speaking to me before it ever showed up in my mail box.  "Friendship Stars."  That is exactly what she was saying.  It was kind of funny because normally I would have discussed this project with Sandra, but this time I couldn't.  She really wanted to be surprised.  I however was dying to bounce this idea off of someone.  Lara at Buzzin Bumble and I have been emailing back and forth from comments on each other's posts, so I bounced my idea off of her.  Lara, I'm not sure what took us so long to connect??  But I'm sure glad we did!  She was just as excited about my idea as I was and sent a mock up drawing.  It was like she was in my head.

Since my stars needed to be 3" blocks I wanted them to be as accurate as possible.  I made the decision to paper piece them.  Not my normal choice of piecing, but I wanted perfection.  I used EQ7 to print off a paper piecing template and made a test block.  Yup, it was do able.  For my fabric selection I decided to stick with blue, green and a hint of purple to pull colors from Sandra's block.

Half of the stars would be green with a purple center and the other half blue with a purple center.  I printed off 12 star templates.

And began cutting squares.  Lots of squares.  Lots and lots of squares: 96 background, 12 purple center, 60 green and 60 blue.  A total of 228 squares, but who's counting.  That's a whole bunch of squares for a 3" border.  But they were worth every rotary cut.

They actually stitched up much quicker than I anticipated.

And in no time at all this little Quilter's Retreat star block had it's first addition added.  The border of friendship stars represent all of the friendships made and nurtured during the little quilter's retreat taking place inside of that building. 

 Can't you just hear all of the laughing and fun going on right now?

So round one of our mini round robin is officially finished.  This little block is currently making it's way to Julie for her to work her magic on and Sandra is shipping Cindy's block to me.  Hopefully, my spidey senses will start tingling any moment now.  Since Sandra lives so far away, I think it has to travel through customs and possibly a few states before I can start hearing it.   

To check out the progress on the other blocks in our little round robin make sure you visit, Julie at Pink Doxies, Sandra at mmmquilts and Cindy at Stitchin At Home.

Today I'm linking up with Linky Tuesday, Sew Cute Tuesday and  Main Crush Monday.

Adventures in Paper Piecing

Let me start out by admitting that my paper piecing skills are actually limited.  I love the precision and perfect points that can be achieved with this method of piecing but my internal struggle has been that feels wasteful.  One of the first things I tried to piece was the Marine's Star I found on Quilter's Cache.  I tried several times to piece it but no matter what I tried I kept coming up short somewhere.

AHHHHHH!

I then searched around online to see if anyone had any advice on how to figure out what size to cut fabric so that you are covering the shape you are trying to cover.  My searches for the most part turned up empty.  I guess I was looking for instructions would say something like cut "x" amount of squares/rectangles in whatever size.  Isn't that what we normally get when we cut fabric for a pattern?

Recently, I was asked to help with a project that would require me to work on the paper pieced blocks.  Sadly I had the most experience with paper piecing; or possibly they suckered me into doing them.  Since the fabric I was using belonged to someone else I wanted to waste as little as possible or at least make sure I cut a big enough piece on the first whack.  My solution was to cut squares and rectangles at least a 1/2 to 1/4 inch bigger than what I needed.

So for this particular piece I cut a rectangle that was 3.5 by 4 inches.  

The next part that I found tricky was lining up the the pieces to make sure that I had them covering the magical sewing line.  I would hold them up to the light make sure they were where they needed to be and somehow manage to have them move before I could get them to the machine and sew it. Have I mentioned how much I love paper piecing?

I finally came up with a solution to my problem.

By placing a straight pin at the end of the two lines, when I flipped the piece over I knew exactly where the line I needed to cover was.

Ta da!  Then if I needed to I could fold the piece over and see if the space was covered.  So far this method has worked for me.  I always know where my line is.

My new blogger friend Ashley over at Crafty Ashley B shared a recent post from Crazy Mom Quilts on paper piecing with me.  The post talks about using templates to ensure that you are cutting your pieces the correct sizes.  Though it might take a bit more time, I think I could definitely cut down on wasted fabric using her method.  The next time I have a paper piecing project I will absolutely give it a try.

If you have any paper piecing tricks please feel free to share them with me.  I love my adventures in quilting and love to learn as much as I can. 

Oh on a side note:

The pin idea was totally Oliver's.  He just couldn't take me grumbling anymore.

Dog Chasing Its Tail

I have to say that lately I feel like a dog chasing its tail.  And like a dog chasing its tail I'm either having too much fun or slightly confused.  Usually, other than family or work, I only concentrate on one thing at a time.  However, over the past few weeks I have had several different projects pulling me in different directions.

Last week, I started participating in the 2015 New Bloggers Blog Hop.  The hop has not officially started quite yet, but I am slowly getting to know my fellow quilting enthusiasts and learning so much.  I think most of us have been broken down into groups so that we could critique each other's blogs and provide advice on what we can do to improve our posts and pages.  With the help of my fellow friends, I have successfully added labels for better searching to my posts and finally figured out how to widen my layout so that things flow better.  Sometimes, it's the simple things that makes us happy.

I have also been desperately trying to quilt the Mystery Quilt I finished piecing back in April.  I solemnly swear (to whom I'm not sure) that I will not let this poor lap quilt become a UFO.  I'm not sure my back room shelves could stand it.  But I'm showing progress.  I just need to start quilting the pink blocks.

So with this quilt practically wrapping up this meant that I had a great excuse to break my "Thou shall not purchase any new fabric this year" declaration and splurge on new fabric for Meadow Mist Designs upcoming mystery quilt.  I'm ready, how about you?

In my attempt to try to bring a love for quilting to the next generation, I have persuaded my daughter to give it a try.  In her down time this summer she is going to follow Diane at Quilt Shop Gal's Kids Camp.  The fabric for the first project came yesterday and hopefully by the end of the week she will have her first completed cuddle quilt.

The last project I'm working on requires me to call on my limited paper piecing abilities.  I'm pretty sure piecing these blocks shouldn't take as long as I am making it take, but as I get the rhythm down I think I'm starting to shave my over all time down.  One of my biggest questions with paper piecing is how do you know what sizes to cut the fabric to make sure you are covering the area you are working with.  I can't tell you how many times I have abandoned a project because I got to the end and found that after all the hard work, I didn't have enough fabric to cover the seam allowance when I folded it over.  I hate wasting fabric.  In the next few days, I hope to share the process I have come up with to help me avoid this tragic mistake.