Four Odd Pinwheels

A long time ago - so long I don't even remember when - I created a cat quilt for my sister, Shaina.  There were ends that were cut off of the ears of the cats.  I sewed the ends together and created pinwheels.  When all was said and done, all but four pinwheels blew the same directions.  I used most of the pinwheels in the body of the quilt and then put the four odd pinwheels in the corners.

I used this quilt as my first try at thread painting.  I was going to give a thread painting demo at longarm group at Trackside Quilting in 2011.  Before I did any research, I attempted thread painting on this little quilt.  It didn't work.  I kept breaking thread because I kept going over thread that was already on the quilt.  To thread paint, you actually need a plan.  You can't just keep going around and around the same spot.  It is better to sew close together the first time around and only make one round.  In this example, I tried to make fireworks.

The label on the back of this quilt states that I worked on it in 2011.  I just finished hand sewing the binding on this summer.  I am planning to donate it to the Community Quilts committee of the Quilt By Association quilt guild.  I will get three entries into a drawing for a gift certificate to my favorite quilt shop if I turn this quilt in at the September or October meeting.

Tulip - #16 August

Brooke Atherton is creating a healing wall at the hospital.  She asked people who have been touched by cancer to create a square for the healing wall.  Keegan used colored pencils to color on his 2 1/2" piece of muslin.

I thread painted or free motion embroidered a tulip.

The piece of muslin started out as a 2 1/2 inch square.  By the time I had put this much thread onto the square, it was reduced to a 2 1/4 inch square.

I also did not know what to do for the binding or edging to finish the square.  I ended up just sewing over the edge with a zig zag stitch a bunch of times so the batting wouldn't get out.  It was fun to do.

Flying Geese - #15 July

Last year, I tried to use up some of my stash by making a bunch of flying geese using the Quilt in a Day Flying Geese ruler.  I did end up with a lot of flying geese.  I made 3 quilts.  They were to be for Father's Day for Dale.  The other two quilts went to the boys, Keegan and Dillon.  I had the tops completed and ready to be presented to Dale in the target year.  Now I have had the quilts quilted for a while.  In July, I finally finished hand sewing the binding on Keegan's quilt.

 

I was even dedicated and hand embroidered the label.  It is a nice sentiment but I haven't done that lately.

Now Keegan can have another quilt in his closet.

Modern Block Exchange

The block to turn in to August for the Modern Block Exchange at Four Winds Quilting is really a row.  It is Gumdrops.

It is raw edge applique with a straight stitch to secure the gumdrops onto the background row.  The lady that gave us the instructions said that was fine because she was going to quilt the gumdrops so they would get another round of attachment to the quilt.

 

The quilt will end up going to the receivers granddaughter.

Thread Fusion

In May, I was to give the longarm demonstration at Trackside Quilting in Laurel.  I watched Jamie Wallen's dvd, Thread Fusion.  Then I tried to create some thread fusion examples.

I also took this opportunity to use up some of the old jeans denim that I have.  I was testing to see if I could quilt successfully on denim and how many seams intersecting would begin to cause issues for my quilting machine.  Denim with one seam was no problem for the quilting machine.  Additional pieces of denim coming together did make my machine unhappy.

It seemed to me that Thread Fusion was the use of positive and negative space to create a design.  It is pretty cool.  One of the suggestions at the end of the dvd is to use thinner thread so the quilt does not wave so much.  I am planning to play with that later.

This was the very first Thread Fusion example I tried.  There are mistakes but it was a cool start.

I knew I was going to donate my examples to the Community Quilts committee of the Quilt By Association quilt guild.  But just as I was getting ready to do that, they announced a contest for getting more quilts into the Community Quilts coffers for the holiday season.  If the quilt is complete, I will get three entries into a drawing to a quilt store.  Now, I just have to get a binding machine sewed on all of these samples.

My Modern Block

My turn to present a block for the Modern Block Exchange at Four Winds Quilting came up in May.  I presented the block called Two by Six.   The block is from the book Modern Blocks Compiled by Susanne Woods.  The block was designed by Natalie Hardin and was on page 194-195 in the book.

I asked for sunset colors of orange, red, pink, and yellow.  I received my blocks back in June.  I have yet to create a quilt from the blocks.

10 in 10

Four Winds Quilt Shop was doing a modern block exchange called 10 in 10.  There is a quilt in the Tula Pink book that has 100 - 6 1/2 inch squares.  There were two groups participating in this exchange.  One group did traditional, calico prints.  The other group used batiks.  I opted to participate in the batik group.  The idea was to make 10 blocks of your assigned row to exchange.  Over 10 months, the process of creating 10 blocks.  You do end up creating 100 blocks but only 10 different blocks.  But with the exchange, you do get 100 different blocks from which you can create a quilt.

I was feeling like I was saying yes to too many exchanges so I decided to try to get all of the blocks done right away.

The first month I only had one block to exchange.

The second exchange date, I turned in 8 blocks.

 

The upcoming month, I will turn in my last block.  

 

I will still go to the exchange meetings so pick up the blocks that have been turned in to me.

 

One thing that was really nice about this exchange was that we do not have to make the blocks exactly the same.  I used up so many little pieces of fabric that were not large enough to include in a really big quilt.  Since not all blocks have to be the same, all of the quilts are going to be different from each other.  I am pretty excited to see the final result of all of the quilts created from the exchange.



Melissa's Flannel Quilt

My friend's, Melissa, Mom passed away the end of August.  My oldest son, Keegan, and I decided to make a quilt for her.  We broke all of the quilting rules.  First, we used flannel that we had on hand.  There was not enough of any one piece of flannel to complete anything so we patched and pieced and did all kinds of crazy stuff.  We even put a random dark piece in the light binding to get the correct length.  And I pieced the binding square rather than at an angle to decrease bulk.

The coolest thing about this quilt is that Keegan, age 3 1/2, quilted the quilt.  He was wild with the Gammill quilting machine.  But he only broke the thread once.  We pushed two chairs together up to the belly bar of the quilting table and Keegan walked from one chair to the other chair to move from side to side on the quilt.  Quilt density is all over the place.  In some places he quilted a lot.  Other places, he quilted a lot less.

When Keegan gave the quilt to Melissa, she was very gracious.  Then Keegan asked if it was making her happy.  Funny Keegan.  I don't think he fully understands the concept of passing away yet.  No need to rush into that understanding though.

Friendship Blocks

Through my friend, Sue W., I am doing a friendship block exchange.  I think there are 12 of us in the group.  We 12 friends each make 12 of one block.  Then we exchange and we all should end up with 12 different blocks so we can make a sampler quilt.

My block is a tulip block.  I followed the pattern and my blocks were too small.  Then I read the directions more closely and in one part it said to do a scant 1/4" seam.  I don't do scant very well so I cut my center pieces larger.  That worked way better for me and I finally got the blocks the correct size.  I have 4 blocks that are too small.

I also experimented with color.  The background is a black batik with orange and yellow dots.  I thought that orange flowers would be good.  I also thought it would be good to use blue somewhere since blue is the complement of orange.  None of my color experiments worked as good as the original color suggestion in the pattern.  So I made more the proper color of red and green.  The red was dark and blended a bit with the background but it was still the best color choice.  I wouldn't have know if I hadn't tried so I am glad I took the time to play with color.

Initially, I we were going to exchange the blocks on September 3.  I was really working for a week to get my blocks done.  It is slower to change colors all the time than just do a bunch the same color so you can cut once but color change was still fun.  Now we do not exchange our blocks until almost the end of September.  I am still happy that I have my blocks finished.

President's Block

If there is a new President of the Quilt By Association guild for the year we are in, the past President has to collect blocks for the current President.  The blocks are presented to the President at the December meeting.  This is my submission for the President's block for QBA for 2013:

I thought there were a lot of pieces to applique onto this block.  When I turned my block in, and I thought I was cutting it pretty close to the deadline, I was only the 5th block turned in.  I do hope more blocks are turned in next month.

Dresser Runner - #14 June 2013

The Quilt By Association quilt guild was having a challenge for the July meeting that was a small item with a patriotic theme.  We also had to have something 3D and use half square triangles.

For my item, I created a dresser runner for Dale for Father's Day.  I did enjoy the fact that this project completed two tasks - Father's Day gift for Dale and entry into the QBA challenge.

My 3D part was the piped binding that I have been doing.  I was also using up fabric and I did not have enough of one color of fabric for the outside of the binding so I mixed the light and dark blue solid fabric to make the binding.  I thought it looked fine.

I colored with crayons on canvas, heat set the crayons, then used acrylic paint to put the boys' handprints and footprints on the canvas.

Dillon's hands and feet were still small enough that he could fit both pairs of prints on one piece of canvas.

 

Keegan is already bigger so he had a piece of canvas for his feet and another piece of crayoned canvas for his handprints.

The quilting machine didn't mind quilting through canvas.  But the thread didn't like it much.  I used a poly thread but it still frayed from moving through the canvas.  And there was a lot of stuff on the canvas for the thread to go through.  The thread actually probably broke less than should have been anticipated.

I tried to use positive and negative quilting to write words in the fabric.  It did not show up at all on the front because the thread that I used matched perfectly with the batik fabric.  Here is a picture of the back.  I did not find how to reverse the picture in the photo editing software I was using and I really didn't feel like spending too much time on photo editing.

 

 

When I gave Dale the dresser runner, he said he thought it was nice but he had no idea where he was going to put it.  He was very happy when I showed him where the dresser runner was going to live.

 



 

Modern Block Exchange

The Modern Block Exchange group is through Four Winds Quilting in Billings.

This month, our presenter made the block a bit of a challenge.  Each star was in a different place depending on the color we were to make.  I raised my hand to make the orange block.  She also gave us some fabric that we were to use in our block.  It was not an option of whether or not we wanted to use the fabric - she told us we had to use the fabric that she included because it meant something special to her.  Worked out great for me!

Exchange Blocks

In the modern quilt block exchange through Four Winds Quilting, the block was very easy this time.  The requestor provided the red and the white center fabric.  We just had to sew in some blue fabric from our stash.

For August, for the Yellowstone Valley Quilt Guild, one of the blocks requested was a rocking horse in any format and any size.  My plan all along was to embroider a rocking horse but I did not know when I was going to have time to do that.  It all worked out because I was sick one day and was allowed to sit around and watch movies.  I also embroidered this rocking horse.

I searched the internet for a children's coloring page of a rocking horse.  This is the graphic I selected.  I used color crayons to shade in the saddle, mane, tail, bridle, and rocking device.  Then I embroidered.  I used the stem stitch to do the embroidery.  That was the first time I had used the stem stitch.  I have some questions about the stem stitch now that I have done it once.  I was planning to ask one of the ladies at quilt guild but the lady that I wanted to ask was not at the meeting in August.  I will just stalk her in September . . .

Fat Quarter Flower

Many years ago, my husband gave me flowers for our wedding anniversary.  The flowers were created from batik fat quarters from Back Door Quilt Shoppe.  I love them!  I have been afraid to unwrap them because then I would no longer have flowers.  But I had to unfold some of the flowers so I could use the fabric while I was doing my 10 in 10 exchange group.

In an effort to help me remember how to recreate these beautiful flowers, I took pictures while I was unwrapping them so, if necessary, I will be able to create flowers like these.

Start with a fat quarter folded in thirds.

The flowers from my bouquet had the fat quarter folded so the raw edges shown were minimized.  Of course, there was one raw edge down the horizontal center and a raw edge on each side.

Fold accordion style.

Put a rubber band on the fat quarter about a third of the way down.

Tie a pretty ribbon around the rubber band so you do not see the rubber band.

The wire that holds the flower upright has a hook on the end.  The hook is hooked around the rubber band.

And then you have a fat quarter flower.

Back Door Quilt Shoppe had turned many flowers into a bouquet.  The cute vase was like a miniature wash tub.  There was the green floral foam inside the wash tub.  All of the flowers were stuck into the floral foam using the green wire (I suspect that was heavy gauge floral wire but I don't know the details on that).  I just loved my fat quarter flowers.  And I get to love them some more when I am cutting up the fat quarters and sewing the fabric into blocks!