Modern Exchange Blocks

The blocks created for the Modern Block Exchange at Four Winds Quilting in Billings are from the book Modern Blocks compiled by Susanne Woods.
Best Friend Block for Morganne K.  I thought this block was also Cogswheel by Sew Be It but I could be incorrect.

Stacked Squares for Cynthia P.:

TurnARound for Marlene H.:

Diamond Ripple for Sue W.:

Dillon, my two year old son, was messing with my sewing machine.  It is now in Livingston at the Pfaff dealership getting repaired and cleaned.  You would think that would not be a big deal.  But oh my goodness.  I am used to sewing on that machine and the other machines are not the same.  I am even using the same 1/4" foot on a newer Pfaff.  You would think that I could get a 1/4" seam.  Things are not the same.  Things are not working out well in my itty, bitty sewing world this month.  It really is funny because this is not a big issue at all - just an inconvenience - but it is rocking my sewing room.  Thankfully, this is the biggest issue I have in my life right now!

Among the Pines

Trackside Quilting in Laurel is doing the Among the Pines from the Northwoods Memories series as the hand embroidery block of the month for 2014.  I took two of the blocks to do the hand embroidery.  This is the first one I completed.

This block is to be cut to 6" x 6" to be included in the quilt.  It has a lot of detail to embroider.  Most of the embroidery was done using just one strand of floss.

Gift Boxes - #25 May

May was drawing to a close and I did not have anything completed or even nearly completed.  I took my Gift Boxes quilt to Sew N Sew group one Monday night and I was able to finish hand sewing the binding on.  Happy day!

I collected the strips for this quilt from Backdoor Quilt Shoppe in April 2007.  I have been aging this quilt for a long time.
The pattern is from Cozy Quilts in California.

This was another quilt that I had quilted a while ago and was in a pile to finish the hand binding.  This was the last quilt in that pile.  Now, when I am running out of month and I do not have a quilt completed, I do not know what I am going to do.  That was my backup pile in case I was not getting anything completed.  I will have to try even harder to get something completed.

Flying Geese - #24 April

In April, I finished the hand binding on a quilt that I quilted a few years ago.  It was nice to get that quilt finished.

I created 3 Flying Geese quilts when I was doing some major stash busting.  I do still have some flying geese left over - I think I could make two more flying geese quilts.

I was even so eager a few years ago that I hand embroidered the label.  The hand embroidered label does look better but it is faster to let the sewing machine sew the text.

Round Robin

YVQG, day guild, decided to start a round robin exchange.  I thought that since I have never yet participated in a round robin exchange, I better do it so I can have that experience.
In January, I went to a class at Trackside Quilting for the Edyta Sitar's Common Bride quilt.  It asks to be scrappy in the pattern.  Later I saw the quilt completed with more controlled colors.  I thought that was a better idea so I have decided that some day I will redo the center.  I opted to use the center I had already created for the center medallion for my YVQG round robin.  I put another set of borders on it.  I thought it looked pretty cool when I sent it off to the next round robin participant.

One thing that the day guild did that I really like is gave us the list of names of people in our group.  That way, we can just review our list and know who we are supposed to pass to next.  Way less administration needed because we do not have to turn our project back in to the committee and then the committee distributes the item.

Row by Row

YVQG, the day guild, also decided to do a row by row exchange this year.  I thought that since I had already started on the embroidery designs for the QBA night guild exchange, I would continue to do that for the day guild exchange.  I made exactly the same row for the day guild exchange.

Not very interesting.  I wrote in my instructions that I had no idea what to do with embroidery designs so I was excited to see what they came up with for their row.

Exchange Blocks

Another round, or two, of block exchanges.  All of the blocks for the modern block exchange come from the Modern Blocks book compiled by Susanne Woods.
Regatta for Sandy S.:

Mondrian for Connie D.:

The center of the block is part of the state of Montana printed on Printed Treasures fabric.  When the map parts were getting handed out, I shouted for Blaine County since that is where I am from.  Connie had suggested we embellish our blocks with something specific to that location.
Since we raised beef cattle and wheat, I embroidered a cow and a stalk of wheat on my block.  Again, I searched on the internet to find the graphic I wanted to stitch on the block.

Close up of my stalk of wheat:

Pogo Stick for Carla D.:

Binary Block for Kaethe P.:

I had enough fabric so I made two Binary Blocks for Kaethe P.:

Shadows in the Alleyways for Rita B.:

Pinball Machine for Carol F.:

Potager for Nancy S.:

Stargazing for Lynn:

The two blocks I did for block exchange for YVQG day guild were both black and white.  That was handy because then I only had to dig through my stash once.

Feather Fancy 4

I created a total of four Feather Fancy wall hangings.  I am keeping this one for myself.

I entered this one for display at the Town & Country quilt show in Red Lodge the end of April.
The thing that I think I learned from this endeavor that sometimes I just do not want to create four of the same quilt.  But I do suspect I will do it again next Christmas for another round of gifts.

Shannon's Quilt

I quilted a graduation quilt for my friend to give to her nephew.  After asking Shannon, what the graduate liked, I searched the internet for graphics of those items.  Then I created a continuous line drawing of those pictures.  Using the laser light on the back of my quilting machine, I followed my lines to create the designs in the gray squares.
Combine:

Airplane:

Dodge Ram symbol:

You would think that the Dodge Ram symbol is everywhere, right?  It is not.  On the Dodge site, it is really small.  When I enlarged it to make a graphic out of it to 6" it was so grainy that I could not do anything with it.  Luckily, we have a Dodge.  I took a picture of the Ram symbol on the wheel and used that picture to make my drawing.  It worked pretty well.

Bobcat for Montana State University - Bozeman:

Motorcycle for hill climbing:

I had a continuous line drawing of a motorcycle in Laura Lee Fritz's book but it was more of a cruising bike.  I had to go to the internet to find a dirt bike.
Roads since the young feller graduated with a civil engineering degree:

It was fun to put the little designs in the quilt.
I did some stitching in the ditch with this quilt.  I worked every roll completely.  I did not leave part of it unquilted and then go back later to finish it.  I still ended up with tucks in the back.  It was horrible.  It is a really yucky feeling.
After going to HMQS in Sandy, UT in May, I learned from Sue Patten that to help prevent tucks, quilt clockwise, then counterclockwise so you are working the fullness of the quilt into the body of the quilt rather than taking it with you to a corner.  I will have to try that the next time I quilt because I have ended up with tucks on the back on the last two quilts I quilted.  One was mine so I wasn't too worried.  I just chalked it up as a learning experience.  But when I did it on Shannon's quilt, I knew I had a real problem with my quilting.

Brown Bag

I am participating in the brown bag exchange at night guild.  This time, I am to create a row for Barb B.  The focus fabric that she included was an old piano cover that she had found at a garage sale.  The other direction was to make our row look like it goes with the other rows.  I achieved that goal with my first row that I created but I thought that row was pretty plain.  So I created a second row.  It is more out of the box.

In the above picture, the top one is the row that I got wild on.

The second row is the original row created by the owner of the quilt.

The third row was created by another member of the group, Mary Rose S.

The bottom row was the first row I created.  Boring, huh?

The idea for my top, wilder row came from my visit to HMQS in Sandy, UT the beginning of May.  Judy Woodworth quilted music scrolls into her themed quilt, Black Tie Gala.  It looks great quilted so I thought it may also look great as an applique piece.  The colors are very cool and the shape is pretty neat but I don't know if the end viewer is going to know that this is supposed to be a music scroll.

Right scroll: 

Center scroll:

Left scroll:

It was fun putting this row together and using the protractor to get my angles cut correctly so it would represent a row when I was completed.  It is huge though!  I guess that gives the end owner lots of space to trim if they would like.