Spicy Spiral Table Runner - #9 January 2013

I do realize that I already used the Spicy Spiral Table Runner as one of my other month's completed item.  But, the last 2 were not completed until the very last day of January.  And, these two table runners were the only items I actually finished in the month of January.  The first two Spicy Spiral table runners were given away as gifts in December.

I think what I learned with this project was that I don't need to make a whole bunch of one item.  Luckily, these were small and I actually finished them.  But I don't know that I need to make four of the exact same thing again any time soon.

Hawaiian Challenge

I like the idea of quilt challenges.  I haven't yet successfully completed a challenge but I like to think about what I would create within the challenge guidelines.
Four Winds Quilting was having a Hawaiian Challenge to brighten up the Montana winter days.  We had the choice of purchasing a fat quarter or 1/2 yard cut of fabric.  Other than that, the main rule was to have fun.
Since I have not yet learned that small items will possibly be completed in my lifetime, I opted for the 1/2 yard cut of fabric.

I picked up the fabric on Saturday, February 2.  I have been working on the challenge quilt but I am not as far along as I had hoped I would be.  The challenge items are due back at Nancy's store by 10AM on Saturday, February 23, 2013.  Hopefully, I am not still putting binding on that morning.
There will be 2 judges to review our Hawaiian Challenge entries.  The winner will receive a gift certificate to the Four Winds Quilting shop.

Common Bride

The last weekend of January, I got to go to a Common Bride retreat at Trackside Quilting in Laurel.  The Common Bride pattern is by Edyta Sitar.
The smallest pieces in the quilt are 1 1/4" squares.  Super small!
I picked up the pattern the Thursday about a week before the retreat so I could start cutting from my fabric stash.  I did have the light fabric cut by the time I went to the retreat but there is still a lot of cutting left to do.
The Common Bride pattern also has a lot of Y seams in the 25 star blocks.  Learning and getting proficient at Y seams is the main reason I wanted to work on this quilt.  I want to get better at Y seams.

By the end of the 3 day retreat, needless to say, I did not have too much completed.  Just the center star.

So far, I have not purchased any fabric for this quilt.  The pattern calls for 14 yards of fabric.  I have been going through my stash fabric and I have not been wanting for fabric for this project yet.
There is applique in this quilt too.  It will look really cool when it is complete but it is going to take me a long time.

Exchange Blocks

At both the day and night quilt guilds, they do a block exchange.  At the night guild, you have to sign up and commit for a year.  I have participated in the night guild block exchange before and I really did enjoy it.
At day guild, you make whatever block you would like from the two blocks presented for that month.  You could opt to do both blocks or no blocks that month.  When you have completed any 12 blocks, you will be allowed to present a block for other people to creat for you.
I must have been behind because in January I picked up 4 blocks to do for other people.  Since they are not a whole quilt, I just took a picture of all 4 blocks together.  Nothing too impressive but it will be fun when I get to present and receive blocks back.  I will just have to decide what I would like to do.

In the lower right hand corner, it appears that the "block" is just paper.  It is really green and cream half square triangles using a paper to sew along to get perfect straight lines.  The final result is supposed to be 2" unfinished half square triangles.

Stack N Whack - #7 November

I have done a 60 degree Stack N Whack quilt before and I didn't have any issues with it.  When I saw the fabric that I received in my brown bag exchange for the night guild, I thought the flower fabric would lend itself well to a Stack N Whack.

I do believe the Stack N Whack blocks themselves look good.

I started to run into issues when I started doing the border though.  It required more triangles.  That, in and of itself, is fine.  Bias did become an issue though.

When a Stack N Whack is created, the fabric is ripped or cut parallel to the selvege rather than perpendicular as with most cuts in quilting.  This puts the bias somewhere different than if you just cut perpendicular to the selvege.

The Stack N Whack blocks worked great and stretched everywhere they were supposed to stretch.  In at attempt to conserve fabric, I cut the border triangles out of strips of fabric that were cut perpendicular to the selvege.  They did not stretch the same at all.  I ended up with a quilt that acted like a cupcake - big, full, and fluffy in the center; tight and rigid on the border.  It was wicked.

The center of the quilt was very pink and Dale believed that it was an anomoly.  In order to tone it down, I quilted the center heavily around the fussy cut flower bouquet.  It dulled up the pink all right because the thread was black and red varigated.

Flying Geese - #6 October

In hopes of helping "bust my stash", I created 3 scrappy Flying Geese quilts.  They were supposed to be completed for Father's Day 2012.  As with most of my quilting projects, the deadline is a nice suggestion.  I finally finished hand sewing the binding on Dale's Flying Geese quilt in October.

This was a quilt intended to use up scraps.  It did.  The starting squares were 11 inches and 9 1/2 inches.  Each pair of squares yielded 4 flying geese.  It was great for using fabric up fast.  It would have been nice to have one fabric that was the same in each flying goose to tie things together a bit more but then that would have defeated the purpose of using up stash.

Turtles & Tidepools - #5 September

I decided to do the Turtles & Tidepools pattern using the X Blocks ruler.  I had seen the pattern and the X Blocks book at Trackside Quilting in Laurel, MT but hadn't decided what fabric to use to make the Turtles & Tidepools.  When I saw the brown bag fabric I received from the day guild exchange, I knew this was the fabric that would be perfect for Turtles & Tidepools.

This quilt visited Trackside Quilting as a display quilt for about a month before it was presented at the December day guild meeting.  It was meant to help sell both patterns and X Blocks rulers but I do not think any additional sales were achieved.

One thing I learned from this quilt is to make sure to use a high contrasting floss to embroider the label if I opt to embroider a label for another quilt.  The embroidery floss I used blended in to the backing fabric so much I could not see it very well.  I could not see it at all in the picture that I took so I am not going to even bother to post a picture of the label.