Weekend Update

I love my Guild! (The Houston Modern Quilt Guild, in case you don't know.)

We met on Saturday, talked of the Quilt Festival, QuiltCon, next year's retreat. Then show & tell: the challenge for this month was to quilt our jelly roll race tops from retreat. There were lots of terrific quilts. Mine was only half quilted -- & I worked hard to get that much done. I had thought to free-motion quilt it but my eyes were bigger than my free-motion ability, so I picked it out & tried a method I learned in a class with Mary Mashuta. I love the way it looks, think it is elevating a pretty ordinary little quilt. But I am going to take a breather before I get the other half done -- I've been quilting fairly feverishly for a couple of weeks.



On Sunday, I made a sleeve for my quilt, you know, THE ONE THAT WILL BE HANGING AT THE QUILT FESTIVAL! (Sorry, still a little excited about it.) I got out the pattern pieces for the shirt I'm going to make for Shug. I'm leaving at the end of the week to go visit my Mom & thought some garment construction would nicely fill the evening hours. I've also been obsessing on a quilt from the book Bold Improvisation. There are many awesome quilts here, one in particular I've wanted to make for a long time -- I did a fabric pull about a year ago, but other things pushed their way in.

 

Recently nifty quilts & The Root Connection have both been working on their version of this quilt & mine is burbling to the surface again. My pull -- all from my stash (well, almost all) -- was kind of primary colors with kind of a 1940s, 1950s feel. But I love the wild exuberance of my friends' quilts & was thinking of making a trip to Goodwill, the source of their fun fabrics. But I sat myself down & had a serious talk. Not only do I have miles & miles of yard goods (does anyone still call fabric "yard goods" anymore?), I also have lots of fabric from thrifted clothing. I pulled a stack from Laura Ashley & Laura Ashley-style dresses, the ones from the late 80s, early 90s -- over-the-top floral prints, big puffy sleeves, full -- really full -- skirts. They are pretty but I think the grouping might be a little vapid in a quilt, they would need something to give them a spark, but I'm not sure what. So they may have to continue to wait.

Something old, something new

I've been plugging away at the HST quilting. It seemed as though I would never be finished, but then, suddenly, I was! Now I need to order fabric for binding before the Big Reveal.

I began quilting my jelly roll race top. I tried free-motioning it & hated what I was doing, picked it all out & regrouped. This evening, I've been trying something new & really like how it is going. But it is our HMQG challenge this month, so I can't reveal it yet either. (I'll show you the backing fabric -- I've had it for years; it reminds me of the artwork of Charley Harper.)



My Low Volume squares are idle on my design door; my Low Volume calicos are waiting for a brilliant idea to strike me -- I've been focusing my attention on the Jane Market bags & quilting.
I got a box of fabric in the mail this week -- I needed that like a hole in the head, but, hey, they were on sale.




And my Big News: Skirting the Circle has been accepted to hang in the IQA -- Quilts: A World of Beauty at this year's Quilt Festival!!!!! I am really excited -- I've never seen any of my quilts hanging in any kind of show. This will be quite an experience. The credit for it even being considered goes to Shug -- he was the force behind it & did most of the work, as the deadline came while I was last out of town visiting my Mom.
Thanks, Shug!!!!

Steely-eyed Quilter Woman*

A bit of sewing -- 2 Jane Market Bags finished, one in French General's Petite Odile, the other from Tula Pink's Nightshade.



 


 
A bit of quilting -- my Stitched in Color HST quilt is about half quilted.





* a reference to Apollo 13 -- though there was no danger that I was even going to be late for dinner.

A breath of fresh air

A week or so ago, the temperatures were blistering at over 100 F (about 38 C) with really high humidity -- not as hot as some places, but we had an added bonus. A high pressure system was sitting over us making it not just hot & miserable but, dangerous as well! Smog & ozone levels were said to be !Unsafe for Anyone!

Thankfully, several days later clouds & rain moved in, dropping the temps down into the 90s -- even the 80s! -- much more do-able!

Beside the break in the weather, I had a special treat waiting for me in the mailbox! And while it made me feel warm inside, it didn't make me feel hotter. ;-)

My e-buddy, O'Quilts had recently posted about some things she had made for a baby shower. I had admired them & commented on how bad I was at baby gifts. Well, she very kindly offered to share with me the pattern she used for the baby bibs & asked if I would also like her pattern for adult bibs as well. O'Quilts & I are both dealing with Mothers in nursing care -- her's has Parkinson's, mine has Alzheimer's -- so we understand each other & understand the need for things like a bib for your Mom. She promptly got the patterns posted along with a cheery quilted coaster (in use in my studio), a cute little needle book (will go in my travel sewing kit) & a fun bit of fabric featuring a fried egg breakfast. The only thing missing is the salsa & tortillas!



Thanks O'Quilts! You are awesome!!!

My very long weekend

American Independence Day, the 4th of July, is one of the few holidays that cannot be made into a 3-day weekend. This year it fell plunk in the middle of the week -- not the best for celebrating -- that is unless you gave yourself the rest of the week off, like I did!

Wednesday we spent the whole day at our sail club: hamburgers & hotdogs for lunch (I tried a version of the "Kiwi burger" (our club has quite an international membership & the current Social co-Commodore is a New Zealander -- aka, a Kiwi -- besides the usual burger stuff, they add sliced beets & a slice of pineapple; I skipped the pineapple but added the beets & quite liked it); lots of fun & games for the kids; Shug & I got in a pretty good sail; then resting & chatting & snacking & reading until dinner; then waiting for it to get dark for the fireworks, shot from a barge in the Bay. A very nice day.







Thursday, I was up to my butt in quilt backs. Just FYI, there are 336 5-inch HSTs in a 42 fabric layer cake -- I used all but 10 from my Stitched in Color cake. There is almost as much piecing on the back of this quilt as there is on the front! I also prepped & pieced the back for the jelly roll race top I made at the HMQG retreat. The Guild challenge this month is to get those quilted. Both were then ready to sandwich & baste.

On Friday I did laundry, dusted, vacuumed, etc. But I managed to work in some layout & assembly time with one of my projects for the Low Volume QAL. I also got 2 more Jane Market Bags cut out -- these will be gifts.


 

Saturday, Shug helped baste 2 quilts; outside, he set up a couple of saw horses & the plywood work surface he made me. In a VERY fortunate turn of events, as I basted, I found my "humility block" in the Stitched in Color quilt -- but not being prone to humility, I later fixed it. It wasn't so very hot but it was pretty humid & I was very sweaty & a little cranky by the time I finished the second one. Shug also cut some templates for me so I can experiment with them with my low volume, granny calicos.





It was thunder-y & rainy on Sunday. Luckily we had done errands on Saturday, so didn't need to get out. I could spend a much time as I wanted stitching! And I got quite a bit done: more low value work, prepped the Jane Market bags & began quilting one of the basted quilts!





I hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as I did mine. What did you do?

First ..... of many

My first Jane Market Bag -- LOVE IT!!

 

A week ago the Guild had a sew-in. I took tons of stuff to work on, but my main goal was to cut out &, with luck, make, a Jane Market Bag. Quite a few of my Guild friends have made this bag, so I was hoping for help & guidance. Liz has made LOTS of these bags, refining, tweaking, enlarging & reducing, along the way & she awesomely held my hand through my first bag. I got all the parts cut out & the bag assembled to a place where I needed to do some careful pressing. I am sure I would have scratched my head for days trying to do this alone. Back home, I pressed, top-stitched & added the handles.

It's like that old saying: Give a girl a totebag & she can carry her stuff until it wears out; teach a girl to make a totebag & soon she & all of her friends & family will have totebags out the wazoo for the rest of their lives.