Babbling

Quilt blocks

I'm two classes in to my First (Modern) Quilt class and have completed a few quilt blocks (see my very first quilt blocks here). It is very much a work in process as I figure out how to place the materials, cut, piece, sew, iron, etc. Our first month/class Deborah had us do a Log Cabin block. Here is my very first one, started in class and completed at home. It is an 18" block with 2" logs and in the cool colorway supplied in class.

My first log cabin block - 18" with 2" strips. The center square is the hearth so I picked my most red fabric for there. I had 1/4 yard cuts of nine materials to work with and ended up repeating them in the last logs. This is not my favorite block as I don't care for the pattern/color placement. I tried to put blue/purple on one side, and blue/green on the other.

Back

Courthouse steps variation of the Log Cabin. Here the sides mirror each other. 18" square, 2" strips. I laid out my material in dark to light - yellow/green on one side and blue/ green on the other. Then I laid them out depending on which had the most left. That is how I got this grouping.

Log cabin with picture frame variation. This one is not complete but will be a 12" block when done. It uses 1" (1 1/2"?) strips. I can call this my humility square (though really all of them will be to some extent) as I had to do some extra piecing of the blue material. My placement was based on how much material I had of each kind. I kept with the same material for the hearth in each of these blocks. I'm going to move away from that tradition in my next Log Cabin design.

Month two and Deborah has us doing the Rail Fence pattern that teaches how to make an assembly line of cutting, sewing, cutting. This is a 12" square (or will be when in a quilt) with 1 1/2" strips of light, medium, dark value sewn together. You cut and sew width of fabric so that after the strips are sewn together you are able to cut them ino smaller squares - I got four squares from each of my sewn strips. You then alternate them horizontal and vertical placement. I had to use my seam ripper quite a bit - sewed the last block of each square on wrong, then realized that two of my strips of four blocks were senw incorrectly (I sewed all four the same, when I should have sewn two the same.) While this wasn't my favorite combo of the four fabrics we were supplied (for Cool colorway), I thought it might work better with my already completed blocks.

The back - seams go every which way. Next time I'll try pressing each seam open.

Detail of how some of my seams matched up Perfectly, while others are very much imperfect - humilty - yeah, that's right...

Finds last week of March 2011

Via Craftzine (?)

• Slipcover instructions on Remodelaholic
  • Rachelle at Adventures in Creating was the guest blogger
    • Her jumping off point: Apartment Therapy: How to make a slipcover
    • A blog she likes: Emily Henderson: Secrets from a Stylist
• WhipUp.net Kids Crafts List of projects
• Ricebabies blog and cool paper masks (see template here)
• On Design Sponge: Oilcloth storage bins
  • Japanses fabrics at Fabricworm
• Cinnamon Bacon rolls

All kinds of quilting inspirations

• Saturday at Whipstitch I purchased Elizabeth Hartman's The Practicle Guide to Patchwork: New Basics for the Modern Quilter. Deborah recommended it and I have liked Elizabeth's blog for some time, so I figured it was a win-win. I am enjoying the book and am excited to get sewing! Last night I did some more poking around and wish-listed a bunch of books on Amazon, and drolled over several blog posts.
• I want to do some wonky quilt blocks, even though the fabric waste might just about kill me.
  
  • Quilt Dad: Wonky Log Cabin block
  • Tall Grass Prairie: Wonky block quilt
  • 'Quick' Wonky Log Cabin YouTube from Baily's Quilting
  • One large log cabin all wonkified using Enchino linen/cotton
  • Another YouTube, another wonky log block, this one from AlexanderWhyMe, and includes some fussy cutting and focus blocks
  • This Crazy Nine Patch Lattice quilt from Elizabeth at Oh Fransson! uses a similar stacking and cutting wonky technique to the video above.
    • See a bunch of her quilting techniques and patterns here, including this wonky cross block (see here for another tutorial on the wonky cross, this one from That Girl That Quilt (saw this one first))
  • Cluck. Cluck.Sew (who I found through Deborah) has a bunch of quilting tutorial links
    • Love this Chain Reaction quilt pattern, shown here (in use), here, and here (pattern), here in gray. You can buy the pattern plus Animcal ABC block material here (look at this coordinating Animal Toss material!).
    • Finishing Your Quilt
    • Paisely and Lace: Modern Quilt
  • Modern Quilt Guild

Other Sewing

• Lisette patterns for Simplicity by Leisle Gibson of Oliver + S fame. I want to try my hand at this Passport Dress. I like some of the fabric.
• Fabric bowls at CraftStylish

A Quilt for Susan

My coworker Susan was acting weird. Finally, one day, her immediate coworkers sent her home, called her son, and told him he needed to take her to the doctor. Susan knew something wasn't right, but not until she was MRI'd did they know. Our very vibrant, loving, and self described kooky Recruiter/HR manager was diagnosed with a nasty brain cancer.

Gail, a cancer survivor herself, and Jude, who recently lost her mom to cancer (old age and more), along with a few others, spearheaded a friendship-quilt-for-Susan project. The deal was for people to bring in fabrics that reminded them of Susan, write a little note, and help, if possible, to sew some quilt blocks. If shopping was out of the question, Cathy had a selection of fabrics to choose from. Two weekends were set aside to sew the blocks, and there was some additional time to assemble the quilt. Gail did most of the sewing (40 some blocks herself I think), and all of the assembling and binding, and organized the quilt tying. Patricia gathered the notes and fabric samples and made a scrap book, and Pam beautifully wrapped the gift. Just before Christmas during the company office party, and deep in the midst of chemo and radiation, Susan was able to come to the office and receive the gift. It makes me tear up now thinking about it. It was pretty special.

I brought in three fabrics I found at a local quilt shop. When T was little Susan taught me her birds and squirrls song she sang to all three of her kids, so I wanted birds and squirrls. I also wanted yellow (the name Susan always makes me think of yellow and almost every Susan I have known has had a sunny personality) and pink, as Susan wears a lot of pink (hot pink and fuscia really.) Pink was a big thing for many people, and there were others with the birds theme.

I was able to help one morning of the days set aside to assemble the quilts and made my very first quilt blocks. I was quite excited.

Gail, at whose house we met, had divided the materials into six piles based on value. We grabbed one material from each pile, cut several strips (I forget how many and how wide), then sewed one of each material together. After ironing it, we cut it into two even blocks. In this second photo, the top fabric of the block is my pink, yellow, birds and squirrls material (and oppossum, owl, and raccoon) that felt perfect for Susan. Next to the block on the table is another of my materials - a bird print with great sayings. I wasn't wild about the pattern, but I really liked the words - friendship, hope, faith, family, love... My last bird print material is shown in another photo in a block someone else made. Look for happy little 1930's-ish song birds.

Gail sews, Jude takes over the spot I am vacating and preps her rotary cutter.

Pam gets ready to cut. While baskets in the back are ready to receive the cut strips.

The blocks completed while I was at the 'bee' - mine are on the right.

The quilt is a tied quilt. Gail brought it in one day and folks stopped by as they could and tied one or several knots of friendship and hope. Patricia also showed off several of the completed scrap book pages.

The almost finished quilt and a scrap book page. Didn't this turn out great for such a huge variety of prints?

Tieing - (left to right) Sherry, Linda, Gail, Pam, Hinda

See the little yellow, purple, and orange birdies - that is one of the materials I contributed. So happy.

I thought I took pictures at the presentation, but have to find them. I'll edit and post when I do. I am writing this post months after the event, and a week after seeing Susan most recently. She looks quite good. She is waiting for her platelet count to climb again so she can resume chemo, and has a Ben Franklin hairdo, but she is her normal, happy, fun self. Yeah!