43.8 More Ruler Work Observations from Beginner – MAL 2019

I am staying as true as possible to the quilt for 15 minutes challenge for the month of March – aka March A Long. The only date that might have been missed was Friday. Even on Thursday when I was feeling a little under the weather, I looked through some designs in books that have been sitting on the shelf for years.

I have been staying on my free motion / ruler work for quilting working on my practice project.

Last week I did some cross hatching, this week, I tried out the football curved ruler.

A little bit of practice every day. One day was the outline of two footballs offset on the same row, the next day was the pebbles.

I filled in the corners with this weird gap thing set aside for something and the swirls that I almost see as my default traveling pattern.

I have found that instead of a generic meander, I tend to go with swirls as a “I don’t know what filler to go next with” filler to get from place to place and to speed up.

As you may notice I have a strange red thread design in the center of these white patches.

I did this with the marking pen around the ruler for the center of the design. This was to practice using my marking pen. I am not known to do a ton of marking or registration marks on my quilting. The pen took a while to get used to being used again, but seemed to do decent with the initial design.

This was before tackling any of the “rulers on the machine” work. Then I echoed it. Three times. Uhhh… two echoes, three lines.

Anyway, I am mostly happy with the work I did on the first pass, but my echoing skills leave a lot to be desired.

I am wondering what about this is hard for me to do correctly. Is it that I go too fast, or I can’t see well enough or I just “lose where I am” a little, or am a little careless, or I try to “make up for previous passes” by making a change the next echo and then actually make it worse.

Granted, this would be better if the thread color actually matched the background.

This is a small issue I have to work out on my own. This quilt has both light and dark patches, and for some reason, I have decided to make it all symmetrical. Same shapes in each corner, same threads. Sometimes it means that the thread color contrasts, the other times it blends. More or less.

I am finding myself feeling moments of “rush” with this quilt. It is practice, I did not piece it. I do not see it hanging in my house, or given to someone else. I don’t know if it would be “good enough” to donate to the local hospital or not (for a lap quilt), I am mostly going through the motions on this quilt to really use as practice.

So I am periodically “speeding up” through some of the quilting.

When I first started, I was having lots of shredding thread issues. Because of that, I lowered the tension “way down”. So what did that cause? Eyelashes.

I went through the entire corner blue section with this rushed, low tension top which caused the back to eyelash incredibly badly throughout.

I am finding it hard to make myself stop and figure out what I am doing wrong, just getting through the section of practice without doing as much learning as I “could be.”

Since I was needing more practice echoing, I decided to use the curved rulers to help me out on echoing this.

And then finding a fill that works too. This worked well. I am amazed at how much I get confused or frustrated when turning the quilt around to the the other side of the design. Somehow now doing the same shape, in the same way, on the same kind of quilting background, I feel more frustrated on the 2nd half than the first half. Almost every time.

I am finding myself hitting the ruler on the machine, or getting it stuck behind where the foot gets in the way.

At least I figured out that the more I can do on the machine in one direction, the better off I seem to be. The first few circles/loops, I was turning all the way around instead of working “just the tops,” or “just the bottoms”.

I think if this machine was a higher shank machine with more throat space, this task would seem way easier at the moment.

Which I have to use what I have at the moment. I need to start a fund for getting either a Juki or something bigger like a sit down 16 HQ. But that, being down the road a bit, will have to wait. It’s hard to say, because I do really like piecing a LOT, and designing a LOT, and for those activities I only need the machine I have now.

I hate to come away from this post feeling negative about the whole experience. I am not feeling that way necessarily.

This is fun, I might need to figure out how to move on to my real projects pretty soon though. Keep my tension in check. Watch for my foot slipping off the screw and falling down – something that happened this morning and caused issues trying to get through some of the tough seams on the underside in particular.

This is really nice, and I am glad I am working on this, and I know in a few short weeks I will be piecing again.

This is my stopping point at the moment. I need to get on and do a few other things this weekend. I have a plan for the other four corners in this section, and I have three of them to do still. I really hope this practice quilt doesn’t take the entire month of March to quilt, but as long as I March-A-Long and keep at it, I will eventually be done! And I will have a nice reference too!

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43.5 Ten Year Quilt-a-versary – First Quilting Moments Revisited

In 2008, I drove around with a second hand book in the back of my car that said “Your First Quilt Book”. The book sat in my car for the majority of that year. Finally in February of 2009 I used enough “good work credits” (sorta) at work to decide to afford to get my very first sewing machine. I had never used one outside of school, but had fond middle school memories of sewing activities.

I called my first machine Molly.

I picked a design out of the book to work on, went to Walmart, bought fabric and started to get some other supplies for this project, and in a short month stitched up the center of the top.

Here I was laying out the fabric for my first quilt block before sewing. (taken Feb 22, 2009)

These are the blocks laying side by side. March 4, 2009.

Here it is with simple borders (taken March 8, 2009).

At the time I was really focused on getting the top done, but this was spurring me on to more and more down the quilt rabbit hole. Seeing so many pictures of other people’s quilts online, starting to listen to quilting podcasts, hearing people talk about quilts and techniques.

So I attempted to quilt this cute little top in the summer of 2009 (July 2009) to be able to work on the projects I had already started.

Learning about binding from a small group I started to sew with (that doesn’t exactly meet anymore in the way it used to, but am still friends with several online) caused me the courage to actually do the binding on this quilt for the first time.

And then I got to hang it in my tiny living room for quite a while.

During this time about 10 years ago, I was trying to get myself out of a funk, learn something new and exciting and beautiful. Starting to look at patterns, get a hold of a sewing machine and supplies, get stuff in order to decide to actually take the quilting plunge.

At that time, I had no actual knowledge of people in my family being “avid quilters”. Yes, my aunt was crafty, but crafty in lots of ways that also included sewing. Yes, I have fuzzy memories of my other grandma owning mysterious “sewing machine” in her bedroom.

I do remember as a child checking out a crafting book, learning how to sew, and then doing some running stitch hand-sewn pillows. My sister got a sparkly pillow with the “best looking fabric” that left glitter on her face, which was a childhood mystery until we figured out that sparkly fabric wasn’t best suited for sleeping and pillows. Then the middle school class which we sewed things, and even an activity of machine quilting (we did a log cabin block in pinks and blues).

So much over the years though.

Convincing people to come to our regional show from out of town / state.

I did, in the last several years start to spur my one aunt into quilting more, with my enthusiasm for it, and it has been nice to be able to share some of the hobby with someone I knew before. We joked about Cow Quilts, drove all the way to Michigan from Kansas / Iowa just to see some quilts and some internet friends.

Countless jokes about “Is she done yet?” or “Quilts don’t go on beds, they go on walls.” or “If you just made a little larger, it would be a nice blanket.” have been staples of my quilting journey over the last 10 years.

But also affirmations about being creative, having good color sense, designing by book and by program. Creating my own podcast for a few years, this blog, various online social media accounts, various retreats, a few in other states, renting a long arm, getting better at free motion quilting myself, design, quilt, create, write pattern for my guild opportunity quilt, and the upcoming and annual, continuing March A Long month- long-every-day-sewing inspiration.

So much in only 10 years! Was not sure where I was going to be 10 years ago, but because of you, I have enriched my life, my creativity, my art, and found such satisfaction and sometimes peace.

Upcoming posts about March A long will hopefully catch you all up to the last few months of quilting progress and quilting! This blog has become less about you, and more about me, and that’s not really ideal, but it is what has happened. I am still grateful for 10 years of quilting journeys!

 

 

 

 

 

43.1 “Handwork” to avoid carrying around my machine

A small sewing group meets about once a month and I have been able to be a part of it. I took my pinwheel blocks, which are leftover from as swap from 2010 or 2011 and decided to ask if I could learn how to “spin the centers” of the back of the pinwheels

Somehow I had a little bit of a struggle. One, I misheard and started pulling apart the backs of the last seam instead of the next to last seam. Things went crazy. The block was re-sewn.

Eventually I did get it figured out, with the help of my friends. I didn’t cut off my dog ears before sewing these down, which actually made it decently easy to pop the opposite seam (both sides) and flatten it out. I sat the afternoon and got most, if not all, the pinwheels popped. I had 88 pinwheels to do.

Then, sometime the last few months in between projects, I got some sashing, cornerstones figured out and cut to size.

Which meant I had to trim up my pinwheels to the same size.

I was able to use some offline time away from my machine, away from internet to work on these. It was sorta tiresome, but the perfect opportunity to do a little bit of offline sewing.

41.7 Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival KCRQF 2017 – Part 5 – Quilts Focusing on Quilting

Hi, this is part 5 of a quilt show featuring quilts from the June 2017 Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival. I have decided not to post details about the quilts but I very likely have taken the information down of the quilts in the form of pictures of the quilt tags. I have put off this online quilt show long enough and have documented the quilts that I decided to show. I wish I could be more explicit here, but I am finally getting at least some recognition of some of the quilts that I enjoyed seeing at the show. Part 1 describes some of the show itself.

This is my own category of quilts that are based a lot on the quilting patterns. Not necessarily the categories put up by the show itself. Some of the quilt pictures below may not show the quilt in the entirety as they may be blown up to show quilting designs in detail instead of the larger picture.

This next quilt most of the texture is done with quilting “tightly” back and forth in an S shape. Looking up close to this quilt, the pieces are straight, but back from this long view angle, the whole effect of the quilt is curvy.

 

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41.5 Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival KCRQF 2017 – Part 3 – Paper Pieced quilts

This is part 3 of a “quilt show” from the Regional quilt festival in Kansas City held in June 2017. I have most likely documented names of quilt makers and quilts, but because of this lateness, I have decided not to match them up with the quilts I am showing here. Ask and I should be able to provide information. The introductory post about the festival itself is found in Part 1, and Part 2 are the simple & modern designs.

This part is my own category of quilts that I liked that I called “Paper pieced quilts”, which does not necessarily mean that the quilts were known to be paper pieced. I hope you enjoy the quilts in this part.

Close up of my fingers for comparison on size of pieces.

The next quilt had specific symbols on it and a guide to the symbol were pinned onto the quilt below. The guide says Hobo Quilts Glossary. I found this fascinating!

 

 

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41.4 Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival KCRQF 2017 Part 2 – Simple & Modern Designs

I attended and participated in the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival in both 2015 and 2017. I haven’t yet posted some of my favorite quilts from the show. I took pictures of all, but I don’t think I am going to post the name and maker of the quilt, but if you ask, I can probably access this information to pass along. No promises, but I do have pictures of tags of quilts as well, just not going to put them here for space reasons.

I have put this task off too long and I am deciding just to put pictures instead of pictures & info up. My apologies. I have documented my own quilt in the previous post. None of the pictures in the next few parts of this series will be of quilts of mine.

Now that’s settled, I wish I could post everything here. These quilts are going to be divided up by my own categories, not categories that the show decided. I spent a ton more time in the guild section of the show than the judged portion of the show. At this point I honestly can’t remember which quilts were judged and which were guild.

The festival is put up by 16 guilds and as such, guild members have opportunities to put their quilts in the show as decided upon by the guilds themselves. Some guilds are small (like mine), and some guilds are way bigger and have 2 meetings a month instead of the one we do. I also did not document which quilts were in which guilds. I actually did, if I count all the quilt tag pictures I also took, but again, I am not posting here due to time/energy etc.

********* Part 2 – Quilts for their simplicity and Modern designs ****************

I made one of the following types of quilts, but didn’t have the good foresight to see how lovely it would be to do all monochromatic colors.

Doesn’t this quilt look like one from the recent Charlotte Hawkes mystery quilt?

 

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41.2 Some stitching at home

So it seems like lately I have been wanting to be under the radar in about all areas of my life, so, naturally, no blog posts. Whoops.

The weather being nice, and the prompting of Tabletop day, and the various activities for others have kinda kept me from sewing. That is, unless I employ the “March a long” strategy of sewing after work and sewing daily. Which doesn’t /didn’t happen after March this year.

Anyway, I have a few sewing objectives in the last month. My small quilt was picked to be part of the guild group for the upcoming Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival (KCRQF) in less than a month. And it wasn’t finished quilting.

I did get a start on this right away beginning of april. I did the long figure 8’s and the long thin lines, as what I had decided a year ago on my quilting diagram.

But then I went to change it up on the alternate blocks from my original plan.

And this is not my best work here, but I really liked the way it brought a different dimension to the quilt with a different type of design. And I froze on it. For a while.

Finally decided to press on and complete this quilt. I took one long weekend day to get all the rest of the blocks done, and then put the binding on while sewing at my friend’s house.

I forgot to take a picture of this with the binding sewn all the way back.

I have since turned it into my guild so they will have it by the time they need it for the show. Next picture I will have will be of it in the show itself. Here’s hoping it still looks ok after not seeing it for a month. I did a large rush job to get it finished by the end of the guild meeting in May, and I’m not proud of that, but it is what it is.

Here’s an up close version of the quilting/quilt.

It’s a fun and cute little quilt made with alternating blocks, one of which is called footstool, and one is Grandma’s Choice (modified). So naturally the quilt name is: Grandma’s Footstool.

I didn’t make a fancy label for it – usually my quilt labels are printed on from electric quilt onto that printable fabric, but for this one, I just used a pigma micron pen for marking the label.

And finally, I got some good quilt fabric for my ladders and bubbles quilt for the border blocks.

I went to a quilt shop to help a friend design a quilt for her church, bought a plain blue (with green tint). Later I went to a small quilt show which then prompted me to go to another quilt shop in the area, and actually I found fabric that I liked even better for the borders.

This is still in the planning and cutting stage, but mainly I spent time ironing the fabric down to be manageable after getting it prewashed.

So now, instead, I’ve been wanting to piece, and wanting to work on older stuff. The blocks that I have been staring at for a while now found their way into my sewing machine.

I did massacre the points on this quilt, and if it’s for me, I don’t care. I am considering this as our guild auction quilt for next year’s show for our charity work. It’s small and bright and cheery. And now will need quilted. Or I may not donate it if I think the cut off points show way too little care. The unfinished size of the block was 1.5 inches each.

Trying to get other things off my design wall, I decided to next work in stages on the single patch quilt that is the other quilt with these same batik/black leftover quilt bit blocks.

I have batched them to help me sew these up better. I don’t really care too very much about colors except for orange. I have an orange stripe (3 of them) that I am trying to keep in diagonal ripples in this quilt. I am actually not batching them in the end, just for the temporary time before all the seams are sewn.

I find it cathartic to sew one line of new patches, one line of double patches, and then one line of 4 patches, then I go back to the single new patches, and I am rippling my way through the quilt. I do this so I can keep each line of patchwork straight. I can easily tell what I am sewing and where the next line of patches I need to sew are, and where the newly sewn patches can go.

I am curious to know exactly how much fabric I will lose to the seam allowance. This will also be a nice wall hanging but not super big in the very end. But that’s ok with me, easier to swap out in the rest of the house that way!

Well there is more to share, but this is enough! Thanks for letting me share my quilting progress. The past few days are more “march a long” and doing sewing during the work-week as a heads up for the nice long memorial day weekend coming up!

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40.5 Ladders and Bubbles metamorphosis

As the new year starts, I have found myself gravitated towards a project that I originally conceived of in 2011. A simple paper piecing project with alternating blocks. Hung in strips. 

While the picture below might be the quilt in the middle of its cocoon form, it had very different origins.

The idea for this quilt started with a sheet I picked up at goodwill, and some scraps of some leftover blue jeans. I had a soft yellow sheet that would have made a good contrast with the thick heavy denim.

I wanted to make a quilt that combined the two types of fabrics. 

I started out seeing a picture or two of denim quilts online that were of a stained glass window type. Ones with wildly varying shades of denim, ones with denim squares and rectangles, surrounded by lots of black fabrics.

A comment I read somewhere in 2011 was that two layers of denim were hard to sew together because the seams were too thick.

In preparation for this quilt, I searched for darker denim, and even scored some light pink denim from somewhere. 

While this project was originally designed with denim in mind, I had a lot of fun in Electric Quilt trying to figure this quilt out. I have 42 different electric quilts in this project file. Most are variations of blues with black sashing/ stained glass, and light pink. The bottom picture below shows the original pretty pale yellow bedsheet.

More and more I thought against using the yellow bedsheet, as the texture would be different in the bedsheet area than the rest of the quilt. I also started to hear about quilts made with sheets.

I noticed that I started gravitating towards two distinct versions of the quilt – the slanted ladder, and the alternating blocks that used vertical ladders.

I created one of the vertical ladder blocks. It looked good, but the block edges looked thick. And maybe this quilt was going to be heavy and hot. 

I even was able to purchase some non-jean denim of the darker blue type. I could use the dark blue denim as a consistent background fabric for many different values of blue jeans.

One of the designs started to emerge more and more in my electric quilt that seemed to suggest instead of a steady fabric, more of an “I Spy” quilt with lots of different fabrics that could even be showcased in the middle of the block.

So now maybe this quilt would use denim as a background fabric, with non denim fabrics in a more prominent way. But many many of the designs I liked still had a denim on denim seam in between the blocks. It would be hard to get around that without adding sashing. Which in the quilt I liked the most, would ruin the graphical effect.

During one of the sales of an online fabric company, I found some beautiful “denim like / denim colored” fabric on a nice sale, and I purchased enough of this fabric for a consistent background. 

Between the avoidance of the denin on denim seams, and my new denim colored consistent background, I started thinking about replacing all the denim in my quilt for all cotton fabrics. Playing on one idea for the quilt, stringing it together.

I then drew up this quilt in EQ7.

 This quilt sort of has none of the elements that I started with except for the dark outlines that mimic a stained glass window. No bedsheet, no denim, pink or otherwise. No dark blue consistent background denim either.

So maybe this is the same quilt, maybe it is not? 

It was so different from my original name of my quilt when I started taking pictures of it again, I didn’t even remember what I called it on my files.

For the last few weekends, I have been working on one row at a time.
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My fabrics I actually chose a year ago just prior to the retreat I attended in February 2016, and it was sorta the last project I worked on there as the last day thing to jump start the next project. 

I have since been trading out fabric for better row color match or better quality of fabrics. 

Some of the pictures are even up on my new design wall.

This was before the design wall was hanging up.

Some in progress pictures of each row. Here’s how I start on the ladder pieces. Washable Elmer glue. I also pre-fold the paper before using. 

And the bulbs being glued down below.

The bulbs are large octogon pieces with black on the sides. I had forgotten the order to sew in when I first picked this block back up after a year off. So of course I forgot to sew the sides first. I mean, why look at the order on the back?

I am glad I work in batches. So I didn’t have to seam rip all those seams for all the colored rows.

Actually the paper is still on the backs of these blocks, so when I show them on my design wall, know they are pinned to it.

Above I am previewing the green.

I am pretty sure that I had knocked over the design wall before putting the green row on.

Anyway, now I am putting together these cuties in a tub to with me to the retreat next week to finish up and sew together into a top. Several more rows to go.

I am beginning to think that I may never make a full denim quilt. I did get rid of several fabrics in the last year I hadn’t made any move to use. I believe that the pink denim was removed from my stash.

So I want to thank you for listening to a story of a quilt that either never was, or has changed so much in the interim that is no longer recognized by the owner as exactly the same quilt as it started to become. Metamorphosis in action! 

40.1 Thoughts on The Creative Place in Spring Hill

Hey blog readers, this post is a month back, but finally got pictures uploaded. I anticipate being able to post again this week now that computer pictures have been transferred over. A majority of this was written almost a month ago, and if edited correctly, you wouldn’t notice, but please forgive future & past tense switches that do not make sense if I missed an edit.

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After my March – A – Long this year where I decided to focus on free motion quilting, several miniquilts of mine were quilted in time for our local quilt show in early July.

At the end of June, I was asked to attend a local mini retreat, which was perfect timing for the last bits of quilting needing to be done before the local quilt show.

In Spring Hill, Kansas, in a small downtown area (one block), quilter Kelly Ashton has a building she is calling The Creative Place, a retreat center for crafters.

Kelly has thought of almost everything a crafter/quilter would want, and frankly, I can’t figure out what she is missing.

I did miss meeting Kelly herself. She came the 2nd night when I was sleeping, and as I was driving away at the end of the retreat, I saw her just outside the front door with the last few remaining retreaters. I did however, see her hexagon presentation to our guild last year (or was it the year before?) and was impressed with her thought process and design even then.

Anyway, this place is great. It’s all one level, so it’s inhabiting like 2 “store fronts” of the downtown Spring Hill area.

The sewing space is huge. We had 16 – 18 people there One was a grandson who was visiting on one of the days, so mom could get some sewing time in (grandma was at the retreat). We could have had more day-trippers up to 25 may not feel that crowded. We weren’t actively using 7 tables for sewing, so they became quilt design “walls” and holding areas for fans.

But, Kelly also has her own movable design wall (out of PVC pipe), which most of us didn’t need, so sat unused behind one of the main cutting areas. Maybe the 2nd design wall was also hers, or maybe that was someone who brought one.

What also sat unused, but could have had lots of use, depending on the group, was a huge light table. A large handmade table with lights underneath and plexiglass top that several people could utilize all at the same time.

What sat underneath the light table, was a GO cutter, but no one also worked with that. I believe it was Kelly’s too, and I believe she wouldn’t have minded we use it either, but that was uncertain to those of us who noticed the cutter in our sewing area.

In the main sewing area, two bathrooms, with cute decorations, a front area next to the windows, several large ironing surfaces with storage available for use underneath, a back area with lots of local food menus / suggestions, a fridge.

In the front there was also a carpeted sitting area, which would be nice for sitting and chatting with handwork for some of the weekend.

Moving from the front room, to the left is the kitchen/bathroom/shower/area.  Toward the back of the place were two more bathrooms with step-in showers with handicapped railings.

Just along the hall were numbered hooks for towels, so each overnight guest wouldn’t get them mixed up, and provide a place for them to dry.

There were cubbies with extra blankets, and open spaces for people to store their things. Nice ikea shelves with lots of room!

The dining area is in the same “room” as the kitchen with four smallish tables and four chairs around each.

Kitchen was stocked with lots of plates, bowls, a brita water pitcher, general kitchen items, two coffee pots, electric water kettle, dishwasher, microwave etc. This was the first retreat that I have personally attended, where we didn’t have “set meals” where we got to go sit and eat together. People could come eat whenever they wanted, they did have to provide the food for ourselves, and there is enough places nearby for those who wanted to eat out.

The ladies coordinated suppers together, first night lasagna, second pulled pork, those meals were sit down with each other, but the rest was “on your own”. Totally different atmosphere than what I’ve seen at other retreats, but totally worth it! More sewing time!

The only minor downside was the sleeping area. It was very well done, but it was one large room with 16 beds. The only way I am calling it a downside is if there is a majorly loud snorer or if light sleepers have a hard time with noises.

Each bed had its own footrest where the bags/shoes/clothes would be kept. Each bed also had a numbered locker with a key on a bracelet so we could store personal/sensitive things. And on the locker were these low level lights so there could be “walking around” lights during the night that were enough to see to move around at night, but not too distracting for people who were sleeping.

Behind the sleeping area in the other window store-front was another sitting area with a couch, a couple of more chairs. We had it closed due to the heat. We ended up sewing on one of the hottest weekends of the summer (so far). Fans going constantly. Everywhere.

Also for the person sleeping next to the door to the kitchen area, if the light was on in the kitchen got a blast of light. Light was also a small problem for bathroom trips from the dark sleeping area if people were up and moving around the kitchen, it was sorta jarring due to the bright kitchen area lights. This could potentially be fixed with placement of some mobile kitchen lights that could be turned on during the normal sleeping hours, so the bright overheads could be shut off and the kitchen still be usable. Perhaps they were there and I didn’t see them?

So for those very, very small issues, the rest of the place here is amazing! Highly recommend a group to sign up for this retreat center!

Across the street was a quilt shop, the Quilted Sunflower, who opened up special on Friday night. Saturday afternoon, the group took a couple of hours going to a neighboring town’s quilt shop in Paola. I missed out on the trip into town because I was on a roll and I have been downsizing my stash a little this year. I did go to the Quilted Sunflower in Spring Hill.

And there are several quilt shops within 30-40 minute drive, for people out of the KC area to use.

This place was just so wonderful, I posted in another retreat’s FB page in case they need to move or want to add an extra retreat. Price seemed reasonable, the experience was lovely! Would do it again in a heartbeat.

Personally, I knew 5 of the ladies sewing with the group that was there, the rest were new to me, but some of them familiar – probably seen them at local quilt shows etc! The lady across from me brought a pattern and fabric for these cute strawberry blocks she was making! In strawberry jam jars! I didn’t realize she wasn’t staying on Sunday and so I didn’t get to say good bye.

Anyway, I highly recommend this place to stay. Reasonable price, lots of thoughtful decisions made on Kelly’s part make this place a really special place for quilters and other crafters to stay as a retreat center! 🙂

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39.0 First BOM – Stained Glass

For the brand new year, I happened upon a brand new BOM that I decided to join up and work on.

I love the stained glass look for quilts, and this one just spoke to me this time.

A designer for which I know little about, lives in Europe, I have bought one of her patterns before and the quilt is on my list to do, Ula Lenz has made the Ray of Hope quilt in hexagon style.

I have already completed the first block, here are some of the pieces I was working on.

I had a bright bag of orange, purple, pink batik scraps that I knew just “went together”. I think someone from my guild donated them to me at the last retreat a year ago. I had kept the fabrics separate from the rest of my stash, hoping to find a use for them.

I remembered seeing these fabrics recently, so I located an appropriately dark batik that I had bought to use for some purpose that matched these pretty batiks.

I have already cut out the border fabric for these blocks, the way Ula has us do the quilt is to make sashing and fun border wonky stars in between each of the hexagon blocks.

There are many color ways that would look fantastic for this quilt. I have luckily got the first block done, so I hope that I will be able to remind myself to download her next BOM when it’s posted at the beginning of each month.

It’s free. As you can see, each of the hexagons will be done in three sub blocks, and several of them have different amounts of seams on them.

Paper piecing doesn’t scare me.

Here’s the pretty block without the border pieces.

I hope I can keep enough of these fabrics in the quilt. I may try to find another light fabric to help with the contrast a little more on future blocks.

And here’s the block with border pieces. So now it can be sewn in square.