Tag Archives: sewing

Carpenter’s Wheel: Orchid Birdies

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Finally, I’m inspired to start a new quilt for myself.

I’d been reflecting on my favorite Gramma-Great quilt: the pink and white Carpenter’s Wheel block. All those diamonds are so enticing! However, I’m not ready to attempt Y-seams just yet. As luck would have it, my colleague pointed me to the magic-8 method for making half-square triangles and from there I searched how to assemble the block using these triangles instead of diamonds.

Last year, I purchased fabric without any intended project. I’d stumbled upon a delicate birdie print that I used for the wheel plus two coordinating solids.

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Bright Idea

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This month’s installment of BAM-alot Blocks found me hunting up the longest pieces of solid fabric for creating borders. I didn’t have any of the new fabric additions, so I thought I’d use the original purples and gray prints. Perhaps I could echo the pie slices in the corners and use colorful squares-on-point along the edges. I also toyed with triangles.

But for some reason, that hypnotizing circle fabric was too overwhelming. Maybe a good solid could contain its energizing powers. The purple seemed dull, but there were two possible reds, one burgundy and one hot pink. Guess which one I liked?

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A Little Pizzazz

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Every once in a while, I am intrigued by a Quilty speaker and take the workshop at the last minute.

That’s what happened this month. I fell in love with a batik fabric pack, bought some curvy templates and took Judy Sisneros’ Circle Pizzazz workshop.

What a treat to learn curved piecing at the 2013ZazzyRingMyfoot of a master. With fabulous tips and tricks she led us by the hand until we each had created a block. Her technique (make the first ring block, then cut it up and assemble the second block) reminded me of a color class I took in college where the professor had us make 2 simple watercolors in contrasting colors, and then told us to cut them up and weave them together. Scary! But it worked so beautifully. This pretty one is mine:

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Back in Tie-Land!

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For this Marin Autumn Retreat, I took another weekend trip to Tie-Land.

Working with the last blue shirt and two-dozen ties, I used the ‘string block’ method to make a four blocks for the pillow top and plan four solid blocks out of wool trousers for the backside.

My goal is to complete 8 pillows, so I’ll need to cut the last 23 ties very judiciously to make this work. 2013TieLandPillow

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BAM Around

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2013BAMAroundAugWith the long weekend, I’m contemplating my addition options for the round robin block. It’s déjà vu because my friend & I split a long strip-pieced fabric swatch for our starter blocks. I’m working on hers with a couple months of borders. Here’s my chosen color palette.

I’m looking forward2013BAMAroundAug2 to reintroducing purple. My other quandary is how to work with the trapezoid shape. I could square it up & turn it on point. I do like it much better with less green, but I’m not ready to cut it yet.

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Around we go, almost!

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For this installment of BAM-a-lot Blocks, I have a fun, stripe-n-square block that was last bordered only on two sides. My choice of fabrics included colors I thought would meld (orange and plum) as well as a bright teal and lime, plus an orange mandala print that’s similar to the multicolored small print already in the piece.

My first thought is to bookend half a mandala on 2013BAMaLot2each side, however, that seems a little too expected. Since it shines like a sunset sinking into a brilliant azure sea on the dusty purple horizon, I place it on the ‘top’ border centering it on the vertical and ponder the left half of the equation. Continuing the stacked blocks might work, but I decide to echo the stripes instead and save the blocks for the right side. I’m running out of that plum for the bottom. There’s just enough, with an orange squeaked in there to finish one last strip.

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Mod Robin: My Start

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Recently, I visited a local Modern Quilt Guild with a couple friends.

CandyFabricOne of the projects that drew me in was a small group round robin block. All the fresh fabrics were jumbled like Halloween candy on the table. As we were late to this group, my friend & I split the strip-pieced swatch in the foreground. I thought I might slice it up and reconstruct the block like my red striped pillow from last year, but I changed direction and put on a MQGJuly2013skewed border instead. I’d like to work more on the corners, but I like the wonky feel for my first BAM-a-Lot Block.

(NOTE: this is MY starting block for others to add sections or borders around.)

Labor of Love

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Another Autumn Retreat in Marin brings the saga of my ‘Labor of Love’ Heart quilt closer AND (sigh) further from completion.

Heart Quilt BackingLet me start by saying that I almost finished the backing Saturday. Seems I only had a 24” x 95” piece of the burgundy left, so I split it for the two outside borders and pieced the middle with all the leftover 3-6” strips. It looks so nifty and could be a quilt on its own. Other quilters would say I was crazy to be putting so much work into a backing, so I decided this would be reversible! It’s a traditionally pieced design on one side and the modern stripes on the other. Yeah, I’m crazy.

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Lucky 13

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Thirteen years ago, I embarked on a ‘Labor of Love’ as it were.

As the story goes, in 1998, I wanted to make a nifty Holiday quilt, but I wanted some practice first. So I planned a quilt-a-month project for 1999 to get warmed up. My Heart Quilt was only the second quilt on the list. [Insert heavy sigh here] It was a great start, sewing and piecing the hearts together that February. Unfortunately, the corner blocks stumped me and nothing I tried looked right. I shelved the project momentarily, but between travel, distractions and moving to another house, the better part of the decade zipped by with little more than a passing glance in 2003 & 2005 as I still had no better idea about how to finish those corners.

Then, I started going to March & September quilting retreats in 2009 and soaking up the knowledge and inspiration of my quilting collective. After my ‘Tie-land hiatus,’ I worked out the corner quandary and was emboldened in the home stretch to declare a brilliant decision to use Prairie Points around the border.

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