Other gems at QBL

    I was privileged to be around so much talent and creativity pouring out at QBL. I took photos of some of my classmates work and will post a sample here. I did not take my good Canon, so I am a bit disappointed in the photo quality. I regret I did not take more photos, but I was so busy working, that I missed a lot of the progress. A few people, I forgot names (the quiet ones). I missed some more great quilts.
    Also, a suite mate in the dorm of mine was Lynn Roddy Brown, a very accomplished quilter and author from Houston. I signed up to take one of her classes at the Houston Quilt Festival after meeting her. She is a wealth of technical and design knowledge patiently explained. I bought two of her books, Simple Strategies for Scrap Quilts, and Simple Strategies for Block Swap Quilts. She has another. I am awe of her abilities and personality. If you live anywhere near where she is teaching, go! Here is one of her quilts at the QBL show.

Lynn Roddy Brown

    Quilters from the made fabric class were creating these.

Connie's Made quilt

Made House

Jenny's made work

Made Houses

Norma, an 80+ quilting wizard

Made fabric center

Center with HST border, just amazing

Pat's made column

Great design from the woman with the orange HST borders,
wish I remembered her name!

    Quilters from the Lemoyne class were creating these. For even better photos, go to Lisa's blog, The redheaded mermaid, for more eye candy.

Beth's carefully though out star

Simple fabric, strips bring it to life

E's cut up top making a star point, 4 times

Emily's dragonfly star, carefully laid out using a folding mirror to cut shapes

Emily's wild star

E's quilt top that she cut up for stars, photo on theredheadedmermaid blog

Holly's King, super size, star

Just the racoons

With the borders, amazing

Look at Lisa's arrangement 1, with purple centers

Lisa's Arrangement 2, with stripe centers

Marcia's elegant neutral star

The neatest worker in the class, nothing ever out of place

 

Barbara's Japanese fabric star

Lemoyne Star at QBL

     The three day class with Victoria Findlay Wolfe held lots of challenges and new techniques such as Y seams.

    I started with having to make fabric. Some people had quilt tops they hated and cut them up. Some had orphan blocks. I sewed 6" squares and 6" x 12" rectangles together to make it big enough to cut out the star pattern.

The initial blocks

The cut out shapes, these are extra for now

Assembly started with settings, polka dot added to settings

Trial border with black against star

Trial border with red against star

Laying out the HSTs

Border laid on floor with numbers to match up

All sewn, need backing now but what?

The week of Quilting by the Lake

   Because I won a scholarship to Quilting by the Lake, I was able to take 5 days of classes of classes. I took 2 classes, both by Victoria Finlay Wolfe. The two day one was sewing a quilt with made fabric, the three day one was the Lemoyne star with made fabric. I just had to cover the lodging in the dorms. QBL is at Onondaga Community College outside of Syracuse, NY. It is two weeks long with a host of teachers from all over. Most of the classes are very experimental and fabric dyeing and printing. The classes I took were exactly what I wanted to make. I had bought Victoria's book, 15 Minutes of Play, over a year ago and had made fabric using scraps and I had followed her blog. 
     I love sewing scraps together. The classes were about 12 people, and only 5 took the same two courses. I was amazed at the work of the other people in the class and all I learned from them. Victoria helped each person with their work individually. We worked from 8:30 in the morning, stopped for lunch and dinner, and sewed more until 9 or 9:30. I had to endure a couple of migraines and did not sleep well, but was able to keep going. 
     In the first class, I had brought a lot of scrap fabric I had sewn together in pieces about 6 x 10. Then, I joined them together and was inspired by a small quilt in the book. I added triangle applique, curved piecing, and flying geese- learning new techniques. I bought some polka dot fabric from a vendor at the Quilt Show there (Quilters Corner) and used that for the borders. I am going to make a new entry for the Lemoyne class.

Fabric scraps sewn together

Squared up with borders

Stitching away at QBL

    I finally stopped sewing tonight at 9. When you start to make stupid mistakes, it is time to stop. I am taking a class by Victoria Finlay Wolfe on making fabric from scraps and then creating a quilt. So far today, this is my progress. Should have taken some earlier photos. Sorry, have not been able to load photos from my iPad on blogger.

Circles hanging together by threads

     Since the Circle Dance quilt was on the wall and spilling onto the floor, I needed to get it off and in order. Wanda recommended taking off by column and clipping the columns together. I did that and put the first column pile on the left and second on the right. Taking one from each column and sewing them together and then chain piecing the entire 2 columns. I certainly hope I understood her directions. I sewed columns 1 to 7 together (should have stopped a row sooner) and then 8 to 12. I have to iron all the seams and then pin the rows together. The last will be to sew that last column seam. It is rather unwieldy and I have been procrastinating ironing and pinning. I also have been watching the grandkids due to some family emergency. I am also packing for Quilting by the Lake next week; I won a scholarship and will be taking 5 days of classes with Victoria Findlay Wolfe. A bit nervous about it. Since I will living in a dorm, I have to bring everything for that and sewing stuff. And this for one who hates to pack.

Finishes in the Sun

    In order to photo the quilts, I have not been able to find a good place outside. While my husband was sanding the garage and priming it, I realized I could put some nails in the little room off the garage and use bulldog clips on the quilts and hang them on nails. It is not elegant, but neither am I. I just want good light and room to photo. I did this once, and then my husband pulled the nails out to prime it. So, I pounded in the nails again, and hung two finishes.
    The crumb attic windows quilt is all done. Love using those scraps.

      I needed to make a grandson a new truck quilt. The fleece one I made him, he refuses to give it up even on hot nights making him a sweatball. I previously posted the truck fabric I bought from fabric.com. Since we needed it in a hurry, I used two yards of one fabric on the front and two yards of a different truck fabric on the back. I wanted it wider when he goes in to a twin bed instead of the youth one he is in. I used some yellow fabric that reminds of the color of construction signs and vehicles. I quilted it on the Bailey and used a zig zag pattern from the Inbox Jaunt. It looked terrific, like tire tracks. After a striped binding, I gave it to him yesterday and hope he had a good night's sleep.

Not quite Dancing with Circles

    Way back, I started a quilt for my daughter as a present for her wedding. We picked out the fabric in July last year after the dust from her wedding settled. She chose a pattern from many I showed her and it was kind of Circle Dance. I had one photo that Wanda made and the other from the seller of the templates. I bought the large and small templates because when I made my own, they were too flimsy for cutting the curves- kind of important. The past year, I have cut all the blocks and attempted to sew them in a consistent manner. I tried glue, pins, feet, etc. Finally, I watched a youtube video where there were no pins used, but the top curved piece was held above the bottom bigger piece and fed through. I sewed them on my 301 with a regular foot and the old vintage seam guide screwed in at 1/4".  This finally got the job done.
    My daughter was on her way to drive her dissertation (praise God, finally got approval) to Rochester, NY from Meadville, PA and was stopping home in Buffalo overnight. So, in anticipation, I put all the blocks on the design wall so she could arrange them the way she wanted. It was 12 blocks wide by 14 tall, so it did not fit on my wall and I had to lay the last 2 rows on the floor. When I put them up, I did not like it at all. It was all chop suey. I sent a photo to Wanda and her expert advice had me remove the very light, and find some bigger patterns to put in. I sewed about another 25-30 blocks and added them. 
    When Ria came in, she spent a lot of time rearranging and I sewed some more. All those light blocks I will have to use in a small quilt I think. She had to leave early this morning, so she made a final arrangement. Now I have to number them all and get them down before the cat starts removing them- a job he loves.

First attempt, Yikes, going nowhere

Ria's final choice

Fabric Time!

     For our 38th anniversary, my husband and I went away for a night to Watkins Glen, NY. The State Park is beautiful and took a lot of photos of the gorge. In addition, I managed to hit three quilt stores- Golden Lake in Penn Yann, Oh Susannah in Watkins Glen, and my favorite, Quilter's Corner in Ithaca. I had also just bought some on line fabric. Sort of a fabric fiesta going on here. I also did something I swore I would never do, buy a kit. I hate kits. I don't want to make something someone else already has done. But when I saw the quilt on the wall and the unusual fabrics included, I weakened. I will try and replace some of them so it won't be exact. In Buffalo, we just don't have a variety of fabrics, especially ones I like. I hate to always order online, trying to support LQS that I know struggle to stay open. Feeling kind of fabric glutted at the moment and wondering how I will sew it all. 

From online. Just had to have vintage sewing machines.

For another one block wonder. I think this will be stunning. Repeat 24". From Penn Yann.

Super fun color. Maybe I can be Wanda for a day. From Oh Susannah's

The New American Made Fabric by Clothworks. Want to do their challenge,
but need more colors than Quilter's Corners had.

Guilty of buying a kit. Quilter's Corners.