Low volume blocks ready to load!

    Another quilt project gifted by Quiltdiva Julie is the low volume strip blocks. I cut them diagonally, added burnt orange strips (fabric also gifted by her), and played with a number of layouts until this one emerged. I just love the fabrics used for the strips. Of course, I had to cobble together another row to make the design work.
    Well, I webbed it and sewed on a cool border print (Bohemian Rhapsody). Now it goes to the quilting line up. Hopefully my ruler work from the upcoming class will be able to bear fruit on this top! Yes, the border fabric is gradated, not a lighting issue. I like that. Don't know what the binding will be. I never decide until it is quilted and trimmed. Then I audition fabric next to it.

Diamonds look terrific, but ruler work needed

     On September 6th, I was supposed to take a ruler class with Kim Werth of Rochester at my Nolting dealer. Why? Because I stink at them. I don't know how to cleanly quilt holding onto a slippery ruler with one hand and moving a big longarm with the other. If I make the plastic ruler sticky, it doesn't move well. When quilting on the diagonal, you have to use a ruler. Didn't know that when I bought a longarm. I do all hand guided quilting and am not changing. However, Kim postponed the class because her father suddenly passed away the day before.
    Instead of the class, I went to cardiac rehab as usual. What wasn't usual is that the treadmill I was on with just a couple of minutes left-the motor exploded with sparks, pops, a couple flames. None of us were injured, but it did me in for the rest of the day- I was useless. I thought at first it was gunfire due to the flashes and loud pops as I dove off the moving belt. I am glad I was not electrocuted!
    The last quilt I did with rulers, a 3 dudes design from strips the Quiltdiva Julie sent me, is all on the diagonal, which I love, but needed rulers to quilt it. The diamonds are lovely, quilting- well, I tried. It is all bound and ready for referral to fly out the door.
UPDATE: The quilt package is made is going out the door to a man who has young children and is gravely ill with cancer. The referral came from a friend who is the 4th grade teacher of the man's oldest child. I had an extra block that I used for the tote bag that holds the quilt and goodies.

More fun, this time with Kaffe fabric

    Well, I am so fortunate to be gifted a whole raft of Kaffe fabric squares and pieces- enough to make a comfort quilt from the wonderful Quiltdiva Julie! I oohed and ahhed opening the squishy and I thought of a pattern I bought from Material Girlfriends called Wallah. It calls for cutting up a layer cake into 5" squares. I don't like to do that as that 10" layer cake is always precious to me so I try to use it for bigger cuts. Well, the squares from Julie were 6" so the quilt would be a better size for a comfort quilt than with 5" ones. 

    Made a sample set and yes, I am going to keep going. The pattern is fairly easy except the trimming of the block is tricky. I ruined a couple because it is not even across the two blocks. I had to read and re-read the diagram which could have been bigger and had a star or note to highlight the unusual trimming.

Sample with 4 blocks

Cache of gifted fabric!

Those wonderful low volumes plus solids extravaganza!

All these in one fabulous box! (Plus strips to left side)

    A very big box arrived from Quiltdiva Julie with all these gorgeous solid colors jam packed ready for color sorting.

      Also in the mail was a squishy from Quiltdiva Julie of blocks that were strips of low volume prints, wonderful ones. I fooled around with them along with some fabric she sent separately. In my head, I could see a burnt red orange working with these blocks. In the huge box of solids and blender fabric, there were 4 different kinds of that fabric- meant to be!

    I folded two blocks with the color fabric in the middle. I decided to sew two blocks together. With the wide strips at the bottom right sides together, I cut them diagonally to make two sets of blocks. I inserted a 1 1/2" stripe of the burnt orange as the diagonal. I did a bunch of layouts, but then made 4 more blocks out of extra fabric she sent to make the layout of my choice. Next step, webbing the whole thing with more burnt orange around it for a 1st border.

Final Layout after making 4 more blocks. Now to web sew.

Jelly Twist 1 and 2

      I have had just plain trouble writing and posting. I want to, need to, but my ability to multi-task in my life is not where I would have it. Other stuff is getting done, but not writing. There is a certain mental energy and focus that writing takes and I find myself often lacking it. I am going to try to get on track.
       The last time I showed Jelly Twist by Cluck, Cluck, Sew, most of it was together. However, the more I complete tops, the more I dislike having lots of seams in the binding for bulk and also I want more fabric with allowance to trim. So, I sewed extra colored strips made up of scrappy batiks for an outside border. If I trim after quilting, it will not change the quilt itself. I like the finish of it. So, I girded up, pulled fabric and sewed it on. Now, ready for the quilting pile (like a lot of other ones done).

     So, Jelly Twist 2 is from strips sent by Quiltdiva Julie. I thought I would put the black strip in the center of each block, so I made some sample blocks and tried it out. Nope, the black took over and made a different look than what I wanted. Unfortunately, I had sewn all the center black strips with the white squares on to be efficient and had to dig out other white fabric and cut squares. I found some other color strips I had to supplement for the black ones. I should have just cut the strips I needed for the sample and then evaluated instead of cutting perfectly good strips I now have to salvage.

Yikes with the black, right?

Ah, better, ok?

Set of two rings of blocks. Decided to leave out the whites with real darks from now on. Back to digging out more strips.

     Now, out of 48 blocks, I have 30 sewn. The other blocks I layed out on pieces of cardboard stacked up so I know I have enough strips to sew all 48 blocks.

The green and gold!

      Another done quilt, this time the pieces and fabric from Quiltdiva Julie. This was part of a boxed set of goodies/quilt pieces from Julie to put together. My husband's high school colors were green and gold, so he really liked to see this one finished. It is a comfort quilt waiting for a referral to recipient who needs the comfort contained within.

Choosing Borders

Quilted and trimmed

With binding provided by Julie

Quilted details

Back, love that Blueberry Park fabric!

Back Detail

Fabrics and Finish

      I did finish the 3 Dudes quilt with a border. Rosie is inspecting and wrecking the design wall, multi tasking. I think it came out great, thanks Julie for curating and cutting all that fabric.

      Also, I made sure I visited Fox's Sew and Vac in Meadville, PA when visiting my daughter the Saturday after Thanksgiving as their email showed great sales. I got 20 fat quarters for $20, I chose. I got 5 yards of fabric for $5 each. And I bought some funky Benartex fabrics 20% off- 10 fat quarters and three- 1 yard pieces. Now to what quilt to make with it. Something star like maybe. Hmm.

Presto Change O, different quilt

      One of the quilts I worked on the retreat was one from QuiltDiva Julie. She gave me two that used the same rail fence type pattern. I did make the first one according to plan, but when I started sewing the second one, I got fidgety. I looked and thought and rembered the 3 Dudes quilt from MSQC I made long ago. It would lend itself perfectly with no waste.
     I started with the same rail fence blocks, Light Dark Light Dark Light and Dark Light Dark Light Dark, but then I placed them right sides together and sewed all around them. Then I cut them diagonally from corner to corner twice.

      Pretty dynamic for some brown and neutral stips, huh? It excited me.

Sewn quilt, it did get a border to make it wider (shown another day)- no fabric wasted from what Julie sent me!

Tops sewn, borders on- bring on the backings!

      Two more tops were finished. I shopped at Joann's for the border fabric for the flannel batik squares quilt. I could not find batik flannel anywhere, so I bought a mottled lighter blue and a dark blue solid for the borders. After washing it, I cut and sewed the borders on and it is a big size about 70 x 76 now. I have to just accept it as it is instead of what it could be with the right fabric. It is soft and cuddly. When I was at Joann's, I was able to buy 5 yards of regular light blue mottled fabric that I seamed the long way for the backing (washed first) so the whole quilt is now in the line for the longarm.

    The Orange HSTs quilt with the gray slashes from Quiltdiva Julie was also sewn together, web style, and as I looked it on the wall, I thought it needed a thin border to hold the edges together when the binding was sewn on. I also thought a border would help to visually end the diagonal lines before exiting the quilt. I did not have enough of the gray used for the diagonal slashes, so a different gray was added which I think works. It is 71 x 84 so it needs a big backing. I dug out a dark blue 6 yard piece I bought at Zinck's in Berlin last May for it, but need to seam it yet. Wish I had bought more backing fabric there then.

Orange HSTs final arrangement

      I played around with the HSTs for a while, and finally decided to put the greenish, lightish squares in the center and the darker oranges around it. Sort of. I like the unpredictable quality of it. This layout is instead of the long skinny symmetrical one I showed in an earlier post. The fabrics are wonderful. I have it clipped together to web it soon.

     Also, here is the sewn green/gold HSTs top with border choice.

Green/Gold HSTs

      The second gifted HST quilt is a green/golds one. I tried arranging the groupings of 4 in different directions, but I kept coming back to all of them in the same position. Somehow, that appeals to me. The varied tones of greens and golds seem to pull together this way. The quilt was a little small, so I added a 2" finished green border and now am picking a wider yellow one (4" Finished). I don't know why, but it reminds me of picnic tables in the park when I was a kid. They were always dark green.

Some special HSTs

       In looking over past posts and lack of, I realized that although I posted the bars and leaves quilt I sewed and quilted that was given me by Quiltdiva Julie, I never posted the extent of the gifted top kits. There were 4 quilt kits contained plus backings, bindings. Two were the strips/bars and two were precut triangles for HST quilts. I have been chipping away at the two HSTs ones. The orange HST arrangement is tall and skinny, but I like the diamond center. If I use wide side borders, it may work. I have a gray print on the wall to consider.

I changed the green strip between the triangles to a gray

Trying some layouts with HSTS

First attempt on wall. The top row is flopped over because my wall is not tall enough.

Full layout, gray side border idea

     I am going to rearrange all the HSTs again in a different layout to try another idea.