Retreating

It's been nearly two years since I've gone on retreat with the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild so I'm pretty excited to be heading out this morning to meet them! Though I've been known to pack as many as ten projects for a weekend's getaway, this time I'm paring it down...

1. I just finished pattern-testing Krista/Poppyprint's Quarter Round pattern, and have two blocks made. I'm taking everything I need for the remaining two blocks through to finishing this mini.

2. This one is most timely and will be the biggest challenge, but cutting triangles is as far as I've gotten on my Sew Ready to Play! project! I'm seriously hoping to at least piece this one if not more.

3. Though I don't usually take largish quilts to machine quilt on retreat, I am this time. Quilting my Bee Sewcial Swap project the way I am definitely calls for breaks now and then, so I'm hoping to squeeze some work on this in between the other projects. You can see some of my progress here - I'd guess I'm about 1/3 done.

4. I originally planned to make a backing for my improv log cabin quilt, but it's gonna be big and I'm still mulling what to do with it. This may be silly, but I think I'll at least make one of Felice/Sew Scatterbrained's new Retro Television Blocks, since so many folks have said that's what these blocks remind them of. I'll keep you guessing what I'm thinking of putting 'on' TV. Here's one of Felice's blocks on Instagram, where she's known as iamlunasol.

5. And lastly, after some internal debate on whether or not to take my long-lost Polaroid blocks, I squeezed them in. As much as I want to use up these long-stashed little blocks, I haven't gotten the momentum at all. I've debated more than once about just finding them a new home. But we'll see....taking them just in case.

So I'm hoping to have at least two of these finished to show you next week, and progress made on the rest. And no worries. If I just need to work on something else, our friends from Island Quilter will be there tomorrow with their traveling pop-up shop! Sounds like fun, right?

Mini Mini

I pretty much have watched the mini mini quilt swapping from the back seat, where I might had stayed if not for the SeattleMQG who declared such a swap for this month's meeting. So the mini I made for the swap is reminiscent of a recent favorite quilt, though this time only 6" square. I kind of can't get the X Marks the Improv block out of my system!

So of course, I got a mini mini too...

It's about 6" square also, and made by Jaci/[jaci_bartol]. Jaci's favorite part of her mini mini is the quilting on the back. I think mine are those teeny tiny bits in the center square! Whatever, I was more than pleased to take this sweet little quilt home with me.

Next month we're swapping Pixie Baskets!

Spotlighting Highlight

There were several reasons I was anxious to finish up my #seamqgbom quilt early this month. One, obviously, was I'd been working on it for a year. Enough already. Then there was a show and tell planned for our January SMQG meeting, so that was good incentive. But more than anything, I knew something new was coming, and I wanted to be ready.

My bee-mate Matt is our new block of the month leader, and he has something pretty cool planned. We'll be using the hashtag #seaSLABbom, as we make slabs of improv blocks, exploring a different shape or technique each month. And Matt, amazing as he is, had a sample quilt top already! Irresistible, right?

photo courtesy of Matt Macomber

So our assignment for January is pretty simple: curate our fabrics. Using Highlight, the Kona Color of the Year was on my to-do list anyway, so I figured perfect timing. I'm thinking a mix of neutrals for the background, Highlight as my main color, along with the Pickle and Wasabi, and then Fog for some random pops of color.

To say I'm anxious to get started is an understatement!

Confectionery

After all that talk about taking your finished quilt out into the world for a snazzy photoshoot, I really struggled to make this one happen. Basically, due to the size of the quilt (80"x80"), it was too wide for either hubby or I to hold out straight, so we had a grand plan to use the new photographer's background stand that I'd gotten for Christmas. That was a good news/bad news plan that I'll tell you more about later, but let's just say things didn't go as we'd anticipated. Anyway, on with the story....

This quilt which I've dubbed "Confectionery" has been in the making for over 12 months! That's way longer than I usually spend on one quilt, but when it's a block-of-the-month, that's what you do! This BOM with SMQG was unique in a variety of ways":

• Rather than make a standard block quilt, we started last January by each making a 12.5" unfinished block of our own choosing. 
• Each of the following eight months, a quilt member would design and post a new border. 
• Then for the last three months of the year, as I've mentioned before, I posted finishing technique round ups for the group. 

Overall I really enjoyed making this quilt, though before long I started to seriously doubt my fabric choices. Not that I didn't like them all. I did, alot. But this riot of color on such a large scale overwhelmed me! I persevered, though, and I'm glad I did. I had pulled as much as I could from my stash of prints by Alison Glass, using a variety of low-volume prints as the backgrounds of each border. 

For the backing, I echoed two elements from the front - the churn dash center (etc. etc.), and the 'brick' border. I pretty much figured it out as I went, and have been asked to go into more detail about that, so I hope to also do that in a separate post soon.

Honestly, I wasn't in the mood at that point to do a complicated quilting pattern. My original thought was a diagonal grid, but after marking and sewing just a few lines, I realized I didn't want to go that route, specifically the marking part. Rather, I unpicked and restarted in the center, doing a square spiral using seam-lines as guides and sewing 1" to 1 1/2" apart, depending on each border. I can't say it's overly impressive, but it did the job, works with the quilt design, and I survived to tell about it.

For binding, I used the text print from Alison Glass' Sun Print and Carrie Bloomston's Collage newsprint stripe. My intent was to echo the pair of dark purple corner borders within the quilt, but neither my fabric choice nor the width of the binding contributed to pulling that off. Oh well, I know the little detail is there. 

So mission accomplished. Whew. And I did get to spend a nice afternoon at the beach.

This finish is on my Q1 FAL list! Oh joy.
Linking up with Fabric Tuesday.

A Christmas House

It's always a bit of a dilema when it's time to make something for a swap. So I followed the guidelines of 'make something you'd like to receive' as well as "make something that you'll enjoy making." And I hit it on both counts. Plus I got to use a pattern I've been wanting to try - Carolyn Friedlander's "Austin House," which I nabbed at QuiltCon. Happily, the block went together so smoothly, and even though I love how it looks in Carolyn's own fabric, I couldn't resist trying a scrappy Christmas look.

Having made just one block, my project was destined to remain relatively small. Surrounded by more background fabric (a gray chambray), I was aiming for a 12" x 24" pillow insert. For quilting, I tried another something I've been wanting to try - a diamond crosshatch, with lines about 3/8" apart. What fine texture it creates.

This time around, after the quilting I trimmed both front and back to the same dimensions as the insert, after having used this lapped zipper tutorial by Pile O'Fabric, which worked perfectly. Then I sewed the front and back together with a 1/2" seam, turned it all right-side out, and voila! It filled the pillow out quite nicely, so remind me to do that next time, would you?

[Random note: after finishing the pillow, I happened upon made by ChrissieD's Quilted Pillow Cushion with Hidden Zipper, which has a zipper installation that's very very similar, except with 1/4" double-stick fusible tape....a clever idea I'd like to try.]

So the pillow got taken to the #SeattleMQG holiday party today, was swapped twice, and then happily claimed by my bee-mate Aline/augustdreamsquilts. Good times.

Midway Medallions

You've seen my medallion quilt as I've worked on it through the year, and I thought you might enjoy seeing some other medallion works-in-progress. All the makers are members of the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild, and you can see this year's monthly border assignments on our blog. I know there are a few more where I either couldn't identify the maker, or connect for permission to share, so you might want to check out the Instagram hashtag #seamqgbom. But here's most of them, with links to their Instagram accounts if you'd like to see more.

Allison/allisonehs

Jonna/bespokeoutlaw

Bell/golfhead

Louise/imfeelincrafty

Jaci/j_bartol

 Kam/kammart

Rachel/liketosew

Matt/odditease

Matt/odditease (yes, Matt is making 2!)

Rachel/snippetsofsweetness

Jackie/tinwoman48

Debbie/aquilterstable

We've all got at least a couple of borders to go, and I'll be sharing round-up posts for the guild to get us through all the finishing. Here's the first on squaring a quilt, ideas for quilt backs, and basting. I'm excited to see all of these quilts progress!

Improv Afternoon

After working all week on a project for Purse Palooza, and before diving back into quilting my Bee Sewcial quilt, I figured I better work on a couple of the smaller items on my to-do list. Happily, improv was the name of the game.

For Seattle Modern Quilt Guild's QuiltCon 2016 Charity quilt, we were asked to make solid improvisationally pieced diamonds "pieced in a modern style using a main color and one or two accent colors. The accent colors should be minimal, comprising approximately 15% or less of the diamond." The colors available were all in the palette chosen by the Modern Quilt Guild, and we were asked to choose among limited groupings to evenly distribute the colors among the guild. I picked yellow as my main color, with accents of white and off-white. We were also given a template for the final diamond, which measured 13" tall by 6.5" wide. I enjoyed working with a shape that wasn't in my normal repertoire.

Once that was done, I felt warmed up enough to face my Bee Sewcial assignment for the month. Felicity/Felicity Quilts chose a theme of Minimalist Abstract Winter Landscapes in black, white, and shades of gray. Remember, we work only in solids, and other than the white 'background,' I was able to pull the rest from the scrap basket, which felt good. One photo in particular called to me from Felicity's inspiration board. Let me know if you can pick it out, ok?

PNW MQG Meetup

This last weekend the Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Guild Meetup was held right here in Seattle, hosted by the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild. This is an annual event, with locations rotating between Portland OR, Vancouver BC, and Seattle. I had only been to 1 meetup before, in Portland, in 2013. This year, 11 PNW guilds were represented - isn't that cool?

Our weekend started with a potluck on Thursday night at Ravenna Park, where we got acquainted, swapped buttons ala QuiltCon, sat around hand-stitching, and even had sew and tell. It was a fine beginning.

Friday there were a couple of tours offered - 1 to Martingale Publishing, and the one I went to at Clothworks. Ted Hoffman, CEO, led us on a tour of the facility followed by a presentation on their American Brand Made Cotton Solids fabric. It was really interesting and we all went home with ABM color cards - yay.

Clockwise starting from left: AMB Cotton Solids; with Ted are Allison/allisonsews, our SMQG Vice President of Programming and Kristen/kristenballou, our guild President; my "backseat drivers" and I: Michelle/goldogmom, Ruth, & Marcie/bikeham33

I missed the Happy Hour Shopping Party at Drygoods Design, but doesn't that sound fun? That evening a group of us ventured out to Kidd Valley for burgers and conversation, and back at the hotel, there was a mixer, including a composition book swap. I didn't participate, but sure enjoyed seeing the workmanship.

Rachel/liketosew, Rachel/snippetsofsweetness, Michelle/goldogmom, me, Louise/imfeelincrafty

Saturday was sew-in day and the room was packed! Read: crowded and deafening. But we squeezed together and sewed the hours away. I mostly worked on a geometric sewing machine, using the pattern by Quiet Play. I'll share that yet this week. There was also a demo by Lysa Flower from the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild on her Match Needle Book, with supplies provided by Circa 15 Fabric Studio. We all got kits to make our own, and it's great the you, too, can find the tutorial on Lysa's blog.

Becca/velouria73, Louise/imfeelincrafty, me, Rachel/snippetsofsweetness, Rachel/liketosew

 

I got to try a new-to-me restaurant for lunch, Evolution Fresh. Besides being really healthy stuff, it was unique in that you can have your menu choice as a salad, soup, or a wrap. Same basic ingredients presented 3 ways. Plus there were handcrafted juices, and I found it all really tasty.

Oh, and one really special feature of our meetup was that Island Quilter came and provided a pop-up shop for us! Shop hops were an opportunity each day of the meetup, and that was great, but having Island Quilter in-house was uber convenient and fun.

Anyway, we sewed all day Saturday, met more new quilty types, and basically just hung out. We also made charity blocks - improv forest blocks with Modern Solids supplied by In the Beginning Fabrics in beautiful northwest hues. Late in the day, my sewing table finished up with a delicious dinner at Din Tai Fung Dumpling House. We had a crazy long wait to get in, but boy were those dumplings delish! Good to know!

 

group blocks above, my blocks below

Wendy/wweathers, Rachel/liketosew, Rachel/snippetsofsweetness, Louise/imfeelincrafty, 

Last on my list as far as meetup events went was on Sunday, when I headed out to Quilting Mayhem in Snohomish, where SMQG member Allison Dutton was doing a demo on freezer paper paper-piecing. It was good to see her technique, and I definitely want to try it. You can too, as she has a post about it on her blog.

Allison/allisonsews

Last but not least, there were awesome swag bags, thanks to our generous sponsors: American Made Brand, Andover, Aurifil, Bernina of Renton, carolina patchworks, Circa15, Connecting Threads, Gathering Fabric, In the Beginning Fabrics, Jaybird Quilts, Martingale, Massdrop, Nancy’s Sewing Basket, Pacific Fabrics, Pile O'Fabric, Quality Sewing, Quilting Mayhem, Quilt Now, Quilt Sandwich Fabrics, Robert Kaufman Fabrics, Sassafras Lane Designs, Schmetz Needles, Sew Fabulous, Sew Sweetness, and Timeless Treasures. Wow. That's pretty amazing!

 

And a huge shout-out to our guild board for all they did to make the meetup successful: Kristen/kristenballou, Allison/allisonsews, Martha/onceawingnut, Megan/quiltygoodness, and Kate/whatatangle. All weekend we used the Ig hashtag #EPICMeetup2015, so glance there if you want to peek in on more of the fun!

Making Headway

Ok, you might want to put your sunglasses on...

It's been a while since I've shared progress on my SMQG block of the month medallion quilt. For my 12 1/2" center block, I chose HoosierToni's Skinny Churn Dash. From there I added borders designed by the BOM team. They're all on our guild's website, if you're interested.

Anyway, I'm caught up through July. August's border was just posted, so plenty of hsts are in my future. Then there's just one more border before we start finishing our quilts. Sooo here's my medallion so far!

I'm trying to tame some of the brightness with the low-volume prints, but it's still pretty wild. Stay tuned!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday.

Paint Chip Challenge

Remember a couple of months ago when I told you about the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Paint Chip Challenge? Well we were on vacation during the beginning of the exhibit at Seattle's Drygoods Design, and though I really meant to get there once we got home, it just didn't happen. Thanks to my guild-buddy Louise/I'm Feelin' Crafty for letting me share her photos with you!

Exhibit photos courtesy of I'm Feelin' Crafty
 

Each person was given a paint chip with one of 4 palettes - darker blues, teals, light blue-greys, or white-greys. A small number of members randomly received a bonus paint chip with yellows that they had to incorporate into their quilt. All finished quilts needed to be 18" square. In case you missed my post about it, here's my entry, Through the Looking Glass.  

There were 2 display areas in the exhibit, a 9-patch table quilt and a 49-patch wall quilt.

Aren't they cool? Here's another glance at all the quilts with their makers. I was so amazed at the variety of designs and as usual, the workmanship was exquisite. Must say, I feel pretty fortunate to be among them.