Let’s Blog About Quilt Shows
This photo, from a quilt show in Grants, NM, is from Andra’s blog, Simplify and Quilt. I know that you know that I loved seeing a quilt made from our Tic-Tac-Toe blocks among her quilts on display in this booth.
As quilters, we may enter quilts in shows, help organize and hang them, participate as a vendor, attend and enjoy, or enjoy the eye candy from shows around the world shared by others.
In November, please share your quilt show experience by adding a link below. It doesn’t have to be a new blog post, if you want to share something from earlier this year, that’s OK–not all quilt shows happen in November, after all. Here are some ideas to jump start your thinking:
- Share photos from a quilt show
- Share the blog posts with your entries in the Blogger’s Quilt Festival (you may link multiple posts)
- Blog about a class you’ve taken at a quilt show
- Blog about Quilt Market
- Blog about volunteering for a show (or a booth)
- Blog about teaching at a show
- Blog about quilts you’ve entered in shows and judges feedback
Ontario Newbie
Hello everyone, this has been a complex month for me and I was only able to put one block together. I am a new Quilter/piecer so found the Oak Leaf block exciting yet a challenge…my biggest lesson was in realizing metric and inches measuring tools are not interchangeable and understanding that Finished means size after Block is set into the project.. Having resolved those issues it was clear Sailing.
Sophie Thank You for your Patience and help…Ladies the Oak Leaf blocks you have submitted pictures of are just gorgeous and with practice and luck I hope I’ll get there too. The Colors are wonderful… I can’t wait to get started on the next project! Light and Love…Charlene
Special Thanks
I meant to share this earlier … and give credit where credit is due 🙂
Johnny Be Good, my big male tabby, helped design this month’s block. At least, he thought it was helping … he decided when the leaf was ready and when it was time for me to stop fiddling with it and go play with him.
Thanks Sophie for getting me sorted
Hi everyone.
Thanks to Sophie’s help I have managed to finally get sorted out. I am from near Melbourne, Australia. We are in spring at the moment but it is very cold & wet this week here but up north in Sydney, about 10 hours away, they are suffering their worst bush fires. We are all making quilts to send up there. Thanks Sophie for putting up my blocks for me. I did enjoy making them. Let’s hope I can manage it myself next time.
A Scrappy Leaf, a Monochrome Bird … and some more sampler blocks
Even though I already knew in January that I wanted to make a red and white sampler with this year’s lotto blocks … it wasn’t until sometime last week when I decided on which red fabrics and whether I’d go scrappy within each block or not.
Once decided, things are going together quickly.
I started with some Kona white solid yardage and a set of 10 quarter yards of these indigo reds–9 prints and a red solid–purchased at a quilt show a long time ago.
Back in January, I shared this simple plan for a sampler quilt. My idea was to make a quick quilt with lots of white space for quilting.
My idea was that I would make four of two of the wide blocks to make the horizontal bars at the top and bottom, 9 blocks would be featured in the center and the 12th block would be used for the label.
I had been thinking that the house block would become the label, but after seeing the blocks made so far, I think the log cabin variation will go on the back with the label info written onto the white round of logs. Here are all the lotto blocks we’ve made so far, except the house.
There will be more space between the blocks in the finished quilt.
I suppose the moral of this story is that it’s not too late to make your own sampler if you have liked this year’s blocks. One advantage for me of waiting to make the blocks was that, after making the Oak Leaf pattern, it occurred to me to make the flying geese individually and then square up and cut down the bonus triangle squares and use them in scrappy versions of the Oak Leaf, Tall Ship, Tall Fly and Tall Star blocks … and use them all up.
I didn’t realize how picture block heavy the blocks this year are … I know that there’s usually better balance of types of blocks/techniques.
If this kind of blocks is NOT your thing, you might be happy to know that my challenge for next year (for myself) is to choose/design a set of predominately geometric blocks.
If you are sampling one or more lotto blocks for a project of your own and want to post a progress report, use the category block lotto community and add the tag my sampler.
Let’s Blog About Tools and Gadgets
I recently took a pair of scissors, along with some kitchen knives, to the knife-sharpener at the Farmer’s market. While I waited for him to sharpen my tools, I started thinking about how long I’ve owned that little pair of Dovo scissors and how they have become one of the tried-and-true quilting tools.
Here’s a photo of some of the things I couldn’t imagine quilting without … and one gadget that seemed like a good idea, but that I never use.
For our October Linky Party, let’s blog about tools and gadgets–the ones we love, the ones we bought on a lark and never use, the ones that surprised us because they became so useful. I’ve owned the large African porcupine quills in my photo a long time–longer than I’ve been a quilter. Originally purchased to use to manipulate ribbon (when making flowers and other trims for hats), it is also works well to hold fabrics in place and guide them through the machine when I don’t have enough room for fingers.
If you blog about tools or gadgets during the month of October, please use the Linky tool below to add your post to the “party.”
recent progress on UFOs using Sophie birds
The first two photos above are pics of work in progress on the Lori Holt Row along, featuring a row of Sophie birds from a couple of months ago. (I haven’t done the white sashing so just laid these rows on some white fabric). At first I was going to have the birds facing the center, but when I began sorting them, I realized they sort of fell into pairs, with one of each being a bit more flamboyant (I guess it’s the male!) I also had to downsize the pattern a bit to make it proportional to the other rows. (I also now see from the photo that one of my mugs is too light, so I’ll need to replace it with a darker aqua). (The Lori Holt rowalong is shown on her blog BeeinMyBonnet, but she has taken down the cutting instructions, as she has a book coming out soon that will have this pattern). My birds replace her mitten row, and I also plan to substitute a row of small hearts for her row of spools, since my prospective recipient is not a sew – er (sewer looked weird!).
The third photo is my completed I Spy top for my great niece. I used a pattern from a recent Quilty magazine. It had used 5 inch charms, but all my I Spy stash are 4 inch, so I had to resize the block to make it work. I also machine appliqued her name in the pink area (“Stella”). I used the machine blanket stitch. I like my I spies to have a look that may survive early childhood, so I really like the overall rainbow feel of this one; I haven’t picked the backing yet. Stella is one, so she will have fun with finding matches in the little blocks.
Let’s Blog About COLOR
The Weekend Update is CHANGING … beginning today, there will be a month-long linky party on a specific topic.
In September, blog about color and share a link below. Possible color topics could include:
- Colors you love or hate … or are just tired of seeing everywhere
- What’s your “neutral?” I there a color that you can make go with anything?
- Challenge yourself with colors that are out of the box for you in a project and blog about it
- Your go-to colors or color-combinations … or your new favorite.
Weekend Update
The sunflowers outside my house are finally blooming … so the end of summer must be near. I don’t know if they were ever consciously planted here, I have volunteers everywhere along the path to my studio door. They are so cheerful, I don’t want to pull any of them out … even this little guy that is clearly not growing where the sunflowers were meant to be.
Are you wrapping up summer–or winter, for those south of the equator, already in back to school mode, or, like me, hanging onto summer, now that the sunflowers have bloomed, as long as you can?
Please take a moment to share a link from your blog on any topic of your choice, using the link below.
FYI, I have some ideas about making some (small) changes to our Linky Party. I plan to roll those out at the end of the month. Stay tuned.
Weekend Update – How did you start Quilting?
This sad little specimen is my first ever finished quilt. The Snail’s Trail blocks are 4 inches square, the whole quilt is only 12 inches.
A woman I had met through a mutual friend was teaching a paper foundation class and I decided to check it out. The little quilt is made from two cotton shirts, one blue and one gray, and some white-on-white fabric for the inner border that a fellow classmate gave to me. The teacher and I became friends and I spent many saturday afternoons in her studio as I began my quilting adventure.
It wasn’t the first time I’d tried quilting, but this time it stuck. Besides my new quilting friend, I connected with quilters online and quickly started joining fabric and quilt block swaps. I makes me smile when I encounter some of those early fabrics … though I confess I cringe a little about some of those blocks that still haven’t been made into quilts.
The topic for this weekend is your quilter’s origin story: How did you learn to quilt and become a quilter?