Design Wall Monday

I have a few odds and ends on my design wall this week.  First up is my design wall filled with blocks from the Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Challenge.  I'm trying to make blocks for a bed size quilt for Valentine's Day next year.  I may replace a few blocks as I continue to make them.  I have a setting that needs 12 blocks so that leave me plenty of options as I go along.  I made the last two blocks in the 3rd row on Sunday.  You can see close up and details on a separate post.

I had Scrap Quilting Club meeting on Saturday and uploaded a lot of photos in another post showing the results of January's project and quite a few photos from last year's projects.  However, here you will see my continuing work on the March project.  I made the bottom row of three different units.  Whew!  I'm kind of over making 9-patches though.  The strips on the left are for another project that requires 4-patches but it's just a kit without a deadline; I just cut it out of the remaining fabrics used for this project.

This is the project the scrap quilting club is working on for February with the results being revealed in March.  I still need to make three more blocks and quite a bit of sashing.  I'm thinking of not adding a border to this one.  We'll see after I get it pieced together.

I also added the binding to the front of the cathedral stars quilt but it was about 4" too short.  I hope to add another piece and then make a label.  I guess my handwork during lunch this week will be hand sewing the binding to the back.

Hope you have a great week and go visit Patchwork Times to view other design walls.
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Type-u-later,

http://www.teaquilts.com

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks: Blocks 29 and 30

I'm due for four blocks by this week's end as I'm slightly behind.  Today I made two of them although they are not in correct order of the schedule posted earlier this month.

Block 29 - Vanishing Squares
#175 on page 59
Sandi Irish
The Irish Chain
www.irishchain.com
16 pieces

Look at page 15 of the magazine for a great quilt setting with this block.  I'm still making "Valentine" theme blocks for a bed quilt so I don't have a lot of contrast in my blocks.

Block 30 - Bar Code
#177 on page 60
Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle
Fun Quilts
www.funquilts.com
# of pieces individual to maker =, mine = 34

Pretty easy block.  Used up scraps from previous blocks to make this block, adding in a few fabrics to provide variety.








Don't forget to visit the other blogs participating in the challenge by clicking on the links on the left hand side of my blog.
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Type-u-later,

http://www.teaquilts.com

Scrap Quilting Club

The scrap quilting club met yesterday and had a lot of show and tell.  So, this post has a lot of photos.  The first group of pictures are the results of last month's project, Awesome Lap Quilt from Moda Bake Shop.  Our group had problems with this pattern in that if you trimmed the edges as recommended in the pattern, you lost quit a bit of width in the quilt which also resulted in the end blocks being trimmed too much.  We had various solutions to the problem which also included doing as the pattern recommended without any changes.

The first two quilts were made by Sarah and Jennifer who trimmed the ends as recommended by the instructions.  You'll see that the end blocks are not the same size and the inner blocks.  Sarah added a scrappy sashing which kind of reduce the effect of the trimming.

Carol took her quilt top apart and decreased the size of the blocks by 1/4" and resewed back together.  That made for less trimming on the sides, not loosing the symmetry of the quilt blocks.

LeeEtta and Sue decided not to match the blocks at the seams as suggested by the instructions.  This made for less trimming on the sides as well.

Cherie and Sharon decided to make their quilts vertical and in doing so made more units to prevent trimming the blocks.  This gives the quilt a make over, especially for Sharon's who's quilt is the larges size of all those shown. 

I decided to unsew approximately 1.5" from each row end and add strips from fabric I'd plan to use for my first border.  This allowed my blocks seams to match as well as kept my blocks symmetrical.  I also noticed that I couldn't get all the units as my jelly roll was apparently not as long as those indicated in the pattern so I used more strips than indicated.  Although the quilt does live up to it's name, "Awesome Lap Quilt", is was not an "easy" quilt first quilt of the year for the club as I'd imagined.  We will have a few more quilts to show next month.

Here are other projects shared, some club projects from last year, others were not. 

 

We are working on the exploding star as our special project this year.  Here are portions of the quilts in progress.

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Charmed I'm Sure

My quilt guild had a charm quilt challenge this month and last Thursday was the big reveal.  There is nothing super fancy about my quilt but I didn't want to see another one on the line so I kept it a secret.  Here is my charm tumbler quilt I titled Charmed, I'm Sure.  It has 202 different fabrics including the backing and label. 

My first plan was to scatter the charms and piece how they landed.  For some reason that did not appeal to me so I went to plan B.  I decided to make frames with the tumblers (by the way cut 3.5" with my GO! cutter) by separating the light and medium/dark values.  I also had fun throwing in novelty fabrics.  I just love looking at this quilt.  It tied for 2nd place in the challenge.  NOTE: Quilt was hung upside down on the line.

Here are some other charm quilts that members made.  I forgot to write down the names of the makers.  If you are members of the guild and have correct information, please let me know.

Drew Benage
3rd place

 Doris McCall

 Debbie - tied 1st ?

Norma Silk
Tied 2nd
over 400 1.5" .5" rectangles

Judy Kooi

Connie Barnett
Tied 1st place

--------------------------
Type-u-later,

http://www.teaquilts.com

Doily and Clock Finishes

I was secret quilter to Lenore and she was kind to take and send me photos of the hand made gifts I gave her over the weekend.

I can't remember the designer of the doily machine embroidery design.  This is an Ace Points free standing lace design names something like Valentine Rose Hearts.  There about 10-12 different designs.  I made four separate hearts on the embroidery machine and then zigzag stitched them together.

The clock stitching is from Adorable Affordable Designs called Thread & Spool Clock Design.  I could have changed the wording but it was appropriate for the clock so I left it in.  The clock was my first and took way more time than it should have.  I ran into problems after problems and though it's not perfect, I was determined to finish it for the gift giving event.

Thanks Lenore for the photos and it was so much fun being your secret quilter at retreat!

-------------------------- Type-u-later, http://www.teaquilts.com

Design Wall Monday

I had a very productive week.  I started out making blocks 27 and 28 of the 100 blocks challenge from Quiltmaker's magazine.  I made separate post about them here.

Then I made modified a clock by adding a machine embroidered sewing related clock face and a doily for the person at retreat whom I was their secret quilter.  I forgot to take pictures so no photos of these two finishes.

Then when I got to retreat, I completed the Awesome Lap Quilt top with my modifications.  I even made the binding (no back yet as I didn't take the fabric to retreat.)  Also on my design wall is a few of the 114 3.5" unfinished 9-patches for a project the scrap quilting club is working on next month.  The final project on the design wall is the blocks I made at retreat for a scrappy trip around the world.

Here are all the blocks in the order they were sewn into rows.  I actually have the top center all pieced but forgot to take a final photo.  I also made binding for the cathedral stars quilt and flying geese for another project (again, no photos).

For more design walls, visit Patchwork Times. 

-------------------------- Type-u-later, http://www.teaquilts.com

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks: Blocks 27 and 28

I realized that the dates for the February assignments was incorrect.  Here is a new block assignment chart:

Block 27 - Isobel's Flight
#128 on page 35
Cinzia White
www.cinziawhite.com
41 pieces

I thought this block would be difficult because of the curve piecing but it went together pretty fast.  The most tedious part was paper piecing the geese on a curve.  I wasted a lot of fabric but it was worth it.  I don't think I'll make an entire quilt out of this one but it was a great challenge.

Block 28 - Hope Blooms
#105 on page 24
Nancy Halvorsen
Art to Heart
www.arttoheart.com
42 pieces, mine has 41

For this block, I cut the background 13" square and cut my squares for the flip corners 4-3/4" square.  That way I had room to trim after the block was made.  I used all machine stitching with this block and even that took a little time.  I'm still making heart blocks when I can as I need a bed size quilt to use next year if all goes according to plan.
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Type-u-later,


http://www.teaquilts.com