More Tula Pink fun

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

I am still a little in holiday mode this week and have been taking things easier – which means no marathon sewing sessions or fabric cutting frenzies. What better to do in this relaxed state, than make a few more blocks for my City Sampler quilt.

Back in May I started making blocks from Tula Pink’s “100 Modern Quilt Blocks“. I loved the slow easy pace of making one block at a time – leisurely cutting the block pieces, then making the block, then moving onto the next. I made a dozen or so blocks in my first run and then put them aside. This week I added a few more blocks to the collection…

Block No 5….

My favorite No. 14..

No. 28…

And the fabulously obnoxious, the “I probably should have thrown in a solid”, No. 18….

Every time I add another block to this sampler it changes. I was playing with some of the blocks on the design wall, just to see how it was coming together and this is what I came up with….

For the finished quilt I think I will be sashing around the blocks as it is the best way to let each blocks breath and shine. So 16 blocks down…only 84 to go!

4Dec2013

Off Galavanting…

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

For the last four days or so I have been off gallivanting with my husband in Canada. We took the Thanksgiving break to drive up to Vancouver Island and spend some quality off line time together. November has been a crazy month with my husband deciding to write a novel in November (nanowrmo) as well as grow a mustache. This has meant I have not seen much of my him this month and when I have I have not always recognized him!

As we left Portland on our adventure a friend commented that it is great that Nick will not be distracted by writing and I would not be distracted by quilting… my husband just laughed, he knew I had packed this…

My trusty hexagon kit. Yes I somehow managed to quilt while on vacation in the middle of nowhere. I industriously made a stack of hexagons…

and also some more flowers…

which will all be added to the ongoing crazy which is my hexagon quilt.

It has grown a little bit since I last photographed it.

There is no rhyme or reason to how I am adding the flowers… I just add randomly. It is kind of fun.

I am loving making this quilt…though it is slow going. There is something about hand stitching I find very therapeutic.

I will get back to the sewing machine this week but I am not in a hurry… and if you were curious as to just how dodgy my husband looks with a mustache…..

The answer is very dodgy!

27Nov2013

Quilting Bee Etiquette

Posted in WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

A couple of months ago I joined my first quilting Bees.I had been thinking about joining a Bee for a while, and then the opportunity to join two different bees presented itself. For those of you that do not know what a quilting bee is, it is basically a group of quilters who join together (in person or virtually) to make blocks every month which are then made into a quilt.

A search of the web showed me there were dozens and dozens of different types of Bees, and lots of opportunities to join Bees. There are short burst bees (like the 4 x 5 Bees), there are Charity Bees (like do.Good.Stitches), there are virtual Bees, Quilting Guild Bees and of course the “group of friends who want to set up a Bee” Bees (like the ScrapBeeLicious Bee I am part of). What I could not find on-line was advice about being a “good” Bee member. What is the etiquette for quilting Bees?

A couple months into my Bee block making This is what I have learnt so far…

Fabric:

Use good quality fabrics. I always pull from my stash 100% cotton quilters quality fabric. There are some Bee’s out there that specifically state no Joann’s or other chain store fabrics, but I tend to bend that rule a little when it comes to fabrics like the DS Quilts range and the Cloud 9 Organic range I bought at Joanns. In my opinion it is about the quality of the fabric not where you bought it.

Just for fun I try and fit in Lizzy House’s Pearl Bracelets or Michael Miller’s Mirrorball into my Bee blocks, if I can. I have a friend who tries to get Denyse Schmidt’s Chickopee into her Bee blocks.

Lizzy House’s Pearl Bracelet

Queen Bee:

If you are Queen Bee – that is if it is your month to set the blocks there are some extra etiquette steps you might want to keep in mind.

1. Make sure your instructions for your block and how to make it are clear and include the block’s finished size, colour preferences and ideally a sample block that you have made.

2. Respect other people’s copyright. For my turns as Queen I made sure I used a free, easily accessible pattern. Do not set a block out of a book unless you are sure that everyone in your Bee has that book. It is frowned upon to copy a pattern out of a book and distribute it without the author/originators approval.

Always credit pattern or inspiration and/or quilter and link to the original source.

3. When setting your block understand that you may be forcing people out of their comfort zone. I personally feel this is a good thing. I set my do.Good.stitches Bee a paper piecing block which was a challenge for several people. If it is a new or challenging technique make sure you include links to instructions on how to do that particular technique (paper piecing, curves, quilt as you go etc).

4. If the previous month’s Bee block has been particularly challenging, consider making your block a little easier (this is particularly relevant with ongoing Bee’s like Do.good.Stitches where you do not want people to burn out too quickly).

The Blocks:

Follow the Queens colour inspiration/directions as closely as possible. If you are struggling with a lack of a certain colour in your stash, reach out to your Bee. I have found that members are more than happy to help if they can.

Make sure your finished blocks are accurately sized to the specifics the Queen has set (which is usually 12 1/2 x 12 1/2). If in doubt, leave them un-trimmed and drop a note to the Queen that you were unsure so did not size them up. Remember you can cut a block down to size easily but it is messy to try to size a block up.

Make sure your finished blocks are presentable – pressed and trimmed of loose thread. I take this opportunity to apologise to the recipients of my first lots of Bee blocks because they were a hot ugly messy. Sorry.

The perfection I am striving for… not there yet

Communication:

Communication is everything. Whether you are communicating via email or Flickr make sure you are keeping your Bee informed. If you are communicating via Flickr make sure you check the Groups discussion boards regularly (this was a rookie mistake I made with one of my Bees).

If you are struggling, have questions, need fabrics or your block is going to be late, let the Queen Bee know. No one will be angry with you, especially if you are communicating. People become frustrated when there is radio silence and no reply to emails or discussions.

If your blocks are not going to show up (everyone has bad months) let the Queen know. The sooner you can let your Queen know that the blocks will not be arriving the better, as she will then have to make replacement blocks or re-adjust her design.

If you are going to miss more than 2 months in a Bee cycle, step down from the Bee, or suspend your participation for a cycle. It is the polite thing to do.

Include a little note in with your blocks (another one of my rookie mistakes). A little piece of paper with your name and a short note helps the Queen Bee identify who the blocks have come in from and is a nice personal touch. Remember this is a social activity.

Posting your blocks:

Make sure you post your blocks with plenty of time to make the deadline. With most Bees it is assumed the blocks will arrive by the end of the month, usually with a 2 week grace period. Your blocks are considered late by the 15th of the following month.

Make sure you are accurate with your postage. Most Bee blocks cost around $2 + to post out – if your envelope has any sort of bulk to it the USPS considers it a parcel and charges more. I have had to pay extra postage on a couple of envelops in the last month or so and now have a stack of change next to the door so I can easily pay the post person.

Now onto pretty…

To wrap up things up here are my November Bee blocks for Alyce of WonderlandbyAlyce, who requested the X plus block.

I had been wanting to try this block for ages and even though Alyce just asked for 2 blocks I got a little carried away and made 4. I am not sure what the etiquette is on doing more than the number of blocks requested but I kind of figure you can use the extras for the back if you want.

Enough already…

I am sure that there are things that I have not covered, do not know about or have not yet encountered. I would love to hear your thoughts, experiences and advice on Bee Etiquette.

13Nov2013

I have a confession to make…

Posted in Quilt patterns, Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

…deep breath…. here goes….I am a messy quilter. You may not be able to tell from what I have put up on the site but in the last couple of weeks the truth has become harder and harder to ignore.

So what has forced this revelation…. Quilting Bees. Over the last couple of weeks I have been getting quilt blocks from around the country – I was “Queen Bee” for both ScrapBeeLicous Bee and Do.good.stitches Hope Circle.

So here is the evidence, as I see it. Exhibit A…. a block received for the Do.good.stitches Bee.

Please note the neat seams. The lack of loose threads. The overall precision and beauty of the back of the block.

Now Exhibit B…. my Icky Thump block for the same quilt.

It is down right embarrassing. In my defense I taught myself to quilt and never knew that you should carefully cut threads. Since seeing my fellow quilters blocks I have started taking more care with my threads but I still trim my paper piecing with scissors.

With these startling revelations and confessions, there is only one saving grace…. you really can not tell from the front of the quilts.

When setting this block for the Bee, I did not realise that most of my fellow Hope Circle had not paper pieced. I believe I drove a couple of them to drink. It really did not occur to me that there are people out there that have not tried paper piecing – I wrongly assumed that it was a technique commonly used.

I set this block because it was an easy block to do, but very very effective. Some of you may recognize the inspiration from a post earlier in the year.

I made this block using Julie at 627handworks free Icky Thump paper piecing pattern. I loved it so much and was determined to make a full quilt in this colour way.

The quilt is coming together nicely… I am still awaiting a few more blocks in the post and then I can put the top together. The finished top will be 4 blocks wide x 5 blocks long…. and fabulous.

6Nov2013

Triangle Trauma – wip Wednesday

Posted in Scrap quilts, WIP Wednesday by wombatquilts

I was spurred this week to pull out an old work in progress by Ashley at Wasn’t Quilt in A Day. Her Mum told her that she could not start a new quilt until she had finished one of the ones she had already started. I took this sound advice and dusted off these blocks from the beginning of the year….

This quilt has been sitting in the cupboard because I am a little scared of triangles. This is only the second time I have worked with triangle-shaped blocks and I must admit I am not enjoying the process. You really need to be precise with your points and I have done soooo much unpicking. To help with the precision i am using a paper piecing pattern.

Emboldened by the challenge to finish this top, I pulled all the blocks I had made out and pinned them up on my design wall, using some solid fabric pink and olive triangles to break up the pattern a little.

There was then a flurry of activity to make the extra blocks I needed to make the quilt a usable size (14 blocks wide by 8 rows long).
My sewing machine was awash with strings of pink and olive fabric.

By mid afternoon I was happy with how things were looking and started sewing some of the rows of blocks together. I find this is the point where you really start to see how the finished quilt is going to look.

Last night there was a lot of unpicking….I am trying to be as precise as my patience will let me. Row by row I am going to get this sucker done.

This morning I sewed two of the rows together to check my alignment and to see how the colours and pattern are working. They are a little off in places but with this pattern it you have to look really hard to notice.

I am determined to have this top pieced by the end of today… if only so I can start something new. That is Ashley’s mum’s rule and I am going to try to quilt by it. One finished before another started. I can do this… I think!