Suburbs

"Suburbs", a layer cake quilt by Cluck Cluck Sew patterns, finally got a label today and it's all finished!  I took this project along with me when we rented a trailer up north for a week.  This was probably three, maybe four, years ago already.  I got all the blocks done while on holidays and did assemble them into a top somewhere along the line :-).  It was waiting to be quilted, but I finally decided to send it off to a local long arm quilter who was looking for some quilts to work on.  It is a fairly large lap quilt and I have lots of smaller projects to work on.  Very happy that it's now all finished!  I have started to set aside lap quilts to give to my grand kids when they graduate from grade 12.  My oldest grandson starts High School this year, so I feel really organized to have four quilts finished for that purpose! (Click on the photo for a larger view.)

The beautiful quilting done by Julie Cassidy.

The quilting was done with a variegated King Tut thread.

The finished quilt (my apologies for the crooked photo...I'm a quilter, not a photographer LOL).

I found this backing in a sale bin for $4.99 a yard!  Love it when you find backings for such a good deal :-).  The binding was from my stash as well and happens to be from the same designer as the layer cake.

I love house quilts!

The Indian Orange Peel is FINISHED!!

The Indian Orange Peel was finally finished in March!  I had my design wall empty for a change so I could take a few pictures for a blog post.  I started this project in November 2010.  It's been a long journey.  It is difficult to keep something like this out so it can be worked on regularly.  I laid it out on my spare bed with the units pinned to a table cloth, but when we had company, it got carefully rolled up and then it would be "out of sight, out of mind" for long periods of time. The quilt is done mostly with Kaffe Fasset Fabrics with some additions from friends in the original class who were also working on this quilt.

To see the whole journey of this quilt, click on the label "Indian Orange Peel' and all the posts on this quilt's progress will come up.

The bottom left corner.

top corner

I did a simple curved line (organic line) quilting inspired by Jacquie Gering's blog.  I didn't want to do fancy custom quilting to take away from the overall design of the piecing.  This simple quilting (shown on the back of the quilt) with a variegated King Tut thread, worked very well and I could do it myself :-).

Finished quilt

The finished quilt.  The instructor said we should use an eye catching colour like yellow in the bottom left corner of the quilt.  I really like how there's a 'streak of light' going through the quilt.  I'm also very happy to have it finished :-)

Stacked cups and saucers

My friend Els, came to visit me from Holland last summer and brought me a set of 7 Kaffe Fasset FQ's pictured below (bottom prints).  She also brought Maaike Bakker's Teetering Cups pattern.  I chose a pattern that had 7 cups and matched up aboriginal dots colours for each print to use in the handles and saucer edges.  This is a paper pieced pattern.  It was a lot of fun to make.  I will hang it in my kitchen as a reminder of a great visit with my friend!

The bottom prints are the fabrics I received from Els

close up of the quilting

I quilted straight lines back and forth around the cups to cover up the seams from the paper piecing :-)

I used the same colour thread in the back so it wouldn't go through the front...here you can see the quilting.

The finished wallhanging.

Lauren's One Block Wonder Quilt finally all finished

We finally got some pictures of Lauren's quilt!  It was back here getting a proper label and a sleeve pinned on so it can hang in a quilt show this weekend.  

You can read the beginning of the story of this quilt here and the story of Leah's quilt here.  The quilt was quilted by Cathy Shepherd in December 2015 and I stitched the binding on by machine.  Jannyne then hand stitched the binding all around and it's been on Lauren's bed since then.  Getting it into a show is a good excuse to finish it LOL.  We hope to go on Saturday with Lauren and Leah to see their quilts hanging in the show and take a photo of them standing in front of them.

Lauren's finished quilt

 

close up of the lovely quilting

some cubes

cool swirl quilting in the blocks

closeup of border quilting

The Learning Process of a Challenge

Joining a challenge really stretches us outside of our comfort zone and is a great learning experience.  It can be frustrating at times when you run stuck and cannot think of something that will work, but by tossing wild ideas at it, it finally does come together (usually LOL!).

I wrote about our 2nd Elgin Piecemaker's Quilt Guild challenge in this blog post.  Here are some photos of the process I went through to get to the final quilt.

We started with the mini charm pack pictured above - the 2 1/2" squares are all white background with bright little motifs

I bought a charm pack of solids to give me a kick start and variety of colours which I didn't have to cut into 2 1/2" squares :-)

The new to me tool I used for this challenge was a Drunkard's Path 2" patchwork template set from Matilda's own which I purchased in a quilt shop in Holland two summers ago.  The units are cut from 2 1/2" squares and I used this mini Fiskars rotary cutter to get around those sharp curves easily.

My first idea was circles within circles, but that reminded me too much of pac man.

playing with some arrangements and colours but not enough of the same colour

I took apart some of the drunkard's path units and added other colours.  Part of the challenge was to try to use as many of the 84 charm squares as you could so I could not waste a single one!  Making some progress on the colours.....

Change to black and white to see the values; needs some work!  the lack of symmetry is bothering me...I like things square :-)

Had the idea to set it on point and square it up...trying different colours

How about coloured squares around it?  No, that overpowers it!

Maybe grey corners with a yellow square in it?  Hmm...no like :-(

In desperation I turned it around...hmmm...maybe this will work.

I liked the lighter grey triangles now with a small border around it.  The turqouise binding would set it off nicely

I quilted it with lines echoing the round shape

The quilting on the back looks kind of cool

It won viewer's choice in the challenge!  I really like how it turned out.

 

A Real Challenge

Last year, our Elgin Piecemaker's Guild held a challenge.  You can read the story about that adventure here.  Diane and I won that challenge and the "prize" was that we got to organize this year's challenge LOL.  We were going to put a really nasty one together as payback, but decided that we would not seek revenge.  It is a challenge in itself to put together a challenge!  Diane and I brainstormed and thought and edited and planned and then went to Cherished Pieces, the lovely quilt shop in Tillsonburg, ON and wandered around to see what would 'hit' us.  We had an idea of using the mini charm packs that are so popular - you know the ones that you buy because they are so cute and then stack them on your shelf and look at them and enjoy them?  

We finally settled on a very fun double mini charm pack which, together with the instruction sheet, fit perfectly in a little box.

this is actually a double charm pack with 84 charms that are 2 1/2" square

The charms had mini motifs in various colours and really odd amounts of matchings ones varying from 3 to 7 identical ones.

All the little boxes filled and ready to go

Cynthia even gave us a discount because we bought 20 packages :-).  Then came the difficult part - getting the rules together!  We treated ourselves to lunch at Pinecroft just outside Aylmer and started jotting down ideas.  We settled on making a quilt with a perimeter between 80" and 200", adding only solids and we had to use a new to us technique or ruler. We asked (bribed!) two local ladies, Eva and Carolyn, to be our esteemed judges. They had their work cut out for them for sure!

There is a local quilt show being held next week Friday and Saturday in Shedden, ON.  Pat and Diane are both on the organizing committee and had asked if we could have our challenge due before the show so it can be displayed there.  

Last night, the grand reveal was held at my house.  Everyone was instructed to bring their project wrapped up in a non see through bag.  I live in a raised ranch so the judges were upstairs and everyone put their entry in a box at the bottom of the stairs in my sewing room.  When everyone was there, the judges went down and started their difficult task while we held our business meeting upstairs.  They pinned many quilts on the design wall and laid the rest out on tables.  An hour later, we were allowed downstairs and had to vote for a viewer's choice.  Then the judges announced the winners and also went through each entry and shared what impressed them about the quilt and how they came to their decisions.  We then got to hear who made each quilt.  Unbelievable the difference in the various quilts!!  Here are the winners' quilts:

Diane won 1st place for her wonderful pieced and appliqued quilt.  Her new technique was hand applique and the flower pots. Those flower pots are not prints, but chopped up leftover charms with solids and fused into pots!!  Amazing piece!

Fran won 2nd place with her English paper pieced entry as well as 2nd place in the viewer's choice.  Wow, that's a LOT of hexagons. 

I was very surprised to win the viewer's choice award!  I will do a blog post on the process to come up with this final piece :-)

Shirley won the judges choice by Carolyn (quilt above Shirley).  The colours were very vintage and there is some lovely hand quilting.

Heather won the judges choice by Eva.  (the binding isn't quite finished :-)

And, here are the rest of the entries.  We had a wonderful participation; 15 or our 18 members submitted a piece.  Some weren't quite finished, but it was great to see them anyways.

Beth P's lovely pot of flowers using hexagons and beautiful applique...so spring like!  This one also had really lovely quilting in the border.

Deb's quilt was not finished either, but it was awesome seeing it!  Deb did not like the prints in the charm squares so she pieced a few together and used them one triangle and proceeded to make a lovely modern solid quilt LOL.  Awesome touch of humour Deb!

Here is her one triangle with the the only challenge prints in it :-)

Yvonne added prairie points to her cute little quilt

Pat O's beautiful shadows on her leaves! (This piece is not crooked..it's my lack of photography skills :-(

Pat P's colourful quilt used the charms for a Japanese folding technique around the center squares which had little beads sewn on.

Anne's awesome black, red and white quilt.  Unbelievable how Anne pulled this colour scheme off with the challenge squares!  Great little sampler.

Joanne did a reversible quilt which was amazing!  She did a folded star in the center with rick rack and buttons as embellishments.

To use up more charms, she pieced this lovely modern design on the back.  Lovely circle quilting as well.

Beth D also used hexagons using various colour solids in the centers.  The quilting is very effective in this one as well.

I love this picture of our newest member, Julie surrounded by smiling ladies.  Julie joined our group last month and since we had a charm pack left, she jumped right in to join in the challenge.  She made some awesome friendship stars and turned them into little thread catchers for her sewing room. 

Donna's amazing English paper pieced hexagons - all 420 of them!!! 

It was a great evening! And, we have two volunteers to host next year's challenge!   Can't wait to see what they come with to stretch us outside of our boxes.

For those of you who are local to the London area, come out and see the entries in person at the Quilt show at the Southwold Keystone Complex, Shedden ON.  The show is Friday, April 8 from 9:00 to 6:00 and Saturday, April 9 from 9:00 to 4:00.  There is a small merchant's mall and a lunch room.