Quilting Friends Retreat - 2015

My friend, Joyce, e-mailed me to tell me that my middle name is trouble.  She went on to say that last year at our 2014 retreat to her "cabin in the woods", I introduced her and friend Diane to hexie punches and showed them how to make hexies.  We are ALL now making English paper pieced hexie quilts.  Yep, I did that. 

This year, I bought them each a ruler and showed how they could cut tumbler shapes with it.  I had already been making these tumbler shapes for a quilt.  Yep, hooked them again.  By the end of the three days together, Joyce had already cut each of us 300 2-1/2" squares and we had decided each of us would exchange 300 squares with each other to make commemorative quilts to celebrate our 30th year as friends which happens in 2016.  We had been talking about exchanging New York Beauty blocks - making 10 each so we would each have 30 blocks.  Now, isn't cutting 2-1/2" squares easier?

You can see some of the strips of 4 tumblers in between the boxes that hold the parts and pieces to the quilt I was working on there.  One of those boxes holds the squares for the tumblers. I have to thank Bonnie Hunter for choosing the tumbler block for the leader/ender challenge for the year.  You can read about it here in case you would like to join in the tumbler fun. I also need to thank cousin Sheila who gifted me with a tumbler ruler along with her stash several months ago.

During the 3 days I finished putting together 444 four-patch blocks.  I had about a lot of them all done and the rest were pairs that just needed the final seams.  Then I started adding the half-square triangles to make them into square in a square blocks. This project was found in the April issue of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine.  I just could not get that quilt out of my mind. Usually I don't do projects from magazines, but that one just appealed to me.

After she completed the machine binding on 5 -- yes 5 charity quilts, she brought out this beauty to work on. I wish I had photographed the charity quilts before she packed them up. She had also done the long arm machine quilting on the jelly roll quilts as well as the binding.

After completing the units she was working on for her bow tie quilt, Joyce started joining the blocks that will be the borders of her Civil War quilt.  These blocks are much smaller than they appear in this photo and the quilt is to die for!  Did I mention that my friends are very talented quilters?  You may have noticed that we all love the scrappy look in our quilts.

Our retreats are fun as well as productive.  We take turns making the meals so no one has to spend all of their time cooking.  It rained every day which may not sound like fun to you, but for Diane and I who live where 100 plus days are the norm, retreating to Joyce's cabin where it rains and the high during the day is in the 70's, well, it was refreshing! We sewed and slept with a breeze coming in the open windows!

I hope you have been having some sewing and quilting fun this Summer!

Until Next time,

xoxoXOXOxoxo

Lois

Thousand Pyramids - The 30 Year Wonder Qluilt

According to my research, the Great Pyramid took about 20 years to build.  This quilt top took about 30 years from concept to last row joined.  Hmmm, maybe not so bad considering there are actually 1,175 pyramids in this charm quilt.

I think there were five of us who did an exchange that took about 18 months.  We had 4 templates (2 people used the same template).  We planned to exchange 10 fabrics a month in a particular color family.  Each of us drew around the templates and cut out the shapes with 1/4" seam allowances for hand piecing., Fifty quilt pieces were made and exchanged each month.  We were loose on the color families - red meant anything from deep burgundy to the lightest pink, blue was navy to pale blue, etc. Colors like rust might fit in either the orange or brown category.

The templates included a half-square triangle which was used by two quilters.  One (our East Coast native) used a clam shell, one shape was a diamond and then there was mine that was a pyramid shape.

I moved cross country during the exchange and found that 10 of the fabric shapes could be sent in a #10 envelope for the price of a first class stamp, so each month, I continued to send my shapes to each of the others and they sent theirs to me.

A little Amish Influence.

All types of fabrics were exchanged.  There are a few that probably  aren't the best quality and maybe should have been left out, but our stashes weren't as big back then.

Christmas fabrics including a fussy cut Christmas bear were exchanged.

Even a vintage Holly Hobby fabric made it into the top. Notice that it is next to an Irish clover leaf.

There is even an "A" for Arnold in the top.

There may be a point or two that need to be "fixed" or maybe they will be left in even if they are slightly off.  Maybe it's more important to have this quilt done and quilted than it is to have it be perfectly pieced after 30 years or so!

One of the neatest things about the fabric is that even though the original exchange was with a small group of dear friends in Iowa, as I was finishing the quilt, I needed more fabric to make it large enough.  Of course, I used some of my newer stash, but I still needed unique fabrics in some colors, so asked two of my dear Arizona friends if they would contribute the colors I needed and they did!  So this quilt includes fabrics from not only over time, but from more friends than the original group.  

Isn't that part of the culture of quilting?  Neighbors exchanged fabrics, friends contributed fabrics to fill a need and relatives shared their stash.  Today just like in the past, these traditions continue and I'm very happy they do, aren't you?

Here's to Quilting Traditions!

xoxoXOXOxoxo

Lois

On The Design Wall Now

Hope you all had an excellent Thanksgiving!  We had a house full.  Our number for holidays is always somewhere around 20 with 22 being the minimum.  Sometimes our grand kids bring friends and sometimes our children's in-laws come so it varies from holiday to holiday, but it is always a lot of fun!

Not much went on in the studio most of the week, but I had pulled out a really old UFO after the Vines and Stars came down off the design wall.  I cannot stand for it to be empty!  The UFO began a very long time ago when several of us decided to make a charm quilt.  A charm quilt, if you are not familiar with the term is a quilt that contains only 1 template piece, but repeated in 1,000 different fabrics.  Jo, Joan, Lorinda and Bonnie, remember those days?

We exchanged 10 fabrics each month in a designated color.  The rule was, for instance on red, it could be any variation of red from pink to burgundy and light or dark. We each had all of the templates and drew around them on the fabric, cut them with 1/4" seam allowances and gave them to each other according to the color of the month.  I made a move during that time, so mine were mailed each month.  All 10 pieces would go for a standard 1st class postage stamp.  Obviously, since I am still working on it, mine never got completed.

Here is what it looks like with 976 fabrics.  I do not guarantee that there are no duplicates, but that is still a LOT of different fabrics.  I am still hand piecing the rest of the missing pyramids.

 

 

The contrast is a little weak on the bottom row, so pieces will be moved around.  Each of the larger triangles is made up of 16 smaller triangles.  I have not decided how I will handle the half blocks on the two side edges.  If I piece them, I will need another template that is half of the original triangle or pyramid shape.

 

I have also decided to participate in Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt Celtic Solstice.  I have never done a mystery before, because I really like designing my own quilt and, if you know me well, you know I have a tendency to want to be in control of the design.  Not knowing in advance where I'm going with something is a bit unsettling to me.  Okay, I admit it, I'm a control freak!  There, I said it!  You may all laugh now, because you probably already figured that out.

 

The first clue was given yesterday on Bonnie Hunter's blog.  It will be a challenge to actually follow the rules, but at least I'm going to give it a try. 

 

Here are a few of the clue one pieces made using the Tri-Recs ruler set.

 

 

You can read more about the mystery on Bonnie's blog.  It is not too late to join in on the fun.  I do like the scrappy look of Bonnie's quilts, but usually decide on my own patterns rather than use a predesigned quilt pattern.  The few times I've tried to follow a pattern, I end up changing it so that in the end it does not look like the original.  It's more fun to put a personal touch on anything, don't you think?

 

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!  Stay tuned for more on the progress of the pyramids and the mystery quilt.

 

xoxoXOXOxoxo

 

Lois

 

 





Exchange Results -- WOW!

Hello friends!

I told you about the fat eighth (11" x 18") fabric exchange I was doing with 4 friends.  My choice was neutral fabrics because I tend to use more of those than any individual color.

The packages stared to arrive and they were amazing!

The first package to arrive was from Maggie who lives in a part of Arizona where they are actually experiencing Fall!  Lucky Maggie!  Thank you, Maggie, these are wonderful!

On "Sew Day" Diane who suffers here in the heat with me brought me these -- well, I think these were the ones from Diane.  Since she and Joyce gave me packages on the same day, I could have reversed who gave me which package!  Thank you, Diane!  I especially LOVE the stripe!

Yes, I was right!  This package came from Joyce.  I remember that she included the wonderful fabric with words on it.  Thank you, Joyce.  Joyce has become a part time desert dweller as she and recently retired DH spend a LOT of time (way too much for her dear friends) in their cabin in the White Mountains where -- yep, they've already had SNOW!

When I got home from sew day, there was a package in the mail box!  Ooh, I ADORE it when there are packages in the mail.  Letters can be bad news, but packages!!  Well, they are always good things!

This was from Julie over at JulieKquilts.  You need to go see her beautiful quilts!  Look how these were packaged -- they were a present with an add on -- wonderful suture scissors!  The fabrics were wonderful, too.  I wanted to show you the package, so the variety of fabrics are sort of hidden, but they were wonderful!  Thank you, Julie!  Julie lives in "blog land" and is actually in a different state, but one that can be equally as hot as AZ!  Some day I'm going to meet Julie in person -- can't wait!

Now, just look at the gorgeous texture that can be achieved with neutral fabrics.

Can you just see these as the background in a quilt?  Won't that quilt have great variety and yet "read" the same.  It's going to have movement just from the different prints without relying on color, just value.

While I'm writing this, I am sipping the most wonderful coffee.  The beans were roasted YESTERDAY!  I'll tell you about that adventure in the next blog.  The amazing thing is the coffee roaster is just blocks from my office.  It smells sooo good inside and they import coffee beans from all over.  Wait until you see what I bought there!  I'm a Starbucks kind of girl, but those freshly roasted beans may convert me!

So, my question to you is -- if you were in an exchange would you choose a color or would you decide to add to your neutral collection?  Have you ever exchanged fabrics or blocks?  Which are your favorite kinds of exchanges?

Now, Ive got to go.  I'm working on some musical Christmas ornaments and it will be here before you know it!  Of course, I'll show you what I'm doing, just not today, I'm trying to keep thinking Fall here for now!

xoxoXOXOxoxo,
Lois