The Quilt Show begins

Just a glimpse of the quilt show . . .

Packing my bags

This stormy, rainy morning task is packing up my quilt show pieces so they are ready to go tomorrow. This is my big suitcase, and when it is full of quilts that will determine how many large quilts I'm taking. I have a small suitcase for wall hangings and table toppers, etc.  As the quilt show Featured Quilter this year I can bring whatever I want no matter when I made it. Otherwise we generally limited the show pieces to things made since the previous quilt show.

Since I'm on the quilt show committee, packing my own stuff is the least of my worries today.  I have to finish all of my other preparations: printing the rest of the programs and making sure I have gathered the raffle tickets, the meal tickets, extra quilt labels, sign in sheets, cash for the ticket takers, signs for doors, box of pins, tape, scissors, pens - and probably a bunch of things I've forgotten.

Setting up is always stressful, but once it's show time on Friday morning I'll take pictures and post some eye candy from the Heartland Quilters' Guild Quilt Show.

Sunday sewing . . . or NOT

I finally got back onto the golf course on Sundat.  My husband and I had a mid-morning tee time along with one of his buddies.  It was a really nice morning, not too hot and just enough breeze to keep the bugs off.  And I played OK, so it was good.  And after about 5 days of being sick with some summer cold kind of bug it was good to do something fun.

After our 18 holes of exercise - they walked it, and I rode in a cart - we decided to check out the brunch at a new local restaurant. The atmosphere was rustic and fun. There was live music. The staff was nice.  But it took 1 hour 15 minutes to get our food!!  That is crazy and definitely not something that pleased my husband.  The food was great - when it finally arrived.  I had a raspberry mimosa and the Benedict Arnold brunch dish.  It was a very good take on eggs Benedict. My husband had chicken and waffles, which he said was delicious. But I sure hope they get their service time figured out or they won’t survive long.

Once we finally got home I sat down to work on the binding on the Christmas jelly roll quilt, and fell asleep.  My husband left and went to a movie all by himself, and I slept on.  That’s OK because I didn’t want to see the latest Jurassic World movie anyway. 

So to make a long story short, there has been no sewing going on around here Sunday. But it was a pretty good day.  Golf, lunch that I didn’t have to cook, and a nap.  Works for me!!

More Saturday Sampler

Here is the second version of the Saturday Sampler block. I ended up leaving the light pink squares in the same place, along with the white. I just reversed the black and dark pink. I tried a couple of different layout options but liked this the best.



Last month we got the patterns for 2 different alternate blocks.  Here is my first attempt. I've wavered back and forth as to the color placement.  I want to use a lot of the same bright colors as I did in the regular blocks.  But I'm not sure if I should reverse the black and white that are in this one, so the black is the background and the white is in the flying geese sections.  I just can't decide.

Saturday Sampler

This month's Saturday Sampler block was tricky to lay out, but easy to sew.  This is my first version - the "dark" block. My light block will have the black moved into a less prominent position.  I really like the look of this one and keep picturing it in red/white/blue.

Jelly Roll Race II finished

I have this quilt bound with a week to spare before the guild quilt show.  This is a terrible picture that doesn't show the color very well.  But we've had some very grey overcast days and my usual outdoor spots were wet yesterday when I tried to get some good photos.

The lime green turned out to be a really good choice I think. It's a Grunge fabric, with subtle variations in the color, giving it a slightly "worn" look.  Grunge colors make great blenders.  Plus it makes the purple and blue really pop. The jelly roll was a Kaffe - with lots of purples and blues.  It's been sitting around way too long and I'm very happy that I finally used it.

Design Wall Monday - OBW

 

What's on your design wall this morning?  My "design floor" has is filling up with half hexagon One Block Wonder sections. And obviously I need to find a better spot to lay these out to photograph.  

 

One Block Wonder blocks are starting to accumulate, with the hexagon halves pinned together.  The triangles from the first 2 strips of layers are done.  I've gotten 16 sets of triangles (1 hexie block per set) from each strip. The 16 triangle sets from strip #3 are ready to sew. And I'm heading to my sewing room shortly with a cup of coffee and the rest of the morning open for sewing. 

 

Check out the other design walls at:  http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

 

 

Butterfly Bash

Our local quilt shop, The Pin Cushion, hosted a Butterfly Bash earlier this month to celebrate the beginning of summer. What a fun idea! 

A landscape company did a great presentation on planting butterfly gardens or containers. They showed us several types of plants that attract different kinds of butterflies. And we got some tips for caring for those plants.

Then a guild member (Ruby) gave a short trunk show of butterfly quilts. She collects vintage quilts and her favorite ones have butterflies. She also makes and loves modern butterfly quilts. We got to see some gorgeous quilts and heard her stories about where they came from. So interesting!

The shop had a contest going, where we had to guess how many butterfly "items" were in the shop.  My guess was way off - only about 20% of the actual number. But it was fun to walk around and look for the butterflies.

Last but not least, they handed out a free pattern plus a piece of 30s reproduction fabric to anyone willing to make a butterfly block and bring it back.  Each butterfly block will be put into a quilt the shop is making to look like a vintage one on display.  Each of us who made a block will have our names entered for a chance to win that quilt.  I may need to make this block again because it was quick and so cute. 

RSC18 Country Lane

Rainbow Scrap Challenge block for June is Country Lane. It is a block found in the mid-1930s on the Mountain Mist packaging.  I decided to try putting my white background in totally different placements on my 3 blocks to see how much it changed them. And wow - it changes the blocks a lot.



I'm not sure which block version I like the best. They all turned out pretty well, and it was fun to play around with color placement. My colors don't look quite as "aqua" as they are in real life.  I used aqua and teal scraps for these.



How do you lay out your pieces for sewing?  I have 3 of these simple design boards that I use quite often.  They are simply a piece of craft board covered with a piece of fleece or batting, and then a wide binding strip is hot glued around the edges. This is the smaller one, and the other 2 are about 4 inches larger. I love using these for unfamiliar blocks in particular because I'm less likely to put a piece in the wrong place if I can lay it out like this and see the arrangement. 

One Block Wonder progress

Every block is unique, and these are just from the first strip cut. There will be more! I have 4 more strips cut from my layers. I have no idea yet how I'll lay these out, but I've been looking online at the amazing variations that people are doing.  

Endless Ritzy Crackers

Are you tired of seeing these blocks yet?  I got 9 more made, and with the family reunion coming up in two weeks I do need to count them again and figure out if I need more.  The reunion numbers were at about 95 this week but we expect to hear from a few more yet before it all happens. So my plan is to have about 150 blocks ready to sign - just in case we need that many.

Sidetracked by One Block Wonder

I knew that my focus on finishing UFOs would get derailed sooner or later by some exciting NEW project.  Goals were set for June, and here it is less than halfway through the month and I'm diving into something new and fun. 

One Block Wonder has been lighting up the Internet lately, plus I've seen a couple of beautiful examples in person.  I bought and downloaded the book onto my Kindle quite a while ago. And I finally just couldn't resist any longer.  I bought this gorgeous digital print on Saturday with something else in mind, but by Monday I had gone back for more so that I could use it for OBW.  I needed 6 repeats of the print. This is Euphoria by P & B Textiles and I love the colors in this.



My 6 layers are all pinned together with the design matched up carefully.  I've cut one strip so far, and then sub-cut into the 60 degree triangles I need for the hexagons.  The hexagons are put together into halves, but pinned together to keep the halves in a pair.

I have a stack of triangle groups laid out on my ironing board, ready to sew.  This will be an on-going project in between my goal projects.  Since the hexagon halves take about a minute to stitch, they will make good leaders and enders. 

Useful scraps

I was cutting some purple strips of leftover backing into squares of various sizes. And I noticed they blend nicely with some leftover pink unicorn squares. This could be a doll quilt.

Check out Design Wall Monday at: http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/2018/06/design-wall-monday-june-11-2018.html

Vacation

We visited Belle Meade Plantation and Winery in Tennessee yesterday, and also attended a wonderful show at the Grand Ole Opry. Our Belle Meade visit began with a food and wine pairing. We got to taste 5 different wines, paired with some very tasty foods. Like every wine tasting I’ve done it went from light to dark to dessert.  And they paired these wines with some local cheeses and local chocolates among other goodies.

The Belle Meade mansion and plantation was awesome. What a beautiful home with an interesting history as a Mecca for race horse breeding.  I highly recommend this as a place to check out in the Nashville area.

On the beautiful grounds were black walnut and magnolia trees.  These magnolia blossoms were as big a dinner plates and they smelled lovely.

Morning coffee

I’m having my morning coffee on our little balcony and doing a little hand stitching. 

It’s a perfect sunny 72 degrees with a slight breeze. All inside a huge glass covered atrium. But it feels like you are outdoors. In the background I can hear the sounds of the waterfalls too. No birds or bugs however. 

Oops!!

 

This month's Saturday Sampler blocks are Picnic Basket.  I had these laid out very carefully, rearranged the colors a couple of times, and finally sewed them together.  I can't believe I didn't see the problem with that second block - even while pressing it.  Not until I looked at the photo to write this post did I notice that I flipped one section.  So, once I get back home, I'll pull that block and pick out the stitches around that section so I can turn it the right way.

 

Road trip

My husband travels a lot for work, although not as much as he did for most of his career.  He doesn’t particularly enjoy traveling. But I love to travel and experience new things. I don’t travel with him very often, but this time I’m tagging along. Can you guess where we are?  The hotel is within a short walk to The Grand Ole Opry, so we walked over and did the backstage tour this morning. Very interesting!

As a kid who grew up watching Hee Haw (because that is what my parents were watching) and listening to country music, this was fun.  Then we headed back to the hotel.  I’ve gotten in more than my 10,000 steps in today already. Just getting around this massive hotel will be exercise.  I’ll probably help him set up his booth for the conference and trade show tomorrow morning. But mostly I have a couple of days to just relax and enjoy myself.

June UFO Challenge

APQ has announced the June number for the 2018 UFO Challenge and it's number 11.  Yikes!  I have a couple of things on here that I've been avoiding. But the good news is that one of the projects (the Friendship Exchange quilt) is already done.

 

There are 2 Simple Whatnots kits from this past series that I still haven't made, and I have one that needs to be quilted yet.  The next series will begin in June with our first class.  I've fallen behind!!  I have Raspberry Cocoa along with me this week while I tag along with my husband on a work trip, and plan to do some simple hand quilting on it. Maybe I can get this one done for the quilt show since it is only 27" square. 

 

 

 

As for the Urban Cabin quilt, first of all I had to find the project box for this one. It was on the bottom of the stack of boxes inside my cutting table cabinet.  And yes - there are too many other project boxes hiding in there.

 

 

 

Opening up this project box provided some surprises.  I thought the Urban Cabin quilt only had one block made before I set it aside. Turns out, there were two blocks made and the strips were cut from the colors for the strip sets. Woot woot!!!!  These are not colors that I usually gravitate toward, but I think I'm going to like it. Funny how one's tastes change over the years.

 

 

I have no idea why I set this one aside - or even WHEN I set it aside.  It's pretty sad that I don't remember when I was working on this one, but after checking my old UFO lists I know it's at least 4 years old because it was on those lists every year.  So, any progress I can make on this one is an improvement, right?   

 



Goals, goals, goals

June isn't going to be a very good month for setting new goals as I have something going on every single weekend, ending with the guild quilt show and the big family reunion at the end of the month.  And I want to play some golf which also cuts into my sewing time.

May however, was a productive month, with most of my goals reached:

3 RSC Sampler blocks in pink - DONE

2 Saturday Sampler blocks - DONE  

12 Ritzy Cracker blocks (pink) - DONE

finish top of Christmas jelly roll quilt - DONE & in the quilter's hands 

bind Pink Pineapples - DONE

prep the sewing room wall hanging for quilting - NO, and I may add some lettering to it

make a plan for large Farm Girl Vintage blocks - NO plan at all yet

I finished the red Sew Together bag early in the month and Olivia's big pillow, both of which were part of the APQ UFO Challenge.  I also made 11 orange and 6 black/brown Ritzy Cracker blocks. Two quilt tops were finished and delivered to the quilter in May: the Christmas one listed above plus a brand new jelly roll race quilt. The bindings for both are done and ready to attach as soon as I get the quilts back. It's always exciting to get my quilts back all quilted.

For June I am setting the following goals for myself:

• 3 RSC Sampler blocks in teal/aqua (June colors)
• 2 Saturday Sampler blocks + 2 of the alternate blocks
• 12 red Ritzy Cracker blocks
• 6 dark Ritzy Cracker blocks
• bind Jelly Roll Race 
• bind Christmas Jelly Roll

Binding those quilts will be determined by when I get them back.  I really would like to put them in the quilt show, but I'm kind of slow binding so that may or may not be realistic. But we'll see.