Prepping For My December Guild Meeting - NYC Metro MOD Quilt Guild

A quick round up of items to take along to my December meeting of the NYC Metro MOD Quilt Guild.

For the holidays we're doing a fabric swap - bring along five 2.5" x 44" strips, rolled, tied and labelled as shown.  I'm gifting five fabrics from the Simply Color collection by Vanessa Christenson of V and Co - I think they're simply gorgeous, hope my swap partner does too.

As a Guild we're always making charity quilts and this month's Charity Block is a Red and White Cross.  I've not created a tute as Andrea has posted a great one on the Guild's blog - you can find it here if you fancy making one yourself.

Looks a bit wonky in the last pic but the fabric mustn't be lying totally flat as it's pretty straight really.  Yep, it looks better in the pic below and you can see how the fabric's curling up at the edges!!!

That's two items ticked off my meeting 'to do' list - next has to be organising my Bee Blocks to hand out at the meeting on Saturday, 6 December.  I can't believe it's my turn to be Queen Bee again, remember my Bear's Paw Block and my Sliced Improv Block tute - I've made some progress on both over the last month and should be ready to write about them very soon?  I have a plan for my latest Bee Block and I'm almost ready to share it with you as a tute, watch this space. :D

And you can click this button below to see all of my NYC Mod Quilt Guild Bee Blocks and Challenge Blocks/Quilts.

   

 

   

What A Girl Wants ... She Usually Gets!

In this instance, the girl in question is my daughter, Flicky, and regular readers can be forgiven for thinking, 'Isn't it always?' and this time, it's pillowcases!!!

Back in February, I shared with you the news that Flicky has been offered an unconditional place to study a Modern History MA at The University of St Andrews in Scotland 

University of St Andrews, Scotland

 and then in March, the two of us did a recce* and loved the place so much that Flicky immediately accepted her offer.

Screen Shot of Flicky's UCAS Offer Page

Anyway, to get back to this post and a bit of sewing content, on a trip to our Manhattan LQS, Flicky had picked out some fabrics and requested a couple of pillowcases for her room at uni. So, with the clock fast ticking now on the countdown to 7 September 2013, I've duly obliged.

Here's my Instagram photo of the fabrics - there are two Avalon JAY-CYN designs for birch fabrics and a piece of Kona Solid 'Red'

I used a straightforward 'burrito method' of making the pillowcases - I'm writing up a tutorial for some eye mask covers I've made recently in the same way, so I'll be sharing that with you soon.

 One happy young lady and another sewing job ticked off a long list.

This weekend, I also started work on a quilt that Flicky requested (see previous post, 'An Unexpected Trip To Mood'). The top and back are done, but I'm waiting for the batting to arrive - she's asked for a puffy quilt, so I will use 2 layers of Quilter's Dream Puff batting.

Instagram photo of my cut selvedge edges for quilt top - Kaufman Essex Linen - La Femme

 I also altered Flicky's prom dress - it needed taking in; she must have lost a few pounds since we bought it. I was terrified I'd ruin it, but it went okay, and Flicky's delighted with the fit now.

Instagram photo of the altered prom dress seam

On a bit of a roll, I decided to bind my first ever fmq sampler that's been in my 'to do' pile for 18 months.

My 'to do' pile is diminishing - I even sewed the handle back on my doorstep last week that the removal men pulled off two years ago when we were packing to emigrate to the States!

I also grabbed myself a great bargain last week - check out all these 40/2 and 50/2 spools of Aurifil thread and packs of sharps - total cost $132.90. Yes, you read that right, $132.90 - Sue at Sue's Sew EZ Designs is having a fantastic closing-down sale; head over and check it out :)

Instagram photo of my sale bargain

I am still deciding what to tackle next today. Maybe I'll look at my Queen Bee Bear's Paw quilt blocks.
What do you have planned for your week?




* old English word: If you recce an area, you visit that place to become familiar with it. People usually recce an area when they are going to return at a later time to do something there - Collins Dictionary 


Featured On:


Disclaimer: 
This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.

Related Posts:

Anything Wills & Kate Can Do ...

Will Ye No Come Back Again? Absolutely, Next September! 
An Unexpected Trip To Mood
Back To Some Serious Quilting
Need To Nail That Bear's Paw

Need To Nail That Bear's Paw

NYC Metro MOD Quilt Guild December Queen Bee Chris here, wow that's a mouthful!

 I've got all my Bear's Paw Bee Blocks back now so the rest is down to me.  You can read my original posts here.

I've laid the blocks out and admired them but that's as far as it's gone so far.

There's sashing and a border to add and I need to make another 4 blocks myself to bring it up to its finished size.  

Actually I need to make 5 more blocks not 4 - the thing is that my own block for the Bee is one that I made up as a sample, trialling several colourways before purchasing my chosen fabric.  Once I'd decided that this was the quilt and colourway that I wanted to make I ordered more of the fabric and sent that out to all of my bees.  Have any of you spotted the problem yet.

That's the sample block bottom right - yes that Kona Sage is a slighter lighter and more blue dye than the rest of the blocks made from my later fabric order, you can see the difference in this photo although it doesn't look anywhere near as bad as it does in real life where it is SCREAMING at me, so I need to replace that block as well as making the extra four.

It's not the first and only time I've had problems with Kona dye lots and additionally I've noticed that the finish can also differ along with the fabric width - I'd love to hear if anyone else has experienced this.  Remember I shared with you some rabbit fabrics I bought a couple of months ago, 

well I bought that fabric at The City Quilter and chose my Kona solid colours there in the shop - Coal and Charcoal.  Boxing clever I didn't buy my solids there though, I came home and ordered them more cheapily online.  When they arrived they were both different shades - the wrong shades - slightly lighter and blue based rather than green based and low and behold this dye difference means that they don't work with my rabbit fabric.  Additionally neither of them match their sample swatches on my Kona Colour Card - though they don't match any other colours either so I know it's not that I've been sent the wrong colour.

So what to learn from this:

1.  If you're in a shop and you see a fabric that's a perfect match for something you're working on - BUY IT, don't try to be clever just grab it while you can;

2.  Buy all the fabric you might need, and some extra, in one go - don't try to match it at a later date, it's not worth the risk; and

3.  You can save a fortune buying off the internet but be prepared to be disappointed and carry the expense of the dye lot not being what you were expecting.

 A big thank you to all the Bees in my Hive - you've done an amazing job and I hope I do your work and the quilt justice when completing it.

I'll keep you posted :)

Related Posts:

Back To Some Serious Quilting

Whatever Happened To My Double Irish Chain? 

Back To Some Serious Quilting

After all the exciting and scary stuff that's happened over the last week or so, yesterday I was glad to get back to my quilting 'To Do' list.  Admittedly I wasn't totally idle last week, taking the opportunity to hand bind several quilts but it was good to get the cutting mat out and be a bit more creative yesterday.

Siggy Block

First up I made a siggy block using a great tutorial by Rachel Griffith of ps i quilt.  It's part of a project that Liz of Dandelion Daydreams is putting together as a thank you to Beth at Plum & June for hosting the 'Let's Get Acquainted!' Blog Hop which is coming to an end next week.

Philip Jacobs for Rowan.  Westminster Fibers #PWPJ42 'Primula' and Kona 'Azure'

Kandinsky Challenge

Secondly, I set about my NYC Metro Mod Guild challenge to take along to our December meeting.  I posted about the challenge here a few weeks ago but just to recap we each took a square image cut from a Kandinsky painting - it's 1/30th of the painting.  We've been asked to reproduce the image to 6" on a 6.5" fabric square using any media - paint/paper/fabric/etc and it doesn't have to be washable.

The original image and instructions

On the left: Neocolour image on fabric square and on the right: Finished textile art square

 I created a background colour image on cotton fabric using Caran D'ache Neocolor II - water-soluble wax pastels, wet the colour through with a paintbrush and set it with a hairdryer.  Then I added some tissue and handmade papers, then a small amount of sheer and netted fabric and free motion stitched over these areas. 

Another job done and ready to take along to our next Guild meeting :)

Once the blocks are all pieced together at the Guild I'll see if I can share a photo of the finished art quilt with you. 

Bear's Paw Block

Finally, in December it's my turn to be Queen Bee for the NYC Metro Mod Bee so I wanted to trial my chosen Bear's Paw block.  There's a lot of history to the Bear's Paw block and rather than write it all again here anyone interested can read this Quilt Patterns Through Time piece on Womenfolk.com.  It's larger than the normal 12.5" block measuring up around 16" untrimmed and, although there's lots of pieces, it's very fast and easy to make using a chain piecing method.

Here's my finished block - my chosen fabrics are a print from Tula Pink's The Birds and The Bees called Swallow Skies in Storm and a solid Kona Cotton Sage. 

front and back views of my trial Bear's Paw block

Need to crack on now with writing up my instructions for making the block, cutting the fabric and packing it ready to post out to my December Bees!

And you can click this link to see all of my NYC Mod Quilt Guild Bee Blocks and Challenge Blocks/Quilts.