Improv: Beyond The Bee - July 2016 (NYC Metro MOD Quilt Guild)

Just between us let's pretend it's still July and talk about my July Improv: Beyond The Bee block for Caroline.

Improv: Beyond The Bee - June 2016 (NYC Metro MOD Quilt Guild)

June was a busy month, making many projects ready for Christmas in July and July's busy also promoting them.  I took a break from Christmas today to catch up on my outstanding June Improv: Beyond The Bee block.

Do You Like The Simply Colour Collection As Much As I Do?

Just take a look at all this beautiful fabric I've received from Cotton Blossom Farm.

 
My prize has arrived from the Something New Sampler Blog Hop - 10 x 1/2 yards from the Simply Color Collection by Vanessa Christenson of V and Co for Moda.  I chose 4 graphite greys, 4 lime greens and 2 spicy hot pinks and looking at them I'm really thrilled with my choices, they look so crisp and remind me, for some reason, of sorbet - simply gorgeous.

Now the small problem of deciding what to make with them!!!

Thank you again to everyone involved :)

 

hosted by Amy @the cute life

You can look back at The Something NEW Sampler on flickr

Related Posts:

A Modern Bargello - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 1
Scraptastic & Folded Blocks - The Something New Sampler: Week 2
Reverse Applique & Sashiko Blocks -The Something New Sampler: Week 3
Trapunto & Pinless Curve Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 4
Machine Applique and Cathedral Windows Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 5
Selvedge Block and QAYG Quilting - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 6
Strip Sashing My QAYG: The Something NEW Sampler: Completed
Voting Is Now Open - The Something NEW Sampler
A Quick Reminder - Something NEW Sampler Quilt Voting Now Open
Voting Has Closed - The Something NEW Sampler: Winners

Voting Has Closed - The Something NEW Sampler: Winners

Voting for the Something NEW Sampler has closed and my first try at a QAYG quilt came in a very respectable second.

I'm thrilled with my prize donated by Cotton Blossom Farm - 10 x 1/2 yards chosen from the Simply Color Collection by Vanessa Christenson of V and Co for Moda.  I've had a great morning looking over the fabrics and finally choosing 4 graphite grey, 4 lime green and 2 spicy hot pink designs and now I'm thinking through what to make with them.  I want to say a very big thank you to Cathy at Cotton Blossom Farm and please do check out the web store, they've got some great fabrics to choose from.

Amy @thecutelife has done a smashing post detailing all the winners and you can read all about it by clicking the link below:

Something New Sampler Winners!!

I've had a really fun time doing this Blog Hop, learnt lots of techniques and made new blogging friends, special mentions go to:

Amy for organising the Blog Hop; 

the girls who wrote each of the tutorials - Amy, Heidi, Chelsea, Jess, Lindsay, M-R, Heidi, Alyssa and Becky;

Cotton Blossom Farm for donating my scrummy prize; 

everyone who has commented and joined in via my blog and flickr 

and a very special thanks to those of you who nipped over to Amy's blog and voted for my quilt.

Thank You Everyone :)

 

hosted by Amy @the cute life

You can look back at The Something NEW Sampler on flickr

Related Posts:

A Modern Bargello - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 1
Scraptastic & Folded Blocks - The Something New Sampler: Week 2
Reverse Applique & Sashiko Blocks -The Something New Sampler: Week 3
Trapunto & Pinless Curve Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 4
Machine Applique and Cathedral Windows Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 5
Selvedge Block and QAYG Quilting - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 6
Strip Sashing My QAYG: The Something NEW Sampler: Completed
Voting Is Now Open - The Something NEW Sampler
A Quick Reminder - Something NEW Sampler Quilt Voting Now Open
Voting Has Closed - The Something NEW Sampler: Winners

A Quick Reminder - Something NEW Sampler Quilt Voting Now Open

A very quick post just to remind you all that the voting for the Something NEW Sampler Quilt closes tomorrow, Friday, 22 March.

My entry is for my QAYG Something NEW Sampler Quilt

If you haven't already voted you can do so by clicking on the link below and then clicking the 'VOTE' button that's ON TOP of the photo of the quilt that you want to vote for.

CLICK HERE TO VOTE IN THE SOMETHING NEW SAMPLER LINK-UP

Thank you to everyone who's voted for me or for any of the other quilts in the Link-Up :)

Related Posts:

A Modern Bargello
Scraptastic & Folded Blocks - The Something New Sampler: Week 2
Reverse Applique & Sashiko Blocks -The Something New Sampler: Week 3
Trapunto & Pinless Curve Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 4
Machine Applique and Cathedral Windows Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 5
Selvedge Block and QAYG Quilting - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 6
Strip Sashing My QAYG: The Something NEW Sampler: Completed
Voting Is Now Open - The Something NEW Sampler

Voting Is Now Open - The Something NEW Sampler

Voting has now opened for the Something NEW Sampler Link-Up.  You can view all the final quilts here at the cute life and place one vote for your favourite quilt finish (be sure to click on the vote link above the photo as it's very easy to vote for the wrong quilt).  Voting closes on Friday, 22 March and the winner will be announced on Saturday, 23 March.

I've entered my QAYG Something NEW Sampler Quilt into the final link-up selection and there's lots of other great quilt finishes there too.

Don't forget voting closes on Friday, 22 March so be sure to hop over and place your vote before then :)

Something New Sampler Quilt Voting

Related Posts:

A Modern Bargello
Scraptastic & Folded Blocks - The Something New Sampler: Week 2
Reverse Applique & Sashiko Blocks -The Something New Sampler: Week 3
Trapunto & Pinless Curve Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 4
Machine Applique and Cathedral Windows Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 5
Selvedge Block and QAYG Quilting - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 6
Strip Sashing My QAYG: The Something NEW Sampler: Completed  

Linking To:

Strip Sashing My QAYG: The Something NEW Sampler: Completed

and here it is

 

my finished Something NEW Sampler Quilt

hosted by Amy @the cute life

The first thing I did was try a few colours for the sashing deciding on Kona Robin Egg; here are my ideas and thoughts:

 I haven't done QAYG before, so I read some posts and watched some videos online and then I thought about it all for a day or so. I couldn't get to grips with how the blocks would actually be joined. It seemed that the batting would remain in separate pieces - it would be butted up to itself, but it wouldn't be physically joined. This worried me; in fact, it bothered me a lot, so I decided to ignore everything I'd read and seen and join the blocks together in my own way.

And here's how I did it:

I cut the 10 blocks to size and then zigzagged each row of blocks together - so 5 sets of 2. I didn't worry whether or not the zigzag caught the top and backing fabric. I knew this would all be enclosed in the sashing strips anyway - the objective here was purely to join all the batting and create a solid quilt from the 10 blocks.

a zigzagged top join

Two zigzagged rows - you can see on the top left that the quilt top hasn't been caught into the zigzag stitch.

Now I need to cover each of these short joining seams. I decided that there was so much stitching already visible on these blocks that an additional row of straight stitching wasn't going to 'spoil' the look of the finished quilt - also, I really wasn't up for hand stitching all these joining strips into place.

For the quilt back, I cut each strip 1.5" wide, folded it in half, pressed it, then opened it out and folded each outside edge in to touch the central pressed line and pressed again. The photo below shows a folded and pressed finished strip, and a narrow strip is sewn into place. The width of this strip, when pressed and finished, is 3/4". I then straight line machine-sewed both edges of this strip onto the back of the quilt using a 1/8" border along the joined zigzag seam to cover the join. The two stitching lines showed through on the quilt top, but these would be covered on the top side by the broader strip that I added next.


For the quilt top, I cut 2" wide strips, which I again folded in half, pressed, opened, folded the edges into the central line and repressed. This gave me a finished 1" strip which I sewed along the zigzag seam on the top of the quilt to cover the join. As this strip was 1/4" wider than the backing strip, it covered the stitch lines easily. Again, I stitched 1/8" from both edges.

And that's how the finished top strip looks.

 Here's a look at the quilt back so you can see how the stitch lines show through from the front joining strip (one of the stitch lines is the straight line on the circle fabric just below the blue strip, and the other is totally lost in the stitching on the duck fabric):

 

I don't know about you, but I can live with those extra lines of straight stitching rather than doing lots of hand stitching on this quilt, and after all, this quilt is all about machine stitching.

Next, I zigzagged each row of 2 blocks to the next row.

Here are all the blocks zigzagged together - Quilt Top

and Quilt Back

At this stage, I realised that I hadn't needed to add the joining strips a row at a time using my method. I could much more easily have added one long joining strip to the back and then the top, and this would have ensured that the stripline ran much straighter down the length of the top and the back.

Since joining the blocks, I've been told by my friend Annette, who does a lot of QAYG quilting, that there is a QAYG method where you can add the joining strips from the back of each strip using a zigzag stitch that joins the blocks together securely and the machine stitching isn't visible from the front. This method sounds great, but I didn't come across it on the internet (if anyone knows where I can find a tutorial, please let me know) - all the methods I saw used straight stitch only.

By now, I'd also had enough of pressing the strips and remembered a tool that my quilt tutor, Christine Janove, had shown me a year or so ago, Clover Bias Tape Makers. These great little tools make bias strips, which basically is what we are making to cover the joins on a QAYG quilt, and they are so straightforward and quick. I was straight down to my LQS and purchased a red 3/4" and yellow 1" (NB: the measurement for each tool is the width of the finished bias tape it makes, not the original fabric strip width).

Here's how they work for anyone who hasn't seen these before. The remainder of the job was done in a couple of minutes.

Feed-in the fabric strip

The fabric comes out at the other end perfectly folded in half with a central seam.

Pull the handle on the tape maker to move it along the fabric and follow with a hot iron over the folded fabric pressing the folds into place.

It takes seconds!!!

So all that was left to do was add the horizontal seams, square up the quilt, and machine bind it, and here it is:

and here's some behind the scenes shots of my faithful quilting assistant

Tatty straightening the quilt ready for the photoshoot

Tatty says, "That's A Wrap."

Not sure what I'm going to do with the quilt now - it's not a snuggly, cuddly quilt; two of the blocks are pretty thick, making them less flexible - Cathedral Window and the Folded blocks. It lends itself more to being a play mat or wall hanging; Flicky says it looked like a bath mat, and today when I had it rolled up to take out for the shoot, it looked rather like a beach mat. Maybe I should give it to Tatty; she seems pretty happy lying on it; what do you think?

I've had a complete blast taking part in The Something NEW Sampler blog hop, I've learnt loads, made new friends, and it's been lots of fun. I'd like to say a huge thank you to Amy, Heidi, Chelsea, Jess, Lindsay, M-R, Heidi, Alyssa and Becky for their excellent tutorials and an extra-special thank you to Amy @the cute life for organising the Hop and Flickr group.

Thanks, everyone :)
You can follow The Something NEW Sampler on Flickr.

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Related Posts:

A Modern Bargello - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 1
Scraptastic & Folded Blocks - The Something New Sampler: Week 2
Reverse Applique & Sashiko Blocks -The Something New Sampler: Week 3
Trapunto & Pinless Curve Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 4
Machine Applique and Cathedral Windows Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 5
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Voting Is Now Open - The Something NEW Sampler
A Quick Reminder - Something NEW Sampler Quilt Voting Now Open
Voting Has Closed - The Something NEW Sampler: Winners

Selvedge Block and QAYG Quilting - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 6

A week of QAYG quilting on

hosted by Amy @the cute life

  
 This week I have wrapped up all the Quilt As You Go (QAYG) quilting on the 9 blocks and added a 10th Selvedge block to finish my layout.


Block 10 - Selvedge Block

 I've wanted to try a Selvedge Block for ages so this seemed like a great opportunity to learn another technique and round the number of blocks up to 10 which would make the final layout easier.  This is quite appealing as it's now a QAYG quilt so I've decided to opt for a simple grid layout while I'm learning my new QAYG skills.

To make this selvedge block I spray basted the backing sheet to the batting and then sprayed more basting spray onto the top of the batting.  I then started laying my selvedge strips from the fabrics used in making this quilt onto the batting overlapping a finished edge over each raw edge.  The strips held firmly in place, thanks to the basting spray (my new favourite tool!) and then I quilted along the selvedges with very closely spaced lines making sure to catch down all the selvedge edges.

I loooovvve this block, I'm so glad I tried it and I love too that it records all the fabrics used in the quilt which is really neat. 

QAYG Details for Blocks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 8
(not necessarily in that order as I'm sick of fighting with html code each time I try to move things around!!!)

Block 1 - Bargello

Block 4 - Reverse Applique

You know I was so unsure about this block but I decided to do echo quilting around each reverse applique opening and in the end I've decided to keep it the final quilt layout.

Block 5 - Sashiko

 Block 2 - Scraptastic

Block 8 - Pinless Curves

Block 3 - Folded Block

and here's my plan for the final QAYG layout

and this is how the back will look

 For the back of each block I wanted to use a whole piece of each fabric included in the quilt top.  I was short of fabric for 3 of the blocks so I added strips of white to make them up to the correct size.  I'd only used 9 fabrics in total (well I have used white but I don't want a solid white block block) and I needed 10 so I 'made' fabric for the 10th block from the other 9 fabrics using the 'Block 2 - Scraptastic' method.

I just can't 'relax' into free motion quilting (FMQ) - I've followed all tips and advice, drinking a glass of wine, drinking two glasses of wine, drinking a bottle of wine, listening to great music. I've got an adjustable Tempur-Pedic chair and a Sew Ezi sewing table so my machine bed is level with my working surface, I have a Supreme Slider mat and a Quilt Halo ring.  Sometimes I use my Bernina BSR on settings 1 and also 2 and sometimes I use my darning foot with the stitch set to 0 and the feed dogs down and then again sometimes with the feed dogs up (to keep the tension working) and the Supreme Slider in place.  The only thing I don't seem to be able to change is ME - I just can't relax while I'm fmqing and I've paid the price this weekend for all my work - I've got a frozen neck and shoulder so I couldn't sew yesterday and, although it's loosening a bit now, I think I should leave it alone today as well.  

Need a trip to my LQS today though to pick up some fabric to sash and bind the quilt.  Quite nervous about this next stage - I've read lots of great tutorials but just want to get on with trying it for myself now.

I'll be back with a finished quilt for you as soon as my neck and shoulder will let me!!!  

You can follow The Something NEW Sampler on flickr


Featured On:

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A Modern Bargello
Scraptastic & Folded Blocks - The Something New Sampler: Week 2
Reverse Applique & Sashiko Blocks -The Something New Sampler: Week 3
Trapunto & Pinless Curve Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 4
Machine Applique and Cathedral Windows Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 5  

Linking To: