Trying a new block, pt. 1

I'm going to be testing out some new blocks in the next couple of weeks and months. A few days ago I decided to start with the sunburst block, a tutorial for which can be found at Film in the Fridge. Now, Ashley does start out by saying that it was quickly penned and describes her own process, not necessarily tried against other possible ways of doing a similar block.

And I did have some trouble with it. But here's what I have so far:
Started gathering strips and scraps of printed and solid fabrics.

Had my computer open to Ashley's tutorial as I began piecing bits together.

Continued working across, trying to measure as I went, but that was not always as successful as it would seem.

(as the last green prints shows... because of the angle of the seam, I lost the necessary length at the top).

And I apparently can't get my points matched up properly, either.

I was working on 4 different halves, but by the time I got them "finished" I only had 2 viable halves, neither one of which is quite right, but it's a start!

Next week I'll play around a little bit with the process and report back. But I was very happy to have somewhere to start, so thank you, Ashley!

recycle, reuse, repurpose

Keeping in line with the theme of pulling old projects off the shelf of oblivion, I surprised even myself this afternoon! The earlier part of the day was spent crossing a couple of smaller items off my list, including getting those star blocks pieced together in a finished top:

which, to be fair, looks very much like the photo of the individual blocks displayed on the design wall, found in this post.

And then I took a lunch break, and maybe enjoyed an adult beverage, too;-) So, coming back to the studio I spent some time at the ironing board pressing new fabrics and regrouping. But I was not ready to dive in to one of these new projects just yet.

So, where does that leave us but finding a NOT-SO-NEW project! I don't know if any of you remember these?

a false start I had on that placemat commission that ended up looking like this. Though I had decided that this wasn't right for the client, I still like 'em, so I stowed them away for a bit.

One of the issues that had come up initially is that one of the placemats ended up short. And I didn't have enough of the focus fabric to scrap the large piece and cut a replacement. So, what does one do with 2 discarded placemats, one of which is too small to be useful as such? Why, cut them into a pair of pot holders, of course!!

As for quilting them, I went against the grain (no pun intended). For pot holders I generally use a simple, straight line quilting, because let's be realistic, no one cares how fancy the quilting is on the tool you're using to pull the casserole from the oven, right? But this fabric gets me every time! I was drawn in by the little vines and leaves on the print, and it evolved into an actual feather quilting motif! Who'da thunk it?

And can you believe this was my first foray into free-motion quilting on the Bernina?!? Though I prefer my trusty Viking in SO MANY WAYS, I do have to concede that this machine handled Beautifully with FMQ!! Not even any tension issues on the bobbin thread, which I find inconceivable! However, that said, these might not be so practical as pot holders any more! Just one of the sacrifices we'll make to push our creativity, I guess.

Never too late (I hope)

As a periodic blog reader I undoubtedly came across all of the WIP Wednesday posts (hosted by Lee at Freshly Pieced) during 2011. As a novice blog writer, I wasn't ready to take on such a commitment.

It's a new year, right? Is anyone else feeling the magic of January 2012?

So, I know I missed the first installment, but I figure better late than never, yes? So, here's MY first contribution to the list-making, track-keeping, over-sharing of WAY TOO MANY things on my plate!

I'll begin with the UFOs. One of my goals this year is to address several (if not all) of the projects that were begun in years past, then shelved indefinitely, primarily because they were either from classes I took but didn't follow through on, or simply because the gift-making and etsy-friendly projects took precedent.

A partial quilt top and blocks from a class with Lee Fowler entitled Encapsulated, which I took from her over 5 years ago, easily (back when StoryQuilts had a storefront in Beaverton, OR, where I had the pleasure of working for an all-too-quick year+)

My Summertime Stars quilt using Amy Butler's "Love" – discussed in detail in this post from yesterday.

A quilt top awaiting quilting for the past 2-3 years. I pin-basted it on Tuesday. Honestly, it is one of about 7 tops that need to be quilted, but I'm only going to address them a little at a time (I hope that's within the rules!!)

Half of my blocks for my second version of the Warm-Cool Quilt Along, hosted by Jeni at In Color Order.

NEXT on the list are projects that are in process, but begun *relatively* recently:

Must finish piecing (and then quilting and binding) the November quilt for the Bliss Circle of do.Good Stitches.

A set of placemats cut out and awaiting stitching/quilting.

Started quilting the I-Spy quilt top I finished last week. Still have a fair bit to go, though! Hopefully by next week it will be among the "Completed" list!

Got the majority of my bee blocks from the Seams Perfect Modern Scrap Bee pieced into a completed top, now I just need to piece the backing and quilt it (though this one I MIGHT farm out... we'll see!)

I've been adding to my received blocks from September's Nubees block swap on Flickr. I now have as many as I want, with the sashing fabric around each one. I think I might need to audition another background possibility, but if I DO end up going with this Michael Miller fabric, I'll still need to get a bit more.

And finally...

Another quilt top that's been hanging out on a shelf for quite a while, which I finished quilting this past week, and am just in the process of binding.

So the tally?
Completed - 0
New projects - 0
In progress - 10 (and that's a conservative estimation)

So, what is everyone else working on??
Now go get inspiration, as I did, from all of the other creative folks linking in at Freshly Pieced!!

Venturing into the vault of UFOs

Today I decided to revisit an old project... and I mean an OLD project.

Okay, maybe not THAT old! Nearly two years ago I bought the Fig Tree Quilts pattern "Summertime Stars" and that stack of fat quarters of Amy Butler's "Love" with coordinating solids.

I started working on it almost immediately, making one stack of 10 blocks.

And then other things took over (as Other Things are wont to do). These blocks got stowed away in a wire basket along with the untouched fat quarters... until today!!

Until THIS

becomes THIS

Now, is it dangerous that I left the step of piecing the blocks together into a finished quilt top until another day? Days DO sometimes become years in my world. But I'm trying to change that. Here's to moving forward!

Two birds, One stone

For Design Camp [think outside the block] 2, Michelle, the wonderful organizer and a fellow PMQG member, started our group off with a dry run this month. For a few of us this is our first improv quilting bee, and I think it just worked out that January was still open after the schedule was put together, so Michelle gave us some scraps of fabric (left over from our guild's Jay McCarroll challenge quilts last fall/winter, seen here and here) and a suggestion for a first exercise.

At the same time I have been trying to come up with 2 more blocks to make to work into my quilt from the 1-month Nubees block swap I participated in several months ago. I realized that by taking out the warmer colors of scraps, and using a grey as the "sashing" this block would fit in perfectly with the others I received back in September or October.

Now, to play around with that last block - getting much inspiration from a couple of books I just received for the holidays... more on that another time.

a match made in... THE STASH??

Lists are effective. I'm not a list person, but I tried this past week and let me tell you – it's done what I had hoped. It's kept me on track. Is it silly that this is such a revelation to me?

I started the week with 3 big projects on my plate, plus a couple of smaller items to break up the days. I managed to finish 2 quilt tops (one of which was simply a matter of piecing 25 bee blocks together) in 2 days, and got quite a bit of footing on one other.

So, first on the priority list was getting together a baby quilt for friends of mine who recently had their first baby! The item on this list for Jan. week 1 literally reads, "work on Hopman quilt" with a continuation in Jan. week 2 reading "Hopman quilt top finish." I ended my day yesterday with this:

This not only allowed me to cross off week 1's list item, but to amend week 2 by crossing out "top finish" and replacing it with "quilting" (to read "Hopman quilt quilting")! Woo hoo! Ahead of the game, right?

Next on the list was to work on putting together the top for the Bliss circle of do.Good stitches November quilt as much as possible. As I've mentioned in previous posts, this was a first time stint for me in the role of "quilter" for the group, and I did give myself some challenges with this one, not having regular or uniformly sized blocks. I'm also still expecting a couple of more blocks to come in, but figured I should get moving on putting together what I do have.

There are still some gaps to fill in, but progress is progress, no?

This morning when I went to the studio I had both of those projects up on the design wall from the previous day. The plan was to pin baste the baby quilt, but first comes the issue of choosing the backing. As often happens when I am not working from a pattern, I didn't quite know the finished width of the quilt (I knew the length to be 52" only because of border strips), and wouldn't luck have it that it turned out to be just 40 1/2"!! My color inspiration for the background for this quilt was a piece of Valori Wells' "Fleurish" which I've had for a few years now

The fabric piece is approximately 43"x58". But then I looked over at the shelf where I had gotten this older piece and saw another possibility left over from my early days of quilting when I was WAY into Stack 'n' Whack quilts - a fabric piece that I have used here and there, but still have close to 3 yards untouched. I was holding it up to the design wall to see if it would be suitable as backing for the baby quilt (which it TOTALLY would have been!!!)

and something magical happened... I saw it up against the charity quilt. And what better to use for the backing of a charity quilt than a fun, beautiful fabric that's been on one's shelf for years simply because one might have changed course and moved away from that style over time?

And really, who can argue with kismet? That Valori Wells piece turned out to be the perfect size for my quilt, and honestly, I was choosing the sashing and background for the front with it in hand, so that should tell me something right?

That quilt is now basted, awaiting quilting, to be completed during January week 2. And here's real testimony to my blogging world - I forgot to photograph the other quilt top I completed this week! It's the green and brown spider web quilt I talked about last month here. it really looks very much like the photo of all of the blocks up on the design wall!

Okay, I notice I'm rambling, which means it is past my bedtime.

My 100th Post!!... the year in retrospect

Welcome to the new year! I'm eager to start fresh while building on what I've gotten going on this blog and in my business endeavors over the past year. And how apropos that this happens to be my 100th blog post here at Surrounded by Scraps (a.k.a. Creativentropy). Seems like a good, round number to begin the year on, no?

I am not one to do New Years' resolutions, but there is something about turning the page (literally) to a new calendar year and starting fresh, and in that process taking inventory of the past year. As with many of us, I believe, there has been a lot of change in my world and my endeavors, and while concentrating on a new approach to my quilting I've learned some valuable lessons that I hope to build upon in the year to come. But that must start with summing up what has gotten done in the past year since I have taken this on full-time.

I'll begin with bee blocks and swaps (from Seams Perfect Modern Scrap Bee, do. Good Stitches Bliss circle, Nubees swap, Urban Home Goods Swap, I *heart* the '80s). Though I have had my Flickr account for a few years now, this is the first year that I have participated in any of the MANY quilting bees and sewing swaps on that site. And what an eye-opening opportunity that has been! I look forward to more in 2012!

1. Jenn's blocks, 2. Liberty's blocks for February, 3. Block for Jenn, 4. one more block for Jenn, 5. LeeAnn's March Seams Perfect block, 6. LeeAnn's March Seams Perfect block, 7. April Seams Perfect Block 2, 8. April Seams Perfect Block 1, 9. May Seams Perfect blocks for Rhonda, 10. Seams Perfect June blocks for Cruz, 11. My spiderweb blocks, 12. August stars for Theresa, 13. Seams Perfect - for Brianna, 14. Seams Perfect - for Brianna, 15. Oct. Seams Perfect blocks, 16. Seams Perfect Nov. for Amber, 17. do.Good Stitches "Bliss", 18. do. Good Stitches "Bliss" circle, 19. My April blocks for do.Good Stitches, Bliss Circle, 20. May do.Good Stitches Bliss, 21. do.Good June block, Bliss circle, 22. July do.Good Stitches Bliss, 23. "Bliss" August blocks, 24. do.Good Stitches - Bliss Sept., 25. I-Spy Rainbow Block Drive, 26. BLISS circle - October block 1, 27. November Bliss blocks, 28. Nubees Sept., 29. Nubees Sept., 30. Nubees Sept., 31. Nubees Sept., 32. Nubees Sept., 33. Nubees Sept., 34. who needs new baggage?, 35. a peek at item 2, 36. Frogger - a loose interpretation...

A smaller group is of finished quilts and quilt tops (I'm slower than I like to admit about actually quilting projects, but gonna work on that in the coming days!) I have been drafting my own designs over the years in my quilting projects, but this year I made a concerted effort to work more studiously on my own designs, with the intention of developing some of those designs into patterns for publication. One thing I have learned in that process is that pattern-writing does not come naturally for me, so I will have to work more at that in the coming year.

1. Multi-faceted, 2. Fiesta Squares quilted, 3. for Gideon, 4. warm cool QAL - top finished, 5. back in the saddle..., 6. Borders are on!, 7. yellow/orange scrappy, 8. Project Modern Challenge 2, 9. Brown scrappy - FINALLY quilted and bound

But most of my year was concentrated on smaller household items and bags and the like... building my etsy shop and working toward having a presence at craft fairs and such.

1. April 2011, 2. April 2011, 3. pot holders, with back, 4. pot holders, 5. more new pot holders, 6. more new pot holders, 7. new potholders, 8. new potholders, 9. potholder for PMQG/KCMQG swap, 10. PMQG swap item, 11. PMQG swap item (back), 12. Pillow for Alexandra, 13. Pillow for Alexandra (back), 14. Patchwork Pillows, 15. messenger bag for UHG swap partner, 16. inside of messenger bag, 17. satchel for Claire, 18. Nappy Bag, 19. AB's Nappy Bag with Momo "It's a Hoot", 20. QAYG table runner, 21. 8 quilted place mats - Phew!, 22. more placemats, 23. Freebird placemats, 24. QAYG place mats, 25. QAYG place mats, 26. Placemats Nov. 2011, 27. Portland Rose Festival mats, 28. Placemats Nov. 2011, 29. Placemats Nov. 2011, 30. QAYG placemat set, 31. QAYG placemat set, 32. P1020991a, 33. P1020987a, 34. P1020995a, 35. (new) old place mats36. Not available

I want to thank you all for expressing an interest in the things that make my days go by and sharing your inspirations with me. Here's to more of the same!

Sincerely, Linda

Return to the bee blocks

November and December ended up being a kind of break for me from the online bees. And I have to admit, a rather welcome one... and I'm sure I'm not alone in that opinion! But, that break is over and I'm ready to get back to it! Thankfully the new bee I'm going to be doing with a great selection of women, with Jennifer at the helm again, got started a little early.

Jennifer directed us to this tutorial from Aneela Hoey, which she calls "Crazy Scrappy Block." She's planning to do this color box style, so we each got to choose a color for our blocks.

I chose to go with black - a great way to use up some of these B/W prints I've collected over the years (mostly several years ago, to be honest!) and a fun challenge.

Happy January (almost)!

Post-holiday deadline post

It feels as though I have hardly been in the sewing room at all in the last month, since returning home from my Thanksgiving travels, but I know that is not the case. However, my projects have been on short term, short turn-around time tables. Those projects are all now done.

The last week or so was dedicated to some presents, which are on their way to the recipients (if not already arrived). I'll post photos after Christmas ;-) But NOW I get to concentrate on new things! Yahoo! (of course there will always be UFOs hanging around, ready to be completed, but the new stuff is always more fun to think about!)

I've been eyeing this Alexander Henry fabric for months now... I finally succumbed today.

In 2012 I'll be participating in 2 new bees, continuing with one, plus I'm planning on taking part in Round 2 of the For the Love of Solids sewing swap on Flickr, hosted by my do.Good Stitches Bliss hive mates Megan and Elizabeth. With all of these great new adventures on the horizon, I've begun thinking about my inspirations for these various groups, and seem to have fallen in love with the color palette within that fabric. I've also started noticing other people's projects with those deep, wintery, somewhat earthy jewel tones (how's THAT for a contradiction in terms??). A couple of my favorites, found on Flickr are this quilt by Shelley Brooks and this one by rainyday*knitter.

I'm not sure yet how I hope to use this fabric, but while at work today (at the stellar Cool Cottons, of course!) I've been playing around with possible combinations...

Matched with Shot Cottons

Matched with Kona Solids

I decided to start out with a combination of the two, plus a couple of prints thrown in for good measure:

Oh, the possibilities!

The blue placemats are mine no more!!

remember these?

Well, it took me the better part of a year, but I managed to finally finish these guys up and send them off to the recipients. I don't think I could have moved forward into the next year if I had this project hanging over me, and I KNOW that my friend Erica is glad that I finally finished them.

So here are some of the final photos that I took of the whole set before sending them off.

Spiderweb blocks received!

So, in mid-November I finally received all of the spiderweb blocks for my Seams Perfect Scrap Bee quilt (originally posted about here)! I actually ended up with a few more blocks than I had expected, due to some remakes for size issues as well as Jenn, our awesome fearless leader, stepping in and making angel blocks for a couple of the members.

So, yesterday I played around and arranged them on my design wall:

and I have about 3 or 4 orphans which will end up pieced into the back... but for now, I'm happy to have the top ready to put together. Yay!

And in addition, I FINALLY have a "new" quilt finished! The quotation marks indicate that the quilt top itself has been hanging around for, oh, I don't know, 2 years or so... but I just quilted it last week before heading up to the holiday bazaar so that I had some binding to work on while hanging out there last Saturday.

backtracking... getting ready for Auburn

Coming home from my Thanksgiving travels I went directly into making last-chance preparations for my first (what I thought would be a) craft bazaar as a vendor. My friend Saskia, who makes handmade soaps and lip balms under the name Base Natural, has been doing craft fairs and farmers markets for a few years now, but recently moved up to the Pacific Northwest from the Bay Area, so the possibility of attending one together is a newfound treat! Thanks to her diligent searches, we found a holiday bazaar at a HS in Auburn, WA where she works, scheduled for December 3rd.

I took at least 3 different place mat sets with me to St. Louis and Ft. Lauderdale to finish off bindings over the nearly 2 weeks away. So, the last additions to my inventory made it in just under the wire.

I also made sure to print up cards and labels for everything, of course:

and had heard that it is very important to test your table set-up before actually getting there. Not entirely sure of the table size I would have to work with, I did the best I could at my studio.

Now, I really should have taken a good look at these photos (and more I have not included) to realise that my set up was maybe a mite too busy. But these are lessons we learn one way or another. Too bad I had to travel 150 miles for one day of work to figure it out.

So I packed all these goodies in a suitcase and a couple of large totes and loaded my car for the ride up to Tacoma. The bazaar was not quite what I had expected, but still worthwhile for a first time experience. And great to do it with a good friend at the next table. Too bad I was mucho forgetful that weekend - first I left my camera in my overnight bag at Saskia's house, so couldn't take pictures of the table. I did eventually get to take a couple of photos later in the day using her boyfriends' camera, and I'll try to upload those when I get them. My sales were a little less than impressive - only a set of coasters to a walk-by customer (though Saskia's mom did purchase one of the place mat sets, and Saskia bought a couple pairs of pot holders)... I think less going on on the table will be better in the future - pick and choose which types of inventory I'll be showing at any one time. I'll play around.

SO, a first try is always a good step, and one I'm glad I've taken. By the time spring rolls around and more markets are looking for vendors, hopefully I'll have ironed out some of the newby issues and be ready to present myself the best I know I can.

Hiatus

This will be a quick post.

I hope everyone is having a good beginning to the holiday season craziness. I've been hopping around, visiting with family across the country, gearing up for my first craft bazaar (which was last weekend) as a vendor, and finishing up some old commitments. I have some fun and exciting photos to put up, as well as perhaps a couple of anecdotes relating to the last month that has gone unrecorded, but I won't be able to add those until next week when I get my primary computer back home (with all those lovely photos on it!)

I'm also in the process of building a website (or rather, my brother is in the process of building a website on my behalf!), so there might be blog address changes coming in the new year. On that I will most certainly keep y'all posted as the site develops.

Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things!
Linda

First of many

Lately I have been so concentrated on trying to bust out these smaller items that it has actually been ages since I have completed a quilt. When I moved into the studio space, it gave me an opportunity to reorganize, and pull focus to some of my UFOs, including finished quilt tops that have been hanging around for years waiting to be quilted. Some of them are so simple, and ones that I hope to be able to show at craft fairs, or at least to be samples of patterns/formulas that I work with.

Yesterday I basted my first quilt in many months.

An alternate color way to another that I have up on my etsy page

Today, another will get basted. The backing and batting are already spread out on the floor just a-waitin' for me to return...

Pot holder and place mats

There is nothing like having a specific goal (read "deadline") to compel me to get s*** done.

I quilted and bound that pot holder for our PMQG / KCMQG swap...

(like those little martini glasses??)

And really, the theme of the week has been binding. I have 3 sets of place mats on which I have sewn bindings, one of which is the long-overdue commission, the other two are new additions to hopefully have a decent inventory when Saskia and I have our tables at a holiday bazaar next month. (more info to come soon...)

My thimble finger is about to get quite the workout!

a little log cabin love

One of the very many talented fellow Portland Modern Quilt Guild members is Susan Beal, author of the inspiring new book, Modern Log Cabin Quilting. A couple of months ago she was getting ready to head to Kansas City, and would be attending the KCMQG meeting while there. Susan approached our guild about doing a log cabin pot holder swap with the other guild over the next couple of months, and from what I gather got an enthusiastic response.

For reasons I am really not sure of, my focus has been anywhere but on getting things done in the sewing studio for the last month. However, I am making a concerted effort to change that, and part of the effort is attacking specific commitments, including this pot holder. So, yesterday, once I finished my Seams Perfect blocks, it was log cabin time! I only did two blocks, one for this swap and one for my little shadow box outside my studio door (all of the studios have one!), but it was fun for me, and reminded me of what I enjoy in patchwork. I think I had gotten off track for a while, honestly.

So, now I have a fun block to be quilted with some Insul Bright and cotton batting before the November meeting of PMQG:

And a simple piece of patchwork to introduce the visitors of 1121 N. Loring St. Studios to Surrounded by Scraps:

completing October Bee blocks

A week (or two?!?) ago I started a little post about some Karen Griska blocks that one of my online bee-mates chose for her October blocks. I FINALLY got around to finishing the last 4 blocks yesterday.

I am not quite sure how this happened, but for some reason my first set seemed to come together with straighter seams than the second grouping I did. Harumph! On the first group I went from using the 1/2" seam to a 1/4" seam, while yesterday's group went from 1/4" to 1/2" - and for some reason my machine was not wanting to keep straight.

(the newer blocks are on top, the one's from the other week are on the bottom)

Hopefully, once mixed in with the dozens of other blocks Becky will be receiving, the flaws in mine won't be so noticeable. In the future, though, I prefer my strip piecing to be a little less regulated. Just sayin'.

Limited Palette I-Spy

It's been several years since I have made an I-Spy quilt. The fact that my stash of novelty fabrics doesn't seem to have diminished at all recently confirms this. Over the years I've enjoyed putting these guys together, keeping the parents of the recipients in mind as best I can. Here's a little evolution of some of the I-Spys I've done:

(original design by Ami Simms, in her book Picture Play Quilts)

(please excuse the picture quality.... these were done long before I took much care in documenting)

and then a couple of years after that one:

and most recently (for a little tike who is about to turn 2 in just a couple of weeks!):

(another design from the Ami Simms Picture Play Quilts book)

Now, I'm about to start a new quilt, and I've decided I really want to do another log-cabin style I-Spy, but instead of using the whole spectrum of brights out there, I am leaning toward a limited (and rather subdued) palette for this family. I started pulling some focus patches the other day and decided to just get started on a few of the blocks to see if I like where it's going. This is all I have so far, but I think it will work...

I'll be posting more as it develops. Happy Saturday!

Nubees blocks from Sept.

For a few weeks now I have had all 6 of my blocks from the September round of Nubees block swap, but realized that I hadn't taken a photo of all of them to post.

I have some ideas on how I want to set the blocks (maybe adding 1-3 more), but not sure what colors I am going to choose for the background of the quilt. I keep leaning toward grey, but am afraid that that's almost overdone at this point. Maybe the soft blue? I'm open to suggestions...

Step by step...

I got to spend my Thursday working in the sewing studio, but again feel like I was less productive than I'd have hoped. However, I did manage to finish 4 out of 8 of my 6.5" blocks for October's Seams Perfect Bee.

which when things get pieced together, will look more like this:

Becky pointed us toward a quilt from Karen Griska, highlighted on her blog, Selvage Blog. Without a doubt it is an extremely effective and eye-catching quilt, but I have to admit I did not have fun trimming all of the strips down to 1.25" and fussying the seam allowances (though, I wasn't really TOO fussy, honestly). However, I am sure that some folks didn't love the technique that I chose for my month, so I was happy to do this for Becky!!

I managed to get the strips cut for the next 4 blocks (hopefully enough of them), but have put off the piecing until another day. Unfortunately that's not all that I put off as of yesterday. I had been planning to go to the guild meeting for the Portland Modern Quilt Guild (PMQG), but by 5:30 I was going through my new box of tissue at a rapid rate, and my energy plummeted, so the idea of hanging around an hour just to go downtown for a 2 hour meeting didn't jibe with me. Which is really too bad since I missed last month's meeting, and I'll be out of town next month. This also means I won't be participating in the holiday swap, but that's how life is sometimes, no?