Saturday round up

My main sewing this week has been completing my sarong crazy top. I was wondering whether to add a border but nothing looked right at all so it will remain as is 75" square. Laid out on the bed it looked a reasonable size.

More problematic was my giant nested circles from the Daisy Aschehoug workshop. I had made lots of drunkard's path type units with Judi Kirk's templates and I thought they could go on the sides but again messy and awful so I just added more white, wider at the  sides than at the top to finish at 56x78" plus binding. I plan to use a geometric black and white on the bias for this.

The drunkard's path pieces will be sliced and intermingled with white on the back as the backing fabric is only 45" wide. 

I am finishing off some old fashioned double sided log cabin blocks with narrow single fold binding cut one and five eighths wide. I don't have a binding tool for this so am using a pin to thread the strip under to form the folds and then press.

I must also add that the week before this I was on a cottage retreat with friends where I worked on sarong blocks but mostly on a  group project under wraps for now. 

Retreating

While there Maggie was laying out hexagons on her stunning triangles quilt.

I am on retreat again with a larger group in April so will have have lots to report from there.

TQG SUITCASE COLLECTION

 This written 21st March 21 but left as a draft so up it goes now.

Every so often the traditional quilt group section of the Quilters' Guild compiles a selection of small pieces on a set theme which will fit in a suitcase which can then be sent out to be displayed and shown. I do try to support it  though not with super fine pieces of needlework just some technique or other in designs and colour to fit the theme. This was my focus on getting back from FOQ. The theme this time is Seasons and I started with Spring and made Spring baskets.

Sandwiched and ready to quilt

I used the centre and leaf designs from the stencil

  

I machined in the ditch along major seams and then added hand quilting marking lines with a wash out felt tip using sections of a stencil. Disaster! Once stitched the drawn lines wouldn't wash out. It took washing by hand and machine with detergent, soap and Vanish to finally shift the marks. I usually test the marker first but assumed it was OK as I'd used this one before.

You can see the brown marks

I made a sleeve, just single thickness and attached it to the edge where it will be covered by the binding.

I had just watched a Jordan's Fabrics diamonds squared video which intrigued me. It was a bit like Hidden Wells but with with one strip square and one plain square placed right sides together, sewn all the way round the edge and then cut diagonally both ways into quarters

Oast Quilters' workshop with Mandy Munroe

 

Woorkshop project (from Facebook)

There were just seven of us at the workshop which was the first of the New Year which made for a lovely friendly atmosphere. Pen hosted and laid on delicious chocolate cake and biscuits to fuel our efforts. I have used one or two Facebook pictures taken by her. The day was a very nice mix of sewing progress with group and individual help. I have loads of sewn squares ready to go but not cut apart from the first round.

Mine, mixing up fabrics and pink as a background (Facebook picture)..

It's always interesting to see other fabric choices.

Tansy's - gorgeous

Vanessa's

Oast Quilters meeting, Saturday 5th March 2022

 

Before general admittance (Photo from Facebook page)

As our other venue has limited access and parking we met in another school, St Anselm's, to shop, Show & Tell and hear member, Mandy Munroe, talk about her recent work much of which has been published in magazines.

I always enjoy Show & Tell and usually have something of mine included especially now when there's a backlog.

My Log Cabin Interrupted from a previous workshop by Mandy

Tracy Aplin's quilt from an Australian pattern

Tracy's wonderful Christmas version of her quilt

This is Julia's from a Sujata Shah QG Zoom 
workshop

This is Liz M's made from Sampler
blocks, both sides.

I think this might be Marianne's??

 

Mariann's cats for Linus

Stack the Deck blocks

I am working from a Karla Alexander title, "Stack the Deck Crazy Quilts in 4 Easy Steps". I have quite a few of her books.

Anyway I've made a pattern template from freezer paper and ironed it to the top of my stack. I perforated the seam lines by sewing along them with no thread in the machine. This made it easy to  fold it back along the line and place my ruler in place alongside.

Then I pulled the freezer paper further back and cut, repeating for each shape.

I found it useful to use a weight to help hold the ruler steady, in my case a heavy office tape dispenser, a techinique learned from Donna Jordan of Jordan's fabrics. I enjoy their YouTube videos.

Here are cut apart units.

And here rearranged to form crazy blocks. 

Hereare six completed blocks from a stack of six fabrics.

Top done

We lived in Kuala Lumpur 1999-2000 and I bought many sarongs to use in quilt making. Today I collected ten. I cut two large squares from each to use as the basis for stack and slice blocks. Often the squares from a single sarong look different as the panel to wear in front of the body differs from the rest as can be seen here. 

At our sewing day yesterday I laid them out.

The pointy pattern is
reminiscent of bamboo shoots

A highlight was seeing Maggie's gorgeous chevron quilt  - she added the last stitch to the binding in the afternoon.

Border added

Adding a border to the Marti Michell FQ log cabin improved the look. It will be backed with the same wide  pink linen  as the other Kaffe Fassett strippy.

 I like my log cabin top although the arrangement is not a conventional one but looking attentively I can see symmetry. The four "pink" corners were my starting point.

The pile of tops waiting to be quilted is growing.

Next up was opening the cupboard containing fabrics from my time in KL 1999-2000. Time to put them to use.

Clearing up

  From under the table  in the "to do someday" box I found these four log cabins from four fat quarters (dark, light and 2 mediums) made in a Marti Michell workshop using her rulers. I thought it was strange to have special rulers for log cabins but in fact they made the cutting and sewing very orderly and very logical.

Stack of folded fabric: the "weight" helps to
hold the ruler firmly in place.

Strips ready to add to the units I've started

 

I folded and layered two more sets of 4 FQs and laid out the resulting strips in size order including a bright pink in all the blocks. 

Last night I arranged them on the spare room floor in an odd arrangement but having done a few conventional log cabins in the past I wanted a change.

Photo does not do justice to the vibrancy of the prints

I've located some Fassett yardage with which to border it probably with an intervening woven stripe.

Locating border fabric

Virtuous sewing

 I have joined the Jelly Roll Jazz blocks and and a right hodge podge they are too. I now realise they are really called Jelly Roll Jive but Jazz seems more appropriate given their clashing nature. I now understand (too late) the process a bit more. The bocks are made by joining 4 WOF strips lengthwise and the cutting the into squares and the squares crosswise into HSTs. If you cut eight 8 1/2" squares and four diagonally in one direction and four in the other direction you can make blocks like the centre two. If you just do four cut half one way and half the other I think you will end up with half the blocks turning one way and half the other so that  lights will meet up with lights and darks with dark from block to block - good to try out with paper first.

Alternative version

I also unearthed some blocks from a Marti Michell class whereby 4 fat quarters were folded and then cut to yield the exact sizes for four log cabin blocks. To add more will be quite a lot of work but it seems a pity to waste them and I now have masses of Kaffe Fassett/Jacobs etc FQ's thanks to the Mary Ann Corp bequest and a Fat Quarter shop fabric club.

The apple fabric was my starting point

There was a lot of the border fabric for the interlocked "rings" quilt and tucked in the folds was a magazine pattern I have long intended to use it for. I assembled some fabrics and got to work only enlarging the border to 6" instead of 4" to make it 49.5 by 59.5. It's a simple straightforward quilt but very likeable. I've pieced the backing and will prepare the binding so it is ready to quilt when I finally have an outlet.

Completed quilt top

In the evenings I am big stitch quilting the strippy from Carolyn's class and enjoying it so much it will be quite densely covered in the end.

Marking central lines with soap.

And those masses of "Kaffes" - I am aiming to convert this 

into this