Improv Mosaic Class

 

On Saturday, Lorraine Woodruff-Long taught BAMQ a great class called Improv Mosaic 1,2,3. This was the example of what we were working towards making in the end. Amazingly, some of us actually got there!

She brought so many great examples of her work, both those finished and others that were in process.

I loved seeing all the details of the piecing and the great straight-line quilting.

This one was on a table on top of stuff so it looks rather lumpy (but it's really not!)

Her "here's-how-I-do-it-demonstration" was really excellent and clear. A great example of how showing the steps several times gets the whole process across to your students. I learned some great ideas for chain piecing which were very helpful.

As we all worked on our blocks, Lorraine put hers up that she was making up on the design wall so we could see the process of how to assemble them. Friend Jaye was putting hers up there on the right hand side.

Here's how my block looks on the wrong side.

Lorraine took reaction shots of many of us with our blocks up on the design wall. Here's Tim getting his moment of fame. She then edited them all together in a super fun reel on Instagram.

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A post shared by Lorraine Woodruff-Long (@quiltinginthefog)

Hope it displays well for you above. It really highlights the fun we have as a group. And the diversity of how we all approached the work for this class. Always so interesting to see what we each come up with.

Here's how most of mine look all together up on the design wall. I made just a couple more of the small ones. It was a real challenge to use all these prints. The only solids I used were off of the free table, the dark teal on the big block on the bottom, the orange and blue checkerboard and orange center, as well as that one tiny square of neon yellow. I also grabbed two prints to add in with the ones I brought from home were the neon yellow grid in that block as well. And also the little blue fish in the center of the block above that one. I mostly stuck with using the FQs from the Advent Calendar.

This was a terrific class, I really enjoyed learning Lorraine's techniques for making this kind of quilt. She has a great teaching style, laid-back but very informative and clear. I liked that she was sewing her own blocks as we all were, and then showing us things as she went along. I'm really glad that our guild had her come in as a teacher!

Freeway Snake Stitching

 

Down the freeway we went, and as I wasn't the one driving, so that meant I got to do some stitching on the Snake in the Garden. This green section in the lower right hand corner is now finished.

Here's how it's looking now. There's one bright green section left to do. 

I started doing this stitching on the red oval in the lower left hand corner and decided that the thread was too bulky and the wrong shade of red, so I stopped myself from continuing on. But I've just found the correct red (the one above), which is a lighter weight thread and a couple shades darker. I'll try that out and see if it makes enough difference.

I am still struggling a bit with what to do with the black and white print that goes down the left side of the piece. I really like how it looks now, unembellished and most importantly that it's free floating, anchored only by the red ovals. It's not like it is going anywhere, and this piece is meant for the wall so it won't get washed. I thought I might do French Knots (or just a stitch) in some of the white or black squares (in the corresponding color) so they don't show up. Decisions, decisions...

Poppy Nametags

 

I'm making the name tags for our upcoming BAMQ retreat in April, so I dug out two prior name tags to get some ideas on construction. This one is 5"wide,  3.75" high. I liked the yellow ruler printed cotton ribbon, it's very soft and looks cute too. It's a fairly simply sewn frame around the printed name section and it feels like it has some lightweight batting inside. Looks like it was likely sewn around 3 and a half sides, leaving an opening to turn it right-side out, with the neck ribbon sewn into the seam.

This name tag was from another of the BAMQ retreats, you can see our logo was used around the name section. It looks like it was fused to a very stiff interfacing along with a piece of fabric on the back.This is the no-sew version. It held up well and looked nice, it was very lightweight.

I think I like the position of two spots for the ribbon to be attached as opposed to the one point with a clippy lanyard. I remember it catches on my shirt and getting tangled with my necklace. So I will plan on doing the two spot attachment.

I think I will do a similar frame sort of look like the first example, and use the poppy fabric on the back of the name tag. Definitely going to keep it simple as I'm making a maximum of 14 of these name tags.

Still unsure on which of the two ribbons to use, I think I'll poll the other folks working on the retreat to see if anyone cares one way or the other.

Edited to add: This is now a moot post as the retreat has unfortunately been canceled. 😞

Poppies, Bunnies & Wander

 

The very first new fabric purchase I made this year is this one yard of California Poppy fabric, which I bought at the lonely remaining Beverly's Fabrics, to make the name tags for the upcoming retreat for BAMQ. (which happens to be named "Quilting Among the Poppies")

And they had Scotch glue sticks, which I haven't seen in absolutely ages and they're my very favorite-ish. Also some waistband elastic to use for some clothing sewing I'm planning.

I also ordered some new MistyFuse and am trying their new product, BunnyPaper. It's supposed to work well for printing and transferring designs to fabric. And they also published the Yvonne Porcella Memoir, so I got one.

A free book from the Free Table at BAMQ Sew Day, a Kaffe Fassett book I was pretty sure I didn't have.

Also, my pre-order of four yards of the Kona Color of the Year arrived, Wander is a beautiful green. Not at all planned but rather serendipitous, as I think it looks rather fabulous with the poppy fabric. And then there are two cloth ribbons (soft! NOT scratchy!) for hanging the nametags around our necks. I have to chose just one to use.

Fabric Tracker for 2026 so far: - 8 yards

Sawtooth ++

 After fiddling around with the teeny tiny center block I started, I finished the rest of it up. 

Not terribly happy with it because a couple of the points got cut off, and for such a complicated block it was very small at 5.75"square. But I did like the way the various fabrics I used worked to get across the SnailTrail/Sawtooth Star idea. So, I decided to use it anyways, make a frame and put the block on point. That looked a little better to me, and now it was a lot bigger at 8.5" square.

And then, hey, why not plop it into the center of another Sawtooth Star to finish it all off and make it big big big? I tried out some ideas (from this tutorial) pinned up on the design wall to make sure I'd like the look of that.

K-bam@*%! Now it's pretty darned big (16.5"square) and most importantly it's all done. I'm calling it a Sawtooth ++ and I'm ignoring the cutoff points thank you very much. Now to post it to the BAMQ BOM.

Sawtooth Star Started

 

For this month's BAMQ BOM which is a Sawtooth Star, I was inspired to try to make a combination Snail's Trail/Sawtooh Star block. I saw a version of this block called a Woven Star, in friend Jaye's Star Sampler quilt, and there's a tutorial here that she had linked to.

Doing the first part first, before cutting out anything else.

Why did I make this so small to start with? Who knows, but it looks cool.

Am I wishing I'd followed the helpful tutorial now, instead of making up my own version? Maybe, we shall see.

I like how complicated and layered this is looking. 

Now on to the rest of the block.

Community Quilt Finish

 

At the most recent Bay Area Modern Quilting Sew Day (just last Saturday) we worked as a group to complete a quilt top. Let's just say...it took the entire day. I brought other things to work on, but I only took a short break to trim some of the pink Lupine Mystery flying geese blocks.

The design of the quilt was great (I believe friend Jaye was the one who suggested and supplied the pattern), and as usual our organizer, Peggy was super prepared with printouts and instructions and block making kits. It made the whole process easier. We were making a quilt made up of two blocks, the above is the more complicated one. The other was all white with two colored squares in opposite corners. I believe I sewed six (maybe eight) blocks total.

It makes for a wonderful quilt, doesn't it? As you sew. the blocks seem very disjointed and maybe a little ugly given the random fabric combinations (it's as scrappy as it gets), but then it all works out together to make such an interesting quilt. We buckled down and sewed together the blocks and joined the rest of the sections together. Some was chunked, some was not. I was sewing the last long seam to put the two halves of the quilt together at our usual departure time of 4pm. Everyone else was all done and packed up, and then my bobbin ran out. Of course! 

But I rallied and sewed on, and was able to hand it off to our wonderful member Laura McHugh, who does the long-arming for us, who was waiting. As I finished the last seam, I held up the final result and don't have a picture. Laura posted this one on her Facebook of the quilt on her long-arm setup, and it's already been beautifully quilted! Amazing what a committed group can do together.