Wedge Quilt Class

 My Studio Assistant and I took a BAMQ class from Christina Camelli about making wedge quilts. He was mesmerized watching people in the class sewing on the iPad screen. 

He was very helpful in making sure I mixed up the color choices as I went to end up with some random variety.

Before the class, I bought a non-slip 9° ruler, which was super helpful when used along with the template provided by Christina. I decided to use fabrics that I wasn't super invested in for the work done in class, just to try out the techniques and not be worried about "wasting" precious fabrics.

I also bought her book on the topic, Wedge Quilt Workshop, which is a great how-to on this type of quilting.  I bought the actual book instead of the kindle version because I wasn't clear on whether the templates were included.

Note to self: My next wedge project will be using this dotted ombre´ fabric.

After getting the wedges cut out, it was all about assembling them in sections and then trimming to make sure the unit measures 45°. How exciting to get to use the 45° lines on my cutting mat for the first time.

 

And then when two units are joined up, the result measures 90°. This helps to make a full 360° circle that hopefully lays flat.

I'm almost done with the circle, and then the fun comes in getting the appliqué of the circle to the background done.

October To-Do

 

Here's how my design wall looks on the first day of September. Metro Twist in process, and the work I got done in the Christina Camelli wedge workshop. Two orphan blocks that I need to put away. In the foreground a pile of quilts I'm working on or recently finished.

Sew-a-Long Thingies 

Trinket -  make backing and binding, layer and quilt.

Color Collective - Quilt and bind the Slopes Quilt, 

make another side for the Clover Pillow with Swerves, start cutting for Colorwash

Temperature Quilt- dye more of some of the colors I'm running out of, keep piecing monthly columns.

Pantone Project - keep making blocks and pass them on to friend Jaye.

Secret Lives of Color- it's still oh so very secret, keep reading the book and making the blocks, post some too.

New Work

A Hot One - planned quilt celebrating the color of the year, Viva Magenta.

Metro Twist - finish assembling top, borders? Make backing

Garment Sewing Academy - finish Cielo top.

Make It Work - assemble a quilt top out of the materials for BAMQG

Wedge Quilt - finish assembling quilt top, make a backing.

Finish It Up

Y.E.S. Coat - lay out what I've made, make more elements.

Village/Japanese Houses -Finish quilting bind, label

That's enough of a variety to choose from, here's hoping I can get some more finishes accomplished.

Hello October

It's finally my favorite month of the year, so hello October!The monthly marker is made of two photos combined in SnapSeed.

The first photo is of DH and me on top of Pothole Dome in Tulolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park.

And the second photo is the fabric postcard that I made last month for an exchange, hopefully it's been received in Australia by now.

Here are my 30 seconds of 1SE (One Second Everyday):

  Monthly I-Did List for September

I finished the Stitch Happens quilt.

I did half of the free motion quilting on the Village quilt.

I made a fabric postcard for an exchange and sent mine off to Australia.

I cut more pieces, and made more blocks for Metro Twist and sewed one column together.

I worked on a BAMQG "make it work" donation quilt and made 8 Nine Patch blocks.

I took a BAMQG zoom class with Christina Camelli on wedge quilts and got a very good start on a practice one.

I made some more Pantone Project blocks.

I did some road stitching on my handwork piece.

I did some family visiting stuff and also went camping in Yosemite and hiked A Lot with DH.

I attended Sew Day for BAMQG, virtually attended the BAMQG meeting, blogged here 22/30 days, I tweeted 0 times 😔, instagrammed 6 times, threaded 3 times and I spouted 2 times.

That was pretty productive for September.

September Cornucopia

September has come and gone, and here's how I kept myself entertained, interested, and maybe educated. A cornucopia of links to things I've enjoyed online this past month. The photo above is from our time in Shenzhen, China. It was a sign expressing the theme for the development of the free trade zone, a famous saying about why China needed to turn into a more capitalistic version of itself.

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 Hooray for bringing back the yearly dahlia show at Stonehenge. Beautiful pictures.

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If you like Phyrne Fisher's beautiful period outfits on Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries then go check out this post from Folkwear.

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Want to learn more about Gelli Plate Printing? There's a Gel Printers Summit happening in October.

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This is a really nice looking free tote bag design with a great tutorial to go with it.

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I love Lynda Barry, she's a great teacher, not just for learning to draw, but for life in general. `~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~

I rather like this table runner design. I might print out the curved template and see if it matches up with the Wonder Curve ruler or not.

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Here's a video on how to clean your Machingers quilting gloves, Murphy's Oil Soap, genius!

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A really interesting podcast series from The Nocturnists, Post Roe America, on how the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision has affected medical providers. A lot of points of view you rarely get to hear.

First Metro Column

 

Two more Metro Twist blocks went together.

I’m glad I settled on just using the one weird blue solid for the background.

The four blocks of the column were ready to join together.

One whole column done,✅ progress! And look how much it shrunk up.

My studio assistant could hardly believe it!

Stitch Happens Finish

 

It's true, Stitch Happens is now finished. I stitched on the binding yesterday. 

I was so glad that I'd made the binding ahead of time, so that I could just get going when I was ready. It makes a lot sense, as long as you have all the fabric out when you're working on the quilt, just make the binding. Reminder to me: Just Make The Binding

I decided to continue with the orange thread I was using for quilting, I think it looks really against that purple.

Tah-dah! All done!

Here's some detail shots showing the binding.

I'm glad that I added that little border of squares around the outside.

My favorite part of the quilt I think.

Love that needle motion.

Twist Blocks

That was enough free motion quilting for me for now, so I switched over my machine to regular sewing mode. Time for some more work on the piece taking up most of the design wall: Metro Twist. That's the name of the pattern, so not my own title, that hasn't come to me quite yet.

I put that 1/4" foot back on and got down to business sewing together the Metro Twist blocks. First I had to make one BD unit (the curve is the left hand side of a half circle) that I was short. I'd made one extra AC unit as seen in the first picture. It was easy to do one block, as I've now had all this experience using the ruler and following this pattern.

There's one block done! Only fifteen more to go... 

Because this pattern is still messing with my brain as far as orientation, I'm taking it slow and piecing together one block at a time instead of chain piecing rows. This involves putting the units of one block on my pressing board, taking a picture like the one above and then piecing and pressing.

I think it's working out well so far, most of the piecing is going together very easily.

Two done so far, leaving fourteen to go. I should probably sew this together in a column as I go just to make it even more foolproof for myself.

Through With Gray

 

I was finishing up the grey quilting on the Village quilt when I ran out of bobbin for the last of the corner. 

Apparently this is now called "losing at Bobbin Chicken." I'm using this Aurifil as both the top and the bottom thread.

I folded the non-quilted part of the quilt over and pinned it up to get a look at how the quilting looks.

It's not too prominent or noticeable.

Here's how the corner turned out after I wound up a new bobbin.

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My new studio assistant spent some time napping on it, and said it was still soft enough for a bed.

I forgot just how big this quilt is! Now onto getting the blue sky done.