Mosaic Runner Blocks

 

At the Bay Area Modern Quilting Sew Day yesterday, I worked on making more mosaic blocks so I can put together this project and make a table runner. I was chatting and visiting and concentrating on my blocks so that I only took this picture at the end of the day as I was packing up. 

I haven't worked on this project since our last Sew Day, so I had to take a look at my notes to see what I was supposed to make. I found that I had to re-press the blocks that I made with some Best Press at home.

That's better. Well, flatter.

Here are the blocks I made (I think), I've kind of lost track, but I'm pretty sure these were it. I pushed myself to make those two that are quite a bit lighter.

Overall, I think it's going together pretty well. This is following the square quilt layout we got in our class notes. So I need to work on a layout for a rectangluar table runner size and shape.

At the end of the day, I sewed together a bunch of the smaller scraps and they'll probably end up in the remaining blocks I have yet to sew together.

More Mosaic

During Sew Day, I made some more blocks for my 1-2-3 Mosaic class project. I think it's heading towards being a table runner size project.

We got to have a little on-site field trip break to see inside the sanctuary at the church that we hold our Sew Days. The beautiful display of rainbow origami butterflies was being hung up.

And our guild member, Mary C. made this gorgeous banner that hangs in the entryway. 

BAMQ BOM: Flying Geese

At Sew Day yesterday I worked on making my BAMQ BOM blocks, which are as you can see: Flying Geese.

I like the variety that I made, but am considering also making another couple sets that have dark centers and lighter wings to balance them out.

Here's all of my blocks so far. I think I might need to make some gigantic Flying Geese as well. Well, maybe not exactly gigantic, but at least as big as the checkerboard.

 

B.O.M.-Friendship Stars

 Last Saturday's BAMQG Sew Day was lovely. A great time to catch up on the holidays everyone had and get some sewing done. I dove into making my BAMQ BOM blocks for the month: Friendship Star.

They went together pretty quickly, and I was really happy with the fabric choices I made.

I got so excited about it, I made two more for a total of four.

Here's how they look together with the other BOM blocks I've made so far.

And I got to see a great rainbow or two on the way.

Palooza Sashing

 

A great Bamq Sew Day, and I brought along all 42 of the Patchwork Palooza blocks and background fabric for the sashing. It took a while to cut out all the sashing pieces. I sewed one piece on the right hand side of each block, including the chain blocks.

Then I moved onto working with the cornerstones, the ones I'd cut out months ago were 2.5" but the pattern calls for 2". Just a little trimming.

I sewed one cornerstone to the end of a piece of sashing. Now to cut out some more cornerstone pieces.

This is the coloring page for the Patchwork Palooza quilt, and I dutifully colored mine in as I made the blocks over all the weeks. Which is pretty useless actually. This is more for when one is planning out the arrangement of colors in your quilt. I also could printed out by accident the quilt design plan, which I also didn't follow. It's going to be my own choices from here on out as far as where each block ends up.

Optically True

At BAMQ's Sew Day, there's always a "Free Table" where members deposit quilt related things they want to give away. This is usually fabric, patterns, thread, tools, notions and such. I even brought some stuff this time that got snapped up right away. (reminder to self: bring something to give away every time!)

One of our guild members passed away unexpectedly earlier this year and one of her relatives is also a member. She's now at the point where she's going through the late quilter's stash and bringing it to share with the guild. That's how I ended up with the above.

It's a really great reducing lens! I was so surprised to see how well it worked to take a picture through it. It was very easy to do and it illustrates so well why you'd want one of these in your quilting tool box. You can see just how useful this is when you're working on something bigger. It can be quite hard to get enough distance away to see how the color and patterns are working in your quilt and this lens really makes it possible. 

I'm glad that we all get to remember our friend from the guild by using and enjoying bits and pieces from her stash. It's a good way to honor someone's creative pursuits, she was a very giving person, so I think it would make her happy to see her stuff being used instead of thrown away. It definitely makes me consider the options for myself.
 

Going 3-D

 

The third project that I brought along to work on during BAMQ's Sew Day, was doing some 3-D piecing for my Y.E.S. coat. Yes, I even made a list and got to have the joy of crossing off each to-do. I was very pleased to see how easy it was to accomplish this type of piecing.

I'm working with this technique book that I bought from the teacher of the coat class that started me on this project, Rachel D. Clark. It has instructions for all sorts of ideas for interesting piecing techniques. Rachel is a great teacher, and if you get a chance to take a class with her you should go for it.

Then at home, I got into trying some more of the variations of the 3-D flying geese, this one was called a "Vase." 

I made another one that made sure to keep the Goose point as pointy as possible, seen on the lower left. 

Another variation was making four "vases" and putting them together.

That one didn't turn out so well, I probably need to re-sew the four squares again to get those points closer together.

How all these will work on the Y.E.S. coat along with all the other piecing, I am not sure as this point, but it has been fun learning something new.

Bohemian Back Extension

The second project that I brought along to BAMQ's great Sew Day on Saturday, was to extend the length of the backing for my Bohemian Wife quilt. It was originally measuring just about exactly the same length as the quilt top, which won't work out well for me and getting the quilt layering and basting done well. I know myself and my process, and I've got to have a little bit more excess to work with. Not as much as a long-armer would require, but there has to be a little give in the measurements.

Honestly, the hardest part of this effort was adding the new fabric strip on to the correct side. 🤞🤞🤞 that I actually got it right. I'll find out when I actually layer and baste this quilt this week.

When I was working on this at Sew Day, there were a lot of comments that it should be a stand alone quilt top all on its own. Which is awfully nice of course, but I'm setting on keeping these together. And when I was explaining what the actual quilt top was and which pattern I'd used, I had to say the original pattern name out loud a couple of times. I found that it was hard for me to say out loud, so I definitely did the right thing for me to change the name to Bohemian Wife.

Palooza Setting

 

One of the projects I worked on during yesterday's wonderful Bay Area Modern Quilting(aka: BAMQ)  Sew Day yesterday was finishing off the rest of the background (or setting?) blocks for Patchwork Palooza. I had pre-sewed all the block pieces into the three rows per block, so they were ready to sew.

Here's how they look with the nine Patchwork Palooza blocks that I've made so far. I think I might need to make one more of them. But I'm feeling good about this project, keeping up with one new block a week is very do-able. And I'm really enjoying trying out new blocks that I haven't sewed before.

Old Town Sew Day

 

This month's Sew Day for Bay Area Modern Quilting (known on this blog as BAMQ) was as usual super fun, and this time, quite productive for me personally and all of us as a group. Before we got started on the group project, I worked on pressing all of these previously sewn together partially assembled blocks for the Old Town mystery quilt.

Two more blocks were finally assembled and pressed making a total of fifteen blocks done

As a group we worked together to make an entire quilt top. It was a quite a good turnout of members and we had a lot of participation in the project so it went together in just one day's effort. There was a main block, two types of side blocks and corner pieces to make. Our Community Giving organizer was Peggy and she had it so well set-up with demonstration blocks like the one above, the background pieces were all using and the instructions for each type of block. It made it so much easier for all of us to dive and get going.

Another one of our members, Carrie took this picture of Peggy getting down to business on designing the quilt with all of our blocks. The leftovers from sewing the block were also assembled into another quilt top. I was too busy sewing them to take pictures of that unfortunately, but they ended up as

Diamond in a Four Patch blocks in two different sizes.

A great day of sewing and socializing!

City Sampler Back Started

I worked on the beginnings of the backing for my City Sampler quilt at bamq Sew Day yesterday. There will be a solid grey border put between the central snake piece and the rest of the fabrics.

Seen here is the studio assistant checking out my work.

This is my "plan", so far so good. There's going to be a lot of long seams to sew.

There was a lot of great fabric on the free table, mostly from the stash of one of our members who recently passed away. She's greatly missed and I think we all felt lucky to get to take home some of her fabrics to work with and remember her by.

 

Many Bindings Day

 

Today at Sew Day, I spent my time making binding, lots and lots of binding. For the City Sampler and the Bohemian Wife quilts. Both soon to be going to a long-armer for quilting.

And then the binding for Metro Twist.

I only did the first step of sewing the binding on as I didn't have the matching blue thread to final stitch it down. So close to done with this one.  That was a lot of binding for one day's work, phew, glad it's made.

Almost to the Center

 

Sew Day for BAMQ was on Saturday and it was as usual a very fun time. I invited my mom to come along and she had a good time seeing all the creativity, showing off the sweatshirt jacket that I made for her ages ago and chatting with people. She was also very glad to offload a big bag of oranges from her still excellent after all these years orange tree. I was glad to be able to include her in a social outing with friendly welcoming people.

Instead of bringing along my sewing machine I worked on the Kawandii quilt that I've been hand-stitching and assembling since 2021 when I took a great online class with Sujata Shah. The above picture was taken at the start of the day before I began stitching.

And this is the after picture, pinned up on the design wall at home. It looks so different flat (or as flat as this can be.)  A lot of progress was made, I can see that I stitched around the whole thing six times, but it's still not done. The rounds are getting shorter as I get closer to the end. As I've made my way almost in to the center I have to find the instructions on how to end everything.  I think I'm remembering that there was something specific I was supposed to do, so wish me luck in finding my class notes from four years ago.

I also took this picture of a super clever 3-D printed magnetic needle cup that one of our new members had. It's from Purple Hobbies, they have a lot of other handy quilting/sewing accessories.  This is a great idea for a portable pin cushion that works well as a pin container and secures your pins in transport, which is always a problem. 

I was showing off the latest and greatest new container that has come off of my DH's 3-D printer, a Knurled Screw-on lidded container. It has a great threaded cap that works perfectly and makes a very tight seal. Possibly water-tight although I haven't tested it. Now we're in search for a good magnet and some foam to put in the bottom of it so I can have a safer traveling pincushion.

Free And Giving

 

There were a lot of choices on the free table at Sew Day. Friend Cindy had bought an estate sale lot of fabrics, and she brought in a literal table full for us to choose from. I was happy to snag a bunch of neutrals to use for the Old Town mystery quilt. The reds and oranges are also for that quilt. That black and white print was just cool.

There was also a bag of big cones of purple rayon embroidery threads. I snagged these two beauties. Not sure who contributed those, but I'll be happy to get my purple on with these. It's so nice to be in a quilt guild with such giving people.

And then over at the Community Giving table, I turned in the quilt that I had just finished the binding on and picked up another quilt to do the binding for. There were also some quilt block packets that will be good to use as leaders and enders