Ohio Star Block Exchange

We Frankfort Girls have had a lot of fun in the last year or two with block exchanges. Our current exchange is to make 9" Ohio Stars. We try to set as few rules as possible, but we did agree that the fabrics should be in the reproduction fabric range and the stars are to be neutral while the background is dark.

My first four blocks are done and I have 45 to go. Whee! I will be going into chain-piecing mode soon, but I just have to see a few blocks completed as I begin a project. It seems to be a requirement for me; I do it all the time.

These four blocks are dark navy and dark green; I believe the camera phone fails to accurately read the true colors. Our final quilts will be quite dark, most likely, but very pretty for sure.

The rest of my fabrics are pulled, stacked up and waiting in the wings. Part of the reason I didn't go straight to cutting all of it was for the purpose of avoiding unnecessary waste. I started by cutting two darks and two lights for the stars I have finished. You can see from the next picture that I cut way too many larger squares; I ran out of small squares for corner blocks. After some math to correct that (*scowling and frowning*), I will go into chain-piecing mode. 

I cut those first stars in rather a willy-nilly fashion, and have been left with way too many squares for making pieced parts and not enough squares for the corners. The large squares are 4.5" and they end up making the star points which are simply hourglass blocks. The small squares are 3.5" for the corners and center.

This excess will not go to waste. I will put them aside, proceed with cutting the rest of my fabric with numbers firmed up. All leftover parts will be mixed together and I will make stars with mismatched parts. I am confident they will play nicely with their more orderly neighbors. They might even add some spice to my eventual quilt.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Finishes!

Our recent quilt retreat proved to be quite productive in that I finished three projects - all WIPs or UFOs. Having these things "nagging" me over the past few weeks and months had become rather a burden, and it feels like a weight has been removed by having them done - to the flimsy stage, at least.

First, I concentrated on the final steps of the Star and Chain quilt - the Thimbleberries project which was left over from last year's retreat. The blocks were all completed, and through the early part of this month I had been working on sashing strips. Basically, all I needed to do at retreat was to stitch the rows together. That required a lot of pinning and pressing, but the resulting quilt is so worth it.

Next on my to-do list was to add borders to my swap quilt - actually, a mini-quilt. Six of us in the Frankfort Girls group exchanged blocks and made the arbitrary goal of having the mini-quilts together for retreat. I needed to add my borders. So here is that quick job completed.

I probably will hand quilt this mini using a Baptist Fan motif with big-stitches. This style of quilting appeals to me as does the muted, low-volume look of this quilt; I am glad to have a chance to see it all coming together.

My third finish of the retreat involved facing a repair job - fixing my Jelly Roll fiasco from last September. I made such a mess of that seemingly easy quilt, that I just stuffed it away for 6+ months in aggravation. It definitely had been the biggest "nagging" quilt of the three, so I did the best I could with it - the old make lemonade out of lemons theory - and I think this finish will be just fine. Should anyone study the construction, they will surely wonder why there's an odd seam going down the length of the quilt. Once it's quilted, though, I suspect it will be nearly invisible.

In a few days, I plan to share the ugly truths about the errors I made with this easy quilt. I need to get my thoughts sorted out, first, and figure out how to explain it simply. Honestly, I am not really sure what all I did wrong at this point.

So those are my finishes. Right proud of this, for sure - I gleefully checked them off my list. Gives me a "clean slate" sort of feeling.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Block Exchange Update

Several months ago, the group I fondly refer to as The Frankfort Girls, agreed to do a block exchange project after seeing the book The 4" x 5" Block Anthology. Read about our swap here. Some of the girls have their blocks finished, so I decided that since all my commissions are caught up I should go ahead and finish mine while I have the time.

Listening to the others, I learned a few tricks and tips. Most importantly, several recommended that all the little parts be drenched in starch, left to dry overnight, and then pressed.

As orderly as possible, I spread out the parts of the blocks on a towel and saturated all with starch. When dry, I pressed and stacked in neat piles ready to take to the sewing machine.

Each of us selected two blocks to make for the swap. My blocks are both stars. If you clicked that link above, you saw that my fabrics combine to make what I hope results in a muted, almost dusty-looking quilt. 

My Block 1

My Block 2

I have discovered that I cut a few blocks incorrectly. Some blocks are missing the correct number of pieces, while others are the wrong size. I am not the only one who has had to re-cut; we are bringing our fabrics with us to our meetings so that re-cutting can be done.

Above are the Block 1s that are correct. I need a few pieces to make Sheryll's and Sharon's.

And these are the Block 2s. The ones on the left are completed correctly. On the right are two blocks that need some additional work. Becky's block is missing 2 pieces, and Jan's block needs 4 parts to be re-cut. Do you see what I mean by cutting things the wrong size? I placed my boo-boos there to show how I messed up.

I hope the girls are forgiving in the shape of the blocks I give them. I surely do have some wonky sides and missing points.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Block Swap Update

The sewing day at Terry's yesterday amounted to a whole lot of cutting for most of us. We had been told by our ultra-organizer Jan to bring our block swap fabrics, and she would have kits prepared for us that would keep the process as uncomplicated as possible. You first read about our block swap just last Thursday, but here's a repeat of the fabrics I will be using for my version.

I got everyone's fabrics cut except for my own. I can whip them out here anytime. Below is my little cutting station at Terry's with what looks like the fabrics for Sheryll's version. And do you see the size of those pieces!?! Gracious! I did a lot of cutting at 1" - tiny! But for blocks that will finish at 4" x 5", this is to be expected. 

I remember making the conscious decision to select stars for the two blocks I would make. I also tried to select two patterns that looked relatively simple to construct. I think I will be happy with these, even though they are rather similar. 

Today it's back to the quilting of the t-shirt quilt. I sure hope I will be bringing you a finish on it soon.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Frankfort Girls Block Swap

Three weeks ago when the Frankfort girls met here at my house, one of the group brought a new book she thought we'd all be interested in seeing. I think it was Terry. And she was right; we all drooled over the pretty quilts and individual blocks. The book is one many of you have probably seen: The 4" x 5" Quilt-Block Anthology: 182 Blocks for Reproduction Fabrics by Carol Hopkins and Linda M. Koenig, published by That Patchwork Place.

(Grabbed from Amazon.)

The authors include tips in the book for a block exchange, and we tossed around the idea of doing one in our group. The idea took hold, and next week when we meet we are to bring our fabric selections.

With that explanation, you will now know why I am pulling fabrics today from the dresser where I store all the fat quarters. Earlier I had something of an epiphany, and I was prompted to action.

For all the years I have been pinning pictures of quilts on Pinterest, one quilt that I would just love to make is one that is reminiscent of a faded, muted brown or gray quilt, with very little contrast or color. Here are some pictures taken from my pin-board, all similar to the one I have in mind.

With all that information, here are the 6 fabrics I have pulled from the depths of the stash. If any of you are seasoned veterans in fabric purchasing over the last 25 years or so, then you may recognize this hodge-podge of ancient beauties.

It will be interesting to see what results. I doubt we have a very tight deadline on this project, so you may not hear much more about this until the end of December. Oh, I may bring some intermittent updates, but I suspect it's likely going to be a long-term project. And a fun one, too.

Happy Quilting, Friends!