Lorraine Progress for Sharon

We sewed here yesterday, as we do most Tuesdays, and Sharon is going great guns on her Lorraine project. Click back here to read about our day spent beginning our Lorraine adventure. I went ahead with some of my stitching on my own, but Sharon saved hers for this week's efforts.

All her hourglass blocks were finished, and she had strips cut for sashing them. The detail work involved ensuring that no colors were over-used and that all colors were sufficiently random in their placement.

The way these are coming together is thrilling. The colors just sing in their vibrancy. I can't wait to see how this continues to grow.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Celebrate Freedom!

The celebrating of our Independence Day is rather damp today - rain, rain, rain. But the crowd we hang out with did the big picnic and fireworks event last evening, and all went off without any problems. The only complaint was that we were cold! What??!!!? A cold Sunday in July?!? Yessirree. We all wore jackets and wrapped up in blankets. (No quilts were harmed or misused in the course of our celebrating.)

We had a great visit yesterday afternoon with DD Erin, DSiL Jeff, and his mom, Char. Casual conversation on the screened porch (we got cold out there, too!), after which we all headed over to friends for the picnic and fireworks. Great fellowship, great food and great display of 'boomers and poppers' in the sky.

Today and tomorrow I will put much of my energy toward working on the long segments for Elisa's quilt. I have been steadily working on it, but need to amp up the pace this week, if possible.

I believe I have run this picture before, but it's been awhile; I  have many segments similar to these that now need to be sewn into the long columns.

I  have figured out how to quilt as I go with this project. I am going to make long 'quilt sandwiches' of those columns and machine quilt vertically. After each column is quilted, I will attach the top layers by machine, and then hand stitch the back closed.

I serious doubt that my explanation is as coherent to a reader as it is to me in my head; I will demonstrate it more fully when I get to that point.

Happy Independence Day, and Happy Quilting, Friends!

Hello, July

Incredibly we are turning the calendar for the seventh time in 2016. I must have blinked or something.

This morning I headed out to Terry's house for our Frankfort Girls morning. I took along an old UFO that was so close to being completed, I am embarrassed to admit that I hadn't gone ahead with finishing it.

So now the quilting is done, and I will go straight to binding it after posting this.

This little quilt began back in mid-November at Sherrie's Veterans' Day event. I was trying out Thangles for the first time, and this is the result. A short summary is here.

Then in December, I made the quilt sandwich and put it in a quilting frame. If you read this post, you can see that I had good intentions about working on this.

Fast-forward 6+ months, and I now have my little quilt ready for binding - at last.

In other news, I continue to quilt on the 6-point star quilt, and I have been making good progress on the king-size quilt for Elisa. I have also taken possession of another bag of t-shirts for yet one more commissioned project. Yikes!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Floral Columns - Reverse Side

In keeping with my plan to have a reversible Floral Columns quilt, I stitched up the reverse side yesterday. The first side - Tuesday's effort - features the colors of spring, a light, airy mix of pastels and vivid colors.

The back - side 2, if you will - features the colors of autumn: rich, warm hues of orange, chocolate, green and red.

 As soon as I finished side 2, I pressed it and dashed out to our newly hung clothesline. It was after 6pm and the evening shadows darkened my shots considerably.

 I tried a few different angles so that the shadows might have less impact on the colors. I know, it's like torture to have to look at several pictures of the same quilt. *wink-wink*

I now have the front and back of Floral Columns completed. If I take this to Terry for quilting, I will have to add fabric to one or the other, as they are exactly the same size presently. The longarm machine needs to have the backing larger. I could just add one more column to the back; this could then become part of the quilt back, or I could trim it off, depending on how much is drawn up in the quilting process.

I don't know if all that makes any sense or not, but suffice it to say, I have been considering my options for finishing the quilt.

Another thing I have been considering is how simple and easy this quilt was to piece. The pattern came from a book by Kaffe Fassett, but most of us know that this doesn't really require a pattern at all.

 The width of each column is whatever you decide to make it (I went with 8.5" because that's the width of my ruler), and the number of columns is also optional - make it as big or small as you desire. Even though a pattern isn't absolutely necessary, I am glad KF decided to put this simple quilt in his book, otherwise I would never have come up with this idea on my own. Had I not seen it in print, all my gorgeous fabrics would still be in the bins and tucked away in the sewing room.

We have reached the end of June! The year is half over already, if you can believe that! Gracious! And if you want to know something else special about the end of June, just click here. (The magic number is now 37.)

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Summer Sewing With Friends

The sewing day with Sharon and Kay was a huge success! I doubt it is humanly possible for three women to have more fun playing with gorgeous fabric than we had yesterday.

We began the day with a simple goal in mind - make our own version of the Kaffe Fassett quilt called Floral Columns. The three resulting quilts all look so incredibly different, yet each one is absolutely spectacular.

Sharon's is predominantly soft blue and teal with splashes of color throughout. Two or three of these columns are fabrics donated by Kay or me.

Kay's is dark blue - not surprising since she loves blue quilts and has made many over the years. Kay has a couple of donated columns from Sharon.

Mine does not follow a color scheme - I preferred to use a little bit of everything. I had my columns cut out ahead of time and went with 10 columns, while Sharon has seven and Kay has eight.

I have to give DH kudos for helping me string up a clothesline so that I could photograph my quilt out in the backyard woods. Wouldn't it be pretty to have all three quilts hanging on the line?

While sewing on Tuesdays with Sharon is a regular feature of my week, I am really glad to have included Kay in the day's activites. She is the one who started all of our interest in KF fabrics. Each of us have amassed huge stashes of KF, and from the looks of what we worked on yesterday, we all have different favorites. The one constant, though, is the incredible intensity of color. We just cannot get enough of it.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Columns - Celebrating Summer

Back in May (I think) Sharon and I made a plan. We wanted to celebrate Kaffe Fassett and the beginning of summer - so we agreed to dive into our respective KF stashes and make a KF quilt we've long admired called Floral Columns. I introduced the idea here.

Over the weekend, I pulled out a couple of my KF fabric bins and began auditioning fabrics.

This grouping, above, is a spring-inspired combination that I really think will work well.

Sharon suggested that we select a second grouping that would be the back of the quilt, and then we'd have reversible quilts. Great idea and with that goal in mind, I pulled a second set of fabrics.

This combination has a decidedly darker and heavier look - winter tones? However I describe it, I like it and the distinct contrast with the first grouping.

All of them together; I think they will work. I do have a few more fabric bins to search through. I will look at them to see if anything is worth considering for these groupings.

The big sewing day is tomorrow. In addition to Sharon's coming, we have talked our Frienzie Kay, also a KF collector, into joining us. It promises to be a really fun and productive day!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Slow Stitchin'

I snapped this picture yesterday as we were heading out to the screened-in porch to sit for a spell - it's nice to sip a glass of wine while enjoying the cool of the evening. Those are some long shadows cast across my quilt frame which is set up in the bay window overlooking the back yard.

I have been pretty steady about quilting, if I do say so myself. I generally quilt 5-7 needles' worth a day, so it is going at a pretty good pace. I do have some mighty tender fingers at the moment, so I may back off a bit today. I have provided background on this quilt which you can read about here and here.

I hope you get a chance to enjoy some slow stitching; it sure is a great way to pass the time.

Happy Quilting, Friends!