Day: March 21, 2016

Turkey Tracks: Alewives Fabrics Low-Volume Monthly Fabric Club

Turkey Tracks:  March 21, 2016

Alewives Fabrics Low-Volume Monthly Fabric Club

Friend Megan Bruns did a monthly fabric club with Alewives Fabric (Damariscotta Mills, Maine) that she truly enjoyed.  She’s using those fabrics in her Passacaglia Millefiori Quilt.  (See earlier posts.)

Alewives is doing a low-volume version, and I just signed up.  I LOVE the low-volume fabrics the market is putting out now.  This club starts in May and is already filling.  They will limit membership as they are a small shop.

Here’s the information:

Source: Alewives Fabrics: Fabrics

In the newsletter message I got from them, they included the prettiest picture of an English Paper Piecing project from Tracey Jay Quilts–called a “Morning Star” block.  I just ordered that for $6 too.

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The block is in the center, and the pattern forms through color manipulation.  The package comes with a blank coloring plan.

Isn’t this gorgeous.  Low volume prints and brights.  Heaven must be made of these colors!

Fussy cutting could add a whole new intricacy to this idea as well.

 

 

Turkey Tracks: Katja Marek’s Millefiore Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  March 21, 2016

Katja Marek’s Millefiore Quilt

I finally found a good picture of Katja Marek’s Millefiori Quilt:

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I have 5 of the “rosette” packages for the English Paper Pieces.  You can get them at the English Paper Piecing Web site.  And there is a “club” of people doing a rosette a month, or something like that.  Once you have a package in hand, you go to Katja Marek’s web site for refined instructions.

The large rosette in the middle left of the quilt (rose/yellow/green) is the starting point.  I have TWO of these packages as I want to do one with baby fabrics and use it as the beginning of a medallion quilt.

These pieces are larger than some of the other millefiori quilt patterns–so I think this quilt will be more accessible to more people, including ME.

My thanks to friend Becca Babb-Brott (Etsy store:  Sew Me A Song) for introducing me to this Katja Marek pattern.

AND to friend Megan Bruns, who has been a trailblazer in this whole millefiori quilt knowledge base.  (You should see her finished rosettes–and I will ask her for some pics when I get back from Charleston.)

 

Turkey Tracks: Tami’s Table Runner

Turkey Tracks:  March 21, 2016

Tami’s Table Runner

DIL Tami came for my birthday this past weekend.

What a terrific gift.

It was a win-win as her birthday is in mid-February, so I helped with her trip up, and she came for my birthday.

We went flat out for four days–and, of course, had non-stop talking and catching up.

We never get this kind of time together in any large measure–and Tami has such a rigorous schedule with four kiddos and lots of school drop off/pick up, that the break away was good for her.

We went to Alewives–Tami loves Alewives–and I do too.  We came home with fabrics for a table runner for her looooonnnng farm-style dining table.

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We copied Rhea Butler’s idea of combining light and dark 3 1/2-inch light/dark squares into blocks.  Rhea used 5 blocks, which works better in a quilt.  We used 7 to get the width Tami needs for the table runner.

Here are some of the other fabrics we chose:

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The next day we spent about 5 hours sewing and cutting and organizing a long, thin batting, and the time flew by.

Tami got all the blocks cut and into baggies, so she just has to sew the blocks together into the big blocks when she gets home.

She left with the math done for the backing and binding and what threads she will need.

I am going to Charleston next week, so we’ll finish it up then.

We could not get everything into her suitcase, so the package is going into the top of a box of two quilts that I am mailing to two of my son Bryan’s daughters.  I was to mail that package today, but will when the hill I live on gets plowed.  I’ll post pics on those quilts when the girls and  parents have seen them.

Turkey Tracks: Kathy Dietz Pesce’s French Braid Quilts

Turkey Tracks:  March 21, 2016

Kathy Dietz Pesce’s

French Braid Quilts

Today is the first day of spring AND we are having a snow storm here in Maine.

(That’s not unusual.  And I probably caused it because I switched out my winter cords/sweaters/wool socks/mittens/hats for spring clothes.  I had to retrieve some of my winter gear.)

Anyway…

This morning was lazy–a catch-up day after a terrific weekend with DIL Tami, where we went flat out for 4 days.  Along the way this morning, Kathy Pesce and I traded some FB messages, and she sent me her “snow day” and weekend quilting, a beautiful little French Braid quilt in shades of rose/pink/garnet.  That led to more sharing, and I thought you might like to share her beautiful quilts with me too.

Here’s the rose/pink one:

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The border fabric is Japanese–up close it has the most wonderful texture.

Kathy is trying to use up her stash, like me, and loves small pieces of fabric, like me.  And, like me, she’s found Bonnie Hunter’s stash management system and scrappy quilt projects.  She’s made more of Bonnie’s mystery quilts than I have.  The florals in her quilts are an effort to use up stash.  And, like me, these days she is more drawn to the brighter and low-volume fabrics, but has a lot of fabric from earlier quilting eras.

Here’s another French Braid that is using florals:

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Gorgeous!!  I did not ask her if she does her own quilting…

Love the quilt admirer on this quilt too.

Here’s a French Braid where Kathy has really gone scrappy:

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This one has set my brain into project planning!!!

Thanks so much Kathy, for the connection, the sharing this morning, and these beautiful quilts.