Day: January 5, 2018

Turkey Tracks: January 5, 2018

Turkey Tracks:  January 5, 2018

January 5, 2018

I’m not sure how it got to be January 5, 2018, already!

Where does the time get to so fast?

We survived yesterday’s “Bomb Cyclone” up here in Mid-Coast Maine.  I’ve seen much worse in terms of blizzards.  Maine coastal areas flooded, however.  Just north of Camden, Lincolnville Beach flooded.  I’ve never seen that kind of winter flooding before this storm, and many old timers here are saying they have not either.  It is not an exaggeration to say that we are in unchartered territory in terms of big storms and rising waters.

I replenished bird food and Louisa food before the storm.  The bags are so boldly colorful.

After this storm, we have a fair amount of snow on the ground.  The winter sports folks are delighted.   Here’s my back deck, so you can see what’s accumulated now.

The turkeys stay with me all winter now, but these males stick very close.  They spent the storm under the big white pine and their backs were often were covered with snow.  Did it help insulate their bodies?

I’ve had a lot of intense sewing time in recent weeks, which I love.  The Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt “reveal” came just before New Year’s, along with all the finishing “clues.”  “On Ringo Lake” is an intense, very scrappy quilt.  I am enjoying seeing all the different color ways and different settings people have used in this quilt and look forward to seeing my own different colors playing together.  You can see the finished quilt on Bonnie’s web site:  quiltville.com.

I don’t know.  I think in recent years Bonnie Hunter’s designs have gotten more and more busy.  Or, modern quilts have changed my own tastes.  But I often feel that all the busyness in sashings, especially, is detracting from the clever, innovative blocks she designs.  I know that opinion is a very personal taste take on my part, but I think my own challenge with her work that I attempt will be to scale back some of the elements.  The eye, I think, needs resting places.  Too much is…too much…and robs the work of its specialness.  The cleverness is getting…lost.

Here is a picture of some of the small quilts in my sewing room–made over the past 13 or so years:

I cut out a fleece top yesterday.  I’m working up my courage to sew it mostly on the serger.  Wish me luck!

 

 

 

 

Turkey Tracks: Mt. Battie December 2017 Meeting

Turkey Tracks:  January 5, 2018

Mt. Battie Modern December 2017 Meeting

We had a very pleasant gathering a few days after Christmas.

We set the meeting calendar for next year, organized the “Long Time Gone” (Jen Kingwell) challenge for 2018, and celebrated completing our FIRST YEAR of membership in the Modern Quilt Guild.

Becca Babb-Brott brought her completed Tula Pink 100 MODERN QUILT BLOCKS top.

Note that Becca staggered her setting rows on the bottom as well as the top.  And, that she made the sashing between rows different widths.

It will be fun to see this one quilted and finished.

Next month we see the Traveling Quilts again.

Turkey Tracks: Mt. Battie Modern Monthly Challenge–December 2017

Turkey Tracks:  January 5, 2018

Mt. Battie Modern Monthly Challenge–December 2017

We are showing our traveling quilts every other month, which gives us two months to work on them.  In the off months we are doing one of the Lucky Spool exercises from the MIGHTY LUCKY QUILTING CLUB 2016 workbook.  As always, members can participate or choose not to participate.  We are working our way though the workbook.

This challenge asks one to design a quilt from a photograph–but a modern quilt, not a literal landscape quilt.  One is to look for shapes and, perhaps, greyscale impact.

I took this picture of my Tula Pink blocks (100 MODERN QUILT BLOCKS) at the last Coastal Quilters retreat in October 2017.  And I could not get the idea that formed in my head out of it with regard to this mini challenge/exercise.  It kept just hovering and hovering there.  (The Tula Pink challenge ends in December, and next year the challenge is Jen Kingwell’s “Long Time Gone” quilt.)  These blocks are on my design wall now, and have been moved around a lot.  I think I’m ready to sew now though, and I have sashing and backing organized.  I am using TP’s suggested “city scape” format.

So, I had a lot of fun the other day cutting tiny pieces and making a kind of greyscale version of the city scape idea.  It is a bit literal, yes.  But I loved playing with the greyscale.  I quilted just using the walking foot.  Here’s “Greyscale,” which will go into my collection of small quilts hanging in my quilt room.  I seem to be in a grey/neutral/black moment in my quilting.  It’s about 17 by 18–roughly.

I like it.  The squares are “shedding” a bit though.  I probably should have glued them more thoroughly before sewing???  On the other hand, they have texture…

It is what it is.