Month: May 2018

Turkey Tracks:  May 21, 2018

My Retreat

I prepped these 2 by 8-inch strips before the retreat:  all low volume Cotton+Steel in the warmer colors.

Here are two rows of Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s herringbone braids, from her book MODERN QUILT MAGIC.

I am really liking what is happening here.

I figured out how long I wanted the quilt and decided I’d done enough work on this project.

Next I put together about ten blocks with my Wild and Goosey quilt block (Bonnie Hunter)

I took papers out of the quadrants I had completed one night while listening to a book on tape in my room.  I have rather a lot of these done now and brought home more to do.

I made two pineapple blocks to learn how–with Heidi August as a teacher.

I learned how to use the Creative Grids 60 degree ruler–a block I use a lot and one we will do for Jen Kingwell’s “Long Time Gone” quilt.  I’ve always used the Tri Rec ruler and like it.  The Creative Grids Ruler leaves more space between the end of the star points and the edge of the block.  It is fun, but you can see that it does not make a perfect star.  One could probably figure out how to make that happen, but for the Kingwell project, I’m going to use the Trip Rec ruler.  However, I do like the funky nature of the stars in the blocks below.  They’ll go into my “parts department” bin for an improv quilt maybe in the fall.

I

What I really wanted to do this retreat was to play with my scraps.  I brought them ALL with me, so I got them all out.  Along the way I culled out scraps that were too small or that no longer attracted me.

Here I started playing around with Maria Shell methods from her book IMPROV PATCHWORK–where she makes her own plaids and stripes.

 

Next I sewed a lot of 4 1/2 inch squares–for a quilt in progress.

Here’s that quilt-which is at home on my design wall:

I had some black and white strip sets, so I cut them up and made a checkerboard.  Maybe it will go into “Long Time Gone.”  Or, maybe into the “parts department” bin.

I had a lot of dark charcoal pieces left over from my “Big Star” quilt.  Which block do you like best, big or little?  I am drawn to little every time.

So…

I saw on Bonnie Hunter’s blog that she was making some light/dark squares with strips.  Boy are they versatile.  These are 4 1/2 inches.  (I use newsprint as a backing, cut to size.)

 

These are 3 inches–made because I had some leftover 3-inch paper strips while cutting.

At night I worked on 6-inch hexes, all Cotton+Steel and a solid or two, from Katja Marek’s THE NEW HEXAGON book.  I’ve almost worn this book out.  I’m going to make these blocks like the cover, where they are linked together with triangles, which can make stars on the outside of the blocs too.

I came home with so much energy.  Inspired by Betsy Maislen, I got my “On Ringo Lake” on the long arm.