Quilty Update Early November 2020

Turkey Tracks: November 7, 2020

Quilty Update Early November 2020

I have been having so much fun playing with these two projects on my design wall. They have been wonderful ways to cope with all the political chaos of an election in the middle of a pandemic.

Both of these projects are meant to use up solid scraps acquired with two years of The Color Collective online class on Sewtopia, with Tara Faughnan as the teacher and curator of fabrics.

On the left, the “trees” quilt was inspired by Crazy Mom Quilts. And on the right is a quilt inspired by Tara Faughnan’s quilt made with this kind of method.

I pulled out the bin of solid scraps and sorted it—I have piles where the fabrics need to be cut into useable sizes—like, at the very least, different sizes of square blocks. The strips are going into the developing quilt on the right. Occasionally I dive into the bigger bins of bigger pieces of solid fabrics to get a color I want to go with what is here, or to cut new squares for the trees quilt.

I’ve washed and ironed all the fabrics for the first project of season 3 of The Color Collective. The block is “Marrakesh.” The first set of fabrics is a luscious combination.

The funky rail quilt top from Sajata Shah’s CULTURAL FUSION QUILTS book and all the needed parts for the longarm joins the Flying Geese quilt with all its needed parts. I’ll start to longarm quilt these quilts pretty soon now.

The funky rail fence block is super fun to make. I used a suite of fabrics I’ve never used—and added fabrics from my stash. I pieced the back with the remnants, so that’s a lot of fabrics out of the stash. And does it count as an almost-created Unfinished project since I did have a suite of fabrics kept together? I think so. I do NOT want to be one of those people who dies and leaves a huge amount of fabric for my family to manage.

I LOVE this flying geese quilt and can’t wait to see it finished.

I worked on the last row of the solid Sugaridoo QAL quilt yesterday. Along the way I added sashing that is a bit too wide, and the quilt is way, way too long. Sugaridoo planned it at 70-90, which is not a ratio I like. I spent the evening ripping out some of the sashing, and I have at least gotten the quilt back to 70-90. I’ll likely finish these two quilts in the next few days, and I have enjoyed the learning curves involved and all the new block patterns. I have backings for both quilts, but need to organize bindings. Completing these two tops will make FOUR quilts ready for the longarm and binding.

The third row of the EPP project “36 Ring Circus” is going faster than the first two. I’m making all the center blocks in a row at one time now. And I pretty much have all the parts that surround the center glued and ready to go.

I also have two knit garments cut out and some patterns I really want to make. That’s a bit harder since I’m not really seeing anyone with the pandemic situation and so have no place to wear new garments.

My sewing life is rich and satisfying during the winter season here in Maine, and it feels good to get unfinished projects completed and to take on some new challenges.