Turkey Tracks: Sunday Morning Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  March 10, 2019

Sunday Morning Quilt

I love this yummy quilt.

The pattern came from SUNDAY MORNING QUILTS (Amanda Jean Nyberg, Cheryl Arkison) and was designed by Cheryl Arkison.  I used all Cotton+Steel fabrics, except for the solid binding.  And I made it as a “cool” companion to the “warm” quilt (see below) using the herringbone pattern Victoria Findlay Wolfe designed (MODERN QUILT MAGIC).

I quilted with the “Simple Feathers” pantograph designed by Anne Bright.  And I used a soft smoky seafoam green thread that disappeared into the backing, from Signature threads.

 

Here’s the “warm” quilt, to remind:  “Bee Warm.”

 

Both of these quilts have lived in my mind for some years now.  It’s so good to have them be really here.

The Cotton+Steel designers have left their original home and are now “Ruby Star Society.”  Their first collection from their new home arrives this summer.  I just signed up for the Pink Castle “Ruby Star Society” fat quarter club which will start in July.  Yeah!!!

Turkey Tracks: How Many Ongoing Project Are There?

Turkey Tracks:  March 4, 2019

How Many Ongoing Projects Are There?

Some of stopped sewing long enough to count up ongoing projects we’ve started.

1.

I was in pretty good shape until I got involved in Sewtopia’s Color Collective project with blocks and solids designed by Tara Faughnan.  (Amy Newbold owns and runs Sewtopia.)  For heaven’s sake, google “Tara Faughnan quilts” and you will be blown away, as I was.  She works in saturated color and solids.  (Tarafaughnan.com)

The first month’s block was the circle; the second, the cross.  I combined them as clearly I got obsessed and couldn’t stop making them.  Note the two projects at the top of the design wall.

This top is done now, and I absolutely love it.  I’ve found, in my stash, a backing I like a lot, and I will buy a binding.  I’m thinking of doing some hand qulting with size 8 pearl cotton.  Here is the top all together.  It glows.

2.

Above the big project on the right is a row of 14-inch blocks, made using scraps from the solid projects and from my solid stash. I saw this block used in a quilt made by Then Came June called “Checkered Garden Quilt” and using Alison Glass bright fabrics in the Road Trip line.  I fell in love with it.  (Here is a picture: https://thencamejune.com/products/road-trip-checkered-garden-quilt.)  This block has been called “part Trip Around the World,” part “Granny” block.

Here’s the next block cut out and ready to go and waiting in the adjacent bedroom—sitting atop my Traveling Quilt.

3.

Above left is the start of the “Slopes” quilt by Amanda Jean Nybery of Crazy Mom Quilts.  The book is NO SCRAP LEFT BEHIND.  I am cutting the dark Cotton+Steel fabrics—a few a day—for this quilt.  I’m using leftover 1 1/2-inch blocks combined with leftover solid pieces for the row of “little” pieces near the top of the quilt.  I might do more than one of these rows.  Who knows?  Not me.

4.

I have a bird quilt project going and have made three of the big blocks and one of Jen Kingwell’s “The Avenue” of trees blocks.  I’ve been saving bird fabric for several years, but I’m choosing only the artist-types for this quilt.   I want to use in an improv style.

The 9-inch tree block is bigger visually than I thought for some reason.  Inspired by Tori Manzi’s recent tree blocks on our Mt Battie “Bee Inspired” project, I’ll probably group these in lines and make them in seasonal colors.  This one would be “spring.”

The I’m thinking this will look like a MUCH BIGGER version of this little quilt I made in a Timna Tarr workshop.

5.

My Sunday Morning Quilt is done and getting its binding.  Cheryl Arkison is the designer, and it’s in the book she did with Amanda Jean Nyberg called SUNDAY MORNING QUILTS.  The thread color I ordered arrived.  My go-to grey just didn’t work well on the backing.  This quilt is the “cool” to the “warm” herringbone quilt I finished not long ago, designed by Victoria Findlay Wolf and in her delicious book MODERN QUILT MAGIC.  See previous blog posts for that quilt.  Both of these quilts are LUCIOUS!  And both are totally Cotton+Steel low volume fabrics.

 

6.  My “Wild and Goosey” quilt is once again on the back burner.  Bonnie Hunter designed the block.  I have all the sashing cut, and the design I want to do for it all planned.  I’m sure I’ll need more of the little blocks though.

7.

Right now I am working on the “parts department” improv quilt.  See the earlier post on this quilt project.

8.

There is the EPP “36-Ring Circus” project.  This one is slow as there is a big learning curve.  That’s ok.

9.  There are more pillows from a method shown by Anna Graham of Noodlehead projects (HANDMADE STYLE) in the works.  This project is one of two from Mt. Battie Modern Quilt Guild.

10 and 11.

There are TWO blocks to make as part of the Color Collective class.  The fabric for the first one is all washed and ready to go.

12.

Here are the FIRST blocks for the Mt Battie Modern Quilt Guild’s challenge “Bee Inspired.”  These blocks were made for Donna Strawser, whose prompt was “Mid-Coast Maine.”  You can see the individual blocks better on the Mt. Battie Facebook page or on Instagram.  Thirteen quilters each made one of these blocks for Donna, and she made one for herself, so 14 blocks.  Mine is the white winter birch trees at dawn.  Tori Manzi made the four trees at the bottom, by season.  They really need to be seen lined up together, a you can on FB or IG.  Donna will now set these blocks into a quilt and will bring it back to show us at some point.  I will need to make a block for our next Bee Inspired event in April:  “Dark and Light” for Vicki Fletcher.

I really, really loved this block I made and might do another version for one of the pillows:

13.  I am gathering bits for a Rice Bowl bag or two.  See earlier post, but the designer is kzstevens and the pattern is in her Etsy store.

14.  I want to make a little sewing folder like friend Megan Bruns showed me the other day.

So…

That list is not actually too bad.  In any case, I’m having so much fun, even though I’m not getting as much time as usual, due to the needs of my boyfriend, AC Slater, who will be 1 year next month.  He’s a crazy man and has me visiting the dog park daily, as the snow and ice are pretty risky on the wood paths.

Turkey Tracks: Recent Projects

Turkey Tracks:  January 30, 2019

Recent Projects

Good morning!

We had snow in the night and now…rain.  It’s also very warm for Maine in late January.

Here are some pics on my current projects.

This EPP project is HARD!  There is a real learning curve involved here, but I’m getting faster now.  This is “36-Ring Circus,” designed by JoAnne Lewis and available at Paper Pieces.  I did NOT buy the whole templates offered, just the ring kit, which includes the center “pointy” temlplate—shown in red on the first ring.

I am currently using Cotton+Steel fabrics for the centers and solids (pastels for the ring and darks for the ring centers and diamond shapes) for the rest.

 

Here’s the status of THE COLOR COLLECTIVES first project:  circles.  So far I’ve broken TWO of my machines with the invisible thread.  Probably, I did not release the needle tension enough.  I did release the foot pressure instead, which was clearly a mistake.  I don’t think anybody but ME is having these issues.  One machine is back—along with two spools of thread that the marvelous Marge Hallowell of Maine-ly Sewing donated to the cause and for me to experiment with and about which to get back to her.  I would love to make this quilt a bit bigger, to a lap size, but I may also use the second months’s block—a foundation pieced cross—to create a border.  I’m still movng around blocks on the design wall—which is kind of crazy as I need to fill in the holes first.  I could, also, use a matching thread for the circles if I have matching thread.  I do love these circles.

Recent intense weekend sewing produced this “Cool Sunday Morning Quilt” from SUNDAY MORNING QUILTS (Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkison).  It’s all in blue/green/grey Cotton+Steel low volume fabrics.  And it’s meant to be a companion to the recently finished “warm” quilt below, also made from C+S warm low volume fabrics—using Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s herringbone method.

 

Of course I also have three or four other projects developing or simmering, especially when I get to “playing” with some ideas and fabrics.  More on those later.