Tag: Megan Bruns

Turkey Tracks: September 2016 Update

Turkey Tracks:  October 1, 2016

September 2016 Update

What a glorious summer I have had!

And the fun continues as my life continues to be rich with experiences.

The sailing trip on the J&E Riggin was terrific, as I posted earlier.

Quilter Timna Tarr comes next weekend for a Coastal Quilters trunk show and workshop on making “improvisational” quilts.  She has a terrific gallery on her web site.  Take a look?

On October 17th, some Coastal Quilters of Camden, Maine, will make another retreat at the Franciscan Guest House in Kennebunkport, Maine.  Attending will be my Bellevue High School, Bellevue, Nebraska, classmate, Penny Rogers Camm, who is making her VERY FIRST QUILT.  Messages have been flying between us about layouts and how to sew blocks together and so forth.  Her quilt is so, so pretty.  We will pick out borders, etc., when she comes week after next.

I picked what will probably be this season’s LAST flower bouquet the other day.

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Next year I want MORE cosmos and zinnas in my garden.  And I need to go out and cut the gorgeous hydrangeas to bring in side the house for winter decorations.

Friend Megan Bruns is in Texas with her family this week.  She took all the rosettes from her Millifiori quilt (see former blog posts for details), and her mother helped her decide how to put them together.  This picture is the last I received.  Megan used all Anna Maria Horner fabrics in this quilt.  Of course there will be borders and so forth yet to do.

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Horch roofers have been here for the past two days.  The new roof is so pretty.  Pictures of it later as the yard and house is full of men, flying roof pieces, and equipment.  I would take my life in my hands to go out there.  Besides, it is cloudy and overcast, so I’ll get pictures later.  I am loving the soft color of the roof though.

We still have had no appreciable rain.  I continue to worry about my well running dry.  I have stopped watering deeply outside.  The growing season is running down anyway.  I do not think we will get much fall color this year as drought-struck trees are just dropping brown leaves to, hopefully, save themselves.

 

Turkey Tracks: Instagram Traveling Quilts and Foundation Piecing

Turkey Tracks:  August 30, 2016

Instagram Traveling Quilts and Foundation Piecing

What fun!

Megan Bruns joined a group of people that formed on Instagram who are sewing on “traveling” quilts.  There are several groups.  There were rules about fabric quality, what each person would do on each quilt (like two borders only–maybe it was one?), and about when each quilt would ship back out again (a specific date of the month).  If you want to see some of these quilts “in progress,” the Instagram hashtag is #travelagentMaggie.

The quilt Megan has now is a Halloween quilt; the one she will get next is a blue and white quilt.  The group forms into a virtual circle, so the same person ships to Megan each month, and she ships to the same person each month.  And quilts are each shipped with a little memoir book started by the originator and commented on by each quilter as the quilt travels around.

Megan wanted to make a “boo” as part of her border on the Halloween quilt, so friend Becca Babb-Brott printed out some foundation patterns for her.  Megan came over Saturday and learned how to do foundation paper piecing.  The “b” was daunting for a newbie, but she did it, and it’s so so pretty:

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The MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember about foundation paper piecing is to start that first piece WRONG SIDE TO WRONG SIDE OF THE PATTERN.  A bit of fabric glue for that first piece is also so, so helpful.

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We thought that the letters would have to be closer together, actually:

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So one could cut back the pattern width right away.  Live and learn…

Here’s the quilt in progress.  I wonder what else Megan will do with her border(s) and where she will put the “boo.”  The half-square triangles on the right are three dimensional–very clever.  Love the pumpkin, too.

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So, this project gives a quilter a chance to try a lot of different creative ideas in the course of  some months–nine if there are nine in the group.  And, to see a lot of new creative ideas.  Love the blocks in this Halloween quilt.  Those pin wheel blocks may be Japanese fabric???  Aren’t they pretty?

I can’t wait to see the blue and white quilt that will come next.

Turkey Tracks: Megan Brun’s First Ribbon

Turkey Tracks:  August 1, 2016

Megan Brun’s First Ribbon

Some of us had to make a lot of quilts before winning a ribbon.

Not Megan Bruns of Coastal Quilters.

This past weekend, this young woman WON a third first time out–at the Maine State quilt show:  Pine Tree Quilters’ Guild:

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Megan began this low-volume quilt with the hand-appliquéd colored circles you see here.  Then she surrounded the circles with lots of low-volume blocks.  See the “natural” circles at the lower left of the picture? And, of course, the fabric she found with circles included.

I’ve seen this quilt.  It is yummy, yummy.  Alewives Quilt Shop in Damariscotta Mills, Maine, did the modern quilting, and that’s yummy too.

Congratulations!!! Megan!!!

Can’t wait to see the quilt you are working on now finished–a very, very intricate English Paper Pieced millifiore quilt with tiny, tiny pieces.  (You can see some of that quilt in earlier posts.)   And, of course, hanging at Pine Tree next year.

PS:  She made her dinosaur shirt too.

 

Turkey Tracks: Dorman’s Ice Cream

Turkey Tracks:  May 3, 2016

Dornan’s Ice Cream

Dorman’s is open.  It probably opened May 1st.

I’ve never been by there that there wasn’t a line, and Monday in the POURING SHEETS OF RAIN was no exception.

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That’s Megan Bruns (quilter, mathematician, emerging teacher, great friend) standing nearest to the car under the overhang.  God love her; she got us both an ice cream.  And, napkins.

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Vanilla custard soft serve fragrant tasty deliciousness for me!  Megan got chocolate.

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: Megan Bruns’ English Paper Piecing Projects

Turkey Tracks:  February 6, 2016

Megan Bruns’ English Paper Piecing Projects

Some of us at Coastal Quilters (Maine) have gone quite mad over EPP.

But the projects are so intricate and gorgeous–way more involved than my simple hexie project.

Megan Bruns is an EPP “star” in our quilting group.

And an inspiration!

Just off the top of her head, she started making hexie placemats out of modern fabrics.  As she has colorful fiesta ware, I asked her to take some pics for me for the blog.

A placemat:

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…in use:

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Megan is now trying to decide how to back these little gems.  Or whether to “float” them on a rectangle or larger hexie…

Time will tell…

BUT, Megan has also taken on the VERY challenging “Millefiori” quilts as shown in Willyne Hammerstein’s book Millefiori Quilts.

Here’s the start of her first “rosette”:

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Some progress:

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And the finished first rosette:

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WOW!

Note that the hanging “flags” on the outer ring disappear when those blocks are attached to others–they just go underneath the quilt.

These “rosettes” of various sizes attach to each other to make the “millefiore” look.

Note:  We are using fiber glue pens with refills to put the fabric onto the EPP templates BUT we keep the glue away from the crease edge–as that makes it hard to get your needle through the fabric and the glue.

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Another good source for millefiore projects is Katja Marek’s The New Hexagon Millefiore Quilt Along.

The English Paper Piecing Company carries card stock templates, acrylic templates, and can facilitate delivering monthly block projects–such as this year’s project being designed by Katja Marek.

Marek has a nice web site if you want to take a look at completed projects, etc.

Turkey Tracks: Play Day

Turkey Tracks:  April 39, 2015

Play Day

 

Last Tuesday was “play day”–with  Megan Bruns, who had a day off before starting a new job.

We headed south to Alewives Quilting (Damariscotta Mills) to see the new Cotton + Steel white collection and Megan was looking for fabric for pillows.

Here’s the collection minus the typewriter fabric, which already sold out.

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Next we went to Aboca Beads in Damariscotta to make some earrings.  Here are mine:

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It’s so fun to make earrings!

Lunch was at the River Grill in Damariscotta–they make the best mussels in the whole world.

Coffee for the road at the little bookstore across from the River Grill.

And a stop by Mainely Sewing to visit with Marge Hallowell on the way home.

It was a FUN play day!

 

Turkey Tracks: Megan Brun’s Quilt-In-Progress

Turkey Tracks:  January 16, 2015

Megan Brun’s Quilt-In-Progress

Megan came over this week for a breakfast, and afterwards, we sat and visited and worked on our hand-sewing projects.

I LOVE the quilt Megan is making.

She is making neutral panels with appliquéd circles:

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Here’s a close-up:

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As I understand this project, she will now add some half-as-long-panels with neutral circles.

The quilt is in the “modern” vein.  The panels will be only part of this queen-size quilt.  Megan plans to move out to other shapes, like big rectangles.

Here’s Megan:

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I will show you my hand project soon!  It’s getting borders now…