Turkey Tracks: The Two-Inch Bin is Empty!!!

Turkey Tracks: August 22, 2015

The Two-Inch Bin is Empty!!!

See?

Can I tell you that there were 6720 squares in that bin. And note that it’s a SMALLER bin (13 by 8 by 5 inches deep) than I usually use.

Who knew there would be THAT MANY squares in that bin???

Now I have what I think of as “assets”: 1680 finished four-patch blocks.

Note that I use Bonnie Hunter’s Stash Management system to manage my stash, and you can read all about that in any of her books and on her blog, quiltville.com.

One part of that system is to cut leftover fabric from making a quilt into useable sizes that work together mathmatically AND to do something with a bin when it gets full.

I have spent the summer sewing these squares into light/dark four-patch blocks. And that effort started with the American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine‘s challenge to work with four-patch blocks this year.

I was inspired, also, by Bonnie Hunter’s quilt block, as she is doing this APQM challenge.

So, at first I made Bonnie’s block. (Bonnie’s background is aqua–which is so lively and pretty.)

AND, Bonnie’s sashing is AWESOME!! (I went ahead with my rich magentas BEFORE I saw what Bonnie opted to do.)

I can’t wait to see what she does with the cornerstones, to see the finished quilt, AND to buy whatever book into which she puts this quilt.

(To follow her progress with this challenge, go to her web site, quiltville.com, click on the blog button, and search for the APQM challenge.

I put the final border on my quilt yesterday–after sewing the LAST FOUR-PATCH BLOCK–and am working on the backing now:

And of course I will have to make Bonnie’s version since I love her strip-pieced sashing so much. That will take 150 of my 4-patch blocks. A drop in the bucket of my assets.

I have some of these already started–and the corners are from the 3 1/2 inch block bin–which has gone down considerably with the use of Bonnie’s block.

I am very excited about doing a Jacob’s Ladder in blue/neutral. I was able to carve out quite a few of those blocks:

And could not resist putting two together to see the result:

I have this great winter blue-jay fabric that I can use for a backing for a blue/neutral quilt.

AND, the mixed blocks would make up beautifully in a Jacob’s ladder with a constant setting for the half-square triangle blocks.

I also carved out some red and neutral blocks.

What if I turn this block straight? The lines would then be on the diagonal…

This block came from Lissa Alexander, whose quilt was featured in the APQM article on the four-patch challenge. I made a baby quilt recently using this block if you want to see a finished quilt: Happy Baby Quilt.”

I have some green and neutral blocks–but not a whole lot.

Could this green-based block fold into the red-based quilt???

And, somehow, I seem to have gotten started on Bonnie’s current block in the September/October 2015 issue of Quiltmaker magazine: Criss Cross.

They are fun, but I’ve had a little trouble translating directions to the Easy Angle Ruler AND with the given size for conventional cutting of a large square into four triangles. I’m wondering if there is a mistake?

I’ve solved it for myself however.

So far, there are a minimum of five quilts out of these blocks…

Turkey Tracks: Bonnie Hunter’s Quilts at Maine State Show

Turkey Tracks: July 27, 2015

Bonnie Hunter’s Quilts

At the Maine State Quilt Show

(Pine Tree Quilt Guild 2015)

It’s always fun to see Bonnie Hunter’s quilts at a quilt show.

Maine’s state quilt show, Pine Tree Quilt Guild Show 2015, is no exception. There were six that I saw.

(Bonnie’s web site is quiltville.com, and you can get to and sign up for her blog from this main site.)

There was one Grand Illusion, Bonnie’s 2014 Thanksgiving challenge quilt. It’s so interesting to me to see the color variations in quilts made with Bonnie’s patterns.

TWO “Celtic Solstice” quilts, Bonnie’s 2013 Thanksgiving mystery quilt.

First, one using Bonnie’s colors:

And one using red and green and creating an alternative block for some of the blocks in the center, by turning the green square pieces outward:

I love the use of wilder neutrals in this quilt. My version used fairly tame neutrals… I am slowly gaining courage.

You can see the two different blocks in this picture. Look inside the white diamond/star.

One Scrappy Trip Around the World:

Great use of the dark blocks to set off the edges. This quilt is much lighter than the one I made.

One Perkiomen Daydreams:

And one “Narrogansett Blues” with a fall colorway–which hung outside the show:

(Not a great picture here as this quilt is very vibrant.)

There is a Narragansett Blues in my future…

Turkey Tracks: Stash Obsessions

Turkey Tracks: July 17, 2015

Stash Obsessions

I have been obsessed with a quilting project for almost a month now…

…clearing out the 2-inch squares bin…

…it’s been about four years…at least.

And the whole purpose of cutting up all useable fabric after completing a quilt is that…one day…you need to use them.

Bonnie Hunter’s rule is that when the bin gets full, you have to slow down and USE THOSE SQUARES.

Well, here’s the project. (And I think I wrote about this before.)

This year is the American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine‘s four-patch challenge–which Bonnie Hunter is participating in as well.

So I’m going to turn the 2-inch squares into four-patch blocks.

When I got obsessed, I had already gotten this far with the block Bonnie is using:

But, right in the middle of putting the gorgeous magenta sashing on these blocks, I have lost my mind. I have not attempted to make the four-patches as a leader/ender project.

No, I thought I’d just sew them all up.

Do you have any idea how many squares there were in that bin?

I am now counting them just for fun. There are 600 in the quilt above.

So, I realized as I sewed a light square to a dark square, that I had a lot of blue and neutral and red and neutral possibilities.

(These are NOT all the two-inch squares by a long shot.)

Here’s a larger version of the block Lissa Alexander used in American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine–which I used to made “Happy Baby Quilt.” Put on point, one gets a long chain of the red squares.

And what about a Jacob’s Ladder block for the blue and white?

Here are two of these blocks stacked together. Wow! I really like this block.

I have spent many, many hours now sewing the light/dark squares together and that’s all done:

So the bin is now full of the two-square strips.

I’ll move on to making the four-patch blocks next.

But first, Bonnie Hunter’s method of pressing open strips of blocks BEFORE cutting them apart really works. Visit her web site (Quiltville.com) for tutorials on handling your stash and tips like how to press FAST.

I am still loving the four-patches inside a square–and especially as I am using the 3 1/2-inch blocks to make the outer square. (Cut them on the diagonal.) So I will make more of these as I go along.

Quilt count from this effort? A red/neutral quilt, a blue/neutral quilt, the almost finished Bonnie Hunter block quilt, more of those blocks, and lots and lots of four-patches.

Yep. It’s good to slow down and create some “assets” from time to time.

Turkey Tracks: Bonnie Hunter’s Annual Mystery Quilt

Turkey Tracks: October 15, 2014

Bonnie Hunter’s Annual Mystery Quilt

It’s started!

The first posting has come for Bonnie Hunter’s annual mystery Quilt.

This first posting describes what inspired Bonnie. This year it was her stay at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan, where she has taught for several years now. The quilt’s name is “Grand Illusion.” Bonnie gives, in this initial posting, detailed instructions about fabric choices–and provides numbers to paint chips available at Loews.

Quiltvilles Quips & Snips!!: Grand Illusion Mystery!.

The first clue will come the day after Thanksgiving. And every Friday morning thereafter, Bonnie will post the next clue–or what to do next. Bonnie makes her quilts in units that combine to make a quilt. There will be from 6 to 8 weeks of clues. Bonnie will reveal the quilt sometime between Christmas and New Year’s.

I have been rounding up fabrics and pawing through my stash since this post came in, and I’m assembling some really nice fabric choices. I’m excited!

I’m going to keep my neutrals to the white end of the neutral scale, which will pop the other colors out. Bonnie says the yellow fabric will be the constant in this quilt.

Last year, you may recall, I did this annual mystery quilt, “Celtic Solstice.” And I learned so much from reading Bonnie’s detailed instructions and from interacting with other folks around the world making this quilt. (There is a Facebook group you can join.)

“Grand Illusions,” said Bonnie, will be less intense than “Celtic Solstice.”

The information on “Grand Illusions” will come off Bonnie’s web site sometime in June, I think. And the quilt will go into an upcoming book.

GO BONNIE!

Blog Readers’ Quilts and Quilting Information: Bonnie Hunter’s NEW BOOK is out

Blog Reader’s Quilts and Quilting Information: April 4, 2014

BONNIE HUNTER’S NEW BOOK IS OUT!

MORE ADVENTURES WITH LEADERS & ENDERS

It came yesterday!

I had been haunting the mail box all week.

So, I made a cup of tea and sat down to ENJOY leafing through the pages:

AND, the book is a treasure.

You can see the quilts in the book for yourself in the url below:

Quiltville’s Quips & Snips!!: More Adventures With Leaders & Enders! Pre-Order Time!.

Turkey Tracks: The Red and Green Quilt Is Taking Shape

Turkey Tracks: March 25, 2014

The Red and Green Quilt Is Taking Shape

Looky, looky:

I’m loving the interesting secondary patterns that are forming.

This quilt started as a “leader/ender” project–an idea pioneered by Bonnie Hunter as a method to work on two quilts at once. Basically, when you get to a point while sewing where you might cut your thread, you feed a “leader/ender” block through the machine instead. So, for some time I sewed together dark and light green half-square triangles cut from my 3 1/2-inch strips–until I had sooooo many of them. Then I fed through four-patches of light and dark reds and greens from the two-inch strips. This quilt is being made entirely from my stash that I cut up this summer.

The block is a “Contrary Wife” block–and was inspired by Bonnie Hunter’s “Blue Ridge Beauty” quilt, which I made in green shades last year. (It remains one of my very favorite quilts in the whole world.) I think I had a lot of light/dark green half-square triangles started so just continued to make this quilt. I’ve wanted to make a red/green quilt for some time.

You MUST have the light square in the upper left corner when you put this block together for the light and dark rows to line up within the lattice pattern.

I’ll do some borders, of course. Probably a dark red thin border at first–and maybe a wider bright red border next. Who knows? The fabrics will come out of my stash.

Turkey Tracks: “Celtic Solstice” Quilt

Turkey Tracks: February 13, 2014

Celtic Solstice Quilt

“Celtic Solstice” is Bonnie Hunter’s 2013 Mystery Quilt. Bonnie writes a few weeks before Thanksgiving about fabric choices and releases the first “clue”–which unit we will make first–the day after Thanksgiving. Then we are off and running–making hundreds of units each week until she reveals the finished quilt and how to put it together sometime before New Year’s. Some of us finish right away; others take longer as life circumstances are all different. We had the option to sign up for a Facebook “secret”/closed group to connect with other quilters making CS, and I have to say I have really enjoyed seeing their comments, their work, their different color choices, and the many different ways they put together the quilt. Some reversed the chevron unit, which made that block more like a star, for instance. And there were many, many different border treatments.

My CS has been finished for about two weeks now, and it’s been hard not to “share” it here until I could send it to DIL Tamara Kelly Enright for her February 12th birthday. Tami KELLY Enright is part of the amazing Kelly Clan of Charleston, SC–which has been a boon for all the Enrights.

Two of my friends held it upright at our last quilt meeting as I can rarely get this kind of a shot of a quilt.

Bonnie designed this quilt after a trip to Ireland last summer. You can see that it has the colors of the Irish Flag (green, orange, white) and that blue figures prominently.

Here’s what it looks like thrown over a queen-sized bed.

This is a two-block quilt. Each block is a nine-patch–and you can see them in this picture. The block with the green square on point is a Bonnie Hunter design and has appeared in a recent book from Quiltmaker magazine (I think that’s right) of 100 blocks. The star block–see the blue points with the orange and green four-patch in the middle–is made with Tri-Rec rulers and forms the blue circles.

Here is a close-up of the very interesting border–and you can see that I quilted with a medium green thread–using a pantograph called “Circle of Life” ordered from Urban Elementz. I specifically wanted a pantograph with this “New Grange” circle symbol for this quilt. (New Grange, in Ireland, is an ancient site where the solstice light figures prominently during the solstice.)

Here’s the backing, binding, and the quilt. I chose this bright orange backing because I know that Tami likes orange and bright colors AND BECAUSE IT HAS FAIRY BEES all over it. Tami is a bee keeper and Executive Director of The Bee Cause Project in Charleston, SC, and Savannah, GA. See their url: http://www.thebeecause.org/home.html.

And, the other way:

Here’s a close-up of the fairy bees:

I knew very early that this quilt had to go to Tami. I could hear John whispering in my ears–she’s a Kelly for Heaven’s Sake. And while there are MANY of my quilts in Tami’s home, even one I made for her when she was pregnant with Bowen, there isn’t a big one that’s just for her. And I didn’t realize until recently that she likes BRIGHT quilts.

Tami was hard hit with the loss of John–they had a very special relationship, and I’m so glad she could come spend time with him not long before he died. I put this old Irish poem on the label for her:

And our loved ones do not totally disappear. We hear their voices inside ourselves all the time. They have just gone on before us, to prepare our way.

I have so enjoyed making this quilt and so look forward to next year’s Bonnie Hunter mystery. Meanwhile, Bonnie’s other mystery quilts are in her books, and there are many I would truly love to make.

Thanks, Bonnie!

Turkey Tracks: “Songbirds in My Grandmother’s Garden” Quilt

Turkey Tracks: January 6, 2014

“Songbirds in My Grandmother’s Garden” Quilt

I began to realize sometime during making this quilt that it reminded me of my grandmother Louise Phillips Bryan of Reynolds, Georgia.

Although she had fabulous gardens with flowers of all colors, Grandmother loved the color brown best. She had brown eyes and fine, curly dark hair. Her laugh was HUGE–a belly laugh from deep inside. And she knew how to have fun and to laugh. She loved life and loved her life. She sewed and she knitted. She gardened, as I said above. She put up food and set a nice table. She welcomed guests.

I am named for her, and I spent a lot of wonderful time with her at all stages of my life–especially as we were an Air Force family and moved a lot. When my father had an overseas deployment, mother took us back to Georgia, to Grandmother and Pop. And, as I make this description of her, I am realizing how much of her ways I have adopted and believe are good ways to be in this world.

I had a lot of fabric pieces left over from the “Earth” quilt–and I wanted to keep them together as I was enjoying how they played with each other. And, to tell the truth, I have enough for one more quilt besides “Songbirds,” especially as I have lots of fabrics that will work well with this bunch already cut up in my stash. I am working on Bonnie Hunter’s current “leader/ender” project with what’s left of these earthy fabrics–a block with light and dark sides–allowed by strategically placed half-square triangles. Here are four of these blocks–and they can be combined in countless ways.

(A leader/ender project lets you work on two quilts at once–the one you are piecing, and when you need to cut your thread, the one that’s your “leader/ender” project. You always have blocks for the second quilt ready to stitch so you do not break your thread but just keep on chain piecing. Sometimes I make the half-square triangles and when I have enough, I make a few blocks as I sew along.)

Well! here’s “Songbirds”:

It’s another “Dancing Nines” from Bonnie Hunter’s web site, quiltville.com, where she has tons of free patterns. I made this one with 2 1/2-inch squares though, as that was the size of the strips I had. Bonnie’s pattern starts with 2-inch squares. The piano keys border though is from 2-inch strips.

Here’s a close-up so you can see why Bonnie says these blocks “dance.” They are off-set. The pantograph is “Check and Chase” by Lorien Quilting. I ordered it from Urban Elementz which has a huge selection of pantographs.

I love the borders on this quilt. the binding is a very, very dark muddy red.

And, here’s where the “songbirds” came from. I fell in love with this very contemporary fabric–and think it works with the more traditional front of the quilt. These little guys make me want to cup them in my hand.

Here’s a block close-up:

I loved making this quilt–which reminds me so much of my grandmother.

Turkey Tracks: Bonnie Hunter Reveals “Celtic Solstice”

Turkey Tracks: January 3, 2014

Bonnie Hunter Reveals Celtic Solstice

Wow!

Needless to say, I can hardly wait to start sewing my “Celtic Solstice” together.

As of last Friday’s Clue, I had all the needed parts.

Here’s the revealed quilt plan:

It’s made from two blocks:

And:

And here’s Bonnie’s quilt:

Is this quilt gorgeous or what????

Bonnie Hunter is one talented woman. And generous and lovely. Imagine designing a quilt like this every year for people to make altogether. It has been such a fun, fun effort. And I’ve loved the special Facebook group that came together around making this quilt.

I can’t wait until next year!

Turkey Tracks: “Earth” Quilt

Turkey Tracks: December 20, 2013

“Earth” Quilt

This picture is not the greatest picture I could have taken of this big, bold-hearted quilt.

It’s hard to get a good overall picture without two people to hold a big one like this aloft somewhere.

I hand-sewed about 2/3s of these blocks this past summer–which are known as Winding Ways or Wheel of Mystery blocks. Then I discovered that they sew really well on the machine as well as the curves are not extreme. It’s easy to cut four layers of fabric with the templates I have (you can order the set online–John Flynn makes one) and with a SMALLER rotary cutter–like the 45mm.

The dark/light blocks form big circles on the quilt–which I really love. And I really love all the geometric shapes that show up as well.

I put in bits of the blue you see–and those bits show up like little polka dots. Or, pools of water scattered across the earth. They sparkle across the quilt top’s surface.

It takes a “deep” stash–many fabrics collected for many years–to make a scrappy quilt like this one.

I pieced the backing–and like the way it came out:

I had the dark brown/teal print in the pile of fabric I used in this quilt. And I cut 10 1/2-inch blocks from other pieces to make rows on the back–an idea which came from Bonnie Hunter’s books. I also put in some random blocks left over from the front of the quilt.

I really like the border–which is vintage Bonnie Hunter:

Here’s another view:

And I quilted overall with a feathery pantograph pattern I’ve used many times now: “Simple Feathers” by Anne Bright. (I love her patterns.)

There is a lot of work, love, healing, and emotion in this quilt–more than most I do. Here’s the label. (The saying came from Bonnie Hunter’s web site quiltville.com.)

This quilt was delivered TODAY to Tara Derr Webb, whose age fits between my two sons. I have known her and loved her and worried with her and rejoiced with her since she was eight or nine years old. Today is the day that Tara is cooking out of “the Farmbar” for the first time in Charleston, SC, where she and her husband Leighton own and operate a developing farm. Tara is also a photographer, and you can see her work and pictures of Deux Peuces Farm (two fleas) and the Spartan trailer that is “the farmbar” on her web site: www.thefarmbar26.com.

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