Things I have neglected to post this last year.

I have been so bad about posting things I have done or been working on for the last year.  So I will just add pictures.

Spoolin' quilt - 4 rows

Had some time to work on an ongoing probably forever spool quilt which has 3 1/2 inch units. I really love quilts that have so many scrap pieces rather than the easy do-in-one day quilts. I like innovative methods but get tired of the nondescript trend that seems to be the current fad. These are really good if you are making tons of quilts to give away. Back to my Spoolin' quilt-- Spoolin' has so many seams, the seams are all pressed open which is time consuming. There are 162 - 6 1/2 inch unfinished blocks which are made up of 4 - 3 1/2 inch spool units. I am not even counting the 4 patch border units yet. I have 4 on-point rows done with end triangles and a long way to go--I think 18 rows. The second picture is the pressed open seams.

Opal - Rag doll

I have been so neglectful of my blog since I retired and hope to do a better job of documenting my projects.  Recently I made a rag doll and made clothes for her yesterday.  I only had one doll growing up and that burned in a house fire, so I think I have this need to make rag dolls.

Quilted Grocery Bag

I finished this bag as my lesson for a modern quilt for the Olsburg Quilt Group in February.  The instructions were really well written and everything went together nicely.  The solid fabrics and straight line quilting made it a good choice.

Miniature Swoon blocks and design boards

My new design boards with 3 miniature Swoon blocks.  I used Elmers for the blue design board and a glue gun for the green design board, and I can tell you that hot glue can leave a nice blister until you get smart and use an old nail file to flatten the binding .  The miniature Swoon blocks have 57 pieces.  I love these design boards as you can lay out the blocks for piecing, and they stackable for portability. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nSZtoionpA

Finished modern quilt for lesson

I worked from the paper copy until I finished the circles.  I used a really fine fusible interfacing called Sewers Dream that I ordered from Sawyer Brook.  It is so lightweight it was easy to turn and lay really flat when ironed down on the finished straightline quilting of the light gray sandwiched quilt.
 

I used the Purple Thang to turn the circles-works perfect.

Here is the Sewers Dream.  

I really enjoyed doing the staightline stitching for the quilting for the sandwiched quilt.  I used painters tape which was perfect to attach and detach.  I do wonder how easy this would be if it were a large quilt.

I used a blanket stitch #60 on my new Pfaff  for the circles.

finished wallhanging

Modern Quilt lesson for guild

Examples of some drawings for my lesson on Modern Quilts I am doing in January.  Modern quilts have really brought in alot of younger quilters and have several definitions--improvisational; bold colors with lots of negative space and many times straight line quilting; solids with the new neutral gray.  These are a few of the possibilities.  Honestly, I still probably like the traditional quilts and probably samplers best.  But it is interesting and has revitalized the quilting arena.  The first example has strips of color (well it will have) placed randomly on a snow background and the other will be a gray background with bold colors as the circles.  The circles aren't finished.  I have to sew them on fusible interfacing and turn them yet.  These are just paper copies except for the circles and they are small versions which I will probably keep as is.  The Olsburg Quilt Guild is a small rural group that meets the first Monday of the month.  We take turns giving a lesson on different techniques and usually make a quilt to raffle every year or two.  The drawing for the raffle or chance

is done after the Swedish Supper in December.