Quilting Development

QUILTS! ROUND-ROBIN AND BALL MAKING

My friend Jane bought this for me upstate. Aside from the fact that it's adorable, I am so happy to have a friend like her, who does not quilt, who supports me and takes pride in my work. It sits above my sink in the kitchen so whenever I do the dishes I just smile.

Remember the round-robin? Black and white and one color of our choice? Well, this is the block I received, and I didn't really know what to do with it at first. Her block ends at the white frame, and really she used off-whites. This round was paper piecing, and I knew the quilt needed some action - boy did it get action! Obviously, I haven't finished it yet, and I'm late with my homework!

And now my homework has is building up. I have to put some form of circles as the next layer.

An finally, I finished sewing all the seams for the big red ball.

Ball is turned right side out.

Stuffing...

and more stuffing...

with this stuff.

Ta da!

Here's another one!

And another!

Now I've graduated to the more complex and larger ball. It's more complex becuase there are lots more pieces - shown is for half the ball. Also, there are both pentagons and hexagons. I made it more difficult by my color selection, not wanting like fabrics or shades to touch as much as possible. I love these fabrics!

First I sewed rows, then the rows together.

Here's the half-ball. It took two evenings!

KWILTAS OF THE NIGHT KITCHEN MEET

This is Me with my next door neighbor, Ellen. Here we are making our patchwork balls, that I taught to the group.

Another partial pic of the group - Madi, Lenni, Malki, Susan, and Merri.

My lesson went very well, I thought. Here's Linda with her ball. Nice right?

Here's our newest member, then Lenni and Linda.

But then, what's this?

Susan and Merri have stars, not balls! Yep, I'm a good teacher! We had a lot of fun, but I think the embarrassment shows on my face! I set them up with the two half balls incorrectly. Call the quilting police!

PATCHWORK BALL OBSESSION

I told you I would become obsessed with these.
I made this the night after my purple one. This is a great thing to do when you're too tired to quilt and just want to crash in front of the TV. I'm going to be teaching my group how to do this next week. They're excited! I'll have to remember to bring my camera to this meeting.

Would you believe, this is what we did yesterday? I went down to the beach for a quick relaxation hour, and it turned into 3! My poor boys backs are burned. The water was chilly, we acclimated quickly. I don't think I've ever swam in October before! But the beach was so hot from the sun, and there was no substantial wind, so we welcomed the cool water. I was sad to leave, knowing it was probably the last swim for too long.

And last but not least, the kids insisted on practicing the art of sculpture - and who am I to discourage art?!

WHERE IS THE PINK SUNFLOWER?

Just thought I'd write a brief post updating you on my "quilt pink" quilt block. Remember, the pink sunflower? I'd link to it if I knew how. (Can someone teach me how?) It ended up in my quilt group's hands, specifically Madi, who took it to The City Quilter in Manhattan and sewed it together along with a bunch of other quilties (my slang for quilter ladies). Here's the link to some pics on that day... http://cityquilter.com/quiltpink.htm The pic of Madi with the quilt is on the bottom, center, with my quilt block barely discernable but towards the center of the quilt. It's such a great feeling, as I'm sure most of you know, to make something as special as a quilt block rather than to give money or even time, which are both important too. I predict this will become an annual task for me.

PATCHWORK PUZZLE BALLS

I made this today. The ball is stitched by hand, and while I've done some inset seams, I've never done this many. By the time you're done with this little ball, you become a pro at insets. The pattern is from a book by Jinny Beyer and this is the most basic of balls. She has some really challenging ones in there. It only took a couple of hours, as I sat helping kids with homework. Make no mistake, they were deprived - we had leftovers for dinner so I could do this! When my husband came home and I wanted to show it to him, they were off somewhere with it playing. They remarked how it was the perfect size, weight, and so cool! My oldest daughter was diggin' the purples. I just gotta say, I am so proud of myself! You should try it too, but I do recommend buying the templates that go with it - they have a convenient hole for marking the starting and stopping points (a must with insets!). I suppose you could make the template by hand with hole, but you can't really use the rotary cutter with it. I cut out these pieces 4-6 at a time zip zip zip! Whaddaya think? I may just become obsessed with this for a while...