Ann Arbor has a Modern Quilt Guild!

One of the major benefits of living in Ann Arbor this year is that I get to be a part of a Modern Quilt Guild!! I've been to two meetings so far (they happen monthly) and the women are awesome and really welcoming. They also have a monthly "sew-in" where you can bring your sewing machine and a project to work on and quilt/sew together (this is where I got the art kits done).

I've never had a community like this before or a place to sew with other people before, so this is pretty great. Plus, it means I will definitely sew at least one day per month. :)

I'm taking part in a round robin style bee with some of the women of the guild. The starter blocks were really eclectic, but I think that's going to make it fun! My starter block was actually one from another bee I was in that didn't quite fit with the other ones I received, so I figured this would be a fun way to give it a new life.

Last month, I received this block from Cherie.



It was so beautiful and the piecing was perfect. I wanted to show it off and allow some space for others to add something more detailed later, so I just squared off the block and framed it up. I'm excited to see what becomes of it!

Evolution of a Quilt

As I keep saying at the beginning of my posts, I really can't believe how busy life has gotten. This is the last year of my graduate program, so I'm working hard on my dissertation and applying for jobs since the academic market takes a whole year to go through the process.

But in more fun and exciting news, I'm still part of the Once Round the Country Round Robin and the quilts are evolving in really cool ways. This round, I got Zonnah's quilt. She made an incredible starting block and the additions have been really impressive. I debated about adding a calm mostly solid border, but decided that with only one more round to go, it would put Robin in a tough spot to finish it. Instead, I made a whole bunch of flying geese and echoed the inner borders. I used the speedy method on Quilter's Cache to make 4 flying geese at a time and it really was speedy. I think I made them all in just a couple hours. (www.quilterscache.com/H/Howtomakegeese.html)



Here's where it's journey:


And because all the quilts are so great, here's a recap of their evolutions so far...

My Quilt:


Anne's Quilt:


Robin's Quilt (I've got this one for the final round now):


Adrienne's Quilt (aka Organized Chaos):

Organized Chaos

For this round of Once Round the Country (a round robin quilting bee), I got to work on Adrienne's Organized Chaos. For her quilt, we're using some wonderfully bold modern prints. When I got the quilt from Anne, it looked like this:


After much indecision, I decided to do Amish diamonds around the outside contrasting the blue and pink/purple fabrics and echo the square design from the original block in the corners. In order to make the math easy, I just made a paper piecing pattern and did the diamonds that way rather than figuring out how big the pieces needed to be for a 5 1/3" block. :)

So this sketch...


Turned into this (note how big it is, that's a 5 foot wide rug)...


With my trash can evidence of paper piecing...


I hope she likes it!

Sewing for Anne

Things in my non-sewing life (teaching, research, traveling, etc) have been keeping me really busy lately, but I'm still hopeful that this summer will be a time when I can sew more. In the meantime, I worked on something for the "Once Round the Country" Round Robin that a few of us are doing.

Anne (who blogs at Flim & Thread) sent an awesome starter block with three "portholes" and since the fabric she sent had a water vibe, I decided to sew up some flying geese in a wave pattern on either side. I struggled with what to do at first since it didn't like like it was ready for a border yet and I didn't quit know how to add to it without taking away from what was there, but I'm really happy with what I came up with in the end. I hope Anne does too!

Sewing Again!

I can't believe that my last post was November 20th! Holy cow, life has been busy! I made it through the holidays, then got really busy with work. We also got our wedding photos back and have spent a lot of time sifting through them. You can check out a slideshow of our photographer's favorites here:

http://jrauphotography.myshowit.com/krisandjon

It hasn't been completely without sewing though. I managed to make more PJ's for my best friend (she's 6'1" feet and LOVES having pants that actually reach the floor). I used a Simplicity pattern and added 5" to make them long enough for her. These are the hilarious photos she sent me so I could share in her excitement :)
Some wonderful women from the Snip.Sew.Send. quilting bee also got me excited to do another collaborative project. 5 of us are going to do a round robin style bee where we each make a starter block that gets sent to someone else to make a border, then goes to the next person for the next border, etc. I have a bunch of fabric sitting around waiting for projects and completely trust this group, so I'm excited for this to get going.

Here's my starter block and the rest of the fabric. I'm sending out what I have left (which is most) of my Hope Valley fat quarter set and yardage of Kona Snow. My starter block is 8.5" unfinished.

I got my own hexies!

Recently Rebecca (of Luladahl) and I had a private swap. I stamped her some notecards (like these) and she sent this awesome pincushion and needle holder. Isn't it cute??






Thank you!!

Spoiled Rotten!

Blogland and Flickr have really spoiled me recently. I'm always in awe of the generosity of this community.  First, I won a giveaway from Anne at Film and Thread and got this really cute cowboy fabric. Whoever is having a baby next should expect a quilt with this! I can't get over how cute the cowboys are!

As if the giveaway wasn't enough, she also sent this great embroidery pattern and thread! I'm just starting to try out embroidery and these patterns are perfect! I love the colors (could it be because they're so similar to the Neptune fabrics??)

 

I also won a giveaway over at By Small Means! April made coasters and was giving away the winner's favorite. I picked these ones and I'm really excited for them to come in the mail.

For Traveling Threads, I sent out Christmas fabrics and I've received almost all of my blocks! I need to make a couple and there's one set that's coming soon. I'm going to post more about that soon since I want to get some feedback and since I'm committed to finishing it for this Christmas season. I also joined LauraJ's Christmas Quiltalong to encourage me to keep at it.

The set of blocks I received from Leslie had an unexpected and wonderful extra! She made Jon and I ornaments for our tree. I think they're really cute and so thoughtful. I'm excited to put them up!

 

 

Thanks Blogland!! You've really spoiled me rotten!

October Flowers

This has been a month full of flowers, which is kind of funny since the leaves are dropping fast outside. It started with the Doll Quilt Swap 7 quilt that I received from Rhonda (aka Joyce's Daughter). Rhonda really outdid herself and I love it!!


I love the hexes and the colors, but the detail are truly incredible! She handprinted the leaves and the embroidery details are perfect! She also sent some cute ribbons and buttons, which was a nice little extra. Ribbon is one of those things that I think is really fun, but never buy for myself.



Then, Nichole (from Indie House) from snip.sew.send had us work on her "Midnight in the Garden" quilt. The idea was to randomly place 1-3 flowers from our stash on this awesome "Thunder" shot cotton that's almost iridescent. It seems to have threads that are blue and purple and it's just stunning. The blocks are 16.5" square.


When I read the instructions, I was worried since I didn't think I had many floral prints. But it turns out that I don't have many florals, but I have lots of flowers anyway! So I ended up with more than enough for two blocks and sent a few extras with the blocks. I think Nichole is going to end up with a great quilt!



I'm working on another block for Spinster Sister from the Traveling Threads quilting bee and I think that's going to have flowers too! I'll post it soon!

It really is Spooktacular!

As I mentioned a while ago (here and here), I participated in Jane's Spooktacular Swap and it's been awesome. I made 12 nine patch blocks and 12 themed witch blocks and ended up with 12 different nine patch blocks and 12 different themed blocks! I also did one personal swap for the tall witch. I put my blocks together into a quilt that is 48" by 63".



I'm so happy with the result! How cool are all these blocks!?! There are some fabulous details like trick-or-treat in the window, the textured bats and the frankestein-like bunny. I sashed in orange in order to highlight their awesomeness and let each block have room to show itself off. The orange sashing is much brighter in person, but it's pretty awesome! You can't see in the photos, but it has a slight pattern to it so it almost looks like it has spider webs.



I have to thank Jennie (at Sunflower Quilts) for the great binding. When I went shop-hopping with her, she mentioned her love of stripes for bindings and when I saw this Halloween Dance stripe, I bought it and it looks great (if I do say so myself).



I actually free motion quilted on this one and I'm really proud of myself. My Doll Quilt Swap was the first one where I attempted an allover stipple and I'm definitely getting the hang of it. I only quilted the sashing since, again, I didn't want to take away from the awesomeness of the blocks.



The back is bordered with dancing skeletons and Jon is especially in love with them. I also put my block on the back which Jon thinks will be funny if someone is laying under the quilt with their own feet tucked underneath. Oh yeah, we're not really adults over here, we're just big kids who have jobs... :)



A big Thank You to the wonderful women who made these blocks and to Jane for hosting!!

DQS7

Although things have been a little crazy in my neck of the woods recently, I managed to get my Doll Quilt Swap quilt all done by the deadline. I'm stamping a few cards to include with it tonight and I'll send to my unsuspecting partner tomorrow and I hope that he/she likes it!


I'm in love with the Neptune fabric I used and I'm already plotting a little mini quilt for myself using the other charm pack I bought. I hope my partner doesn't think it's too busy. I was going to use a solid background but then I laid out these strips and fell in love.


I stippled for the first time and I think it went pretty well. My partner will be able to see that it's not close to perfect and I had some tension issues in a couple spots, but overall I'm quite pleased with it. I didn't quilt over the bubbles and I love the way they pop off the quilt.


I even made my labels bubbles on the back. I hand sewed all the bubbles using Cheryl at Naptime Quilter's great tutorial. It measures about 12" x 24"

Update: It arrived safely and my partner, Norma (aka Petit Debutant) loves it! She even had it beautifully displayed on her dining room table. Check it out!

A Day at the Beach

I got picked to be the theme picker for Swap Til You Drop this month. I picked the theme "Summer Lovin'" and couldn't not sign up! :) My partner, abxkris (another Kristin/Kristen!), loves going to the beach among other things, so I made her a little bit of the beach to remember when winter inevitably comes.



I love the label since I had some Michael Miller monkeys that also seemed really summery. Kristin also mentioned she loves swimming with her kids.



I also sent some spices from Penzey's Spices. I love their salad dressing mixes. They're good by themselves with olive oil on just about everything or made into dressing. I'm especially in love with their Buttermilk Ranch and Salsa Salad Dressing.

Witches and wonky stars

I promise I'll show some more interesting projects soon, but at the moment there are just lots of Spooktacular Witches. I figured photo of a bunch of identical blocks might be a bit boring, but you can trust they all look pretty much the same.

In other news though, I got an amazing witch from Deana who I did a personal swap with. She's huge and is going to be great on the pieced back I'm hoping to do on the back of the quilt!



I also sent these cute wonky stars to Tacha (aka Hanies) for the Sew Kid at Heart Quilting Bee. She's doing an animal/star quilt for her daughter. I added the Lizzy House ducks since I thought they fit the theme well. I had a bit of trouble with these little ones keeping my seams an exact 1/4" but I love how they turned out and it was completely worth the trouble! They're about 6.5" square.

Doll Quilt Swap

I hope I don't regret this decision, but I decided to join one more swap this summer (it's been a busy one for research and travel, limiting my sewing time). I was going to be patient and not sign up for the Doll Quilt Swap this round and wait for the next one when I'm not quite so busy, but all of you out there in blogland and flickrworld completely convinced me that it's going to be too much fun to pass up!

For this mini-quilt swap, the partners are secret so I thought I'd share I little of my likes here for my partner to "stubble" across :)



I'm really into color. I like colors that inspire and are either bright or in bold or cool combinations. I often try to do to much with color myself, but as you can see from my inspiration mosaic (and my flickr favs), I like a lot of different things (red/aqua, purples, blues, lights and darks, bright colors, lots of white, lots of brown...)

I lean towards the modern styles, so wonky can be good, but so can a traditional style done with modern fabrics/colors. I love when a person's personality shines through, so feel free to take risks and try something new.

I work most of my days in an office without windows and I'm hoping to add this little mini to the wall there to enjoy while I'm getting my work taken care of.

I'm so excited for this swap and can't wait to find out who I'm making a quilt for!

It's Spooktacular!

After seeing Angela (at My Three Sons) and Allison (at Cluck Cluck Sew) both post this morning about frustrations with tearing the paper while paper piecing, I decided I need to stop procrastinating and write this post already.

I'm going to shamelessly plug a product that I just found for paper piecing (I'm sure there are others that are just as great, and I'd love to know about them, I just happen to have used this one). I would also love your helpful hints, since there are so many great ideas floating around out there.




For Jane's Spooktacular Swap, I decided to do witch blocks since I love this pattern from Sonja at Artisania. I was a bit nervous because when I did the gnomes, I hated pulling the paper off and it really pulled at my stitches. I decided to just buy a pack of "Perfect Piecing" and a tablet of tracing paper from Joann's and see if either helped. I hated the tracing paper because I couldn't get it to feed into my printer (but it's been useful for other things).

I loved the "Perfect Piecing" paper! I was able to easily print on it and it perforates and tears easily. I can also use my seam ripper along the edges and it just cuts away. It also didn't pull my stitches! I did my block for Adrienne this way and this witch without too much trouble. I still have another 11 more to go, so I'm glad I found a way to do the pattern I want without ripping my hair out. :)




I think you could also buy sew-on interfacing and cut it to 8.5x11 and it would work too. I'm going to try that next and see if I can save money that way.

p.s. Here are what my nine-patch blocks for the Spooktacular swap look like!

A quirky quilt for May STUD

I've been saving this post until my partner, A Piece of Me (aka Sandi), received the quilt. I got an email from her today that she received it! She mentioned that she laughed out loud when she opened it, which I take to be a great sign since it is rather silly.


The theme was Alphabet Mania and I got the letter "Q" and needed to incorporate that in any way I wanted into the mini quilt (15" square). I made a "Quartet of Quizzically Quacking Quails".. it's a bit of a quirky quilt, but I'm really happy with it. It's the first quilt that I finished on my own from start to finish. Not only was it my first complete quilt, but also
-first appliques
-first free motion quilting
-first binding
-first label





I have been loving Anita at Bloomin' Workshop and Kajsa at Skyo's sketchy stitching and decided the I would try my hand at it with the quails. I bought a charm pack (5" squares) of Moda's Wonderland line and followed Anita's great tutorial. I had never tried to free-motion quilt before and I was nervous at first to lower the feed dogs. What's great about the sketchy stitching is that it's not supposed to be smooth or perfect. Here were the test quails, before I did the ones that ended up on the quiltie.



I'm really proud of the corners on the binding! I used Oh, Fransson's tutorial from her quilt along, and ladder stitched the back. It went perfectly!


Don't look too close at the back... those quacks left all kind of knots and whatnot on the back since I did it with the machine. I probably should've done it by hand, but you live and learn, right?


Here's the label. I don't enjoy hand sewing that much, so I actually just ironed this one on. I'm having second thoughts about it now... but it's in the mail, so there's nothing I can do. Next time, I'll tack down the edges too.


And if you want to see more pictures, click on any of the photos in this post to get rerouted to flickr where I have more posted.