Everyone is Being Creative!

I think we decided on this "Gwen and Freddy Challenge" a little close to our upcoming show in September.  But if we each make at least one, we will have something inspirational to display in memory of these great quilters and teachers. Kirsten and Edna have made Gwen and Freddy quilts before, so we have those for the show.  We are hoping to have ten.  Jane is working on her second one.   

Edna e-mailed me a photo of what she has got going on her design wall.  Edna said she is making a bunch of liberated nine-patch blocks and on-point squares in squares.  I am really liking those bright nine-patch blocks!

Of course, Marsha hangs out with me.  Here is what she has on her design wall.  She is making lots of liberated stars, liberated log cabins, and square-in-a-square blocks for her quilt.  It is going to be interesting to see all the different quilts!  We are certainly off to a great start.

Astrid's "GweFre" Quilt is Fabulous!

I had so much fun designing this quilt and making the "parts".  I have some parts left over, that will likely go into another tribute quilt.  Jane is thinking of doing a vertical row quilt and include some of the parts.  I think Jane and I will do some collaborative quilting!

Marsha took this photo of my quilt and I.  It is considered a medallion quilt, which is one of the types Gwen Marsten wrote an entire book about and hosted classes on.  The color scheme is all Freddy.

Gwen and Freddy Challenge!

Astrid here.  Our little group of quilters have decided to do a Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran challenge, as a 2025 tribute to two of our favorite quilter rock stars.  I have jumped right in!  I am feeling pretty good about what I have put together so far.

I am presently making a bunch of black and white half-square triangles for another border within this quilt.  I also, have more decisions to make about what kind of flowers I am making stick out of my Gwenny basket.  I am so excited!  Edna is going to make one, too.  She made a Gwen Marsten style medallion quilt a couple years ago, so I call her a trailblazer.

Christmas Quilts

It would seem some of us are on a red and green or a Christmas quilt kick.  Marsha finished her Christmas quilt, just as our weather has finally changed and it truly feels like November.  We met at her and Astrid's place and had tea and apple pie, as we just visited for a few hours.  I knew Marsha was working on a red and green quilt, but then she surprised us with a fabulous Christmas quilt.  

It is a medallion quilt!  What an impact the color and design make!  Marsha has come a long way in her quilting skills and design ideas.

Edna's Visit

When Edna came in August, she brought some quilts she finished this year.  We have all been pretty busy, even after our quilt show was over.  We recently met at Marsha and Astrid's place for a potluck and a bit of show and tell.

Edna sent us a photo, in July, of this one when it was just a quilt top.  She managed to get it finished before her trip up here, to help us with the quilt show.  I like the earth fabrics and dragon flies on this one.

This quilt is called Spinning Star.  It seems there are some videos out there that instruct quilters to use a "right on the edge" seam to make these star blocks.  Edna just added a quarter inch width and a half inch length to the white strips that make the stars, so her quilt has quarter inch seams that won't pull out with the least bit of handling.

Finally, Edna made this stunning Christmas quilt with some yule-tide scraps given her by a friend.  We had a wonderful visit with Edna, and it was so nice having her with us for a while.  She promised to keep us updated on her quilt adventures.

Astrid Completes Her Hachi Quilt

Astrid worked very hard on her Hachi quilt.  She used mostly Japanese fabrics and her favorite fabric from South Korea (the big flower print with green background).  

She included unexpected visitors, and she did not back-stitch on her stitch-in-the-ditch, but left long threads at the beginnings and ends, so she could tie knots in each thread and pull it inside the quilt.  She said, "it took forever!"  She really wants it to be perfect.  

She also read about the tailor's clapper, and how to make the Japanese binding, which is called "end-cap facings."  That is why it appears to have no binding.  The joining of the front and back is on the exact edge of the quilt.  She did not have a clapper, so she used the handle of one of our hardwood cooking spatulas.  Astrid thinks that did the job, but when she gets her clapper, in the mail, she is going to press the edges again.

Using My Japanese Fabrics

Hi! Astrid here.  Jane invited me over to see her amazing Hachi quilt.  I love it!  So, I have borrowed her book, and I am in the process of making my own.  I dragged out all my Japanese fabrics and picked the pink sushi-panda fabric, a large floral, and the Mt Fuji with polar bears fabric.  C gave me some fabric to use as the unexpected visitor.  I am still messing about with the layout, on my design wall.  It needs tweaking, before I sew my blocks to one another.

The final version will have 30 blocks in it.  At this point, I am not liking how the pink is put up here.  Too much pink?  Not spread around enough?  I will play with it some more, then move on to making the backing and the quilt sandwich.  I love sandwiches!

Tumblers Quilt

Astrid completed her wedge quilt, which may be called a tumblers quilt.  We don't know.  They look like wedges to me.  Kirstin's cousin said they looked like lava lamps.  With the multitude of fabrics she used, it looks pretty awesome, no matter what it is called.  If you know your multiplications, then you can multiply the number of blocks across by the number of blocks down and determine how many blocks are in Astrid's quilt.  

Although Astrid cut a lot of those blocks out quickly, she slowed down in the process to get everything just right.  She is looking to put it in a quilt show this coming fall.  She carefully stitched-in-the-ditch, using her walking foot, so her stitching is more straight than not, and trying to avoid starts and stops in the body of the quilt.  She did have a few problems with not keeping it in the ditch, so she had to leave long threads on and rip out the bad part, then tied a knot in the thread, then thread it on a needle, so she could pull it all under the top fabric (make it not be seen).  What a pain!  It is so much more fun to just do it without thinking about it being perfect for a show.  This is Marsha signing off!

Jane's January Tutorial

It is January again!  I am Jane, and I am going to show you how to make a "Quilt-As-You-Go" quilt using strips of fabric.  It is a quick and easy quilt.  As I piece the strips together, I will be quilting the quilt at the very same time.  I think this really saves on thread!

The first step in making a quilt, is to decide on numerous things.  You have to stop and think about what fabrics you have, and which ones you want to put into your creation.  I thought I knew which ones I wanted, but after I sewed the first three strips on, I changed my mind and had to do a little more auditioning before I could continue.  Enough about that now.

First, I decided how large I wanted my quilt to be.  Then, I cut out the backing for my quilt.  Yep, you do this first.  Then cut your batting to be just a little bit smaller than the backing.

Place your backing fabric face-down on your work surface.  Place the batting on top of the wrong-side of the backing fabric.  Either pin or use spray basting adhesive to secure the batting to the backing fabric.  I use spray basting adhesive.  Safety pins work just fine.

I know I want to use that amazing multi-colored fabric in this quilt, so I will choose other fabrics to go with it using the colors that are in my top choice fabric. 

Since you know how wide your batting is, you can cut some strips to audition on your laid-out backing/batting.  Just lay the strips on there and rearrange them how you like.  Remember, a quarter of an inch on either side of the strips will be sewed into the seam allowance, so overlap your strips, a little, so you can kind of gauge how many you will need.

This is what I thought I liked, but then I noticed there is no yellow in my top choice fabric.  It has a gold, but no yellow.  I also decided it did not have enough pop in it, so I tried some of the hot pink that is in my top choice fabric.

Hmmmmm.

I rummaged around and found some gold tone fabric and decided some red would give it the pop, along with more strips of my top choice fabric.  Instead of only three strips, I put in five strips of my multi-colored fabric.  The bottom row strip, I decided to piece, using the cut-off ends of some of the other fabric strips.

Time for constructing this amazing creation:

Using a Sharpie marker and your long ruler draw, a line down the side of your batting.  Place it parallel to the left edge, about a half-inch from the edge.  You will line-up all your strips on this line.  If you do not draw a line, you could end up with your strips straggling back and forth, which is okay, if you want to chop a lot of your quilt sides off, when you square it up at the end.  I don't want my quilt to be any smaller than I have already decided on.  Use a Sharpie, because the Friction pen's marks disappear when you press the strips outward.  

Lay all your strips, in order, off to the side of your backing/batting part.  Chose the two strips in center of your layout, because you are starting in the center and working in one direction, then working in the other direction. Shown above are my two center strips.

Line up with the line. Place the one on top of the other, right sides together.  Pin them to secure them, along the lower edge.  Tip:  I have always pinned to make sure the fabrics do not shift as I sew them together.  Yes, I run over my pins, and it has not been a problem.  I was taught to do it that way in school.  See the next photo to see where the seam was sewn.

You sew through both fabric strips, the batting, and the backing, all at once.

Press the lower strip away from the upper strip (the colorful one away from the blue one).  Then lay your next strip on top of the colorful one and sew it down.

Continue placing strips on, sewing them down, and pressing them away from the other strips.

At this point, the last strip on this end has been sewn down and pressed.  Rotate your project around so the marked line is now on the right-hand side as you look at your project.  

This is the half-way finished mark!  Take the next strip and lay it on the one in the center and continue sewing, pressing, and pinning strips on. 

Keep going!

The last strip is sewed on.  Notice it is wider than the others?  I did that on purpose, so it will reach as far as I want it to, then I can trim the excess off.  Now, it gets pressed out, just like the rest.

The top is trimmed off straight.  Square up the other three sides of your quilt.  

I have squared up my quilt.  It has nice straight edges on all four sides.  It is sewn together and is all quilted!

Go ahead and put a seam on the edge of the top and bottom strips, to keep them from flopping about.  This will make it nicer when you put on the binding. 

This is the back of the quilt.  You can see the quilting here.  Because you press each strip over, after you sewed the seams, the quilting is not seen on the front of the quilt.  It is like magic!

Now all you have to do is make some binding strips and sew on the binding, and your quilt is finished.

Ta-Da!

                            Quilt-as-you-go Variations

I made a quilt-as-you-go quilt last July.  I placed all the strips on an angle.  I still started in the center and worked toward the bottom, then worked toward the top to complete it.  I used strips of different widths, that had more than one fabric pieced to make each strip.  I made long strips and sewed them down, then trimmed them off.

I love this quilt.  Click on the photo and it will enlarge, so you can see the details and fabrics better.

My friend, C, made this quilt-as-you-go quilt.  She cut her strips so that they left about four inches on the left and right edges.  She sewed the strips in the middle section, just like I showed you how.  Then she made long strips for each side, made from pieced half-square triangles.  She sewed the side strips on and pressed them out, just the same.  Looking at it, you would never guess it was pieced/quilted the same way.

I hope you learned a lot from this tutorial.  Please, leave me a comment!

Happy New Year! Got one more quilt done in 2020!

 I hope everyone had a happy Christmas, and I wish everyone a happy New Year.  

We got a lot accomplished in 2020.  It was a good year to stay home and quilt.  We also invented novel ways of enjoying each others' company while social distancing.  Before last March, social distancing was not even a thing.  We are all looking forward to 2021, and soon, Jane will be posting her annual "Jane's January Tutorial".  Jane and I are hanging out this New Year's Eve.  She finally completed the quilt she started in 2019 "Jane's January Tutorial", Session 1, Part A and B, January 12 and 20 consecutively.  Boy, that was a mouthful.  She quilted it last week and has since been hand-sewing the binding on.  

She sure milked getting this one done. It is a sixteen-patch, on-point, design.  Remember, you can click on the photo to make it larger, so you can see the details.   Also, to see how to make this quilt, see the Archive to the left?  Click on 2019 and find the January posts, where Jane is really knocking out the tutorials.  The best to all of you in 2021, from Kirsten, Jane, Marsha, Astrid, and Willow.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had a little quilting get together this weekend.  Astrid brought her most recent completed quilt for Show N Tell.  It is an Irish Chain quilt in green and white for St. Patrick's Day.  It seems after she made her Japanese quilt, she decided try something Irish.  From what I gather, she is planning a Scottish quilt next.  I think she may be on to an international quilt stretch.  We shall see.  

Astrid (left) and Marsha (right) hold up Astrid's Irish Chain quilt.

Astrid quilted it with diagonal quilting across all blocks.  You just can't see the white thread on the white blocks.  I believe she machine sewed the binding on.