Quilting

We made the deciduous tree blocks at our previous session and they went together quite easily. We can sew things up quickly when we already have the blocks all cut out in kits. Because this quilt is showing more of our individualism, our three block units have variations from each other. They are placed in three different spots in the quilt so we decided to have seasons and make a spring, summer, and fall tree unit. Terry found the tulip fabric in her stash and she and I used that for our spring background, but ShaRee wanted to be consistent with her cream backgrounds. Our summer units are different, but we all agreed on that cute fall fabric.

Since everything went so quickly, we decided to begin the Fields Block. We started laying them all out and realized that we had cut greens and a few golds like the pattern suggested, but we all felt the row needed some brown. We decided to bring browns the next week, cut up a few squares, sew up the block and work on our 1930’s quilt as usual. We alternate weeks on the two projects. But those easy squares and triangles ended up taking us two hours to finish! We are nothing if not flexible, so we cut out the next two 1930’s blocks for future sewing and planned our next move on this quilt. Here are our Fields from top to bottom: ShaRee, Sue, and Terry. This block runs along the bottom of the quilt and is the width of the quilt.

Since we had cut up all those lovely little kits, our first sewing day we got right to the sewing and managed to get two blocks finished. The first block is the Flag block and you can already see our styles emerge. Terry found some fabric in her stash with words on it and some of us used that. This block goes in the upper left corner. Then we tackled the Sun block which goes in the upper right corner. Fascinating fact: ShaRee used 3 different fabrics, I used 4, and Terry used 2 fabrics. We sometimes make completely independent choices, as here, but some of our upcoming blocks will be more similar. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out in the end! Our goal is to have these finished for Alpine Days in August 2016.

blocks by ShaRee

blocks by Sue

blocks by Terry

In September our quilt group began a new project that will run concurrently with the 1930’s quilt we began in January. We are alternating weeks on the projects. The new quilt is called “America the Beautiful” and is published by McCall’s Quilting. It was published a section at a time in the magazine during 2011 and the full pattern can be found on the website and in the Autumn 2012 magazine. This issue featured the original colorway shown below, but also photos of reader quilts that had been sewn the previous year during the sew-along.  [Read more…] about America the Beautiful-the beginning

Block #14 is another 9×9″ block called Kansas Star that is all pieced. We deviated radically from the pattern to bring in more black and orange. I love the contrasts in this block and the way the on point white square in the middle really stands out. We had some angst about the direction of the black stripes in the squares. ShaRee & Terry opted to make them all face the same direction, but I am characteristically rebellious and opted to have them all face the center. Does it matter? No, but fun to notice our minor differences. [Read more…] about Ode to the 1930’s-blocks #14 & #15