Tree Quilt Block

At the March meeting for the Temecula Valley MQG, I'm presenting the BOM.  I got these done early and the tutorial scheduled on the TVMQG website because my life is busy!  The was an easy block to make Kristy has very good directions.  I recommend paying attention to her seam pressing suggestions.  You can find the tutorial here.

May your bobbins always be full,

Progress Report

I'm making progress on my Solids Jacobs Ladder Quilt top.  Five more blocks completed the past few days.

Here are all 20 of the completed blocks laid out randomly.  I have 10 more blocks to make, then I'll decide on the final layout.

I'm taking a "sewing-break" until after Christmas.  My daughter Sharon and grandson Oden are coming for Christmas Day, so I want to get the house in order.

May your bobbins always be full,

Jacob's Ladder Quilt Top

I made five more Jacob's Ladder blocks after the Stereo Quilt was delivered to my Long-Arm quilter.

I now have at total of 15 blocks, including the blue and red opps blocks!  I plan on making a total of 30 blocks giving me a finished quilt that will be 60 by 72 inches.  

May your bobbins always be full,

Making Slow Progress

Five more quilt blocks. Ten down, many more to go. Yes, I did another variation of Jacob's Ladder. I really like the 'oops' factor.  I think I'll call the variation Jan's Ladder!

May your bobbins always be full,

Opps!

Two of these are NOT like the others.  For some reason, I'm having a heck of a time with these Jacobs Ladder quilt blocks.  The first one I made for the Roadies Give Charity Quilt, went together like a dream.  These five, not so much!  The top two blocks will be relegated to the back of the quilt.  I'm not perfect, but I like my quilt tops to be as close to perfect as possible.

My plan for this quilt is to do five blocks at a time.  In between sets of blocks, I'll work on other projects.  My reasoning is based on the Lawn Diamond quilt, I don't want this one to be boring, too.

May your bobbins always be full,

The Wonky Improv-Curve Quilt

I took these photos a week ago.  I've been so busy that I forgot to post them.  This is the first quilt I've had custom quilted.  The lovely Georganna Hawley quilted it for me.  She was well recommended and I had a chance to meet her at Quiltcon this year.  We live about 3 hours apart, that's how you measure distance in California, so the quilt traveled via US mail.

I'm in love with the result.  I haven't decided on the binding, yet, so I can't mark this complete!

May your bobbins always be full,

Quilts for Peace ~ Dallas MQG

After the tragedy in Dallas, the Dallas MQG put out a call for Blue Heart Blocks.  The blocks will be made into quilts for the survivors and the deceased officers' families.  I took a break from my current project.  The first day I selected the fabrics from my stash.  I love having a good stash!  Then I did all the cutting,  The Dallas MQG asked that the blocks be 10.5 inches and follow Cluck Cluck Sews great tutorial.

Then yesterday, I sewed them all up, took some photos, and put them in the mail.

This tragedy, the wholesale killing of police officers, broke my heart.  My husband was an LAPD officer for 28.5 years.  He worked in the Watts area, home of the worse criminal gangs in the country.  I didn't worry about him, he was mature and well trained.  Worrying solves nothing.

I love being part of the wonderful quilting community.  They jump right in, whenever there's a need.

The other big quilt drive is Quilts for Pulse, in response to the killings in Orlando.  Next week, I'm sending the Orlando MQG this heart quilt.  I happened to make this a year and a half ago, just for the joy of making a quilt.  Now, it'll comfort a stranger.  That's what quilts are for.

May your bobbins always be full,

The Wonky Improv-Curve Quilt Top and Back

This is what I came up with for the quilt back.  I kept it random and ended up with two pink rectangles together!  That's how you know it's random!

I've decided to us a Long Arm Quilter that I met a Quiltcon in February because she does custom quilting.  Before I met her, another quilter from the Ventura MQG had highly recommended her.  It's always great to have an independent recommendation.

Since I'm not much of a leave it to chance kind of gal, in spite of the evidence in the quilt back, I came up with a plan for the quilting and I'm going to let the quilter "run with it".  She has a busy schedule, so I won't have it back until August.

May your bobbins always be full,

The Wonky Improv-Curve Quilt Top is finished

Photo overload.  The quilt top was actually finished this morning, which was lucky because it's a stupid hot today.  We topped out at 101 degrees at 11 AM.  I got out to take these photos earlier.  I really love all the movement in this Wonky Improv-Curve Quilt top.

I've been working on the quilt back, so it should be finished by tomorrow.  I'm in a quandary about how to have this quilted.  My LAQ doesn't do custom and I think this deserves some custom work.  I'll need to come up with a plan before I send it off to someone.

May your bobbins always be full,

Making progress in the Wonky Improv-Curve Quilt Top

I have been a busy bee.  After I selected these fabrics for a Wonky Improv-Curve quilt, there was lots to do.

First I cut a 16.6 inch square from each fabric.  Then I stacked them and drew a curved line on the top fabric.  The stack was too thick to use a rotary cutter, so I cut the curve the old fashioned way and using scissors.  Then I stitched together pairs of mismatched fabric.

Next, I drew the second curve and repeated the process.  You can see that the blocks were not laying absolutely flat, but that wasn't a problem until the third curve was stitched in.

I thought of a couple of solutions, but decided to "sleep" on it.  I've always been able to problem solve while sleeping.  I work up this morning with my solution.  I did a trial to make sure I'd be happy with the result.

First I sliced two blocks in two.  You can see that the cut edges ended up curved!  I used the top and bottom of each piece to make a straight line, and get rid of the curve.  Then I joined one half of each block, to make two new blocks.  I trued them up to 13.75 inches square, to get rid of all those jagged edges.

And these two blocks are the result.

I performed the slicing, trimming and re-joining process on the remainder of the blocks, but this time I didn't work with two blocks at a time, so the placement was more random.  Above isn't the final layout, but it's close.

This is a photo of the instructions that were given on making a Wonky Curves block.  I started with smaller squares because most of the fabric I pulled was half yard cuts, so no 20 inch squares.  But, hey, it's improv!

May your bobbins always be full,

Kona 2016 Color of the Year Block Challenge

The Kona Color of the Year for 2016 is Highlight.  For my Kona Challenge quilt block, I’ve decided to pair it with Pomegranate, Papaya, Chartreuse and Kona White.

The color is off on the block photo, but you get the idea!

May your bobbins always be full,