Round Robin Quilts with the Sunday Sew & Sews

 Several months ago, eight of the Sunday Sew & Sews decided to do a Round Robin project. Each person made a center block, gathered fabrics they liked with it, and passed theirs on to another participant for her to add to. There were  two groups of four so the quilts wouldn't become king-size--which could have happened if all 8 had worked on each quilt.

I have written before about this process and given tips for success here:

How to Organize a Round Robin

Here are the tops as they were returned to their owners. Some will be declared "Done!" by the owner and some will be expanded--each person gets to decide. In no particular order: 

Pam E

Terri 

Donna

Jodie 

Cindy

Pam R with hers

Brenda

Mine--I want to expand this as I love it

This was a fun project. Everyone loved their quilt and each was surprised with what was done to theirs. All are so different. And each person had to figure out what to add and how to accomplish their chosen design. This is a great exercise for those who typically follow patterns. You get to make creative decisions on your own and stretch yourself as a a quiltmaker.

Let's quilt.

Barbara

Houston--What I Bought-- Part 3

 My final post about International Quilt Festival 2021. This will show my purchases.

Having put myself on fabric restriction, I didn't look at or buy any fabric. The closets are full and begging for the "de-stash" process to begin. 

Instead I bought thread. So now I am on "thread restriction" too. Superior is my thread of choice. This isn't all of it: 

Always looking for more rulers/templates for ruler work, I bought these two. Now I am eager to try them out: 

And I bought a book full of good quilting ideas for pieced blocks. Deciding what to quilt is the most challenging part for most of us--this will help:

That would have been enough for this trip but then I saw an antique quilt I really liked. It has two things I love in antiques--flying geese and LOTS of fabrics. The dealers are lovely people, Carolyn and Don Springer, Quilts from Mulberry Lane

The tag from the dealer said it was a Mennonite quilt, made by Ada Wadell of Carlisle, PA. It is 72" x 78" and in excellent condition. A quick search for Ada Wadell or Waddell in PA hasn't been successful yet but I'll keep looking. I grew up in PA and took a Girl Scout trip to Lancaster County, PA that first introduced me to quilts and started my passion for them: 

Border quilting: 

 

The rest of the quilting is two concentric circles with a few small stitches in the center of each:

Sometimes the geese change direction for no apparent reason: 

Wonderful collection of old fabrics--she had a deep stash too, just like I do:

The back--three widths of this fabric, the middle one is 25.5" wide. The binding is the back turned over to the front:

                                                  

The perfect addition to my small antique collection. This just might be my Next Lifetime Quilt!

Let's quilt.

Barbara 

Houston Quilt Festival 2021 -- Part 2

 These photos will focus on my Special Exhibit at International Quilt Festival 2021 in Houston, TX.

It features 23 of my quilts, from early pieces that are pretty humble to the four Best of Show quilts. I told my family it is my "Lifetime Achievement Award" and is a really big deal--in case they didn't know what it means for a quiltmaker to have an exhibit of their work at "Houston".

The opening display: 

A huge "Thank You!" to the fine folks at Quilters Select who so graciously agreed to sponsor this Special Exhibit: 

Sizzle--Hot! pattern by Becky Goldsmith, in a private collection

Joyful Journey, Sue Garman pattern, quilted by Lois Kindley

I took some of these shots before the show opened to the public. The layout was lovely, close to chronological order as I had requested: 

Red and White--By the Numbers got very little attention and that was fine. She was front and center and images of this quilt was everywhere in 2014. She is part of my journey but not the most important part; 

Some of the older pieces: 

If It"s Purple... patterns from my guild in the early 1990's, original layout/design, hand quilted by Lucille Ford, Best of Show, HQH 1995

Devil's Claw, original design, hand quilted by Lucille Ford

                                        

                                      

The oldest pieces were on the back side of the exhibit--the two flying geese quilts are personal favorites: 

One of the oldest quilts in the exhibit, Charm Quilt, 1992. Made with "blocks" from members of my first guild, VA Star Quilters, Fredericksburg, VA. I designed the original quilting pattern. The quilt sat in the frame in a west-facing window for so long the border fabrics are badly faded. The narrow inner border was originally black: 

The ONE quilt that got far more attention than any other is "My Lifetime Quilt". It was in the perfect place for maximum visibilty--facing into the quilt area of the show, and leading to the vendor area. 

These next 3 photos are from my friend Karen K Buckley, who featured them on Facebook--Thanks, Karen!

                                                 

The subtitle of this quilt is Wow! because I hear that all the time when people first see it. This guy came around the corner and yelled "Wow!" followed by "She's nuts!"  As I was standing there I said to him "it really wasn't that hard to  make". He figured out these are all my quilts and said some very nice things about my overall body of work. I asked him to pose, saying "Wow" and he was happy to. Wish I had gotten his name: 

There are many blog posts about the making of this quilt--use the Search box in the upper left for Lifetime and they will come up. Here is one: 

Lifetime Top is Done

I have lots of photos of the backside of lots of people--every time I went to the Exhibit there were people gathered around it: 

I spent an hour a day for 3 days at the Exhibit, listening and talking to lots of people, quilters and their families. Many wanted my business card and I hope some of them are now here following along with the rest of my Joyful Journey. Many members of The Quilt Show took a moment to say "hi" and that was special too.

All and all, it was a great experience I will be forever grateful for. My personal motto is "I am a part of all that I have met", by A. Lord Tennyson, my high school yearbook motto. I feel my connection to all those who are a part of my journey: teachers, friends, students, mentors. I especially felt the presence of two women who have left this world, but not before leaving a permanent place in my heart: Judy Murrah, my mentor, boss and friend for so many years and Sue Garman, designer and friend. I miss them both so much but feel their love to this day.

Let's quilt.

Barbara 

COLOR MY WORLD--ASSEMBLY OF THE QUILT TOP

 Color My World is the 2021 Block of the Month pattern designed by Wendy Williams exclusively for The Quilt Show. The pattern is FREE for Star Members through December 31, 2021. 

Once all the many Small Houses, Tall Buildings, Mariner's Compass center, Little Houses and Skyscrapers are made, it is time to assemble them into a beautiful quilt top.

My finished Color My World quilt

STAYSTITCHING TIP: 

 It is VERY HELPFUL to staystitch BOTH EDGES of the Outer Circle of Tall Buildings/Skyscrapers/Little Houses in the City. This means sewing a line of stitches within the seam allowance area, using a regular stitch--2.5 works for me. This will  prevent all the bias edges of Background fabric from stretching on the outer edge and keep the seam allowances of all the buildings in place on the lower edge. This takes a few minutes to do and will save you lots of time/problems later.

These are Evelyn S's borders, showing where to staystitch--she hasn't done it yet:

Wendy has provided step-by-step instructions in Month 12 for Putting the Quilt  Together. See pages 6 and 7 of Month 12. 

My additional tips: 

It will take more time than you expect to make the complete Outer Circle of Tall Buildings, Little Houses in the City and the four Skyscrapers. Take your time, the end is near.

It will take LOTS more time to PIN the center circle with the Upper Roads to the Outer Circle. I know it took me 45 minutes to align and pin everything. Start at North, South, East and West. Then pin half-way between those points, then half-way again, etc. until you have as many pins as you want/need in place. The more pins, the easier the sewing will be. 

I tried to align as many road seams to Tall Building seams as I could, most matched pretty closely. It is not that they are "supposed" to align, they just did, most of the time.

 Here are some photos I took last July 2020 while finishing my sample quilt:

One of four corners assembled

Once you are ready to sew, have as much space around your machine as possible to minimize drag and allow you to sew carefully, with little stress. It took me more than an hour to sew this very long, circular seam. Put on good music and relax.

Check the back when you are done--this happens, at least once and probably more than once. Take the few seconds required to pull out a few stitches and FIX this. Your finished quilt will look much better in the end. You have worked too hard to let a few issues like this diminish your finished quilt:

Here is my finished quilt top BEFORE the outer borders. It looks wonky because I didn't take time to get it square on the design wall. I was just thrilled it was FLAT:

Wendy has instructions for cutting the outer borders from 7 strips of  crosswise grain fabric, 5" wide--this requires about 1 yard of border fabric. This is the most efficient use of fabric but will mean there are seams in all the borders. If you prefer lengthwise grain borders, with no seams, you will need about 2 yards. You can make your borders wider or narrower, as you please. I cut mine 5" wide, from crosswise grain--this busy fabrics makes the seams very hard to find.

It is most important that you cut the borders to the exact side needed, so the quilt will be flat and square. Measure your quilt, top to bottom, from edge to edge at both sides and the middle. These should be similar. If they are way off, like more than a 1/2" different, I try to find where I went wrong. Less than that, I use the average and "ease to fit". 

What you DON'T want to do is cut a long strip of border, sew it on and whack off the extra--this almost guarantees the quilt will not be square. Cut your borders to the precise size needed, pin at both ends, the middle and along the edges as needed to keep things aligned. The more pins, the easier the sewing.

Once the left and right borders are sewn on, measure the quilt again in three places, to determine the size of the top and bottom borders. Cut those to exact size and add them to complete your top.

Here is mine on the design wall, all done, flat and square.  Being admired by the adorable Stella:

When yours is done, PLEASE POST A PHOTO ON THE FORUM. There is a Topic just for this purpose: COLOR MY WORLD--SHOW YOUR COMPLETED TOP/QUILT HERE. I am very excited to see the many beautiful quilts that come from this year's Block of the Month!

Just for fun, I took photos of the kit fabrics I had left and all the background bits. I still have them all saved for some future project:

NEXT UP: Some quilting suggestions and detailed photos of how I quilted mine. Wednesday December 1, 2021.

BIG REMINDER: these patterns are only available FREE to Star Members of The Quilt Show until December 31, 2021. After that you will have to purchase the pattern from the designer at significant cost. Print and/or Save the pattern so you will have access when you are ready. The Quilt Show will not be able to provide you any patterns you are missing.

Let's quilt.

Barbara

COLOR MY WORLD--MONTH 12--EIFFEL TOWER AND CENTREPOINT TOWER

 The last two Skyscrapers are here! We are so close to the end of this year-long project.

I found it VERY HELPFUL to number the pages as I printed them. There are two buildings again and you don't want to get the patterns mixed up.

Go slow, READ ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS before beginning each of these Skyscrapers.

CENTREPOINT TOWER: 

Centrepoint Tower is a landmark in Sydney, Australia, home to designer Wendy Williams. It resembles the Seattle Space Needle in the USA and could easily be adapted to be that Skyscraper if you wish.

Cut out the pieces carefully. Some of the sizes are pretty small. Should you prefer a bit more leeway, just cut the small ones a little larger. 

There are lots of background pieces, some quite small, so you probably have plenty of bits of background left over to cut many of these pieces. 

Section 1 is in two parts.  JOIN THEM TO EACH OTHER BEFORE STARTING TO SEW.  Glue works better than tape as you will be pressing with a hot iron during construction:

Start Section 1 by sewing Background pieces (b) to BOTH sides of Base Support Grey (a). Use Clover Quick Bias tape to construct the legs using the GUIDELINES FOR BIAS TAPE. 

Follow the remaining instructions for each section, then join the sections to construct your Tower.

My Centrepoint Tower

EIFFEL TOWER: 

Don't be in a hurry to construct this one. It is not hard, just has lots of pieces and steps. 

Again, there are lots of background pieces, many you can cut from your leftovers. I recommend piece (e) be cut 2" x 4" to make placement easier.

One of my (d) units in Section 2 went missing

Section 1 is made from TWO pattern pieces. Piece (a) is Background and will be basted to Piece (b) once all the Bias tape has been stitched to Piece (b). Follow the instructions carefully when placing the Bias Tape. Step 7 of the instructions for Section 1 explains Bias Tape is used to cover the basting where pieces (a) and (b) are joined.

Section 2 has FIVE pattern pieces. After BOTH units (d) are completed with Bias Tape, join them to unit (c), then sew units (e) to  both outer edges.

Continue with each Section, following the instructions. When all the sections are complete, join them to construct  your Eiffel Tower.

My Eiffel Tower

NEXT UP--ASSEMBLY of  your  COLOR MY WORLD QUILT.  The blog post of  Sunday November 7 will discuss this last step. You might not be ready yet, but you will have the information when you are ready.

BIG REMINDER: these patterns are only available FREE to Star Members of The Quilt Show until December 31, 2021. After that you will have to purchase the pattern from the designer at significant cost. Print and/or Save the pattern so you will have access when you are ready. The Quilt Show will not be able to provide you any patterns you are missing.

And it's not too late to start. Until December 31, 2021, all of the patterns are available to Star Members. Find them ALL in the LEARN section of www.thequiltshow.com

Let's quilt.

Barbara