Last Saturday for Light and Bright Green

On the way to see the production of King Lear in Stratford we stopped by The Quilt Place in Shakespeare and I found a 10 inch layer cake in 30's reproduction fabrics.   I've been collecting 30's reproduction prints for years and decided to use my new purchase and a downloaded pattern by Amanda Murphy.  It called for a 10 inch layer cake, a jelly roll and some white fabric.  The pattern was originally designed to be used with Robert Kaufman fabrics.  Here's the centre section of my version. 

There is sashing in white and one of the 30's fabrics to be added around the perimeter then a border of 5 inch strips sewn together horizontally - like piano keys.  .

Two minis were also finished for the upcoming guild show.

This one is a Drunkard's Path that was dropped off to Community Outreach as 4 orphan blocks.  I pieced, added the border and did some echo quilting.  Looks okay for someone's unwanted blocks.  The second one is green so fits in with the August RSC.

I was playing around with some charm squares and the sliver block idea. 

And finally I completed the Bouncing Betty block that Angela posted last week.

 

Drat - there's a bit of thread in the photo.  Why didn't I spot it earlier? 

 

Here are all of my RSC blocks for August.  What has everyone else been up to?

 



 What colour will Angela pick for September?  I'm packing up the green scraps and waiting for the announcement.  Will it be the much awaited orange?

More Community Outreach Fun

I also brought home 80 crumb/crazy patch blocks.  I played with the layout a bit to try to distribute the orange around the quilt and came up with this lovely and colourful quilt. 

There were a few odds and ends that became minis.  

Cheshire Checkers

Monday, August 18^th was the day the Community Outreach Committee would meet to check out the guild stash and plan quilts for the upcoming year.  Cheryl had previously gone through the fabrics and discovered finished quilt tops ready for quilting, finished blocks and hundreds of yards of fabric.  She spent countless hours sorting through the fabrics and organizing them by colour into large plastic bins for storage.  We decided to tackle the blocks first to plan possible combinations for quilt tops.  Everyone took some blocks along with suitable fabrics for sashing and borders home to create a quilt.

I brought home 14 red and white 9 patch blocks, 20 black and dark/medium 9 patch blocks, and 2 metres of yellow fabric the group thought could work into a quilt top.  I also tossed in 1 metre of cat faces, just under 0.5 metres of black and white paw prints and some assorted red yardage in 6 inch or less strips just in case.  And that was the beginning of the quilt.  Now what to do with it?

  

I began with an alternate red/black arrangement but didn’t have enough blocks for that to work – clearly not enough red blocks.  And on close examination some of the blocks weren’t following the rules so they were set aside.

 

 

Because of the variation in the dark blocks I didn’t like how they worked and the quilt top would not be a good size for a donation quilt.  What if I grouped them into four – two red and two dark - with sashing in between to create a window pane effect?  (No picture of this step but it was quickly discarded.) 

What if they were grouped into fours by colour – red and dark?  There’s a possibility.

 

 

 

 

Add some yellow for a border…. Maybe?  But those dark blocks just aren’t right.  Two of them really jump out.  Did you notice that I made some additional red blocks (4 to be exact) and discarded one.

 

 

What if the blocks were staggered so the crosses were offset – a bit of a step down diagonal pattern?  I needed more blocks and partial blocks to create this setting.  I had enough red and white to make additional blocks but the dark blocks could be problematic.

Oh, I forgot about the yellow fabric!  How would that play into the layout?  Could I add yellow sashing to the sides and bottoms?  Too much yellow I thought.

 

 

What if the yellow sashing was attached alternately to the right or left of the alternating blocks?  It creates some movement, there’s not too much yellow.  This looks like a possibility.  But it won’t be big enough!

 

Add a border of the cat faces.  This will be bigger and kind of cute.

But wait, my sister spotted the paw prints and don’t they look lovely with those cat faces.  This looks like a plan!

 

Here’s the finish!  Notice the extra yellow sashing top and bottom?  It needed some yellow there to balance the yellow on the sides.  Doesn’t this look good?  Not bad for odds and ends with no plan! 

The smiling cat faces reminded us of the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland and the 9 patches of checker boards …”Cheshire Checkers” is definitely a good name for this quilt.                    

 

Week Four

A busy week and not much green happening.  The Guild's Community Outreach Committee met on Monday and we spent an enjoyable morning/afternoon trying to see what quilts could be made.  I'll write a separate post about that.  I also spent two days doing some babysitting for a good friend.  It's been a long time since I've changed diapers but it's amazing how you never forget.  What fun a one year old is!  Yulia's walking and she thinks she's talking.  I think she pulled every book and toy out of her toy boxes and bins as she decided what she wanted to play.  Turns out anything musical is a favourite.  Yulia just loves to dance.

I completed the green RSC block.  I quite enjoyed working with little bits and trying out some fancy stitches to hold everything down.  Wash away stabilizer helped prevent puckering as I stitched. 

I must practise more with the stitches so I stop in the correct spot for the pattern to continue nicely around corners.  That's all for light and bright green this week.  Linking up with Angela and the RSC.

Midway Through August

Northwinds is finished and I like the play between the light and darker green.

I forgot to clip the little dog ears.  Oops!

My green and pink (catch up month) lozenges are also done.  Here they are with the red, yellow, and blue ones.

I've just laid them out in long rows with no particular thought.  I'm still not sure if I will finish it laid out row by row like this or mix things up.  I can see that this will require lots of time playing with the blocks, taking pictures of each possible layout and then making a decision.  The colours really are quite dazzling and I think if I mix them up it will have more of a stained glass effect. 

Finally, I completed another mini for our guild show. There is no green in it but I thought I'd share anyway. 

 

Each little bow tie is just 2" finished and the whole mini is a sixteen inch square.  The fabrics were from a charm square exchange.  It's good being able to use them up but believe it not, I still have scraps left over from the charms. 



August Green ll

This week hasn't seen much quilting going on but I did do quite a bit of reading.  Dull rainy days are perfect for cuddling with a good detective mystery.   I've been on a Louise Penny binge.  Just love her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his side kick Jean Guy Beauvoir.  I would love to find a quaint little community like Three Pines in the novels.  It has painters, poets, furniture makers, wonderful chefs (a true artsy community).   I suppose reading about all the artists brought to mind a challenge issued by a quilting buddy .  She had a copy of Eleanor Levie's Skinny Quilts and table runners ll and had started on the Cut Flowers by Sue Benner.

 
 
 

She challenged us to give them a try.  I prepped the fabric for my flowers (about two years ago) but didn't get too much farther until this week.  Here's one of the flowers I put together.  I still have to assemble the blocks into a long skinny quilt/table runner, do some embellishing with thread and maybe a bead or two. 

I also completed the two RSC blocks posted by Angela.

 








 Here's Dakota Farmer in muted greens  and Indiana Puzzle with lots of light.  Hop over to RSC and see what others have been quilting.

 

Visit with an Old Friend

A new month means a new colour but in this case we'll visit with an old friend.  May was the month for Emerald Green but in August light and bright green is the way to go.  In my case I'll continue with greens previously used as I didn't have too many scraps in the emerald tones.  So here's my first block - mini bowties in the X setting.

Last week I noticed that there were 10 red blocks but I had only made 9.  After checking  the RSC tab, I discovered I didn't have the "Flock" block.  Don't know how I missed it but I did.  Here then are all of my red blocks for July.

Linking up with Angela at RSC and hopping over to see everyone's renewed venture into green.