Monday, 6 March 2017

O Blogging, How I Have Missed Thee!

Posted By: imamsahara 19:23:00 Leave a Reply

Many things took the place of blogging last week:

completion of my king-sized quilt

the very unexpected death of a friend

we nearly bought a new house ...

and then changed our minds

I was on an Internet TV show (TWO episodes!)*

we signed a contract to get a roof built over our deck
we bought new mattresses for two beds

Hmm. Have I left anything out? Probably. It was quite a week!

This is my completed king-sized quilt. It was begun just about a year ago when Robbie started the quilt group at our church. She suggested we all begin with Fons and Porter's "Thank You Stars" pattern. The pattern was for a twin-sized bed, but I needed a new quilt for our master bedroom, so I just made more blocks (49 total) for our king-sized bed.

For a project this size, I had a professional long-arm quilter do the machine quilting for me (Holly's Quilt Cabin). When I got it back, I still had to put on the binding. I began doing that in my sewing room, where space to spread out is sorely restricted.

Beloved, who knows a thing or two about quilting from watching me for so many years, suggested we move the quilt and my Pfaff (sewing machine) to the basement where I could spread out. This proved to be an excellent idea, well worth the time and effort it took to transfer everything.

All done! The quilt is square (7 blocks by 7 blocks). Beloved adopted one of the blocks which he says is to always be on his side of the bed...

... the one with orange, reminding him of his Denver Broncos. So be it.

But enough of my project. Last Thursday my quilty girlfriends met for our twice-monthly meeting at the church. They allowed me to snap pictures of their current projects (I'm not sure if they knew their handiwork would show up at The Brown Bungalow).

Milinda's quilt top is from a Block-of-the-Month project at her quilt guild. The church custodian was good to pull out several large tables so she could spread out her backing, batting, and the quilt top. Christie helped her pin-baste the layers together in preparation for the machine quilting.

Brenna was working on her version of the Fons and Porter quilt using patriotic fabrics. On this particular day she was sewing her blocks together.

I didn't get the name of the pattern Suzanna was working on, but she was machine piecing together a lot of half square triangles using white-white and many jewel-toned fabrics.

Carole Lee was using great resourcefulness with her collection of fabric scraps to make these Dresden Plates.

Robbie brought this baby quilt for Show 'n Tell. It is a pre-printed panel. She free-motion quilted around all the figures, added the borders and called it done. It was a relatively easy quilt that still required a steady hand to outline the designs.

Robbie also shared with us one of the Easter-themed table runners she has made. Cute, cute, cute!!

Mary Ann was making a big stack of this complicated-looking block that impressed us all.

Robbie brought with her a Stripology Ruler that makes cutting strips very fast. This acrylic ruler has slits cut at regular intervals. You slip the blade of a rotary cutter into the slits and cut, making the process very fast and accurate.

Here is a close-up of the logo on this particular ruler. I am told JoAnn's Fabrics and Crafts has a similar product to this one that is not quite as rigid and sells for $32.99.

This pretty well sums up the quilting aspects of last week for me. The rest, well, things will smooth out with time and God's grace.