Leader/Ender and Bee Weekend

First, my current leader/ender (or bonus quilt) project.  This is where you piece a quilt in between piecing another one, so there are no spiders or wasted thread.  Let me tell you, it confused my bee friends; they were busy trying to figure out how the two blocks went together - they don't!

County Fair

 

I've pieced all the blocks!  Now, I just have to sew them together.  Since it's so scrappy, I don't think it matters which goes where.

Here's the border fabric.  Does it need it?

 

Hazard of having a design floor instead of a design wall...

Bailey Bear is excited that I'm down on the floor; see her tail wagging?

 

I also had Thimblelinas bee on Sunday, and here's what my bee friends were working on -

Jeannie brought her ABC Snowmen embroidery.

Sheila and Lillie were making HSTs. 

I'll have to get the details of the pattern next time, but it obviously involves civil war fabrics.



Marion was making these gorgeous blocks from a kit. 

Love the brown with the green leaves as well as the overall color contrast!

 

Yayas Bee was moved to the next Saturday, so I'll take pics then and post them around Christmas.

 

Linking up with :

 

 

and

 



  and   Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday



Post-Thanksgiving, Pre-Christmas Blues

I'm a quilter, you say?  Why then haven't I done anything but rifle through some fabric and read some patterns over the last two weeks?  I've got the Post-Thanksgiving, Pre-Christmas blues!  Oh, yeah....!

After a week away traveling (by car, 20 hours ONE way - yikes!) to San Diego...

Me with my dog in Del Mar

Bailey at dog beach in Del Mar

She is a sniffer!

and then a week of LONG work days (and only one trip to a yoga class :( ...), I am looking forward to bee weekend on the 13th & 14th.

Until then, here are some pics of the fun stuff I got at a little quilt shop in Ramona, California, The Crazy Nine Patch:

They have several of their own exclusive patterns (Mildred's Puzzle shown here), and I also got 3 back issue magazines (2007 - 2011) and a book for $5.50.  That's right, $5.50.  At The Crazy Nine Patch, they have a couch covered in back issue mags and pattern books, and the best thing is that all proceeds go to the local Senior Citizen's Center.  This month they are collecting for their Holiday Lunch.  Friends of the store bring in their old mags and books to donate for this cause.  It is so cool; every quilt shop should have a similar program! (PS - There's also a cool used/new bookstore in town, Unicorn Books and Gifts, that is worth visiting for other books!  I got 3 used books for $9.)

I also bought another pattern and a fabric bundle for it:

This is their Crazy 9 Patch pattern, and it uses 10" squares.  So you could use a layer cake, but they had yardage all cut up in several colorways, all with black & white and then one color thrown in - blue, red, pink, yellow, or green.  I've wanted to do a black/white and yellow quilt, so that's my pick!

Some more pics of San Diego and the trip because I always love seeing everyone else's pics:

Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala

Giraffes at San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Me and Bailey at City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico

Google Auto-Awesomed this photo

Bailey hiking at Picacho Peak State Park in Arizona

Seguaro and Organ Pipe cacti in the background

Get to know a Designer: Malka Dubrawsky

Welcome to a new segment at The Easy Quilter!  I've decided that I can't keep all the great speakers that come to my guild to myself!  I am so impressed with the speakers we get (most of the time) that I want to tell everyone about them!

November's West Houston Quilt Guild's Speaker was Malka Dubrawsky of Austin, TX.  She gave a wonderful and informative presentation with many, many very colorful slides of all of her work with fabric dyeing and improv quilt designing.  She also answered our members' many questions about her dyeing process - her dyeing space is her garage, she does small cuts of cloth (not more than 1-2 yards at a time) so it's not folded in on itself and even dyeing of the fabric can occur, and she uses a respirator with appropriate chemical cartridges which she changes periodically and keeps in a plastic bag so that the cartridges aren't filtering ambient air.  The last is brought to you by someone who is very familiar with OSHA requirements, and boy, is Malka on top of things!

Malka has been dyeing fabric for 25 years, has two books and multiple publishing credits in many magazines, has a class on Craftsy, is an avid Pintrest fan (I'm following now!), and has an online shop, where you can buy one of a kind dyed fabric and/or gifts without having to do it yourself (although Malka says it's totally something you can do yourself, don't worry!).  Last, but not least, she has designed several fabric lines for Moda.  So you can use hand-dyed fabric designs in your quilt, too!  Oh, and she'll be a vendor at QuiltCon in Austin.  Mark your calendars - February 19 - 23 at the Austin Convention Center (where else? um, a barbecue place is probably your only alternative in Austin!)

Oh, and she's done quite a few FREE tutorials for Sew Mama Sew, so you can get started there, and work your way into the bigger, bolder, more colorful world of Malka Dubrawsky one project at a time.

Tree Improv Placemats
Color Block Messenger Bag
Baby Log Cabin (I wanna do this one!  So simple yet striking!)

No photos from last night; I wasn't sure what was maybe copyright protected (since some of the quilts she brought are now in print or will be soon) or not.  Sorry, easy quilters.  But go check out the website, her tutorials, etc., to get a taste of what the presentation was like!

(PS - Thank you, Stephen Colbert, for inspiring me with your "Get to Know a District" series". ;) )

Bonus or Leader/Ender? It's all progress!

 

Cathy at A Quilting Chick is hosting a Leader/Ender Party today, and I'm jumpin' on that wagon!

 

Above is my progress on what I call my "bonus" quilt.  I got the idea from Bee in My Bonnet who was piecing squares of vintage sheet fabric in between her piecing for another quilt.  The bonus part is that you don't waste thread with a "spider" or other leading/ending piece of fabric, and you get another pieced quilt out of it!  Click on the link above for Bee in My Bonnet for a tutorial!

 

For my bonus quilt, I went through my scraps (and some of my bee friends' scraps because I was scrap deficient in several colors) and cut lots of 2.5" squares.  Then I just started piecing them a the beginning and the end of chain sewing another project.  Before I know it, I have these put together! 

 

The pattern is "County Fair" by A Quilting Life.  It is available for download (or just sight-seeing) on Craftsy. 

 

I haven't worked on this in a while because I'm getting lots of quilting done or sewing chains of flying geese, which don't work that well with leaders/enders because of sewing at an angle instead of straight along a seam.

 

 

Join the Party at

 

 

Also linking up with:

 

 

November Bee Weekend & Finish!

First the finish:

The West Houston Quilters Guild got a call requesting 100 nursing home quilts by Thanksgiving.  Our Comfort Quilters group already had 50 stashed away, and there was a call out for the rest of the guild members to pitch in the extra 50.  I committed to making at least one quilt, and I'm very happy to say that I met that committment!

Strip 'n Flip Baby Quilt by Cluck Cluck Sew

I had participated in a strip exchange through Flckr with Alison of Little Bunny Quilts.  The florals paired well with a few stash strips to produce a rainbow effect.  The separator strips are a batik that I've had in my stash for a while.



Gotta have a back.

The back is pieced from stash.  The brown is from my first ever quilt that I put in my first ever blog post.  The green is a Kansas Troubles fabric left over from a bee block exchange.  

Close-up of quilting

front detail

Machine-stitched binding

Bee weekend was productive in terms of sewing, but not so much with the taking of pictures.  Well, there just weren't many finishes this month.  I guess I need to take pics of blocks or fabric or something to share.

The first finish is an antique hand-pieced grandmother's flower garden top.  A lady who is a knitter brought it to the longarm quilter in our bee to quilt.  Now, the longarm quilter recommended that she have it hand-quilted by someone who hand-quilts, but the lady wanted a more economical choice.  That said, I think the longarmer did an awesome job!  What do you think?

The back looks like snowflakes!

The quilting enhances the blocks.

This is my new project up on the design wall.  Most of it is fabric from the Waterfront Park line by Violet Craft.  I love the purples and yellows, and the bird and shattered prints.  I have mixed in some other fabric from my stash.  The HSTs are just blocks and nothing is pieced yet.  I think I need one more column on the right and two more rows on the bottom, so I'll need to cut more fabric to piece some more blocks!

This is from a kit donated by a bee member.  We all sewed a little (except for our longarmer who will be quilting it!).  This will go in the tin can raffle for our guild's quilt show in March 6-7, 2015 at the Berry Center in Cypress, Texas.  If you're in the area, come out and get a chance to win it and other items!

West Houston Quilt Guild Quilt Show

March 6-7

Cypress, TX

These blocks are not pieced together, either, but were laid out on the design floor by J...e so I snapped a pic.  There is a lot of fussy cutting of flowers in the center of these stars.  I really like how the picture brings out the contrast in the blocks.  In real life, it reads a bit of one tone over all.  Funny how a picture can make some things just pop out!

Linking up with:

Show Off Saturday

International Quilt Festival Houston - Part 3

Art Quilts

I am usually blown away by the art quilts, but I wasn't feeling the love this year, with the exceptions shown below.  The first is probably the one I would buy (out of the whole exhibition) if it were for sale and I could afford it.  But I've always been drawn to maps -

Bodie (Lat 38.21354, Long -119.0156) by Roberta Lagomarsini

Ask Me Again by Yvonne Porcella

Whimseyville by Alice Baird, Carolyn Henson, Rita Schormann, and Judy Steward

Modern Quilts

Off Center By Charlotte Noll

Modern X by Christa Watson

Spiraling Out of Control by Christa Watson

Fresh Beginnings by Monica Mondragon

Tour License Plate Quilt by Various Artists

The first three modern quilts were displayed in the Modern Quilt Guild section. The last two were part of the American Made Challenge: Celebrating Farm to Fabric.  The display was a really good use of solid colors to show off design and quilting.  (I have bought American Made brand solid fabric; I think it is softer than the Kona brand solids, and it was available at a very reasonable price from my LQS.)

I hope you've enjoyed the Easy Quilter tour of the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  Maybe next year I'll see you there!

International Quilt Festival Houston - Part 2

These are some pictures I took at the International Quilt Festival in Houston on Saturday, November 1, 2014.

 

 

Little Pieces

 

I am drawn to the intricacy of little pieces, both squares and triangles.  I do have Sue Garman's Oh My Gosh! pattern, but I haven't given a thought to making it yet!

 

Hommage á Jennie by Monique Hovette

 Triangles by Maryvonne Marmion

 

Insanity 3,044 by Lynn Roddy Brown

King's Parade by Suet-fern Lee

 

Scrappy Quilts

 

These can be modern or more traditional.  Scraps are so versatile!

 

Spiraling Out Of Control by Christa Watson

 

 

 

 

Log Cabin Spiral by Mary Cannizzaro

 

 

The bottom star was in a more traditional pieced entry category.  It is called Evening Star by Karin Lusnak, quilted by Laura Lee Fritz.  The top star was in the Modern Quilt category, and is called Sunburst Quilt by Tara Faughnan.  I think it's a great example of traditional versus modern aesthetics.  I like them both - the bottom one has a very Impressionist feel, and the top one is a study in contrast and placement. 

Still have more photos for another post so check back soon!