My entry in Blogger's Quilt Festival

I'm sharing this quilt for Blogger's Quilt Festival because 1) it's finished except for the label, 2) I was able to get a picture of the whole thing between wind gusts yesterday and 3) I had lots of fun putting it together.

The pattern is Girlfriends Galore by Kathy Doughty from Material Obsession's first book.  I had bought a couple yards of Philip Jacob's print "Daffodils and Dogwood" around the same time I bought the Material Obsession book. I was planning on making a different pattern from the book, but these two insisted on meeting. The rest of the fabrics were pulled from my stash. I didn't have enough yardage of any one fabric so I used several fat quarters of similar colors to make up the yardage.

The different piecing sections made the quilt fun to work on. I get bored doing the same thing over and over. With this quilt there was the Lone Star center, a few set-in seams, then a triangle border, some four-patches and some half-square triangles.   

Maggi Honeyman of Texas did the machine quilting on this. I hope that you can see in the picture how great her quilting is. Each section is done differently to complement the piecing. Because I used a solid backing it looks like a whole cloth quilt. That makes it reversible and is why it doesn't have a label. I'm not sure what to do because it should be documented (I regret not putting labels on some of my earlier quilts), but I want to be able to use it with either side showing. Suggestions appreciated.

Somebody's quilting, but it's not me

Got two quilts back from my longarm quilter, Maggi Honeyman.

She did a fabulous job on the Girlfriends Galore pattern. Each diamond in the star center has a leaf design, and each border around the center is quilted differently to complement the shapes in those borders. You can really see the border treatment on the back (although maybe not as well with my photo.) Looks like a whole-cloth quilt.

William Morris got some special treatment too. I love the feathered border and the interior is a similar pattern that fills the little squares jutting into the border.

I was so excited to see the quilting and take pictures that some of the photos are a little blurry from my jumping for joy.

Maggi has quilted my quilts for years now. We used to both live in Florida, then she moved to Texas, and I moved to Illinois. When I have something I really like and want it to be treated to more than my expert straight-line quilting with a walking foot or feeble free-motion attempts, I send it to her. I tell her a little bit of what I'm thinking for the quilting, but ultimately leave it in her hands because I trust what she's done with my quilts in the past and know I won't be disappointed. Isn't it great when you are the same wavelength as someone else?

No more work travel for awhile I hope. Now maybe I can get back to quilting if only to pack up a couple more quilt tops for someone to help me finish.

Not much to show from this weekend

Made a little progress on the next Sue Ross block of the month this weekend. Still have to applique it to the orange background fabric (not shown). Despite the complex look of the block, it was fairly easy to piece. The templates made cutting the pieces easy.

I realized I didn't have a picture of the finished Girlfriend's Galore top so I persuaded my husband to hold it up outside where I had a better chance of getting the whole thing in the picture. It was really windy, and this ended up being the best picture I could manage.

Close but no cigar

Some of this is pieced and some of it is stuck on the design wall. Either way, it looks like I'll have to redraft the connector blocks. They're too big for easing in unless I want to add textural quality to my quilt. But then I'd have to repeat it elsewhere in the top to make it look purposeful instead of being an indication of horrible sewing ability, and I'm too far along for that. So instead I'll draft two new connector blocks.

I'm really liking the way this is coming along. I'm using the floral four-patches with the most lilac in them in the outer most row to try to pull that color all the way through the top. I wish I had some lilac in the center star though. Too bad none of my lime sherbert fabrics have lilac in them. There is one olive green print with white flowers that I've thought of coloring lilac with fabric crayons or maybe adding some lilac stitching in the center star. What do you think?

I picked up a little more of the Phillip Jacobs' print to make sure I had enough for the final border. Hadn't planned on it, but I was at the shop to check whether they'd gotten in their order of a blue solid I need to set the Transformer blocks. They hadn't. I bought a blue, green, red and yellow striped fabric to use instead. How? I don't know. If I haven't thought of a new setting before the order comes in, then I won't need a Plan B!

Measuring up

The half-diamond border didn't quite work out the way the instructions said. I checked my quarter-inch by sewing together two 2-inch wide strips, pressing and checking the sewn strip is 3.5 inches wide. It was accurate, so maybe I cut wrong. I didn't use as many half-diamonds as the pattern called for and ended up trimming the strip to equal the width of the star block. Also had to trim the width of the strip a tad too to make it 2.5 inches.

I've pieced the half-square triangles and four-patches and laid them out. They look a little too large in scale, but once sewn I think they'll be OK. I'm debating swapping the pale green and lavendar four-patches, but I'm not sure I have enough fabric to do that.

I also still need to cut the lavendar triangles to go along the floral border. I'm trying to use some of these odd rulers I've collected over the years like the directions call for, but I think there's a mistake in the instructions for this part. If you don't have the ruler, you're supposed to cut a 5.25-inch square and then cut it along the diagonal twice to get four quarter-square triangles, but that makes too small a triangle to fit against the 4.5-inch half-square triangle blocks. I think I've figured out the correct size now so I'll be able to figure out whether I'm cutting them correctly with the triangle ruler. That's next for today and finishing up the four-patches, etc. for the other sides.

If you are making the Girlfriends Galore pattern, I found a couple other minor mistakes. For example, you are supposed to cut 20 strips of the starburst fabric, but I needed only 10 strips to get the 158 squares called for. Of course, if you are fussy cutting, you will need more, but probably not twice as many strips.

I find it's always a good idea to double check the instructions before cutting and to check the size of your blocks against the size the pattern says you should have! Voice of experience.

See those quarter-inch blue strips around each sashing square? They are there because I cut the sashing as instructed, which was about a half inch too short for my blocks. I really wanted to use that fabric and so had to figure out a way to add a half inch to the length. And, what a pain to keep the same blue around each square. I learned my lesson: Calculate twice, cut once.

Wild Goose Variation quilt by Mabeth Oxenreider is a free pattern available on P&B Textiles website. I made this around 2002, I think. Resolution for 2010: Label the finished quilts!

Progress, Girlfriends

It was sunny for the first time in a couple weeks and I hope this picture shows the true colors of the floral print. I'm counting on the sun because it won't be due to my photography skills.

The star is pieced and came together fairly painlessly. I've got half of the squares and triangles set in too. No problems there either. Yeah!

I'm on vacation this week and enjoying sewing and cooking. One of my resolutions from last year(s) that I did nothing with was to organize my recipes. I've made a dent! Actually, more progress than in past attempts. But certainly will not finish before year's end. And, found two more recipes to try in today's food section so. ...

I'm trying to distinguish between tried-and-will-make-again recipes and haven't-tried-yet-but-will ones. How do you do that? Recycled a bunch of clippings that I decided I would not in any real-world scenario ever actually make because they were too complicated, would take too long or required an ingredient I was not likely to find without a great deal of effort on my part and therefore was not likely to even look for. I'm so lazy in my old age! Or maybe just more realistic.

It always starts with fabric

Found this Phillip Jacobs' print at the local quilt shop when I was looking for something to go with the Transformers fabric. No, I did not think the Rowan colors and prints would match Megatron, but you never know what you will find where so you must look at everything in the shop.

The Transformer star blocks are all done, and I've decided on a setting, but need another 2.5 yards of solid blue that is currently on-order at the shop, so I had no choice but to find a suitable pattern for the Daffodils and Dogwoods. I think this is it: The "Girlfriends Galore" pattern from Material Obsession's book.

I buy a lot of fat quarters so I don't have the yardage the pattern calls for, but a bunch of fat quarters in similar colors will substitute for each single fabric in the pattern, with the print above substituting for the the light green floral. I hope I have enough. Would hate to have to go back to the shop to buy more and be forced to look at everything again.

I spent the good part of a day cutting out the diamonds for the center star. It takes longer to cut when you go scrappy, but it's worth the effort. So much texture.

I got part of it pieced, and I'm really liking the way it is coming together although the photo isn't so great. I'll cut as I get to each section so I can change my mind about what fabrics to use along the way. Kathy Doughty did such a good job with the fabric placement in her pattern. When I studied the composition, trying to figure out what fabrics to use in mine, I was really impressed by what she did. I like this pattern so much more than when I started!