The second section of flying geese ribbon is drafted, sewn and now trimmed. I love putting the pieces on the cartoon to see how it'll look when all sewn together. There's just three more sections left to do on the Aurora Borealis II flying geese ribbons; one of which is only 5" long.
These are the remaining fabrics/colors left for the top flying geese sections. Once they're all pieced it'll be time to sew the background fabric. Then comes the fun part ... quilting it!
Here's how I draft my flying geese ribbons for my latest quilt project, Aurora Borealis II.
These are the fabrics that I've pulled for all of my flying geese (there's two ribbons of 31 geese each for a total of 62 different fabrics). They are mostly Kona solids with a few batiks and texture fabrics in a rainbow.
The first section that I've drafted used these nine fabrics plus a white fairy frost for the "sky" portion.
For an idea of what the final design is going to look like, I've placed this first section on the original design along with the NY Beauty round that I did last week. The geese on the right will go up and the ones on the left will point down. Tomorrow I'll draft another section and sew it before continuing on to the next one. I'll probably break this down into six ribbon sections plus the three interiors of background fabric - probably Kona Snow.
Over the weekend my blocks from the 2013 Beach Block Swap arrived. One more will come in a few months to make it a total of 22. Already one of the swappers sewed all of her blocks together and it looks fantastic. I plan on adding sashing and corner blocks.
Don't you just love that lemonade stand?! And my bikini block came back in the colors that I really like so I'm happy.
Of course I misunderstood how much white ground they wanted and it's a bit too colorful as compared to all of the other blocks. I will probably make four more blocks. Two of them will be the correct mostly white ground blocks and the other two will be color heavy. That way I can make one row of the color heavy blocks. So what should be the motifs of the four additional blocks? Oops, actually I only have to make three additional blocks since I'll receive one later that is of two big popsicles.
It's now finished, the NY Beauty round/circle. What do you call it when you don't add the final background corner? At any rate it's done and now needs to be pieced into the background fabric. I'll either reverse applique it or piece it as a circle. While I'm deciding the best way to approach that I'll begin work on the double flying geese ribbons. They need final drafting and then it's paper piecing time. Hopefully those won't take as long as it did for this component.
I really like the mix of black/white/cream fabrics along with all the fonts and text. There are both solids and batiks in the accent colors. It'll be fun to lay out the flying geese fabrics.
A few more minutes spent sewing here and there and the fourth NY Beauty block is almost finished. The final arc has overlapping triangles so it had to be pieced in six sections. I have just one last section to sew, after I rip out the last piece that was sewn wrong. I should have known better than to try to squeeze in that last seam just before heading out the house to go out with my in-laws. Rushing usually doesn't end well.
I spent about an hour last night and an hour this morning working on my NY Beauty blocks. It's amazing how much gets done if you just chip away at it. So far I have three complete arcs done and have even sewn two quarters together.
I even had a bit of time to work on the fourth NY Beauty:
I just have to sew those three units together on the right. Then I have to draft that final pieced arc. Do you like the pops of color from the chartreuse and the magenta? Okay, now I'm off to the airport to pick up my in-laws for a quick visit. Have a great weekend every one!
Yesterday I finished sewing the square-in-a-square blocks for a small lap sized quilt top flimsy. Since I already had a batting ready for it the only thing I needed was a backing. Most of my fabric stash is in small pieces but I had a few larger pieces that I originally had intended for a stuffed dragon years ago. Now I have a large enough backing ready to rent more time on the longarm. I'm undecided whether I should do the Chestnut Swirls pantograph again or try for something leafy. I'll wait until I get to the machine to make a last minute decision.
Here's the flimsy:
And here's the pieced backing, I'll use the leftover pieces for the binding:
I'm glad I got this done yesterday as today was spent getting the house clean for a visit from my in-laws. No time for sewing but maybe I'll finish drafting one of the NY beauty blocks and add the seam allowances.
How was everyone's Labor Day? We didn't have any great plans other than relaxing. Of course I realized a bit late that I needed to go to the laundromat and get some laundry cleaned in time for this upcoming week. After that was done I returned home to a quiet house. Steve and the dogs were all napping. I didn't want to disturb anyone so I went to the studio and closed the door for a bit of sewing time. There's one last quilt top to finish for the Shir Hadash quilting bee back in CA. It's not my favorite but it just needed three more blocks sewn. After a bit of rearranging this is what I have.
Next step is to double check that the squares are all the same size and then to sew up the flimsy. The sooner I can do that the sooner I can make an appointment to rent time on the longarm. The last time I rented time I bought a large enough piece of batting for this third quilt. That's what the blocks are laying on to make sure that the batting is bigger than the top and it's definitely that. Depending on how big the top is I may have to add a border to make it more lap quilt sized. That's for another day because I heard noise in the other room. Sounds like the house is no longer quite so quiet. I hope your Labor Day was enjoyable.
When I went to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Show a few weekends ago, I attended two lecture/demonstrations by Linda Taylor, the author of The Ultimate Guide to Longarm Machine Quilting and the genius behind The Quilting School - online video classes for longarm quilting. The first class was an overview of basic use of pantographs and loading a quilt top. She loaded hers with pins and used all the bars but other than that I was a bit surprised to see that I had learned all this info by renting time at Jukebox Quilts. Fortunately I did learn a lot of new things in the second class. Right now I think that I'd benefit from just more rental time than another class, at least until I get more machine time under my belt. Yes, I was a geek and had Linda sign my copy of the book. She was a lot of fun to listen to, especially when she was telling stories of different quilts she had quilted for clients over the years. She and her quilters have over 15000 quilts made. Wow! So she's seen just about everything and has figured out efficient ways to get them done. She's definitely earned her "Longarmed and Dangerous" apron that she wears at classes.
Then just this past weekend my local quilt guild, the Cheyenne Heritage Quilters, had a quilt show. Sadly I didn't have anything to hang in the show but I will next year. Since I'm still very new to town and don't know a lot of people I volunteered to help set up the show on Wednesday. I brought our trusty stepladder and a willing hand. After setting up vendor tables, quilt stands and half of the quilts, I enjoyed lunch with a few of the other volunteers. That's when it was discovered that I've been renting time on the Gammill. Well it turns out that Kelly at Jukebox Quilts was going to be at the show demonstrating her machines and needed helpers. On Saturday I spent half the day helping out, telling people about her rental program and taking turns with the smaller hand-guided machine. It was lots of fun and every time I helped out it reinforced what I had already learned. It also was an opportunity for Steve to come and see what I've been working on. He thought it was a pretty industrial and heavy duty machine. At the same time a local quilting couple were there so Steve spent some time speaking with the husband about the machine. I don't think that Steve will want to quilt but it was good for him to speak with another gadget guy about it.
For a smaller area I've been to quite a few quilty events recently. I do miss dolls sometimes but I think that I found an outlet for that too. On Friday I found out about a small quilt shop in the town of Berthould, CO called the Laughing Ladies. They had quite a few dolls made up in displays. Turns out that a local lady teaches doll-making and was there working on her Treasures of the Gypsy doll. She said that there's a doll club in Denver that meets once a month and that I should check it out. I was also invited to come any Friday to the quilt shop for sewing time to work on my dolls. I tell you, quilters and dollmakers are just the friendliest people. Slowly I'll make friends. It just won't be an overnight thing.
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Two weekends ago I attended the Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival in Loveland, CO. What's especially nice about this quilt show is that they show almost all of the Hoffman Fabric Challenge entries including quilts, accessories, clothing and dolls. It's amazing to see all of them at one time. I took just a few pictures of the ones I found very interesting.
Quite a few people thought of Egypt when presented with the peacock themed fabric.
Enchantment by Joy Torelli
The Mantle of Isis by Nancy Staton
Quilt Like an Egyptian by Nikki Hill (this one is really amazing and looks just like a papyrus scroll)
And a doll, Unwrapped Queen of the Nile by Michaleen Munrow
Obviously there were peacocks galore, here's just a couple:
Aureus Pavus by Dawn Sykes
Peacock's Complaint by Shelly Dahl
And then there were the ones I liked for a variety of reasons, mainly because something caught my eye:
by Sally Fly
Portraits from Nature by Cheri Kincaid
Moon Dreams by Mary Sue Suit
The Quilter by Bonnie Ward (this was so whimsical)
The Garden Fairy by Gail Sexton
New Mexico '54 by Susan Baca
Singing the Blues by Doris Goins (my favorite simply because of the colors and pattern)
A few of the other dolls, accessories and clothing in the background:
And the most expressive doll, She Sang ... It's Over by Arley Berryhill who won the Sulky Award
It's hard to see the dolls at the exhibit because they're so far away on a table, but if you go to Deanna Hogan's site she has most of the entries listed there. I'll post a few more of the non-Hoffman quilts that I saw at the show but for the most part I spent my time in two longarm demonstration/lectures by Linda Taylor. More on that later.
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