Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Hexagons and several modern sections

I'm making these hexagon diamonds like nobody's business these days, and tacking them up on my new design wall. I'm having fun with it.
I sewed a few of the diamonds together, with white hexagons in between, so I could free up some of the paper pieces before I realized it wasn't a smart idea. I think it will still be ok in the end. It would be much smarter to just concentrate on making new diamonds, and then lay them out before I sew them together. I'm going to try to contain my enthusiasm, and buy some more paper hexagons, so I don't end up having to do a lot of ripping out later.


Slowly but surely I've been making blocks out of modern fabric for a queen-sized quilt that's being designed by Sophie, the master of  Block Lotto from this years' blocks. The segments you see here are made up of the blocks from only 3 months---I haven't gotten to the other 2 yet. But doesn't it look cool?
If you're interested in trying it out, click the Mod Mod QAL button on the right and it will take you to Sophie's instructions.
That's all for now. My birthday is next week---I can hardly believe I am going to be 54 years old. Time is flying! And I have so much sewing to do!

Monday, May 5, 2014

Scouting for jelly roll ideas

I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I last week I ordered 6 jelly rolls of solid fabric……3 of them are in the blue/green family and 3 are in the red/pink family---and they arrived today. I'd forgotten I'd even ordered them, and I didn't buy them to make any specific quilt. So I just searched the Internet for some idea how best to use them. Here are some of the quilts I liked best:






Aren't they all great? I'm not sure which one I like best. I think I'm leaning towards trying the one at the bottom, called Pick Up Sticks, or the one in the black-and-white diagram, because it doesn't look like a jelly-roll quilt to me. 

Launching my mod-mod quilt

While I was on retreat with my quilt guild, the Quilters Guild of Brooklyn, this past weekend I got started on the modern sampler quilt I've been meaning to make from this year's Block Lotto patterns. I ended up having only 1 1/2 days to sew, so I was only able to finish 2 months worth of blocks: double chevrons and beads on a string. I took a photo of them up on the design wall to show my progress, and as you can see I'm going with blue-and-white fabric and trying to stick with bright modern colors.
The project attracted some interest from my fellow quilters, who don't tend to make many "modern" quilts. The Brooklyn Quilters are a great group, and I'm proud to be a member.