Crumbs, Improv, & A RING!!!!

Preparations for family visits keep me busy. In between power cleans... I sneak in sewing as often as I can.

I have continued making crumbs.
I love how utterly mindless it is once I choose my color and grab scraps from the jar.
I love the ability to just sew haphazardly & improvise at whim.

building blue crumbs

growing to 6 inches 

After 2 weeks, my crumb collection is starting to look quite "palatable"!

Eventually, I hope to have enough crumbs for a full palette 

I also spent time improvising some modern scrap blocks to create some samples for a workshop.

In preparation for our modern quilt guild meeting 

I designed a few sample blocks.

This week we had our monthly modern quilt guild meeting and had a 30 minute workshop found within the pages of the book "Essential Guide to Modern Quilt Making" by Lucky Spool. 

We each brought bags of fabric scraps from 🏡 home! 

We tossed them on the table. Mixed the mound, and I filled paper sacks with scraps and redistributed to participants.

This design workshop of improvisational patchwork as described in the book by Denyse Schmidt, allowed Tricia to lead us in a team building- block building thirty minute sew-for-all. 

Fabric scraps tucked in a sac... pulled unseen & unexpected... and sewn together just like that. 

For some of us it was relaxing and fun.

But for some it was stressful not to choose- mix & match, exact cut, press seams, and the list goes on & on...

BUT.... THIRTY MINUTES LATER... All who remained for the workshop part of meeting were productive and we had an improvised 30 minute frenzy of fun.

30 minutes to sew...

The Tyler Modern Quilt Guild

BUT- The biggest news of the day...

of the week...

of the YEAR...

My son got ENGAGED!

My son asked Caitlin Bennet to spend the rest of her life with him and she said YES!

Congrats Caitlin & Mason!

Birthdays, Broadway, Crumbs, & Pieces

Family reunion gathering in NYC last week allowed lots of laughter, eating, Broadway, celebrations of 3 birthdays, and the practice of CROWDING survival skills!

Book of Mormon!

Something Rotten!

My husband was honored with a very special distinguished alumni award from Wagner College and it allowed for some very special family time.
We visited with old friends, family, and I remembered I hated crowding and why I was eager to move away...

As a quilter however, one of my favorite parts was the "me" time I snuck in & the visits to MJ Trimming & The City Quilter it allowed.

MJ Trimming is like eye candy & honestly... I didn't buy anything because I was too in awe of all I was looking at! 

The City Quilter was a great modern quilt shop & I purchased a few panels & yardage of NYC themed fabrics that they created themselves!

My Fav NYC fabric: A City Quilter exclusive creation

And while I was VERY relieved to get the hell out of NYC and return 🏡 home... it was a special 
visit with memories I will cherish.

Crowding left us with minimal motivation for getting across the city for the "real" museums... 

so we settled on a few hours at Madame Tussauds down the street from our hotel.

this pretty much sums up how my daughter and I felt on the street of NYC...

The Brooklyn Bridge!

Since returning,
Spring cleaning has been pushed into fast forward as spring storm delays have lead to a summer heat wave... 

So quilting time has been limited...

more crumbs...

It was a red week... 3- 6" and 1-5"

I tried to paper piece a new name tag using the logo for the Tyler Modern Quilt Guild... but by the time I was done, it was too large. So my old one will have to do...

I printed out our logo & use it to create a paper piecing pattern...

completed block is 4 1/2" by 4 1/2"...  

***

selvage edge name tag

My Daughter Deandra & I

crumbs afloat

They described this as the wettest May in Texas history! 

The flooding along the Brazos river and its destruction has been overwhelming. 

Creatively- it leaves me needing something mindless.

So for this week... I have begun to thin out the scrap mounds a bit with some crumb blocks.

(no math... no worries when the power goes out... and I find it relaxing during the storms...)

And...

If this rain ever stops, I will take the left over scrap slithers out to a birdseed holder for the locals to rebuild their flooded out nests... 

honestly... it is a mess out here!

mellow yellow

feeling crumby

5" crumb squares

Another day... another flood :(

Pythagorean Sash: 2016 Riley Blake Spring Fabric Challenge

It was time for another Riley Blake Fabric Challenge! This years fabric is called Sashing Stash designed by Eleanor Dugan, and it’s so incredibly versatile!

They sent each of us 3/4 yard of the top fabric

It was also the very first challenge members of our guild signed up to participate in as the TMQG. 

We had until the end of May to submit our entry on the MQG website. Actually, they requested MQG members also post their quilt on Instagram, FB and Twitter using the hashtag #mqgfabricchallenge, MQG galleries and on Pinterest! (They definitely don't know how proud I am when I remember how to post on instagram... & the rest... um, perhaps I'll figure them out... someday.)

This fabric is so inspiring! So much so... that I stared at it for several days unsure what to do to make the best use of what little I had of it. (As soon as I can buy some- I absolutely will!)

I remembered a block I created at a workshop was hidden below the layers somewhere in my WIPs pile and decided it was the perfect centerpiece! 

Since that block was my only "planned pattern", next I started auditioning solids. I took a lot more photos of this project than most- since I had no real idea what direction I was going. So the remainder of this posting will be mainly images:

I created this block a few years back at a paper piecing workshop. 

I wish I could remember who the guest designer was and give her credit... 

so yeah... if you are reading this.... THANK YOU!

I decided to frame the block with 3" red strips

Squared up centered... 

eh...decided I wanted to go a different way...

I decided to create an asymmetrical shaped quilt square

Then it was time to make that first cut into the Riley Blake Fabric. It is designed to cut apart & leave 1/4" seams for piecing. 

So, once I braved the rotary cutting, I auditioned different designs and tried to imagine what patterns could go "where and in what way". 

I just kept auditioning different patterns & borders... until a quilt starting developing.

HALF SQUARE TRIANGLES

2" border

FLYING GEESE

I always use rulers and painters tape 

to help guide my quilting stitches.

"invisible thread stitch work from behind"

Quilting away the hours on my Babylock Elissimo

looking good... but... It needed more...

decided to square up my quilt with a final frame of asymmetry- 

opposite of the first one created earlier in yellow

creating prairie points by cutting apart rows of

EQUILATERAL TRIANGLES

after completing quilting, trim & squaring up... 

I decided on a few different locations to 

add those PRAIRIE POINTS!

I auditioned a few different binding colors 

before deciding on solid black...

I machine stitched the binding 

on front of quilt using a 1/4" edging foot

I hand stitched the binding to the quilt back

I am fairly pleased with my completed challenge!

description as part of MQG entry:

A multi fabric improv quilt inspired and created for the 2016 Riley Blake Fabric Challenge featuring Sashing Stash designed by Eleanor Dugan.

My Sashing Stash

Riley Blake Challenge Quilt 

2016:

Pythagorean Sash