August RAFA Meeting

Caren B led off the show and tell portion of the meeting with a piece from her class with Phillipa Naylor on wholecloth quilting.  Phillipa's definition of wholecloth includes applique as well as a lot of hand or machine stitching.  There is a lot of trapunto on this piece but you can't really see the depth in the photo.

Janet always makes gorgeous pieces and especially after her classes at Quilting by the Lake (where Caren took her class as well).  I don't remember the teacher but the class was on various types of curves.  This was her piece from class not quite finished yet.

She also showed a jacket that she worked on during the studio the second week.  No picture would do it justice.  It is using a Japanese technique that utilizes scraps.  Her jackets always look classy no matter what the materials or techniques.

 Marcia B had two gorgeous pieces that she had done.  The above one was done with fabrics she had created in a technique called silk fusion.

This zebra was created from a photograph she took in Botswana.  Inspires me to go back to my and Lisa's photos from Africa.

This and the following pictures were quilts also done as a result of the QBL curves class.  Regina is probably our most prolific quilter!!  Loved the use of color in this one!

This piece was constructed from the leftovers from the above quilt.

Joyce shared many of the pieces she has recently painted.  Since retirement, she has taken up painting fabric with a vengence!!  These next few pieces were all hers.

 This was one of my favorites.

These are all pretty good sized 
pieces.

I really liked this piece as well!

Liz shared this piece which Is a manipulation of one of her photos.

Donna shared a number of her beautiful dyed scarves including this one which had some felting embellishment.  All were gorgeous! 

Another of my art quilt friends and her beautiful ice gyed tshirts and purses.

We ate lunch and then Julie Brandon taught  us how to make felted balls using both dry and wet felting techniques.  It was really fun!

I can proudly say that I have managed to cut the batting and backing for 18 quilt tops.  I have the backing cut for an addition 12 tops but have run out of batting but noticed there was a sale at Joanns so......Most proudly, I have managed to baste 8 quilts now!!  I am trying to do 3 a day but these are the smaller ones that I can baste by pinning the to my design wall.  The bigger ones will require my cutting table and much more time.  I may try spray basting  a couple as well -- not as easy as it sounds!!

Two More and Then Reorganizing for Awhile

First twelve are done and I really like this bunch.  It was another one I wasn't sure about when doing the auditioning.

This is the fabric that I used and the triangles were each about 3 3/4 inches high.  There were 48 altogether so I figured two quilts with the above set.

I have mentioned and showed before my auditioning process but thought I would re-show what I do.  Watching tv, I sit the bunches of triangles on my lap and  twist them around until I get a look that I like.  Sometimes I look for a color framing the middle and sometimes I try to get one of the colors to concentrate in the middle.  These three are the three different orientations of one set of triangles.

This has a nice ring of green in the middle.

This concentrates the blue but would probably disappear when sewn.

The first one is complete.  I used the back of the bright yellow fabric I used in the previous day's quilts.  It was much mellower. I decided to go with some white in the middle for variety.  I literally pieced small lengths of fabric to make that last border.  It was the remainder from the fabric used to make the hexagons.

This is the center of the second quilt before the borders were added.  Surprisingly, I got the whole thing finished today!

 This is the second one finished.  I did a smaller bunch of white in the middle and I think I like it better.  For some reason, the yellow in the above picture is too bright-- isn't that way in person   This picture portrays it better.  I will probably keep one of these as I do like them!

I have used all the triangles that I had cut up.  I still have a bag of hexagons that I really like so will probably save those for later.  I want to show off those hexies to their best advantage so have to think about it.

I will head to the basement and see how many quilt backs I can get from my boxes!  I have actually been sewing so much, I think I have actually emptied one bookcase if I do some combining!  

The Three Bears -- Too Bright, Too White, Just Right!!

I wasn't crazy about this fabric but it resulted in decent hexagons.  There were only 36 as I cut them very large (5 inch triangles), so I decided to make 3 relatively small quilts of 12 blocks each.  I would try different settings.  This is the total of the blocks crowded on my design wall.

This was the first setting which used my college colors but which I wasn't crazy about in the end.  The yellow is super bright as is the blue.  I think using a dark binding will pull it together though.

This was the second attempt where I concentrated the yellow on the sides.  I will have to do a lot of quilting in that big white area.  This one was improvement I thought.

 .And I thought this one was just right.  The yellow was broken up and surrounds the outside.  Each of these quilts is about 43 x 45 which is a decent size.

These are the hexagons I am working on now.  Picture isn't too good as it was from my phone.  These will result in two moderate size quilts.  I am using the back of the bright yellow fabric above in these as it is a nice toned down version!!  I have been using the backs of fabrics quite a bit in this collection of quilts I have made this summer.  I looked at my Pinterest page of my quilts and counted 40 tops!  All but about 5 were done in the last couple of months!  Now to get down to basting....quilting.

I will be heading down to my basement stash to find some of the wider fabrics I  bought years ago (58 inch wide cottons) which are perfect for backs for a lot of these quilts.  

Just Plain More - Finishing off the Flowered Hexagons

Back to finishing up the last of the large flower print.  I decided to make a full sized quilt out of the remainder of these hexagons.  This ended up 60 x 72. which is a nice size.  I will keep this one.  I should note that the star in the middle grew out of the fact that I was one short in the number of hexagons I needed to make this arrangement!

This is the fabric that I used which I posted before!!

I has cut out the triangles for next set of quilts some time ago and when I auditioned them, I thought i was not going to like the finished hexies.  I decided on 5 inch triangles so I only got 36 hexagons out of the  yardage.  I had put off assembling them until today as they looked like they would be pretty boring even thought the fabric should have worked -- lots of variety of color, no large areas of solids, etc.

I did the first 12 blocks and as always was very surprised by the results!!  At first I thought i would do this arrangement using 12 blocks.

I made six more blocks and decided I would make two quilts three blocks wide and six blocks long.  However, I finally decided that I would go with the 12 block arrangement and make three medium sized quilts rather than anymore large quilts.  Five long would be the ideal but then I would have six blocks left over!

Eyes are still doing well after surgery on second eye.  It is doing so well I almost forget to put my drops in as I am supposed to.  Another month and I will be able to get a new glass prescription.  My right eye is almost okay in current glasses but left eye is way off!  Still need a little more magnification in that right eye though.  As long as I can sew and read, I don't care much.  I read probably close to a book  a day and it would kill me to not be able to do that although I do have Audible now and  use that in the car!  Would be more expensive than the free books on Kindle though!!

The Butterfly Stack and Whack

I continued to make a lot of hexagons from the butterfly fabric.  I really didn't think they would be interesting when I was deciding which configuration to make from each set.  I do this ahead of time so that I don't have to hesitate when sewing.  I was very surprised when I got them together!!  Looking at the fabric, they should have been good but my intermediate step didn't yield anything interesting.

Here all 54 are completed and I decided tht I would make two tops with 27 blocks in each. I then calculated what width to put between the blocks so that it would be a reasonable width to complement the length of 64 inches.  It ended up being 45 inches wide

First top is now done.  I don't think I have enough of the green for the second one so will have to do something different for the second.  I am almost out of the yellow as well.

I did have the second cataract surgery last week and it went 1000% better than the first one.  My eye was clear the next morning and I can see out of my glasses pretty clearly on that side (not perfect but close). My first eye is still not as good as this one but hopefully will improve with new glasses.  My fears that I wouldn't be able to sew or read were for naught!  Now I know that a Kindle Paperwhite is indeed white and not pale yellow!  

Decided to just add the second one to the post.  I used a dark blue just slightly narrower between the rows.  That is the end of the butterfly fabric.  

End of the Veggies -- Last Call

This ended up being 73 x 73 inches which is a good bed size.  I will have to do some interesting quilting in the large whitish areas around the outside.  I managed to piece what little bit of the vegetable fabric I had left into borders.  

.This is the last of the veggie stack and whack fabric with one small octagon left over so pretty good for using everything.  It will be about 44 x 52 when finished and I already found some backing for it.  Got to get down to business and cut some batting and backings for all these tops and get busy basting.

The inside is finished.  Now to just decide on borders.

Found a green/yellow tatik that seemed to be just fine for that outside border.

This is the fabric for the next in the series.  It is butterflies and the repeat was about 12 inches so I did 3 1/2 inch triangles which I will make into hexagonal blocks.

Got a start on this one yesterday afternoon.  I am having surgery on my other eye tomorrow so who knows how much sewing I will be doing with two eyes out of commission.  My already done eye can see pretty well closeup with my glasses but still  little fuzzy in the mornings.  I know my crosswords will have to wait awhile to get done after this next surgery which will hopefully go better than the first one!!    If I put the computer screen about six inches from that eye, I can read it!!  

A New Version for the Veggies

I took the other half of the veggie fabric (when doing stack and whacks, you usually rip the fabric down the middle so you are only dealing with the 22 inch width  The first half was cut into 3 1/4 inch triangles and these are 5 inch triangles.  They are a little more imposing.  I was looking at these first blocks and saw those big spaces between them and thought hmmmm....

I had 33 of the smaller octagons left over and decided it would be interesting to intersperse them with the big ones.  I did like the look  the smaller ones work into 6 inch squares and the larger ones work into 9 inch squares so I added 2 inch strips around the 6 inch squares.

I also decided to use most of the larger squares and make a big quilt that I would keep.  I figure I could add borders to make it big enough for a queen or king sized bed -- the only kind I have anymore.

I sewed them altogether and it measures about 60 inches by 60 inches currently.  I am going to add an additional off white border (same fabric) and then two more borders so that it will be about 72 x 72 when done.  Not enough to drape over a king bed but will cover it.

Not done yet but will have about 2 additional inches of the white, one inch of the red/orange and 3 inches of the veggie fabric.  Onward to tomorrow to cut and sew!

I had two large octagons and 16 small octagons left over so they will be a small quilt and then there will be one small block left over!  This will be a giveaway one.  My daughter has already claimed the one with the orange and green cornerstones I posted in the last blog!