Yes, I do have Factor Five Leyden and Day 2 of Raffle Quilt Adventures!

Well, after a week’s wait my tests came back for carrying the mutated gene for Factor Five Leyden. The doctor has recommended I see a hematologist at the University of Rochester to learn what I should or shouldn’t be doing! My sister (also a carrier) highly recommends that I take this step so will make an appointment when I get back from Lisa’s. I am heterozygous (one out of the two parents gave me the gene) which I had figured. I had recently read on one website that high blood pressure during pregnancy might be an indicator. That was the only thing that hinted to me that I might have the defective gene. Oh well, I feel worse for my girls who will now have to be tested as well. Most people never know they have this gene!

Day 2 of the raffle quilt assembly marathon is much more interesting! We had a relatively small group but one new face – Vickie Coykendall. She was a whiz at getting the pieces in the background together into rows! Poor Nancy Hicks came by just to pick up some small quilts from me for an exhibit case RAFA will be having at the Brighton Public Library and she got cajoled into taking out the paper from the back of the pieces (Jenna wasn’t there yesterday). We heard a lot of whining!! The paper isn’t so bad but many were made on this other foundation which was awful to get out! She left before we could find any more jobs for her to do!!

We made tremendous progress yesterday and Pat and Vickie worked effectively to make the 90 degree angle middle fit into the 60% angled background!! It was a challenge! Fortunately, we had decided the week before (thanks Jeanne Simpson) to only make the middle as part of the pattern set on a plain blue background. There is no way you could write instructions for what Pat and Vickie did!!

This is Pat and Vickie with some initial auditioning of the background and rearranging so that we could piece in straight rows.
Beverly Kondolf and Chris Wickert are also madly putting together background pieces. Pat Berardi and I were also madly putting these together and trying to keep Pat from the design wall!!
This is most of half of the quilt up on the design wall. You can see the progress along the edges where the background meets the center. We have one more sewing day scheduled next Monday and hope to have the whole background finished after that.
This is a closeup of one quarter of the background. You can see very little white space here as we made so much progress on sewing the background together. Thank goodness for multiple 8 foot design walls in Pat's studio/family room.

GVQC 2009 Raffle Quilt - Group Work Day

Mary Wieser, Janet Root, Beverly Kondolf and Jeanne Simpson concentrating on the direction we are taking with the beginnings of the quilt up on Pat's design wall.


This is the first iteration of the center (how it was designed) with the large lighter colored center flower.
We tried a second iteration which had four flowers with the center between those flowers being green and we didn't care for that one at all.


This is the third iteration of the center where you have a suggestion of a flower in the background but only four real flowers. We all liked that one the best. (Of course we were all auditioning it with our digital cameras as well!)


Progress is quickly being made on the magnificent quilt which was created for our 2009 GVQC quilt show (http://www.geneseequiltfest.com/). This is Pat Pauly Chris Wickert and Mary Wieser concentrating on design.

This quilt started with some ideas thrown around in a meeting a few months ago. After agreeing upon some general design ideas, Pat Pauly designed the specific paper-pieced patterns which were used in creating the quilt. We then asked for fabrics to be donated by quilt members in certain color families (dark and medium blues, all shades of green and all shades of red and red/orange). Adding a whole bunch more from several of our stashes, we made up a number of kits to be handed out at quilt meetings. The kits contained the pattern and fabric for one element of the quilt. There were small flowers and at least two leaf patterns for the background.



This is the first iteration of the background of the quilt. While it was aesthetically pleasing, the piecing looked like a nightmare so changes were made to make up rows.

We actually had one new volunteer who joined us this time as she LOVES taking the paper out of the backs of paper piecing . This was Jenna Darlak and she was a much welcomed addition to the team.

A second team started trying to arrange the background leaves and flowers above which were all done using 60 degree diamond shaped foundations. After a couple of iterations, it was decided to work on a quarter of the background at a time and arrange the diamonds so that the stitching would be simplified. To do this, we had to make a lot of plain diamonds as well as well as 60 degree triangles so team 3 set out to make diamonds and triangles to use as filler pieces in the background. I worked this effort. When I saw that there were lots of scraps, I started sewing the scraps together and then cutting out diamonds and triangles from those which added a little more interest to the background. Pat saw that and requested that I add some very small pieces of medium green into these randomly pieced fabrics. They really added a lot so I have a pile of fabric now to start doing some more.



This is the center medallion where the rows are starting to come together and are sewn. It is really stunning in person!




This is the final iteration of the background closeup. A team was sewing these background pieces together in a long row to determine if we had the right number of pieces yet. The final dimensions of the quilt will be 84 x 96. A great challenge will be inserting the 90 degree angled center medallion into the background made of 60 degree shapes!!

A pattern using the central medallion set on a blue background with a border will be offered for sale in conjunction with the quilt show.