Pollyanna Swap with Philly MQG

At this month's meeting, we had our Pollyanna swap with the members. We use a site called Elfster to organize it and I highly recommend it if you'd like to set up something like this. The individuals sign up, create wish lists and the site matches up the partners. It allows you to ask anonymous questions of your parter too! 

Anyway, I got my good friend Cathy who asked for a table runner 32" in length. She requested neutrals with a pop of red. I've been in her house before so it helped me know what to make for her! I had a mini charm pack  of Circa 1934 which had the perfect colors.  The size of mini-charms are perfect for english paper piece hexagons and I have the plastic templates for them so they technically aren't paper pieced!   These hexies are all sewn together by hand and then machine appliqued down to the cream fabric.

 

I did all the free motion quilting on my domestic machine and am pretty happy with how it turned out.

 

The back is a solid piece of the typewriter print from this line.

 

It looked pretty good on my coffee table I must say. I almost kept it! I know Cathy loved it though and I'll be sure to visit it sometime!

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Table Runner

Pattern: none, self designed

Fabrics: Circa 1934, Cosmo Cricket
Finished size: Approx 32" by 20"

Finished: December 2015

 

 

Modern Dahlia

I don't think I ever blogged about this little quilt finish.

 

This was for a swap that the Philly Modern Quilt Guild did at the Fall Retreat.  The challenge was for everyone to take a traditional block and 'make it modern'.

 

The pattern is Dahlia by April Rosenthal. And I was be honest, it's not for beginners. It uses templates, or she sells acrylic templates. There is a lot of hand prep before piecing. I was already working on a number of these for myself so I had a bit of practice before doing this one!

 

The back shows the quilting which I am most proud of! I basically followed the curves of the front and extended them off the quilt and it made this awesome pattern.

We did our swap at the retreat by pulling numbers from a hat and Nicole got my quilt. I'll take some pictures and post the amazing mini that I relieved later!

Quilt stats:

Quilt name:Modern Dahlia

Pattern: Dahlia

Fabrics: scrappy mix
Finished size: 25" x25"

Finished: November 2015

Lizzy House event with PhillyMQG

Philly MQG brought in Lizzy House this past weekend for a lecture and Meadow Quilt workshop. It was such a wonderful event. I met some new people, and of course was inspired. Her lecture was all about her journey to where she is now. A lot of what she said resonated with me in terms of my daughter and how I'd like to encourage her. It was fascinating to hear what's she done in order to accomplish all she has!

Here's a close up of the Meadow Quilt. Lizzy only teaches this class in person and there's a good reason for that. It's an experience!  And the quilt is complicated. It's so much easier to learn the techniques when you see it all in person. And if you have troubles, Lizzy is right there to sit down and sew with you.

She went around and spent one on one time with each person discussing their fabric selections. As you can see, I've gone with a very different color palate than I usually use. Because of that, I was lacking some oomph.  With some tips and ideas from Lizzy, I revisited my stash when I got home and expanded my color palate some. My 'centers' will be a dark charcoal which should break this up nicely.

 

But while we were at the workshop, we did a "test" block to get the techniques down.  Here was my test block:

And everyone hung theirs on the design wall. It's neat to see what effect different color combinations have! (sadly I was early taking my picture and a handful of people are not represented on here).

It was a great time. If you can get to one of Lizzy's classes while she's still teaching this quilt, I would highly recommend it! I'll keep posting here (and on Instagram) on the progress of my Meadow.

Sarcastic/Nerdy Guild swap

The Philly MQG decided to have a Sarcastic/Nerdy swap based off of the online swaps that use profanity or are focused on fandom.  We use Elfster to get matched up for these swaps and you can find out if your partner has an obsession with certain shows, movies or characters through the site. Or based on their sense of humor you could do something a little more risque!

I wasn't 100% sure of my partners use of profanity so I stuck with some quilting fun.  This bag challenged me several times. It's a Noodle Head pattern called the Caravan Tote which I highly recommend. What challenged me was getting the heat transfer on their correctly.  My original design was based off of one on CafePress that I can't get to load up here. (just google Serial Quilter and you'll find it.)  I made myself a t-shirt as a tester.

Then when I started to do the bag, I just resized it, cut it out on my silhouette and put it on the piece before sewing it to the bag. However, I had not read the whole bag pattern yet and didn't realize the bottom of the bag required 3" of the side panel in order to make the boxed bottom! All of a sudden my quilter girl was too big and I had no more heat transfer material!!

What you see is the result of re-thinking. I decided to enlarge the rotary cutter and scissors and cut from a sparkly iron-on that I was able to get locally.

The bag itself is so cool! Inside the side panel (and my awesome rainbow zipper) is a subdivided pocket for tools.

Another pocket inside the bag itself, and then snap closures.  I did the handles with fabric covered webbing.

And because swaps always require a little more love, I found a few things to include. This funny little pin:

And I made this little zip pouch out of sewing themed fabrics.

She loved everything! Now to get working on our retreat swap project!!