mystery medallion 2016

The Crystal Lake Modern Quilt Guild is sponsoring a new challenge this year - a Mystery Medallion program where we each create a quilt center block of any size to start and add a border each month for the next five months. The fun (or challenging) part is that no one knows what the requirements for each of the five borders will be; they are revealed month by month. So no planning or scheming ahead of time - just jump in and make it work each month!

My quilt center is an English Paper Pieced (EPP) star on a background of "made fabric" (a bunch of low volume scraps sewn together), and it measures 22.5" square.  The star is machine appliqued to the background with a short straight stitch around the outside edge.

The background fabrics were left over from blocks I made for a quilt shop sample in 2014; it hung there as a sample for quilt kits they were selling, and after that I'm not sure where it ended up. The "plus" blocks were made from a pattern found here.  I really did love it, so one day soon I'll have to make another and keep it for myself (adds yet another project to the much too long already project list.)

The hexagons in my quilt center were made even before 2014 when I was first learning how to EPP one spring break vacation in Florida. I was never sure what to do with them, and at one point they were sewn together in rows. Maybe I was planning to put them on some pillows? Who knows!

But sometime last year I saw a photo of a star made from hexagons so I took the rows apart, and sewed them into the large star shape composed of 73 hexagons. So the star and the background piece have been hanging around on the design wall for quite some time just waiting to be used in a project.

The whole point of a Mystery Medallion Challenge is to let go of control and practice your design and color skills each month when the new border requirements are revealed. At our meeting last weekend we learned that January's border must include snowball blocks and use the color red violet.

RED VIOLET?! Sweet - one of my favorite colors, and I happen to have lots of it in my stash.  I gathered a few fat quarters that were primarily red violet, tossed in a couple more that were primarily yellow (but still contained pink/violet), added a stack of more low volume scraps, and started cutting.

Since my center square measured 22.5" I needed to add a "spacer" border to increase the size to 24.5" in order to accommodate the 4" snowball blocks I planned.  This Peppered Cotton in Fog by Studio E has just enough contrast to set it apart from the backgrounds, but it doesn't overwhelm and grab all the attention.  It was cut at 1.5" width to finish at 1".

The 28 snowball blocks are each 4" finished, so now the quilt center measures 32.5".  I cut each center of the snowballs at 4.5" square and each corner background fabric at 1.75" square.  You can find a handy tutorial for making snowball blocks here.  Mine look more like stop signs (I probably should have made the corner pieces smaller) but whatever - I love how it's turned out!

Even if you aren't a member of CLMQG, you can follow along and make your own Mystery Medallion quilt.  Each month the new border requirements will be posted on our website, and photos of members' progress can be found on our Facebook page.

Red Hot Dreamy Hexagons progress

The second UFO that I want to complete this year is my Red Hot Dreamy Hexagons quilt.  Last year I wrote a post about the center medallion of this quilt, but then I put it away for a long while during the time I spent working on the SIL quilts :)

At the end of 2014 this is what the quilt looked like...

The original quilt (from the pattern book Quilt Grandeur) was made in greys and very subtle colors.  To be honest I didn't give this quilt a second thought while looking through the book because "subtle" doesn't usually draw me in.

But a few months later I saw this earth-toned version offered as a class on creativebug.com, and I couldn't stop thinking about it.  I was really intrigued by the English paper pieced (EPP) hexagons appliqued in the center, and this version was obviously brighter.

Pretty soon I started thinking about how a red version might look, and I was off hand-basting and sewing hexagons like mad!  I used the background fabric to choose these shot cotton colors for the hexagon rings, but once I sewed the rings and saw them all together on the background fabric I knew right away that that yellow had to go.

In the second iteration I added the flowers behind a few different rings.  While these colors were an improvement, that one blue ring was the odd man out.

I felt like the hexagon colors were right in this third try with the addition of a second blue and the brighter orange, but I didn't like the green flowers within the top and bottom left rings.

So I replaced the green flowers and arrived at this arrangement for the quilt center medallion  All that rework was worth the effort - I love this final version!  The first border is one of my favorite prints - Paperweight in Paprika - and the cornerstones are cut from the same floral print used in the center of each hexagon ring - Japanese Chrysanthemum in Scarlet.

Each ring was hand-appliqued to a single fussy-cut flower.  The seven hexagon rings were then hand-sewn together at the edges to make one large centerpiece which was hand-appliqued as a whole over the background fabric - Jupiter in Red.  Lots of hand sewing, which I really enjoyed :)

I put this quilt up on the design wall again today so I could finish the second border and get started on the third (there are five total borders).  Based on my goal of completing five UFO quilts before October, my ideal timeline is to complete one quilt top each month January through May to allow time for long arm quilting and binding.  It will be a stretch to finish this one by the end of January, but I'm hopeful!  After all, goals are supposed to be a bit of a stretch, right?

she loved it! (a finished quilt for my Mom)

Last weekend my parents came for a visit, and I was able to give my mom her new quilt! I had finished sewing the binding and label at the 11th hour just before their arrival. The quilt is queen-sized, so that translates into approximately three miles of binding to hand sew, and (as you probably have heard) I am the world's slowest when it comes to hand sewing.

I'm sooo happy that I had the chance to sew this for her - I think it's absolutely gorgeous! The top was pretty in its own right, but the quilting that my friend Carol added makes the quilt something extraordinary. It took quite a long session of looking over quilting patterns to select all the designs for each section, but Carol was patient and insightful as I made decisions, second-guessed them, changed my mind, hemmed and hawed, and generally just agonized over making the perfect choices. In the end it was all worth it because I love it and most importantly - my mom loves it :)

Sorry for the photo overload, but there are so many great designs to see here. All of the quilting except the piano key inner border was done with a medium beige thread. The piano key border is quilted with an olive green thread.

Look at those great veins she quilted into the leaf shapes - they add so much dimension and interest!

And the oversized floral vines in the outer border fill in all that blank space perfectly.

The back of the quilt is almost as pretty as the front! I used Kona Snow so all the beautiful quilting stitches would be the focus and also so there wouldn't be any fabric print or design that might show through on the front of the quilt.

You know how sometimes a project turns out exactly the way you planned, and that outcome makes the whole experience of creating it so completely satisfying? Well this quilt is more amazing than I had planned or imagined - I simply could not be more pleased with it. And knowing that my mom loves it (she may have cried a bit when she saw it) makes this quilt the best one I've ever made :)

What was your most satisfying sewing experience?

center block of Dreamy Hexagons

In my last post I showed you a peek of some fabrics I have pulled together for a new Kaffe quilt project. The large center block of the quilt will have eight rings of (12) 1" english paper-pieced (EPP) hexagons.

If you're not familiar with EPPing, it is a type of hand-sewing where the fabric is basted around a paper template or insert (a hexagon shape for this quilt) and then the shapes are hand-sewn together before removing the paper template. There is an excellent two-part tutorial for making EPP hexagon flowers from Lori Holt at Bee in My Bonnet here and here.

I use the same basic method (without the paper clip) to make these rings. The quilt pattern calls for using shot cottons to make the hexie rings, and I'm using a mixture of Kaffe shot cottons, Pepper Cory Peppered Cottons, and Robert Kaufman Carolina Chambray for my rings.

After all the rings are completed, each one will have a large flower appliqued under/behind it. Here is one of the fabrics I'm considering for the large flowers - Japanese Chrysanthemum in Scarlet by Philip Jacobs. It's my #1 choice so far :)

Coming in a close second is this Cactus Dahlias in Red also from Philip Jacobs. As you can see I've got four of the eight hexie rings sewn. I'll probably make a few extra and choose the eight I like best.

I'm trying to let this quilt evolve as each border is added and not have everything all planned out from the get-go (much like my border challenge quilt last year), but here are a couple of photo mosaics that show which fabric combinations I think might work well. All these photos are from the gloriouscolor.com website. They have the largest and most comprehensive online selection of Kaffe Collective fabrics. A few local brick and mortar shops have a decent selection of his fabrics, but nothing rivals the inventory at Glorious Color. I buy what I can locally and order the rest :)

Jupiter in Red

Shirt Stripes in Red

Japanese Chrysanthemum in Scarlet

Lotus Leaf in Wine

Chard in Hot

Roman Glass in Red

Jupiter in Red

Cactus Dahlias in Red

Shirt Stripes in Red

Picotte Poppies in Red

Babble in Charcoal

Oriental Tree in Red

This glorious riot of reds, pinks, and oranges is so invigorating, but I'm trying to take it slow and enjoy the process of just playing with the colors and seeing where each step takes me. The fact that there is no deadline for finishing this quilt makes that easier!

applique prep

I'm generally a needle-turn kind of girl when it comes to hand-applique, but for this project I'm using a different method for all the leaves since there are 24 of them.

one down, three to go

Update: The Applique Project of the Decade

First border done! This project is taking me so long it feels like a big banner headline and shouts of "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" are appropriate to announce progress - haha!

I'm actually a bit ahead of schedule here since this border has taken me less than a year to finish ;-) I posted about finishing the center panel here on May 29, 2012. So if I keep up this pace I could be finished in 2017 - allowing one year for each of the three remaining borders, and one year to piece it together and send it out for quilting. (You can hear my sarcasm, can't you?) The great news is that I still love it and plan to keep going...

Obviously I'm not working on this project daily - I am a slow hand-sewer, but not that slow. I pick it up every now and then when the mood strikes and there is no other hand-sewing needing to be done. Sometimes I take it to group sewing get-togethers so I don't have to haul a machine around.

This bottom border is all Kaffe fabrics. To make the center wavy line easier to applique, I made bias-cut tubes of fabric that finished at 3/8" wide. A little washable tacky glue held them in place while I sewed to prevent stretching.

The two side borders will consist of lots of swirly branches much like those found in the center panel, with a few leaves and flowers tossed in. The top border is supposed to say "Live well and be happy", and while I completely agree with that philosophy I don't want it appliqued on my quilt. I'm considering some other phrases, but I've got a couple of years left before I need to commit!

You can find the pattern in this book from Piece O'Cake Designs if you find yourself in need of a long-term hand-sewing project commitment.

Happy stitching!

new challenge

Lorrie and I have taken on a new project. It's called the Border Challenge class at Acorn Quilts in Rockford, IL. The class meets once each month, and our homework before the first class even began was to find or create a block, medallion, or centerpiece that we'd like to use for the center of our quilt. This is what I created...

The pattern is from the book Material Obsession Two, and the quilt this block is from is called "The Seasons" by Sarah Fielke. It measures approximately 21" square. To make my spring tree "leaves" I pieced strip sets from Anna Maria Horner, Kaffe, and Amy Butler prints, and then used the EZ Dresden ruler to cut the wedges. So it's basically a half-dresden plate with smooth edges instead of the usual points. I turned under all the edges and appliqued it to my background - Oval Elements in Mist by Art Gallery fabrics and Tents in Green by Brandon Mably.

The trunk and branches (Spots in Brown by Kaffe) were also hand-appliqued, but I used the freezer paper method and starch to turn under the edges rather than needle turning it - that would have taken forever! It still took a fair amount of time (all those curves!), but I wanted a smooth edge (rather than raw) so it was definitely worth the extra time and effort.

We received our first border assignment late in February at the first class. Each month's challenge is to add a border to your medallion using the "rules" for that month - an assigned color and design element. But not even the instructor knows what those two rules will be until the class is underway, so it's also a kind of mystery class. An envelope was drawn by one of the participants which stated that our color rule would be determined by a blind drawing from a basket of crayons. Lucky Lorrie was chosen to draw and we got... brown. Sepia to be exact. You can use as much or as little of the color as you wish, and since I already had some of that color in my center, I decided to use A LOT of it...

If you guessed that the design element rule was flying geese, you'd be correct! The rule sheet stated that another participant should choose a number in some weird range like 23-167, which in turn indicated the page number from a book of quilt blocks. And on that page was flying geese. Not my favorite block because of all the trimming involved, but I'm pretty excited about how my first border is turning out! More photos of that next time...

I'm not adding this to my UFO list, because I'm actually working on it. Soooo, it's a WIP. Which is a completely different list, don'tcha know ;)

I'm back!

What a whirlwind of a month it's been! Two major household remodeling projects began at the very tail end of April and just finished on Friday, May 25 at 7:30pm. Then at noon on Saturday, May 26 (that's right, just about 18 hours later) Thing 1 graduated from high school and we had 50+ well-wishers here at the house for a celebration! Whew!

In the midst of all that activity and party preparation I did manage to get a little sewing done. The middle panel of my Tree of Life applique quilt is complete!

It's all needle-turned, so progress is slow; this center panel measures about 36" x 43" and took me 27 months to complete. Notice I stated that time frame the same way you do when you've had a baby and people ask you her age? You get so used to replying, "two months, eleven months, fifteen months" that by the time two years rolls around, you're still stating her age in months. What does that say about this quilt? No idea. I just think it's an interesting observation...

It obviously needs to be pressed and the blue wash-out marker lines need to be washed out, but I'm just so gosh-darn happy to say this section is complete! Four borders to go - hopefully that won't take another 27 months!

Here are a few close-ups of the individual branch segments...

This one is my favorite. I love the little purple worm and the dotted pot - both Kaffe fabrics. In fact, there are quite a few Kaffe fabrics in these little bits of applique. One of the reasons I love it so much and I've stuck with it for over two years!

In closing, here's a photo of my family with the new grad, Thing 1, in the center. It was a marvelous day with fabulous weather enjoyed in the company of many great friends and almost all our loving family members. It simply could not have been better :)

jumping from here to there

At my February Breakfast Club II class, I asked all the students to count up their UFO (UnFinished Object) projects and bring the oldest of those projects and their total count to our March class. For a project to qualify as a UFO, it has to have been started - meaning some cutting and/or sewing has taken place. It doesn't count if you've just got all the fabric gathered and a pattern selected. That's a future UFO, and a whole different story...

So of course I had to count up all of my own. My total? Twenty-three. I was prepared for a number much higher. And actually, only five of those are actively being worked on right now. So that proves I do have a very little bit of focus, after all ;) And don't panic - I'm not going to show you photos of 23 UFO's - I'm just going to highlight the oldest and newest ones.

Most recently added to the UFO category are these 4 completed blocks from my "Twinkle" quilt project...

You may remember that some time ago a very sweet friend of mine actually cut all the large pieces for this quilt from her stash and gave them to me. Then I hemmed and hawed over which fabrics to use for the star points and center squares. As you can see I finally made those decisions (Art Gallery Oval Elements in Mood Indigo and a Kaffe shot cotton in Apple) and chose this as my traveling project to work on when my SewMod group meets for sew-ins. So forward progress will be slow, but at least it's progress! Four down, thirty-eight to go!

My oldest UFO? It's either this hand-pieced sampler...

Or this "Thru Grandmother's Window" block of the month hand applique (1 of 4 completed, 8 more to go) which are both circa 1997, but I can't recall which class I took first...

I did manage a couple of finishes during my hiatus. Both were Breakfast Club II class projects so there was a deadline - hence the "finished" status! Most recently graduated from "UFO" to "finished" status are some bright batik placemats...

And a table runner using the new Maude Asbury Calypso fabrics...

So how many UFO's have you got? What's the oldest? Do you think you'll ever finish it? Right now I doubt that I'll finish that sampler (it needs to be hand-quilted), but there's a good chance the hand applique will some more progress one day.

Happy Weekend to you all!

one last finish from 2011

Presenting "It's the Hap-happiest Season of All" - designed and named by Thing 2, machine pieced by yours truly, and machine quilted by a wonderful lady named Carol Linder. Finished on December 30!

Thing 2 and I followed the pattern "Sweet Pea" by Heather Mulder Peterson; it was very simple to cut, piece, and also fat-quarter friendly! I think we used 15 fat quarters and 1.5 yards of dots on white from the 2010 Riley Blake Christmas collection (the name escapes me, but it was definitely 2010).

The pattern calls for appliques of large, daisy-like flowers, but obviously snowflakes are more appropriate here. We found some clip art of snowflakes online and enlarged two different ones for the appliques on this quilt.

I tried (again) to use Steam-a-Seam Lite for this project, but I just seem to have the worst luck with that stuff. It didn't adhere to the fabric very well, so when I tried to pull the final backing off, most of the adhesive on the snowflake edges came right off with it. Grrrrr. But I just edge-stitched all around each snowflake to secure them, so it's all good now :)

Another shot of the fun fabrics. Thing 2 fell really hard for these prints!

The red and white stripe was cut on the bias to make the binding, which was attached front and back by machine. So easy and quick! And check out that cozy flannel backing :)

Next time I make a bias binding I'm going to show you the wonderful ruler I use to cut it. Maybe you all already know about it, but I think it's the greatest little ruler ever. And while I'm at that, I'll also show you how I attach the binding by machine. It's nothing revolutionary, but I think it makes for a very nice finish when you don't want to take the time to hand-sew or you need more durability for machine washing.

Just a couple more shots of the amazing snowflake pantograph quilting.

I chose a light teal/turquoise thread, and I'm so happy with it. That little bit of color adds so much more depth than white thread.

This quilt finished off my sewing year. I went back through my goal list for 2011, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I accomplished quite a lot of my goals. Here's a list of finishes. Gosh that word "finish" sounds so good to me (extreme procrastinator and easily-distracted-by-new-projects-quilter that I am!)

7 Pillows
7 Wall or Lap Quilts
4 Baby quilts
4 placemats sets/table runners
2 Bags
1 Tuffet
1 Memo Board
1 Tree Skirt

27 finishes!! I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't made that goal list. Kinda puts the pressure on for this year though, huh?

I know it's quite belated, but Happy New Year 2012 to all of you friends out there!