Quilting fun in Palm Beach County

The entire East Coast is in a heat wave, making Florida hotter than ever...but the quilting fun never ends!
Just crank up the A/C, get out the fabric, and roll on with that rotary cutter!

I just had a marvelous time with the Palm Beach County Quilters Guild. What a great guild! They are doing loads of good charity work while supporting their county fair, the big Mancuso show in November, and their own biennial show. In between, they have lots of well known teachers and a monthly meeting that is jam-packed with activities. I lost count of all the drawings! And every person who has a birthday that month gets to select a fat-quarter from a giant basket.

The quilts are mine, ready for the lecture...and that's my purse on the chair. Seems dangerously close to the basket of fat quarters!

But I did manage to control myself.

The time allotment for the program was shorter than my regular lectures, so we decided I'd show a number of my quilts, including family/vintage ones...quilters always seem to enjoy a trunk show.

Of course, I couldn't just leave it at that. There had to be some reason for the quilts I selected.

So I did a program I have been thinking about for quite awhile: The 7 Habits of Highly Collective Scrap Lovers (with thanks to Stephen R. Covey).

There was a quilt to illustrate each of the 7 Habits, which I changed from business jargon to quilt-speak, such as" #1: Be Proactive" became "It's a Scrap If I Say It Is!".

I had that great Double Wedding Ring with the red binding and the Big Baskets quilts to represent each side of my family. The others were mainly quilts and tops I have made, especially some Mystery Quilts.

Over on the right you see the three Quirky Bits samples, as that's the class we had following the lecture.

You may remember it's relationship to Perky Old Men, being made with the same endless batch of 3-inch nine patches. Cherry-Cherry's mono-chromatic blue one is on the far right, and in the center is the new top I just finished.

I got a Hoffman Bali-Pops selection of batik strips for my birthday ("Strawberry Fields"...did you know those things are collectibles now??? Put out in yearly collections, for our obsessive pleasure!).

Every time I teach this class there are a couple people who want to use a jelly roll or other pre-cut strips that are 2-1/2" instead of the 1-1/2" strips.
I have no problem with that! Why do any extra work (a great motto!).
Quirky Bits is cuter with the smaller strips, but looks great with the wider ones, too. So here's my version, which has some very quirky parts indeed. I enjoyed making it it to have as a sample for the class, and in the process firmed up how I want to write the pattern.
The class was wonderful, with lots of ladies trading strips and sewn units, plus making plans to shop for more additions to their strip collections.

Well, with such hot weather, there is nothing better for Summer than a Watermelon..... quilt, that is:

This was made a long time ago from an Eleanor Burns pattern called "Boston Commons". The large white area has watermelon leaves quilted all through it  in pink thread.

I searched online for a picture of a watermelon vine, copied it, traced two leaves, then blew them up to life size. By flipping each template from side to side, I had 4 leaf shapes to combine in many ways all around the white part.

This quilt was purchased at a fund-rasing auction and now resides in Washington state.

Until next time...stay cool!

Kooky Scrap Star Blocks

There are so many times a "scrap project" comes up, and in the end it has just created more scraps. The Kooky Scrap Stars may actually help you use some up! I am so excited!
This is a "sew & flip" method and wastes a bit of fabric...well, that's the good part because the pieces are not too large to start with, so you have a real chance of actually throwing them away!
(I cannot be held responsible for any trash basket diving later...in fact, I may meet you there...)
What is a Kooky Star?

It's related to the long-pointed star blocks like "54-40 Or Fight" or "LeMoyne Star" (also known as Lemon Star!). The skinny and fat triangles used for the traditional block were made famous by the late, great Doreen Speckman who called them Peaky and Spikey.
These amusing contemporary stars are similar to Jan Mullins patterns,so  if you'd like to do some more fun piecing, look for those!
The All Star Quilters made these blocks at my workshop yesterday. We like to start off the year with a "free" pattern class...the real cost is you have to donate the block you make so it can go into a charity quilt (more on that later).
Here's how you can make one, too. This is for a 12 inch finished block.

Cut 8-- 4.5" squares for the background (4 are the corners and 4 get the star points on them).
Cut 1-- 4.5" square for the center of the star
Cut 8 rectangles 3" x 5.25" (that's 5 and a quarter inches...fractions behind whole numbers are tricky to typre here!).
As you can see, the points are different because they came right out of my scrap basket. What you can't see is that the four corners are also a different white from the ones with the points! Mix it up, that's what I say!

Fold one side of a square and finger press to mark it (use chalk or pencil if you need to).
The first rectangle goes on with the bottom corner just to the right of the mark.
The top corner can go off the square anywhere down the left side. The closer to the bottom, the shorter & fatter the point will be. Don't over-think this! They can all be different!

You have to turn this around to sew it.  Aim for a 1/4" seam allowance, but it doesn't have to be precise.

Press over the first rectangle, then repeat for the second. You don't have to turn that side around.

I am sure there's a smoother process, but this is the way I learned it and honestly, I just have not bothered to figure it out. It doesn't really matter which point you sew first.

Here it is from the back. The two points don't even have to overlap at the fold mark, either!

The square is the size of the unit. Use it to trim off the extra fabric....then you can leave the square in, or trim it out, too, but first trim the points fabric to be the correct size.

These points are more traditional-like, because there actually is a method for doing this in a precise fashion (for those who do not like to cut triangles) but it involves lots of measuring & marking of where 1/4" seams cross...much too fussy for me!

Make 4 units...each should have 2 star points, unless you are designing another block. If you are, send me a picture!

As in any nine patch block, sew the units into rows, then sew the rows together. I pressed each row with the seams away from the points, as there are lots of layers there.

Well, you may notice that these are some mixed up points! I trimmed off all my sample pieces to set this up.

In fact, the rows are not even sewn, just stuck up on the board. But I will finish this, and add it to the mix.

I like this B&W star made by one  memeber, She went with the all-the-same-fabric method.

Another person was inspired to make two blocks in reverse fabrics/ values:

These go pretty fast once you get used to how those rectangles lay on the squares. Wouldn't this make a beautiful quilt, with just these fabrics?

Here's how the class ended:

I think a few starts went home, too...and many promised to make more and bring them to the next meeting.
With  12" blocks you can make a nice size quilt. Setting 12 blocks 3 x 4 we'll get two tops (I know you are counting, and there are only 22 starts here! I have one more and I'm sure there was another not up on display). With some 2" sashing and a 4" border, a 12 block quilt would be about 52" x 66". That's a big enough lap quilt for almost anyone, and a nice big quilt for a child....and about the limit most people want to quilt on their own home sewing machine!

The All Stars had a fabulously generous donation of over 500 yards of fabric, mostly juvenile prints and a lot of flannel. So we've been passing it out like crazy. Here's what was left on Monday:

The main project is quilts for children going into foster care, and sometimes those have a pillowcase, too.

Then there are quilts for Safe Harbor (teenage boys) and this year they have added Wounded Warriors' retreat in the Fall. Not to mention placemats for Meals On Wheels!

There is no shortage of places where quilts can be comforting gifts.