Gwen Marston - Small Studies

Wow, three days of 15+ quilters / artists in the house and the ideas just started flowing.  Gwen was under the weather the first day.  She did her intro, pinned up her Small Studies samples and then went back to her room.  And we got busy.  

These first 4 pieces are some of my favorites of Gwen's work. 

I just love the shot of turquoise that jumped into this piece.

Here is the collective work of our class.  WOW.  I watched people share their ideas, their formulas, their methods.  It was a room that was busting with ideas and creativity.  You can see my pieces on the bottom left.  First piece as too much print in it, the second one got a shot of pink and the small piece on the bottom left is the beginning of ??????

These two are made by the same quilter, in fact, she had 3 pieces finished by the end of day 3.  It wasn't' a race or a competition, and I have to tell you, I learned SO MUCH watching KM work.  I have already starting thinking in a different manner about piecing and quilting design in general after these three days.

Close up of KM's third piece.

This picture is twisted, but see next picture. Great work by this quilter.

Here is the second piece right side up. I love the curve in the top right corner and how it plays with the straight outside edge of the borders.

I had the pleasure of having Tom at my table. It was fabulous to watch him work. He's spent his career surrounded by line and design and has recently started playing with textiles. Unfortunately, I did not capture his first piece that was superb. In this picture, he re created the piece on the left side, which is a chenille creation of his.  The upper left was his 3rd piece of the workshop. 

My goal was to test every technique Gwen had to offer.  I came home with  a stitched sample of each method she uses and I can now refer back to these pieces for reference.  That was my goal, I achieved it and am very pleased with my pieces and my ability to move forward onto a second and third piece.

And if you've stayed with me, here is the info on Gwen's new book.  I can't wait, and I'm positive it will be one that becomes dog eared and coffee stained in my studio. 

Thank you Gwen, for a life time of creating and sharing and teaching. I've learned so much from you!

Sharon

Unplanned Detours

Some days I just feel so unorganized and seem to wonder where the heck my day went.  Case in point.  Just an hour left before wrapping up for the day and I needed to make a back.  It all started off really good.  The top had a note pinned to it with measurements of what size I needed.  Why I didn't make the back when I did that, who knows?    Grabbed some yardage, cut it down the middle, added a strip inset. OK, back is made, simple enough.

Then I realized I used this cream star print on some liberated stars with homespun, so I dug out the bag to put the scraps together.  First mistake was to tip the bag out on to the cutting table. 

Then I started looking at what blocks I had already made from this bag of scraps.  I've made 2 quilts from this stack of homespun fabric, but both have been given away and this bag of scraps is my last chance to have one for myself. 

Once I realized I had big chunks of fabric in the bag, and the iron was hot from pressing the backing, well, I got to working on this.

There was a zip lock bag with parts and pieces already cut.  I couldn't resist whipping up one of these cute little 4 1/2" star blocks.

Along the way I was separating the bits of red.

Pressed them and cut up that remaining cream star print into squares.

Too frugal to cut into those big chunks that I just ironed so I pieced the center square.

All neatly pressed and threads cleaned out from the seams. 

And added this 12 1/2" block to my collage of stars. 

No wonder I didn't get the vacuuming done! 
Keep stitching ,
Sharon

Doing it Right

Because I am a registered business with a license and I charge sales tax to my customers, I must do this once a year. Yup, I hand over every penny I collect to the state of WA. I'm not sure what happens to this money, just know it's what I have to do.

Because I have this business, I get the pleasure of working on quilts like this one. Can you say Fabulous? This is a Pam Bono pattern, Flowers in the Cabin.

Quilt measures 88 x 102. How many pieces are in each block?  Not even going to guess, I just know there are a lot of strips and squares of different widths and lengths and only the most organized quilter could keep this all straight.

That little pink square in the center is part of the sashing that just blends into the blocks.  The piecer, NT, did not want feathers, but liked the idea of wreaths of leaves.  Of course, stitch in the ditch was also a big part of the machine quilting.

I think this was a great choice and I just can't get enough of this quilt.  Leaves were quilted into the brown border as well.

French General for the back........ so nice.

This is such an fabulous pattern and one I have never seen made up.  If you have it, go for it, the results are beautiful.

It will be worth your time and effort, sorry for over posting pictures, but seriously, I L-O-V-E this piece and I'm so glad it's going on my friends bed so she will enjoy it for many nights.

Yup, this is the reason we don't by a 'bed in a bag' We make our own and this is why.

Keep stitching,
Sharon

Retreat Wrap Up

After putting away my Carolina Christmas, :-( I pulled out my next project. I had the 2 1/2" strips all precut and the mock up of the layout pre done. Strips were just in a pile, so I did the sorting and sewing of the strata's.  I stitched up the first blade of the star, and it went together so quickly, I realized I could get all the blades done before closing time. 

OK I have no idea why I see a little picture beside the big one????
Usually when making a lonestar, I baste along all the seams where they intersect, take it out from the machine and check every seam to see how far off I am and re adjust for the second sew.  This time I used my good judgment, pinned at each seam, told myself this was not for show, and stitched a permanent seam.  First blade looked good so I started the chain piecing!  Brave, I know, considering the last experience I had!

And here are all the blades together.  I put the top half in one direction and the bottom have the opposite direction.  I anticipated the top layout would be my final decision.  The reason for that is that the non batik teal green would be a bit dull as the full circle.  I thought the movement of the batik would be far more interesting as the ring.  Plus I thought the printed light was better in the center.  More interesting.

And here is the final layout.  Nope, I didn't even start to sew the blades together, that would be for another day.  Got it all packed up in a box and moved on.  Still time before we packed up.

Last under the needle, the pink and brown hourglass blocks.  These are from a long ago swap and I like the secondary pinwheel that shows up when I use the darker blown.  Again, I must pay attention to the orientation.  I stitched together a few locks, and laid them out on the bolt of fabric that was the same that I had cut for the alternating plain block.  I like this zigzag look and the 4 patch on point. 

I have a few more in this box to sew together........

And  few more piled by my machine.....

And since I felt I had a great plan for these blocks, and it was now 11:30 pm, I called it a day. A long one, a very productive one, and one that will stay with me for some time.

There is nothing better than sewing with another amazing woman. My gal pal, she just lets me ramble, we chatted about nothing and everything, we drank a lot of coffee and we planned a lot more quilts. We are already looking forward to our time together in the fall. But in the meantime, I committed to showing up at her studio and purge for her. It's always easier when someone else is there who has no attachment to your stuff.

Keep stitching, and can you believe it's February???
Sharon

Empty Bobbins

It was retreat time with my gal pal. We've packed and talked about projects for a week in advance of going away for two glorious days with nothing but sewing, chatting, and snacking all day and into the evening. As we pulled up to our retreat room, we could see there were people in there, and after a gasp and confirmation that we had the right day, we found out the room had been double booked. But not to worry, those quilter's were busy at the cutting tables, and we couldn't get our blocks out and up on the design wall fast enough.

Here is the first project. I decided on the same setting as I've used before. Blocks are all stacked and pinned and ready to go together in my sewing room.

Next up was a few blocks of pink and brown. I've kicked around a few ideas for these and just left them up so I could see them and ponder.

I just soaked up the look of side by side,

Pondered using a setting square to break up the piecing,

And got busy on my Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, Carolina Christmas from 2009.  I got the 1/2 square triangles all put together, only 104 of them needed.

and had these blocks finished a few years ago,

and then got these little cream and red 4 patches all together.  They are SO cute.

Took a break from sewing and organized all the star blocks.  I wanted to make sure I didn't repeat any prints in the 4 patch that comes together in the center.

I put a few blocks up on the wall.  All the green sections were pieced in previous sewing sessions.  It's looking good!

I've kept all the instructions for every section.  It's all been contained in one box.  The reason for making this quilt was to become more proficient using the EA ruler.  I fell in love with it, and have used it so many more times since I cut for this project.

I got back at the machine, and started joining the green section to the red/cream sections.  See, sample sitting right beside my machine so I don't turn them wrong when piecing.  Look at that pile of chain piecing!

And then when pressing, I realized I HAD turned the block and got the wrong orientation.  All the left pile of blocks need to go to rehab...........

So I packed everything back into it's traveling suitcase, the bad blocks have their own special place; in a zip lock bag with a seam ripper for company. Then I closed it all up and called it finished................ for now.

To be continued.....

Hope you got to stitch this week, we are so blessed to be part of this amazing community of quilters.
Sharon

Sneak Peek

Here's what I'm working on right now.  The pattern is Flowers in the Cabins, an oldie, but a good one from the late Pam Bono.  There are a lot of seams in this one, and the strips not only vary in length, but in width, and some have little squares sewn to the ends before they are added to the block.

Wreaths of leaves.  I hope you can enlarge by clicking on this, I was having technical issues, any surprise?  It's Monday morning.  *I think I fixed photo issue*

Have a great week, I'm off to sew for two fabulous days.  My boxes of projects are all packed and ready to go.  Clothes and personal stuff, not so much!


Have a great week, keep stitching,
Sharon