Long Time, No Blog Post

Quilty friends, hello! I haven’t popped in, in a month and wanted to give you all proof that I’m still here and sewing. Blogging is a blessing and a curse. I’m thankful for the friends I’ve met and the skills I’ve learned through it, but it is a time suck. And what does my blogging time cut into? My sewing time, of course.

So since I last blogged I’ve been doing a lot of sewing and quilting. I’d love to share the highlights—and corresponding pretty pictures—with you.

First off, I helped my guild, the New Hampshire MQG, wrap up a charity project we were working on. This post, over at the guild’s site, will fill you in on all the details. What I’ll tell you here is that the design is by Krista Hennebury, a Canadian quilter and designer, and it is a great scrap buster.

It can be hard to find a good group quilt project. If you choose one with a lot of special cutting or matching seams, you could be in for a big headache. This one worked out well. A guild mate and I handed out scraps from the guild’s stash, asking sewers to supplement with their own scraps, so there was zero precision cutting up front. Then, when piecing the leaves into rows, we strove to get the green stems to match up between the blocks. Inconsistencies that existed elsewhere in the leaves—which is what happens when you have a bunch of people working on the same project, right?—were rendered undetectable. Yahoo!

Also, I had the pleasure of venturing to Cape Cod with my guild for our annual fall retreat (we also retreat in Maine in the spring). I hadn’t been on a guild retreat in a while, and a weekend with my friends was just what I needed.

I spent a good chunk of that weekend working on a second Christmas tree quilt. (Check out my first one here.) I also pieced two baby quilts, which are in the process of being quilted and bound, and scored some awesome swag: two of Latifah Saafir’s Clammy templates.

Surely that was enough to make for a fabulous weekend and worthwhile retreat. However, my guild mates and I also enjoyed a trunk show with Melissa Averinos. I know Melissa’s work well, but seeing it in person is a different experience. Pictures don’t capture the texture of layer upon layer of fabric or the subtle low volumes she uses or the intricate detail of her piecing and applique.

The retreat was just a few weeks ago, and I am already raring to go again!

Are you active in a local guild? I am thankful for the NHMQG! If you haven’t hooked up with an organization near you, I recommend checking it out and considering getting involved with the planning, programming, and meeting execution. You’ll get so much more out of the experience! After two years of serving on the board, I am stepping down, mainly because my whackadoodle family life makes attending nighttime meetings difficult. I am still plotting ways to contribute, though. Right now, I’m thinking of reviving some past programs, like organizing a monthly fabric swap or a designing a guild T-shirt. : )

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday ...

Ode to Art Gallery: A Finished Quilt

My marathon of summertime piecing has given way to a marathon of fall quilting, and it feels good to wrap up another project!

My Ode to Art Gallery quilt, first written about here, is done. In typical Michelle fashion, I pieced a mostly monochromatic backing, in shades of teal. (I also did that here and here.) And then, predictable again, I followed certain seam lines to create a simple allover quilting pattern. Finally, I bound the project in the same Kona Nautical used for the pluses, and—ta da!—I have another finished quilt!

OK, now for some pictures. First, the front (if you’re wondering how I developed this palette, check out my previous post about the subject) ...

And the back, in all of its teal-hued glory ...

You can’t tell from the above picture, but the deeper teal fabric is from Anna Marie Horner’s Loominous line. I got it in a scrap bag (there were many one-yard-plus cuts in that “scrap” bag!), and it’s really not my thing, at least not for a quilt front. But it works well here, as the star of the back.

Are you an Art Gallery fan, too? Who’s your favorite AG designer, or what is your favorite AG collection? Let’s gush about the fabric manufacturer that invites us to “Feel the Difference” in the comments!

(BTW: I think my favorite line is Bonnie Christine’s Sweet as Honey. Both palettes are sooo pretty, and I have eyes for the deer and bird and bee fabrics! The ridiculous thing is, although I have plenty of Bonnie’s fabric, I don’t have any from Sweet as Honey. True story!)

Linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday and Finish It Up Friday ...

Anticipating National Sew a Jelly Roll Day

Have you heard? Moda has dubbed tomorrow National Sew a Jelly Roll Day. This is right up my alley. I have a history of stashing those beautiful precuts:

• Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt (and pattern)
• Good Day Sunshine Quilt (and tutorial) 
• Christmas in Bold Colors 

Despite those finishes, all from the past two years, I still have jelly rolls in my stash! National Sew a Jelly Roll Day is motivating me to change that. In fact, I have a jelly roll tutorial that will debut later this month. It’s a follow-up to my Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt, and I’m calling it my Still Pretty Simple Jelly Roll Quilt.

Today, though, I have a jelly roll finish to share with you, my Warm and Cool Coin Quilt ...

This is my own design. If I had to do it again, I would make the
diagonal line thicker. Right now, that line mocks me every time
I look at the quilt!

I cut the strips from a jelly roll of Denyse Schmidt’s Franklin fabrics into shorter 5½-inch lengths. Some of them I used as is, without cutting them down further. I trimmed others width-wise until I had a good variety of shapes. This was all done improvisationally, without measuring or worrying whether I was cutting the fabric at right angles, which created a pleasant wonkiness.

I separated these bits of fabric into warm and cool colors and started sewing them together. After that I paper-pieced the blocks divided by the white diagonal line and assembled the top. Then this project sat for almost a year, without even being basted.

The back features more Denyse Schmidt fabrics. Typical Michelle move!

Usually I procrastinate quilting a project because I love it as a quilt top and I don’t want the quilting to mess things up. In this case, I was feeling pretty blah-de-blah about the project until I started the quilting. I took a cue from Jacquie Gering’s new book—Walk, which I highly recommend—and started with an all-over grid. Then I went back and quilted diamonds inside that grid.

This project, with its vast negative space needed something more than my usual straight-line quilting. The texture that Jacquie’s approach creates is what transforms this quilt into something special.

Well, hello fancy-for-me quilting!

This quilt is going to a good friend. I hope that she doesn’t read my blog and this quilt will be a surprise!

The subtle stripe, also from the Franklin collection, frames this project nicely.

Do you have a relationship with jelly rolls? Fess up: How many are in your stash?!

Linking up to Let’s Bee Social and Finish It Up Friday ...