NYC Metro Modern Quilters Guild: February 2014

Sunday, February 23, 2014

March Lucky Bee blocks for Mandy

I realize that it's not March just yet, but Mandy sent her block request and fabric for March a little early. I took the opportunity to get some rest from the black/white/red/yellow quilt I've been working on to smash out the two blocks she requested. I hope she likes them? (And Jody, you were right--committing to a bee is not hugely time consuming!)

Friday, February 21, 2014

Bee Blocks in the mail

Finished some Bee Blocks and here they are:

Brian's Block

Kim's block

Jody's Block

Rossanna's Block

If I still have any outstanding blocks I've left them up in NYC and will do them when I return in early April Hope everyone is staying warm!! See you all in April.

Emily K's block

Here's Emily's block (our January Queen Bee). She had us insert strips on diagonals and asked us not to trim. I think she's going to have a very dynamic quilt when all are done!

Thursday, February 20, 2014

February 2014: Show and Tell Recap

Hello Mods!

We started our February 1st meeting with a bit of a surprise-- the room we are normally in was double booked (through no fault of the guild's) so our meeting was held five flights up in the gymnasium! It was quite a hike and a change of scenery but for this guild photographer, it was a treat to capture the quilts in such great natural light!

At the start of the meeting, those who participated in the Love Swap got to share all their handiwork.

Jessica, our resident English Paper Piecing expert (EPP), kicked off the meeting with a wonderful EPP demo, which she chronicled so well on her blog. While the members continued working on their hexies, we started with Show and Tell.

Margaret made this quilt all out of scraps. The verticals are each 1 piece of fabric and the horizontal smaller pieces are all individually pieced. It is machine and hand quilted.

Sue loves stripes for improv. All the pieces for this small wonder were cut from the same striped fabic. She fussy cut triangles to create rhythmic strips of different colors.

Victoria shared two miniature quilts using her 15 Minutes of Play technique. She will also be teaching at Quilting By the Lake this summer so be sure to check it out!

Brian wanted to make a Christmas quilt so he joined the Pat Sloane Globetrotting Block of the Month Quilt Along. Above is the block for January.

Chris made this quilt out of her husband's work shirts and trousers. The pattern is from Amy Ellis' book, Modern Neutrals. Chris learned the pleated patchwork technique in Andrea Deal's class at The City Quilter. This quilt was for her husband. It is much warmer than a normal quilt, possibly due to the pleating.

Karen shared two quilts with us. On the left, a quilt made for her husband's former co-worker who had a baby girl. On the right, something she started with Bernadette called, "Ugly Round Robin." If you'd like to participate, please get in touch with Karen!

Rose shared a table runner she made for her boyfriend's father.

Jessica shared with us her first completed quilt! It is a whole cloth quilt. She has also just written a soon-to-be released book on crafts inspired by historical objects and archives from the library. It's a very simple quilt, but it is featured in the book to highlight the cartouche quilt label (on bottom right).

This is me, Nellie, and I shared a quilt top I put together in a week featuring a panel from Sarah Jane Studio's latest line, Wee Wander. This project was a free pattern from Sarah Jane's website.

Tina found all her Lucky 13 Bee blocks and finally sewed them all together. The pattern is called Trajectory.

Sara shared with us the third quilt she has ever finished. It is a pattern from Sew Red.

Chelsey shared her second completed quilt. It was foundation pieced and straight line quilted with a "short arm." She had a friend who had a baby boy, so she will be shipping it out soon.

Michael is new to the guild and shared two beautiful self-designed quilts. Michael shared his process which was, "I draw things, then I try to make them." He uses Electric Quilt 7 to create his designs.

Jacqui moved to Colorado and is now back in New York. This quilt was on her table the day she made the decision to move to New York. It was so cold, but this quilt is constructed entirely in flannel.

Kendell made a set of quilts for a class on different ways of binding. Kendell teaches private lessons.

Christa was making this quilt for her mom who had a new bed in a new house. She rented a long arm near her house in Westbury. The long arm took a long time to set up and it took six hours to quilt the king-sized quilt. Christa's mom picked out the fabric three years ago and the pattern is from Moda's Bake Shop.

Debbie shared her String quilt with the guild.

When Kim unfolded this quilt, she received a round of applause! Kim had been sharing this quilt in progress for the last five years. The blocks are appliqued which are from Piece O' Cake patterns, but set totally different.

Emily found this French macaron fabric and fussy cut it into the makings for this quilt. She decided to embellish the quilt with a scalloped binding.

Ivete shared this quilt which is from a "pretty typical pattern" but she decided to do it in a brighter colorway as inspired by a blog post. She had to quilt it twice. She used the Sweet Sixteen longarm and the first time, she had to pull out all the stitches!

Sandy shared several iterations of the mini quilt she was making for the Love Swap all comprised of scrappy things made of squares.

Andrea created this Moving Nine Patch quilt based on Judy D.'s Cheater Four Patch method. She was inspired by a dress she saw at Saks which contained purple and then migrated into other colors.

Until the next meeting!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

EPP Goals:

I'll admit it, I'm writing this post just to add to the fun at Jess's Monday Morning Star Count. Because I haven't made much progress on my EPP quilt lately (I've been too busy binding my first ever King size quilt- why that's taking so long is an entirely different story!), I'm going to tell you about my quilting to-go bag. Jess asked for photos of our quilting gear at some point- I can't find that post now- but here's my kit (closed with a safety pin, yes, it's true):

The funny thing is, I hate this bag. At some point early on in my learning-to-free-motion-quilt process, I grabbed the absolute ugliest fabrics in my stash and practiced on them. Then at some point I turned this piece into this crude little bag, which has somehow become my most-used quilt accessory. And I'm learning to appreciate ugliness, but I still want to make a new bag at some point- after my two major works-in-progress are done!

I use a little old tofu spread (Fairway, yum!) container for my paper clips, thread, tiny scissors, templates, and fabric. The piece I'm working on goes in the bag with the container and it's good to go wherever I dare to quilt (no business meetings, yet!).

But the real reason I started this post is to state some goals, so the Star Count crowd can help keep me on track. I would like to:

Finish basting all the rest of the diamonds for the main EPP part of the quilt (hence the new package of Quilt Patis!) so I can lay it out before piecing together any more of it. That's about 75 diamonds- maybe I can get this done by, say, the middle of March?
Finish piecing the rest of the main EPP part of the quilt by, say, the end of May?
Finish piecing the rest of the top (my vision is to have pieces appliqued on the right side assembling themselves into the main EPP part) by... the end of summer?
Finish quilting and binding the entire thing by the 2nd anniversary of "Superstorm" Sandy in October 2014. (I started this quilt during the night that Sandy hit, 29 October 2012, because I was too anxious to sleep.)