Large Print Quilts - "BIGS" #1 and #2

The comfort quilts group handed me some large print fabric and said, "This looks like you!".  Of course, this was their way of challenging me to make something to donate back as a charity quilt.  I do like making quilt tops, and sometimes quilts, for the group, and I like the anonymous factor involved with charity.  So, I accepted the challenge.

We spent a lot of time watching the March Madness basketball playoffs.  I love, love, love, watching the college teams and especially the women.  This year I noticed the commentators calling the tall girls "The BIGS".  I thought this was a little derogatory, but then I noticed that they also call the tallest men "The BIGS".  So, OK.  I guess it's not derogatory towards the tall women.  I asked my husband how long they've been referring to the tallest people on the team as "The BIGS".  And he said for a long time.  Jeesh.  Where have I been?  Anyway, I'm going to steal the term and call the Big Prints "The BIGS" too.  They need their own special treatment, I think.  Don't you?

My personal feeling is that when you use large print fabric, you need to keep the pieces as large as you can.  Otherwise, you totally destroy the motifs.  I drew up a couple of designs for this fabric, using 10" squares.  Here are the two quilts that I made with this fun circular fabric.  I'm calling them "BIGS #1" and "BIGS #2".

BIGS #1  67" X 67"

BIGS #2  52" X 64"

I hope you like them.

New Iron - Reliable Velocity 200IR

My iron crapped out.  In a big way!  I turned it on to iron some clothes (yes, I had to break down and iron something besides quilting fabric).  It sputtered and spit and then spewed out a great big gob of rusty steamy water.  Thank goodness it was not on top of the clothing... however, my ironing surface looks pretty bad now.  I think that irons are designed to do this very thing so that you have to keep buying new ones.  Do you agree?

Anyway, I did a little research and found another iron that I hope will work for me.  I am a bit picky about having an iron that doesn't have an automatic shut-off.  Or at least one that can be bypassed.  It is very annoying when you are sewing a bunch of pieces for a quilt and then when you get up to iron, it has turned itself off again.  Argh!

So, the  Reliable Velocity Iron  has a steam and a super steam function, plus the bypass, and the cool thing is that the steam is made inside the iron so it doesn't spit.  AND, you can steam with it vertically!  So if you want to press or steam something on the design wall (or clothing if you really have to), you can do it without the ironing board.  Pretty cool, huh?

Well, here is a picture of it.

I found that the price was the same whether it was ordered over Amazon, or from another source.  So far, I love it.

Selling raffle tickets

Clark County Quilters makes an opportunity quilt each year (raffle quilt).  This year, I helped to sell the raffle tickets at the Milwaukee airing of the quilts show in March 2018.

Here is a picture of our quilt and a customer.

Let me tell you how our opportunity quilt gets made and what we do with the proceeds.  It's a 3 year process.  The first year, we have a block contest.  Guild members get a piece of fabric from the coordinators and make blocks according to whatever the rules and theme are for that year.  For the quilt in this picture, we started with a piece of gray fabric and had to make a house block or something that represented "It Takes a Village".   Shameful promotion:  my block won!  The second year, the coordinators sew all the blocks together and have the quilting completed.  Karen Saltzberg did the fabulous custom quilting on this one.  The third year we take the quilt around and sell raffle tickets.

Every year, Clark County Quilters asks other non-profits in Clark County to submit proposals that explain what they would do if we gave them the proceeds.  This year, we selected FISH of Clark County to receive our proceeds.  In previous years, we've earned money for the Vancouver K-9 program, babies in need, and search and rescue.  Each year, it is a different non-profit and we are always excited to present them with a check.

I hope you take a chance at winning a raffle quilt... and maybe even it will be ours!

Modern Quilt Class with Katie Peterson

I've been following Katie Pederson for a little while.  She and I have a mutual friend in Seattle, Krista Withers, who used to belong to Block Party Quilters with me.  Krista first introduced me to Katie in Portland during a book signing at Quilt Market.  She wrote a fabulous book, "Quilting Modern: Techniques and Projects for Improvisational Quilts" with Jacquie Gering and was signing it at Quilt Market.  I ran into Katie a couple of years after that when she was the featured quilter at the Walla Walla quilt guild show.  I loved her quilts and promptly made one based on a picture that I had taken.  Then, when it came time to recommend someone to come to our guild for a lecture and workshop, I recommended Katie.  So, I was over the moon that I was able to listen to her lecture and then take a class from her this year.

She taught us her class, "Double Trouble".  It is a half square triangle quilt with a  modern twist that she came up with.  I loved her humor, energy, and personal attention that she bestowed on all of us. If you can catch up with her, you should definitely consider taking a class.  You'll love it!

I made most of the blocks during the class, then played around with it a little bit and added a few more blocks.  Here is the finished top which measures 50" x 60".

by Joanne Adams Roth 2018

I hope that you belong to a quilt guild that also brings fabulous speakers and teachers right to your doorstep.

Quilt Retreat with a few friends

The small group that I joined in Vancouver went away for a few days of sewing at the Oregon coast.  I used to love to go on retreats with my quilting friends, but haven't gone in several years.  While I was packing, I remembered that you have to take just about your whole studio.  At least I had kept my old packing check list.  There was so much "gear" that we could only fit 3 passengers in my car.

We sewed, laughed, walked on the beach, cooked, stayed up late, and made a lot of memories.

The beach at Gearhart, OR

Joanne Adams Roth at the beach

The sewing space

Modern quilt started at the retreat

I hope that you have a small group of friends that share your passion, whether it is quilting or anything else.  We need more kindness in the world right now, and a small group can really feed that need.

Bride dress quilt, part Three

This is a continuation of 2 previous posts about making a quilt from a bride dress.

The top was quilted with gold thread in the center section and all of the circles were quilted down during this step.  The fusing didn't hold up very well on the polyester fabric and I didn't want to applique them down separately, so the quilting saved a step, but created a few handling issues.  A couple of things I learned.....

     - the gold glitter paint did not hold up to handling.  I ended up with gold glitter all over the place.
     - the gold ribbon did not hold up to handling either.  It shredded terribly
     - make more woman-made fabric than you think you'll need.  I ended with a lot of extra and some
           that I didn't use at all in the quilt, but they're ready for the next project!
     - a metallic needle is a must when quilting with metallic thread.  Even so, be prepared for
          shredding.

Here is the top all quilted and ready for beading.

I used most of the beads and sequins that I removed from the dress.  This really gave it some bling and made it more beautiful, like a bride would feel in her dress.

And here is the finished quilt.  I named it, "Time to Celebrate".

"Time to Celebrate" by Joanne Adams Roth 2018

I hope you like it and you try something with non-traditional materials.

Bride dress quilt, part Two

This is a continuation of a previous post about making a quilt from a bride dress.

 I cut out circles from most of the woman-made fabrics and fused them onto the center piece (although they didn't stick that great to the bride dress polyester fabric).   I used Misty Fuse for the lightweight pieces and Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 for the heavier pieces.

Here are the three pieces pinned to the design board.

I'm going to show you how to piece with free form curved lines.    First, lay the two pieces on top of each other and free form cut a line.  I wanted this one to be a gentle curve so I followed the line of the stay stitching.

Nest,  separate the pieces and remove the excess fabric  from both the top and bottom layers.  (I removed some of the paper so that I could sew this seam.

Because there were pin-tucks in the fabric and I didn't want them to flip or to separate, I carefully placed pins to match up the seams.  You don't usually need to do this, but it a great way to keep a long seam from shifting too much.  Just place the pins opposite of each other on each piece, then match them up in the next step.

Then you will flip the concave piece over the top of the convex one so that they fabric that wants to bunch up is on the top.  In this case, I didn't want to disturb the pin-tucks, so they were more stable on the bottom.  Remember - concave is the inner curve, and convex is the outer curve.   Match up the pins and place extra ones if you need it to stabilize the seam before sewing.

After the seam is sewn, press it to one side.  The picture below shows one seam sewn and the next one ready to cut, pin and sew.

And here is the top all ready to quilt.

(to be continued)

I hope you enjoyed seeing this piecing technique and try it on your next project.