Quilt Block Swap #6

These are most of the blocks that are around the perimeter of my City Girl quilt.  I like most of them.  I’m learning how to “see” contrast fabrics.  I have a tendency to choose too many medium prints, and the blocks turn out “muddy” with too little contrast.  A good example is the Eddystone Light block (top row, far right).  I can’t tell what that block IS because the contrast is MISSING!!!  There’s a star in the center, but you can’t even see it!  I’ll probably re-make that block or at least put it on the back side so it’s not so visible!

Quilt Block Swap #5

These are the blocks that I’ve made other people.  I’m especially proud of the red, white and black one because that’s the Arrow Crown/80+ piece block.  I also like the Eddystone Light block out of the Hawaiian prints.  I think it looks pretty cool!

Quilt Block Swap #4

City Girl Quilt

My quilt diagram is quickly filling up!  The twelve blocks in the center are the blocks other people are making for me.  The ones around the edges are the ones I’ve made myself.  Most of the edge blocks are sample blocks I’ve made out of my fabrics before attempting to make a block for someone else (if that makes sense).  I want to make sure I can make the blocks and that they come out to 12.5″ before I cut somebody else’s fabric and mess it up!

This is my most ambitious block to date.  It’s called “Arrow Crown” and is 80+ pieces!

Arrow Crown

And this one is one I worked on yesterday.  It’s called “Golden Samovar” (how’d they come up with THAT name?).  Anyway, it’s kind of like an Arrow Crown “lite”, and I really, really like it!

Golden Samovar

Quilt Block Swap #3

I’d love to post some more pictures of quilt blocks that I’ve made and that people have made for me, but for some reason, WordPress is spooging up the pictures I’ve uploaded.  I’ll keep trying, though, because I want to get them posted.

At least here’s one (my favorite that I’ve made so far):

Millenium block for FlashleyAshley

Block swap blocks

Above are pictures of blocks people have made for me in this block swap!  I’m pleased with all of them!

And, here are two blocks I’ve made for my quilt (I’m not thrilled with the top one–not enough contrast in the fabrics):

Finally, here are two blocks I’ve made for other people (same blocks as above, just in other people’s fabrics):

More quilt swap blocks

Block 26 in Stars by Magic

Linda’s Star from Quilter’s Cache

I made two other blocks for my block swap quilt (shown above).  The first is Block 26 from the book, Stars by Magic by Nancy Johnson-Srebro.  It’s a GREAT book with some amazing-looking stars.  The only problem is that there’s ALOT of fabric waste.  I sewed the waste pieces together and sent them to my grandmother to play with.  She’s 95, and likes getting mail.  If I make any other blocks from that book, I’ll send them to her, too.  Maybe my mom can sew here a little quilt out of the blocks I send her…???  That’s a good idea.

But…  I digress.  The second block is called “Linda’s Star” from Quilter’s Cache.  It’s an off-set star within a star.  I’m not thrilled with it because you can’t see the little star in the upper left hand corner all that well.  I should have used more contrasting fabrics, but I’m not sure WHERE I could have placed them to make the star stand out more. .

Anyway, I bought some solid “parchment” and “teadye” Kona cotton today to add to my stash of City Girl fabrics.  That should help me with some of my contrast issues, I think.

Meanwhile…  I recieved my first set of fabrics from Audrey1999.  Talk about TOUGH!  She sent five pieces of 9 x 9″ fabric and one piece  of 7.5 x 8.5″ fabric.  There were 2 green, 2 purple, 1 Amy Butler green/yellow/turquoise print, and 1 blue and white dotted fabrics.  Kind of random and very difficult for me to work with!  I made her this block.

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It’s called “Chisholm Trail” out of the book Once More Around the Block by Judy Hopkins.  I wish I’d tried the Amy Butler print instead of the blue dotted print on the flying geese units, but I was afraid it would look too busy (it looks random enough as it is so I can’t imagine adding green/yellow/turquoise to the mix.

I’m pleased, too, that athenamat has already made me a block out of my fabrics, and it looks great.

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I love how she fussy-cut the center flower.  I noticed instead of doing flying geese units, she did half square trianges.  I can make flying geese units with NO PROBLEMS at all (and with just a rectangle and two triangles; not the “cheater” way with squares)!!!  It’s that center diamond within a square unit that I can’t make!  Too funny how different people can/can’t do different things.

I’m also learning to think outside the box.  I never would have thought of making all four corners two different fabrics.  I’ll have to remember that for other blocks I make–especially on blocks where I don’t have enough matching fabrics to go all the way around.</.

Ummmm…???  WordPress is deleting the extra returns in my post, and all of the paragraphs are running together!  That sucks!

Card Class at Community Center

I’m so excited!  The Community Center got back to me, and they want me to do a card class for them!  The only thing I’m disappointed in is that they’ve only scheduled ONE!  I wish it was more. 

The class isn’t until October so I have plenty of time to get ready for it.  They’ve put a limit of 10 people which is perfect because I have exactly enough supplies (scissors, bottles of glue, etc.) for that many. 

We’re making 2 birthday, 2 thank you and 1 wedding card for $10.  People don’t send thank you cards any more so I probably shouldn’t have done 2 of those.  Maybe I should have done baby instead (one boy and one girl).  Oh well…  it’s too late now:  they’re sending the brochure to the printer today.

The brochure is for fall/winter, and covers September, October, November and December.  That’s a long time for a brochure to cover, I think.  It’s hard to plan for that far out this early in the year.

Anyway, I guess if my class goes over well, we can add more classes for their winter/spring brochure.

My Swap Blocks

There are 12 people in my group for the block swap so I had to send 11 fabric packages and I have to make myself one block to have a 4 down x 3 across quilt.  I’ve decided that I’ll be making a larger quilt by making myself extra blocks. 

So… I’ve already started on the blocks (shown above).  They’re blocks cut from Judy Hopkins’ books (Around the Block and Once More Around the Block). 

The first one is called Amish Star, and I’m most proud of it because it’s 41 pieces and I got them all to align, and it came out exactly 12.5 inches! 

The second one is called “Cry of the Loon” and I think it’s my favorite of the three.

The third is called “Forget Me Nots” and it was a challenge to put together.  I’ve never made that top right-hand unit before (and it’s made of all triangles which always make me nervous), and then I really had to think about how to assemble the stages to make it come out right. 

That’s the only downfall to those books:  there are no assembly directions; just cutting directions.  However, those books would be GIGANTIC if she put assembly directions in them, too, since each book has 200 block designs!

Now, though, I’m worried about what size fabrics people are going to send me.  And I’m worred about what I sent out.  I had a hard time finding block patterns that would fit the way I cut my fat quarters (which I did in thirds).  I thought I was doing it a good way, but after spending one ENTIRE day trying to find a pattern that would work, I found out that I should have HALVED the fat quarters and sent fewer colors (rather than 6 third pieces).

I’m fortunate to have the laser so I can cut all the pieces.  I can draw out the size pieces they’ve sent me in Corel Draw so I’ll know whether or not I have enough fabric for a particular block.  But the girl who’s sending me 9″x9″ pieces is really going to challenge me, I think.  I guess her’s will just be a very scrappy-looking block with lots of small pieces.

Quilt Block Swap Fabrics

These are the fabrics I’ve chosen for the quilt block swap I’m in.  They’re the City Girl collection by Kitty Yoshida for Bernatex.  I hope they’re not too busy, and people will be able to make some good blocks out of them.  It will be interesting to see what I get back.

I’m a little nervous about what fabrics I’ll be recieving.  One girl said she’s sending 9×9 inch pieces.  That’s going to be very limiting, isn’t it?  What can you make with pieces that small unless it’s really random.  Or maybe I can make her a log cabin.  I guess I’ll just have to wait and see when it gets here.

I got all of my envelopes addressed yesterday.  The fabric has already been cut and it’s in ziplock baggies with a return address label.  It’s ready to be sent.  I guess I’ll do that today since I’ll be by the PO this morning.  (Ugh!  I HATE going to the PO!)

Non-paper ATC Swap

I participated in a non-paper ATC swap on Craftster.org.  I sent mine out on the 3rd, but today is the cut off.  So far I’ve received one, and I just checked the delivery confirmations, and all of mine were received yesterday.  Only one person has posted that she recieved mine, though.  I wonder what’s up with that?  Maybe people are busy? 

I’m very anxious because I’m not sure mine are that good.  I sent 3 out in sets of 2 because I thought they weren’t good enough by themselves, but as a set, their “perceived value” is higher.

I’m such a dork!  I forgot to take pictures or scan the ones I sent!