Getting Ready

It's almost my month for the Incredible Shrinking Quilters' Bee and I'm trying to get ahead of the game.  I have a business trip to Boston planned for the beginning of October and need to have everything mailed before then.


Sneak Peek

I've never done a "Bee" before, and was a little apprehensive about the process of deciding on a design (I'll admit, that part was agonizing), selecting  fabrics and calculating yardages.  The block I finally settled on is pretty straightforward and once I started cutting the fabric, it was no big deal.   I guess this was a case of over-thinking things.

I'm curious, do others find it hard choosing a project for a bee?  I'm using fabrics from my stash instead of purchasing something new - that was the other issue, I was concerned that my fabrics may not be well-received by everyone.  I'm interested in a wide range of fabrics styles including batiks and repros and don't always use the most trendy prints/designers.

Pseudo-Cathedral windows

Here's a little something I'm working on:

The block design is actually a "folded" Flying Geese block.  I found an excellent tutorial online (Ricky Timms & Alex Anderson video) and another tut that shows how to turn down and top-stitch the edges to create a curved-triangle shape (curved goose sounds too weird!).  I had to play around with it quite a bit to get the look I wanted.

I've completed my blocks but will add sashing to make an 18" pillow cover.  Check back here soon for further details.  I will be posting links and hints on this technique.

Ugly fugly fabric

I'm guessing we all have some of these "gems" in our stash ...

Coffee-themed Novelty Fabric

Yesterday, when I realized I was down to one Christmas-themed potholder given to me by my MIL about 15 years ago, I felt compelled to do something about it.

Plum cake + potholder

The kids were responsible for the delicious Polish plum cake (recipe from About.com).  I used 2 pieces of fabric for the potholder's front and back, two layers of cotton batting and one layer of heat resistant fabric in the middle.  I cut my binding on the bias which in retrospect was a mistake.  It was too stretchy and wavy. 

Even uglier fabric!

On the second potholder, I was inspired by a pattern in Susan Briscoe's Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match.  This time I made double folded french bindings like I use on all my quilts.

My trip to Pennslyvania

I'm back!  We returned very late on Saturday night and have leaped right back into the thick of work, school (yes, school's started already), PTA meetings, chores, and so on.  I'm just getting around to downloading my pictures and picnicking them (editing).

I spent a fabulous week in Pennsylvania with my sister's family.  At my request, one day we drove to Amish Country to see the Heritage Quilt & Textile Museum.  We had several teens and tweens in tow, so I couldn't linger, but I was thrilled to finally get to see a portion of the Esprit collection of Amish quilts housed by this museum.


My Sister


Esprit collection of Amish Quilts in main room



The building was formerly a bank, patterned after Penn Station in NYC.  It had a gorgeous, detailed ceiling.  Photos were allowed, but all the quilts in the atrium were in glass cases.  I took photos anyway, to get an overview of the space.



Clever use was made of the vault.


View into the side gallery featuring some local Lancaster County quilts.

Joseph's Coat quilt attributed to Fanny S. Bucher Snyder, circa 1885.  There were two spectacular versions of these on display.  My photo does not do justice to the vibrant colors.  Different quilting patterns were used in each color strip.  More info. about these quilts can be found here. 

One more quilt....


Sampler

I picked this up at the museum's gift shop:



And this tiny handmade doll (only a few inches high) for my daughter):



I was amused to discover the doll posing with the umbrella when I went to photograph the doll this morning.



At a nearby quilt shop, my sister bought me this wonderful pincussion made from a scrap from a vintage crazy quilt and an antique button.


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Now it's back to the usual grind.  I hope to get back to my WIPs soon.