MMMQG Meeting - June 18, 2010

We met at Tea and Textiles, a wonderful quilt shop in Jefferson (sorry, no website).  I am totally in love with this store!  The owner is older, but you wouldn't be able to tell from the selection of fabrics on the shelves.  Food themed fabrics are clearly popular - I spotted French fries, raspberries, and chili peppers, to name a few.  I'm pretty much 'meh' on the whole subject of novelty prints, but I understand that some people just love them to death.  But anyway, Tea and Textiles has, by far, the best selection of bright fabrics that I've seen in a while.

Unfortunately, this particular Saturday, only three of us got together: Sandi of Piecemeal Quilts, Cheryl of Cheryl's Chatelaine, and myself.  Sandi and I showed Cheryl some paper-piecing, though Sandi is a far better teacher than I ever will be ;)

I brought a plenty to do...  I had intended to finish Block 12 of Sandi's Basket Blocks, and got through the handle - or so I thought.  Somehow, I had print and cut two of the same half of the basket handle.  Thankfully, it took a simple flip-flop of a single piece to make it all better, but that pretty much took the wind out of my sails for that particular project.

Tucking that out of the way, I decided, "Fine, I'll piece the sashing strips for setting the basket blocks."  That went well.  For the most part.  In showing Cheryl paper-piecing a square in a square, I decided to use the scraps from my sashing strips.  Then, silly me, I set that square-in-a-square next to a sashing strip.  My brain went on a creative tangent and said, "THIS IS A QUILT!!"

I quickly auditioned white, to sash the square-in-a-square blocks with, and decided it was too harsh.  Sandi made the brilliant suggestion that it needed something more silver-y, and we headed back to the sales floor.  She pulled out a bolt that we both loved, a gray paisley.  It was pretty, but not right - too dark.  However, just a few bolts down was a bolt of Michael Miller's Mirror Dots in a silver-y print.  It was perfect!  I'm going to fussy cut the Mirror Dots, so that there's a full line of dots in the sashing, but that's gotta happen after I was the fabric.

The quilt, unfinished as it is, already has a name!  "Japanese Disco".  Cheryl made the comment that the sashing strips looked like obi from kimono (if I remember right, lol), and Sandi said that the Mirror Dots gave it a disco look.  So, "Japanese Disco".  I hurried up and borrowed a pen from the shop owner and sketched out my idea, so that I would have a record of it.

The Mirror Dots was actually my second purchase of the day at Tea and Textiles.  After lunch, which was an awesome burger at a place called Urban's, Sandi and I did some shopping.  First, I thought I would buy a print that incorporated asterisks, to go along with the beginnings of a mini-quilt that's been burning in my brain for a couple of weeks.  But then I put the fabric along side the stacked coin strips I have pieced already, and it was just too white.  (I'll go into more detail about "Asterisks" in a later post, when I have more to show for it.)

So, I put the bolt of asterisk print back and wandered some more.  I kept getting drawn back to this wonderful print of simplified flowers.  What kept drawing me was not only the great graphic sense I got  from the fabric, but the unusual color combinations: robin's egg blue, burnt umber, deep orange, cobalt blue, kelly green, cream... I was in love, and after going back to look at it a third time, I decided to buy it.  Then, I had to get some solids - this fabric needed solids to ground, yet uplift it.  I picked up some Kona cotton in a robin's egg blue, and another in a burnt umber.  The solids are just a couple of shades off of those in the main fabric, but they're perfect because they don't match perfectly.  They give just a bit more interest:

These three fabrics will end up being a Flying Geese quilt (Edit: Now titled' Escapees'), because I love that print, so much!  However, I'm totally stuck on the idea of adding a green solid, to border in the print before adding the strips of Flying Geese.

Getting Ready for Tomorrow

As I type this, I'm actually at work, supervising a Magic: The Gathering draft.  For those of you unfamiliar with gaming, that's a collectible card game.  


I spent a good chunk of last night steam-cleaning a section of carpet in my apartment.  With luck, I can spend the time between waking up and leaving for Oconomowoc for another Modern Quilt Guild meeting doing more steam-cleaning.  I'm finding it more than a little disturbing that I can clearly tell which sections of carpet have not gotten cleaned.


After I cleaned, I hid in the sewing room until about one in the morning, prepping for the meeting.  It's another work day, which is nice.  I need those.  Even better, tomorrow is my birthday, so I can spend my birthday sewing.  Anyway, this is what I did:


1.) Cut the fabric for two scrappy Bouncing Betty blocks.
2.) Cut the fabric for one Rosebud block.
3.) Drew up the paper-piecing templates for one Crazy Anne block.
4.) Selected fabrics for two wonky house blocks.
5.) Selected fabrics for two Bento Box blocks.
6.) Downloaded PDF instructions for all of the above blocks, as well as a set of paper-piecing instructions for a really awesome looking New York Beauty block that incorporates Flying Geese.  (I'm thinking for my Modify Tradition Swap.)


I have the paper-piecing bits printed and cut out.  I have all of the PDFs downloaded to my NetBook, so no trying to read the instructions from my phone.  See, I learn from my mistakes.  But yay!  That's a couple steps closer to being ready for tomorrow.


Also in preparation for tomorrow, I picked up more bobbins, and extra rotary blades for my two rotary cutters.  I also picked up another yard of a gray Kona Cotton.  If it's not a duplicate, then that should bring me to four different shades of gray to audition for my Modify Tradition Swap quilt.  I'm leaning toward the darker grays at the moment.  I think they'll make the other colors pop (I've already decided on my colors for this quilt, but more on that later, when I have fabrics picked.)

I also picked up a copy of Appliqué: The Basics and Beyond.  This book caught my eye because of the pretty cover and the excellent photographs.  


I've been looking for a fairly comprehensive guide to appliqué that covers machine techniques for a while.  A quick perusal of this book showed several techniques utilizing a sewing machine, so I'm cautiously hopeful.


A quick glance through reveals it to be set up like a textbook, which I actually like.  Areas of importance are highlight with a light yellow, so that the eye goes right to them.  Photographs are well-lit, and clearly contrasting threads were used to illustrate results.  


I like the fact that it's not written to condescend, or as though the reader is completely unfamiliar with sewing, or the use of their sewing machine.  


Perhaps a more in-depth review later, when I've had a chance to actually practice some of the things outlined in this book...


What I'll be doing tonight (that's quilting related - I won't bore you with my mundane list of chores that need doing.):


1.) Wash a load of fabric.
2.) Cut the strips for the Bento Box blocks.
3.) Iron fabric that has been washed.
4.) Begin auditioning fabrics for my Modify Tradition Swap.
5.) Finish packing everything together for tomorrow, since I plan to spend the early morning hours cleaning more.
6.) Possibly begin sketching appliqué blocks for another swap.  
7.) Photograph my Birthday Blockade Blocks together, on the clean swatch of carpet.


It looks like a lot, listed out like that...  I think the only thing I might not complete is the ironing, but that's because I get bored with that rather quickly.  Now, to go find something else to occupy myself for the duration of this shift.

Milwaukee-Madison Modern Quilt Guild Meeting 2

The second meeting (4/25/10) of the Milwaukee-Madison Modern Quilt Guild was at the Ben Franklin in Oconomowoc, and was a workday for us. It was nice to be able to sit with such a diverse group of women and work on our various projects. There's a good variety of skill levels and experience in this group.

A lot of things were discussed, from developing a logo for our branch of the Guild, to sharing our skills with each other, schoolhouse style, to developing a site away from the Ning network, which has hosted most of the sites for the different MQG branches across the county. Our problem with Ning is that it's simply not user friendly and pretty clunky, and now there's talk of Ning no longer being free. In my opinion, it's simply not worth the monetary investment for the very basic options offered.

I've volunteered to help develop a logo for the branch, along with Sandi. I just have to sit down and brainstorm some ideas. Ideally, the logo will have a couple of different iterations: black and white, or grayscale, for basic (i.e., cheaper) printing purposes, and a full color design for web display and nicer print projects. I can also foresee a need to have a 'shortened' logo - one using simply the initials of the guild name, as well as one that encompasses the full guild name. So, okay, more than a couple of iterations! Really, I'll end up with between six and eight working logos, developed based on potential need.

I'm not particularly wowed by the logo created for the Modern Quilt Guild as a whole... It's geared solely toward web display, and would be very print unfriendly in a gray-scale.  The challenge here will be to transmit the idea of this being a quilt guild in a visual format that renders down to something smaller than the size of a standard American business card, while still retaining the idea of 'modern'. I mean, we are talking about quilting here!

I didn't get much done, but I did get something done! I finished my tote bag... sort of. Getting home, I realized that I should have put the straps on differently, for easier carrying. Then, when I was photographing it tonight, I discovered that I'd sewn a pin into one of the straps. Ah, well. Lessons for another bag! Sometime this week, I'll fix those two small things. I also got the pieces cut for a basket block.

Speaking of the Basket Blocks, Sandi has gotten Block 11 done. Yay! But 'boo' as well, as I'm no further along than I was, which is Block 5. I'm woefully behind in making blocks, as well as posting them. My apologies, dear readers.

And for any of you that might go by the Ben Franklin in Oconomowoc and not pass through its doors, I urge you to stop and visit! The fabric section is just lovely, with quite a nice selection of quality fabrics of the bright and modern variety and a good variety of batiks. The management was kind enough to give us all 10% off coupons good for the day, which I used with shameless abandon.

Eclipse, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways! I am just totally in love with this fabric line, and bought quite a bit of it. That in itself is a statement, as I just don't normally buy whole fabric lines. I just can't get enough of this pure, mood-lifting yellow combined with black and gray. It's pretty without being too girly.

I also picked up a yard of Essentials II by StudioeFabrics. If you haven't taken a look at StudioeFabrics, go. Look. I'll wait.

...

Nice stuff, right? Okay, better than nice, gorgeous! They're a 'newer' fabric manufacturer, only a few years old, if I remember correctly.  And it's totally a sign of how much a logo geek I can be that I adore that lower-case, red 'e'!



I also picked up Elegance by Rosemary Lavin for Windham fabrics. Pretty, and motivated entirely by my ongoing obsession with black and white fabrics. I don't know why, but I'm totally enraptured by black and white fabrics at the moment. The difficulty is in finding quilting cottons in these two 'colors' that are unique.

This coming Saturday is Sandi's Family and Friends monthly quilting day. I'm scheduled to bring the main dish, which I'm looking forward to, because I might try something new. If I'm on the ball Saturday morning, I'll actually remember my camera and get some photos.