The "Path" Less Travelled

This is the second of the Drunkard's Path Variations for our BoM. I like it a whole lot better than the red one from January. This month my fabric choices are better... the busy background needs to have "quieter" color choices. Do you think I can remember that? Doubtful. I'm getting better at the curved seam part, but need to pay more attention to the match-up of the pieced blocks. I may have to take that one awfyl seam out and re-do it. We'll see how much it bothers me later, right now it just jumps out!

Curved Pieces?

While driving up to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show last Summer and chatting about what we'd like to learn to do, Kerstin and I decided to do an online BoM this year to try and improve our curved seam piecing skills. We thought we'd open it up to our friends as well - since it is always fun to see what other quilters make! In my case, those cuved piecing skills were non-existant. I had never done even one curved seam (at least on purpose... some of my straight seams do tend to curve a bit - but that isn't the same). Drunkard's Path seemed to be a logical choice.

Since my goal this year is to refrain from purchasing ANYTHING, I decided to do our project using my Batik and hand-dyed fabrics. I had a lot of the minty-green and coffee brown fabric, so I chose that as the background. I'll use a different batik for the alternate color in each of the Drunkard's Path blocks; no two will be the same fabric because I don't have very large pieces. I may have guessed wrong on the suitablilty of so many different batiks... January's color choices make for a VERY busy block. I'm not sure I like the January block at all, but I've made some pretty ugly blocks before, and once they were sashed and combined/hidden in a quilt, they semed to loose their "WTF???" factor and blend in OK. One can only hope.

The blue-green fabric in the upper right of the photo is my choice for February. That may be a better call, less visually confusing.

What's Goin' On Here?

I'm working on an online BOM with some of my friends this year. We decided we'd do a variety of Drunkards Path blocks...Kerstin is choosing the patterns. We are trying to develop some curved-seam piecing skills. I've never done curved seams before and neither has Vicki, but she finished her January block quite a while ago, and had some good advice: use a small rotary cutter to cut the template blocks. Good advice, which I followed! So far these are not as hard as I had thought it would be... but not easy, either. We'll see how the whole block turns out tomorrow.




The DP Block looks pretty funny when it is pinned. Kind of sqwunchy. The instructions said to use three pins, I used five and eased the pieces together. I hope to get better as the year progresses.










This last photo is the Friday Block Party selection for this week... Week Seven. It is not a 12", so it isn't Red, White, and Blue. I had several ten inch blocks from last year that were made in bright whimsical Kids' Print fabrics. By Summer I should have a bright colored quilt for a child. That would be pretty cool!

So, What Is It That I HAVE Been Doing?

Well...
So far, I finished Marjory's quilt (well, that was actually last year. I sent it to Scotland before Thanksgiving - but it was missing for over a month, and I thought it was lost for sure.) I have to admit I wasn't looking forward to making a do-over. It was a pretty special quilt for a really special friend. The quilt eventually showed up in Edinburgh, and all ended well. Marjory did like the quilt, had even friends in so she could show it off. That makes me really proud.

Now the big project is Alex's Graduation quilt... I LOVE the fabric I got from "Sew Batik"! They are so beautiful and have a wonderful feel. I'm doing a quen sized quilt for her, and she really likes bright tie-dye... so that's what she's getting.

I've joined the Friday Block Party again this year... Hetty G. is our leader, and we have lots of new members. Fun!

This is the sixth week block... Marsha Hohn's "Sickle Variations". It is a tiny block, only 8" square. I have two tiny blocks from last year, and one more in the "first five" for this year - that's the next picture - and all are in the same color family, sort of pink and green and blue. I think they'll make a nice "Little Girl" quilt - but I have nobody in mind as the giftee. Maybe later I'll decide on somebody to give it too.


As I said, the next photo is of the first five FBP blocks: I have a lot of trouble posting words and pictures together, so I took one shot of all five together. I like them. I already decided the 12" blocks will be combinations of red, blues, and white or cream...at least until I have enough to make a quilt. That way I won't have a gazillion blocks with no home, and no completed quilts to show for my efforts.

This year I'm officially "Not Buying That", and completing at least some of my UFOs. I have parts of three or four quilts that need to be finished, only one or two blocks each will finish them... then they can probably become donation quilts.

November BOM ...

This is the block that Tamara chose for the November block for our NorCal BOM... my blocks are going to become a Christmas Quilt. With that in mind, I've taken the liberty of swapping out a few of the "less Christmas-y" block choices, and replacing them with ones I liked better.

I liked this block going in, though. My background is pretty busy and it takes a strong block to stand up to that holly print! This block is called "Solomon's Star". Thanks, Tamara, I like this one a lot.

Four More Random Blocks...

Here are four more random blocks... I'm still doing catch-up blocks for Friday Block Party.


Not that I have to, I just feel badly that I made a commitment and then flaked on it. How hard is it to make a block a week and post it to a blog that I don't even host? Donna has been really sweet to pull a number of a block for us all to do each week, and there isn't any pressure from anybody to do each and every one. I just think it would be really neat to have 52 blocks in a box at the end of the year! Some of the people who are doing the FBP blocks have different colors or specifc prints they use for the different sized blocks... so they can actually make reasonable looking quilts with the blocks they've made and some of us never even thought of anything that organized! The blocks are all free from Marcia Holm's Quilter's Cache. Some of the blocks really neat, some are not the most interestingto make, and some have wildly complicated directions - the "This isn't as hard as I'm making it look" variety - but making a block a week really does improve our piecing skills, especially those of us who are beginners! I know my points have gotten much more accurate and I'm not intimidated by HSTs or small blocks with lots of pieces.


Color choice is another matter - sometimes it is on, and other times not so much. I have a lot of scraps (Kerstin will vouch that I simply cannot throw anything out) and fabric that is pretty dated... but making "scrappy" quilts this year and teh weekly FBP blocks is using up a good deal of that stash. I'm not officially keeping track of yards in/yards used, but the last fabric I purchased was the back for Marjory's quilt (which I had sent directly to Kerstin and didn't even see until it was quilted onto the top!) and the fat quarters I bought at Sisters in July. Oh, no... I forgot...there was the FQ I bought at the Pacific NW Quilt Expo, but I sent that directly to my Friendship Bag Swap partner... so I'm not sure that counts either.)

Let's see, what blocks do we have in this post? "Footstool" is the first - not sure why it is called that... I'm not seeing it in the block, but whatever. I changed the direction of the hourglass blocks, so I may have inadvertently made another block entirely!

Next is "Rotunda", though my bright color choices and the elephant print make it a bit hard to seee the tradional block pattern.

The one that looks blue is actually black-and-white print, and red-and-white print ... appropriate for "Dewey Dream" (yeah, 'Black and white and red all over' - sorry, couldn't help myself!)

This very last block is not a catch up, it is the current FBP block for week 44 - can you believe it!?? the year is almost over - called "Gamecock". I can't leave well enough alone, though, so I did what my friend Hetty suggested, and swapped out the center square. It was supposed to be the BG color, but I used a blue one. It does make the birds' heads a little harder to see, but the block was way too white the way it was designed!

Lovely Rainy Weather !

I do love the rain... it makes the trees so happy! Everything is cool and private because people stay inside their nice warm, dry houses... and I get a chance to stay in and quilt, or knit, or cook, or paint! And when I go outside for a walk, everything smells so fresh and good!

I've been catching up on projects for a while... I finished Marjory's quilt, made a pincushion for Sheila, pieced all the Hawaiian Shirt pillows (now I still have to actually quilt them - that is a bit intimidating, still) and I'm catching up on the NorCal (Christmas Quilt) BOM and the Friday Block Party missing pieces. I had a lot of trouble posting these four photos to the FBP website with comments next to the blocks. The formatting got all wonky, and I had to re-do the post five times to get it right...so I'm just going to post these, and not actually comment on them next to each one.
The first one is Something-or-other-swallows (the pattern I used for Leena's quilt last year), the second is Fool's Puzzle, the third is Blind Man's Fancy, and the last one is Album Star. Maybe the order they'll come out - I don't know!