More Kate Spain Charm Swap Pictures

 

I am just amazed that Michele of Quilts from my Crayon Box sorted through 112 charm packs and distributed them to all 56 of us who participated.

These pictures are from Michele's blog.

All of the envelopes from the participants.

Michele's daughter, Sunshine, helped with the emptying of the envelopes.













Can you believe this?

6,272 charm squares from 112 different Kate Spain fabrics.











Here is another photo of the charms when Michele started to sort them.  All participants, 56 of us, received one of each charm!  

That's a lot of sorting!

Here is the final product that all of us received. 

 On Michele's Flickr group, she named each of the fabric lines and the individual fabrics.  Michele, you are amazing!  Thank you so much!

FQS Layer Cake Lemonade Quilt and Kate Spain Charm Swap ARRIVED today!

 I ordered a layer cake (10" squares) of the Bobbins and Bits fabric line.

I like the reds, oranges, greens and aquas of the entire line.

I started the Layer Cake Lemonade Quilt this morning.  It did not take long to complete it because it does not require much cutting just sewing.



 

This is the pattern that was free 
from the Fat Quarter Shop (FQS).   
You can download it from Kimberly 
Jolly's blog:  the Jolly Jabber.

Last month, Kimberly had a jelly roll
pattern that was quick and fast also.

Both can be seen on YouTube.

 


I love this quilt because of the colors and the ease of completion.  It was so much fun.

Kate Spain Charm Swap - Hosted by Michele Kuhns of

Crayons from my Crayon Box blog

 

My charms arrived today.  I can't wait to start using them!

 

Month 2 - Hampton Ridge and Thanksgiving is approaching!

Next week is Thanksgiving.  In honor of the holiday, I am posting pictures of wild turkeys that were in the street this morning.  My husband took these pictures.

 There were about

ten male turkeys and

approximately

fifteen females.

 

One of our neighbors owns a female peacock.  The female turkeys chased her away.  We were wondering if the female turkeys felt threatened.

I picked up my Hampton Ridge BOM fabrics and instructions Friday from Fabric Garden, my local fabric shop in Sacramento.  I finished them today, blocks 5 through 8.  They are quick and easy.

Quilt Fun - Week 3 - Courthouse Stairs

I decided not to change my courthouse stairs blocks.  

I just turned one of the blocks once and it looks okay.  

I do like it better and I am trying to have my quilt have a modern feel.

Worked today....fell behind because of the RCQG Show

The Quilty Fun Sew Along has been enjoyable.  Every Monday, the Fat Quarter Shop puts up new blocks from The Quilty Fun book by Lori Holt.  The quilt in the book is large.  The Sew Along is more fun because we are piecing just a few of the blocks.  Hence, a smaller quilt we do not have to commit a lot of time.  Kimberly Jolly asked that we take pictures of our blocks and post them on Flickr - Quilty Fun Sew Along.

The second week's blocks were the seven star blocks.  They were also fun to put together.

This week's block's were the Courthouse Steps blocks.  I don't like the one's that I made.  I will have to try to make another set that look scrappy.

I had to work today so I threw the courthouse steps blocks together quickly.  They just seem too bright.  

River City Quilters' Show, Sacramento

I had a very good time at the show.  I was very tired at the end but it was fun and occurs only once a year, the third weekend of November.  

I photographed the card that advertised our show.  

Our Opportunity Quilt was a huge success.  We sold
every ticket that was printed.  I am not sure how many
were sold because the numbers that were reported to me varied.  The winner was not present but she is from the 209 area code, south of Sacramento.

It was a lot of work but it was a success for all of the
vendors.  The attendance numbers were high:  734 paid admissions for Friday and 813 for Saturday.  We will find
find out the number of admissions for Sunday.







Fabric Garden was one of the vendors at the show.  They hung the quilt that I pieced on the side of their booth.  I have taken many pictures of it in the past.  Every time they move it in the shop, I have to snap a photograph of it....hahaha.

Tree at effie Yeaw Nature Center by Lori Wisheropp.

This quilt was my favorite of the show.  It was made by Lori Wisheropp.  I couldn't believe it that it was made of fabric.  It looked like it was a cross-cut tree.

My photograph does not do it justice.  It looks like a real log!



   


These quilts were blue ribbon winners at the show as well.

Baltimore Christmas by Virginia Nickelmann and quilted by Deborah Joyner.  

Virginia took this class at Quilter's Corner taught by Ellen Garner.  I happened to be standing near the board that announced the winners.  I witnessed Ellen happily telling Virginia that she had won Best in Show and Virginia's mouth dropping almost to the floor.  It was a priceless moment.

BTW, this was Virginia's first applique quilt!

 


 French Doors by Laurel Anderson.  

 All of Laurel's quilts are beautiful and this one
 is just another winner!  





Trifecta by Winifred Fung.

I first noticed that this quilt was full of Davis High t-shirts!  I have known Wini since last years quilt show and met her sister, Val at that time too.  This year, her older sister joined in and helped at the show even though she is not a guild member!  BTW, it is hard enough getting guild members to help, let alone a non-member.

To make a long story short, when I approached her about the quilt and where in Davis she lived, she said, "I made this for my granddaughter, Kelly.  She is in college now, at Cal Poly SLO."  Of course, I could not believe what I was hearing and thought it was too much of a coincidence and asked, "John Chuck is your son-in-law?"  Leslie Chuck is her daughter!  This is such a small world!

The show went well, I was exhausted everyday but it was so much FUN!


                      

Laying out my Charm Squares and Veteran's Day Weekend Fun

Here is the result of my use of one of my charm packs:

I made 82 hour glass blocks.  Two of them succumb to my reckless cutting and I had to throw them out.   I decided to place them 8 blocks by 10 blocks.  I had two left over but they were very dark and I was glad not to include them.

I will sew them together probably tonight.  Unfortunately, I won't have much time later this week.  The River City Quilter's Guild is having their annual quilt show.  I am the vendor chair and I will be busy taping off vendor booths tomorrow early in the morning, taking care of vendors while they are setting up Thursday and the show runs, Friday through Sunday.

My husband and I went to Yosemite this past weekend.  We decided to go to Merced Grove.  It is a stand of about ten redwoods.  It is a 3-mile round trip hike from the road.  It was a very fun trip going to see the trees:  1/2 mile on a flat road and 1 mile downhill to the trees.  It was nice and quiet.  Of course, if you go down, you must eventually go back up.  The 1-mile climb uphill was strenuous and hitting the flat 1/2 mile walk to the car was glorious!  We had a great time.  Obviously, I am sore.  I usually don't take those kinds of walks often.

Yesterday was Veteran's Day.  Both of our father's served in WWII and my father also served in Vietnam.  We stayed home because I was still sore and enjoyed the day sewing.

Using those Charm Square Packs - I have a lot of them!

I have so many charm square packs.  Why?  Because I loved the fabrics but I did not want to purchase large pieces off the bolt.  I felt good just purchasing the 5" squares but what have I done with them?  Nothing! 

This weekend, I devised a plan to use them!  I am making hour glass blocks with a black background.  I am not happy with the black background but I am using the charm pack.  I am delighted to get rid of just one of them.

I cut black fabric into 5" squares (42 total squares).  I marked the lines to sew:  1/4 inches on either side of a line from corner to corner.  I pinned the two pieces together (right sides together) and sewed on the lines that I made.

I cut between the lines that I sewed, from corner to corner.

The result of the cut made two-half squares blocks.

I then put the right sides together, the seams on top of each other.  The black triangles on both sides of the seam.

Again, I marked across the seam, 1/4 inches on either side of the line from corner to corner.  I pinned the two pieces together (right sides together) and I cut between the lines that I sewed, from corner to corner.

The result were two hour glass blocks.

I trimmed the blocks to 4 inches.






Each charm pack contains 42-5" squares so with the charm pack you will make 84 - 4" squares.  That is one way to use those charm packs up.

Quilty Fun by Lori Holt

Lori Holt, a fabric designer for Riley Blake has published a new book, "Quilty Fun."  She is quite a prolific fabric designer and has many years of experience as a quilter.  She was teaching her fellow parishioners how to sew and quilt online.  I read an article that Kimberly Jolly saw the online lessons and asked Lori to publish them.  I mentioned the book several weeks ago when I received my copy.  I love the whimsical quality that the quilt possesses.  

The Fat Quarter Shop is sponsoring a quilt along.  They will be piecing all of the different blocks from the quilt.  It is a smaller quilt where we will piece just three or four pieces instead of a row of each block.

Every Monday, there will be directions to make the blocks.  It is located on the FQS blog, the Jolly Jabber.  This week's blocks are apples.  It took me only an hour to put together the four apples.  The most diffifult element was selecting the fabric.  I decided not to purchase new fabric but try to use my stash.  It wasn't difficult finding the colors because I have them organized by color now.

Here are my blocks for this week:

This was so fun and very quick.  I love the immediate satisfaction because there are so few blocks to piece.  You have to have the book in order to make the quilt.  I can't wait for Monday to come around.

Hampton Ridge - Month 1 - New BOM

Hampton Ridge, the new BOM by Red Crinoline Quilts started last week.  I signed up to do this quilt through Fabric Garden, my local quilt store.  The blocks are smaller than the last BOM, Freedom Rings also by Red Crinoline.

The blocks are 8" square, finished.  My only criticism of these first four blocks is that they have quite a bit of bulk because there are many fabrics to piece.  I opted not to take the lecture/class when I pick up the fabrics because the instructions are well written and the accompanying illustrations and diagrams are easy to understand.

Block 1

Block 2

Block 3

Block 4

Civil War Melodies - Month 10 - Celebrating Freedom

This month's BOM is called Celebrating Freedom.  This is the completed block.  It was easy overall but the "sawtooth" piecing was a bit more difficult because of the small size.  I was very careful with the measuring and cutting so it was not difficult and everything fit together well. 

8 1/2" x 8 1/2"

The history lesson that accompanies this BOM is about music of the slaves and how they celebrated their freedom.  I recall that in elementary school we sang, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."  The slaves sang waiting for the chariots from God and the heavens to take them away from their lives on the plantation. 

"Some slaves chose to remain at the homes of their masters during the war, many more chose freedom.  When a few slaves surrendered to Union forces and learned that the Union soldiers would not return them to their owners, word quickly spread and thousands of slaves headed north.  In just four short months during the summer of 1861, 15,000 slaves found their way to freedom."

"Chorus:  Slavery chain done broke down at last, broke at last, broke at last,
Slavery chain done broke at last, Going to praise God til I die."

The Union needed more troops and started black regiments.  "Oh Freedom," was another song used to encourage men to keep marching in tough condition.

"Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom over me
And before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in a my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free."