April 26, 2023: Out of my comfort zone!; Hand work; Earthly Delights

Greetings dear readers! Last week I took an all day workshop with Cindy Grisdela on making and creating with improv curves (and strips) – totally out of my comfort zone! I believe strongly, though, that it’s good to periodically challenge ourselves to try new techniques and styles. And I am intrigued by some of the modern, improv quilts I see. The class was fun and, as always, I enjoyed sharing the experience with other quilters in my guild. Here’s Cindy with some of her quilts and her newest book:

We learned about color and shape and we cut our curves freehand, sewing without pins. We also learned how to FACE a quilt edge rather than add a binding. Cindy was a good and engaging teacher. I think I went home with 16 blocks and made 14 more at home the next day, so you know I enjoyed the process. Here’s what I have so far:

No one looking at this would think it’s mine, based on my past work! However, I like it enough to want to finish it! The blocks finish at 6 inches. It needs at least one more row of 6 blocks across the bottom. I’ll probably play some more with the block placement. Cindy showed us how to make long curved strips so I want to add a border of those and after it’s quilted I want to try the facing – have never done that before. Here are some closeups:

It’ll be a while till I can get the rest of the blocks done, because my sewing machine went in for its annual maintenance on Saturday. Since I only have one machine, I’m focusing on hand work until I get it back. No shortage of hand work to do here! I finished the 11th block of Sweet Journeys:

And I’m getting another chunk of the border quilted – it’s about 5/8 done. The finish line is in sight!🥳. I also brought the Hexagon Stars quilt out of its hibernation for more hand work this week:

10 rows are completely sewn together; there will be 15 rows. I’m sewing rows 11 and 12 together (it’s all entirely hand pieced):

I have all the stars for rows 13 and 14 made and most of row 15:

I made 3 more stars for row 15 (4 to go):

I needed to replenish my supply of “connector “ pieces- will need at least 80 more to connect all the stars of the last 3 rows – so have been making those:

Then I marked on each star of row 13 where the connector pieces need to be added, clipped them to the stars, and now have a baggie with those stars to work on whenever I need some hand work! I’ll eventually do the same for rows 14 and 15 and then sew all those rows together! I started this “long journey “ project in September of 2017 so am well into the 5th year, but it’s moving inexorably toward completion!😊

Before the machine went out, I finished all 4 vine and leaf borders for the donation quilt:

Thanks so much to the many readers who wrote to let me know you felt my tutorial was easy to understand and helpful! I thought of a couple things to add since then. The borders for this project are 48 inches long; if you want to do a vine for a border that is much longer, you will likely need to fold (or divide) your fabric into more than 8 sections or your curves may be too shallow. It’s still using the same basic principle, however, of dividing the strips into roughly equidistant sections and then fashioning the vines. Also, my borders are 5 inches wide. You may need to vary the distances of your sections based on how wide or narrow your borders are. Again, still the same basic principle. If you want to miter your corners and extend the vines into the corners, that would require another tutorial! 😊. For this quilt,I decided to use corner blocks and this is what I think I’m doing:

I like the way the flower petals echo the same stripe that the vines are made of and look forward to sewing the top together when the machine is back.

I am thoroughly enjoying my walks these days! The light, spring green color of the new leaves is almost as thrilling as the vibrant colors in the fall:

I love watching buds open and baby leaves unfurl:

The ferns are just popping out of the earth and seem to be coated with silky white strands:

I’m always on the lookout for wildlife. See the gray oval shape on the bank of the pond – a turtle:

Another turtle at the foot of this bush – do you see it?

It slipped into the water before I could get very close:

I hope you are all able to enjoy the awe inspiring wonder of nature whatever the season in your part of the globe!
Be kind, be grateful, and cherish each day, Gladi