Back to the Bargello

I worked some more on the twisty Bargello Mirage by Derek Lockwood. I pieced together 12 more rows, and have 9 sewn together now. It's a lot of fiddling around (sewing and unsewing) for a quilt this size, but I think it will be worth it.

Here are 6 more rows lined up ready to sew to the rest.

 I taught a stringpiecing class yesterday. It was fun and everyone had mounds of strings/strips in front of them. I will post some more pictures later.

It motivated me to come home and work on a model that I had previously made  for a different stringpiecing class. For this one I had colorized the strings just to see how it would look.( I usually just put them together in any color order.) Most of the time I have to finish a whole quilt to make a model for the class, but for this class I had only done 4 rows of 6 for the model, as you can make these any size you want.  I had made some more blocks and just never finished putting them together. So I dug them out last night and and worked on it.  Now I have to decide if I want a border or leave it as is.

Quilting and a sick day

I finished quilting this the other day, so thought I would share some pix. The color is pretty true on this picture.

I really like this panto. Someone asked me the name the other day, it is Frisky Feathers SM. I bought it at Quilts Complete. They have a nice selection of pantos in all sizes.

I've managed to catch a cold so I'm not too ambitious today...going to rest up.

Quilty Sunday

Sunday I worked on quilting some more of the quilt on the quilting machine. It is going well, just haven't had time to work on it as much as I would like.I like this panto, the flowers interlock nicely.

It is kind of odd how I took both pictures at the same time, but the colors look different because of the lighting and angle, I guess. I think the 2nd picture is more true to the real color. Maybe I need some photo taking classes.

I taught a Sampler Club class last night and have another one tonight, so won't get any quilting done until later in the week.

Potato Chip Quilts

Class went well yesterday, a few ladies had their blocks finished, and others had some done. Everyone made a lot of progress. It is always fun to see the difference the fabrics make.

Jane put hers on point, so will get 2 quilts out of her 16 blocks. She used the same fabric for her setting triangles as some of her blocks, so got a floating look on the corner ones.

Barb used pastels and they were gorgeous too. I don't think the color here does them justice, but the lighting in the classroom isn't the greatest.

Betty used lots of purples!!!

Diana is making a John Deere baby quilt, isn't it adorable? It's ready to be finished.

Rose's golds and greens will be perfect in her guest room.

Dianne has turned her blocks a different way to form Xs, should make for an interesting quilt.

Eileen's got some gorgeous purples...she and Betty could've done an exchange!

 

Kim chose batiks, this is her first quilt!

 Kathy is making this one for her grandson.

Laura used pretty pinks and greens...she is making for a friend.

It was a great day and so nice to see them all coming together. I want to get some quilting done myself today, so hopefully will have something of my own to share later!

Not much going on

I got a quilt loaded on the machine on Monday and got a few rows quilted. I planned on doing some more last night, but by the time I got supper done, I was out of the mood! I have a Sampler club class tonight, and we are celebrating my husband's birthday tomorrow night.
That's about it for now.

Class and cushion

I finished the stool today after working on class stuff for awhile and going out to lunch with my daughter.
I like how it came out. It is a very heavy stool, so makes sense to redo it. I forgot to take pix of the process, but it wasn't that interesting anyway. I wish I would've taken a pic of the "before" though.

Class went well yesterday, but I forgot to take pix until the end of the second class, so only have 2. I will take more pix next week as they will all have more done.

This is her first quilt, so she is excited to be this far! Everyone got enough done to know what they are doing so they can continue at home this week. It will be fun to see how far they get by next Saturday.

I am off again tomorrow, so plan to load a quilt on the machine. I have some I need to quilt for a friend who moved to Missouri. I want to get back to working on the bargello too.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Binding Day

 

 Bindings aren't really my favorite part of quilting, so I tend to put off attaching them. I do realize that the quilt isn't really finished until it is bound, but many times I have other projects to work on for class (yep, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!) so it is easy to set them aside. Yesterday I got busy and started sewing bindings on. You might remember these baby quilts, I quilted them awhile back. 

  

I got the bindings sewn on yesterday. 

 

 

After I finished them, I put the binding on the Lone Star Quilt.I am going to teach that class again in April, so will be hanging it at the store soon. I already posted a pic of the tablerunner I finished yesterday. If you're keeping track, that's 4 bindings....finished! I sewed both sides on by machine, or I wouldn't have been finished so quickly. Sometimes I sew bindings on the traditional way, hand stitching the back down. It just depends on their usage and my time frame.

I am teaching the Potato Chip Quilt class today, 2 sessions...should be a fun time. Maybe I will have some pix to show off after class

No school for me today

So I am trying to get a few things done.
I started out the day quilting this runner. Then I bound it. So it is done and in the wash. I had to wash it as I had left it out and a certain someone with gray fur has been sitting on it. I will have to take another pic when it comes out, as this one is a bit blurry.

 

 

Then I quilted this fabric with squiggly lines to recover a stool I have at school. I have been meaning to do it for awhile, so brought the stool home with me so it would be staring me in the face until I did it.

 

It is a simple stool, so wasn't hard to do. I just traced the seat, cut it out leaving a 1/4" seam allowance.

Then I sewed a strip to it that I had cut wide enough to cover the old cushion and have enough extra to pull around underneath and secure. The bottom is secured with some kind of bolts, so it looks like this for now til I go out to the garage and find something to loosen them.

Smokey is working hard as usual.
I want to bind a couple more quilts today, better get busy!

It's a start

With this bargello, you make 6 strip sets, then as you assemble the rows, you have to adjust some of them. So you look at the diagram and take off what you don't need on a strip, and attach it to the next strip. You continue to do this until you have your full row, which in this case is 39 squares. Because the pattern changes, so do your rows. On these first rows, even though my green strips have 7 squares I am only using 2 on each end in the first row, 3 in the 2nd row, and 4 in the 3rd row.

The inspector showed up.

More strips

Here are more of the strip sets I have ready for the Mirage bargello. Pinks...

 

  

Oranges....

  

Purples....

  

Blues....

 

All of the strips ready to go.  Had a class last night. but hope to work on it a little tonight.

Pretty strips...new project

 

I bought this Beautiful Bargello book awhile back and have been anxious to start the Mirage quilt featured inside. I have made a couple of other bargellos, but never one that seemed to twist and turn. I am using some gorgeous batiks...even the trimmings are beautiful!

Cut off the selvages too...amazing all the selvages I wasted for all those years.

I cut them in sets of colors, so as not to get too confused on how many to cut of each set. That is how they were presented in the book. With 23 different colors, it would be easy to mix them up.

 

The strips are 1 1/2" wide. I used all fat quarters, so hope it works out the same as it would if I used WOF. I think it should. The quilt isn't very big when finished...about 47" sq.

Here is the first set of strips finished. You make 6 sets of strips, all different colors.

Working on patterns

I spent all day finishing the patterns for Sampler #11. I thought it would take until about noon, then I could quilt, but no, it took me until 5 and by then my eyes were buggy from staring at the computer all day. How do people do that, work in front of a computer all day? I love my computer, don't get me wrong. It is full of fun and entertainment, but if I had to sit in front of one all day, I would go nutty. At school I use mine a lot, but am up and down a lot too, helping kids, and putting books away. So don't sit still for long.

I just started reading The Runaway Quilt, the 4th book in the Elm Creek Quilts series. I had heard of this series, but hadn't ever read them until now. A friend loaned me the first one and now I'm hooked.  This one proves to be interesting as it involves slavery and the use of quilts in helping slaves on the Underground Railroad. I have seen the quilt books that have been published. Have any of you tried any of the patterns?

Choices

Here is the landscape fabric I used for the sashings, cutting width of fabric strips. I am thinking about using this fabric for side borders, only cutting it the other way, so you see the variations.

 

It would look something like this.

I thought about putting this fabric up part way, and then changing to the background fabric, which could be anything from light blue to white, since all were used. Then I think maybe that is just too hokey (This shows only part of the cottage center).What do you think?

Mama Kitty likes it as is. 

Maybe tomorrow I will cut a few strips and see how it looks.

The last row...

 

I made another cottage last night and finished the last row on the cottage quilt. Now I have to do some thinking on how I want to finish it. It is sort of large for a wallhanging...

The sashing rows in between are from one of those landscape prints so are all similiar but different.  

I thought about using some of that as a border too. What do you think would look good?