Tag: SAHHR challenge

Posted in quilting

Stay at Home Round Robin Re-Entry

Posted on by Laura Kate

After a nine day trip to the west coast, I am jumping back into quilting. It’s crystal clear that one cannot do a stay at home round if one doesn’t stay home…….. hm. I departed just as Pieceful Wendy’s revealed her challenge: Use Curves. My curvy round will be delayed until next week. I’ve got a few cute animal images to work with that are chock full of curves. I arrived home one day after Quilting Gail’s prompt, so I will jump in there.

Gail told us to use any two colors, adding some background fabric if needed. Considering that my quilt is about a rain forest, I will use lots of green to represent all the leafy plants that grow in great profusion there: ferns, bromeliads, palms, vines and grasses. My second color will be yellow. I will need a background fabric as well.

To challenge myself, and to keep it interesting, I decided to use foundation paper piecing in constructing my round 5 blocks. Inspiration and instruction came from quilter Amy Friend’s book:

Amy’s goal is to tell stories with her quilts, utilizing fussing cutting and foundation paper piecing. Each chapter is a project. The project’s templates are included at the end of the book. I chose the project Grasslands.

And this is the template I will use.

I love the idea of the zebra hiding within the grass. Since time is of the essence, and I am a rank amateur at paper piecing, I won’t attempt to insert any rain forest animals into my grass blocks. It took me several hours over two days and a certain amount of seam ripping. Eventually I managed to sew up six blocks.

Inserting this row into my project will be easy. The background fabric will blend into the “ceramic tile” row and the pale yellow strips will blend into the coati row.

And here is the lower half of my Costa Rica quilt.

If you are now a fan of the Stay-at-Home Round Robin quilt-along, please follow along by visiting the Linky parties. This week’s can be found at Quilting Gail’s post.

Here is where you can check out all the past weeks’ work, and see what will come next.

  • January 14   Each of the co-leaders will be sharing their centre blocks (you will have to visit each of their blogs to see them). I will host the first linky party where you can show your centre block.
  • January 21:  1st Round:    Brenda @ Songbird Designs
  • January 28:  2nd Round: Kathleen @ Kathleen McMusing
  • February 4: 3rd Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
  • February 11: 4th Round:   Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
  • February 18: 5th Round:  Gail @ Quilting Gail 
  • February 25: 6th Round:  Anja @ Anja Quilts
  • March 25:   Parade: showing all of your finished SAHRRs!
Posted in quilting

Wednesday: Considering a new project

Posted on by Laura Kate

At present, I have various works in progress and finished objects that I could write about today. But January is the month that Quilting Gail and her co-horts begin work on the annual Stay at Home Round Robin quilt. So I am pivoting.

Stay at Home Round Robin Quilting

During the past three years I have participated with joy. I’d really like to continue round robin-ing this year. But I am in a quandary about my center block. Thinking about SAHHR in December, I had the idea to use paper pieced squares in this year’s center block. I but never got around to making them. Now, feeling pressed for time, I’m reluctant to work on a deadline in a technique in which I have little experience.

This morning, I decided the answer may lie in the objects I made during my first year of practicing fiber arts. It was a time when I was bursting with ideas but short on skills. As I rummaged through my portfolio from 2019 to early 2020, I found six fiber objects with potential to become a center block of a small quilt.

Shall we audition them together?

Candidate 1:

This was an early experiment with fabric paint. I took two different paintings, cut them into strips and wove them together, using satin stitch to close up the cut edges.

Candidate 2:

This is a rejected block from my oakleaf hydrangea wall-hanging. The background is covered in snippets of hand embroidery with irregular blanket stitch on the edges.

Candidate 3:

I was discovering what fabric markers can do. This painting is done on lightweight muslin and would need to be mounted on sturdier fabric.

Candidate 4:

A mini art quilt, this was inspired by what I saw in my head with eyes closed during a yoga class. I was practicing curved edge piecing.

Candidate 5:

Inspired by one of Bill’s photographs, this block was a practice piece for a larger work I never completed. The technique is confetti applique. While I would consider putting this one in an SAHHR quilt, I’ve yet to give up on my original concept.

Candidate 6:

A very early experiment in fabric painting, I “saw” a scene of a mountain area recovering from a forest fire. The initial paint application was enhanced with brown stamps of bare and broken trees. The middle ground is meant to represent fireweed which moves in quickly after a fire ends.

This last block is the one I am leaning toward the most. I have some ideas for expanding on the theme of environmental devastation and recovery.

What do you think about my options? Even if you are not a quilter, I am interested in learning the block that attracts your eye the most. Which one has the highest potential from the aspects of design, color and originality?

Posted in quilting

SAHRR 2023 Round 5: Square in Square Saga

Posted on by Laura Kate

Now I know why this quilt along is called a challenge. Round 5 proved to be the most time-consuming and frustrating of all (so far.) My decision to use recycled quilt blocks turned into a bad idea. You see in the photo above the results of many hours work harvesting suitable fabric pieces for square in square blocks from the pineapple blocks. Oh boy! By Saturday, I had made enough blocks to build two sides.

I plan to edge these pieces with gray strips, bringing the finished block size to 7 inches. Six blocks will fill a border, with an additional two at top and bottom points. But first I attached a two-inch coping strip.

Here is the proposed lay-out for round five.

I bought the squiggly line print because it made me happy, and it looked like a nice transition between the pale grey and dark gray. Next, I assembled my first border.

And here is how it looks attached to the quilt

If you are enjoying the SAHRR Quilt challenge and want to check out the work of other participants, visit Emily’s blog, The Darling Dogwood.

http://thedarlingdogwood.blogspot.com/

There will be one more round. If I survive that, then I think that I have the ability to finish this quilt.

Posted in quilting, recycling

SAHRR Quilt Challenge 4: Water

Posted on by Laura Kate

Pieceful Wendy chose the pattern for round four, and it’s one I had never heard of before now: Signature blocks. This type of block is often used to provide spaces for people to write stuff on your quilt. They are very popular for special occasion quilts like weddings, baby showers, graduations and so on.

SAHRR Round Four

Wendy created her Signature blocks by cutting into a square on the diagonal.

That design will not work with in Water section of my quilt, where I plan to add the signature squares. Water, especially lakes, are filled with waves. So I came up with a wavy style block by free-form slicing into a square piece of fabric, where I inserted a pale peach curve.

Prototype signature block with a curve.

Here is the centerpiece of my water block where I will attach the signature squares. It is made of Margaret Howard’s weaving swatches. I hand-stitched a small blue one on top of a pastel peach brocade.

This says “lake” to me.

Next I made a bunch of curved signature squares. Here’s the first group.

I started at the top of my block with a strip of three of these little darlings.

I’m thinking that the curve will provide a good place for a line of sashiko stitches to echoes its shape.

Next I made two strips to add on either side of the center block. Before I attached them, I added a plain blue strip at the bottom to anchor the design.

FINISHED WATER BLOCK

I’m happy with the resulting block. It’s about 18 inches square right now. After I square up the edges it will probably become a little smaller.

To see the other Stay At Home Round Robin participants’ quilts, follow the link.

https://fresh.inlinkz.com/party/26f3167a028d45689c82a40df41c3a40

Posted in quilting

SAHRR Quilt Round 1 Challenge

Posted on by Laura Kate

I was so glad that Anja chose the prompt of Curves for the first round of this year’s Round Robin quilt along. In working with the vintage weavings chosen for my center block, I had observed that the maker had used lots of curved lines in her color patterns. Some were vine-like, some looked like hairpins and some are just little wriggles. I was keen to echo these curves in the quilt as I built it.

To start my round, I chose four fabrics with colors and patterns that reinforce the theme of the four elements. I am using the linen-colored background fabric to make the other side of the curve. Next I made a little template for the corner blocks. These will have a quarter circle in the inside corners using the background fabric. Here are my pieces, cut and ready to be sewn.

First I joined strips of two different colors for each side of the block. Then I cut strips in the background fabric to match the length of the block sides

After sewing together the corner blocks, it was time to make my curves. With the front of fabric facing me, I overlapped the two strips and just sliced a curve through the center of the strips with my rotary cutter.

Here is the first side sewn together and ready to attach to the center block

And here it is, sewn and pressed.

Side two and one corner block are added.

Working carefully, matching up edges as well as I could, I finished this round in about three hours. Here is my block, pressed and squared up.

I like the way the dark colors draw the eye to the three woven pieces,
which are outlined in the background color.

It now measures 18- and 1/2-inches square and is ready for the next round. I had no trouble with the woven samples shifting or bunching. I think my tactic of backing the pieces with muslin did the trick.

If you would like to see how other participants are making their curves, check out the linky-party, below.

https://anjaquilts.blogspot.com/2022/01/stay-at-home-round-robin-round-1-curves.html

To learn more about the Stay At Home Round Robin event, visit Quilting Gail’s blog.

https://quiltinggail.com/2022/01/10/sahrr-2022-getting-started-center-block/