Quilty Pleasures-Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild

We are excited to announce the Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The Gallinas River flows through this, the original Las Vegas, and gallinas means chickens, so that's where the name came from.

We even have a blog with our introductory story: http://chickenrivermodernquiltguild.blogspot.com/

We hope if you live in the area you can come play with us!

Here are a few things we have been working on:

This is a challenge where we each had three fat quarters and could add two other fabrics to make a modern style block. Our goal is to use up all the fat quarters and they seem like they go on and on. After that, we will make a quilt. That's all we know about that so far.

We have been messing around with hexagons and below is the beginning of a project Ann is working on. Go hexagons!

 I started playing with a charm pack of Zen Chic fabrics:

And Linda brought her finished Las Cruces quilt. It's not totally modern, but it's a stunner nonetheless. More about this quilt later.

And don't forget there's a giveaway of Locally Grown fat quarters. Cute! Deadline is tonight.

Quilty Pleasures: Almost Finished?

Four projects are close to being finished, so here they are in their unfinished states. Maybe posting them will be a reminder that they are patiently waiting.

This is my modern quilt, started last September at a workshop presented by modern quilter Jacquie Gering.

It's been pieced and pinned for a while now, waiting to be quilted.

Why isn't it done?

The Paralyzed Perfectionist speaks: "I am afraid that I won't quilt it perfectly!"

Jacquie Gering her ownself saved the day by appearing on The Quilt Show, showing me (only me) how to quilt it using the Bernina serpentine stitch.

OK. I can do that.

The next quilt in the wings is this one:

Sorry about the weird light thingies on the top right of these pics. The sun was coming through the window and there was no way I could go out in the wind to take photos.

So this one is a baby quilt I made alongside my very first beginning quilting student in November-December. Hers is done. Mine is not.
Layering, basting, quilting and then it's done.

But I am not worried because I know how to quilt this one.

I bought the batting last night, so it will be quilted soon.

Since a baby is imminent, there's a deadline and I'm sticking to it!


Below are two blocks from a project I started last year. It was a Block of the Month and last night was show and tell. I showed them my blocks and told my quilt buds it would be done soon.

 I have all but one of the blocks appliqued, but still need to add a skinny border and an appliqued scalloped border to each block.

Here is how it will look someday:

And, here is my other project, almost, very close, so close to being finished I can almost taste victory:

 I need to make six more of these setting triangles for Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street mystery quilt.

The rest of the blocks are done (whew) and next is to put it all together.

I can't wait to see this one completed. Lots of little pieces, many hours watching internet tv shows and listening to BBC podcasts will be my memories for this quilt.

There is more stuff started and lurking in boxes and bags, but these are the closest to being finished, so they are the ones to be completed in the next weeks.

Besides, if I dragged out all the Works in Progress I have, I might get discouraged.

And I don't want that!

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday: Las Cruces Applique Project and Raw Edge Applique Tutorial

It's been a while since we've had a Quilty Pleasures post, so it's good to be back! Here's a project we are working on at Thread Bear in Las Vegas, NM. It's a Block of the Month project, but Ann, Thread Bear's proprietor and sewist extraordinaire, hasn't chosen our fabrics and kitted them up, but instead has encouraged us to choose what we like, fabric-wise.

This makes for an exciting meeting, looking at the variety of fabrics the members of the group have chosen and gaining experience through others' experiments with our (for many of us) newly acquired applique skills. Some folks are doing hand stitched, needle turn applique while others are using various machine techniques. I'm a member of Team Machine for this one because I really want to finish this project in a timely manner.

The pattern we are using is Las Cruces, by J. Michelle Watts. It's definitely a Southwest style quilt, don't you think? You can find more of her patterns here.

Since Ann was allowing us to choose our own fabric, I decided to get all artsy, so the fabric for each cross (Las Cruces means The Crosses) will represent either a woman I have known and loved, or a group of women in general. It's kind of like Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, an art installation from the 1970's which is my inspiration for this project, but on a  simpler scale. Much simpler.

So I wanted to show my process for making one of the blocks, minus the borders, which I haven't done yet, probably because it won't be as interesting as the crosses themselves.

I'm fusing my fabric to a base square, then using a machine to applique around the edges. I decided not to turn the fabric under before appliqueeing  because it's going to be a wall hanging and not washed much.

Below is one of the cross patterns, which I will trace onto Steam a Seam 2, using an old lightbox Tom had for looking at his slides. You can also trace by using a window or laying the Steam a Seam or your fave fusible over the pattern and hoping the lines show through.

Here is the traced pattern on the Steam a Seam. Notice that I have traced on the smooth side of the paper that is rough on its back side. You can see the bumpy texture on the paper if you look closely. I bought a lot of this fusible because it's part of the game to make mistakes, trace on the wrong side, etc.

My thumb is on the rough, kind of sticky side of the paper

After tracing each of the design's components, it's time to iron the fusible to the wrong side of your fabric. You are fusing to the wrong side because essentially you are transferring the sticky stuff to your fabric, which you will later iron onto your base fabric. Notice I haven't trimmed exactly on the lines because it's easier to do that after fusing.

So the next photo shows me cutting on the lines. For this pattern, I used a little rotary cutter to cut the straight lines and scissors for anything else. I had to throw the first piece away because I was overzealous went a little crazy with the rotary cutter and cut into the fabric. Aargh! is something you will say a lot while fusing. Or much worse, in my case!

Once you have your pieces cut out, peel off the remaining paper, center them on the base square of fabric and iron them into place. Read your pattern instructions or the guidelines on your fusible material or paper for more detailed info.

 It's time to stitch your design piece to the base square of fabric. I decided to use raw edge applique, stitching around each piece using whatever you call this stitch: buttonhole, blanket stitch, whatever you call it. On my Bernina 440 it's stitch number 45.

Like everything, there's a learning curve involved. It's always a good idea to practice on a few test pieces before jumping right in. Some quilters like to use a fabric or paper stabilizer underneath. I am not using one because everything seems to be stitching smoothly...well, kind of. Below, note a couple missed stitches on the blue one. I'll go back and fix that later....or maybe not. I did the turquoise layer first, then the fuschia, with the gold on top. The thread is Ricky Tims artist thread by Superior and the fabrics are Laurel Burch basics.

And here is the block minus the border. This block is to honor the ladies in Taos who work in galleries, not for the money, but for their sheer love of art. I haven't given anything a final pressing, yet. That's for later.

Now don't look too closely or call The Quilt Police, those tut-tut-ers who want to ruin our fun because this is not exactly centered on the square. It's good enough, and that's what counts.

I hope this tutorial has helped you a bit. It was fun, and now, on to Taos for shopping and lunch!